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| Saturday, Jan 21, 2006, at 09:34 AM From Commie Basher To Rock 'n Roll Trasher: The Legacy Of The Late, Latter-Day Looney Cleon Skousen Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| W. Cleon Skousen was, without a doubt, a real piece of work who, despite his schmoozings of top Mormon leadership, ultimately became an official LDS embarrassment In the wake of Skousen's recent death, below are some observations assembled from my personal Ezra Taft Benson and Skousen files (combined with research from other sources in my home library) on Skousen's colorful, controversial life and his bizarre mix of apocalyptic religious/political beliefs: CLEON CLINGS ON TO McKAY: SKOUSEN'S INSIDE TRACK WITH THE MORMON CHURCH HIERARCHY President David O. McKay's Official Mormon Church Blessing of Skousen's Radical Right-wing Agenda In 1962 LDS General Conference, McKay recommended that members of the Church avail themselves of Skousen’s book, The Naked Communist, declaring: “I admonish everybody to read that excellent book of [former FBI agent and then-Salt Lake City Police] Chief Skousen’s.” (David O. McKay, “Preach the Word,” Improvement Era, 62 [December 1959], p. 912, quoted in D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1997], p. 82) In his officially Mormon-blessed book, Skousen warned readers to be on the alert against a worldwide Marxist revolution dedicated to: . . . “the total annihilation of all opposition, the downfall of all existing governments, all economies and all societies,” through the creation of “a regimented breed of Pavlovian men whose minds could be triggered into immediate action by signals from their masters.” To fight the international Red menace, Skousen extolled Brigham Young University as a pre-eminent religious training ground in the “war of ideologies” and urged concerned parents: “We should not sit back and wait for our boys and girls to be indoctrinated with materialistic dogma and thereby make themselves vulnerable to a Communist conversion when they are approached by the agents of force and fear who come from across the sea.” (W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Company, 1958], pp. 2, 377-378) _____ SKEPTICAL OF SKOUSEN'S RABID RADICALISM: AN OPPOSING NON-MORMON VIEW Shining an altogether different light on Skousen’s work, Richard Dudam, author of the book, Men of the Far Right, wrote: “Skousen’s book, The Naked Communist, is a Bible of the right-wing movement and is promoted heavily by many of the extremist groups. In it, he asserts that the first Russian sputnik was built with plans stolen from the United States after World War II and that President Batista, the former Cuban dictator, was really a sincere, pro-labor, popular ruler. "Skousen advises legislators to overthrow Supreme Court restrictions on actions against persons suspected of being communists. He urges businessmen . . . to seek help from the American Security Council [a Chicago-based group of ‘right-wing military men and businessmen’ that operated ‘a private loyalty-security blacklist where employers could check their employees and job applicants for indications of left-wing connections.’]” _____ SKOUSEN'S BEWILDERING BACKGROUND Salt Lake City’s Fired Totalitarian Police Chief Skousen was removed from his post as Salt Lake’s police chief by then-city mayor J. Bracken Lee, who called him “an incipient Hitler” who “ran the [SLC] police department in exactly the same manner as the Communists in Russia operate their government.” (Dudman, Men of the Far Right [New York, New York: Pyramid Books, 1962], pp. 127-28) _____ Super Supporter of Far-Right Anti-Communist Crusades Skousen was an active barnstormer and speaker for Fred C. Schwartz’s ”Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.” Life Magazine noted that Schwartz “preached doomsday by Communism in 1973 unless every American starts distrusting his neighbor.” (Dudman, pp. 8, 118) _____ Diehard Defender of the John Birch Society Against Alleged International Communist Plotters Although not an official member of the John Birch Society, Skousen was a die-hard supporter, serving as an active cohort in its “American Opinion Speakers Bureau,” which included among its Far Right allies my uncle and high-ranking Birch Society officer, Reed Benson. (Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster, Report on the John Birch Society 1966, [New York, New York: Vintage Books, 1966], p. 95. In 1963, Skousen published a pamphlet, “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society,” in which he claimed that the Birch Society had been “dishonestly ridiculed and smeared at the instigation of the international Communist conspiracy.” He further claimed that the Birch Society was “marked for annihilation because it was becoming highly successful in awakening the American people.” He also accused Americans who criticized the Bircher Society as “promoting the official Communist party line.” (Skousen, “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society” [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Company, 1963], pp. 11-12) _____ SKOUSEN'S INCENDIARY CLAIM THAT COMMUNISTS WERE BEHIND ATTACKS ON THE MORMON CHURCH'S RACIST ANTI-BLACK DOCTRINE In 1970, amid growing college protests against BYU sports teams for the LDS Church’s anti-Black priesthood policy, Skousen published a tabloid featuring the screaming headline, “The Communist Attack on the Mormons.” The article asserted that: " . . . [Professional] Communist-oriented revolutionary groups have been spearheading the wave of protests and violence directed toward Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church,” [employing] “Marxism and Maoism as their ideological base and terror tactics as their method . . .” Skousen warned that Communists were plotting to manipulate press reports into depicting the Mormon Church as being “rich, priest-ridden, racist, super-authoritarian and conservative to the point of being archaically reactionary.” He claimed that, in fact, the Mormon Church was one of the Communists’ “prime TARGETS FOR ATTACK” because it is “STRONGLY PRO-AMERICAN” and that the ‘Negro-priesthood issue” was being used as a “SMOKESREEN” to “further their ulterior motives.” Citing Ezra Taft Benson’s speech, “Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception,” he warned that Communist-inspired assaults on the Mormon Church were designed to: " . . . create resentment and hatred between the races by distorting the religious tenet of the Church regarding the Negro and blowing it up to ridiculous proportions." (“Special Report by National Research Group,” American Fork, Utah, 84003, March 1970, p. 1, emphasis in original) _____ SKOUSEN'S FOUNDING OF THE EXTREMIST, BOOK OF MORMON-BASED FREEMAN INSTITUTE AND HIS SOLICITATION OF EZRA TAFT BENSON'S SUPPORT Skousen eventually established the Freeman Institute in Provo, Utah. The group derived its name from the Book of Mormon “freemen” and initially drew many Mormon Birchers into its ranks. My father, Mark Benson, was the Institute’s “Vice President in Charge of Development” and my grandfather formally spoke to its members. (Quinn, pp. 109-111). _____ SKOUSEN'S DIRE WARNING TO EZRA TAFT BENSON OF AN INTERNATIONAL SCHEME FOR ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT, ORCHESTRATED BY WALL STREET BANKERS In a letter sent to my grandfather (which, despite its form fundraising format, my grandfather marked in red pen with a handwritten notation, “Confidential”), Skousen warned: ". . . [The] so-called ‘Council on Foreign Relations’ [has been] “set up . . . to groom ambitious one-world political personalities for leadership in all major departments of the American government from the President on down. . . . “Their latest triumph was the election of Jimmy Carter. . . .” Skousen ominously claimed that “members of the Establishment have directed foreign policy from Wall Street in the past.” He told my grandfather that because of President Gerald R. For, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and other “master-planners,” the “foreign-policy establishment of Wall Street bankers and lawyers . . . moved into the very heart of the Establishment and took over.” Skousen further declared: “I wonder how people who say there is ‘no such thing as a conspiracy’ will deal with this one?” He also forewarned Ezra Taft Benson that the one-world planners intended to celebrate the upcoming “200 anniversary of the United States Constitution by scrapping it.” In an apocalyptic