Under the banner of heaven

[Calm]

1 hour ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

said big thing fight, small thing not fight.

My guess is this occurred less with primitive societies and defense of one’s home and more with civilizations that could support armies that went out and to conquer, etc.  To protect a home or self, I am thinking women and children even would have been picking up rocks and throwing them as hard as they could or helping build the defenses and not just leaving it to the men, just as women might even now be firing the guns or wielding knives when homes are attacked. 

 Now the roaming hunting parties that evolved into armies, definitely male for the most part (some places the women fought or at least were part of the support staff). 

[The Nehor]

24 minutes ago, Calm said:

My guess is this occurred less with primitive societies and defense of one’s home and more with civilizations that could support armies that went out and to conquer, etc.  To protect a home or self, I am thinking women and children even would have been picking up rocks and throwing them as hard as they could or helping build the defenses and not just leaving it to the men, just as women might even now be firing the guns or wielding knives when homes are attacked. 

 Now the roaming hunting parties that evolved into armies, definitely male for the most part (some places the women fought or at least were part of the support staff). 

As best we can tell first generation warfare was more about raiding. The idea was more to deny others the ability to live in “good land” so you could keep it or get it. This kind of raiding warfare had a high casualty rate per capita compared to more organized warfare as it aimed to kill large groups to encourage people to leave the area. Women could probably participate in this kind of conflict without much disadvantage. This style of warfare became less effective once fortifications became complex enough. You could still raid but you couldn’t take land unless you could take your enemy’s hardpoints. 

Second generation warfare was more about winning a siege and possibly battle(s) on the way to do so. Second generation warfare is older than our oldest written records so we have to extrapolate quite a bit based on what evidence we can gather.

 

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I think casting life as a continuous battle to stay alive is a bit of a stretch...

Life feels like a continuous battle to survive mentally today, so it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for earlier eras to have had to struggle to survive physically.

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Life feels like a continuous battle to survive mentally today, so it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for earlier eras to have had to struggle to survive physically.

I imagine surviving mentally was also a big task back then.

Here the in US we are putting surviving physically back as something many get to struggle with. PROGRESS! Or regress? I don’t know.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Pre industrial revolution, life was a constant never ending battle to stave off starvation and death, and few were immune from the continual expenditure of energy to stay alive.

The industrial revolution did remove the pressure of starvation from large portions of society, but it’s only readily available birth control that will allow us to maintain that. 

[LoudmouthMormon]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

My guess is this occurred less with primitive societies and defense of one’s home and more with civilizations that could support armies that went out and to conquer, etc.  To protect a home or self, I am thinking women and children even would have been picking up rocks and throwing them as hard as they could or helping build the defenses and not just leaving it to the men, just as women might even now be firing the guns or wielding knives when homes are attacked. 

12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

As best we can tell first generation warfare was more about raiding.
...
Second generation warfare was more about winning a siege and possibly battle(s) on the way to do so.

I find it interesting that tribal structures (maybe closely related to what Nehor is calling 1st Gen) existed throughout human history, even to the present.  Native Americans in the N/C/S Americas, African nations (historically, and still some today), the Scots and Celts and Vikings and precursors of the Irish before the Romans, Egypt before (and after) the pyramids, periods in Mesopotamia, pre-Egyptian Hebrews, and plenty of others, all had small tribal bands of less than 1-200 people.  You can absolutely find large civilizations of millions that rise and fall, but yes indeed, you can also find never ending evidence of small-band tribes.

Since we're talking fairly recent historical inventions, the notion of the female going out to do equal battle with men is more a product of the Street Fighter video games (1987) than it is sound archaeological research.  You have to stretch the historical record pretty weirdly to come up with claims of women as a warrior class.  There are endless anecdotes of individual women, lots of stories of that one woman who led the troops, or that one queen who led armies.  But they seem pretty unique when compared to the millennia of human warfare and tens of thousands of human societies/cultures/civilizations.  

