With all the hoohah about the coronavirus, an issue that is obviously best handled at the federal level, are there any Mormons who have decided that maybe the federal government is not directed by Satan after all? What are people saying?

He did pretty good as a police chief
Other than that who knows?

What makes you think he was a good police chief ?

IF he had the 'good ole' Mormon liking for authoritarian decisions & action, that would have rated him (right or wrong) as 'good'.

His brother was manager of a JCP store in Detroit when I was a Mish there, I was positively impressed by him.

I don't think there are too many intellectual mormons. Most that I met recently have little or no clue about church history let alone even try to delve into the enhanced or speculative doctrines.

Skousen, Nibley, Roberts, Cannon, Clark, etc are totally unkown to them.

lol Intellectual Mormons? Don't you mean soon to be ex-mo's?

Anyone who exhibits even the slightest amount of frontal lobe activity inevitably will soon discover the church is false.

Roberts, yes.

Clark, yes.

The others, no, just pseudointellectuals.

I was given a book of Skousen's rantings by a sibling. It's about 20% of why I call Mormons stupid.

In one of my file cabinets is a hand-signed note from then Salt Lake mayor (and former governor) J. Bracken Lee. It was addressed to my grandfather, thanking him for a letter of support he wrote that appeared in the Tribune.

This was right after Lee fired Skousen as Salt Lake police chief.

Skousen, a right wingnut who was in orbit before Sputnik, spent his remaining years as a religion professor at YBU... His book, "The Naked Communist," appeared in 1958 as the "McCarthy-era Red Scare" was waning, and Utah Senator Arthur V. Watkins actually chaired the committee that recommended censuring McCarthy in 1954.

in Utah never ceases to amaze me. We need to somehow download your brain-Mo-memory into the exmo database for continual reference.

Cleown Skousen, a man well ahead of his time; he made us all laugh!

For a summary of Skousen's faults, see:

https://sites.google.com/site/ernie124102/skousen

the so-called 'fringe elements' of Mormonism (of any cult) feed it energy, C.S. was on the edge with his theories of a 6k old earth.

I took an Old Testament class from him at BYU. He’s was very boring and constantly talked about his books, communists, and his Freeman Institute. I got a C in his class and thought he was a dick. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was.

He was a man who only spoke as a man, and no, they don't worship him anymore. He became an embarrassing figure even before his death. He was only popular during the church's experiment with John Birch mentality.

He was a man who only spoke as a man, and no, they don't worship him anymore. He became an embarrassing figure even before his death. He was only popular during the church's experiment with John Birch mentality.

But Cliven B&ndy and lots of Mormons in Washington County still study his stuff like a second Bible.

I've got the "naked communist" by skousan, it's written in 1958, and pretty spot on about all the things that were going to happen in the ensuing decade, the decade of turmoil. the 1960s. It even has warnings about Obama care and the disaster that would be. It's a great resource if your interested in Russian History, and Joseph Stallin.

Most people who diss on skousan haven't read any of his books. The guy knew what he was talking about.

Spell it "dis'" (slang for "disrespect" and synonymous with "trash").

The facts are as I reported them, your disclaimers not withstanding. As far as your claim about the decade that followed the publication of the "Naked Communist," I was alive, paying attention, and even publishing letters in the SL Tribune by the end of the 1960's.

Remedial History Teacher Voice on: The Soviet Union and its "brand of communism" collapsed at the end of the Cold War, and your characterization of the 1960's as "colored by Communism" is inaccurate and pejorative. We saw the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Program, and other areas of progress that were unparalleled (such as the advent of semiconductors and computers).

And seriously, I was a conservative back then; I remember when one could dial up the "American Opinion Bookstore" and listen to diatribes that included claims Martin Luther King, Jr. was an agent of the Communist Party... That hate was noting more than ill-disguised racism, period.

Were C.S. & ET Benson close buddies?
it seems they were sleeping in the same bed....


and, which of them (both?) were alive in '78 & what was their reaction(s)?

eta: they were both alive in '78.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2020 03:16AM by GNPE.

ETB and Skousen were best buds. Do a quick Google search. They both supported each other.

I don't know what their reaction was to 1978.

Both were John Birchers. Benson and Skousen were right wing extremists. Even TBM Mormons saw them as extreme.

Sort of. It is difficult, though, to portray as extreme the man whom God has chosen as his authoritative representative on earth.

I really think Benson moved the church significantly to the right.

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>...
> Most people who diss on skousan haven't read any
> of his books. The guy knew what he was talking
> about.

I haven't read his anti-commie books, but here is my review of his "Five Thousand Year Leap," which is a pile of blather, misstatements, bad logic, and sloppy scholarship, as well as a total ignorance of what the Bible says:

http://packham.n4m.org/skousen.htm

I ran across his "Naked Communist" during my mission (1961-1963). I spent a lot of time reading this book to avoid reading the scriptures. I got in trouble with mission leaders for reading the book. When the Cuban Missle Crisis hit during my mission, I thought Skousen might be right.
I read some of his subsequent books and was not impressed.

C Skousen was my BOM religion teacher as a BYU freshman 1975.

I just randomly signed up for and ended up in the class.

As a lecturer and teacher, he was highly entertaining.
He literally made boring topics quite interesting.

I always thought that religiously, one of his claims to fame was the section in his book THE FIRST TWO THOUSAND YEARS, where he explained that dinosaur bones and other fossils that seemed to be from millions of years ago - -
were actually the fossils of creatures that lived on other planets a long time ago and God used portions of those other planets to create Earth thousands of years ago (not billions of years ago as scientists theorize).

Not sure if educated Mormons believed in the literal Genesis story or not. I suppose some believed, some thought it was ridiculous, and many preferred to never think about it.

Just a few years ago, a YouTube LDS convert put out a video glorofying Cleon Skousen. I guess he became a right wing convert. He has disappeared from YouTube, so I wonder if he went back to being Catholic. He was a devout Catholic who almost became a Monk before Mormonism grabbed him.

They probably do in the fetid shithole of Raymond, Alberta where he was born. A family named a son Skousen too.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2020 02:00AM by snagglepuss.

When my family was in CA in the 1990's, a guy was released from a bishopric and eventually exed over his insistence upon preaching Skousen doctrine. Even after he was released from all positions, each month he would carry a stack of books to the podium during testimony meeting and would take up fifteen minutes spouting Skousen doctrine.

Extremists like Bundy sometimes make a Splash scene, but only rarely have much longevity. I repeat: Extremists give Cults some energy, ... but it's usually like a 110 volt light bulb connected to a 220 volt circuit..