conclusion to his letter, Skousen, under the sub-heading “We Need Millions of Freeman,” told my grandfather: “I don’t know how all this affects you, but it puts a fire in my veins. I hope that in this coming year we can double or triple the number of Freeman and eventually we can challenge these advocates of world serfdom and drive them out of power. . . . I pray it will happen soon. And we must do everything we can to help make it happen. That’s what you are helping to accomplish, and I am grateful to you for your support. “See you next month!” (W. Cleon Skousen, letter to “Elder Benson,” January 1977, copy in my possession) _____ SKOUSEN'S FULL-THROATED ASSAULT ON SATANIC ROCK MUSIC--WITH EZRA TAFT BENSON'S FULL-HEARTED ENCOURAGEMENT In my personal library I discoverd a book that once belonged to my grandfather entitled, Rock 'N' Reality: Mirrors of Rock Music--Its Relationship to Sex, Drugs, Family & Religion, by Mormon author and BYU graduate E. Lynn Balmforth [Hawkes Publications: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1971]. My grandfather apparently had a special fondness for this thin, paperback volume. He had signed his name in his big, flamboyant style above the title on the front cover, along with noting in the upper right-hand corner of same, "Return to E.T.B." He further autographed the inside of the front cover, along with noting the date--February 18, 1972--that he received it. He very much seemed to want to make sure he never lost it. The book's "Preface" was authored by Skousen, obviously one of Ezra Taft Benson's closest ideological allies. My grandfather had dog-earred the first page of that section and underlined several of its passages in ballpoint pen. In the left-hand margin next to the third and fourth paragraphs of the first page, respectively, he wrote the words "on card" and "card," indicating that he wanted these particular passages transferred to his typed card file, which he used as a sermon resource. My grandfather highlighted, via underlining and/or margin brackets, the following from Skousen's words of warning: "We've combined youth, music, sex, drugs, and rebellion with treason!' "This was the way Jerry Rubin, chieftain of the Yippies, described the current assault on America's up-coming generation in his book, DO IT! "Later, in a speech at Salt Lake City, Utah, he said: 'Rock 'n' Roll is the center of the Revolution!' "Americans are well aware that there has been a revolution. In morals. In manners. In speech. In crime rates. In riots. In violence. In drugs. In sex. In pornography. In politics. In movies. In education. In music. "What most of us failed to realize at the moment was how important the music revolution would become. It turned out to be the catalyst for all the rest. It became the prod to promote drugs, the advertiser of sex in the hedonism manner, the mind-conditioner for four-letter gutter speech, and eventually the blatant propaganda funnel for political subversion. It also became the seductive Jezebel for a modern philosophy of no God, of Man as merely a graduate beast of the jungle, of Jesus Christ as a phoney actor--a superstar, of peace and prosperity being possible only under communism, of America as the enemy of the world, of Russia as the hope of the world." (p. 3) Turning the page, Skousen continued his tirade against rock music, while my grandfather's marking pen took a momentary break: "Just as a sampler, here are the lyrics to America's number-one-hit-recording at the moment of this writing. It is by John Lennon and is called, 'Imagine.' 'Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, Living for today. 'Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace. 'Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger-- A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world. 'You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one.'" (p. 4) Skousen continued his message of clear-and-present danger: "I observe that many young people have taken from this song only the theme of 'brotherhood' and 'all the world for all the people.'" At this point, Ezra Taft Benson's marking pen picked up again, as he underlined Skousen's next words: "However, the professional debunkers who were behind the engineering of this song took colossal satisfaction from the fact that they are succeeding in getting tens of millions of young Americans to mouth the artfully planted brain teasers of 'no heaven,' 'no hell,' 'above us only sky,' 'no countries,' 'nothing to kill or die for,' 'no religion,' 'no possessions,' and 'all the world as one.'" At this point, my grandfather's marking notes temporarily ceased, as Skousen climatically rolled forth: "Yes, it's turning out to be quite a revolution." (p. 5) Skousen somberly concluded the "Preface" with this gloomy prediction, highlighted once more by Ezra Taft Benson's pen: "The problem expertly treated in ths book by Mr. Balmforth is of historical significance. This problem may turn out to be a major factor which contributed to the downfall of civilization." (p. 6) _____ THE MORMON CHURCH FINALLY PUTS OFFICIAL DISTANCE BETWEEN ITSELF AND SKOUSEN Following McKay’s death, the LDS Church “found it necessary to counter the now-familiar pattern of Mormon ultra-conservatives to imply church endorsement.” (Quinn, p. 110) In a letter “[t]o All Stake Presidents, Bishops, and Branch Presidents in the United States,” the First Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball dictated the following, gingerly-worded order: “It has come to our attention that in some areas announcements have been made in Church meetings of lectures to be given by those connected with the Freemen Institute. This is to inform you that no announcements should be made in Church meetings of these, or other similar, lectures or events that are not under the sponsorship of the Church. “This instruction is not intended to express any disapproval of the right of the Freemen Institute and its lecturers to conduct such meetings or of the contents of the lectures. The only purpose is to make certain that neither Church facilities nor Church meetings are used to advertise such events and to avoid any implication that the Church endorses what is said during such lectures.” (letter from the Office of the First Presidency, Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, 15 February 1979, copy in my possession) |
| Monday, Jan 30, 2006, at 07:17 AM To Mormonism's Cry-Baby Apologists At Fair And Farms: Quit Your Grumping About Criticisms Of The Book Of Mormon And Pick Up The Gauntlet Thrown Down By Orson Pratt Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| "This book must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God . . . If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world; calculated to deceive and ruin millions . . . "The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such that, if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it, if false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it. . . . "If, after a rigid examination, it be found an imposition, it should he extensively published to the world as such. The evidence and arguments upon which the imposture was detected should be clearly and logically stated, that those who have been sincerely, yet unfortunately, deceived may perceive the nature of the deception, and be reclaimed, and that those who continue to publish the delusion may be exposed and silenced, not by physical force, neither by persecutions, bare assertions, nor ridicule, but by strong and powerful arguments--by evidences adduced from scripture and reason . . . "But on the other hand, if investigations should prove the Book of Mormon true . . . the American and English nations should utterly reject both the Popish [i.e., Roman Catholic] and Protestant ministry, together with all the churches which have been built up by them or that have sprung from them, as being entirely destitute of authority." (Orson Pratt, Works: Divine Authority of The Book of Mormon [Liverpool, 1851, pp. 1-2, as quoted in Wayne L. Cowdery, Howard A. Davis and Arthur Vanick, Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma [St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 2005], p. 18) Jesus Christ-man-to-God/man, if you can't take the heat, get out of that empty stone box. But a friendly word of advice to you in the process: Don't waste too much of your valuable tithe-paying time trying to defend the indefensible. As has been amply demonstrated by incontrovertible evidence, your "sacred" Book of Mormon is not "a valuable, historical record of pre-Columbian North America" but, rather, "a deception of the first order, perpetrated upon the gullible and the credulous by the very founder of the [Mormon] Church himself, [your] Prophet Joseph Smith." (ibid., p. 17) Just thought you'd like to know. Now, relax, change into something more comfortable than that Masonic underwear of yours and go have a beer. :) |
