Author: LDS is 'dangerous religion' [Romney article]

Deseret News ^ | May 31, 2011 | Hal Boyd

[svcw]

That is what they want. The scary thing about mormons is leading people to spend Eternity away from God.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

"That’s you’re opinion and you’re sticking to it. Congratulations...retired professors are no longer required to be pc. And when cranks start throwing krap at you over a simple statement, they don’t like it when krap gets throwed back...reminds me of liberal cranks. I don’t respond well to rudeness and hysterical extremists. This is not a popularity contest for prom queen. It’s where I go to get news on political activism. I do not come here to get lectured by hystericals about religion especially ones that don’t even understand something a simple as ‘free will’ who claim to have ‘read’ the Bible 60 times and call me ‘kid.’

Oh, so you aren't a professor of sociology. As it turns out, my "opinion" was spot on... Which raises the question, why are you still claiming you are a professor, if you are retired? Are you a part-time professor?

Your reaction, name calling, etc. - even in the above-quoted post - while claiming to be a Christian, is remarkable, even for a Mormon thread...

Try posting again in a normal tone of voice. Maybe discuss ideas without all the name-calling and "krap". You have been reaping what you sowed Rowdy. If you have the actual intellectual and theological understanding to argue for your ideas, ignore the "krap" and make your best case. I think any argument someone makes while relying on ad hominem attacks makes them look like they ain't got nothing.

If you take the time to communicate about real issues without the "extras", you will find many of us here are trained in NT Greek, Hebrew, theology, geology, have multiple degrees and are an interesting group to interact with.

best to you,
ampu

PS - "I do not come here to get lectured by hystericals about religion..." Where do you usually go? :-)

[RowdyFFC]

OK, Kid, thanks for your opinion.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

You’re welcome n00b. I hope you reboot and stick around.

ampu

[sand lake bar]

My biggest fear is that they’ll force me to watch their performances of “You’re a Good Man, Charley Brown” while drinking watery orangeaide.

[svcw]

My fear and I weep over it, is that people will follow mormonISM and away from God Almighty.

[Texan Tory]

You’re reaching into the 1800s for examples, during which time many people besides Mormons were marrying very young, but the reality is that modern mainstream Mormons do not practice underage marriage. I’m sure there are cases of 16 and 17-year old Mormon girls falling in love and begging their parents for permission to marry, but I think such marriages, while legal, are pretty uncommon based on what I have seen. Predominantly Mormon Utah, like most other states, allows marriage at 16 with parental consent, while Hawaii allows marriage at 15 with parental consent, and Mississippi actually allows females to marry as young 15 even without parental consent. If you think 15 is bad (and I would agree with you that it is too young), then you would probably be appalled to know that there are countries where legal marriages are actually occurring at even younger ages, like Venezuela and Columbia, where girls can marry as young as 14 with parental consent.

[truthkeeper]

No Republican will ever be conservative enough and so the Left will now always win.

Boy, you got that right, sister.

[Colofornian]

You’re reaching into the 1800s for examples, during which time many people besides Mormons were marrying very young, but the reality is that modern mainstream Mormons do not practice underage marriage.

The latter part of what you're saying here is not a complete picture of what I was getting at: I was comparing what fLDS do now to what mainstream Mormons have commonly accepted at some point of their history. And, no, it wasn't as common to marry young in the 19th century as you've been led to believe.

In fact, your contention about 19th century America is largely a cultural myth. Posters Ansel12 & Sky Pilot were already addressing this on FReeper polygamist threads in Spring 2008.

Ansel12's posted links showed that in the UK, the average age for a woman marrying between 1851 and 1890 was just under age 26 for “all brides” (including women becoming remarried...and was over age 24 for single women)

The average age for a single woman to be married in the UK/Wales in the last half of the nineteenth century was never younger than 24.3 years [1871-1875] [Ya gotta remember that a lot of Utah brides in the 1860s & beyond were UK converts coming to Utah] …
The data came from this source:

That was the UK...what about the United States in the latter half of the 19th century?
In New England, the average marriage age in MA 1850-1860 was age 23.6. In Vermont in 1858 it was 21.4.

Two other table charts I came across included one where the average age for 1750-1890 at about age 22 -- only dipping down below that for one decade --1870-1879 (21.7 yrs).

Another table found at http://www.siu.edu/offices/iii/Publications/curr/high.html showed the average age for women marrying in 1650 was 20; 1750, 23; 1850, 24; 1950, 20.

