Lost 116 Pages follow-up Question to Poll

[CA Steve]

Well it seems there was plenty of persecution and wrong-doing by both sides. Does anyone disagree with that?

The evidence is that the persecution against the Mormons was overwhelmingly one sided. Were the Mormons perfect? No, but the response in Missouri was one of extermination. Nothing the Mormons did remotely justified that.

[beth]

The evidence is that the persecution against the Mormons was overwhelmingly one sided. Were the Mormons perfect? No, but the response in Missouri was one of extermination. Nothing the Mormons did remotely justified that.

In my quickly looking at some of those claims, it seems that there's always another side. For example:

Didn't a Mormon leader provoke the extermination order? Wasn't it some Mormon leader that first used the extermination term? Even Brigham Young seemed to blame a fellow Mormon (Sidney Rigdon) for causing the problem with some salt sermon.

Another example of persecution I've read about is the story of Parley Pratt that said he was killed by some anti-Mormon. But when I brought this up to someone, I heard another side of it and found out that the guy that killed him was outraged becaus Pratt had married this guy's wife out from under him. That's worth mentioning I think.

And how about the Mountain Meadows Massacre? Did the wagon train of travellers deserve to get slaughtered by Mormons?

To say that the Mormons were overwhelmingly almost always the victims may be too bold of a statement. I think it was more neutral from what I can tell. Polygamy certianly riled people up. I know I wouldn't be happy if I had a daughter that ended up as some religious guy's 29th wife or if I heard a bunch of religious people were saying that my land ws consecrated by God for them and that they were going to get my land. I would be very afraid of such a group, especially a group that taught blood atonement, broke the law and swore vengeance in secret ceremonies.

[beth]

You could also say that there was plenty of persecution and wrong-doing by both sides in the case of the Nazis and the Jews. This is not a very strong argument against the Jews in that particular context.

Wait a minute, what wrong-doing did the Jews do to the Nazis?

[nicolasconnault]

Wait a minute, what wrong-doing did the Jews do to the Nazis?

Ha! Gotcha! Do a bit of research and come back to this thread

[cdowis]

I've prayed about the BofM and I can't tell if it's historically true or not just from praying and thinking about it.

It appears that you were asking the wrong question. Many atheists know that the Bible is historical, but they gain nothing from that knowledge. The Lord is not interested in proving BOM geography/history. That provides no spiritual benefit.

My personal experience has been given here in the forum. It was through direct revelation, given prior to my hearing of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

[CA Steve]

To say that the Mormons were overwhelmingly almost always the victims may be too bold of a statement. I

I used the term overwhelmingly in a numeric sense. There is no justification for MMM or Hauns Mill or the Danite's actions or Bogg's extermination order and so on. The term overwhelming is easy to understand from a purely numerical stand point. At Far West alone 10,000 to 12,000 Mormons were driven from their homes and their property stolen. Given all the examples you could possibly come up with of non Mormon victims you can't get anywhere near that number. We can add to that what happened in Independence and Nauvoo.

I am not trying to minimize the actions of the Mormons in those areas you cite. Rigdon was polemical and caused problems. He gave two very incendiary speeches at Far West. MMM is especially egregious. But fact remains that the Mormons were overwhelmingly the victims, the numbers easily bear that out.

[Pahoran]

In my quickly looking at some of those claims, it seems that there's always another side. For example:

Didn't a Mormon leader provoke the extermination order?

No.

Did Sidney Rigdon make an inflammatory Fourth of July speech? Yes, he did. Does any rational person think that such a speech could reasonably be expected to provoke a response such as the Extermination order?

Not in my experience.

Do dyed-in-the-wool anti-Mormons sometimes claim that it does?

Why yes; they do.

Wasn't it some Mormon leader that first used the extermination term? Even Brigham Young seemed to blame a fellow Mormon (Sidney Rigdon) for causing the problem with some salt sermon.

It is one thing to say, as Brigham did, that Sidney's speech caused problems; it was foolish of Sidney to shoot off his mouth as he did when the Saints were surrounded by violent bigots. It is quite a different thing to argue that Sidney's speech justified either the bigotry or the violence that ensued. Particularly when the bigotry and violence had been more or less a continual feature of life in Missouri for five years before his speech.

Another example of persecution I've read about is the story of Parley Pratt that said he was killed by some anti-Mormon. But when I brought this up to someone, I heard another side of it and found out that the guy that killed him was outraged becaus Pratt had married this guy's wife out from under him. That's worth mentioning I think.

Is it?

Then it ought likewise to be worth mentioning that Hector and Eleanor McLean's marriage was well and truly "on the rocks" well before PPP came on the scene. If they had lived under current laws, Hector would have had a string of domestic violence convictions, and Eleanor would have long ago obtained a protection order against him.

