Chapel Mormons

[Markk]

The way to understand me is by learning to ask the right questions. For starters, here is a key question to ask yourself: "What aspects of history ought I to focus on in order to come to Christ and better become more like Christ?"

If your answer in any way involves fussing over the possible lack of mention of the gun in Sunday lesson materials prior to 2000, then you need some serious help that goes well beyond what can be provided on a message board such as this.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

"What aspects of history ought I to focus on in order to come to Christ and better become more like Christ?"

The truth?

Is the story with out the gun important to become Christ like?

Mark

[Daniel Peterson]

You just don't get it, I was taught over and over in church the story w/o the gun, never with the gun.

It's possible that the story was never ever taught in your presence. It's also possible that it was taught and that you weren't paying attention. Given all of the evidence that has been presented here, I'm strongly inclined toward the latter.

I asked about the lesson books because I really don't think it was taught, if it was, not very often. Try to focus on this Dan. I could care less about Berrett,

You asked about lesson manuals. Berrett was a lesson manual. Yet you say you don't care about Berrett . . .

Do you care at all about making sense?

Did the church teach it or not?

Since the Church indisputably published manuals discussing it, produced films portraying it, printed magazine articles containing it, issued books covering it, and produced displays featuring it, I would think it rather safe to say that, yes, the Church taught it.

Your saying you have no way of knowing how many teaching manuals have it, yet you link cf's of dutch,french, and who knows what other languages, and you don't know if the church did?

Not knowing how many manuals contained it is quite a different matter than knowing whether or not the Church taught it.

I've demonstrated the latter beyond any reasonable question. Multiple times. In multiple ways. Repeatedly. Over and over again. The Church taught it. There can be no plausible question about that.

But it's true that I don't have a complete collection of 1844-2009 Church manuals here at home with me, so I'm unable to tell you precisely how many manuals featured it. Comprende?

[Tsuzuki]

You just don't get it, I was taught over and over in church the story w/o the gun, never with the gun.

I first learned the story with the gun in a children's picture book when I was 8.

[Markk]

Prior to my mission, I can't recall exactly when I first heard it (it was over a quarter of a century ago). I know that I heard it as a teenager. It was likely in Seminary. Unfortunately, the only Seminary manual I still have is the Book of Mormon one. It would have been in the D&C one if it was there at all. I do know that by the time of my mission, I already knew about it. Back then we used filmstrips. We loved to show filmstrips to the investigators, and they loved to see them. We had "The First Vision," "Christ in America" and "The Martyrdom." I really liked watching "The Martyrdom." It really evoked some feelings in me and with the investigators. The filmstrip talked of the gun, but like I said, that wasn't where I first learned of it. It has just always been part of the story for as long as I can remember knowing it. Sorry I can't be more specific.

I just went to my shelf and pulled down a book called "Joseph Smith and the Restoration" by Ivan J. Barrett just to see what it had. This book appears to have been first published in 1910, and my copy is dated 1982 (11th printing). On page 614 it says:

I first read it in an "anti" book, I didn't believe it, went to the local library which had a large section of LDS lit. and the Barrett book was the only one that had it out 7 or 8 accounts. I went to my folks and dug through their books and none of them had it, I finally had to get ahold of THOTC to show the and they probably still don't believe it,at least my mother, it upset her.

Do you remember it ever being taught in primary or jr SS, I understand it it now, but it was never was when I was taught.

I don't know where you live but if you casually brought it up in a talk what do you think the response would be?

Thanks

Mark

[Jeff K.]

Joined the church when I was around 16, seminary taught it with a gun.

Apparently somebody wasn't paying attention in seminary. One wonders what else they weren't paying attention to when they started complaining about imaginary wrongs.

[Daniel Peterson]

Do you remember it ever being taught in primary or jr SS, I understand it it now, but it was never was when I was taught.

It was in the seminary manual.

Seminary students are often as young as 13-14 years old.

I don't know where you live but if you casually brought it up in a talk what do you think the response would be?

I expect that all of my neighbors have known about it for many years. I would be very surprised if they haven't.

[Calm]

I just went to my shelf and pulled down a book called "Joseph Smith and the Restoration" by Ivan J. Barrett just to see what it had. This book appears to have been first published in 1910, and my copy is dated 1982 (11th printing). On page 614 it says:

I think you have a typo, from my Eborn Guide it states the dates as 67, 73, 77, 80

[wenglund]

The truth?

Is the story with out the gun important to become Christ like?

Mark

It's not important either way. Obviously!