So your cultural myth is quite off-base: Women were much more likely to get married earlier in 1650 and 1950 (average age 20) than 1850—average age 24.

A BYU professor, Kathryn M. Daynes, researched marriages in Manti, Utah area in the 19th century. She concluded that ”Women throughout the period married young, younger than outside Utah.” BYU Source: More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910

So the "especially young" Mormon brides was more a Utah thing. (Gee, who was living there in the 19th century?)

Even the LDS prophet who passed the manifesto which began an exit strategy for LDS' war on monogamy in 1890 wrote in his journal: ”I shall not seal the people as I have done. Old Father Alread brought three young girls 12 & 13 years old. I would not seal them to him. They would not be equally yoked together...Many get their endowments who are not worthy and this is the way that devils are made.” (Source: Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 5:58.)

The track record on Joseph Smith is fairly clear:
He bedded his adopted live-in servant girl, Fanny Alger, from 1831 on (even Lds apologist presenter conceded this year a few years ago)
Minus his wife's knowledge, he "married" numerous women in 1841-1842 (including a 17 yo, Sarah Ann Whitney). And followed that up by marrying 14 yo Helen Mar Kimball and 16 yo Flora Ann Woodworth.

Per http://www.wisegeek.com/how-has-the-average-age-at-marriage-changed-over-time.htm: If one looks at US statistics over the past 100 years for example, one sees that men had an average age at marriage of 25.9 years in 1900. Women in 1900 had an average age at marriage of 22 years. For some this shatters an illusion that women 100 years ago were sold into marriage as young children. Even Jane Austen, writing in the early 19th century had heroines married at the earliest age of 17 or 18. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, which are semi-autobiographical, her father would not allow her to marry until she was 18. Thus it can be said that the average woman was past 21 when entering her first marriage, 100 years ago.

And then there's this (source: Was it normal to marry 14-year-old girls in Joseph Smith's time:

Many LDS Church leaders and historians suggest that sexual relations and the marriage of Joseph Smith and his youngest wife, Helen Mar Kimball, fourteen at the time, was "approaching eligibility."

There is no documentation to support the idea that marriage at fourteen was "approaching eligibility." Actually, marriages even two years later, at the age of sixteen, occurred occasionally but infrequently in Helen Mar's culture. Thus, girls marrying at fourteen, even fifteen, were very much out of the ordinary. Sixteen was comparatively rare, but not unheard of. American women began to marry in their late teens; around different parts of the United States the average age of marriage varied from nineteen to twenty-three.

In the United States the average age of menarche (first menstruation) dropped from 16.5 in 1840 to 12.9 in 1950. More recent figures indicate that it now occurs on average at 12.8 years of age. The mean age of first marriages in colonial America was between 19.8 years to 23.7, most women were married during the age period of peak fecundity (fertility).

Mean pubertal age has declined by some 3.7 years from the 1840’s.

The psychological sexual maturity of Helen Mar Kimball in today’s average age of menarche (first menstruation) would put her psychological age of sexual maturity at the time of the marriage of Joseph Smith at 9.1 years old. (16.5 years-12.8 years =3.7 years) (12.8 years-3.7 years=9.1 years)

The fact is Helen Mar Kimball's sexual development was still far from complete. Her psychological sexual maturity was not competent for procreation. The coming of puberty is regarded as the termination of childhood; in fact the term child is usually defined as the human being from the time of birth to the on-coming of puberty. Puberty the point of time at which the sexual development is completed. In young women, from the date of the first menstruation to the time at which she has become fitted for marriage, the average lapse of time is assumed by researchers to be two years.

Age of eligibility for women in Joseph Smith’s time-frame would start at a minimum of 19 ½ years old.

This would suggest that Joseph Smith had sexual relations and married several women before the age of eligibility, and some very close to the age of eligibility including:

Fanny Alger 16
Sarah Ann Whitney 17
Lucy Walker 17
Flora Ann Woodworth 16
Emily Dow Partridge 19
Sarah Lawrence 17
Maria Lawrence 19
Helen Mar Kimball 14
Melissa Lott 19
Nancy M. Winchester [14?]

...Whatever the average age of menarche might have been in the mid 19th-century, the average age of marriage was around 20 for women and 22 for men. And a gap of 15 to 20 years or more between partners was very unusual, not typical. Whatever biology might have to say, according to the morals of his time, several of Joseph Smith's wives were still inappropriately young for him.

