I've had on more than one occation former "brothers" extol on the pace of how the industrial revolution was due in part by the restoration of the gospel...i.e. rapid expansion of knowledge,inventions, all claimed to be brokered by the fact that the "real" gospel was back on earth and it helped multiply all this renewed invention/productivity in humankind. Anybody else hear this while in the Morg?

Yes. In SS back in the early 80's, we had a big part of a year dedicated to seeing all the inventions and discoveries that happened since the 'restoration of the gospel' versus all the ones before. It was claimed in the lesson that it was due to the power of the truth restored on earth, blah, blah, blah, so men (of course not women) were more easily intune with inspiration, or something like that.
I remember the teacher had made for each of us a timeline with all that on it and each week we were adding something new.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 03:27PM by quebec.

Heard it in the 70s and less so in the 80s. Then not at all 'til now.

It's an idea that seems to have largely died out with programs like Connections and The Day the Universe Changed that show how ideas have cascaded from the work of earlier thinkers and inventers, many of which predate the restoration.

I heard it many many times. I was reminded on several occasions about how Philo T. Farnsworth invented the television, and it was so that the gospel could be broadcast to the world. uh huh. right.

In fact, I was told that most all modern inventions and advances were the direct result of the 'priesthood' being on the earth, and that they were mostly to enable the gospel to go forth to all nations.

How they got me to believe all that sh*t is what mystifies me the most.

Greg (formerly beatnik) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I heard it many many times. I was reminded on
> several occasions about how Philo T. Farnsworth
> invented the television, and it was so that the
> gospel could be broadcast to the world. uh huh.
> right.
>
> In fact, I was told that most all modern
> inventions and advances were the direct result of
> the 'priesthood' being on the earth, and that they
> were mostly to enable the gospel to go forth to
> all nations.
>
> How they got me to believe all that sh*t is what
> mystifies me the most.


I thought Philo invented TV so we could watch Sponge Bob and Bourdain.

I have heard it as well...the miracle of the transister, the miracle of TV, the miracle of cable TV, the miracle of the net.

I think some really smart people did this so guys could watch more porn and their LDS wives could feel "betrayed."

tensolator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Greg (formerly beatnik) Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I heard it many many times. I was reminded on
> > several occasions about how Philo T. Farnsworth
> > invented the television, and it was so that the
> > gospel could be broadcast to the world. uh huh.
>
> > right.
> >
> > In fact, I was told that most all modern
> > inventions and advances were the direct result
> of
> > the 'priesthood' being on the earth, and that
> they
> > were mostly to enable the gospel to go forth to
> > all nations.
> >
> > How they got me to believe all that sh*t is
> what
> > mystifies me the most.
>
>
> I thought Philo invented TV so we could watch
> Sponge Bob and Bourdain.


MTV,,,and porn of course

I converted in the late 80's and heard that.

Now, how to we explain the information era, given that this is taken the people away from the gospel. It seems the Internet is 'bringing the world the truth'.

paulroy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've had on more than one occation former
> "brothers" extol on the pace of how the industrial
> revolution was due in part by the restoration of
> the gospel...i.e. rapid expansion of
> knowledge,inventions, all claimed to be brokered
> by the fact that the "real" gospel was back on
> earth and it helped multiply all this renewed
> invention/productivity in humankind. Anybody else
> hear this while in the Morg?


I've head members say that practucally *ALL* the
technological and social advancement made on the
planet, since the mid-19th century, was due to the
spiritual "empowerment" of the USA, as the destined
"Land of Promise," re-blessed in 1830, by the rise
of Mormonism.

This line of thinking only corresponds to the earliest
Mormon claims, if we picture the world having ended
somewhere around 1833-1834. But the world did not end,
and the great "gathering to Zion" in Jackson County,
Missouri was a failure. Mormonism never became the
dominant factor the American/world society.

