Chapel Mormons

[Markk]

You really ought not to follow the anti-party line, which is based on false information. Joseph was in his perfect legal right, given his position in the community, to destroy the press for the potential slander and civil unrest it would have caused.

Deborah,

What kind of civil unrest would it have caused, and between who?

How did Joseph have a "perfect legal right", at the very most, and this is questionable, he could of suspended the paper and gave due process, but had no right to touch the press, Dalin Oaks conceded this from what I have read in his opinion. The Illinois state constitution was clear on freedom of the press and the rights of men to say what they choose and for due process if acting irresponsible.

"22. The printing presses shall be free to every person, who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the general assembly or of any branch of government; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.

"23. In prosecutions for the publication of papers investigating the official conduct of officers, or of men acting in a public capacity, or where the matter published is proper for public information, the truth thereof may be given in evidence. And in all indictments for libels, the jury shall have the right of determining both the law and the fact, under the direction of the court as in other cases." (Art. VIII, cl. 22

[Deborah]

How did Joseph have a "perfect legal right", at the very most, and this is questionable,

True the actual destruction of the press may have been questionable, however, Joseph offered to pay for the property which was destroyed. Critics also forget to mention the destruction of Mormon presses by the mobs. And Joseph did not make the decision to destroy the press on his own. In fact it was the city council who made the decision and as FariWiki states:

The city council declares the Expositor a public nuisance and threat to the peace. This was not mere exaggeration; there were sixteen episodes of mob violence against controversial newspapers in Illinois from 1832 to 1867, and so the leaders

[Markk]

Seriously? You can't think of the obvious answer to these questions? Astounding.

Actually, the reason that there are such lame "arguments" like what you have been interjecting here, is because people like you just don't get it. For the life of you, you can't seem to figure out what really matters and what the gospel is really all about. Oh well....that's got to be the Church's fault.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Hi Wade,

Seriously? You can't think of the obvious answer to these questions? Astounding.

No, please help me out here?

Actually, the reason that there are such lame "arguments" like what you have been interjecting here, is because people like you just don't get it. For the life of you, you can't seem to figure out what really matters and what the gospel is really all about. Oh well....that's got to be the Church's fault.

So please help me get why it's OK to teach a partial version of the murder of JS, and yet it is a waste of time to tell the full factual true story the murder?

Mark

[Markk]

True the actual destruction of the press may have been questionable, however, Joseph offered to pay for the property which was destroyed. Critics also forget to mention the destruction of Mormon presses by the mobs. And Joseph did not make the decision to destroy the press on his own. In fact it was the city council who made the decision and as FariWiki states:

Hi Deborah,

Not may have been, he had no right to touch the press or the type, what is questionable is whether or not they had a right to suspend the papers printing, which would have allowed for due process under the federal law, at least from what I have read on the subject and my understanding of the constitution, whether federal due process applied to the State is questionable.

JS did not have a perfect right to destroy the press as you claimed, he simply broke the law. You wrote "...Joseph offered to pay for the property which was destroyed..." So what, he broke the law Deborah, and when some one breaks the law the law requires due process and if guilty a punishment and then restitution, if ordered by the court. One does not just break the law then offer to pay for it and then everything is OK, come on.

As far as Joseph not making the decision himself? He was prophet, king, general,and mayor, he could have stopped it with one word, to imply that this was some sort of voting council is being naive. The context of the expositor was damaging to not only his reputation, but I would guess to his marriage.

Then there is also the moral and ethical application to what he ordered, do you as a saint agree that this action was the right thing to do, or would you put it on par with Jesus' cleansing of the temple?

Finally you didn't answer my question..."What kind of civil unrest would it have caused, and between who? "

Take care

Mark

[jimg]

You do realize that Joseph did not take the gun with him? One of the guards gave him the gun while imprisoned as the mob was starting to gather. The fact that he was trying to protect his friends shouldn't change anything about "going like a lamb to the slaughter." Joseph was ready to die but that doesn't mean he wanted his friends to die.

I agree, Deborah. The account I heard was that JS opened the door when he heard a gang of men running up the stairs, pointed the gun down the stairs with the door open just enough to get his arm through and fired into the group of men that were running up the stairs to get them. Only two barrels fired. This account sounds plausable to me considering the circumstances of the situation.