For the record - my family history on my Mom's side included pioneer LDS folks who helped settle Tooele UT.  There's several journal entries about a distant lady relative, living alone in her cabin, having to fight off numerous Indians who kept coming to steal her supplies.  

Also for the record - I've lost track of the women members of the US military I personally have come to know in the last 20 years.  I remember people fighting over "women in combat" when it was just starting to hit the news in the '90's.

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

notion of the female going out to do equal battle with men

I wasn’t thinking “equal battle”, I was thinking desperate to save one’s life and family’s life probably going to die or be raped or maimed anyway battle, which included saving property that allowed one not to starve. 

Edited March 5, 2024 by Calm

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I find it interesting that tribal structures (maybe closely related to what Nehor is calling 1st Gen) existed throughout human history, even to the present.  Native Americans in the N/C/S Americas, African nations (historically, and still some today), the Scots and Celts and Vikings and precursors of the Irish before the Romans, Egypt before (and after) the pyramids, periods in Mesopotamia, pre-Egyptian Hebrews, and plenty of others, all had small tribal bands of less than 1-200 people.  You can absolutely find large civilizations of millions that rise and fall, but yes indeed, you can also find never ending evidence of small-band tribes.

Since we're talking fairly recent historical inventions, the notion of the female going out to do equal battle with men is more a product of the Street Fighter video games (1987) than it is sound archaeological research.  You have to stretch the historical record pretty weirdly to come up with claims of women as a warrior class.  There are endless anecdotes of individual women, lots of stories of that one woman who led the troops, or that one queen who led armies.  But they seem pretty unique when compared to the millennia of human warfare and tens of thousands of human societies/cultures/civilizations.  

For the record - my family history on my Mom's side included pioneer LDS folks who helped settle Tooele UT.  There's several journal entries about a distant lady relative, living alone in her cabin, having to fight off numerous Indians who kept coming to steal her supplies.  

Also for the record - I've lost track of the women members of the US military I personally have come to know in the last 20 years.  I remember people fighting over "women in combat" when it was just starting to hit the news in the '90's.

Yeah, a lot of the information we have about First gen warfare is backdating small tribal societies methods of war combined with archaeological finds.

Women do a lot of the hunting in many observed hunter-gatherer societies. Warfare in current hunter-gatherer societies though is much more limited so it is harder to know how many women would fight. It is true that we have little evidence of women fighting en masse in the historical record but most of our records are of conflicts between agricultural societies, usually with what we would call authoritarian governments. Authoritarian love harshly restrictive gender roles and harshly restrictive class roles. Putin desperately needs more manpower but he isn’t likely to arm women and send them to war since he relies on a fragile hypermasculine cultural image of his society and rocking the boat would likely go very poorly for him. Stalin did use women in combat roles. There has been a lot of effort to erase women warriors from history mostly as a method of curtailing women’s rights. I think there are a lot of untold stories in this story. We back-dated our beliefs to minimize women hunting. Why not for women fighting?

There was that one find of a proto-Viking buried with weapons. It was assumed to be a man. Then someone cast doubt on that. Later it was confirmed to be a woman. All kinds of mental gymnastics were engaged in about the skeleton being mixed up with another one or that the tests were wrong and the like. There is a weird reactive need to justify that war is a male role that is probably still blinding us. 

 

[LoudmouthMormon]

I'm hardly an expert in any of this, just someone who enjoys reading and learning more about the history of human civilizations.

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

There has been a lot of effort to erase women warriors from history mostly as a method of curtailing women’s rights.

I would be interested in reading any sources you have that substantiate this claim.  I've noticed in the last ~5-10 years, it's become quite fashionable to push a re-thinking of history.  Although it's a trend outside of America too, American progressives especially seem to really like de-emphasizing a patriotic or glorifying understanding of our founding and institutions.  You folks seem to really like emphasizing notions about how inequality is enshrined our founding documents, institutions, and narratives.  

I see a lot of claims like yours put out there, much of it put forth and accepted without evidence or argument.  I'll happily familiarize with any evidence you can provide that substantiates your notion that there's been a lot of effort to erase women warriors from history as a way of keeping women down.  

