Des News Article Re: "Under the Banner of Heaven" Mini Series

[ksfisher]

 

Jana Riess: What ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ miniseries, like the book, gets wrong about religion

Despite excellent performances and production values, the show left me with the same wary bewilderment I felt after reading Jon Krakauer’s 2003 volume.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/04/25/jana-riess-what-under/

There are some very good thoughts from Jana Riess here (for those of you who can get behind the paywall).  There are actually so many that I'm not sure which ones to quote for fear of leaving out others that are equally good.

[Teancum]

17 hours ago, pogi said:

I have no intent to portray your point in a way other than what you intend, otherwise I am wasting my time.  I am truly confused as to your point if you think I am missing it.  Have you not made an accusation of "extreme teachings in Mormonism" that leads to extremism and violence?   I have simply asked for specific examples of those extreme teachings that lead to anti vaxxers, for example.  How is that intentionally misconstruing anything you said by asking for clarity?   Here is exactly what you said, so I don't misconstrue you:

 

Yea it is not worth my time. If you want to turn a blind eye to the extremism and violence that has followed the Mormon tradition from the beginning ok by me.  But don't be surprised when others accurately write about it or do a movie about it.  And by the way I did not say it was the majority of adherents nor that it was all of Mormonism.  But there are a number of elements that do lead to some going down the rabbit trail of extreme behavior. Is it more prevalent than other groups?  I don't know. I don't care. I am more interested in Mormonism because it is my tradition.

[ksfisher]

10 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Yea it is not worth my time. If you want to turn a blind eye to the extremism and violence that has followed the Mormon tradition from the beginning ok by me.  But don't be surprised when others accurately write about it or do a movie about it.  And by the way I did not say it was the majority of adherents nor that it was all of Mormonism.  But there are a number of elements that do lead to some going down the rabbit trail of extreme behavior. Is it more prevalent than other groups?  I don't know. I don't care. I am more interested in Mormonism because it is my tradition.

From Jana Reiss's Tribune article I linked to above re Mormanism and violence.

Referring to a news conference given by creator and executive producer Dustin Black Reiss writes:

"Then, he [Black] said something else that caught my attention: that if you do a deep creative dive “into any religion, but particularly Mormonism,” the result is either going to be a musical comedy or it’s going to take a dark and violent turn.

I don’t agree that these are the only options. And while “Banner” as it’s presented on Hulu features outstanding dramatic performances and is a first-rate production, as a person of faith I was left with the same wary bewilderment I felt after reading Krakauer’s book. There’s a world of nuance missing here, in which it is possible to remain a believing member of a religion and not be inherently irrational or prone to violence."

[smac97]

14 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Quote

If the Church and our mission had taught its missionaries and members to engage in licentious conduct, then I could see some real justification for criticism and condemnation.  But that's not the case.  Instead, the Church was criticised and condemned for misconduct that violates the teachings and practices of the Church.  That makes no kind of sense.

It does make sense even if it went against church teachings. It's called hypocrisy.

How was the Church hypocritical here?  

14 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

It may not be fair to hold the entire church responsible but that's what happens when an emissary behaves badly.

In the law, the concept of Respondeat superior (Latin: "let the master answer") posits that "a party is responsible for (has vicarious liability for) acts of their agents."

Quote

When applied to physical torts, an employer–employee relationship must be established (novicarious liability is established for work performed as an independent contractor) and the act must be committed within the scope of employment (substantially within time and geographical limits, job description and at least with partial intent to further employer's business).

Historically, the doctrine was applied in master–servant and employer–employee relationships. When an employee or a servant commits a civil wrong against a third party, the employer or master could be liable for the acts of the servant or employee when the acts are committed within the scope of the relationship. The third party could proceed against the servant and master; that is, the employee and employer. The action against the employee would be based on his conduct. The action against the employer is based on the theory of vicarious liability in which a party can be held liable for the acts of a different party.

The employer–employee relationship is the most common area respondeat superior is applied, but the doctrine is also used in the agency relationship. Then, the principal becomes liable for the actions of the agent even if the principal did not commit the act. There are three considerations generally:

1. Was the act committed within the time and space limits of the agency?
2. Was the offense incidental to, or of the same general nature as, the responsibilities the agent is authorized to perform?
3. Was the agent motivated to any degree to benefit the principal by committing the act?

