Anti-Mormon

[thesometimesaint]

8 minutes ago, ALarson said:

CFR (I'd really like to see this).

I know there are some errors in Brodie's book, but she did quite an amazing job with her research when one considers this was before the internet, etc.  Also documents and other writings have surfaced since she wrote her book that were not available to her.  Just because there were errors in her book, this does not mean that she told lies or is a liar.  

Here is what Bushman has stated regarding her and her book (No Man Knows My History):

In 2005, LDS scholar Richard Bushman published a highly regarded biography of Smith entitled Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling which has frequently been compared to Brodie's work. In his book, Bushman noted that Brodie's "biography was acknowledged by non-Mormon scholars as the premier study of Joseph Smith"[10] and called Brodie "the most eminent of Joseph Smith's unbelieving biographers."[11] Bushman wrote in 2007 that Brodie had "shaped the view of the Prophet for half a century. Nothing we have written has challenged her domination. I had hoped my book would displace hers, but at best it will only be a contender in the ring, whereas before she reigned unchallenged."[12] 

 

No ma'am that ain't history, by Hugh Nibley

Here is what he said in the Preface.

When the writer first read Mrs. Brodie's book 13 years ago he was struck by the brazen inconsistencies that swarm in its pages, and so wrote this hasty review. At that time he had no means of knowing that inconsistency was the least of the author's vices, and assumed with other reviewers that when she cited a work in her footnotes, she had actually read it, that when she quoted she was quoting correctly, and that she was familiar with the works in her bibliography. Only when other investigations led the reviewer to the same sources in ensuing years did the extent of Mrs. Brodie's irresponsibility become apparent. While a large book could (and probably should) be devoted to this remarkable monument of biographical mendacity, more than a decade of research abetted by correspondence with Mrs. Brodie's defenders has failed to discredit a single observation made in our 1946 review, which is printed here with only a few typographical corrections.

Edited April 11, 2016 by thesometimesaint

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

What I'm trying to clarify for myself here is if Latter-day Saints generally see Ed Decker or Richard Abanes the same way as they see Craig Blomberg or Richard Mouw. Would you say that the former are anti-Mormons and the latter not? Can someone argue that Joseph Smith is not a prophet or the Book of Mormon is not a revelation from God, and not be considered anti-Mormon? 

No, I don't see them the same way. There are different types of critics. One of the oldest styles is those who twist the truth, spread third-hand rumors, omit relevant facts and the like because of personal dislikes of certain church doctrines. Many times these critics will seem to contradict themselves in their spin against the church and so can easily be detected. 

One of the earliest such works was  Mormonism Unvailed (sic), by Eber D. Howe, which purported to show that the Book of Mormon was written from a somehow stolen manuscript of Solomon Spaulding. However, when the manuscript showed up in Hawaii decades later, and really seemed to have no similarity to the Book of Mormon, this story lost favor in anti-Mormon circles. 

Pomeroy Tucker is another example of such an author. In his Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism he published about every third hand story he could find. On the one hand he called Joseph Smith and his family illiterate & irreligious drunkards, but on the other he says Joseph Smith loved to peruse the stories of his day, and must have run across a publication which spoke of Moroni of the Camoros Islands - of course he fails to show any publication which actually does so. So this "illiterate" boy found "Moroni" in a sea of literature, which Pomeroy himself could not do, and managed to write a polished religious book based upon it and, apparently other high literature of his day. This would be doubly hard to find since in Joseph's day Moroni was not that capital city of the Camoros Islands so was of basically no import. The one book of that day which discusses piracy and the Camoros Islands fails to mention the city of Moroni. Nor does the rumor of Smith family whiskey drinking hold any weight. Many of Joseph's earliest associates were religious people, and would have certainly steered clear of a family of whiskey drinkers. None in the early church report any whiskey drinking in the Smith family. The book infers Joseph Smith himself is irreligious and yet alleges he attended several churches and revival meetings - hardly the stuff of an irreligious teenager.