Without being able to acquaint myself with such evidence, I'm afraid I'll have to hold on to my current notions, based on endless sources and endless records and endless bits of evidence, that from the dawn of human history until the last 30-40 years or so, men have done pretty much ALL the warfare and women have done pretty much none of it.  I believe that whether clan, tribe, large family group, state, nation, or civilization, when it comes to killing and conquering and subjugating and occupying and enslaving, everywhere in human history, it's been a boys only endeavor until the last scant few decades.   If dudes have been intentionally destroying evidence of all the noble legions of fierce and deadly women warriors, just to keep their wives complacent and submissive, I wanna read about it.

(I notice on this board there's been some recent spicyness around demanding sources and demanding harsh consequences if not produced.  I don't care about any of that, and won't be calling foul if you don't come up with anything.  I'm merely giving you a chance to change my mind, and the only consequence of you failing to produce any sources, is that I won't be changing my mind.)

 

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I'm hardly an expert in any of this, just someone who enjoys reading and learning more about the history of human civilizations.

I would be interested in reading any sources you have that substantiate this claim.  I've noticed in the last ~5-10 years, it's become quite fashionable to push a re-thinking of history.  Although it's a trend outside of America too, American progressives especially seem to really like de-emphasizing a patriotic or glorifying understanding of our founding and institutions.  You folks seem to really like emphasizing notions about how inequality is enshrined our founding documents, institutions, and narratives.  

I see a lot of claims like yours put out there, much of it put forth and accepted without evidence or argument.  I'll happily familiarize with any evidence you can provide that substantiates your notion that there's been a lot of effort to erase women warriors from history as a way of keeping women down.  

Without being able to acquaint myself with such evidence, I'm afraid I'll have to hold on to my current notions, based on endless sources and endless records and endless bits of evidence, that from the dawn of human history until the last 30-40 years or so, men have done pretty much ALL the warfare and women have done pretty much none of it.  I believe that whether clan, tribe, large family group, state, nation, or civilization, when it comes to killing and conquering and subjugating and occupying and enslaving, everywhere in human history, it's been a boys only endeavor until the last scant few decades.   If dudes have been intentionally destroying evidence of all the noble legions of fierce and deadly women warriors, just to keep their wives complacent and submissive, I wanna read about it.

(I notice on this board there's been some recent spicyness around demanding sources and demanding harsh consequences if not produced.  I don't care about any of that, and won't be calling foul if you don't come up with anything.  I'm merely giving you a chance to change my mind, and the only consequence of you failing to produce any sources, is that I won't be changing my mind.)

 

History was never on some solid stately march and then a bunch of weirdos started rethinking everything. We have always been rethinking history. Sometimes we have to undo what previous people did wrong. Looking at you Voltaire. You know what you did.

In general we are getting “more correct” as we go.

And our founding documents were inherently unequal. Have you read the original constitution? It was still a big jump forward. Outside of possibly some of the peasant republics it was the most free nation (at least in a European context) for quite some time. It was in the early days an aristocratic republic until the beginning of the 19th century when the states realized that without public support and buy in things would likely get ugly so the voting franchise started getting expanded drastically in some ways and heavily restricted in others.

I do think many go too far in glorifying the founding. It was a huge step forward but there is almost a cultic feel to some of that glorification. Then there is the “Lost Cause” mythos that sprung up later which we still can’t get rid of.

As to women warriors I was primarily theorizing about prehistoric societies where there are some interesting archaeological indications of women in hunting and warfare. Most developed societies tend to build strict gender (and class) roles. Our earliest writers in a European context also despised women in power with intense hatred. We have them tutting at Sparta for giving women too much power (they had almost none) and then there were the scathing denunciations of Cleopatra. I mean, Cleopatra wasn’t a very good ruler and a terrible military leader but when you have the hat trick of a foreign woman monarch they felt compelled to go nuts about how evil she was.

[LoudmouthMormon]

Fair enough response bro.