The degree to which they are answered in the affirmative dictates the degree to which the doctrine can be applied.

So let's say that HappyJackWagon is running a business selling home appliances.  The business includes extensive training for its employees, a written policies and procedures manual, regular and periodic training of employees, and so on.  There is also a zero tolerance policy for workplace aggression or violence.

One day, however, an employee gets into an argument with a customer that leads to a fight in which the customer is severely injured, including a traumatic brain injury.  Police investigation shows that the employee was the initiator and aggressor in the incident.

Under the law, there is a fair chance that HappyJackWagon will be found legally culpable for the misconduct of his employee.  I think we can agree on that, right?

But putting aside the legalities, is HappyJackWagon culpable in any other sense?  Morally?  Ethically? 

Did HappyJackWagon sic his employee on the customer?  Nope.

Had Did HappyJackWagon created or tolerated a workplace where threats of violence or actual violence were ignored or even encouraged?  Nope.

Did HappyJackWagon instead provide extensive training and written guidelines to employees, including the zero tolerance policy as to violence?  Yep.

Should HappyJackWagon nevertheless feel morally / ethically responsible for the misconduct he had specifically prohibited, trained against, and refused to tolerate?

More to the point, is HappyJackWagon morally / ethically responsible for the misconduct?

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

35 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

It does make sense even if it went against church teachings. It's called hypocrisy. It may not be fair to hold the entire church responsible but that's what happens when an emissary behaves badly.

It makes sense in the sense that we know that human behavior is often irrational and that humans tend to find a perverse pleasure when someone who claims high ideals messes up.  We love to see people mess up, especially when it's someone who espouses a belief that their way is better than ours.  It makes us feel better about ourselves and our own choices.   And gossip is also a fact of the human condition.  We love that stuff, probably, again, because sharing the failings of others makes us feel better about ourselves.

So by saying that it makes sense what we mean is that this kind of unfair and unkind behavior is expected.

Expected, but still lamentable.

[bluebell]

27 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

 

Jana Riess: What ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ miniseries, like the book, gets wrong about religion

Despite excellent performances and production values, the show left me with the same wary bewilderment I felt after reading Jon Krakauer’s 2003 volume.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/04/25/jana-riess-what-under/

There are some very good thoughts from Jana Riess here (for those of you who can get behind the paywall).  There are actually so many that I'm not sure which ones to quote for fear of leaving out others that are equally good.

Can you share a little bit more?  I don't have a subscription.

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Can you share a little bit more?  I don't have a subscription.

When you click on link to the Trib article, the article pulls up and then, 2-3 seconds later, throws up the paywall thing.  As soon as you see the text of the article, hit Ctrl+A (select all) and Ctrl+C (copy) as fast as you can.  You should be able to capture the text of the article, which you can then paste into notepad, Word, whatever, and read from there.  I'm not sure how I feel about this maneuver, but there it is.

Alternatively, you can do a google search for the title of the article and often find it published in venues other than the Tribune (here, for example).

As for the article itself, Riess is not impressed with the source material (Krakauer's book) :

Quote

I approached the series with some wariness. I read Krakauer’s book nearly two decades ago, but it’s famously replete with historical errors and misleading generalizations, causing the LDS Church at the time to issue multiple statements of protest or clarification. Some professional historians likewise challenged Krakauer’s source material and his conclusions — most especially his general idea that if Mormonism could be proved violent in the 1830s or 1840s, it must certainly still be violent in 1984, when Brenda Lafferty was killed, and in the post-9/11 era when “Banner” was published.

Krakauer’s book routinely violated the basic premise of the study of history, which is to carefully chronicle change over time. Historians don’t get the luxury of pinpointing a few watershed moments from the distant past and holding them up as “proof” of this or that current event, as though nothing had occurred in the interim. Yet that’s what Krakauer’s book did repeatedly, drawing direct lines from Joseph Smith’s or Brigham Young’s actions to the 1984 slaying of Brenda Lafferty and her child.

More than any specific historical inaccuracy, however, was the book’s underlying theme: that religion is profoundly illogical and often dangerous. “Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion,” Krakauer wrote. “And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen.”