| Tuesday, Jan 31, 2006, at 08:21 AM Book Of Moron Stories: Wicked Brown-Skinned Lemuel Comes Back From The Dead Posing As A Quaker, Buys The Palymra Home Of Shiftless White-Skinned Joseph Smith Posing As A Prophet Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| forces the lazy deadbeat Smiths to live as tenant farmers because of their in-the-toilet credit rating, then returns to his proper place as a super satanic dude in the Book of Mormon, where he got his just desserts for being such a lousy landlord--by being punished by God with a dark complexion. So there. At least that's Joseph Smith's story--and he's stickin' to it. _____ Who Was Lemuel Durfee and How Did He Know Joseph Smith? . . . [The Smiths] persuaded one Lemuel Durfee to buy the [Palmyra] farm [where the Smiths took up residence], and county records show that he [Lemuel Durfee] took ownership on December 20, 1825, for $1,135. . . . A Quaker of the Hicksite persuasion, owner of a woods near Palmyra in which the little Quaker church stood, Durfee apparently treated the Smith family with sympathy. He gave them a lease on the house and they would remain in it another three years, until December 30, 1828, when they would move to another house a little farther south. http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpts/first.htm _____ The Joseph Smith, Sr. family los[t] the the title to their farm in Manchester. Lemuel Durfee, Sr., the new owner, allow[ed] the Smiths to remain on the property as tenant farmers. http://olivercowdery.com/history/Cdychrn1.htm _____ The Smith family built a log home, technically just outside their property, in the town of Palmyra . . . In 1822, the Smiths began building a larger frame house that was actually on their new property . . . In 1825, the Smiths were unable to raise money for their final mortgage payment, and their creditor foreclosed on the property. However, the family was able to persuade a local Quaker, Lemuel Durfee, to buy the farm and rent the Smiths the property. At the end of 1828, the family moved to another house further south, where they remained until 1830. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Smith,_Jr. ____ When [the father of] Samuel [Harrsion Smith, Joseph Smith's younger brother] . . . missed a mortgage payment on the family farm on the outskirts of Manchester Township near Palmyra, a local Quaker named Lemuel Durfee purchased the land and allowed the Smiths to continue to live there in exchange for Samuel's labor at Durfee's store. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_H._Smith _____ Lucy Mack Smith mentions in her history that in 1829 her family had moved out of the frame house, which belonged to Lemuel Durfee and his heirs, and went back into their previous log house in the township of Manchester where Hyrum Smith and his family had been living. . . . In this building, Oliver Cowdery prepared the Book of Mormon printer's manuscript in 1829-30 and here individuals visited the Smith family until the Smiths moved to Waterloo, NY in the fall of 1830. http://www.xmission.com/~research/about/manchester.htm _____ Sometime in late 1826 the Smiths lost their farm. They had been unable to meet their payments and lacked a thousand dollars of completing the purchase when the land agent in Canandaigua foreclosed the property and sold it to Sheriff Lemuel Durfee. Although Durfee permitted the Smiths to remain in possession, in consideration of a small annual payment sufficient to pay the interest on the balance, . . . the family was heartbroken--their long ordeal by poverty suffered to no purpose. . . . This is the arrangement described by Thomas L. Cook [in] Palmyra and Vicinity (Palmyra, 1930), p. 219, although he pictures Durfee as owner of the property from the beginning. Lucy Mack Smith's confused and pathetic account, Biographical Sketches (Liverpool, 1853), pp. 92-98, 129, at any rate agrees that Durfee "became the possessor of the farm," and that the Smiths remained on it thereafter only at Durfee's pleasure. It would seem that Lucy's pride makes her insist that they missed only the final payment, for it is inconceivable that they could have contracted to buy the farm in no more than five installments, and even more inconceivable that they would have engaged to pay at the rate of a thouand dollars a year, the sum she says they would have needed to save the farm. http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/dalemorgan/dalechapter4.htm#Chapter4 _____ Lemuel Durfee knew the Smiths indirectly as a landlord from 1825 to 1829 . . . http://byustudies2.byu.edu/JSChronology/Articles/10.3Anderson.pdf _____ What Lemuel Durfee Thought of Joseph Smith [Sworn affidavit,] Palmyra, Dec. 4, 1833. We, the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family, for a number of years, while they resided near this place, and we have no hesitation in saying, that we consider them destitute of that moral character, which ought to entitle them to the confidence of any community. They were particularly famous for visionary projects, spent much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in the earth; and to this day, large excavations may be seen in the earth, not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time in digging for hidden treasures. Joseph Smith, Senior, and his son Joseph, were in particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious habits. Martin Harris was a man who had acquired a handsome property, and in matters of business his word was considered good; but on moral and religious subjects, he was perfectly visionary--sometimes advocating one sentiment, and sometimes another. And in reference to all with whom we were acquainted, that have embraced Mormonism from this neighborhood, we are compeled to say, were very visionary, and most of them destitute of moral character, and without influence in this community; and this may account why they were permitted to go on with their impositions undisturbed. It was not supposed that any of them were possessed of sufficient character or influence to make any one believe their book or their sentiments, and we know not of a single individual in this vicinity that puts the least confidence in their pretended revelations. [signed by] Lemuel Durfee [and 50 others] Manchester, Nov. 3d, 1833. http://www.angelfire.com/az2/arizonadry/truth/howe.html _____ How Lemuel Durfee Made It Into the Book of Mormon [A] source of inspiration for the Book of Mormon may have been Joseph's own life, neighborhood, family, and friends. . . . [T]here are various Book of Mormon names such as 'Lemuel,' a wicked character. This may refer to Lemuel Durfee, a neighbor who in 1825 bought the Smith's farm when they could no longer afford it, thus forcing them to live as tenants. Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods, p. 72, and endnote #61, p. 514; see also, Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1, p. 321, footnote #128 _____ Lemuel is a Biblical name (Prov. 31:1, 4) but is was also the name of a neighbor of Joseph Smith, Lemuel Durfee, who signed an affidavit in 1833 that denounced Smith's supposed revelations and accused him of immoral character and vicious habits (See Howe's Mormonism Unvailed, p. 261-62). Lemuel was one of the bad guys that God cursed, causing him and all his descendants to have dark skin. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/topics/lemuel.html _____ (emphasis added) |