Even in Arkansas.

And how about the Mountain Meadows Massacre?

How about it?

Did the wagon train of travellers deserve to get slaughtered by Mormons?

No.

And no Mormon here will say that they did, either.

To say that the Mormons were overwhelmingly almost always the victims may be too bold of a statement.

I don't agree.

I think it was more neutral from what I can tell. Polygamy certianly riled people up. I know I wouldn't be happy if I had a daughter that ended up as some religious guy's 29th wife or if I heard a bunch of religious people were saying that my land ws consecrated by God for them and that they were going to get my land. I would be very afraid of such a group, especially a group that taught blood atonement, broke the law and swore vengeance in secret ceremonies.

You know Beth, for someone who is here with such an open mind, you certainly seem to have mastered a lot of standard anti-Mormon talking points.

Regards,

Pahoran

[USU78]

You know Beth, for someone who is here with such an open mind, you certainly seem to have mastered a lot of standard anti-Mormon talking points.

True, alas, and sad at that. I kept hoping against experience that beth would turn out to be truly what she represented herself to be, but instead we get behaviors typical of the first-year seminarian who just finished first semester cultbusting 101.

Why can't there be a single, honest, seeking person who asks nonleading questions and doesn't hijack the board to advocate for the concept that Mormons are brutal, polytheistic cultists?

[nicolasconnault]

True, alas, and sad at that. I kept hoping against experience that beth would turn out to be truly what she represented herself to be, but instead we get behaviors typical of the first-year seminarian who just finished first semester cultbusting 101.

Why can't there be a single, honest, seeking person who asks nonleading questions and doesn't hijack the board to advocate for the concept that Mormons are brutal, polytheistic cultists?

I can set up a sock puppet for that persona if it makes you feel better!

[why me]

Well it seems there was plenty of persecution and wrong-doing by both sides. Does anyone disagree with that? The Mormons received persecution but they persecuted as well - like what I've been hearing about these Danites and Mormons at Mountain Meadows. And these battles like Crooked Creek anbd Zion's March. This makes studying this religion even more complex and confusing.

I think that if a group of people are being persecuted they have a right to defend themselves and this is what happened to the mormons. For the mormons, it became a battle against extinction. Would we say the same about the american indians? That there was injustice on both sides? Did the Indians have a right to defend themselves against bigotry and self-righteousness? Did they face extinction?

Frontier people were generally a bigoted people who were adverse to difference. Were mormons perfect? No. But no history is perfect. MMM is an interesting event. But when we have a group of people who experienced persecution year after year, and when there were calls in california to go to utah and throw out the mormons, we can see a people with persecution psychological scares that could have caused MMM.

[why me]

Rigdon was polemical and caused problems. He gave two very incendiary speeches at Far West.

Before these speeches were given, Rigdon was dragged out of his home and severly beaten and dragged through the street and left for dead. Thus, his speeches were from his direct experience with violence. And he was not alone with being beaten. But beth can not recognize root causes.

[beth]

Before these speeches were given, Rigdon was dragged out of his home and severly beaten and dragged through the street and left for dead. Thus, his speeches were from his direct experience with violence. And he was not alone with being beaten. But beth can not recognize root causes.

Why did they do that to him? Please don't misunderstand. I don't think there's any justification for beating someone. I think I can sense what happened with somne of this violence. The groups didn' like each other, fearful of the other side, radical members of each side took matters into their own hands and probably did things against their leader's wishes. Is that about right?

[beth]

True, alas, and sad at that.

[beth]

nicolasconnault "Ha! Gotcha! Do a bit of research and come back to this thread"

Um, Ok you got me. In all my history classes I've ever had on WW2 and in every documentary I ever saw on the Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it was always the Nazis made out to be the bad guys without question. What did I miss? What did the Jews do to possibly justify the Holocaust?

[Jon63]

Um, Ok you got me. In all my history classes I've ever had on WW2 and in every documentary I ever saw on the Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it was always the Nazis made out to be the bad guys without question. What did I miss? What did the Jews do to possibly justify the Holocaust?

Beth, the more research you do the more inconsistencies you will find.

For instance.

Joseph Smith practiced Polygamy, he even married women who were already married with living husbands.

Now, is that correct Doctrine in the eyes of God or can Mormon prophets lead the Church astray?

The Church publically banned Polygamy in 1890 but the Church's leaders still carried on the practice in secret.

The Church's current stance is that Polygamy is an offence punishable by excommunication regardless of whether or not it is against the law.

But the Church also teaches that Polygamy will be practiced in the highest degree of Heaven.