As I said in another place, I have known about this for many years. When I first came across it, it did try my testimony a little like I expect it is doing to some members here now. But that feeling soon passed when I begin to study the situation a little more. It is perfectly logical that the jailer handed him the gun for the protection of all of them. I understand that the room that they were in was the jailer's living quarters. He had moved them up there to get them out of the dirty cell in the basement where prisoners were usually kept. He probably handed Joseph the gun and left. With a bunch of hot heads shouting threats, shooting guns, and preparing to storm the jail, I suspect the jailer hastily exercised the "better part of valor" and took off.

But, what about those who allow this information to have a permanent affect on their testimonies? Everyone will handle it their own way, but I also know that some have left the church over less than this and that is a shame. Too often we don't wish to allow leaders in the Church to be human.

Jim in Texas

[Markk]

I agree, Deborah. The account I heard was that JS opened the door when he heard a gang of men running up the stairs, pointed the gun down the stairs with the door open just enough to get his arm through and fired into the group of men that were running up the stairs to get them. Only two barrels fired. This account sounds plausable to me considering the circumstances of the situation.

As I said in another place, I have known about this for many years. When I first came across it, it did try my testimony a little like I expect it is doing to some members here now. But that feeling soon passed when I begin to study the situation a little more. It is perfectly logical that the jailer handed him the gun for the protection of all of them. I understand that the room that they were in was the jailer's living quarters. He had moved them up there to get them out of the dirty cell in the basement where prisoners were usually kept. He probably handed Joseph the gun and left. With a bunch of hot heads shouting threats, shooting guns, and preparing to storm the jail, I suspect the jailer hastily exercised the "better part of valor" and took off.

But, what about those who allow this information to have a permanent effect on their testimonies? Everyone will handle it their own way, but I also know that some have left the church over less than this and that is a shame. Too often we don't wish to allow leaders in the Church to be human.

Jim in Texas

Hi Jim,

Good day in Texas if your a Cowboy fan, even a good day for me being a Rams fan, we got our first win.

The Guns were smuggled into JS by other members:

Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking at the same time, Would any of you like to have this?' Brother Joseph immediately replied, `Yes, give it to me,' whereupon he took the pistol, and put it in his pantaloons pocket. The pistol was a six-shooting revolver, of Allen's patent; it belonged to me, and was one that I furnished to Brother Wheelock when he talked of going with me to the east, previous to our coming to Carthage. I have it now in my possession. Brother Wheelock went out on some errand, and was not suffered to return. The report of the governor having gone to Nauvoo without taking the prisoners along with him caused very unpleasant feelings, as we were apprised that we were left to the tender mercies of the Carthage Greys, a company strictly mobocratic, and whom we knew to be our most deadly enemies; and their captain, Esquire [Robert F.] Smith, was a most unprincipled villain. Besides this, all the mob forces, comprising the governor's troops, were dismissed, with the exception of one or two companies, which the governor took with him to Nauvoo. The great part of the mob was liberated, the remainder was our guard.

see all here... http://www.kristus.dk/jkk/text.php?id=90358

Hope this helps

Mark

[Markk]

Exactly its like asking if the church is hiding what color of pants Joseph had on, it is just not that important of a detail to always list in all accounts of the murder of Joseph.

Hi Clair,

I missed this one? So Joseph shooting three men in his defense is the same as what color pants he had on? But Taylor and his walking stick is important? Or his hiding under the bed? But of coarse JS drinking wine to calm his nerves in the jail is not important either, seems to be a pattern where negative press about JS is not what is important. It is important Clair, it was to me and it is to thousands of other LDS members in which it has dented their testimony.

Take care

Mark

[Zakuska]

Incidentally, as the bishop of a singles ward, there is probably not a week when I don't admonish my ward members to attend Institute classes. We even have an active ward committee tasked with the assignment of encouraging such attendance, and I've chosen two of my best, most consistent, and most reliable ward members to head that committee up.

Since I know for a fact that the pistol is covered in the Institute's history class, there can really be no excuse for any member of my ward not to learn about it. And I know that the other wards in my stake offer similar encouragement and have similar committees.

If there's an attempt by the Church to suppress this story, I certainly see no evidence of it.

"

Nothing is better hidden than in plain sight."

[Zakuska]

It has been stated many times that Jesus Himself went into the Garden of Gethsemane with armed retainers. How could he have not known that his apostles were not armed?

Well beings how it was he himself who told them to buy them... he'd have to have a pretty short memory.

[Daniel Peterson]

It's my fault, it was my parents fault, and for those thousands or millions who didn't find out until late in life or after their conversion, or still don't know, it is their fault also

It's a widely known fact. The Church published lots of things mentioning it. You didn't know it.

