Bloody Brigham

[rockslider]

First off, there's only one unpardonable sin, and, as much as we have confidence in you, rs, you're not a candidate.

Second, remember that one undertakes to give up one's own life, if necessary, rather than violate one's covenants with G-d.

That is the most important thing to remember when discussing the so-called "blood atonement" doctrine as taught by BY.

Second most important thing is that there are no instances of it ever being invoked in the real world, least of all against XIXth Century Gentiles, where those stories that get passed around are set.

Fact is, there's not a lick of objective evidence that supports there was ever anything like what the antis pass around.

This makes what they pass around a libel.

The Blood Atonement Libel.

And it's pretty nauseating that grown men and women buy into it.

So with a single stroke, you write off all the noted items in the mentioned wiki (did you even peruse it?)

I noticed the javelin quotes mentioned in the article. If this was a single, isolated instance that would be one thing, but there appears to be fair list of various items from various angles that help paint a picture of the doctrine as it was taught by the FP at the time (apparently BY

[Scott Lloyd]

That men today get offended at his words is a reflection on them and their feminization.

[paulpatter]

Mudcat, how can you say that in light of this: "Every man and women has got to have clean hands and pure heart, to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone."?

Get it right, kiddo.

In Post #30, you provide what you regard as "context" for my post in which I cite President Young's statement from Volume 3 of the Journal of Discourses (p. 247). You imagine that what BY said before and after his statement that I quoted somehow ameliorates/excuses his claim that taking the law into one's own hands via blood atonement is perfectly acceptable; i.e., "I would do so at once in such a case. . .and I would do it with clean hands."

Apparently, you approve of BY's position, with the proviso that "Every man and women [sic] has got to have clean hands and pure heart, to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone." Well, that solves everything, inasmuch as the murderer--and the murderer alone--has decided that he has "clean hands and [a] pure heart" and proceeds to kill people. How very convenient.

BY states--in an act of "exemplary" compassion-- that he wouldn't do the "javelin thing" if "the parties are not caught in their iniquity." Is that "big" of him, or what?

Oh, and let's not overlook this (more "context"): "There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it. . . ."

Obviously, BY believed and taught the doctrine of blood atonement. Your posting all of p. 247 reinforces that conclusion; hence, thank you.

[Scott Lloyd]

Obviously, BY believed and taught the doctrine of blood atonement. Your posting all of p. 247 reinforces that conclusion; hence, thank you.

In light of what has been posted here about blood atonement not having any application to Gentiles, are you still sticking to your story on the now closed Mountain Meadows thread that "Brigham Young's commitment to blood atonement was also a factor" in the massacre?

Nobody, especially not you, ever bothered to answer my question on that thread about what relevance blood atonement would have had in the incident. Are you ready now to answer or, alternatively, retract your earlier statement?

[Zakuska]

That men today get offended at his words is a reflection on them and their feminization.

1. Alma 56: 48 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

[oats]

After reading the talk I question what Brigham meant by what is recorded as, "and I would do it with clean hands."

Did he mean that he would only do it if he had clean hands? The theme of the talk revolves around human frailties. Is it likely that he was able to discourse on that topic, admitting that everyone has thousands of weaknesses, but then admit that he had 'clean hands' enough to pass and execute judgment?

The statement in the context you assume does not make sense when considered along with the rest of the talk.

[Deborah]

1. Alma 56: 48 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

And look what men they turned out to be. No wimpy wimps there.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Second most important thing is that there are no instances of it ever being invoked in the real world, least of all against XIXth Century Gentiles, where those stories that get passed around are set.

Fact is, there's not a lick of objective evidence that supports there was ever anything like what the antis pass around.

Rockslider missed this the first time around. So I thought it worthy of a 2nd post.

[Zakuska]

And look what men they turned out to be. No wimpy wimps there.

Nope. No Mama's boys in the group. Their Mama's didn't coddle them and feminize them either. They taught them what real men do.

[Scott Lloyd]

I, too, am a lifelong member and have served in positions like yours. However, I have also published in the area of violence in Brigham Young's day.

What would you say is the single best piece of evidence that Brigham Young authorized a specific act of blood-spilling during his administration? Authorizing the killing of the army's cattle doesn't count.

Bob

[tick-tock tick-tock] ...

[crickets chirping] ...

[earth rotating] ...

[continents drifting] ...

[Pahoran]

In Post #30, you provide what you regard as "context" for my post in which I cite President Young's statement from Volume 3 of the Journal of Discourses (p. 247). You imagine that what BY said before and after his statement that I quoted somehow ameliorates/excuses his claim that taking the law into one's own hands via blood atonement is perfectly acceptable; i.e., "I would do so at once in such a case. . .and I would do it with clean hands."