I have been on another board which decided not to allow the use of the term "anti-Mormon" - they pictured themselves as witnessing to LDS visitors and didn't like the "anti-Mormon" label. Of course they had no difficulty in using the "Mormon" label, and when I requested a "LDS Christian" option, they banned LDS from that particular sub-forum, and would no longer allow me to use the "Christian" moniker although their policy was otherwise not to allow anyone to call those who identified themselves as Christian as anything else.

In short the term "anti-mormon" is a label which has no uniform usage within the church - much like the term anti-Christ has no uniform usage in Christianity. I use it to refer especially to those who deny Yahoshuah Moshiach as the Son of God. Thus, many atheists are anti-Christ, Mohammed, etc. To me those who profess belief in Christ - even if misguided - cannot be anti-Christ, so contrary to early Protestants, I do not see the Roman pontiff as anti-Christ, even if the Roman pontiffs did lead much of Christianity away from the truths of the gospel and into some gross errors imho. 

I don't use the term anti-Mormon because I don't really use the term Mormon, and don't really see myself as a defender of "mormonism." I see "mormonism" as a somewhat derogatory term used by critics which has all sorts of implications which have little or nothing to do with my beliefs. I am a defender of the gospel or the scriptures, and the basic tenets, ordinances, and teachings of the LDS Church. 

The concern raised by Salgare does have some truth to it. I have myself heard the admonition to avoid "anti-Mormon" literature, etc, more than once. I have always ignored such as well-meaning advice. There are two sides to every coin, and more than one interpretation of "the facts", the scriptures, etc. One must learn to wade through the many interpretations, half-truths, and lies in the world. This will make one a more effective missionary. The purpose of the Church is not to hide away in some closet from the world. It is to help others like yourself find truth and salvation in our Savior. While I understand the emphasis of the church on seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in these matters, the plain truth is our testimony or faith is based upon our knowledge and experience - including experiences with the Holy Spirit. As I see it one of the problems the church has run into is that it developed a somewhat "white-washed" story for missionaries to present to converts. Upon converts feeling the spirit and converting, they are then told not to pay attention to "anti-Mormon" literature. Even as a child this bugged me a little bit. On the one hand the Church expects me to listen to their side or version of the truth, but seems worried about me listening to other versions or sides of the coin. With the advent of the internet these investigators will of course get on the internet as part of their investigating, and read stuff about Joseph Smith's imperfections, opinions, mistakes, etc, which don't seem to comport with the perfect picture, along with other criticisms, apparent contradictions and the like. Of course they can read the same types of things about other churches, Protestant leaders, the Bible and Christianity in general. The missionaries I learned from did present prepared lessons but had a good knowledge of the Bible, and were prepared to answer some of my general questions about "orthodoxy" - the doctrine of the trinity, salvation of those not exposed to the gospel, etc. I converted basically on my strength of testimony about the Bible. If I felt the Church contradicted the Bible I doubt I would have converted - rather I was shown the many ways that the Church actually meets many points in the Bible the other churches have lost - I remember becoming so excited and wanting to investigate, visit the church, etc. 

I certainly don't see you as "anti-Mormon" just because you are not a member. Many Christians have a somewhat negative picture of the Church, but that doesn't make them anti-Mormon. I call active critics just that. Some who have left the church, and become critics might be considered apostate, but I just call them critics usually. You I put in the category of "concerned Christian."

[Steve Noel]

10 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

No, I don't see them the same way. There are different types of critics. One of the oldest styles is those who twist the truth, spread third-hand rumors, omit relevant facts and the like because of personal dislikes of certain church doctrines. Many times these critics will seem to contradict themselves in their spin against the church and so can easily be detected. 

One of the earliest such works was  Mormonism Unvailed (sic), by Eber D. Howe, which purported to show that the Book of Mormon was written from a somehow stolen manuscript of Solomon Spaulding. However, when the manuscript showed up in Hawaii decades later, and really seemed to have no similarity to the Book of Mormon, this story lost favor in anti-Mormon circles. 