Therefore, it's the Church's fault that you didn't know it.

Have I captured your argument pretty well?

the church has no reason ability of not being clear and part of the martyrdom story in the very most of their 20th century publications until the Internet age.

The Church has been publishing accounts of the martyrdom that mention the pistol since 1844. Since 1844, Markk! (Hint: In what year did anti-Mormons murder Joseph Smith?)

It is my fault I understood and was shocked in that I believed that JS went to his death like a lamb to slaughter as an example as Christ did. Again it's my fault."

No, it's the Church's fault that you didn't know what many, many others knew because you didn't read what many, many others had read.

Plainly, it's the Church's fault. Right?

Bad Church! Bad!

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, that the church did not make the full story as standard teaching and left it out of so many talks and official teaching manuals for a reason?

I can't imagine why the Church decided to suppress the story by telling it in numerous publications. I really can't figure that one out. Baffling.

I could care less if you answer this question but do me a favor and think about it, as far as I know according to the wiki quote, there was a hundred year stretch or so until it was published in an official teaching manual or often read publication.

The wiki doesn't claim, anywhere that I've read in it, to be giving an exhaustive list of all the places in which the secret, unknown, mysterious pistol was cunningly hidden through publication. It simply demonstrates that the hidden, clandestine, unmentioned pistol was mentioned in numerous places beginning almost immediately after the martyrdom.

Here, for example, is yet another place in which the leaders of the Church cunningly managed to hide the story of the pistol by openly discussing it: Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1966), 383.

Essentials in Church History was originally published in 1922, and was an official publication of the Church ("Copyright 1950, George Albert Smith, Trustee-in-Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," reads my copy), and went through numerous printings. (My 1966 printing was the twenty-first edition of the book, and there were several beyond that date.) Essentials in Church History is not mentioned, so far as I can see, in the FAIRwiki article. Yet finding such publications is easy. And you could have done it, too! The fact that you didn't bother to read such things, though, is plainly . . . the Church's fault!

If you believe that there really was a hundred-year period during which the secret pistol was actually not mentioned in any sermons or Church publications, please feel free to demonstrate that. I can't see any room at all for a century-long silence, though, even in the list given by the FAIRwiki article itself, even if we pretend that Essentials in Church History didn't go through roughly twenty-five printings between 1922 and, say, 1972:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Martyrdom/Hiding_Joseph%27s_gun

Where is the hundred-year silence?

Was the Internet around in 1922 when Joseph Fielding Smith published Essentials in Church History?

Was the Internet around in 1966 when the twenty-first edition of Joseph Fielding Smith's Essentials in Church History was published?

Was the Church cleverly conspiring to keep you in the dark concerning the secret pistol by discussing it in Essentials in Church History?

Question, has a GA in modern Mormonism, before say 2000, when discussing the martyrdom told the full story say in chapel or conference, I don't know? At any rate keep it up.

I have no idea. Since the tale of the secret, mysterious pistol has been known to me for as long as I can remember, I've never really paid attention. Please do the research and report to us.

Dan, there is a world out here beyond academia,

I'm quite well aware of that, Markk. I worked construction through my doctorate. None of my relatives are academics. Most never graduated from college. My extended family mostly works in construction and on farms. One uncle was a truck driver. If you want to condescend to me by suggesting that I've never been out of the ivory tower, you might want to reconsider your strategy. It won't work on me.

maybe you were reading the times and season in your youth, or researching how

[volgadon]

I took a look at some of the books in my grandparents' library. William Edwin berrett's The Restored Church from 1961 (though this copy was printed in 68) mentions both wine and gun.

But most importantly, the 7 volume History of the Church does!!!!!!!!!!!!

The paperback set from 1978 is and was widely available. If my parents had a set in Israel and read it, whats your excuse?

[volgadon]

I'm quite well aware of that, Markk. I worked construction through my doctorate. None of my relatives are academics. Most never graduated from college. My extended family mostly works in construction and on farms. One uncle was a truck driver. If you want to condescend to me by suggesting that I've never been out of the ivory tower, you might want to reconsider your strategy. It won't work on me.

That is awesome. I haven't gotten to school yet, but after 15 hour shifts at the oil drum factory, I'd relax with the scrriptures, cram a little bit for a geography exam, then read Gedalya Alon's History of the Jews in their Land, that sort of thing.