“Faith is the very antithesis of reason.” Think about that. This means that in Krakauer’s view, it’s not just violent extremists like the Lafferty brothers who are to be feared. It’s not even just Latter-day Saints. It’s all of us, anyone who dares to believe that God may inspire people, speak to them or guide their actions.

Those common elements of faith are totally irrational, according to Krakauer, and therefore dangerous seedbeds for violence. (Never mind that some of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century occurred in state systems that did not countenance religion. It would be news to Stalin’s millions of victims that religion was to blame for their deaths.)

Good stuff, this.

As for her assessment of the miniseries itself?  Well...

Quote

I hoped, in the almost 20 years between Krakauer’s book and Hulu’s miniseries, that these basic misconceptions about religion would be challenged and found wanting. It was encouraging to hear that one of the creators of the miniseries, Dustin Lance Black (who won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for “Milk”), grew up as a Latter-day Saint and had made an effort to talk to church members and leaders about the proposed series when it was in development.

Mormons “get stereotyped so often,” Black told reporters in a news conference last month. So, he said, he asked church leaders and members if there was anything they wanted to be corrected from Krakauer’s book, and he then doubled down on efforts to draw a clear dividing line “between fundamentalists and members of the LDS Church.”

In that, I think he succeeded. It’s crystal clear throughout the series that there’s a major difference between fundamentalists (who practice polygamy and are depicted in the series as wearing pioneer clothing and living in compounds) and the more mainstream Latter-day Saints in the early 1980s.

The latter are shown in tidy nuclear families as they do mundane things like kneel for family prayer or meet with the bishop to prepare their 8-year-old children for baptism. They own Cabbage Patch dolls and play board games. Local church leaders are depicted as being horrified by polygamy, excommunicating any mainstream members who try to practice it.

I sense a "but" coming...

Quote

Yet, my overall impression after viewing the first five episodes available to reporters is that despite some added nuances, the series hews closely to Krakauer’s basic premise: that religion is built on a decaying foundation of violence and a hunger for power. The show adopts Krakauer’s breathless manner of cutting back and forth between the distant past and the immediate present. There’s a dizzying interplay of short clips from the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, with the latter depicted as one-dimensional.

...

The overall message from these flashbacks is that Mormon history is not as saccharine or as faith-promoting as church members like Pyre have been taught to believe. As a born investigator, Pyre goes down the rabbit hole to find out more, despite being warned by his bishop to stop digging in the past. The bishop advises him to “put the things you don’t understand on a shelf” and follow the prophet.

The “shelf” language comes up frequently by the fourth episode, its own kind of historical anachronism. That is contemporary phrasing used by people whose testimony of Mormonism has been shaken, or who have left the church because of various historical or theological problems they’ve encountered.

Pyre, then, undergoes a recognizably 21st-century Mormon faith crisis set in 1984. I can’t comment on what will happen in the final two episodes of the series, having not viewed them yet. But it seems likely that the seeds of doubt he is now experiencing — about not only the troubling aspects of Mormonism’s past but also the way church leaders all around him seem to be conspiring to impede his investigation — will result in a full-blown rupture with his faith.

She concludes well:

Quote

{W}hile “Banner” as it’s presented on Hulu features outstanding dramatic performances and is a first-rate production, as a person of faith I was left with the same wary bewilderment I felt after reading Krakauer’s book. There’s a world of nuance missing here, in which it is possible to remain a believing member of a religion and not be inherently irrational or prone to violence.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[Amulek]

26 minutes ago, Teancum said:

If you want to turn a blind eye to the extremism and violence that has followed the Mormon tradition from the beginning ok by me. 

I don't think anyone is wanting to turn a blind eye to anything. What I have seen people point out however (accurately, in my view) is that extremism and violence aren't necessarily results which inherently "follow[] the Mormon tradition," they are results which inherently follow humanity.* 

So, when I hear the statement "Mormonism creates dangerous men" (and that accusation is meant to be taken as a comment on the current state of affairs), then I expect the person making such a claim to be able to back it up with evidence. Because it's going to be trivially true that there are dangerous men who happen to be Mormon (even if only nominally so), but that's not the same thing as saying that these dangerous men were created by Mormonism.

 

*Though, to be fair, if we were all lions instead of humans there would probably still be a fair amount of violence.