| Thursday, Feb 2, 2006, at 07:43 AM "The Plagiarizing Moves On:" In The Glorious Tradition Of Mormonism's Unoriginal And Uninspired "Prophets": Joseph Smith, David O. Mckay, Ezra Taft Benson, Merrill J. Bateman And Bruce R. Mcconkie Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| SOLOMON SPAULDING DISGUISED AS JOSEPH SMITH First and foremost, of course, among Mormonism's persistent plagiarists was its charismatic charlatan and philandering founder, Joseph Smith himself (1805-1844). Smith (with the conniving assistance of Sidney Rigdon) ripped off the fictional manuscript writings of Congregationalist minister Solomon Spaulding (1761-1816) for the purpose of creating the equally fictional Book of Mormon. In his devastating expose' of Smith's theft of others' hard-earned intellectual property (since he had no honest intellect of his own), researcher Vernal Holley exposes the spawned-by-Spaulding connection: "[There are] many similarities between Spaulding's 'Manuscript Story' and the Book of Mormon. These are not vague similariites also found in other adventure stories; they are unique only to the works in question. "How many books exist that have the same story outline as the Book of Mormon? How many stories tell of a record being written by the ancestors of the American Indians and buried by them to come forth at some future time when other people inherit their lands? How many tell of the same worship ceremonies, cultural technology, seer stones, and give the same descriptions of their fortifications and war stories? How many novels tell of a white God person whose teachings brought about a long period of peace followed by a war between kindred tribes in which the losing people are exterminated? Many similarities in the literary style of the two works have also been identified including identical word combinations, and the geograhpical settings of the two stories appear to be in the same area? "Most skeptical readers of Spaulding's 'Manuscript Story' encounter difficulty in recognizing similarities between it and the Book of Mormon because they expect it to be written in the King James style complete with sentences beginning with "And it came to pass" and personal names similar to those in the Book of Mormon. When they cannot find these elements, they may lost interest and find it difficult to complete even a first reading. The problem is compounded when the reader is not a veteran student of the Book of Mormon. For example, if the reader is unaware that Gazelem, the Book of Mormon servant of the Lord, possessed a seer stone, the Spaulding seer stone might be passed over as insignificant. "I believe that anyone who carefully studies all the material in [my] report will see that a relationship does exist between Solomon Spaulding's unpublished writing, called 'Manuscript Story,' and the Book of Mormon. The only significant difference between the two story outlines is the inclusion of the romance between Prince Eleson and Princess Lamess in 'Manuscript Story.' There is no such romance in the Book of Mormon. "All the same, [Hugh] Nibley's assertion that the similarities between the 'Manuscript Story' and the Book of Mormon 'add up to nothing' seems to me to be an unfair conclusion. I believe the application of Nibley's rule (the closer the resemblance, the closer the connection) leaves little doubt that a connection does exist between Solomon Spaulding's writing and the Book of Mormon. "So the question remains: How did this relationship come about? And, was the unfinished Spaulding 'Manuscript Story'--or an enlarged version--used by Joseph Smith as the groundwork for the Book of Mormon?" (Vernal Holley, Book of Mormon Authorship: A Closer Look--A comprehensive study of the similarities between the Book of Mormon and the writings of Solomon Spaulding, 3rd edition, revised and enlarged [Roy, Utah: Vernal Holley, publisher, 1992], pp. 71-72) For striking examples of parallel word usages, storylines, names, and geographic locales, see: http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/vern/vernP0.htm http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/vern/vernP2.htm#pg33 http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/vern/vernP2.htm#pg28 http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/vern/vernP1.htm#pg20 http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/vern/vernP2.htm#pg27 http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/Holley1.JPG http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/Holley2.JPG and: Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis and Arthur Vanick, Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? (St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 2005) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0758605277/002-1638398-8090404?v=glance&n=283155 **"Book of Mormon stories that I cribbed--here, look and see . . ." _____ BENJAMIN DISRAELI DISGUISED AS DAVID O. McKAY David O. McKay (1873-1970) is perhaps best known for his oft-quoted little couplet (which, come to find out, wasn't his after all): "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." (quoted on an official LDS website, from J. E. McCullough, Home: The Savior of Civilization [1924], 42; Conference Report, April 1935, p. 116.) http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/presidents/controllers/potcController.jsp?leader=9&topic=quotes http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=2252 _____ McKay had, in fact, infamously ripped line off that famous line from Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), a renowned British politician, novelist and essayist who said: "No success in public life can compensate for failure in the home." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli **"No success can compensate for words that aren't my own." _____ C.S. LEWIS DISGUISED AS EZRA TAFT BENSON In Mormon circles, one of the most beloved sermons attributed to the Mormon Church President Ezra Taft Benson(1899-1994) is the one entitled, "Beware of Pride" (which was actually read on 1 April 1989, at the Saturday morning session of the 159th semi-annual General Conference, not by Benson, but by First Presidency counselor Gordon B. Hinckley, who delivered it in the ailing Benson's behalf). This talk by my grandfather has been described by LDS devotees as "[p}erhaps the best remembered of all Ezra Taft Benson's talks . . . [Church] [m]embers from all over the political spectrum love and agree with him here. This talk is . . . loved." http://www.zionsbest.com/pride.html http://www.zionsbest.com/top25.html _____ Moreover, in a glowing obituary of my grandfather, the sermon was mentioned as follows: "Continuing to help set the Church in order and perfect the Saints, he delivered another landmark address entitled 'Beware of Pride' . . ." http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/daily/history/people/Benson_EOM.htm _____ Trouble is, much of Benson's pride sermon was a blatant exercise in plagiarism from the writings of Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), as found in Lewis' work, Mere Christianity, under the chapter heading, “The Great Sin” (C.S. Lews, Mere Christianity, revised and enlarged [New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952]). http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/mere_christianity.asp http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060652888/002-1638398-8090404?v=glance&n=283155 _____ Not only was the sermon delivered by someone else, persuasive evidence has surfaced that a person other than Ezra Taft Benson actually researched and wrote the talk. Significant portions of Benson’s pride sermon were directly lifted from, influenced by and cobbled together from the writings of Christian apologist C.S. Lewis-- A line-by-line comparison of the text of both documents provides clear and convincing evidence that a major source source for Benson's talk on pride was the earlier work of C.S. Lewis. Moreover, this blatant and heavy borrowing, both in terms of wording and concept, was done without attribution. Examples of these plagiarisms are listed below, by category. Pride is the Ultimate Vice Lewis "The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride." (p. 109) Benson "Pride is the universal sin, the great vice." _____ The Competitive Nature of Pride Lewis "Pride is essentially competitive--is competitive by is very nature . . .” (p. 109) ". . . Pride is essentially competitive in a way that other vices are not." (p. 110) "Pride is competitive by its very nature." (p. 110) “Once the element of competition has gone, pride is gone. That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not.” (p. 110) Benson "Pride is essentially competitive in nature. . . . ”Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled." _____ The Proud See Themselves Being Above Others Lewis "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." (p.111) Benson “Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us.” _____ The Proud Also Look From the Bottom Up Lewis “When you delight wholly in yourself and do not care about the praise at all, you have reached the bottom.” (p. 112) Benson “There is, however, a more common ailment among us and that is pride from the bottom looking