Pomeroy Tucker is another example of such an author. In his Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism he published about every third hand story he could find. On the one hand he called Joseph Smith and his family illiterate & irreligious drunkards, but on the other he says Joseph Smith loved to peruse the stories of his day, and must have run across a publication which spoke of Moroni of the Camoros Islands - of course he fails to show any publication which actually does so. So this "illiterate" boy found "Moroni" in a sea of literature, which Pomeroy himself could not do, and managed to write a polished religious book based upon it and, apparently other high literature of his day. This would be doubly hard to find since in Joseph's day Moroni was not that capital city of the Camoros Islands so was of basically no import. The one book of that day which discusses piracy and the Camoros Islands fails to mention the city of Moroni. Nor does the rumor of Smith family whiskey drinking hold any weight. Many of Joseph's earliest associates were religious people, and would have certainly steered clear of a family of whiskey drinkers. None in the early church report any whiskey drinking in the Smith family. The book infers Joseph Smith himself is irreligious and yet alleges he attended several churches and revival meetings - hardly the stuff of an irreligious teenager.

I have been on another board which decided not to allow the use of the term "anti-Mormon" - they pictured themselves as witnessing to LDS visitors and didn't like the "anti-Mormon" label. Of course they had no difficulty in using the "Mormon" label, and when I requested a "LDS Christian" option, they banned LDS from that particular sub-forum, and would no longer allow me to use the "Christian" moniker although their policy was otherwise not to allow anyone to call those who identified themselves as Christian as anything else.

In short the term "anti-mormon" is a label which has no uniform usage within the church - much like the term anti-Christ has no uniform usage in Christianity. I use it to refer especially to those who deny Yahoshuah Moshiach as the Son of God. Thus, many atheists are anti-Christ, Mohammed, etc. To me those who profess belief in Christ - even if misguided - cannot be anti-Christ, so contrary to early Protestants, I do not see the Roman pontiff as anti-Christ, even if the Roman pontiffs did lead much of Christianity away from the truths of the gospel and into some gross errors imho. 

I don't use the term anti-Mormon because I don't really use the term Mormon, and don't really see myself as a defender of "mormonism." I see "mormonism" as a somewhat derogatory term used by critics which has all sorts of implications which have little or nothing to do with my beliefs. I am a defender of the gospel or the scriptures, and the basic tenets, ordinances, and teachings of the LDS Church. 

The concern raised by Salgare does have some truth to it. I have myself heard the admonition to avoid "anti-Mormon" literature, etc, more than once. I have always ignored such as well-meaning advice. There are two sides to every coin, and more than one interpretation of "the facts", the scriptures, etc. One must learn to wade through the many interpretations, half-truths, and lies in the world. This will make one a more effective missionary. The purpose of the Church is not to hide away in some closet from the world. It is to help others like yourself find truth and salvation in our Savior. While I understand the emphasis of the church on seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in these matters, the plain truth is our testimony or faith is based upon our knowledge and experience - including experiences with the Holy Spirit. As I see it one of the problems the church has run into is that it developed a somewhat "white-washed" story for missionaries to present to converts. Upon converts feeling the spirit and converting, they are then told not to pay attention to "anti-Mormon" literature. Even as a child this bugged me a little bit. On the one hand the Church expects me to listen to their side or version of the truth, but seems worried about me listening to other versions or sides of the coin. With the advent of the internet these investigators will of course get on the internet as part of their investigating, and read stuff about Joseph Smith's imperfections, opinions, mistakes, etc, which don't seem to comport with the perfect picture, along with other criticisms, apparent contradictions and the like. Of course they can read the same types of things about other churches, Protestant leaders, the Bible and Christianity in general. The missionaries I learned from did present prepared lessons but had a good knowledge of the Bible, and were prepared to answer some of my general questions about "orthodoxy" - the doctrine of the trinity, salvation of those not exposed to the gospel, etc. I converted basically on my strength of testimony about the Bible. If I felt the Church contradicted the Bible I doubt I would have converted - rather I was shown the many ways that the Church actually meets many points in the Bible the other churches have lost - I remember becoming so excited and wanting to investigate, visit the church, etc. 

I certainly don't see you as "anti-Mormon" just because you are not a member. Many Christians have a somewhat negative picture of the Church, but that doesn't make them anti-Mormon. I call active critics just that. Some who have left the church, and become critics might be considered apostate, but I just call them critics usually. You I put in the category of "concerned Christian."

Thanks for the thought you put into your response. 

[Jim Stiles]

40 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

...