 

[ksfisher]

12 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Can you share a little bit more?  I don't have a subscription.

I'm really not sure what to share.  There seemed to be something worth quoting in every paragraph.

The Tribune site lets you read 3 articles a month for free.  I've found that after my 3 free ones that if I set my browser to Private that I can read 3 more.  In Firefox Private is one of the options under File.  Safari on my iPhone has the same option, but I'm not sure how to describe it as it's using icons instead of words to access it.

[ttribe]

18 hours ago, ttribe said:

Since you insist on pushing this, perhaps you can help me with the following -

• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from the Oath of Vengeance against the United States which was once in the Endowment?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from the oaths and penalties in the pre-1991 Endowment (which were mimicked by the Laffertys in the murders)?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young teaching the doctrine of Blood Atonement?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young's teachings on race?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young's 'javelin through the heart' teaching about adultery?

When you have a church with a prophet at its head, who then teaches violence, it gets interpreted by some as being from the church. When certain rites and rituals include images and symbols of violence, it gets interpreted by some as being from the church. The resulting use of those teachings, images and symbols for actual violence by some is a foreseeable outcome. Like it or not, the Laffertys are part of the legacy of such teachings. Like it or not, so are the LeBarons. Like it or not, Warren Jeffs is part of the legacy of the early teachings on polygamy. All of those things may have been abandoned by the modern church, but they are part of the legacy of its history. That's the story being told, in my opinion.

ETA: The concept of Mormonism is broader now that it was in the earliest days of the church. There are many offshoots from the main church which are still part of 'Mormonism' and which trace their roots to the same place(s).

 

16 hours ago, ttribe said:

Perhaps you didn't see my edit before you responded, but I re-quoted her post to emphasize the portion to which I am responding. Namely, her assertion that evil men exploit good things and it's no different in this instance. The point of my response was that evil men didn't need to exploit good things here because these teachings aren't good things in the first place. Now do you follow?

 

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Vanguard is right about what my point was.  It's not that there aren't things that can be interpreted in bad ways (or produce bad acts).  But they don't produce more bad acts than we find in the community at large.  In fact, our teachings seem to produce less bad acts than the community at large.

 

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Any system of philosophy, thought or belief is "potentially harmful," so this phrase means virtually nothing.

Thanks,

-Smac

It is interesting to me that the attention seems to be getting diverted to two things: 1) to the idea that bad men can exploit good teachings; and 2), that violence should be measured in terms of materiality.

There is no engagement with my assertion that there is no need for bad men to exploit good teachings, because there are ample examples of bad teachings in the history of Mormonism. Thus far, there have been no reasonable responses along the lines of "Yes, I can see how we might be viewed this way given what Brigham Young said" or "No amount of context justifies that teaching and I really wish it wasn't part of our history" or "It doesn't surprise me that someone would use those quotes to justify bad acts." Just defense after defense after defense, sprinkled with a seasoning of "anti-Mormon," here and there.

As to materiality, I guess I am somewhat surprised at the casual attitude towards violence and death. At what point(s) do violence and death become material concerns? Only when the rate of incidence exceeds the average of the general population? There is no inner-reflection or consideration that the organization claiming to be God's One True Church for the entire world has a non-zero body count related directly to its teachings? That strikes me as a bit...odd.

Edited April 27, 2022 by ttribe

[ttribe]

55 minutes ago, smac97 said:

When you click on link to the Trib article, the article pulls up and then, 2-3 seconds later, throws up the paywall thing.  As soon as you see the text of the article, hit Ctrl+A (select all) and Ctrl+C (copy) as fast as you can.  You should be able to capture the text of the article, which you can then paste into notepad, Word, whatever, and read from there.  I'm not sure how I feel about this maneuver, but there it is.

Alternatively, you can do a google search for the title of the article and often find it published in venues other than the Tribune (here, for example).

Nothing like a member of the Utah State Bar publicly presenting a method for depriving a private entity remuneration for access to its product.

[Teancum]

19 hours ago, Vanguard said:

Bluebell is making a compelling case. I had not considered her angle. How can a religion with as many millions of members/former members as we have not have at least a list a few out-of-control examples? For sure, several examples are horrible but what - 6 examples? 10? 20?