[Elsie]

I really dont care and Im not gonna play the re-direct game.

So; you make it your quest to track down an unknown person's posting history, and make deductions about their INTENTIONS, but you refuse to track down an unknown religions history and do the same.

Ok then...

[Elsie]

So if the Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City show a little flexibility in their interpretation of when it is appropriate to eat meat, I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing. WHAT???

NOT obey the COMMAND of GOD is not neccessarily Bad?

There is NO 'interpretation' to it!

You either OBEY what GOD said or not!

---

(see Numbers 15:32-36).

Why?

The SCRIPTURES of the MORMON church are the TRUE ones! (god only knows if that BIBLE verse was one of them that had precious things removed from it)

If they do NOT obey them, they may as well be, uh, PRESBYTERIANS!

[Elsie]

More opinion... what about FACTS?

[Elsie]

My biggest fear is that they’ll force me to watch their performances of “You’re a Good Man, Charley Brown” while drinking watery orangeaide.

---

 

Deconstructing Linus: Portrait of a True Believing Pumpkinist as a Young Man

What does the Great Pumpkin offer Linus? Why does Linus spend every Halloween in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear? Is it about the toys?

"Each year on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere and flies through the air with his pack of toys for all the good little children in the world."

No. This is about sincerity, a subjective standard by any definition.

I wonder if Linus blames himself every year for not picking the most sincere pumpkin patch for his vigil?

I wonder if other Great Pumpkinists castigate Linus by asserting if he were more in tune with the Spirit of the Great Pumpkin, if he were more prayerful, if he read the Holy Writ of the Great Pumpkin with a greater sincerity, that he could indeed rise to the challenge and, via the Spirit, be lead to choose the most sincere pumpkin patch?

I wonder how many years Linus will feel guilty for this failure and blame himself for receiving no answer no matter how sincere he believes himself to be?

I wonder if Linus ever gets frustrated because there is no objective way to measure sincerity? And if he realizes there is no objective standard for such a thing, I wonder if it ever creeps into his mind that his annual mission is nothing more than mindless busywork?

I wonder, does Linus ever has doubts?

For the time being, however, Linus will put aside his doubts and, perhaps as a means of proving his sincerity, begins to proselyte among his friends for converts. Most shrug him off. But Sally, who has a crush on him, believes Linus and agrees to spend Halloween in Linus’ Pumpkin Patch.

Linus then explains that by using positive language and positive thinking, they may be able to attract the Great Pumpkin to their Patch. He also cautions Sally that negative language and negative thinking will cause the Great Pumpkin to pass them by.

There is no room for doubt when one is a Great Pumpkinist. One should never say if the Great Pumpkin comes but always when the Great Pumpkin comes. "One little slip like that, can cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by!" It’s hard to imagine a benevolent icon such as the Great Pumpkin punishing TBPs (True Believing Pumkinists) for such a minor infraction, but there you have it.

Sally: The Birth of an Ex-Pumpkinist

Because Sally loves her “sweet baboo” Linus, she sets aside her own Halloween plans of trick-or-treating and a Halloween party in order to spend the evening in the Pumpkin Patch. She converts to Great Pumpkinism because she loves Linus. She respects his opinion. And she wants to make him happy and be supportive. And besides, if it’s really true, WOW! Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

But in the end, the only Being that shows up in the Pumpkin Patch is Snoopy. Linus, believing Snoopy to be the Great Pumpkin, swoons into an ecstatic faint, happy in the knowledge that he has finally deciphered the Great Pumpkin’s standard for sincerity. But, alas, it is a misplaced hope, and when Linus regains consciousness, there is not only no Great Pumpkin there to reward him, there is one upset little girl.

"I was robbed! I spent the whole night waiting for the Great Pumpkin when I could have been out for tricks or treats! Halloween is over and I missed it! You blockhead! You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin and all that came was a beagle!"

"I didn't get a chance to go out for tricks or treats! And it was all your fault! I'll sue! What a fool I was. And I could have had candy apples and gum! And cookies and money and all sorts of things! But no, I had to listen to you! You blockhead. What a fool I was. Trick or treats come only once a year. And I missed it by sitting in a pumpkin patch with a blockhead. You owe me restitution!"

