| Subject: | Testing the waters. Nobody knew why Joseph Smith was in jail! |
| Date: | May 22, 2010 |
| Author: | kjourney (recently discovered Mormonism is not what it claims) |
| Abbreviations: | TBM : true believing Mormon or an active believing Mormon DH - dear husband JS - Joseph Smith BIC - born in the covenant - a child born to Mormons who have gone through the temple RM - returned missionary - served a 2 year mission for the church |
| I posted part of this in a reply to my other post "to
leave or not to leave" but thought this part was worthy of its own new post.
I tested the waters today with my DH's family. We went and saw the JS movie in SLC for my mother-in-law's birthday. After I asked the family if any of them knew why Joseph was put in Carthage jail. Out of 7 BIC adults, not one of them could answer! 3 RM's and my VERY TBM mother-in-law were dumb-founded! I educated them about the Nauvoo Expositor and it exposing JS's polygamy. It was interesting to see their reactions and how quickly they wanted to know where I had gotten my information. When I said lds.org they seemed a little more convinced. I also told them about JS having a gun when he died, two family members did know of this, but the others were shocked they had never been taught all of this. I can't believe that the church has devout TBM who don't even know why their dear prophet was put in jail in the first place. What is even sadder is that I used to be one of them. I had to really stop myself from sharing anymore as things in the room were getting a little tense. When we got home my DH admitted he was pretty anxious when I started talking, but was glad I said something this time instead of him. Anyone else have a shocking moment finding out they they or another TBM didn't know an important part of church history or doctrine? |
| Subject: | It never surprises me how little Mormons know about their history. nt |
| Subject: | Whenever I get the chance, I set them straight.... |
| Date: | May 22 21:44 |
| Author: | Finance Clerk |
| Even though I am a closet doubter (to everyone but my wife) I try to pull the blinders off of others whenever possible. When the subject of JS being in jail (any jail) comes up...I am first to say, "Did you ever wonder why JS was thrown in jail so much". I either get blank stares or the "persecution" answer. I set them straight with, "he kept getting put in jail (and run out of town, and tarred and feathered) because he kept pissing people off and BREAKING THE LAW." |
| Subject: | Of course they don't know |
| Date: | May 22 21:48 |
| Author: | Mårv Fråndsen |
| If it is not in the lesson manual then it is not in
the class. If it is not in the class then they don't learn it. What do you expect them to do, online research? LD$ Inc. doesn't teach many things anymore, including why Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered and why he was in jail. Ergo most TBMs won't know why. Maybe, maybe, if they happened to be unusually attentive and awake in seminary, they might possibly remember. But more likely such details have faded from memory without reinforcement, or were never there in the first place. |
| Subject: | The current generation of TBMs are the result of about 50 years of |
| Date: | May 22 21:54 |
| Author: | Gorspel Dacktrin |
| a deliberate policy of dummying down a population. The
policy accelerated and intensified under Hinckley. Sad to say, but the
Mormon community would be a worthwhile object of research into how effective
dummying-down policies can be. Through the magic of "correlation" of all lesson materials and Church publications, along with the active discouragement of any local autonomy, many basic facts of Mormonism have been flushed down the memory hole. Mormons are kept busy with endless hours of busy work and the only things they have time to study or discuss are the officially approved and correlated content put out by the Church. All the Church leaders have to do is omit any mention of certain historical facts and, within 20 years or so, an entire generation will grow up having no idea whatsoever that any such facts even exist. A good example is the recent series of lesson manuals devoted to the "Teachings of the Presidents of the Church" or something like that. You can look at the manuals on Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff and not find a single reference to polygamy or the fact that each of these men actually maintained harems consisting of numerous wives, with whom they had sex--even though their devotion to this practice and the religious beliefs behind it constituted the dominant spiritual and religious theme of their lives. The dishonesty exhibited by this glaring omission is truly breathtaking. |
| Subject: | I believe this 'dumbing down' is going biting them in the butt! |
| Date: | May 22 22:24 |
| Author: | Tauna |
| The 'powers that be' are pretending that polygamy
never happened. Gospel Darktrin brought up the TotP [teachings of the Mormon
prophets] manuals. I was offended
(as a tbm) that they didn't mention BY's wives (other than the 1st). I knew
he was a very prolific polygamist... why pretend he wasn't. The tbms aren't