I guess we would need to do a statistical sampling of other religious traditions and their incidence of violence.  But hey it is amazing the dance all the true believers are doing. Even as a believer I was not surprised at how some went off the deep end and used LDS doctrine to justify it. I lived near the Lafferty's when they committed their murders. I knew people who knew Brenda.  The man who lived across the street from me was in the SP that ex's the Lafferty's. None of what they did surprised me. The way the committed their murders was straight out of the endowment.  I was in my mid twenties and even then knew enough about the oaths, blood atonement, the endowment and the portions I never liked. to know that Mormonism has elements of violence in its teachings that can be carried away with. As has been noted their used to be an oath of vengeance and in the 19th century members were expected to spill the blood of the murderers of the prophets if they ran across them.  I nor any other critics here have stated that most, many a large majority of LDS members are or will become violent and extreme.  I used the word replete which one poster seems to think that means a large statistical %.  Maybe it was a poor choice of words.  But when I say replete I mean many times that seems out of the norm. I could be wrong.  But there are easily dozens of examples that can be used and many have been referenced here.  Why the believers here cannot admit that seems odd and overly defensive.  I have also acknowledged there is a lot of good that comes from Mormonism and that more than bad. I have benefited personally from it.

[Teancum]

19 hours ago, bluebell said:

A handful out of 200 years worth of events.

More than a handful.  And things specifically related to teachings or Mormonism.  

[smac97]

39 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Yea it is not worth my time. If you want to turn a blind eye to the extremism and violence that has followed the Mormon tradition from the beginning ok by me. 

I think there is a substantial distinction between "turn{ing} a blind eye to" and "declining to accept a highly questionable and unproven and risible thesis."

Nobody is disputing the existence of people like the Laffertys, Mark Hacking, Josh Powell, Chad and Lori Daybell, Mark Hofmann, Jason Derek Brown, Arthur Gary Bishop, Ted Bundy, Glenn Helzer, Brian David Mitchell, and so on.  There is no society or community on the planet that is bereft of individuals who violate its basic moral and behavioral standards.

The question, really, is whether there is a coherent and cognizable causal link between the doctrines and practices and policies of the Church and the misconduct of the Laffertys, Mark Hacking, etc.  I submit that there is not.  The data referenced in the OP (from the Deseret News article) seems to indicate that the cumulative effect of people living according to the doctrines and practices of the Church is overwhelmingly good and positive for the community at large.  We have emphases on honesty, hard work, education, service, healthy living, sexual ethics, and so on.  These things in practice make the world a better place.

39 minutes ago, Teancum said:

But don't be surprised when others accurately write about it or do a movie about it. 

"Accurately" being the risible word there.

39 minutes ago, Teancum said:

And by the way I did not say it was the majority of adherents nor that it was all of Mormonism.  But there are a number of elements that do lead to some going down the rabbit trail of extreme behavior.

There are people who take personal physical fitness to unhealthy and dangerous extremes.  Do we therefore reject the notion of healthy living and exercise altogether?  Because some few distort and misapply the concept?

There are people who take hard work to extremes, and end up neglecting familial duties and other important aspects of life.  Do we therefore reject the idea that hard work is, broadly speaking, a good thing?

We aren't the first ones to deal with people taking a correct precept and "going down the rabbit trail of extreme behavior."  As Paul said in Romans 10:

Quote

1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

An individual can take a single element or principle of the Restored Gospel, decontextualize it, distort it, and then misuse it to commit terrible wrongs.  That is not an indictment of the element or principle, however.

39 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Is it more prevalent than other groups?  I don't know. I don't care. I am more interested in Mormonism because it is my tradition.

To the extent you are attempting to indict the Church and its teachings because some few misappropriate and abuse those teachings to engage in terrible behavior, I think a clear-eyed review of things is in order.  "Navelgazing" defined as "self-indulgent or excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view," is a real possibility here.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

53 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Nothing like a member of the Utah State Bar publicly presenting a method for depriving a private entity remuneration for access to its product.

Point taken.  Just because we can do something doesn't necessarily mean we should.  

That said, the alternative option - finding the content on another webiste - seems okay.

Thanks,

-Smac

[HappyJackWagon]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

There are very very very few people who believe that violence is never acceptable, and probably fewer still who would continue with that belief if violence actually was the only way to save the life of their child or spouse, etc.  