up.” _____ Pride Equals Enmity Lewis "Pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God." (p.111) Benson "The central feature of pride is enmity--enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowman." “Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers.” “Another major portion of this very prevalent sin of pride is enmity toward our fellowmen.” _____ Pride and Self-Value Lewis "You value other people enough to want them to look at you." (p. 112) Benson "The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not." _____ Pride vs. Humility Lewis "The virtue opposite to it [pride], in Christian morals, is called Humility." (p. 109) “ . . . if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble—delightfully humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which had made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible . . .” (p. 114) Benson "The antidote for pride is humility . . . " “Choose to be humble. God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.” _____ Pride Not Admitted in Self Lewis "There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves." (pp. 108-09) Benson "Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves." _____ Only once in Benson's sermon was proper credit given to C.S. Lewis as a source: "The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: 'Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone' (Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109-10)." _____ All in the Family: The Identity of the Individual Who Researched and Wrote Ezra Taft Benson’s “Beware of Pride” Sermon Several years ago, my wife, Mary Ann, and I visited with May Benson, wife of Reed Benson (Ezra Taft Benson’s oldest child), in their home in Provo, Utah, during which time the subject of pride and my grandfather’s sermon on the matter was a focus of conversation. The first occasion was prior to the public delivery of Ezra Taft Benson’s sermon by Gordon B. Hinckley in the April 1989 General Conference and the second visit took place after the speech. May told us she had very strong feelings about the subject of pride. She was especially offended and concerned with what she regarded as the Benson family's own problems with pride. (In fact, she had gotten up in disgust and walked out of a wedding breakfast for my sister Meg, when one of the daughters of Ezra Taft Benson, Beverly Benson Parker, as she was listening to the father of the groom, Cap Ferry, make some remarks to the assembled, leaned over and whispered self-righteously to others at the table, "Well, we know which family was blessed with the spirituality"). May told us she had put together quite a few thoughts on the subject of pride that she hoped someday to compile and publish in a book. However, after my grandfather’s pride sermon was delivered, May told us that she no longer felt it necessary to publish her hoped-for book. Why? Because, she informed us, her husband, Reed, had spoken with Ezra Taft Benson about her research on the topic. May was clearly indicating to us that her information and study efforts had been used in crafting my grandfather’s sermon on pride. However, the true extent of May Benson's involvement in that effort was not shared with us by her and did not become evident until some time later. Reliable sources in Provo subsequently informed me of rumors that May herself may have worked on Ezra Taft Benson’s sermon. This I was able to confirm even more conclusively from a credible source inside the Benson family who knows May quite well, who was directly familiar with the situation and who wishes to remain anonymous. The source told me in a face-to-face meeting that May Benson, daughter-in-law of Ezra Taft Benson through marriage to his son Reed, traveled to St. George, Utah, where over a period of several weeks “she wrote his talk.” It appears that those responsible for the production and delivery of Ezra Taft Benson's "Beware of Pride" sermon were themselves too prideful to acknowlege that: --(1) the sermon was largely plagiarized from the earlier works of a noted Christian writer; and --(2) the sermon was actually ghost-written by a woman doing research on the talk for an uninspired Mormon "prophet." **"Praise to the man who depends on a woman." _____ GERTRUDE HIMMELFARB DISGUISED AS MERRIL J. BATEMAN At a Sunstone Symposium a few years ago, LDS author Bryan Waterman critically noted the “reliance” of BYU President Merrill Bateman (1936- ) “on the work of [academic conservative] Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922- ) . . .” http://en.web-blaster.org/www.lds-mormon.com/31076.shtml _____ Actually, Bateman’s supposed “reliance” took the form of blatant plagiarism. On 25 April 1996, the then-incoming president of BYU/General Authority Bateman delivered his inaugural address to the student body assembled in the Marriott Center, entitled "Response to Change." http://www.byu.edu/fc/ee/w_mjb496.htm _____ Bateman was subsequently accused of stealing--without attribution--portions of his remarks from an article published earlier the same year, authored by conservative philosopher Gertrude Himmelfarb, entitled, "The Christian University: A Call to Counterrevolution." (First Things, no. 59, January 1996, pp. 16-19) http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9601/articles/himmelfarb.html _____ The plagiarism accusation caused an uproar in academic circles, leading Bateman to deny the charge. The accusation was recently mentioned in an article appearing in the Mormon Church-owned Desert News, in conjunction with the end of Bateman's tenure as BYU president: ”Bateman, who served as the LDS Church's presiding bishop until his appointment as university president, was accused of plagiarizing the ideas of neo-conservative scholar Gertrude Himmelfarb during his 1996 inaugural address. Bateman denied the plagiarism charge.” http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,465034158,00.html _____ Comparing Bateman's inaugural address with Himmelfarb's article proves that Bateman was, well, lying. Although the manuscript copy of Bateman's 1996 inaugural address offered a single footnote reference to Himmelfarb's ideas (located on p. 18 of her article), Bateman failed in the spoken version of those remarks to acknowledge his reliance on Himmelfarb's ideas--thus, leaving the false impression that her words were his own. A point-by-point, topical comparison of the Himmelfarb and Bateman texts raises serious questions about Bateman's intellectual honesty: On Disparaging Truth, Knowledge and Objectivity Himmelfarb "Today many eminent professors in some of our most esteemed universities disparage the ideas of truth, knowledge, and objectivity as naive or disingenuous at best, as fraudulent and despotic at worst." "Above all, it is the truth that is denigrated." "Finally, and most disastrously, the university, liberated from religious dogma, has also become liberated from the traditional academic dogma, the belief in truth, knowledge, and objectivity." Bateman "During the past two decades, however, a number of well-known educators have begun to denigrate truth, knowledge, and objectivity." On Politicization of the University By Interest Groups Himmelfarb "It [the university] is also a highly politicized institution; no longer subject to any religious authority, the university is at the mercy of the whims and wills of interest groups and ideologies." Bateman "The university becomes a politicized institution that is at the mercy and whims of various interest groups." On the Secularization of the University and Its Hostility to Religion Himmelfarb "For we are now confronted with a university . . . that has almost totally abandoned its original mission. It is now not merely a secular institution but a secularist one, propagating secularism as a creed, a creed that is not neutral as among religions but is hostile to all religions, indeed to religion itself." Bateman "If university scholars reject the notion of ‘truth,’ there is no basis for intellectual and moral integrity. Secularism becomes a creed that is no longer neutral but hostile to religion." On the Rise of Radical Relativism Himmelfarb "The animating spirit of postmodernism is a radical relativism and skepticism that rejects any idea of truth, knowledge, or objectivity." Bateman "The driving theory is a radical relativism and skepticism that rejects any idea of truth or knowledge." _____ Before giving his purloined speech, perhaps Bateman should have review BYU's own Honor Code. This document on Integrity 101 has the following to say about academic standards: ”The first injunction of the BYU Honor Code is the call to ‘be honest.’ Students come to the university not only to improve their minds, gain knowledge, and develop skills that will assist them in their life's work, but also to build character. ‘President David O. McKay taught that character is the highest aim of education’ (The Aims of a BYU Education, p. 6). It is the purpose of the BYU Academic Honesty Policy to assist in fulfilling that aim. ”BYU students should seek to be totally honest in their dealings with others. They should complete their own work and be evaluated based upon that work. They should avoid academic dishonesty and misconduct in all its forms, including but not limited to ,b>plagiarism, fabrication or falsification, cheating, and other academic misconduct.” (emphasis added) http://fhss.byu.edu/polsci/Goodliffe/313/2002/syllabus.htm#Plagiarism _____ Like any good power-mongering Mormon authority figure who couldn't give a flyin' fig leaf apron about adhering to moral principle, fellow Blue Suit Boyd K. Packer rode to Bateman's rescue with a divinely-sounded vengeance. A few months after exposure of Bateman as a clunky plagiarist, Packer issued what was seen by many as a thinly-veiled attack against Bateman's Mormon critics. At October 1996 General Conference, in a sermon unsubtley entitled, "The Twelve Apostles," Packer warned: ”Some few within the Church, openly or perhaps far worse, in the darkness of anonymity, reproach their leaders in the wards and stakes and the Church, seeking to make them ‘an offender for a word,’ as Isaiah said. To them the Lord said, ‘Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them. "’But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves . . . "’Because they have offended my little ones they shall be severed from the ordinances of mine house. "’Their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them. "’They shall not have right to the priesthood, nor their posterity after them from generation to generation.’ ”That terrible penalty will not apply to those who try as best they can to live the gospel and sustain their leaders. Nor need it apply to those who in the past have been guilty of indifference or even opposition, if they will repent and confess their transgressions, and forsake them.” http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/conferences/96_oct/Packer_Apostles.htm _____ For those concerned about fake prophets of God like Packer coming to the defense of other fake Mormon prophets like Bateman, they can rest assured that any LDS leader whom Packer defends probably has done something wrong. **"(Organ music, please): 'Music and the Stolen Word'" _____ AN UNKNOWN ARAB DISGUISED AS BRUCE R. McCONKIE In eulogizing the by-then-dead Apostle/Fossil Bruce R. McConkie (1915-1985) at a BYU fireside, then-member of the First Quorum of the Seventy John K. Carmack offered this glowing tribute to Bruce the Prophetic Plagiarizer, comparing the Mormon Church to a steady-as-she-goes caravan moving forward into the eternal realms of glory: ” . . . [A]s an expression of his confidence in the Church, and as a seer whose words light the pathway we must travel as we endure to the end of that path, Elder McConkie saw the road ahead and the kingdom as a moving caravan triumphantly moving to its destiny.” http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6933 _____ Carmack was borrowing his in-memorium caravan image from an earlier McConkie sermon entitled “The Caravan Moves On.” Not to be outdone, McConkie himself had lifted the caravan metaphor (without attribution, of course) from an old Arab proverb. McConkie’s sermon (which appeared in the November 1984 issue of the Ensign) likened critics of the Mormon Church to dogs yapping at the heels of the caravan of truth as it plodded ahead, undaunted and undeterred by apostate hounds of hell barking in the rear. Declared McConkie in solemn, plagiarized tones: ”The Church is like a great caravan--organized, prepared, following an appointed course, with its captains of tens and captains of hundreds all in place. ”What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? Or that predators claim those few who fall by the way? "The caravan moves on. ”Is there a ravine to cross, a miry mud hole to pull through, a steep grade to climb? So be it. The oxen are strong and the teamsters wise. "The caravan moves on. ”Are there storms that rage along the way, floods that wash away the bridges, deserts to cross, and rivers to ford? Such is life in this fallen sphere. "The caravan moves on. ”Ahead is the celestial city, the eternal Zion of our God, where all who maintain their position in the caravan shall find food and drink and rest. "Thank God that the caravan moves on! ”In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.” http://www.schoolofabraham.com/caravan.htm _____ Not to put too much of an uninspired point on it, McConkie’s Christly caravan imagery was purloined from an ancient Arab proverb (which, of course, he didn’t have to give credit to because, thus saith the Lard, he was an Apostle of the Lard who didn't have to give credit to anyone if he didn't want to). In reality, the caravan line has been a popular go-to image used through time to illustrate all kinds of points of view, McConkie’s anti-dog doctrine being just one of them. In fact, the popularity of this well-known Arab proverb was recently illustrated when Russian President Vladimir Putin was mentioned in a news article as "recit[ing] a long list of Russia's economic accomplishments during his presidency, dismissing foreign critics of Russia's worthiness for Group of Eight membership with a proverb: ‘The dog keeps barking, but the caravan moves on.’" http://smh.com.au/news/world/hamas-must-change-now-putin-warns/2006/02/01/1138590568294.html http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-putin1feb01,0,4490127.story?coll=la-news- _____ But far from him to give thanks to some lowly, brown-skinned Arab. McConkie took the glory unto himself, although he's not named in history as the proverb's originator: http://www.wiseoldsayings.com/wosdirectoryd.htm http://www.famous-quotations.com/asp/proverbs.asp? http://www.worldofquotes.com/proverb/Arabic/1/ _____ Old myths about supposedly inspired Mormon leaders die hard. (As they say, never let the facts get in the way of a good prophet). In a talk recently delivered at a Brigham Young University-Idaho Devotional, entitled “Obedience to the Commandments of the Lord,” Kim B. Clark soberly invoked the non-original words of non-inspired McConkie to make a nonsensical point. " . . .I would like to marry Nephi’s metaphor of the iron rod and the strait and narrow path to another image given us by another prophet, seer, and revelator in our day. I think in so doing we may see new dimensions of the journey and gain deeper understanding of what we must do to obtain eternal life. "The metaphor I have in mind was given to us by Elder Bruce R. McConkie in a talk he gave in general conference in the fall of 1984." [Editor's note: No, it wasn't, but go ahead, anyway]. "Let’s listen to Elder McConkie: "'The Church is like a great caravan--organized, prepared, following an appointed course, with its captains of ten and captains of hundreds in place. "‘What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? Or that predators claim those few who fall by the way? "The caravan moves on. "'Is there a ravine to cross, a miry mud hole to pull through, a steep grade to climb? So be it. The oxen are strong and the teamsters wise. "'The caravan moves on. "'Are there storms that rage along the way, floods that wash away the bridges, deserts to cross, rivers to ford? Such is life in the fallen sphere. The caravan moves on. “'Ahead is the celestial city, the eternal Zion of our God, where all who maintain their position in the caravan shall find food and drink and rest. "'Thank God that the caravan moves on!'” http://www.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2005_08_30_ClarkK.htm _____ Sorry to burst your testimonial bubble, Sister Clark, but Bruce R. McConkie did not give you that inspiring metaphor. An anonymous Arab--one long lost to history--did. Time to move on. **"There is no god but Allah and McConkie's not his prophet." |