stupid... they know they're not getting the whole story and some of the
curious ones will go looking (that's what I did ;)). I mentioned to my mil about JS sticking his head in a hat to translate the plates. She denied it... said it was a lie. My tbm, dh said, "Well actually that IS how he translated the plates... there is even an Ensign article in the past about it". Then mil said, "Well, I can see that if he wanted to really concentrate on something he might put his head down in his lap... maybe even in a hat!" She was scrambling so hard for a way to make sense of this new information. It was really kind of pitiful... 70 years old and a faithful temple attending member her whole life and there was no way she could process the fact that she had been lied to! When my tbm sil was pouring out her sympathies for the Saints in California that fought for Prop 8 and now were being persecuted because they 'Followed the Prophet', I asked her if she would follow the Prophet if he sent her dh on mission and asked her to marry him while dh was gone. She told me that I was lying...that did not happen! My sil is a very intelligent person. She has been RS pres, Primary pres, and has been a seminary teacher for the last 7 years... yet she did not know the things I was telling her! Being a smart ass, I told her to check the church's geneology site. She is very smart and likes to be 'in the know' on church subjects. I think she was really upset that her apostate sil was teaching her 'Church History 101' and the info was totally foreign to her. I have even talked to the Mission President in our area about these issues and he had never heard anything about what I was telling him. His only defense was to call someone he knew in SLC and try to say that Richard Bushman (author of RSR [Rough Stone Rolling]) was no long a Patriarch (hinted that he can't be trusted). The church has done their best to hide their warts... they have tried to market the church to its customers (the members) in the best light. The problem is with the internet, they can no longer control information at the level they have in the 'information control correlation years'. Those days are gone and they know it. They are scrambling to come up with a new game plan... and the Prophet doesn't know what to do... apparently the 'batphone to Jesus' aint working anymore. I think we're going to see the church trying to address these issues in the next few years. I don't think they have a choice. |
| Subject: | Re: I believe this 'dumbing down' is going biting them in the butt! |
| Date: | May 22 23:57 |
| Author: | Anon |
| When the movie "September Dawn" came out, a reporter @ our local paper called it anti-mormon and distorted. Obviously, the Morg had worked ahead with their denial PR. I knew the guy and emailed him a few sites on the MMM [Mountain Meadows Masacre] and he was shocked! |
| Subject: | Incest |
| Date: | May 22 22:09 |
| Author: | JBryan |
| I remember the total shock when I found out that
Brigham Young and other early leaders believed that brothers getting married
to sisters and having children was the best way to have a "superior
bloodline". I was reading Rudger Clawson's prison diaries and he mentioned a conversation he had with several key leaders about it. 15 July, 1886 - Apostle Lorenzo prophecies from the pulpit that in the future "brothers and sisters would marry each other in this church. All our horror at such a union was due entirely to prejudice, and the offspring of such unions would be as healthy and pure as any other. These were the decided views of President Young, when alive, for Bother Snow talked to him freely on this matter." So with those guys, incest was best. |
| Subject: | Of course, Mormonism is the Cult of Universal Incest |
| Date: | May 23 02:31 |
| Author: | EverAndAnon |
| What else could we expect from people who teach that
we are all literally brothers and sisters? There's nothing remotely figurative about this teaching. We have a big Sky Daddy and Mommy. OK, they actually teach that Big Daddy has a Holy Harem and that means that many of us are half-brothers and half-sisters but still... Mormonism is based on the belief that Big Sky Daddy married a bunch of his sisters and made billions of babies who will go on to marry their brothers/sisters. The 'best' will have Holy Sky Harems and they will create billions of babies who will marry each other - lather, rinse, repeat. This is The Plan. This is the way it works for all eternity. This is the way that his Daddy got to be a Big Sky Daddy. It's turtles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Incest all the way down. |
| Subject: | "Martyr" sounds better than.. |
| Date: | May 22 22:16 |
| Author: | Bob T |
| ... "lost a gun fight." |
| Subject: | My TBM mother was in a huff about this one day. |
| Date: | May 22 22:16 |
| Author: | Cheryl |
| She said Joseph Smith was dragged off to jail
constantly because of "persecution." I asked her about the charges and she was floored, kept repeating "persecution." "But he must have been accused of something in all of those many arrests." She said, "I'll bet they claimed he owed someone a buck twenty-five when he didn't," she finally answered. So there you have it, I guess. |