Almost everyone believes that violence is ok under the "right circumstances".  We just disagree about what those circumstances are.  It's problematic to pretend that isn't the case.

 

 

That's fair.

But would you agree that when violence is used as the positive example of how we should act, or even what God would expect/want, that becomes a problematic teaching that could be used literally by bad actors (or as George Bush would say "evil doers")? So things like blood atonement, a javelin to the heart of the adulterer, retributive killings for the martyrdom, the murder of Laban, oaths and penalties in temple ceremony, punching a gay person who flirts, etc. Is it only the quantity of people who follow through on the violence of those teachings that matters, or is it the teaching that is the problem? 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

there are ample examples of bad teachings in the history of Mormonism.

The Oath of Vengeance is not a particularly attractive part, but it says nothing about humans taking vengeance and leaves it to God, which means when the vengeance is taken, it will be inherently perfectly just.  That has always struck me as significant, but I am unsure of what to do with it.  I am not sure a teaching that takes vengeance out of men’s hands and puts it in God’s alone is inherently bad, though it might lead some to interpret bad things happening to those they see as in the wrong as the work of God. The difficult part to me is it could encourage focusing on the wrongs done, but I wonder if by transferring responsibility to God fully to ‘handle’ vengeance, if it let those who might have been consumed with hatred let go of it better than if they didn’t have a mechanism in their life that allowed them to satisfy their need for justice that wasn’t likely to happen in mortality.  Hatred is not something I have had to deal with much in my life nor have I studied it, so I don’t know if this is a likely result or if it more likely encouraged holding on to the hatred or hatred in those who did not personally endure the suffering and would not normally have such feelings.  I don’t feel comfortable condemning it as a bad teaching until I know more about how the need for justice gets processed in healthy ways.

Would be interested in the view of any professionals who have experience in abuse, etc. about it.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Calm

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

There is no inner-reflection or consideration that the organization claiming to be God's One True Church for the entire world has a non-zero body count related directly to its teachings? That strikes me as a bit...odd.

Meh. It isn't like God, Himself is operating with a non-zero body count.

 

Quote

Nothing like a member of the Utah State Bar publicly presenting a method for depriving a private entity remuneration for access to its product.

Well, IANAL, but other options include:

• Click on the link and then immediately press Ctrl + P (for print); this will open a print preview of the entire article which can then be read or printed, whichever you prefer
• Click on the link and grab the full URL. Then type into your address bar "google search: " and paste the URL; this will bring the article to the top of your google search results, allowing you to click on then the three dots and access a cached version of the article from Google (either in full or text only, whichever you prefer).
• Open the link from another device, like your phone or tablet
• Open up a new web browser where you haven't met your [fill-in-the-blank] website quota for the month and view it there
• Open up a new browser session and then switch to "private" / "incognito" mode (where cookies aren't being cached) and then view it that way
• Make use of a free online proxy service (e.g., here) and access it that way

Personally, I do most of my browsing anonymously (as is my right) with javascript disabled and cookies set to delete on close, so I rarely run into any issues with soft/metered paywalls. And I recommend  other security conscious individuals do the same.

 

[HappyJackWagon]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

The Oath of Vengeance is not a particularly attractive part, but it says nothing about humans taking vengeance and leaves it to God, which means when the vengeance is taken, it will be inherently perfectly just.  I am not sure a teaching that takes vengeance out of men’s hands and puts it in God’s alone is inherently bad, though it might lead some to interpret bad things happening to those they see as in the wrong as the work of God. The difficult part to me is it could encourage focusing on the wrongs done, but I wonder if by transferring responsibility to God fully to ‘handle’ vengeance, if it let those who might have been consumed with hatred let go of it better than if they didn’t have a mechanism in their life that allowed them to satisfy their need for justice that wasn’t likely to happen in mortality.

If God is the example, and we are taught that God destroys the wicked (wars, famines, floods, personal destruction), and we are to emulate God, then it's not a horribly large leap for a person to feel justified in destroying those judged to be wicked. It could even be viewed as a "righteous judgement".