When I worked at the cannery I spent the lunch break and spare moments studying Ukrainian and Armenian, as well as scripture study, as well as some Sabatini and Fu Manchu, not to mention writing a bit, learning more Jewish paraliturgical songs, and I must say that I began to understand a bit of Arabic.

None of this is to boast, its just I find the notion ridiculous that when it comes to academic and working class worlds, never the twain shall meet!

[mysteryman]

Hi Guys,

Wow, So here is another "Dan you made my point moment...pal (LoL on the pal). "It's my fault, it was my parents fault, and for those thousands or millions who didn't find out until late in life or after their conversion, or still don't know, it is their fault also, the church has no reason ability of not being clear and part of the martyrdom story in the very most of their 20th century publications until the Internet age. It is my fault I understood and was shocked in that I believed that JS went to his death like a lamb to slaughter as an example as Christ did. Again it's my fault."

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, that the church did not make the full story as standard teaching and left it out of so many talks and official teaching manuals for a reason? I could care less if you answer this question but do me a favor and think about it, as far as I know according to the wiki quote, there was a hundred year stretch or so until it was published in an official teaching manual or often read publication. Question, has a GA in modern Mormonism, before say 2000, when discussing the martyrdom told the full story say in chapel or conference, I don't know? At any rate keep it up.

The Tanners did more to making this know than the Modern LDS church

[tsubotsubo]

It talks about Joseph Smith shooting 3 men on the church website!

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=35b6425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

The four men had two firearms among them, left behind by friends: a single-shot pistol Joseph had passed to Hyrum and a six-shot pistol, called a pepperbox, which the Prophet retained. They also had two walking canes: a large hickory stick called a

[Markk]

It's a widely known fact. The Church published lots of things mentioning it. You didn't know it.

Therefore, it's the Church's fault that you didn't know it.

Have I captured your argument pretty well?

The Church has been publishing accounts of the martyrdom that mention the pistol since 1844. Since 1844, Markk! (Hint: In what year did anti-Mormons murder Joseph Smith?)

No, it's the Church's fault that you didn't know what many, many others knew because you didn't read what many, many others had read.

Plainly, it's the Church's fault. Right?

Bad Church! Bad!

I can't imagine why the Church decided to suppress the story by telling it in numerous publications. I really can't figure that one out. Baffling.

The wiki doesn't claim, anywhere that I've read in it, to be giving an exhaustive list of all the places in which the secret, unknown, mysterious pistol was cunningly hidden through publication. It simply demonstrates that the hidden, clandestine, unmentioned pistol was mentioned in numerous places beginning almost immediately after the martyrdom.

Here, for example, is yet another place in which the leaders of the Church cunningly managed to hide the story of the pistol by openly discussing it: Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1966), 383.

Essentials in Church History was originally published in 1922, and was an official publication of the Church ("Copyright 1950, George Albert Smith, Trustee-in-Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," reads my copy), and went through numerous printings. (My 1966 printing was the twenty-first edition of the book, and there were several beyond that date.) Essentials in Church History is not mentioned, so far as I can see, in the FAIRwiki article. Yet finding such publications is easy. And you could have done it, too! The fact that you didn't bother to read such things, though, is plainly . . . the Church's fault!

If you believe that there really was a hundred-year period during which the secret pistol was actually not mentioned in any sermons or Church publications, please feel free to demonstrate that. I can't see any room at all for a century-long silence, though, even in the list given by the FAIRwiki article itself, even if we pretend that Essentials in Church History didn't go through roughly twenty-five printings between 1922 and, say, 1972:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Martyrdom/Hiding_Joseph%27s_gun

Where is the hundred-year silence?

Was the Internet around in 1922 when Joseph Fielding Smith published Essentials in Church History?

Was the Internet around in 1966 when the twenty-first edition of Joseph Fielding Smith's Essentials in Church History was published?

Was the Church cleverly conspiring to keep you in the dark concerning the secret pistol by discussing it in Essentials in Church History?

I have no idea. Since the tale of the secret, mysterious pistol has been known to me for as long as I can remember, I've never really paid attention. Please do the research and report to us.

I'm quite well aware of that, Markk. I worked construction through my doctorate. None of my relatives are academics. Most never graduated from college. My extended family mostly works in construction and on farms. One uncle was a truck driver. If you want to condescend to me by suggesting that I've never been out of the ivory tower, you might want to reconsider your strategy. It won't work on me.