24 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I do think many go too far in glorifying the founding. It was a huge step forward but there is almost a cultic feel to some of that glorification.

[Raises hand] Me.  That's me.  You can call me Mr. Cultic Constitution Glorifier.  Imma hold on to my belief that the US constitution was a divinely inspired document, created by a bunch of men who were divinely inspired to do such things at such a pivotal moment in world history.  It's existence was the precursor for the restoration.  And the blessings and freedoms and liberties the church, and America, and to an extent the entire world enjoy, rest to a great extent on the righteousness of America's populace.  Consider me a fan of all the BoM scriptures that talk about promised land of divine inheritance.  I get that terms like Manifest Destiny, and our pioneering and colonization of America, is seen in a negative light these days.  I am rarely surprised any more that those outrage-peddling 'random person on the street interviews' reveal that our young adults know nothing about George Washington besides "he was a white slave owner who didn't let women vote".  But for me and my house, we gonna keep on watching and teaching stuff like this:

 

I mean, no, we didn't just teach this sanitized version.  We also included the stuff about the warts, smallpox, indian wars, massacres, the spicy path of women and minorities, and all that.  But we've tried hard to instill our kids with both a reverent respect for, and a sober full knowledge of, our history. And we found absolutely no lack of schools and parents happily off doing the same thing.

 

 

[Teancum]

On 3/5/2024 at 9:54 AM, ZealouslyStriving said:

Which is scriptural:

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." (Colo. 3:17)

Symbolic penalty oaths as part of covenants are also scripturally sound.

So is stoning sabbath day breakers as well.  But well we seem to have moved on from that nonsense.

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 minutes ago, Teancum said:

So is stoning sabbath day breakers as well.  But well we seem to have moved on from that nonsense.

You've heard of Jesus, correct?

[Teancum]

On 3/5/2024 at 11:36 AM, bluebell said:

I'm aware of that.  In my experience though, how Banner portrays that aspect of mormon life is not how the typical members viewed their relationships.  The lafferty's, from what I understand, were not like typical members.

Though I'm sure plenty of sexist LDS men used that part of the endowment, just like sexist non-lds Christians used/use those verses in the bible, to justify sexist behavior.

I agree with this.  And I found the portrayal of Latter-day Saints odd and creepy and nothing like I experienced. I grew up in Sandy Utah.  My wife and I spent about 2 years living in Salem Utah while I attended BYU.  We lived there when the Lafferty's committed their atrocious crimes. We lived across the street from a man who served in the SP that had excommunicated the Lafferty's.  Nobody I knew acted and behaved or even really talked the way believing Latter day Saints were portrayed in the series. I was rather disappointed. And they got a bunch of history wrong.  They really worked hard to make Brigham look like a dark scoundrel.  

[Teancum]

On 3/5/2024 at 1:59 PM, LoudmouthMormon said:

After the industrial revolution, we started taming all the dangers and changing our reality.  The world managed to fail at one last massive effort to kill everyone in WWII, a bazillion people got born in the '50's, and grew into the freest richest people with the most leisure time humanity had ever produced in the '60's, and in the '70's, the old ways started falling apart.  Birth control freed women from the natural 18-year consequence of the bio urge to reproduce, so we re-tooled our societies. 

Unfortunately it does not look like we remember very well the lessons of WWII and humans seem headed to another massive conflict that might rid the planet of homo sapiens entirely.

[Teancum]

55 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You've heard of Jesus, correct?

Yes.  Why?  The verses are still there in the so called "scripture."  Also how is that thing about plucking out your eye going for you?

[ZealouslyStriving]

19 hours ago, Teancum said:

Yes.  Why?  The verses are still there in the so called "scripture."  Also how is that thing about plucking out your eye going for you?

I'm trying...

JST Matt. 5:33–34 … hell. And now this I speak, a parable concerning your sins; wherefore, cast them from you, that ye may not be hewn down and cast into the fire.

Also, Jesus' sacrifice ended death penalty for Sabbath breaking and other assorted violations of the previous law- excepting murder where capital punishment is permitted.

