I've heard about Mark Hoffman, but didn't know the details until today after a little reading on the internet. While reading what happened my first question was, "How can anyone, who heard how the leaders lacked discernment and were duped, continue to believe in the church?"
Then I read the comments on an article I just read- how can people just twist their thinking like that?
It blows my mind that I was once someone who twisted my brain into a pretzel trying to understand everything I was learning...and how I would eventually just think that "only God knows and we will learn it all in the afterlife"...ugh!
Sadly, those dweebs continued to lead the great corporation as if there had never been a scam. At least a real corporation would have "fired" them for stupidity.
...and still bear "testimony" that they "know" with every fiber of their beans that the church is led by a prophet and apostles, who are called by God and inspired with discernment, revelation and yadda, yadda, yadda....
Mark Hoffman successfully trolled all of them. I remember around that time even Dallin Oaks got into the act, coming up with some sophisticated sophistry about how the "white salamander" was really a metaphor for the angel Moroni--Oaks not realizing at the time that the Salamander Letter was a fake. Instead of having any discernment, Oaks seemed particularly eager to prove his worth as a word-twisting lawyer. Is it something that would have earned admiration from Bill Clinton? Depends on what the meaning of "is" is, I guess.
Bill Hoffman fooled General Authorities and temple-worthy Mormons all over the place.
There was one guy that he remarkably failed to fool. Who was that guy? Oh, yeah...the "notorious" apostate Jerald Tanner, who actually tried to warn the Brethren that maybe they should exercise some old-fashioned logic, analysis, research and common sense, instead of relying on their discernment superpowers.
They of course ignored him completely...and it all inevitably blew up in their inspired, ever-discerning faces.
Oh, well, just another day at the office at the Church Office Building. Just something else to sweep under the rug.
elderpopejoy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And speaking of front-page Markie, the bumbling > bomber, anyone know how long the maniac will rot > in ththe hole? >
For Life.
Offender Number: 41235 Offender Name: MARK W HOFMANN DOB: Tue, 7 Dec 1954 Height: 5 Feet 9 Inches Weight: 180 Sex: M Location: CENTRAL UTAH CORRECTIONAL FACILITY Housing Facility: CUCF MONROE Parole Date: N/A Aliases: BILL EDWARDS MIKE HANSEN MARK W HOFMANN
The amount of cognitive dissonance a human can put up with not to confront their doubts.
I wonder if it is literally easier for people to deal with the cog dis than it is to confront reality. Maybe it feels easier at the time. But I imagine the long term toll it takes is far worse than the toll it takes exploring your questions free from bias.
...discovered long ago, the most valuable renewable resource in the world is human gullibility.
If you know how to develop it, mine it and maximize profits from it...well...you're probably a psychopath.
But...and it's a big BUTT...if you're really good at it, you're probably also a very rich psychopath. And if you're very, very, very good at it, you're probably the founder or current godfather of a multi-generational dynasty of rich psychopaths.
Mark Hoffman was just a small-time amateur compared to the masterfully manipulative maestro psychopathic exploiters of human gullibility that have dominated the world heretofore.
But, amazingly, Hoffman was still good enough at his craft to completely fool his fellow psychopaths--fellow psychopaths who were themselves fairly prestigious practitioners of the craft.
I think he succeeded by making them believe that he was just another wide-eyed gullible member of the flock who had just come into possession of some problematic historical documents by chance.
IOW, he was successful because he got them thinking that they were the ones who were the masters of that particular scam. They thought that they were going to get off easy by paying for historical documents held by a rube who didn't understand the huge implications of the documents. They probably reasoned that of actually understood the implications for Churchco, he would have tried to sell them for a much higher price. Their plan was that once they got the documents out of the hands of this sucker, they were going to stick those documents in a dark hole somewhere so that none of the other gullible members of the flock would ever be any the wiser.
I think the ease with which Hoffman deceived these supposedly smart guys went to his head. He started thinking that he was much cleverer than he really was...and that mistaken perception eventually blew up in his face...literally.
Let’s not forget that Mark Hoffman was a fucking murderer. Sure, he pointed out the lack of discernment among the leadership, but really, that’s the easiest Mormon thing to debunk.
The fact that he was a psychopathic murderer (or soon would be a murderer) was one of the things that these "inspired" and "discerning" men completely missed.
It all went so well until Hoffman went "off the rails" and killed some folks. Now, there are people who bought Hoffman's documents, who will never admit they have them. Besides, they will never know which ones were real and which ones were forgeries.
I remember Oaks defending and defining the "White Salamander" and at the same time,pretty much saying that anyone who wanted to dig further and investigate was a faithless idiot.