I grew up in southern California, too. I played baseball, too. (My hero was Don Drysdale.) I grew up before the Internet, too. I didn't grow up reading the Times and Seasons, either. I had never heard of C. C. A. Christensen, either.

Yet I knew about the secret, suppressed pistol very, very early on.

Yes. Your choice, your fault.

Certainly not the Church's.

Quite.

.

Hi Dan,

Real quick on my way to work but...!

One uncle was a truck driver.

Got me on that one Dan

more later

got to love it

Mark

[Daniel Peterson]

That is awesome. I haven't gotten to school yet, but after 15 hour shifts at the oil drum factory, I'd relax with the scrriptures, cram a little bit for a geography exam, then read Gedalya Alon's History of the Jews in their Land, that sort of thing.

When I worked at the cannery I spent the lunch break and spare moments studying Ukrainian and Armenian, as well as scripture study, as well as some Sabatini and Fu Manchu, not to mention writing a bit, learning more Jewish paraliturgical songs, and I must say that I began to understand a bit of Arabic.

None of this is to boast, its just I find the notion ridiculous that when it comes to academic and working class worlds, never the twain shall meet!

I read The Communist Manifesto one summer during lunch breaks from my construction job. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to get in touch with my proletarian roots.

It may be true in some countries that the academic elite have never done manual labor. It's not true in the United States, though, and it's not true in Israel: If nothing else, the IDF is a great leveler.

[Markk]

I read The Communist Manifesto one summer during lunch breaks from my construction job. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to get in touch with my proletarian roots.

It may be true in some countries that the academic elite have never done manual labor. It's not true in the United States, though, and it's not true in Israel: If nothing else, the IDF is a great leveler.

Hi Dan,

I'm with you on this one, one summer of lunch's I got through three issues of the Alfred E. Neuman series, I particually enjoyed the articles by Don Martin.

take care

Mark

[Scott Lloyd]

Let me just say I am incredulous that, given the ample demonstrations to the contrary, somebody is still trying to sustain the fiction that the Church hides the fact of Joseph having been given a firearm for protection while in Carthage Jail.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Let me just say I am incredulous that, given the ample demonstrations go the contrary, somebody is still trying to sustain the fiction that the Church hides the fact of Joseph having been given a firearm for protection while in Carthage Jail.

The least he could do is pick an example that can more plausibly be dubbed as "hidding it's history". The gun at teh jail is a horrible example of this. What is really interesting is how this critic clings to his guns, so to speak. Anything to smear the mormons.

[Scott Lloyd]

Hi Dan,

I'm with you on this one, one summer of lunch's I got through three issues of the Alfred E. Neuman series, I particually enjoyed the articles by Don Martin.

take care

Mark

You haven't said whether this category of literature comprises the length and breadth of your reading material of choice, but if it does, it helps explain your apparent contempt for academia.

[Scott Lloyd]

The least he could do is pick an example that can more plausibly be dubbed as "hidding it's history". The gun at teh jail is a horrible example of this. What is really interesting is how this critic clings to his guns, so to speak. Anything to smear the mormons.

Next to "adieu" in the Book of Mormon and Christ being born at Jerusalem (the land, not the city), this has got to be one of the dumbest anti-Mormon arguments in the catalog.

[Daniel Peterson]

Next to "adieu" in the Book of Mormon and Christ being born at Jerusalem (the land, not the city), this has got to be one of the dumbest anti-Mormon arguments in the catalog.

I'm afraid that I have to agree with you on that.

But the determination with which a critic clings to this one -- didn't Obama say something about certain people clinging to their guns and religion? (perhaps we just didn't understand what he was referring to) -- does, it seems to me, say a whole lot about the depth of that critic's hostility toward the Church, and about his or her fairness of mind.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Next to "adieu" in the Book of Mormon and Christ being born at Jerusalem (the land, not the city), this has got to be one of the dumbest anti-Mormon arguments in the catalog.

We should start an "adieu" thread just to see what Markk does. Lol.

[Scott Lloyd]

We should start an "adieu" thread just to see what Markk does. Lol.

We have a labrador/collie at home who, when we get him in the car, goes into full, fierce attack-dog mode whenever we turn on the windshield wipers. It is fascinating -- and amusing -- to watch, but I try not to do it too often, lest the poor animal injure himself.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

We have a labrador/collie at home who, when we get him in the car, goes into full, fierce attack-dog mode whenever we turn on the windshield wipers. It is fascinating -- and amusing -- to watch, but I try not to do it too often, lest the poor animal injure himself.

I can see the wisdom in that.