The God Makers by your good friend Ed Decker.

SEE http://www.shields-research.org/Critics/GMErrors.htm

...

Example section from that web site:

Quote

4. The Mormon "gods" were said to have "worked their way up" to become gods.  This is alien to LDS theology.  While we believe that we are the "offspring of God," (Heb. 12:9, Acts 17:29, Ps.82:6) and "joint heirs with Christ," (Rom.8:17, 1 Jn.3:2, Rev. 3:21) we can no more "work ourselves up" to godhood than a piece of coal can "work itself up" to become a diamond or a caterpillar can "work itself up" to be a butterfly.  In each case the potential is there, but it is God who must work the miracle. He is the only "Godmaker"!

Pants on fire.

[ALarson]

39 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

No ma'am that ain't history, by Hugh Nibley

Here is what he said in the Preface.

When the writer first read Mrs. Brodie's book 13 years ago he was struck by the brazen inconsistencies that swarm in its pages, and so wrote this hasty review. At that time he had no means of knowing that inconsistency was the least of the author's vices, and assumed with other reviewers that when she cited a work in her footnotes, she had actually read it, that when she quoted she was quoting correctly, and that she was familiar with the works in her bibliography. Only when other investigations led the reviewer to the same sources in ensuing years did the extent of Mrs. Brodie's irresponsibility become apparent. While a large book could (and probably should) be devoted to this remarkable monument of biographical mendacity, more than a decade of research abetted by correspondence with Mrs. Brodie's defenders has failed to discredit a single observation made in our 1946 review, which is printed here with only a few typographical corrections.

Wow, this is certainly not Hugh Nibley's best work (No Ma'am, That's Not History is the correct title).  It's actually an embarrassment and nowhere does he show that Fawn Brodie is a proven liar (as you stated and why there is a CFR).  

At least Brodie supplied references and footnotes in her book (iirc, Nibley had only 1 footnote for his book and mostly threw personal attacks at Brodie and her gender in a very sarcastic tone.) I like many of Nibley's books and writings, but this is not one of them.

Yes, Brodie made mistakes in her book, but show where she lied?

Again, CFR that Brodie is a "proven liar" because this one does not prove that she lied.  

(By the way, I do not agree with many of Brodie's conclusions and also know there are errors and inconsistencies in her book, but I saw nowhere that she outright told lies or made things up.)

 

Also, in an updated version of her book, Brodie added a section where she mentions things that were not known when she wrote her 1st edition.  Corrections were made.  Does that sound like someone who was trying to publish lies? 

.

Edited April 11, 2016 by ALarson

[Jim Stiles]

Quote

10. Blacks are described as being "neutral" in the war that was fought in heaven against Lucifer and the spirits who followed him.  This is incorrect.  LDS are taught that there were no neutrals in that conflict.

http://www.shields-research.org/Critics/GMErrors.htm

Pants on fire again.

 

 

[canard78]

34 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

I want to add that, in some ways, I think the moderators are even-handed in that they have a history of banning some pro-Mormon apologists from threads when they get overly confrontational with yours truly.

 

All the Best!

--Limited Privileges Consiglieri

True. But few that I know of have been banned from the forum. Lots of "anti-Mormons" have.

[consiglieri]

1 minute ago, canard78 said:

True. But few that I know of have been banned from the forum. Lots of "anti-Mormons" have.

Believe it or not, there are actually people on this board who consider me an anti-Mormon.

[Jim Stiles]

1 hour ago, Jim Stiles said:

Full interview, just in case I may have made a mistake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAsNMWwRXvs&nohtml5=False

 

It appears that I have made a mistake.  I listened to the entire interview and did not hear any discussion of the Lorenzo Snow couplet.  I will get back to you all when I find what I am thinking of.

[thesometimesaint]

25 minutes ago, Jim Stiles said:

Example section from that web site:

Pants on fire.

We can't "work ourselves into Godhood". ...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

SEE 2 Nephi 25:23

[Calm]

12 hours ago, salgare said:

Am I an anti-mormon Calm?