One of the two self-negating LDS claims must, obviously,
be wrong -- either the Saints will gather to Zion, while
the rest of humanity is destroyed, or else humanity as
a whole, will go on progressing, developing, evolving.
I think that the alternative between these two ideas
was decided during the infamous Zion's Camp.

With the Jackson County "Zion" a demonstrated failure, the
Mormons went through about 150 years of promising to one
day "redeem Zion" from the wicked Gentiles. After 1838,
all hope of that political outcome diminished. And after
1847 it became little more than an unfulfilled memory.

So -- if the LDS wish to credit the modern world to the
failure of their Jackson County gathering -- then let
them go on making ridiculous claims. That's just usual.

The actual Gospel of Jesus was not some complicated,
convoluted, set of intertwined predictions, commands,
plans and organization -- it was a simple message of
personal forgiveness & freedom under God's Fatherhood.

Mormons will never understand that fact.

Hence, their "Gospel" needs to be a restored Master Plan
of world dominance: a paternalistic, legalistic theocracy.

Fortunately, for the rest of us, they are wrong.

UD

The whole apostasy is a flawed idea too. If we are to believe it, we have to recognise a God that is comfortable to create a world in which his 'one true church' doesn't even exist on it for by far the vast majority of time (even by TBM reckoning of garden of eden timeframes)..... let alone to make it so obscure that even when it is around, most won't find it.

Even if you do believe in God and you think he has one church/route back, the whole concept of apostasy and restoration is nonsensical.

coal and later oil and gas enabled the industrial revolution. We are now entering an era when fossil fuel will be neither cheap nor plentiful. Regretfully,

the-end-of-the-industrial-era-is-in-sight-ly yrs,

S

God bless all the dinosaurs that gave their lives so I can enjoy all the wonders of modern life! Praise be to Lord Raptor!

The Renisance came about by Europe being reintroduced to the writings and knowledge of those heathen pagans the Greeks! Which by the way early Christians tried to destroy. There is nothing in the restored gospel that encourages the type of rigorous rational thinking and scientific method that is responsible for our modern advances. It was the restoration of the teachings of ancient pagan philosophers that we can that for the conveniences of our modern life. Steam engines, sewer systems, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and more.

Which industrial Revolution are we talking about here?

The First Industrial Revolution is considered to have begun around 1750 in Great Britain after the enclosure movement had already taken place, with changes in agricultural production, mechanisation of the textile industries, new iron-production techniques, and the increased use of refined coal. These fueled the transition from an agricultural-based economy to a machine-based manufacturing economy. Developments happened so fast and were so striking that Breat Britain passed stringent emigration laws designed to keep those who knew how to implement new technologies inside the country. By the 1850s, as Britain's wealth enabled it to expand its industrial influence far beyond the limits of the island kingdom to all parts of the world, the Second Industrial Revolution was beginning.

America's First Industrial Revolution took place somewhat later - from 1820 to 1870. Water-power drove the beginning of it, with industry centered in the New England states until after the Civil War, when new inventions in steam-powered engines were used to spread the industrial base throughout the Great Lakes region. Inventions and developments in transportation - canals, roads, and highways, then steam locomotives and railroad systems, then steamships and freighters, facilitated movement of raw materials, manufactured goods and the populations necessary for making and consuming them.

By 1870, The Second Industrial Revolution is considered to have moved into full swing with the invention of the Bessemer Converter and the ability to mass produce steel. Other industries in rapid development at this time were chemical industries, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical industries, and, in the early twentieth century, the automotive industry and all that supported it. During this period, war industries also contributed heavily to the revolution with many new inventions.

And where were the Mormons in all this? Nowhere near the technology, and they kept it that way. Palmyra NY is right next to the Erie Canal. Did Joe Smith's family find a way to take advantage of such proximity, considering they were there during the heyday of the canal? Nope. They preferred to go money-digging and swindling.

Next was Kirkland, less than 25 miles from Cleveland, one of the early centers for the expanded iron industry and Great Lakes shipping in the United States. Did Joe Smith and Co. find a way to profit from all the money that was starting to be made in this early big-money city? Nopers. They preferred to print worthless bank notes and create a banking scandal, whilst drinking heavily and having hallucinatory "visions" in their temple.

