FLDS Parents Could Face Charges for Abandoning their "Lost Boys"

KCPW News ^ | February 14, 2008

[Zakeet]

They're called the "Lost Boys," the teenagers kicked out of their homes and communities by leaders of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to ensure there's an ample supply of single, young women who will one day become plural wives. Representative Lorie Fowlke (R-Orem), is running a bill to make this abandonment a felony.

"Estimates are that we've had more than 1,000 children - primarily in southern Utah - thrown out of their homes," Fowlke says. "What we were trying to do with this bill is criminalize this behavior and send a message to this community that they can't just throw away their children."

H.B. 23 adds child abandonment to the definition of child abuse, and makes it a felony crime. It also adds an enhancement if a parent or organization benefits from the child's abandonment to further an illegal enterprise, such as polygamy. This is the case with the FLDS church, says Roger Hoole, a lawyer who represents some of the displaced young men and sits on the board for the Utah Association for Justice. He says the church benefits from kicking out young men who would compete for plural wives. This, he says, has devastating consequences.

"There's a huge impact that's coming, like a tsunami, that's going to hit the state of Utah, when these boys get a little older and realize what has happened to them and get angry," Hoole says. "There's a real problem here."

Fowlke's bill gained unanimous support in a Senate committee this morning, and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

[Godzilla]

Why should I condemn the Prophet Joseph Smith? Because some silly stupid anti-mormon Prophet Joseph Smith wrote a book? You are dreaming.

There, fixed it for you :)

[SkyPilot]

Perhaps because it mainly happened in an anti-mormon writer’s mind? Yeah, that’s why!

You left out:

- "Apostate"
- "Liar"
- "Idiot"
- "Gentile" (only a Mormon would call Christians or even Jews this)
- "Bigot"

You have to be consistent with your comments.

[Reno232]

I would guess the anti-Mormon sites are for more credible. LOL. Funny how some mock the Fair site but somehow are never able to refute the info contained therein. They continue to cite anti-Mormon sites & literature as irrefutable & beyond reproach which is laughable especially when given valid arguments to the contrary.

Did you even read the link refuting Baer’s claim? Many of those links contain opinions from experts that are not LDS. But of course, this isn’t a quest for truth is it? It’s about winning your case.

[P-Marlowe]

Did you even read the link refuting Baer’s claim? Many of those links contain opinions from experts that are not LDS. But of course, this isn’t a quest for truth is it? It’s about winning your case.

Show me any character on that scroll (or any of Joseph Smith's scrolls) that has been translated into any word in the Book of Abraham by an actual Egyptologist.

That would be evidence. I don't think you have even a shred of evidence. In fact, I know you don't.

You can use any of your so-called "experts"

I'll be waiting. I've been waiting since 1968.

One word.

[Zakeet]

Re. Funny how some mock the Fair site but somehow are never able to refute the info contained therein.

I didn't mock the FAIR site, I merely demolished their claims with solid evidence.

I believe your assertion I was not able to refute the info contained in the FAIR article is silly. I will, of course, leave it to each reader of this thread to form their own opinion, but submit to you the vast majority of all non-biased individuals will agree with me.

Re. They continue to cite anti-Mormon sites & literature as irrefutable & beyond reproach which is laughable especially when given valid arguments to the contrary.

The anti-Mormon sites you refer to present direct quotes from LDS Scriptures, LDS leaders, third party sources (e.g. court documents) and distinguished experts (such as the Egyptologists mentioned in the video).

By contrast, you are resorting to ad hominum attacks rather than presenting valid rebuttal evidence.

Re. Many [links in the FAIR article] contain opinions from experts that are not LDS.

A person's religious faith has no bearing on the validity of claims based on science (e.g. did Joseph translate Chandler's scrolls correctly).

The non-LDS experts cited by FAIR are just as wrong as the conclusions stated by the LDS writers of the article. This according to experts whose credentials were presented for inspection in my posting to you.

Re. I would guess the anti-Mormon sites are for more credible.

Often times, YES.

I have found that to be the case for the reasons cited in the next post.

Re. But of course, this isn’t a quest for truth is it? It’s about winning your case.

With Time and all Eternity at stake, it is about learning the truth. And nothing else!

The truth is Joseph Smith's translation of the papyrus documents was wrong. He misread every single character on the scroll in order to concoct a story he attributed to Abraham about a place called Kolob.

The Chandler document was written approximately 17 centuries after Abraham died. It contains a series of passwords and magic chants to enable the deceased (an Egyptian priest named Horace) to pass by certain checkpoints as he journeyed into the pagan afterlife.

[Zakeet]

I would guess the anti-Mormon sites are for more credible. LOL.