I don't remember your posts well enough to give a definitive answer one way or the other.  Iirc, you have strong feelings about the involvement of your family in the Church and would like them out of it (if my memory is wrong, please correct me) but that in itself isn't antimormon.  Are your actions here and elsewhere for the purpose of destroying the LDS Church in general or in specific ways (are you actively trying to stop the Church or its members from performing some of its desired functions)?  Would need to know what your intent and the actions were before deciding whether they cross the line of criticism or disagreement into action against the Church...I suppose if someone desired for the Church to be destroyed or damaged but did not express it or act on it, she likely would qualify as an antimormon in feeling, but I prefer to use actions (which include verbal statements) to measure and not try to guess about how someone is feeling.

[Mars]

i dislike the term anti-mormon

i'd rather label behavior than people.  that way, the shoe fits any foot...  pro or anti.

the value judgments we employ, what we ignore and focus on, what we dismiss and accept, etc...  when studying out items of doctrine, history, or teaching reveals to the rest of the world what we care about and how we think.  the way we let bitterness, anger, or even blind embracing of mormon figures, characterize how we approach mormonism will affect how we feel about the faith in general.  i'm far more interested in that kind of analysis than i am the label.

[Jim Stiles]

4 hours ago, Jim Stiles said:

It appears that I have made a mistake.  I listened to the entire interview and did not hear any discussion of the Lorenzo Snow couplet.  I will get back to you all when I find what I am thinking of.

 Links removed. You should know by now that Mormons consider temple content to be sacred. We respect that. If you can't you will not be welcome here.

 

Quote

Sunday, April 13, 1997
San Francisco Chronicle

SUNDAY INTERVIEW -- Musings of the Main Mormon 
Gordon B. Hinckley, `president, prophet, seer and revelator' of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sits at the top of one of the world's fastest-growing religions

Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
...
Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormons believe that God was once a man?

A: I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined, ``As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.'' Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.

Yeah, right.

 

[canard78]

38 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

Believe it or not, there are actually people on this board who consider me an anti-Mormon.

I believe it

[juliann]

12 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

What I'm trying to clarify for myself here is if Latter-day Saints generally see Ed Decker or Richard Abanes the same way as they see Craig Blomberg or Richard Mouw. Would you say that the former are anti-Mormons and the latter not? Can someone argue that Joseph Smith is not a prophet or the Book of Mormon is not a revelation from God, and not be considered anti-Mormon? 

Absolutely not to your first question. Yes to your second. If you will notice, "critic" is the term of choice now, not anti-Mormon. I have met and talked with Mouw, BTW. He exudes charisma and the spirit of the Lord. I was very drawn to him. We invited Abanes to a FAIR conference and James White was one of the first evangelicals we tangled with online. I found both to be dishonest, meaning, when errors were documented they would not relent in their attacks and continued with the same false information. White at least was very educated in what he was doing. Abanes was shockingly uninformed and untrained. We had a field day just with his inaccurate footnotes.  His name showed up in Cowen's Bearing False Witness?: An Introduction to the Christian Countercult and not in a good way. Do you know what he is up to now?

People will have a different take on what anti-Mormon means. Those who attack the church insist it is used by us to mean anyone who disagrees with our beliefs or practices. That is utter garbage but very convenient to be used as yet another attack. They will counter with using "apologist" as a smear. You will see "apologist" used in contrast to "scholar" as if apologists can never be trained scholars. They will claim we consider you an anti-Mormon if they could get away with it merely because you don't agree. As you can see, you are very well regarded. Disagreement turns to "anti" in any situation when anyone's beliefs are purposely distorted, misrepresented or out and out lied about with an intent to deceive or harm.

I find the terms countercultist and anticultist useful. 
 

Quote

 

At the broadest level, the anticult movement in North America can be subdivided into two wings, consisting of secular anticultists and conservative Christian anticultists.  While these two wings share certain traits and in the past have occasionally cooperated with each other, the target of much Christian anticultism is a minority religion’s deviation from traditional doctrine—a concern most secular anticultists do not share.  Also, Christian anticultists tend not to be involved in the controversial practice of deprogramming—one of the hallmarks of the secular anticult movement.  When discussing the anticult movement, the present book will be referring to the secular wing of this movement, unless otherwise noted.