Next up was Missouri, where the early Mormons, like everyone else on the plains, were buying up land. Lots of land. And when they couldn't buy it they squatted on it and tried to steal it. As well as horning in on the local political establishment. Was there an industrial or technological center anywhere near them? No. Did they succeed? Um, no.

Next was Nauvoo, where the only money to be made was hosting the smaller river traffic between the Des Moines Rapids just downstream (meaning no significant shipping coming upriver from Saint Louis) and small river-ports farther north. Not much Industrial Revolution material there at all.

Once safely ensconced in Utah, the Mormons were so isolationist and protectionist that Brigham Young ordered the railroads to build their terminal in Ogden so they would stay the hell away from Salt Lake City. The Mormons stayed primarily agricultural for the next one hundred years. One might even say that culturally speaking, Mormons were afraid of the Industrial Revolution and resisted most of its developments as long as possible. They were almost, in fact, cultural Luddites in their agricultural-romantic anti-modernist point of view, and to some extent still are.

All of which only makes their claim that the Industrial Revolution was due to the "restoration of the gospel" all the more ridiculous. It was already half over before Mormons even began to grasp the significance of the changes taking place before them. We can even firmly establish the time and place of that realization: 10 May 1869, Promontory, Utah. As proof of the extremity of their self-imposed isolation, one might ask: what great achievements of the First or Second Industrial Revolution were brought about by the direct influence or effort of a Mormon? The answer is easy: none.

When Martin Harris's and Joseph Knight's little grist mills could not compete with the the industrial strength flour mills of nearby Rochester, NY, the Flour City, they went West to OH with the "visionary" son of one of the Knights' wheat suppliers.

There he combined his new little religion with an agrarian Christian Restoriationist communitarian movement. By continually moving west, Mormonism remained primarily agrarian and not large scale industrial.

Although the communitarian, non-capitalist, non-consumerist part of Mormonism came and went, it was dealt its death knell as part of the 1890 Great Accomodation. Utah becoming a state wasn't just about polygamy, that was just the sexy part. The Great Accomodation was also about the dismal science, economics, specifically, capitalism and its handmaiden industrialization. Mormons had to get with the capitalism part too.

Some of the changes of industrialization were changes in what was expected of women and men. In an agrarian society men, women and children worked in relative physical proximity to each other and men ruled over hearth, home and farm.

With the Industrial Revolution men went to factories and women had more power at home in their absence, although married women's economic power declined because they no longer produced thread and fabric at home for sale or farm produce for sale for immediate consumption by neighbors.

Some women went to work in factories as well, at least while they were single, and this increased their economic power. The daughters of factory owners no longer spun, their fathers' factories did that, they went to school and sometimes to college. There some of them thought about women's rights. One of the centers was once again Rochester, NY, the Smith's and the Harris' more urban neighbor.

JS rejected all of this and Mormonism began as a treasure seeking good ol' boys club. Large parts of the 2nd Great Awakening that accompanied the US Industrial Revolution was a women's club.

A polygamous man in an agrarian communitarian society could have a wider span of control of women if many of them were his wives. Apart from JS's mere sex drive (did I just say mere sex drive?), it should come as no suprise that the Mormon communitarian movement soon included polygamy to control women as the Industrial Revolution was giving some women more freedom.

Good Quaker woman Lucy Harris, Quaker women being some of the most free in the US at the time, although a bit of a mystic herself, said "dumb, dumb, dumb" to JS, although not over polygamy, more over him being such a sexist control freak. (Knight's wife was not the high on JS either).

If you're interested take a look at Charles Seller, The Market Revolution and Paul Johnson The Kingdom of Matthias aka Robert Matthias, who also got his groove on with women not his wife. Matthias was even more strict than BY about women staying home and keeping their mouth shut. Matthias and JS actually met in OH, each pronounced the other the devil. Close competitors can be like that.