There are constantly debates on this forum about whether or not we as individuals or even the church should judge others' worthiness or whether we should leave that to God so that it truly is perfectly just. I'd wager that the vast majority of active LDS would argue for the appropriateness of judging others. If that's the case, then as members we really aren't content with awaiting God's perfectly just judgements and sometimes take it upon ourselves to pass those judgements on others. It becomes a matter of degree as to how the judgements are enforced (or not), even including violence. Fortunately, violence is rare.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

 

 

 

It is interesting to me that the attention seems to be getting diverted to two things: 1) to the idea that bad men can exploit good teachings; and 2), that violence should be measured in terms of materiality.

There is no engagement with my assertion that there is no need for bad men to exploit good teachings, because there are ample examples of bad teachings in the history of Mormonism. Thus far, there have been no reasonable responses along the lines of "Yes, I can see how we might be viewed this way given what Brigham Young said" or "No amount of context justifies that teaching and I really wish it wasn't part of our history" or "It doesn't surprise me that someone would use those quotes to justify bad acts." Just defense after defense after defense, sprinkled with a seasoning of "anti-Mormon," here and there.

As to materiality, I guess I am somewhat surprised at the casual attitude towards violence and death. At what point(s) do violence and death become material concerns? Only when the rate of incidence exceeds the average of the general population? There is no inner-reflection or consideration that the organization claiming to be God's One True Church for the entire world has a non-zero body count related directly to its teachings? That strikes me as a bit...odd.

I guess it's my turn to dramatically sigh....  

[smac97]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

Quote

Any system of philosophy, thought or belief is "potentially harmful," so this phrase means virtually nothing.

It is interesting to me that the attention seems to be getting diverted to two things: 1) to the idea that bad men can exploit good teachings; and 2), that violence should be measured in terms of materiality.

I don't know what you mean by #2.

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

There is no engagement with my assertion that there is no need for bad men to exploit good teachings,

And yet, they do.

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

because there are ample examples of bad teachings in the history of Mormonism.

Not really.  I think the Church is improving gradually and consistently.  

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

Thus far, there have been no reasonable responses along the lines of "Yes, I can see how we might be viewed this way given what Brigham Young said" or "No amount of context justifies that teaching and I really wish it wasn't part of our history" or "It doesn't surprise me that someone would use those quotes to justify bad acts." Just defense after defense after defense, sprinkled with a seasoning of "anti-Mormon," here and there.

I think you'll need to get down to brass tacks as far as past teachings that are still promulgated or tolerated by the Church today.

I suspect you won't, though, because that will undermine the narrative you are trying to create.  Very much in the "Cancel Culture" way of things.

I prefer Mormon 9:31.  We can move beyond endlessly condemning dead people for their imperfections by A) leaving such judgments to God, and B) learn from those imperfections and become more wise than our ancestors.  A big part of that learning process is listening to what the prophets and apostles are saying today. 

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

As to materiality, I guess I am somewhat surprised at the casual attitude towards violence and death. At what point(s) do violence and death become material concerns? Only when the rate of incidence exceeds the average of the general population? There is no inner-reflection or consideration that the organization claiming to be God's One True Church for the entire world has a non-zero body count related directly to its teachings? That strikes me as a bit...odd.

Quite a few disputable presumptions in there.  The expectation of perfection and infallibility being the most obvious ("a non zero body count").  

Ask not for whom the Cancel Culture Mob comes.  It comes for thee.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I guess we would need to do a statistical sampling of other religious traditions and their incidence of violence.  But hey it is amazing the dance all the true believers are doing. Even as a believer I was not surprised at how some went off the deep end and used LDS doctrine to justify it. I lived near the Lafferty's when they committed their murders. I knew people who knew Brenda.  The man who lived across the street from me was in the SP that ex's the Lafferty's. None of what they did surprised me. The way the committed their murders was straight out of the endowment.  I was in my mid twenties and even then knew enough about the oaths, blood atonement, the endowment and the portions I never liked. to know that Mormonism has elements of violence in its teachings that can be carried away with. As has been noted their used to be an oath of vengeance and in the 19th century members were expected to spill the blood of the murderers of the prophets if they ran across them.  I nor any other critics here have stated that most, many a large majority of LDS members are or will become violent and extreme.  I used the word replete which one poster seems to think that means a large statistical %.  Maybe it was a poor choice of words.  But when I say replete I mean many times that seems out of the norm. I could be wrong.  But there are easily dozens of examples that can be used and many have been referenced here.  Why the believers here cannot admit that seems odd and overly defensive.  I have also acknowledged there is a lot of good that comes from Mormonism and that more than bad. I have benefited personally from it.