If it happens to get mentioned, then fine. If it is not mentioned, then still fine. Either way, it is inane for you to concern yourself over it, let alone allow it to be something of a catalyst for your loss of faith. For your sake and everyone elses, try and find something that actually matters to our becoming like christ to worry and fret about.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Bernard Gui]

Here's an excellent example of the leadership of the Church trying to sweep the gun issue under the rug:

Thomas S. Monson,

[Wiki Wonka]

I first read it in an "anti" book, I didn't believe it, went to the local library which had a large section of LDS lit. and the Barrett book was the only one that had it out 7 or 8 accounts. I went to my folks and dug through their books and none of them had it, I finally had to get ahold of THOTC to show the and they probably still don't believe it,at least my mother, it upset her.

Do you remember it ever being taught in primary or jr SS, I understand it it now, but it was never was when I was taught.

I don't know where you live but if you casually brought it up in a talk what do you think the response would be?

Thanks

Mark

I never had access to anti books back in those days. (I have a shelf full now, but that's because of my work with FAIR) I grew up in California, and still live there.

I wouldn't even hesitate to mention it in a talk. My High Priests group hears a lot more interesting stuff than that when I teach. They always ask me to teach any lesson that involves Church history because they tell me they like all of the extra detail I add to it.

[mysteryman]

Hi Dan,

You just don't get it, I was taught over and over in church the story w/o the gun, never with the gun. I asked about the lesson books because I really don't think it was taught, if it was, not very often. Try to focus on this Dan. I could care less about Berrett, or a guy with paintings running around the country. Did the church teach it or not? Your saying you have no way of knowing how many teaching manuals have it, yet you link cf's of dutch,french, and who knows what other languages, and you don't know if the church did?

O'well

take care

Mark

Why do you keep kicking this dead horse? Dan Peterson has demonstrated beyond doubt it was in church manuals and other publications and videos of the church. It is taught, you are WRONG!!!!! How many times must you be PROVEN wrong on this issue? There is no point in continuing to argue when you have been PROVEN WRONG over and over and over again.

[volgadon]

What pre 2000, or so, lesson manuals? We have already discussed that the very most of these publications were not practically available to saints, if at all,before the Internet, the context is teaching Dan. I am trying to figure out why this is my fault if I never had it taught to me growing up in the church?

Were you ever taught this by a teacher in church when being taught the martyrdom on Sunday growing up in the So Cal Church?

OK, I never learned this because I was never taught this by LDS teachers in the LDS church, nor was my parents, or many many other relatives and members...how's that, it seems as if you believe I'm the first one to make this statement...why?

Mark

Are you saying that the History of the Church was not practically available?

Are you also saying that you never felt a desire to learn more?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Here's an excellent example of the leadership of the Church trying to sweep the gun issue under the rug:

Bernard

I remember this, I was in 10th grade at the time, and this is probably the first time I had heard about though I can't remember for sure if it was this instance or another.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Hi Mola,

The fact that he had a gun is simply the truth, and by using the gun sheds a different light on him and of his character as compared to the teaching that was pounded into me that he went to his death in a similar fashion as Christ did. If you do not understand this, you have no clue what my argument is. It's not about the gun Mola, please try to understand this it's about the story of his martyrdom and how the use of the gun changed it

Mark

It does shed a differnt light? Yeah it is, you think that because you missed out on some inane detail that this some how changes that JS died and went like a lamb to the slaughter. He was going to die and there was no way out. So because JS tryied to defend himself with a pistol against a mob he had a pretty good chance of gunning his way ouot of the jail? Is that what you are impling? This is rediuclous. You are making an issue out of a non issue. It isn't my problem and there is nothing you can do to make it my problem. Sorry.

Now maybe if JS had a tank or a machine gun then maybe you would have a point, if he was some how able to kill the whole mob, but the fact is he didn't and he was going to die no matter what he did. Defending himself in no way disqualifies him self from being led like a lamb to the slaughter.

[Wiki Wonka]

Do you remember it ever being taught in primary or jr SS, I understand it it now, but it was never was when I was taught.

Sorry, I missed answering this question because I was typing my last response on an iPod.

I don't remember much at all from Primary or Jr. Sunday School (about 40 years ago) except learning the songs "Give Said the Little Stream" and "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree," so I really couldn't tell you whether or not Joseph's gun was mentioned there. I doubt that it ever was. I'm pretty sure that I learned about it in Seminary. That's where I remember learning the details of things that weren't taught on Sunday.

Both Joseph's and Hyrum's guns are displayed in the Church History Library. Here's a picture of Joseph's pepperbox pistol:

Here's one that shows both pistols (Joseph's is on the right):

[tsubotsubo]

I'll admit, I wasn't taught about the gun in seminary, but I was taught about the burning of the printing press, and I'd heard about the gun before my seminary days anyway.