| Subject: | Re: Testing waters. Nobody knew why JS was in jail! |
| Date: | May 22 22:55 |
| Author: | unworthy |
| Whenever I tried to talk to my TBM neighbors about any history of the mormons, their standard reply is "you don't really know if that is true". I ask them if they done any research besides what is taught by the mormons, about the mormons. Never have. Just quit trying to discuss anything "churchy" with them. |
| Subject: | Just wondering... |
| Date: | May 22 23:36 |
| Author: | EverAndAnon |
| That must have been quite an experience. I'm wondering if you made any comment about JS denouncing polygamy and denying that he was a polygamist. Here are a few interesting quotes from the profits about polygamy. Feel free to share them with your in-laws ;-) 1. "It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome...was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her." - Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 202 2. "Since the founding of the Roman empire monogamy has prevailed more extensively than in times previous to that. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious." - The Prophet Brigham Young Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 128 3. "...the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people." - Prophet John Taylor, Millennial Star, Vol. 15, p. 227 4. According to Orson Hyde, original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: "A Lecture by President Orson Hyde, delivered at the General Conference, in the Tabernacle Great Salt Lake City, October 6, 1854. ...They may break us up, and rout us from place to another, but by and bye we shall come to a point where we shall have all the women, and they will have none. You may think I am joking about this, but I can bring you the truth of God to demonstrate it to you I have not advanced anything I have not got an abundance of backing for. There is more truth than poetry in this as sure as you live." -- Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 83 (1854) |
| Subject: | Thank you for these quotes |
| Date: | May 23 00:16 |
| Author: | Rebecca |
| I am too lazy to look up the quotes now, but I
remember learning in more recent times that is was the horrible
homosexuality of the ancient Roman empire that caused to fall. Glad we can hang this one clearly on the heads of those monogamous hetersexuals! LOL |
| Subject: | I stand all amazed |
| Date: | May 22 23:45 |
| Author: | Charley |
| at the lack of knowledge that TBM have about their own
religion. I don't see how someone can get up once a month and declare the
church is true when they know nearly nothing about it. I remember being taught a lot of church history in seminary back in the early 70s. None of the men in my generation that became bishops went to seminary though. They were the wild kids who ditched seminary. I guess everybody else was asleep in class or have simply forgotten. |
| Subject: | More JS-in-jail info. for you (links). |
| Date: | May 23 00:51 |
| Author: | FreeAtLast |
| If you haven't seen this video clip on YouTube, it's
one to watch! "The Untold Story of the Death of Joseph Smith":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvSo0ate4tM&feature=related Deconstructor's "In the End, What Happened to Joseph Smith" is full of interesting, 'faith-disrupting' factoids: http://www.i4m.com/think/history/fallen_prophet.htm "By the spring of 1844, a rift had developed between Smith and a half dozen of his closest associates, most notably his trusted counselor William Law and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Legion. Law and Foster disagreed with Smith about how to manage Nauvoo's theocratic economy, and both believed Smith had proposed marriage to their wives.[284]" (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith#Death) Reference no. 284 is worth reading. By 1844, JS had clearly become drunk on his ecclesiastical power as 'prophet' and church president as well as his authority as mayor of Nauvoo and his believed power as crowned King of the House of Israel that common sense had left him, as evidenced by his having dinner alone with Foster's wife in the Fosters' home, and proposing to the wife of the Nauvoo Legion general! Another fascinating fact that might be related to JS' death: "As “Acting Associate Justice” in Nauvoo, George presided over the city council meeting on June 10, 1844 when the claims of the dissenting newspaper, the “Nauvoo Expositor” were discussed. The minutes of the meeting record: “Alderman Harris spoke from the chair, and expressed his feelings that the press ought to be demolished.”. The city council passed a resolution that directed the destruction of the press. Joseph Smith was soon arrested for abetting this destruction and was later killed in Carthage on June 27th." (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/03-LucindaMorganHarris.htm) Who was George Harris other than Nauvoo Alderman and Acting Associate Justice? The husband of Lucinda Morgan Harris. What was JS' connection to the `Mr. and Mrs. Harris? In early 1838, amidst growing dissent and legal problems, Joseph Smith fled Kirtland, Ohio for Far West, Missouri. A leader in Far West, George Harris met Joseph and Emma upon their arrival. Joseph wrote: “We were immediately received under the hospitable roof of George W. Harris who treated us with all kindness possible. here we refreshed ourselves with much satisfaction after our long and tedious journey.”