I suggest you keep researching but don't listen to opinion and views, find the actual facts and make your own mind up about them.

[nicolasconnault]

Um, Ok you got me. In all my history classes I've ever had on WW2 and in every documentary I ever saw on the Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it was always the Nazis made out to be the bad guys without question. What did I miss? What did the Jews do to possibly justify the Holocaust?

First of all, my analogy was not intended to justify the holocaust, my goodness gracious no! The intention was to make a parallel with the persecution of the Mormons, and their occasional revengeful retaliations. Critics try very hard to make it look as if the Mormons not only were the primary cause of their own persecution, but also deserved it. They use examples like HHH to back up their arguments.

Regarding WW2, I too was taught about all this at school, and never once learned about any revengeful action on the part of the Jews. However, does it seem likely to you that over 6 million men and women could be publicly humiliated, shunned, discriminated against and eventually lead to their deaths without a single act of retaliation or revenge? Of course some such acts occurred, but they are under-emphasised or even completely removed from histories in order to prevent the kinds of misjudgements that lead some people to justify the Holocaust and to blame it on the Jews themselves.

Now, I'm probably treading on thin ice by using this analogy so I'll stop here before it spins out of control. Just remember that my point was to show that in all cases of global persecution and bigotry, there are some "victims" who become the "victimisers", it is almost unavoidable. The Mormons were not a homogeneous group, they included people of all walks of life, habits and attitudes. Some of them were much more likely to take the law into their own hands than others. However this does not justify the conclusion that, overall, the Mormons brought the bigotry and persecution upon themselves.

[nicolasconnault]

Please try to understand how overwhelming this all is to someone that didn't grow up in your church. I've been googling and visiting a lot of message boards lately trying to verify the information told to me here. I get very different stories and not sure what to believe. I don't know why your church's history can't be more straight-forward and so hard to figure out what really happened and why things happened. There seems to be a lot of good people in this church but I get so confused as to what version of the events should be believed and how really important those things are.

Show me a religion that is at least 150 years old whose history is more public and transparent than the LDS Church, I would be very interested

[nicolasconnault]

Beth, the more research you do the more inconsistencies you will find.

I suggest you keep researching but don't listen to opinion and views, find the actual facts and make your own mind up about them.

By your own advice then, Beth shouldn't pay attention to your first sentence?

[ELF1024]

Beth, the more research you do the more inconsistencies you will find.

For instance.

Joseph Smith practiced Polygamy, he even married women who were already married with living husbands.

Now, is that correct Doctrine in the eyes of God or can Mormon prophets lead the Church astray?

The Church publically banned Polygamy in 1890 but the Church's leaders still carried on the practice in secret.

The Church's current stance is that Polygamy is an offence punishable by excommunication regardless of whether or not it is against the law.

But the Church also teaches that Polygamy will be practiced in the highest degree of Heaven.

I suggest you keep researching but don't listen to opinion and views, find the actual facts and make your own mind up about them.

There has been much said on both the Anti-LDS and the LDS side about Polygamy. It is my least favorite subject when it comes to doctrine and Church history (A close second would be "Kobol" in the Book of Abraham). So much has been said on both sides, and so much has been claimed, both falsely and correctly, that I am unsure where the truth is.

Because I have recieved a witness about the Book of Mormon, I am willing to give Joseph Smith a pass on the Polygamy accusations. I will say that yes, I believe that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Many of the marriages, by today's standards, appear to be wholly wrong. I do not claim to know for sure if everything said is true.

However, until such time I get a chance to discuss it with God, face to face, or with Joseph Smith, face to face, I am comfortable in my opinion that I do not know the truth, and will not condemn a man based on what I do not know.

[cdowis]

Beth, the more research you do the more inconsistencies you will find.

You need to get your facts straight, my friend. This is just a litany of antimormon arguments which have been refuted here and elsewhere.

For instance.

Joseph Smith practiced Polygamy, he even married women who were already married with living husbands.

He was sealed to them. There is absolutely no evidence that he had an intimate relationship with the women who were already married. There is no evidence that he fathered any children outside his marriage with Emma.

But, of course, as one who has "researched" these things, you already knew that.

Now, is that correct Doctrine in the eyes of God or can Mormon prophets lead the Church astray?

Yawn.

The Church publically banned Polygamy in 1890 but the Church's leaders still carried on the practice in secret.

This is a formal request for CFR. Please start a new thread where the church sanctioned new polygamous marriages.

The Church's current stance is that Polygamy is an offence punishable by excommunication regardless of whether or not it is against the law.

But the Church also teaches that Polygamy will be practiced in the highest degree of Heaven.