Replete means "full of" something.  So if you say that mormonism is replete with violence then you are saying that mormonism is full of violence.  If that's not what you were saying then that is probably a large source of disagreement.

But to go on to the main focus of the post, if the examples of violence don't show that mormon theology leads to more bad acts than occur in the surrounding community, then what do they show?

The italicized words have been where my questions and focus are when discussing this with you and ttribe.  And from my perspective, they don't show anything relevant to the discussion of the general portrayal of our teachings and members in the TV show.

I'm not saying that I don't think they are ever relevant (a point which I made in a previous post), only that I don't think they are relevant to the specifics of this discussion (at least as far as my participation goes).

And the moral indignation that a few posts have focused on, concerning how amazing it is that not everyone is coming at this topic from the angle that you and other posters want, seems--to steal ttribe's judgement--.....odd.

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

That's fair.

But would you agree that when violence is used as the positive example of how we should act, or even what God would expect/want, that becomes a problematic teaching that could be used literally by bad actors (or as George Bush would say "evil doers")? So things like blood atonement, a javelin to the heart of the adulterer, retributive killings for the martyrdom, the murder of Laban, oaths and penalties in temple ceremony, punching a gay person who flirts, etc. Is it only the quantity of people who follow through on the violence of those teachings that matters, or is it the teaching that is the problem? 

It definitely could be problematic.  You'd probably have to take it in a case by case basis.  And for the record, I don't agree with teaching anyone that it's ok to punch someone who flirts with you if you don't like it.  I find that kind of teaching very problematic (and reactionary). 

But I don't find teaching that sometimes violence is acceptable to be problematic at all.  I find it to be a true statement.  As it almost always the case though, it's nailing down the gray areas that we see contention.

 

[Calm]

Quote

• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young teaching the doctrine of Blood Atonement?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young's teachings on race?
• What good, wholesome, uplifting thing came from Brigham Young's 'javelin through the heart' teaching about adultery?

Iirc, Blood Atonement was focused on the person who committed an unforgivable sin (murder) accepting responsibility and choosing for themselves to atone by having their blood shed by others (it does not appear to mean actual suicide).  I see it as possible that the families of victims could be comforted and be able to receive some peace if they saw such happening.  If it was actually followed, it might have removed the death penalty as an option except in the case of a convicted individual asking for it themselves.

He had a variety of teachings on race, one of which was the black race were sons and daughters of God just as the rest of humanity.  Given that there was a strong current in viewing blacks and native Americans as less than human, I think it is likely there was some good that came out of this.  Also he rebutted the the fence sitting folk teaching, which was a big plus imo.  His teaching the Curse would end opened up members’ minds to the removing of the Curse, which later contributed imo to easy acceptance by most members of the removal of the Ban.  But there was certainly much evil that came from at least some of his teachings about race, which encouraged separation for other reasons besides not being truly human.  Whether the positive aspects of his teachings balanced out the negative…it is hard to see anything as balancing out the Ban and it had the effect of overshadowing the no fence sitters teaching since people were desperate to justify it imo, so it seems unlikely, but since I don’t know if members were originally slanted towards viewing blacks as less than human or if BY was simply stating what most already believed, I don’t know how much his insistence on that point helped moved members to a more positive view of blacks and other races.

The javelin through the heart I feel no need to try and see if there could be any potential good from it. 

[Calm]

31 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

If God is the example, and we are taught that God destroys the wicked (wars, famines, floods, personal destruction), and we are to emulate God, then it's not a horribly large leap for a person to feel justified in destroying those judged to be wicked. It could even be viewed as a "righteous judgement".

The question was if any good could come of it, not if some might use it as justification.  I disagree the Oath itself provides any more justification than can be found elsewhere, given the scripture we are required to forgive all men, but God can choose to forgive who he wants.  It is obvious that in this case men are to live by a different rule.

Quote

My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.

“Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

“And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.” (D&C 64:8–11.)

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Calm