While the Sufferage Movement can be dated to the early 1800s within miles of JS NY home and Rochester, Mormon women didn't become involved for about another 80 years when their men thought it would be a good idea for them to vote.

Momorn owmen never became part of the associated abolution movement (BY thinking slavery was African-Americans natural state) which first galvanized the woman's movement or the Women's Christian Temperance Movement (which was really an abstence movement) which was also important for women's advancement (too Protestant for Mormon tastes). The Word of Wisdom, a consession to JS's abstenant former Methodist wife, was interestingly enough, more of a temperance position.

Damn I wish someone would write this history.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 10:36PM by lulu.

Your thoughts constitute an entire chapter parallel to the overall picture of the Industrial Revolution, as do others on the treatment of children, the ramifications of democracy, and class division v. male suffrage.

The developments you outline spurred change in law theory as well as quotidian existence. The legal notions that we now consider antiquated - that a woman's property became her husband's property upon marriage, that a woman was not empowered to conduct her own affairs without some level of administrative oversight by a male relative, that a woman could not vote, that a woman was not an equal partner in marriage or parenting, et cetera - all bore closer scrutiny near the end of the First Industrial Revolution, and were found wanting. It was during this period that the body of family law began to shift away from the tradition of patriarchal law toward individual determinacy.

Because of the factors outlined by you, and the ensuing legal shift, Mormon polygamy was impossible to support theoretically when held up against the development of individual rights that resulted from the Industrial Revolution:
"Polygamous relationships can be distinguished from dyadic heterosexual and same-sex relationships on the basis of underlying values and ideals. Whereas polygamy is rooted in an economic-dependency model of marriage, same-sex marriage is based on the more recently developed ideal of marriage as a means of furthering individual fulfillment. Although Western culture has historically embraced aspects of both these models, the normative ideal of marriage is presently undergoing a metamorphosis driven by recent changes in the relative economic equality of men and women. As a result, the normative weight accorded the companionate purpose of hybrid marriage in the West has increased and the procreative-economic purpose has diminished. In the U.S., this progression toward, and growing acceptance of, the purely-companionate model is reflected in the rationales of recent cases that invoke companionate-model values of individuality and mutuality in human relationships. " (Ruth K. Khalsa, 2005)
And, though it was not specifically noted as such when the United States passed the following four pieces of legislation, it should be noted that the shift is clear in hindsight. The persistence of Mormon polygamy AFTER the passage of these laws indicates their continued determined resistance to adopt or adapt to the multitude of cultural changes introduced over the course of two hundred years as a result of the Industrial Revolution.
[Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was signed into law on July 8, 1862.
The Edmunds Act was signed into law on March 23, 1882, declaring polygamy a felony. Modern scholarship suggests the law may be unconstitutional for being in violation of the Free Exercise Clause.
Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887 touched all the issues at dispute between the United States Congress and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This act was repealed in 1978.
The United States White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910 (ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825; codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. § 2421–2424); also known as the Mann Act.]

It is pretty easy to see why institutions such as slavery and polygamy thrived in agricultural settings: economies of scale demanded a large inexpensive labor base. To speed economic growth, some slave-owners took the Master's Prerogative and bred with their female slaves in order to generate a larger work force, intending to thus enlarge their agricultural production and enhance their wealth. Polygamy can been seen as the effort to accomplish the same or similar ends, since both slavery and polygamy exist as patriarch-dominated models. This could help explain why Brigham Young and Joseph Smith supported slavery as well as embracing polygamy: their general resistance to technological development also supports the theory.

After the Civil War, this patriarchal-polygamic-agriculturalist dynamic diverged and, with the passage of time, contrasted more and more sharply with what was happening in the rest of the nation. The patriarchal-polygamic aspect began to be rendered even more culturally impotent by the introduction of mechanized farm-implements such as the horse-pulled reaper, 1830; raking and binding machines, 1870s-1880s; combine harvester, 1880s; and steam-powered threshers at the end of the 19th century. In short, again, the Industrial Revolution left the Mormons in the dustbin of history.

