Posted by:
Wonder-Full
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Date: March 30, 2019 03:35PM
Amyjo,
A lot of what you said about Smith being a pious fraud (i.e. genuinely sincere believer yet a deceiver for righteous ends) is covered in Dan Vogel's The Prophet Puzzle here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JlJaD2fksSee also the print version:
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V31N03_139.pdfI think pious fraud describes Smith well up to 1835. Up to that point I think his NPD was moderated by his religious convictions to a large degree. But after 1835 you see his theology changing from monotheism to polytheism, you see him cheating on his wife, and studying Hebrew which led to his view of polytheism. You see his First Vision versions going from being concerned about being forgiven for his sins, and only Jesus appearing, in the 1832 version; to then two personages appearing and telling him only his religion is the truth in the 1838 version (which was a power move). Thus we can see his view of God changing. All of this led to him relaxing the "pious" part of his conscience and we see him becoming very amoral, as in when we see him telling Nancy Rigdon that God is more "liberal in his views" as he sought to seduce her into plural marriage. What a far cry in attitude from the narrative voice of the BoM!
As Dan Vogel covers, as a secret Universalist when composing the BoM, he did not fear hell in composing the BoM which he did to sincerely convert people to Christ. But by the 1840s, be basically stopped believing in a "Supreme Being" (the First Cause type of God of monotheism) and thought "he" was God essentially. He argued that the human soul was eternal/self-existent and the Gods of this earth are just spiritually evolved men. So Smith had a divine uncreated soul and in D&C 132 he is guaranteed exaltation (see D&C 132:49–50), i.e. he is assured Godhood.
So in my view, the area of malignant narcissism as a possibility (if not a probability) occurs gradually from 1835 onward, until eventually we have Smith seducing and coercing young girls into his bed and setting up a theo-democracy (as The Joseph Smith Papers put it) or what I would call a dictatorship via Mormon theocracy, and thinking he is king of the earth, etc. Even Bushman admits he hated America in many ways. Smith clearly thought his religion was superior to all other ruling bodies and he was above the law, stemming back to breaking the law as a Juggler/peep stone con man in his teens, to practicing polygamy, to him ordering the destruction of a newspaper, etc.
As an agnostic humanist I think morality is rational and grounded in science in many ways. I think a lot of former Fundamentalists form an ethical code outside the Fundamentalist mindset. Whether its Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, Stoicism, or a modern ethical theory, they maintain their conscience and ethics.
I think Smith never made that ethical development toward the end of his life. You see him craving more and more power and control, and willing to manipulate, shame, control and harm others for selfish gain. If Smith was not stuck in a religious milieu and joined another society and formed a rational basis for ethics maybe he would have been different. But stuck in Bibliolotry he began to form a twisted amoral system of thought that allowed him to deceive and harm.
A good demonstration of "two-faced Smith" with pious Smith presented in public and amoral Smith behind closed doors, is in this from wikipedia, both quotes were written in the 1840s, my words in brackets:
A succinct statement of ethics by Smith is found in his 13th Article of Faith:
"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."
Smith said his ethical rule was, "When the Lord commands, do it".
He also taught [via the letter to Nancy Rigdon]:
"that which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. God said thou shalt not kill—at another time he said thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the elders of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right ... even things which may be considered abominable to all those who do not understand the order of heaven."
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Joseph_SmithHence in my view, by the 1840s, Smith had abandoned the God of Protestant puritanism; as his younger (early 1830s) self had a very pious ethic when composing the BoM and soon after. He was that typical holier than thou Fundamentalist type, only a con man combined, like many televangelists today. Yet by the 1840s he is way more Machiavellian if you will, way more power hungry, way more deceptive and manipulative than he had ever been before.
Before, in the early 1830s he wanted to deceive to convert people to Christ and his version of Protestantism and bring people to his Zion to await the end of days. But by the 1840s it was more about converting people to himself, to be under his thumb, to be his next concubine, to acknowledge his Godhood as mouthpiece for God, as King on earth, the ruler of the earth.