| Thursday, Feb 16, 2006, at 09:09 AM Benson Family Coveting Of General Authority Status Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Receiving "distinguished" callings to positions of authority in the all-important appearance-oriented Mormon Cult is viewed by many devout Latter-day Saints as a sure sign of hitting the nail on the head that God has chosen you for membership in His special cadre of LDS thoroughbreds. Some members of the Benson clan have shown a noticeably keen interest in attaining this personal trophy to hang on the walls of their celestial mansions here on earth and eventually in the hereafter--yearning, as they have, to see appointment made in their behalf to the righteous ranks of the General Authority-hood. Two memorable examples come to mind: Getting a Foot in the General Authority Door Several years ago, a major remodeling project was undertaken of the Church Administration Building in downtown Salt Lake City. One of the glorious relics in the old interior was a pair of frosted-pane wooden doors, adorned with large, black, stenciled, capital letters, reading: "GENERAL AUTHORITIES" These doors originally led into the office quarters of the GAs and were targeted for removal and replacement in the overhaul project. The doors were eventually salvaged and given a place of honor by someone with apparently both a sense of history and a hope for the future. My sister, Stacy Ann Benson Reeder, asked for--and was given permanent possession of--these old, weathered "GENERAL AUTHORITIES" doors. To view those properly-preserved doors today, all one has to do is go to her home in the Salt Lake Valley, where she has them hanging (with the permission of her husband Marty, former student body president of BYU), in the doorway of his personal office. For easier viewing, that office is located just off the main entryway into their home. Marty eventually became a bishop. I have not followed his ecclesiastical progress chart very carefully, so I do not know if he has since risen to the coveted position of General Authority--although, to the untutored eye, the doors leading into his study might lead one to conclude that he has attained that goal and is now working for the Lord out of his Church Office Building home office. _____ God's Word to a Temple Worker: Your Husband Will Someday Become a General Authority My maternal grandmother, Viola Wing, of Raymond, Alberta, Canada, was a long-time worker in the Cardston temple. She once told her daughter (my mother) Lela, that she felt impressed that my father, Mark Benson, would someday become a General Authority. My dad eventually became a mission president, a bishop, a stake president and a stake patriarch but, alas, the calling of General Authority has somehow managed to elude him. This has been a matter of some disappointment in Benson family circles, where I have heard grumbling that after all the hard work, dedication and life-long committment he has given to the Mormon Kingdom (at the cost of good money he could have otherwise made in the business world, had it not been for those long hours spent serving the Lord), Mark should at least be rewarded with an appointment to the seat of General Authority. _____ Sigh . . . Life does have its disappointments. :) |
| Thursday, Feb 16, 2006, at 09:16 AM One Of My Most Treasured Bits Of Mormon Memorablia Is Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| One of my most treasured bits of Mormon memorablia is a fancy, leather-bound copy of the Book of Mormon which belonged to my grandfather, with his name engraved in goldleaf on its outside cover.
I eventually took the time to cross reference on its pages, in various colored pencils, dozens and dozens of links to its plagiarized sources. In 2002, a Mormon inspirational outfit in Utah calling itself "The Living Scriptures" made a movie as part of its "Modern Prophets" series on the life and times of my grandfather, entitled "Ezra Taft Benson." The movie jacket featured my grandfather's portrait backdropped by an American flag and the U.S. Capitol building, together with a hay wagon--and a copy of the Book of Mormon. On the back of the movie jacket was the declaration that ETB was a "Statesman, Patriot and Prophet [who] . . . became the greatest advocate of the Book of Mormon of our day." In the movie, my dad, Mark, played the role of ETB during his days as apostle and prophet. Prior to the film's production, he asked me if I would send him the Book of Mormon that had belonged to my grandfather, for use in the making of the movie. I politely informed him that I would not being doing because, given that I did not regard the Book of Mormon as a legitimate historical document, I did not want to contribute to making a film which falsely claimed that it was authentic. (I was also privately concerned that if I lent the book to my TBM family, I would never get it back, even with its now-desecrated pages). I still have it, since it never was shipped to the land northward. It sits on a shelf in my personal library, just above my collection of "anti-Mormon" materials. :) |
| Monday, Feb 20, 2006, at 08:41 AM "Hollow Men Filled With Straw:" Notice In The Mormon Church's Official Response To The Scientific Evidence Cited In The La Times Article On Lamanite DNA That Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| the LDS Church does three particularly revealing things: 1) It simply acknowledges that the DNA issues are extensive and complicated. 2) It offers references to DNA-related writings, but emphasizes that none of these writings constitute the Mormon Church's official position on the DNA question. 3) In providing those references, it cites only Mormon apologists who have written for Mormon publications or who have ventured forward with a pro-Mormon defense. _____ From the Mormon Church's official "non-official" response: "Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex. "Those interested in a more detailed analysis of those issues are referred to the resources below. "The following are not official Church positions or statements. They are simply information resources from authors with expertise in this area that readers may find helpful: "'DNA and the Book of Mormon' By: David M. Stewart, MD "'Detecting Lehi's Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not?' By: David A. McClellan "'Nephi's Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations' By: Matthew Roper "'Swimming in the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy' By: Matthew Roper "'Elusive Israel and the Numerical Dynamics of Population Mixing' By: Brian D. Stubbs "'Before DNA' (John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2003) Download PDF document (715 KB) "'DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective' (Michael F. Whiting, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2003) Download PDF document (431 KB) "'A Few Thoughts from a Believing Scientist' (John M. Butler, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2003) Download PDF document (169 KB) "'Who Are the Children of Lehi?' (D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2003) Download PDF document (427 KB) "'Does DNA Evidence Refute the Book of Mormon?' (Jeffrey D. Lindsay, Ph.D., 16 November 2003) Download PDF document (478 KB)" (http://www.lds.org/newsroom/mistakes/0,15331,3885-1-18078,00.html) ****** In short, when it comes to the current questions surrounding Lamanite DNA, the Mormon Church is officially speechless, hapless, helpless, clueless, toothless, pointless, directionless, gutless, rudderless and, well, completely isolated from the scientific mainstream. Perhaps more to the point: When it comes to Lamanite DNA, the Mormon Church finds itself absolutely abandoned and on its own, with no place to turn (except inward) for support of its long-held, heretofore official, scripturally canonized and, now, totally repudiated position that Native Americans descended from Hebrews. Where are the voices of the modern-day Mormon prophets on this one? Poet T.S. Eliot speaks for them: We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar." http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~evans/hollow.html |