This is an expanse of territory that, given the breadth of their experience, is surprisingly and disappointingly little-explored by scholars studying Mormon history, or American history in general. I agree with you, lulu: I wish someone would write this history!

Thanks for the Khalsa reference.

If the JS Papers Project wasn't sucking up so much money, maybe there were be a couple of bucks for Mormon Women's Studies.

xyz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the Mormons were so isolationist and protectionist that
> Brigham Young ordered the railroads to build their
> terminal in Ogden so they would stay the hell away
> from Salt Lake City.

------------------

Not to disagree with the other main points being made but ....
Brigham Young really wanted the railroad to go through SLC and then south of the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Young understood the financial windfall that the railroad could bring and he tried to get them to build on a southern route. It was the railroad companies themselves that chose the northern route. That's part of why the Mormons then quickly constructed the Utah Central Railroad (from Ogden to SLC) which was completed 8 months after the UP/CP transcontinental line.

I intend to look further into that now.

Cheers!

As an *apostle* Joseph F. Smith said that Men would never land on the moon at a stake conference in hawaii in 1961. It had to be very embarrassing for MORmONS as national pride was on the line and the U.S.A. dived headlong into the space race with Russia.

In 1969, NASA and Neil Armstrong proved that Joe F. SMith was much more of a DUMBASS than a holy man. to counter SMith's idiocy, LDS Inc PR SPIN ppl started up with the notion that the lunar landing was due to the industrial revolution, and the industrial revolution was due to Joe SMith's opening the heavens with the first vision. there for Joe Smith was as just as credit worthy for NASA success as any astronaut! it was pure MORmON *logic* and my stupid ass MORmON male parent bought it, hook, line and sinker! I remember it well!

I must wonder if they also feel the rise of the internet is to further the gospel.

That one might backfire on them.

Google is the ultimate nightmare of LDS Inc.

Yes they do claim that all the mass media including the internet was created to spread the gospel. If god wanted to use technology to spread the gospel why didn't Christ invent the internet, raddio, and television when he was on earth?

to help spread the truth **OF** Moronism. They got it half right...it was to spread the truth **ABOUT** Mormonism.

nice, scarecrowfromoz...good one...

Huh?

During a road trip to Nauvoo in 1998 (on the way back home from Nauvoo to be precise), my group and I visited the Winter Quarters visitors' center on the outskirts of Omaha NE. One of the exhibits there was a demonstration model of a wagon odometer that was invented by William Clayton and Orson Pratt. I remember the story as told by the tour guide vividly because I have that whole journey well-documented in a video, the DVD of which I still have even now. I said, as a narrative in my video, "And there you have it, the very first odometer! That mileage thing on your car was actually invented by the Mormons."

Here's the point to all of that: Nowadays, I wonder just how true that statement from my still-somewhat-TBM-though-haven't-been-to-church-in-three-years self back then really is. Who really gets the credit for inventing the automobile odometer (and any similar devices before that) and when? Was there by any chance any other mileage-measuring devices known in history (whether in the USA or anywhere else in the world) before the Mormon exile from Nauvoo? Is the mormon pioneer odometer story just another faith-promoting rumor?

Odometers existed long before the Mormon pioneers:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_Odometer.htm

Thanks, NoNameKid!

That link you gave has great information. So the earliest contraption that's similar to the Clayton/Pratt "Roadometer" was Blaise Pascal's 17th-century invention. Glad to learn that.

And wouldn't you know it! That article even mentioned the Clayton/Pratt device!

I think I'm going to print out a copy of that article and stuff it into my documentary DVD's case.

Heck, that's nothing.