I have found Utah Lighthouse Ministry far more credible than the LDS Church

For example, on the matter of the First Vision, the Tanner's have documented with annotations direct from Mormon historical documents the nine different versions of the vision. You can review them at your convenience HERE, where you will see rather profound differences. You will also note the first account did not appear until 1830-31 – and the official account did not appear until 1838 – a full eighteen years after it purportedly happened and at the exact moment when Joseph Smith greatly needed a magnificent event to shore up his authority and silence critics.

Mark Hofmann was a documents forger who foisted several dozen fake documents onto Mormon Church Leadership. Hofmann's amazing discoveries were purchased by devout Mormons and the donated to the Church. Writings favorable to Mormonism were placed on prominent display – writings deemed damaging to the cause were secreted away.

Hofmann's most famous fabrication was the Salamander Letter. In this writing, supposedly by Book of Mormon Witness Martin Harris, a tenth version of the First Vision surfaced. Fortunately for the Mormon Church, the first account of the visitation was extended back in time a full five years to the mid-1820's. Unfortunately for the Church, in this telling Joseph was visited by an elf who took the form of a salamander.

Mormon leadership verified the authenticity of the letter, apparently relying in large part on the opinion of forensic documents examiners. Based on his vast knowledge of Mormonism, Gerald Tanner on the other hand immediately denounced the document as a fraud. Tanner was proven right.

The effects of the Salamander Letter haunt the Mormon Church to this day.

As can be seen in the photograph above, two Mormon Prophets, Ezra Taft Benson and Gordon Hinckley were among the duped.

President Hinckley would later candidly admit:

I accepted [Hofmann] to come into my office on a basis of trust … I frankly admit that Hofmann tricked us. He also tricked experts from New York to Utah, however … I am not ashamed to admit that we were victimized. It is not the first time the Church has found itself in such a position. Joseph Smith was victimized again and again. The Savior was victimized. I am sorry to say that sometimes it happens. – Dew, S. (1996). Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, p. 432.

But according to LDS doctrine at the time, this was impossible.

In his February 26, 1980 speech at BYU titled Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, LDS President Ezra Taft Benson maintained the Mormon Church President spoke with inerrant authority on "any matter, temporal or spiritual ," was "not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time," and "would never lead the Church astray".

Following the Hofmann debacle, less than a decade after President Benson's pronouncement, an embarrassed Mormon Church was forced to proclaim:

Prophets are mortal men who have been ordained and chosen by God to be a mouthpiece for revelation and guidance, but that revelation only comes when God wills it, making it somewhat sporadic in both ancient and modern times. There is no expectation that every act, every decision, and every purchase by a prophet will be divinely and infallibly guided. As Joseph Smith said, "a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such." – Jeff Lindsay, The Salamander Letter and Mark Hofmann

The incident also led to the founding and naming of the Salamander Society, an organization founded by disgruntled Mormons for the purpose of Lampooning the LDS faith.

If you desire, I would be pleased to provide additional examples where the Tanner's were more truthful and/or accurate than LDS church leaders.

[P-Marlowe]

I didn't mock the FAIR site, I merely demolished their claims with solid evidence.

Facts to an LDS Apologist are like Kryptonite to Superman.

[Elsie]

 

[Reno232]

It sounds as though you’ve done some research on this, albeit not through the links I’ve provided. Your questions are very nicely answered therein. Surely you wouldn’t be throwing a red herring out there would you?

Maybe this will help to enlighten:

“The papyri that the Church now has in its possession are clearly not all that Joseph Smith had. There is no reason to assume that any of those we now have is the original of the book of Abraham. In fact, there is good reason to think that we in fact do not have the original. In 1842, the fragments we now have were described as being mounted in “a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics.”3 The next year, in 1843, Charlotte Haven, a nonmember, visited Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, and wrote a letter to her own mother about it, saying: “Then she [Mother Smith] turned to a long table, set her candlestick down, and opened a long role of manuscript [italics added], saying it was “the writing of Abraham and Isaac written in Hebrew and Sanskrit,’ and she read several minutes from it as if it were English.”4 Thus a contemporary source indicates that the scroll of the book of Abraham was not part of the papyri fragments now in the possession of the Church”.
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=93

Furthermore, most of the papyri Joseph had were in a museum & subsequently burned in the great Chicago fire. Now, question, those missing papyri had been in that museum for some time until their unfortunate demise in the fire. The fervor to try & discredit Joseph Smith was every bit as intense back then as it is now. With all those papyri on display, one would think that some Egyptologist would have been commissioned to go & view the papyri in an attempt to fully discredit the prophet Joseph. And yet during all the time the papyri were there, there’s not one report of an expert willing to go on record to state the Joseph’s translation was errant. Not one!