 

Odd Gods: New Religions & the Cult Controversy (  James R. Lewis, ed.,Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2001),  24.

 

 

 

Mormonism has grown into this definition with its recent crop of exit counselors.

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by juliann

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

What I'm trying to clarify for myself here is if Latter-day Saints generally see Ed Decker or Richard Abanes the same way as they see Craig Blomberg or Richard Mouw. Would you say that the former are anti-Mormons and the latter not? Can someone argue that Joseph Smith is not a prophet or the Book of Mormon is not a revelation from God, and not be considered anti-Mormon? 

Richard Abanes didn't care sufficiently whether or not he accurately portrayed LDS belief even while claiming that was his purpose for hanging out with us on message boards.  I had some private conversations with him and he even gave me a couple of books and a cd of his songs (nice voice).  Iirc, he came to a FM conference but that might have been just an expressed desire.  Pretty sure he met with Dan Peterson and had Dan write his testimony in the back of his book (will check to see if my memory is correct on that when I go downstairs).  Overall very nice guy, but imo he preferred to write the book his audience expected rather than the book he should have if he wanted his audience to really know Mormons and how they think.  He was offered extensive corrections by myself and others on how he could make his book more accurate and he did alter some iirc, but left much we disagreed with.  One that sticks in my mind was his insistence on using the term "celestial sex" even after being told no one in the faith uses that term to describe the idea of eternal posterity and it carries both definitions and connotations that are contrary to how LDS view the eternal marriage relationship.  His argument for using it was that was how his audience understood what Mormons believe, which meant to me he didn't care about perpetuating misunderstandings as much as he cared about catching his audience.  And that was a relatively minor problem with his book.  He was a journalist (his own description iirc) who used sensationalism to make for a more interesting but less accurate book.

Blomberg and Mouw otoh are scholars who try, from what I've seen, to get things right.  And while I believe they would like the Church to drop some of their distinctive beliefs, I don't think they view this as fundamentally changing the Church to the point of destroying it even though I view those changes myself that way.

Their approach is fundamentally different in other ways  imo.  In conversations with LDS (as demonstrated for example with the public discussions with Millet) imo they are more focused on teaching what they view as truth of the Gospel than telling us what is wrong with our Church, history, culture and doctrine.  I have had many discussions with antimormons where any of their personal beliefs leak through by accident or they completely avoid talking about their own belef because they are focused solely on telling me what is wrong with mine.  Not a productive way to proselyte the Gospel, so it leads me to believe that is not the actual intent.

I will tend to be more comfortable using the term antimormon for this type rather than someone who is intentionally targeting Mormons in order to destroy their faith in the LDS belief, but doing so through teaching their own beliefs more so than what is wrong with ours because I know there are those who have attached a lot of emotional baggage to the term even I don't have that level.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

4 hours ago, Jim Stiles said:

In the Life and Confessions of John D. Lee¹ he wrote:

Lee's last words were:

Lee was the low man on the totem pole.

¹Lee, John D. (1877), Bishop, W.W., ed., Mormonism Unveiled; Or The Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee; (Written by Himself), St. Louis: Bryan, Brand & Company. URL: http://www.archive.org/details/mormonismunveile00leej

Lee's memoirs were published posthumously by his defense attorney, who cut a deal with his client to do the publishing as payment for his services. In so doing the attorney was free to doctor up the memoirs at will to enhance their appeal to a public already extremely prejudiced against Mormons due to the sensationalism of the eastern press in covering the Lee trial.

Robert Crockett, an attorney, historical researcher and occasional contributor to this board, has made himself an expert on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It would probably be best to let him speak to this, and if he sees this post, I certainly invite him to do so, but he is on record as saying the following:

Quote

He [Will Bagley] and I were members of the same LDS-Bookshelf list for some time; that list was dominated by persons hostile to the Church's view of things. I repeatedly prodded Bagley for answers to questions. He would just insult me and refuse to engage. For instance, I pointed out to him that he was a Huntington Library scholar, and contained within the massacre files there is a letter from John D. Lee's lawyer indicating that the lawyer was going to fictionalize Lee's confession to make it sell better. I asked Bagley whether he had seen that, and whether he thought it was worth mentioning in his book since he cited so much and frequently to Lee's confession. Bagley just called me a hack and a stooge.

