Ah yes, proving you too can be a satan dupe.
Whether you grew up summers near Nauvoo is interesting, but not so relevant.
I will allow that an argument could reasonably be made that at the time Smith was sitting in the Carthage jail, he might not have intended to break out of jail that evening. It is plausible that the rush of a mob numbering almost 100 hastened his plan - as well as his demise.
But if Smith had no plans to shoot or threaten anyone, nor to try to escape from jail, why did he request the six-shooter that Cyrus Wheelock offered? Why did he not follow through on his own words and go as “a lamb to the slaughter”?
Suicide and death by cop, you are correct, are not martyrdom.
Neither is it martyrdom to be killed after having shot two men to death and wounded a third (as happened to J Smith).
The best face you could put on it would be dying in battle.
BTW, I did not go to an “Anti” site.
I read books. Original materials.
They can be found in libraries. In some cases things can be ordered from LDS run depositories that wold probably shock you (and the quorum, too, if they knew what had not YET been removed or suitably altered to reflect the history they wish they had...)
Anti - what a word fragment. You must be one of those mormon antichristians, because you are against my posited arguments, therefore it follows that you must be against me, right?
Oh wait - it’s just a meaningless pejorative term to lend the appearance of discrediting any argument stemming from such a source.
Because after all, if the source is “anti mormon”, then that means they hate mormons are against all mormons and automatically all their referenced material is subjective, biased, lacking in truth, feeling, scholarship, etc...
But if, in fact, the person is anti mormonISM, then they can fairly say that they love many of the mormons of today, simultaneous to detesting the doctrine to which they adhere (to varying extents)
That would be me. Anti “ISM”.
It is a significant stretch of the imagination to expect the non-mormon world to believe that every single book and historical document which does not reflect positively upon Joseph Smith and Brigham Young - is unavoidably and inalterably biased, dishonest, or incorrect.
For my part, I have no doubt based upon the accounts of my late great-grandfather - given him by his father and uncles - that Smith and Young were scoundrels of the first order - You cannot “shoot down” their experiences.
It in fact only augments the truthfulness of my ancestors to have read (in countless books) since I became an adult, stories which paralleled what they passed to my great grandfather.
My great grandfather had eleven children, the youngest of whom was my (now late) grandmother, his only daughter, and I knew seven of her elder brothers and spent time around them and their many children.
Whenever family reunions were held (about three summers out of every five through my childhood) the old men would sit around and talk about their dad’s recounting of his dad - their grandfather, great uncles and the tales of the old mercantile. I heard them so many times I could have told them myself - like any good oral history.
The stories about the “mormon encounters” were not the only ones by a long stretch - but they were among the more popular, and memorable amongst a bunch of men who were by and large, Conservative Methodists or Baptists.
The point is, I have read plenty of books and magazines over the last three decades - a lot of it (but not all) from non-mormon sources, along with things that are chronicled in histories within the church archives.
There is a certain nagging consistency to accounts like those of my ancestors; one which runs parallel to other independently written histories.
If what my ancestors had experienced was at wide variance with all other information you could find, I would be somewhat willing to give guys like Joe Smith a bit of leeway as “good guy...meant well, good intentions. just a little misguided at times...”
But that is not the case. I have no reason NOT to trust the information passed to me by my great-grandfather. On the contrary it lines up closely with readily obtainable information that is considered historically accurate by all but those avowedly loyal to the LDS church and the demonstrably sanitized (embellished) portraits of Smith and Young.
If my Gr-Grandfather or his father were known in the family to have been incorrigible liars, then I would have taken it all with a grain of salt.
They liked their liquor on occasions, I know - but they told the cold hard truth about their own faults and those of others they had known over the years.
I respect the dead - when and if they have earned that respect.
I respect Joseph Smith and Brigham Young not one teensy iota. It is not required of me by G_d, and contrary to Young’s opinion, is not necessary for my salvation, therefore I will never respect them, let alone adulate them (like a majority of today’s mormons are indoctrinated to do.) They have done nothing to earn it nor deserve it.
They were not good men - every man has his shortcomings and inconsistencies but the LDS church seems to want us all to believe those two were giants among all of mankind, uniquely lacking in the common failings of mere mortals.
The simple unfortunate truth is they were more often VILE, self-serving abusers of power than not. They abused and lorded themselves over women regularly, acting like they were better than Solomon himself when they were neither one wise enough to be a servant to one of Solomon’s servants.
I would not treat a dog I hated the way Smith treated some of his illegally married plural wives that he lied about having.
For crying out loud, DU, this P.O.S., Smith...
Publicly addressed himself to his accusers,on 26 May, 1844 - saying “[William Law] swears that I have commotted adultery. I wish the grand jury would tell me who they are...I am wuite tired of the fools asking me. A man asked me whether the commandment was given that a man may have seven wives...I am innocent of these charges...What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives when I can only find one. I am the same man and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers.”
When Smith made these public statements, he actally did NOT have seven wives.
He had not less than thirty three, perhaps as many as forty.
Further eleven of his wives were already wed to other men and cohabiting with them when Smith married them.
Nine of his first dozen wives were the spouses of his closest friends - many of them, important LDS leaders.
Lucinda Pendleton for example, married Smith and then later, Brigham Young after Smith was killed. Problem is, she was still married to a man named George Harris when she married Smith - and Young!
Zina Huntington married Brigham Young when she was still he wife of Henry Jacobs. Jacobs stood as a witness!
How could you or anyone with a conscience WANT to follow such misogynist creeps?
Yeah, nothing like the exemplary character of Joe Smith and Brigham Young as a good model to look down upon!
At least it was all divinely sanctioned by the Lord, in the OT of the Bible.
Oh wait, that’s right - it wasn’t. I can cite many Bible verses which demonstrate that fact here - as well as the ones which amply demonstrate that polygamy as shown in the lives of OT characters (Lamech - the first recorded polygamist, Abraham, Jacob, Elkanah, David, Solomon,) reflects there as having been tragedy, suffering, or punishment directly related to polygamy - AKA “plural marriage”...but since those verses might not be “correctly translated” - it would not matter much to you.
Far from supporting the misguided notion of a “Law of Abraham”, the accounts of these men’s lives portray lack of faith, disobedience, and in general seem to represent a discouragement of the practice.
Why in the world Smith and Young thought themselves better that any of those men, capable of improving upon those examples, and producing a better outcome - is a mystery to me.
Smith and Young? It’s “Open Season” on their character, baby!
Move along...move along, nothing to respect there!
Affirming, once again, that they are not good men - far from being truly sad (as you put it)...
Is truly wise...One who admires their life examples has fools for his spiritual models.
I would rather try to emulate Jesus and fall short, than try to emulate Smith or Young and succeed.
At least I know which path will lead me into heaven.
A.A.C.