Call for references that Brigham actually owned a javelin.

Because if he didn't, then there is simply no way that any of that could be any more than rhetorical flourish.

Apparently, you approve of BY's position, with the proviso that "Every man and women [sic] has got to have clean hands and pure heart, to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone." Well, that solves everything, inasmuch as the murderer--and the murderer alone--has decided that he has "clean hands and [a] pure heart" and proceeds to kill people. How very convenient.

Call for references that Brigham ever ordered, authorised or condoned such an act in real life.

You see Paul, every single time you post, you simply provide support for what I wrote in post #3, to wit:

The remarkable thing about the myth of "Bloody Brigham" is that the accusers (Greek, diaboloi) actually have no evidence, and they quite obviously know it. This is because, when called upon to furnish evidence of Brigham's bloodthirsty deeds, they immediately fall back upon tendentious misinterpretations of his words.

So Paul, with your industry-standard, off-the-shelf, shrink-wrapped and pre-packaged anti-Mormon argument -- complete with the standard-issue prooftexts -- you are doing your best to prove me right.

Would you like a cheque, or do you prefer Amex?

Regards,

Pahoran

[rockslider]

Rockslider missed this the first time around. So I thought it worthy of a 2nd post.

It did not make much sense the first time around, your bumping it has added nothing ... exactly what is "it" ... the information that I have linked is fairly broad.

With my main point being the doctrine of blood atonement was clearly taught ... are you both saying this is a false statement?

[Pahoran]

It did not make much sense the first time around, your bumping it has added nothing ... exactly what is "it" ... the information that I have linked is fairly broad.

With my main point being the doctrine of blood atonement was clearly taught ... are you both saying this is a false statement?

Yet another accuser who has to rely upon Brigham's words to "prove" how "bloodthirsty" he was.

Which is as close to an admission that you have no deeds to accuse him of, as we can ever expect to get.

Regards,

Pahoran

[paulpatter]

In light of what has been posted here about blood atonement not having any application to Gentiles, are you still sticking to your story on the now closed Mountain Meadows thread that "Brigham Young's commitment to blood atonement was also a factor" in the massacre?

Your supposition that BY's blood atonement doctrine did not apply to Gentiles is questionable at best. In a Feb. 8, 1857, sermon delivered in the tabernacle and published in the Deseret News on Feb. 18, President Young rehearsed the rationale for his belief in blood atonement. Here are two on-point excerpts:

"All mankind [underlining added] love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation."

"I could refer you to plenty of instances where men have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. . . . This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. . .that is the way to love mankind" [emphases added]. It is not a stretch to say that BY was sanctioning murder, in certain situations, by individuals acting alone. In fact, he was encouraging it. Astounding!

: Nobody, especially not you, ever bothered to answer my question on that thread about what relevance blood atonement would have had in the incident. Are you ready now to answer or, alternatively, retract your earlier statement?

You are aware, I'm sure, of the Reformation movement BY initiated circa 1856. BY felt the Saints were losing their righteousness. He said "If you do not pursue a righteous course, we will separate you from the Church" (Deseret News, Nov. 28, 1855). He appointed Jedediah Grant to crack down on the Saints. Grant took actions, including investigating virtually every aspect of the Saints' lives, that led to an orgy of religious zealotry. That zealotry included acceptance of Young's blood atonement doctrine. (Note: BY's private statements re. blood atonement were especially harsh. Regarding the unrighteous, he told the Council of Fifty in March, 1849, "I want their cursed heads cut off that they may atone for their sins" (Mormonn Chronicle, I:98-99, edited by Brooks and Cleland).

I do not believe that Brigham Young was an accessory before the fact in the MMM, but I do believe he helped to set the stage for that tragedy via the Reformation. I also believe he was clearly an accessory after the fact (documentation abounds, and I'm willing to provide it).

Retract my earlier statement? No way.

[rockslider]

Yet another accuser who has to rely upon Brigham's words to "prove" how "bloodthirsty" he was.

Which is as close to an admission that you have no deeds to accuse him of, as we can ever expect to get.

Regards,

Pahoran

Holy cow ... could someone please point out where I have accused anyone of anything. Are you people incapable of a discussion of blood atonement?

I assume the continual personal attacks and total avoidance of anything that I have brought up for discussion implies that no one here believes that blood atonement was taught from BY and his FP.

This does surprise me, as it is a doctrine that I had no problem with as a TBM, heck Gary, a child murder seemed to understand the principle pretty well. The capital punisment options of Idaho and Utah (big location surprise there) seemed to understand it just fine.