I was however told in seminary that Joseph Smith married 14 year-old girls (although, being around the same age as those girls at the time, I didn't find it distrubing), and also, the other day, I was reading through the seminary manual for the D&C and church history course, and it said that plural marriages still happened after OD1! It's on page 183 for those that don't believe me.

How can people say the church hides these things?

To be honest, the only thing I haven't seen in church material is the fact that Joseph Smith married other men's wives, but pretty much everything else I've read or heard in a church book, lesson, talk, etc.

[Daniel Peterson]

Both Joseph's and Hyrum's guns are displayed in the Church History Library. Here's a picture of Joseph's pepperbox pistol:

But . . . But . . .

Not everybody lives in Salt Lake City. Many people don't ever visit the Museum of Church History and Art. And even those who do don't always see the particular display case in which the pistol sits.

So this doesn't prove at all that the Church isn't hiding the pistol.

The only way the Church can demonstrate that it isn't hiding the pistol is to put the pistol in a museum that everybody visits, in a city in which everybody lives, and to compel everyone to gaze at it and to listen to the story about it. But even that won't demonstrate anything about the pre-Internet age, in which the Church never mentioned or taught about the pistol.

QED. Case closed.

[Scott Lloyd]

At this point, I have to think that Markk is only trying to yank our chain. There are only so many ways to say and demonstrate the clear-as-day fact that the Church has repeatedly noted in lesson manuals and other sources over the years that Joseph had a pistol at Carthage -- right down to displaying the very pistol at its flagship museum at Church headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City.

To continue to assert or imply that the Church has tried to hide or cover up the fact is argumentative in the extreme

[Wiki Wonka]

To be honest, the only thing I haven't seen in church material is the fact that Joseph Smith married other men's wives, but pretty much everything else I've read or heard in a church book, lesson, talk, etc.

Interesting that you should mention that. I first learned about that in 1980 as I was listening to a Dramatized Church History tape. Joseph asks Heber Kimball to give his wife Vilate to him. I remember Vilate sounding really ticked off about it.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

At this point, I have to think that Markk is only trying to yank our chain. There are only so many ways to say and demonstrate the clear-as-day fact that the Church has repeatedly noted in lesson manuals and other sources over the years that Joseph had a pistol at Carthage -- right down to displaying the very pistol at its flagship museum at Church headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City.

To continue to assert or imply that the Church has tried to hide or cover up the fact is argumentative in the extreme

Here is what Markk said his main point of contention is.

It's not about the gun Mola, please try to understand this it's about the story of his martyrdom and how the use of the gun changed it

So for some reason Markk thinks that the gun not being told makes JS claim to being led like a lamb to the slaughter impossible. I would like for Markk to engage it then and tell us how that disqualifies Markk.

I agree that he is yanking our chaines. Clearly the church has taught about the gun so I have no idea what he is up to.

[Scott Lloyd]

Here is what Markk said his main point of contention is.

So for some reason Markk thinks that the gun not being told makes JS claim to being led like a lamb to the slaughter impossible.

Calmoriah addressed this very well in a post yesterday. From what I can see, Markk has yet to provide a cogent response.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Calmoriah addressed this very well in a post yesterday. From what I can see, Markk has yet to provide a cogent response.

I think so too. And I am bringing it up solely so Markk will address it. Him just saying that "it changes how we should think of JS" just doesn't make it so.

[Scott Lloyd]

I don't know where you live but if you casually brought it up in a talk what do you think the response would be?

If the listeners of such a talk had been paying attention in Sunday School gospel doctrine class, they are apt to have encountered it very recently, as the teacher's manual currently in use, in a lesson about the martyrdom a few weeks ago, contains this passage in an eyewitness account from Willard Richards:

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I don't know where you live but if you casually brought it up in a talk what do you think the response would be?

There responce would be non exsitant. I know I just brought it up to some one that didn't know about it. She really couldn't see the point. I then tried to put the negative spin on it that you do and she was even more confused. In the end she just shrugged her shoulders And said, "Yeah so JS had a gun. Ooooooooh."

[ttribe]

There responce would be non exsitant. I know I just brought it up to some one that didn't know about it. She really couldn't see the point. I then tried to put the spin on you did and she was even more confused. In the end she just shrugged her shoulders And said, "Yeah so JS had a gun. Ooooooooh."

Ohhh...but that just shows how blinded the sheeple are! You see, it takes the revolutionaries, such as our friend Markk, to reveal what the Church has been "hiding" in plain sight for all these years. Didn't you know that?