I guess if we knew we had the originals, expert Egyptologists could be helpful today. Unfortunately, we don’t. Therefore your point is moot. Perhaps the greater question then is this, how does the Book of Abraham including fascimile’s stack up in general w/ the experts? The answer is a resounding, very well. Perhaps the “Forrest for the trees” analogy fits well here.

Also good research on the topic:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Abraham_papyri_(long)

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=insights&id=60

Anyways, hope this helps in your search, if a search is what you were really after. I’m off to church. Have a wonderful Sabbath.

[Reno232]

It sounds as though you’ve done some research on this, albeit not through the links I’ve provided. Your questions are very nicely answered therein. Surely you wouldn’t be throwing a red herring out there would you?

Maybe this will help to enlighten:

“The papyri that the Church now has in its possession are clearly not all that Joseph Smith had. There is no reason to assume that any of those we now have is the original of the book of Abraham. In fact, there is good reason to think that we in fact do not have the original. In 1842, the fragments we now have were described as being mounted in “a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics.”3 The next year, in 1843, Charlotte Haven, a nonmember, visited Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, and wrote a letter to her own mother about it, saying: “Then she [Mother Smith] turned to a long table, set her candlestick down, and opened a long role of manuscript [italics added], saying it was “the writing of Abraham and Isaac written in Hebrew and Sanskrit,’ and she read several minutes from it as if it were English.”4 Thus a contemporary source indicates that the scroll of the book of Abraham was not part of the papyri fragments now in the possession of the Church”.
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=93

Furthermore, most of the papyri Joseph had were in a museum & subsequently burned in the great Chicago fire. Now, question, those missing papyri had been in that museum for some time until their unfortunate demise in the fire. The fervor to try & discredit Joseph Smith was every bit as intense back then as it is now. With all those papyri on display, one would think that some Egyptologist would have been commissioned to go & view the papyri in an attempt to fully discredit the prophet Joseph. And yet during all the time the papyri were there, there’s not one report of an expert willing to go on record to state the Joseph’s translation was errant. Not one!

I guess if we knew we had the originals, expert Egyptologists could be helpful today. Unfortunately, we don’t. Therefore your point is moot. Perhaps the greater question then is this, how does the Book of Abraham including fascimile’s stack up in general w/ the experts? The answer is a resounding, very well. Perhaps the “Forrest for the trees” analogy fits well here.

Also good research on the topic:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Abraham_papyri_(long)

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=insights&id=60

Anyways, hope this helps in your search, if a search is what you were really after. I’m off to church. Have a wonderful Sabbath.

[P-Marlowe]

There is no reason to assume that any of those we now have is the original of the book of Abraham.

You are right. None of them are the original of the book of Abraham becuase the "Original Book of Abraham" was invented out of whole cloth by Joseph Smith. He simply used the papyri to feed his vivid imagination:

Your excuses for the obvious fraud that is the book of Abraham are the functional equivalent of the old excuse that "The dog ate my homework". In other words, the fact that not one single word of the Book of Abraham has been shown to come from the Chandler papyri is excused by such inane reasons as "well the good part was burned in the Chicago Fire". LOL!

OK, by your own admission you can't account for the text, but can you show me one Egyptologist that agrees with Joseph Smith's interpretation of the Facsimiles published by the LDS Church in the Pearl of Great Price?

[MHGinTN]

[Cue the Mission Impossible music ...] Your job, Mister Marlowe, is to refute the Astonishing claims in Alice In Wonderland. Should you accept this mission, you may not dismiss the entite work as one of fiction, but must address each claim assigning it full credulity as you cite any reputable refutations so long as they are not generated by what Wonderlanders deem to be ‘anti-Alice’ sites. Should you or any of your Impossible Mission team accomplish this task without Wonderlander approval, they will disavow your team and seek others to manipulate. ... This message will destruct as soon as the religion moderator finds it. Good luck

[Reno232]

First of all, the papyri were in that Chicago museum for all the world to see for some time, & Joseph’s translation was never discredited. Remember, we don’t have a known original of the Bible either (does the same dog ate the homework ruse apply?) Second, it would seem you’re being flat out lazy. I’ve provided the links w/ expert views & explanations on the veracity of Joseph’s fascimile’s. Read.

[greyfoxx39]

We HAVE indeed been in the "Land Beyond the Looking Glass" recently, have we not?

Alice: "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

[MHGinTN]

Luv your new tagline! ... And so appropriate.

[greyfoxx39]

I thought so.

[Old Mountain man]

Now you know as well as I do that you mainstreamers don’t believe in obedience to the Lord’s commandments.

[Old Mountain man]

ROFLOL!

[Old Mountain man]

ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Old Mountain man]

Same old garbage, different chapter. Why can’t you be original. I’m not gonna fall for your stuff, so get something new!