Useless

[USU78]

This does surprise me, as it is a doctrine that I had no problem with as a TBM, heck Gary [Gilmore], a child murder seemed to understand the principle pretty well. The capital punisment options of Idaho and Utah (big location surprise there) seemed to understand it just fine.

There's your problem: a psychotic child murderer misinterpreted what was said to Frontier Mormon audiences in the 1860s-70s and, 100 odd years later with all the cultural and semantic and lexical drift that occurs even in so xenophobic a place as XXth Century France, let alone backwoods Utah, acted on something nobody ever acted on before with BY's approval or, so far as we can tell, without it.

Why should we care what a psycho sicko thinks BY meant, when we know about as well as anybody can know anything that BY never ordered or approved or himself committed any act in furtherance of the Blood Atonement Libel?

What's up with Gary Gilmore anyway? Sicko wanted to create a stir and leave a bloody corpse behind. What's that got to do with us?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

It did not make much sense the first time around, your bumping it has added nothing ... exactly what is "it" ... the information that I have linked is fairly broad.

With my main point being the doctrine of blood atonement was clearly taught ... are you both saying this is a false statement?

Try to wrap your head around this one. Even if I gave you the benefit of the doubt and went along with what you think BY taught, it was never practiced. DO you have evidence to the contrary?

[rockslider]

There's your problem: a psychotic child murderer misinterpreted what was said to Frontier Mormon audiences in the 1860s-70s and, 100 odd years later with all the cultural and semantic and lexical drift that occurs even in so xenophobic a place as XXth Century France, let alone backwoods Utah, acted on something nobody ever acted on before with BY's approval or, so far as we can tell, without it.

Why should we care what a psycho sicko thinks BY meant, when we know about as well as anybody can know anything that BY never ordered or approved or himself committed any act in furtherance of the Blood Atonement Libel?

What's up with Gary Gilmore anyway? Sicko wanted to create a stir and leave a bloody corpse behind. What's that got to do with us?

lol, you forgot the sicko state that put it on the books based on the same foundation.

Surely it was not an legal option just out of the blue. As I assume your French statement is pointing out It is a typically military only deal with a very limited number of American incidents of it (going back to the 1600's)

And I'm the dumb one.

[rockslider]

Try to wrap your head around this one. Even if I gave you the benefit of the doubt and went along with what you think BY taught, it was never practiced. DO you have evidence to the contrary?

I believe I've wrapped my head around it several times already, Once again, I've never accused anyone (except GG) of ever applying the doctrine. I'm still suggesting its a Doctrine, one which I held as a true doctrine. The concepts seem sound to me.

[USU78]

lol, you forgot the sicko state that put it on the books based on the same foundation.

It's actually the Common Law that put capital punishment "on the books," and Utah, being peopled largely by folks from a Common Law background, followed suit, unlike, say, Louisiana . . . but don't let such things bother you. It's so much easier to buy into the antiMormon quoteminery of UTLM and such places, to which you grant leave to distort and invent, so long as the distortions and inventions feed the view you've adopted in your bigotry.

Surely it was not an legal option just out of the blue. As I assume your French statement is pointing out It is a typically military only deal with a very limited number of American incidents of it (going back to the 1600's)

Perhaps I did express it poorly: lexical and cultural drift has happened even in xenophobic France, which so hates things English that they have to adopt a "language purification code." Utah, on the other hand, isn't xenophobic, welcomes immigrants from all over heck and back, and the language and culture change over 100 years, as one would expect. Then here's you imposing on XIXth Century Mormonia a cultural and lingistic template that greatly distorts the plain meaning of language whose niceties you, frankly, have proven too hidebound in your antiMormon bigotry to grasp, let alone master. I don't blame you particularly, especially given the horrid libels you've bought into in your profound ignorance, it just saddens me.

French military incompetence following Napoleon has nothing to do with it. French xenophobia does. Comparison/Contrast, you see.

And I'm the dumb one.

USU "Resisting the urge with all his might" 78

PS: Did I befoul your Bosco or something? What? '78

[Bob Crockett]

I also believe he was clearly an accessory after the fact (documentation abounds, and I'm willing to provide it).

How so? Are you using the criminal common law definition of being an accessory or just Robert Baskin's definition? (Hmm. He couldn't even get an indictment, and he was there.)

There's basically (and I am oversimplifying a bit) two ways to be an accessory after the fact. One, is receiving stolen property from the victims, knowingly. Two, is physically barring the arrest of the perpetrators, or taking active steps to help the perps escape arrest (as in the case of Dr. Mudd, the doctor who help Booth). Which one did Brigham Young do?