Addendum:

 We believe that all religious societies have a right to deal with their members for disorderly conduct, according to the rules and regulations of such societies; provided that such dealings be for fellowship and good standing; but we do not believe that any religious society has authority to try men on the right of property or life, to take from them this world’s goods, or to put them in jeopardy of either life or limb, or to inflict any physical punishment upon them. They can only excommunicate them from their society, and withdraw from them their fellowship. (D&C 134)

Edited March 7, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving
Removal of pithy barb/sarcasm. I apologize.

[Orthodox Christian]

Hello everyone, and may I wish you all a blessed Easter. For us Orthodox it is only the second week of Great Lent, Easter for us is in early May, but I wish you all the blessing of this holy season. 

Thank you so much for all the replies to this topic. As an outsider I had no idea of the events depicted in this TV series. Had I not Googled it after the first episode, I would have dismissed it as sensationalism, however, after Googling I decided to carry on watching. I have to say, I didn't really notice the eerie music. And the devout young policeman's piety didn't  bother me. I have no problem with pius devotion as long as it is sincere. As for the content, the extremism of the Lafferty men was a surprise, it seems they were radicalised, and of course I have heard stories of fundamentalist LDS. What surprised me more was the status that polygamy held within the early LDS church. I suppose in that context I could see their point that it should never have been repudiated, given that it was said to have been a commandment of God and part of his restored church. However, the incestuous practices that the Lafferty's were said to have espoused were shocking. 

Also the idea of atonement by blood spilling, which the poor young woman and her innocent baby suffered was beyond awful. And stories of massacres etc were also a shock. I don't know how strong that doctrine was, nor if the tales of mass killings are true, but from an outside point of view it didn't give a very favourable view of your church. And then the colour controversy... 

It seems that whoever made the series wanted or maybe needed for context to revisit some of the most contraversial aspects of LDS church history. I just don't know how much was exaggerated, but I did find it disturbing. 

 

[Kenngo1969]

The creators of the series used an actual incident as scaffolding upon which to build the story that they wanted to tell, which, basically, bears absolutely no resemblance to what actually happened except that a faithful Latter-day Saint Sister and her baby died.

[Kenngo1969]

35 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

Hello everyone, and may I wish you all a blessed Easter. For us Orthodox it is only the second week of Great Lent, Easter for us is in early May, but I wish you all the blessing of this holy season.

Quote

Note, From Kenngo1969: I can't get quotes to separate out by using hard returns.  I'm not sure why that's not working, so I suppose this will have to do.  Thank you for the Easter well-wishes.

Thank you so much for all the replies to this topic. As an outsider I had no idea of the events depicted in this TV series. Had I not Googled it after the first episode, I would have dismissed it as sensationalism, however, after Googling I decided to carry on watching.

Quote

Kenngo1969: The actual events are simply scaffolding, upon which the creators built the story they actually wanted to tell.  The only resemblance that story bears to real life is that a faithful Latter-day Saint Sister and her baby lost their lives.  That's it.  Your first instinct was correct.  The series is sensationalism, and nothing but, and does a gross disservice to Brenda and Erica Lafferty.

 

[Calm]

38 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

don't know how strong that doctrine was, nor if the tales of mass killings are true, but from an outside point of view it didn't give a very favourable view of your church

If you could list the ones you are thinking of, we might be able to provide greater context on for whether something actually aligns to doctrine or not.

For example, blood atonement was taught as a way for someone to willingly give up their life as an act of repentance iirc and therefore if someone was killed without consent, that was murder and not doctrinal.

[Calm]

26 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

The series is sensationalism, and nothing but, and does a gross disservice to Brenda and Erica Lafferty.

The interview the American Fork police chief gave to FAIR was at the request of the sister of Brenda Lafferty, who has become a victims advocate because of her family’s experience.  She was unhappy (very unhappy iirc) with the series and wanted someone with actual involvement in the case to set the truth of it out for those who want to know what really happened.