Luckily for Sally, she only missed one Halloween. And though she is demanding restitution, because her participation was voluntary, she will never receive said restitution. She’ll simply have to accept the experience as one of life’s absurdities and move on.

However, one can hope that this experience has made Sally a more skeptical person, so that the next time she is presented with such fantastic claims, she’ll perhaps be inclined to do her research before committing any time, money or emotion.

After all, fantastic claims should be supported by fantastic evidence, right?

The question now becomes, has this experience made Linus a skeptic? After yet again not having his Pumpkin Patch recognized as sincere and after having endangered his friendship with Sally, will he continue to believe?

In spite of a complete and utter lack of evidence pointing to the existence of the Great Pumpkin, and a complete and utter lack of the Great Pumpkin’s Promise ever having been fulfilled, Linus is a True Believing Pumpkinist to the core. To even admit the possibility that he may be wrong would be to negate all those years of hard work and sincere belief. Linus simply cannot turn his back on his belief.

So if Linus doesn't become an ex-Pumpkinist, what is his strategy? Well, he’s going to keep on trying, isn't he?

"What do you mean, 'stupid'? Just wait until next year. I'll find a pumpkin patch, and I'll sit in that pumpkin patch and it'll be a sincere pumpkin patch, and the Great Pumpkin will come! Just you wait and see! I'll sit in that pumpkin patch, and I'll see the Great Pumpkin. Just wait until next year!"

[Elsie]

...the reality is that modern mainstream Mormons do not practice underage marriage.

Yup; they are apostate these days.

Would JS or BY even recognize them?

They sure would the FUNDAMENTALists!

THEY are they ones who actually FOLLOW MORMON scripture!

[sand lake bar]

I'd say you've just presented us all with a major work on critical epistemology.

[svcw]

Ok, I get this has nothing to do with facts, really who needs facts anyway when dealing with mormonISM. If mormons would use logic and facts they would not be mormons. However I thought this graphic was hysterically funny. It's actually a real graphic shown to mormon children.

[Tennessee Nana]

But but but

I thought Moroni was an angel

ya mean thats a man up on the temples ???

How did he get to be an angel

Time on the pole ???

after all he could hang ???

What ????

[Raider Sam]

Not really, I was asked to how proof of a claim I made, so I went back and showed the links. Its very easy to do.

Im not concerned with Mormon history, and have made no claims about their history or theology.

Why are you so concerned about whether I think Mormons are Christians or not?

[Elsie]

Is that Reformed Cherokee on that flag?

It don't look like Reformed Egyptian!

---

The "Caractors" are the only tangible evidence in existence related to Smith's story. No gold plates, no brass plates, no peep stones, no Urim and Thummim... only these "Caractors," not a single one of which is in the purported languages.

---

 

Smith's translation of the Caractors. According to Martin Harris (Joseph Smith - History, 1:64), "I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated,* and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters."

Speak right up now in all truthfulness. Isn't it revealing how Smith started out making a stab at creating believable "caractors" but quckly gave up and produced nothing but squiggles, ending up wih a series of nothing more than crude little scribbles? Yet Professor Anthon supposedly translated them!

---

*Harris must have had two or three pieces of paper with him—one with characters and a translation of them (on the same paper or a separate one) and one with untranslated characters—quite likely the "Caractors." Some Mormon "scholars" have gone out on a limb, sawed it off, and knocked themselves out trying to translate from these true Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic characters a segment that would correspond with a verse from 1 Nephi.

---

Modern-day experts in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. In 1829, any knowledge of these languages possessed by U.S. scholars would have been rudimentary at best. Expertise in them has vastly improved since then. So go ahead, do it. Get any modern expert in these languages to identify which of these "Caractors" are Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. Better still, accept the claim of Mormon apologists that Anthon did indeed so testify and that his appraisal of the Caractors was correct. (Op. cit, pp. 73-75)

Save your money! Samples of Assyriac/Aramaic and Arabic writing:

     .
 

     .
 

      .

 

What say you? Which of Smith's "Caractors" resemble the Assyriac and Arabic ones? No need to pay experts for their analysis. A child could accurately check this out. These writing systems have remained constant for well over 3000 years.

[Elsie]

Why are you so concerned about whether I think Mormons are Christians or not?

I'm not.

My 'concern' was whether you'd use the same STANDARDs for the 'religion' as you appear to use on one who finds that 'religion' abhorant.