Beyond that, the posthumous "confessions" of Lee, a convicted killer embittered due to his being held to account while others got a pass, suffer from extreme lack of credibility for obvious reasons. The fact that you would swallow them as probative over and above the well-documented evidence of Brigham Young's belated order that the Cedar City settlers not meddle with the emigrant wagon train in any way -- and the fact that you would make a drive-by post accusing Brigham Young of mass murder -- bespeaks your anti-Mormon proclivities.

But hey, if that's how you feel, come out about it. Own the designation with pride, man!

 

Edited April 11, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Richard Abanes didn't care sufficiently whether or not he accurately portrayed LDS belief even while claiming that was his purpose for hanging out with us on message boards.  I had some private conversations with him and he even gave me a couple of books and a cd of his songs (nice voice).  Iirc, he came to a FM conference but that might have been just an expressed desire. 

 

I recall clearly that Abanes was at the first FairMormon (then called FAIR) conference I ever attended. He queued up to ask a question to one of the speakers in the Q&A time following the talk. The "question" was more of a speech or a criticism. Lou Midgley, who also got in the Q&A line, shot him down for an his assumption.

[Calm]

Stiles, links to sites that post explicit temple content are often removed even if the direct link does not, so you may want to find other sources in case the mods decide to remove it.

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Jim Stiles said:

Heck, Gordon Hinckley told a fib about the Lorenzo Snow couplet on national television.

Another bald-faced lie.

As I said, man, if you're going to act like an anti-Mormon, own the title with pride.

[ALarson]

28 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

For instance, I pointed out to him that he was a Huntington Library scholar, and contained within the massacre files there is a letter from John D. Lee's lawyer indicating that the lawyer was going to fictionalize Lee's confession to make it sell better.

Hey Scott, I know you were quoting someone else above, but is there a copy somewhere of this letter as I would like to read it?   

[Stargazer]

5 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

In the 1830's marrying a 14 year old was perfectly legal. Your attempt at Presentism is noted.  D&C 132 has been in our Scriptures for a long time now.

Not just the 1830's.  As I have pointed out before on this board, my stepmother married her first husband when she was 14.  It was in Kansas, and it was legal with parental permission.  Her husband was 21.  

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Jim Stiles said:

It appears that I have made a mistake.  I listened to the entire interview and did not hear any discussion of the Lorenzo Snow couplet.  I will get back to you all when I find what I am thinking of.

 

1 hour ago, Jim Stiles said:

http://www.lds-mormon.com/gbh.shtml

http://www.lds-mormon.com/musings_main_mormon_gordon_b_hinckley.shtml

Yeah, right.

 

This is a case of a misconstrued frame of reference.

What can be clearly seen in the context of the question that was posed to him was that President Hinckley was referring to the first part of the couplet, the "as man is God once was" portion. That's the part that "gets into some deep doctrine" and that we don't know much about  and that is rarely discussed in depth in Church venues.

The portion about theosis or deification  (as God is, so man may be) is definitely an integral part of our teachings and beliefs. We definitely do teach and discuss it. A lot. President Hinckley knew and recognized this, and he said as much in a subsequent clarification at general conference.

So, your assertion that President Hinckley "told a fib" is your own anti-Mormon fib.

Edited to add:

For more on this, see here.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

5 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Hey Scott, I know you were quoting someone else above, but is there a copy somewhere of this letter as I would like to read it?   

Well, I'm not a scholar with Huntington Library privileges myself.

The best I can do is quote Bob Crockett on this and hope that he shows up here and, perhaps, provides a copy of or reference to the letter.

For what it's worth, I trust Bob's scholarship enough to believe he wouldn't make this up.

[ALarson]

7 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Well, I'm not a scholar with Huntington Library privileges myself.

The best I can do is quote Bob Crockett on this and hope that he shows up here and, perhaps, provides a copy of or reference to the letter.

For what it's worth, I trust Bob's scholarship enough to believe he wouldn't make this up.

Ok, I understand.  Yes, I'm also familiar with Bob Crockett's scholarship and would love to see what this letter states (just curious...).  Thanks.