Every morning I make the sun rise just by switching on my coffee maker.

the sun's in my eyes ;)

I just posted this in another thread, but it applies here too:

A prime tenet of the LDS church is that with the deaths of Christ’s original 12 apostles, the church of the classical period lost access to both elemental gospel truths and the authority granted by Christ to act in his name. The LDS church further asserts that this apostasy not only resulted in a fraudulent church, but also that the loss of divine favor slowed secular understanding and progress, producing the Dark Ages. With the restoration of the gospel truths and divine authority through the founder of the LDS church, Joseph Smith, secular knowledge and invention were again accelerated by the presence of divine light in the world. The church points to the secular advances of the 19th century as circumstantial evidence of a spiritual restoration. Merrill Bateman, as president of Brigham Young University, provided one expression of this belief:

“From 1820 to the present, one invention and discovery after another has come to pass. In 1879 the light bulb was patented. Thomas Alva Edison's invention extended the day as it brought light to the night and to the dark places of the earth. This followed the 1820 revelation that Joseph Smith received in the Sacred Grove and the subsequent revelations that brought spiritual light to the world. The Lord told Joseph that the restoration of the gospel would be but a beginning to the light that He would pour out upon the earth—not only spiritual light but also light that pertains to this temporal world (see D&C 121:26–32). The discoveries of the intervening years and the accelerating rate at which light and knowledge are being added today are testimonials to the prophecy.”

Merrill J. Bateman, President BYU
Brigham Young Magazine,
Winter 2000 issue

Does history support the view that the mid-19th century the world experienced an otherwise inexplicable boom in the rate of scientific progress and that the centuries before were truly the Dark Ages? Were the centuries between the second century AD and the appearance of Joseph Smith a time of intellectual and cultural damnation? Here is a rough timeline of developments in Europe and the US from this period:

Timeline of change:
700-800 Book format replaces scroll
900 Magnetic compass introduced to Europe
1100 (Oxford) Public education/university system
1150 Cathedrals
1200 Adoption of Hindu-Arabic number systems and algebra
1250 Gunpowder
1290 Dante
1300’s Invention/introduction of paper, clock, chimney, spinning wheel, windmill.
Formation of nation states
1400 Lateen sail
1400 Banking
Voyages of discovery 1419 Madeiras, 1482 Congo, 1492 America, 1498 India
1453 Fall of Constantinople, - end of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire)
1455 Invention of movable type
1458 Double entry bookkeeping
1480 Da Vinci
1492 First globe
1500 Michelangelo
1517 Luther
1543 Copernicus
1500’s Transnational trade associations (Hanseatic League)
1552 First patent issued in England -
1595 Shakespeare
1605 Francis Bacon
1609 Kepler
1632 Galileo
1650 Otto von Guerricke - vacuum pump
1660 Royal Society founded
1675 Newton
1690 Insurance (Lloyd’s)
1725 Bach
1720 George Hadley – meteorology
1759 Chronometer - navigation
1765 James Hutton – geology
1770 Jesse Ramsden – screw cutting lathe
1774 Discovery of oxygen
1775 John Wilkinson - cylinder boring
1760-1830 Enclosure Acts
18th century Rapid urbanization in England
1765 Invention of mechanical spinning machine
1698-1769 Invention of steam engine
1781 John Wilkinson – first iron bridge
1788 Boom in crime – deportations to Australia
1786 Steam powered paddle boat
1792 Cotton gin -
1795 Beethoven -
1796 Smallpox vaccination –
1799 Eli Whitney - interchangeable parts
1814 Railroad locomotive -
1825 First public railroad -

The Industrial Revolution has its roots in over a thousand years of steady and remarkable progress that happened long before J. Smith arrived.

Friends

I'm certain that the real progress took place after Andy Pandy or Winnie Pooh was introduced to the planet, rather than having anything to do with Smith's mormon cult.

The actual difference between Andy pandy and the mormon cult is that Andy Pandy doesn't damage you for life.

What???


Were the people who helped industrialize our society mormon??

If not then the mormon god blessed nonmormons, but can't cure the faithful mormons sick kid (from another thread)??

I don't get it...