. The Smiths lived in the Harris home for two months before moving into a home of their own. "The date of the marriage between Joseph and Lucinda is uncertain. Sarah Pratt, a friend of Lucinda’s (and wife of Apostle Orson Pratt), indicated that the wedding occurred sometime during Joseph’s stay in Missouri. After marrying Joseph, Lucinda continued to live with George." (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/03-LucindaMorganHarris.htm) Did George Harris deliberately suggest the destruction of the printing press of the Nauvoo Expositor at the meeting because he calculated that power-drunk JS, who had secretly married his wife after George and his wife had shown kindness to JS and Emma, would sign the destruction order, thereby violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (covers freedom of the press) and thus be guilty of a federal offense for which he could be charged and jailed, removing him from Nauvoo and the Harris couple's lives? If George had found out that JS had made Lucinda his wife, the answer is quite possibly yes. One wonders how many of the disguised mob that stormed Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844 to kill JS were Mormon or ex-Mormon men whose wives JS had made his plural wives, or at least pressured them to marry him. |
| Subject: | Oh I LOVE this one. "Oh Lord my God..." |
| Date: | May 23 01:36 |
| Author: | Tantalus |
| the "martyr cry" ...is only the first half of the
phrase. "is there no help for my widows son?" is the second half, of the Masonic distress call. There is no doubt that Smith was not calling to the Lord. He was calling to his fellow Masons for help and B. Young affirms this in JoD. You NEVER hear that in the Church but history is clear. This is the Masonic distress call but Smith, shot in the chest, had no wind left to finish it. |
| Subject: | Now ask them why he was in Liberty Jail. |
| Date: | May 23 07:17 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| I didn't even know they were different jails until I went on a tour of Mormon church sites in Missouri. In any event, the correct answer is "treason." |
| Subject: | I had many shocking moments with TBM's who knew NOTHING |
| Date: | May 23 08:16 |
| Author: | Zeezrom |
| 1. First shock I had was a ward member who told me
that Brigham Young only had one 'real' wife and that the others were just
being looked after benevolently. He said no wonder you haven't got baptised
yet thinking Brigham had sex with multiple women, it wasn't like that, he
only was intimate with his 'real' wife. !:!:!:!?? ....and he really thought it! I was too shocked to respond at such naivety. 2. My Polish missionary. She baptized (duped and pressured by missionaries) at 19, Temple duped at approx age 29 and duped to serve a mission at age 35 and she said quote "I did not hear about the hat and stone before" !!!!!?!?!? Roll on a few months and now she has shunned me as well. So much for her prior praising of me, promises of time together, how amazing I am, what a privilige to know me and how I was the purpose for her mission (to supposedly find me). lol 3 A fellow ward Sister (aged 70'ish BIC, temple worthy all her life etc). She asked me what was concerning me so much that I am not getting baptized (having seen me very interested, actively attending and participating in just about every time consuming meeting, fireside etc). I didn't want to say anything but she insisted and assured me that NOTHING will affect her because she has a strong testimony etc. So sure she seemed to be that I was being misled. I only got as far as the hat and rock and she nearly collapsed. That was the final confirmation for me that the church is a lying, deceiving organization. To see such a wonderful lady broken to pieces that way was frightening. She even said that it means that the Ensign [official church magazine] pics are false then! lol It wasn't long after that, I made my decisive eternal escape from it all. |
| Subject: | LDS write up on the Nauvoo Expositor |
| Date: | May 23 13:21 |
| Author: | kjourney |
| The lds.org link http://www.lds.org/placestovisit/location/0,10634,1844-1-1-1,00.html The article does not state what exactly the Nauvoo Expositor had printed just that it had printed "criticisms against the Church." |
| Subject: | Thank you for the link, kjourney! |
| Date: | May 23 13:29 |
| Author: | WiserWomanNow |
| From the article, for anyone interested: “Trouble for Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo began when the Nauvoo city council issued orders to destroy a newspaper press that had printed criticisms against the Church.” So much for obeying and sustaining the law. So much for first amendment rights. Even then, the church could not stand up to criticism! |
Related Topics
|
Recovery from Mormonism - The Mormon Church www.exmormon.org |