There is a special place in hell for those who do not tell the truth. Polygamy is practiced today, in the temple, sanctioned by the church. When a man is a widower, he is able to be sealed to another wife. He can now be sealed to two women, but one of them must be deceased.

The practice of having two **living** wives has ceased.

I suggest you keep researching but don't listen to opinion and views, find the actual facts and make your own mind up about them.

May I humbly suggest that you get on your knees and ask forgiveness from your Creator for trying to poison the mind of one of his children. There is still time to avoid going to that bad place.

[Jon63]

For the benefit cdowis...

'Just as the practice of plural marriage among the Latter-day Saints began gradually, the ending of the practice after the Manifesto was also gradual. Some plural marriages were performed after the Manifesto, particularly in Mexico and Canada. In 1904, President Joseph F. Smith called for a vote from the Church membership that all post-Manifesto plural marriages be prohibited worldwide'

The quote is from the Church's official website.

This would seem to support the view that the Church sanctioned Polygamous 'sealings' after the Manifesto.

I didn't say anything factually incorrect.

The more research a person does, the more inconsistencies are discovered.

Joseph Smith was married to more than one woman.

Joseph Smith was married to women who were already married with living husbands.

I did not say anything about those marriages being consumated.

Polygamous sealings were sanctioned and performed after the manifesto.

I encouraged Beth to seek the truth, rather than opinion and views.

The Church does teach that Polygamy will be required in the highest degree of heaven. (you even supported this by stating that Polygamous sealings are performed currently within the confines of temples)

If you want to dispute facts, then give facts in return.

[cdowis]

Please try to understand how overwhelming this all is to someone that didn't grow up in your church. I've been googling and visiting a lot of message boards lately trying to verify the information told to me here. I get very different stories and not sure what to believe. I don't know why your church's history can't be more straight-forward and so hard to figure out what really happened and why things happened. There seems to be a lot of good people in this church but I get so confused as to what version of the events should be believed and how really important those things are.

You need to understand that there are bitter enemies of the church who distort the doctrines and history of the church. See my post above for my response to one of these people. They want to destroy the church with distortions and misrepresentation of the truth, they want to poison your mind. So it can indeed be confusing.

You need to read, study and pray about the Book of Mormon. Is it the word of God. If you want the truth, that's is the only way you are going to find it.

I suggest that you go to mormon.org and continue your search there. There is a live chat line, stories of individuals who had the same questions that you have. See what they have to say.

[ELF1024]

For the benefit cdowis...

'Just as the practice of plural marriage among the Latter-day Saints began gradually, the ending of the practice after the Manifesto was also gradual. Some plural marriages were performed after the Manifesto, particularly in Mexico and Canada. In 1904, President Joseph F. Smith called for a vote from the Church membership that all post-Manifesto plural marriages be prohibited worldwide'

The quote is from the Church's official website.

This would seem to support the view that the Church sanctioned Polygamous 'sealings' after the Manifesto.

I didn't say anything factually incorrect.

The more research a person does, the more inconsistencies are discovered.

Joseph Smith was married to more than one woman.

Joseph Smith was married to women who were already married with living husbands.

I did not say anything about those marriages being consumated.

Polygamous sealings were sanctioned and performed after the manifesto.

I encouraged Beth to seek the truth, rather than opinion and views.

The Church does teach that Polygamy will be required in the highest degree of heaven. (you even supported this by stating that Polygamous sealings are performed currently within the confines of temples)

If you want to dispute facts, then give facts in return.

There is nothing saying that it is required for the Celestrial Kingdom. That is a false.

[cdowis]

There is nothing saying that it is required for the Celestrial Kingdom. That is a false.

There are levels in the Celestial Kingdom. It is not a requirement to be married at all, if you want to take that position.

Finally, thanks for "informing" me. Now, when I am talking about "church sanctioned" marriages, I am not speaking about those local leaders who acted in direct contradiction to the manifesto. Of course it happened.... but the implication was that this was done with the full approval and knowledge of the general church leaders. Otherwise we would have to make many such things as the responsibility of the general church, including Mountain Meadows.

[mapman]

Please try to understand how overwhelming this all is to someone that didn't grow up in your church. I've been googling and visiting a lot of message boards lately trying to verify the information told to me here. I get very different stories and not sure what to believe. I don't know why your church's history can't be more straight-forward and so hard to figure out what really happened and why things happened. There seems to be a lot of good people in this church but I get so confused as to what version of the events should be believed and how really important those things are.

Unfortunately, history is rarely straightforward, especially something as controversial as Mormonism. I would also suggest that Google and message boards are not the best places for Mormon history when it comes to accuracy.