If you (Orthodox Christian) haven’t watched it yet and want to understand the reality rather than the fiction (and outside of the setting and some of the names it was pretty much pure fiction imo), I encourage you to do so.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/under-the-banner-of-heaven-fact-vs-fiction/under-the-banner-of-heaven-randy-johnson

Quote

Randy Johnson was the chief of police responsible for the murder investigation of Brenda and Erica Lafferty in 1984, in American Fork, Utah. “I cannot recognize any actual person that I knew or came to know, accurately depicted in the series. The series does not reflect the actual investigation that I oversaw. Nor does it reflect the attitudes, behaviors and conduct of me or any of my officers. It is clearly a work of fiction as indicated by the disclaimer. I affirm that to my knowledge neither I nor any of my officers ever lost our personal faith.”

Also Les Langford, a police officer who had earned the hate of Lafferty and who was intended to be one of the victims by Lafferty, provides great background…

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/under-the-banner-of-heaven-fact-vs-fiction/under-the-banner-of-heaven-les-langford

Quote

Les Langford served as a Utah state trooper from 1972 – 2002. He was the trooper that arrested Dan Lafferty in 1983 while he (Dan) was a candidate for sheriff. He appeared in a total of 4 trials and stood toe-to-toe with Ron Lafferty as Dan’s followers tried to disrupt the court proceedings. In 1984 when Dan and Ron set out to do the murders, they created a “hit list” that included the stake president that had excommunicated them, the stake relief society president, and others. Brenda Lafferty was about 4th on the list, and Les Langford was 6th on the list. 

 

Edited March 26, 2024 by Calm

[LoudmouthMormon]

4 hours ago, Orthodox Christian said:

I have to say, I didn't really notice the eerie music.
[...]
I just don't know how much was exaggerated, but I did find it disturbing. 

I'd urge you (and everyone, really) to do a little re-watching, paying special attention to the music (and low bassy rumbling background sounds).  There's an art and science in using noise to create emotion in an audience, and the folks who made this series knew what they were doing.

If you (or anyone, really) ends up doing some rewatching, I'd love to hear about about folks' experience.  How does being aware of the emotionally-manipulative audio elements, impact the scenes you find disturbing?  I know for me, I can still appreciate watching a show and feeling what they want me to feel.  It's a way to enhance enjoyment or appreciation of a show.  But sometimes it's just ludicrously funny. 

It was either episode 1 or 2, when our young innocently-zealous freckle-faced cop went to meet with the bishop about his wife.  I heard the deep rumbling scaretrack and started laughing.  I've had dozens, maybe hundreds of meetings with my various bishops over the years.  No small amount of them about serious topics like mental health and criticisms of the church.  I've never, even once, heard that disturbing music being played in our meetings.  

  

[bluebell]

6 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I'd urge you (and everyone, really) to do a little re-watching, paying special attention to the music (and low bassy rumbling background sounds).  There's an art and science in using noise to create emotion in an audience, and the folks who made this series knew what they were doing.

If you (or anyone, really) ends up doing some rewatching, I'd love to hear about about folks' experience.  How does being aware of the emotionally-manipulative audio elements, impact the scenes you find disturbing?  I know for me, I can still appreciate watching a show and feeling what they want me to feel.  It's a way to enhance enjoyment or appreciation of a show.  But sometimes it's just ludicrously funny. 

It was either episode 1 or 2, when our young innocently-zealous freckle-faced cop went to meet with the bishop about his wife.  I heard the deep rumbling scaretrack and started laughing.  I've had dozens, maybe hundreds of meetings with my various bishops over the years.  No small amount of them about serious topics like mental health and criticisms of the church.  I've never, even once, heard that disturbing music being played in our meetings.  

  

How else are the nonmembers supposed to know that meeting with the bishop is an ominous thing, if not for the soundtrack?  

[Calm]

34 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

've never, even once, heard that disturbing music being played in our meetings

You make me want to come prepared next time

If it was my last bishop, I would. He has a great sense of humor. We just got a new one three weeks ago and I don’t know him that well, though my guess is he would laugh as well.