[rockslider]

It's actually the Common Law that put capital punishment "on the books," and Utah, being peopled largely by folks from a Common Law background, followed suit, unlike, say, Louisiana . . . but don't let such things bother you. It's so much easier to buy into the antiMormon quoteminery of UTLM and such places, to which you grant leave to distort and invent, so long as the distortions and inventions feed the view you've adopted in your bigotry.

Perhaps I did express it poorly: lexical and cultural drift has happened even in xenophobic France, which so hates things English that they have to adopt a "language purification code." Utah, on the other hand, isn't xenophobic, welcomes immigrants from all over heck and back, and the language and culture change over 100 years, as one would expect. Then here's you imposing on XIXth Century Mormonia a cultural and lingistic template that greatly distorts the plain meaning of language whose niceties you, frankly, have proven too hidebound in your antiMormon bigotry to grasp, let alone master. I don't blame you particularly, especially given the horrid libels you've bought into in your profound ignorance, it just saddens me.

French military incompetence following Napoleon has nothing to do with it. French xenophobia does. Comparison/Contrast, you see.

USU "Resisting the urge with all his might" 78

PS: Did I befoul your Bosco or something? What? '78

I'm confused on the continued personal attack. Have I offended you somehow?

I've been trying to be serious and provide some potentially interesting points to speak to.

Apparently there is nothing of value left to discuss here.

btw, I hope you were just acking dumb on missing the form of death, one which spilt blood, very unique form of capital punishment in the world let-a-lone the USA. It was administered to GG, as an option, by his request.

[Bernard Gui]

For those who get heartburn about Bloody Brigham,

check out this from Tennessee in 1865:

In 1865, the Tennessee legislature passed a number of capital statutes. Reflecting the dangerous and unsettled post-War conditions, the General Assembly passed "An Act to Punish all Armed Prowlers, Guerrillas, Brigands, and Highway Robbers." This Act ordered that a number of offenses relating to plunder, robbery, prowling, and theft be punished by hanging. In the next chapter of legislation, the Assembly rewrote many of the old mandatory capital slave code provisions, allowing the jury to choose a term of years rather than death and omitting reference to color of offender or victim. Thus, the following crimes could be punished by death or could be punished by not less than ten and not more than twenty-one years in prison: Theft of livestock, housebreaking (burglary), robbery, and house or bridge burning (arson). Oddly enough, immediately after the Civil War, rape was not a capital crime. This meant that a person convicted of stealing a horse or burning a bridge risked hanging, while a person convicted of rape did not. The legislature restored the death penalty for rape in 1871, giving the jury discretion to impose death or imprisonment for not less than ten years.

"Sentenced to the punishment of death": Pre-Furman capital crimes and executions in Shelby County, Tennessee

University of Memphis Law Review, The, Summer 2001 by Vandiver, Margaret, Coconis, Michel

Bernard

[USU78]

btw, I hope you were just acking dumb on missing the form of death, one which spilt blood, very unique form of capital punishment in the world let-a-lone the USA. It was administered to GG, as an option, by his request.

His request.

His pathology.

His misunderstanding.

His buying into the antiMormon bigotry and the Blood Atonement Libel.

His problem.

Not ours.

[rockslider]

His request.

His pathology.

His misunderstanding.

His buying into the antiMormon bigotry and the Blood Atonement Libel.

His problem.

Not ours.

I've never suggested that it was "your" choice. I do wonder if it would be in you to offer it to him.

I'm suggesting that it was a well known doctrine, accepted by many to a point that it was part of the laws of the land, which persisted into the late 1900's.

I've also suggested that theological reasoning behind the doctrine is sound. If I were still a TBM, apparently I would be in fairly good company with my old beliefs:

"Accordingly, the doctrine asserts that those who commit certain grievous sins such as murder and covenant-breaking place themselves beyond the atoning blood of Christ, and their only hope for salvation is to have their own blood shed as an atoning sacrifice. In his writings, Joseph Smith only hinted at the doctrine, Brigham Young successively denied and asserted it, Joseph F. Smith ardently defended it, and in more recent years, Hugh B. Brown repudiated it and Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie both have vigorously defended it in principle while staunchly denying that the Church has ever put it into actual practice, whereas most other General Authorities have prudently preferred to remain silent on the subject. It should be noted that the whole notion of blood atonement is so obviously linked to the Mormon literal mind-set that it does not seem to admit of a mitigated, symbolic interpretation and is either accepted or rejected outright, depending on one's level of literalistic belief (Dialogue, Vol.15, No.4, p.93)."

Maybe, from time to time, you guys might try having the where-with-all to stand-up for something and defend the actual doctrine instead of personally attacking and belittling anyone that tries to approach the subject.