| Friday, Feb 24, 2006, at 07:53 AM Shhhh, Moroni. Can't You See My Brothers Are Sleeping? Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Joseph Smith claims that when he was 17 years old, the angel Moroni repeatedly appeared to him one night in his small, upstairs, log cabin bedroom, keeping him up through the wee hours with his surprise drop-ins--during which time he bombarded the bewildered kid with directions to, and glorious information about, gold plates buried in a hill behind his house. Yeah, right. Joseph happened at the time to be sharing this bedroom of his (and the two beds in it) with five other brothers. Wanna see how cramped the place was? You couldn't move your foot or swing an elbow in your sleep without bumping into any angels or brothers who happened to be in that tiny room with you. Take a look for yourself. Here's a photo: http://lds.about.com/library/weekly/2003/aajosephs_house.htm _____ Maybe that explains why Joe says Moroni stood at his beside, floating in the air--because there wasn't any room to sit on the bed. But that doesn't make sense, either, because official Mormon propapanda paint-by-the-numbers art shows Joe sitting up in what looks like an uncrowded bed, where there seems to be plenty of room under the sheets--and where there's no sign of any of his five brothers: http://www.lds.org/hf/art/display/0,16842,4218-1-4-116,00.html _____ But God has not forsaken us in our moment of perplexity. We have a faithful explanation here. Well, OK, not really an explanation. Just a typical TBM testimony that defies explanation. What else do faithful Mormons need, sleep-walking as they do through life, never raising an eyebrow, responding to stimuli or entertaining a conscious thought? Susan W. Tanner, Young Wonen's General President, in a BYU Women's Conference talk entitled "When the Light Had Departed, I Went Home," recounts how she's been in Joe's stuffy little bedroom (during a personal pilgrammage which she had earnestly prepared for by reading faith-promoting rumors from Joe's slightly-off-the-bubble mom, Lucy Mack Smith)--and talks about how Joes's bros, with their 50 twitching toes, all somehow managed to sleep through the Big Mo Show: "As I entered that small, humble log home, I felt its holiness. I could envision Joseph leaning on the fireplace pondering his visit from Heavenly Father and His Son. . . ." http://ce.byu.edu/cw/womensconference/archive/2005/pdf/2005-SusanWTanner.pdf _____ Hold on there, Sister. Maybe he was leaning against the fireplace because Moroni kept waking him up and he couldn't go back to sleep. Speaking of envisioning, did you try to envision Joseph and his brothers fighting, jockeying and squirming for the covers in two lumpy beds brimming with siblings? _____ Sister Tanner proceeds to answer that question: "I also went to the upstairs bedroom, shared by six brothers, where the angel Moroni came to Joseph in response to his penitent prayer." _____ Hey, you didn't answer the question. Answer this, then: What's with Joe's "penitent prayer?" What was he so intently, penitently praying about--where to find a good rock for his hat? Sister Tanner, in yet another inspiring talk--this one entitled "Glad Tidings from Cumorah"--explains exactly what prompted the angel Moroni to come down through Joe's bedroom ceiling that night (without waking anyone but Joe, of course) in answer to prayer: "When Joseph first met Moroni, he was just 17, the age of many of you young women." _____ Yes, Joe did like young women around that age--16-year-old Fanny Alger. Probably praying for more like her. Helen Mar Kimball . . . Wait, Helen was only 14. Sorry, I digress. You were saying, Sister Tanner? "We know the very time and place. It was on the night of September 21, 1823, in an upstairs bedroom while five of his brothers slept. Joseph prayed that he 'might know of [his] state and standing before [God]' (Joseph Smith-History 1:29). "Joseph felt inadequate and unworthy before God. He said he had not been 'guilty of any great or malignant sins,' but had fallen into 'foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth' (Joseph Smith-History 1:28), so he prayed for reassurance. "I can identify with young Joseph's feelings, as I know many of you can. How often have each of us fallen to our knees with such feelings of inadequacy and need for divine reassurance?" _____ Yeah, and how many of us are in the middle of being on our knees when a superhero angel pops in, gives out free advice on our guilt-trippin' youthful foolishness, but then makes us all feel better by handing us a map to buried treasure? Geesh, Joe got all the luck . . . http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,567-1-426-18,00.html ____ But back to rock-a-bye, brothers. C'mon, Sister Tanner. You're a fully-functioning mother in Zion, aren't you? Do you really believe Joe's snoring sibs managed to REM-sleep their way through Moroni's repeated shaft-of-light visits to their sardine-sandwiched bedroom that night--or were they up going to the bathroom or maybe downstairs throwing logs on the fire or maybe on their 1823 folk magic version of Playstation that Joe had discovered during his treasure hunting adventures--and just happened to miss all the heavenly fireworks upstairs? Or maybe they really were up there, tucked into bed, all crammed next to each other, but in a catatonic Kolobian state of suspended animation. "Hi, fellas. This is Moroni speaking. You are getting sleepy, sleeeeeeepy . . . " |
| Monday, Mar 20, 2006, at 07:24 AM From The Witness Box To The Mormon Cult: "You Want The Cartoon Truth? You Can't Handle The Cartoon Truth!" Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| In my career as an editorial cartoonist, Mormon Church leadership, from the top down, has attempted to silence and otherwise discourage me in my critical commentary on LDS buffoonery. Here's a brief summary: --Two of my bishops requested private meetings with me to review my cartoons taking to task Arizona's eventually-impeached, racist, criminally-indicted and incompetent used car salesman of a governor, Evan Mecham. ---A stake president released me from my position as a high councilman because of a cartoon I had done critical of Mecham's obnoxious misuse of Mormonism to advance his political/theological agenda. (He did so after receiving a phone call inquiring on the matter from H. Burke Peterson of the Presiding Bishopric, as well as after hearing from an Arizona Mormon legislator who told him that I should not be on the stake high council). --This same stake president later informed me that, in his opinion, my cartoons had gotten better since he had released me from the high council--prompting me to write him back, informing him that he was not my editor and that I would do the cartoon again, as circumstances warranted. --Arizona's point man for media matters took me to lunch to complain about my Mecham/Mormon-related cartooning and also wrote me a letter, comparing it to Christian evangelists who were radio broadcasting Mormonism's secret temple ceremonies. --Another stake president phoned me at my work, demanding that I justify to him my cartoon criticism of local Mormon right-wing political extremists whom I had specifically named for their bigoted opposition to the establishment of an official Martin Luther King holiday. --This same stake president wrote me again (on official LDS stationary) to instruct me to stop denigrating the Mormon Church for a cartoon I produced criticizing the Mormon Church for its opposition to equal rights for LDS women. --He wrote me yet another official stake letter, comparing me to Korihor, telling me that the Devil would abandon me once he had finished using me for his evil designs and threatening to out me as an unbeliever. --My grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson (then-president of the Quorum of the Twelve), both telephoned and wrote me (also on his high office Church stationary)--in response to a cartoon I had done critical of the LDS response to the Mark Hofmann bombings--commanding me (via, ahem, "suggestion") to go easy on the Mormon Church. By way of description, the cartoon showed a stereotypical Mormon P.R. man, sporting a flat top and conservative business suit, on the phone to his secretary, wailing, "Mad bombers, white salamanders, forgeries, con men! Golly darn, Sister Jones, that does it! Get me a cup of coffee!" In responding to the cartoon, my grandfather first called me, telling me somberly that he had a cartoon in front of him which he wished to read aloud to me. After repeating the punch line, he paused dramatically and asked, "Why?" I was tempted to respond with a "Why not?" but thought better of it. Instead, I tried to explain that one of the best defenses in the face of criticism is an ability to laugh at oneself. My grandfather replied, "I still love you. Just go easy on us." He then followed up with the letter, making the same point. http://www.lds-mormon.com/benson2.shtml ( For the contents of other personal correspondence sent to me by my grandfather, see: http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon419.htm ) _____ Jesus, Joseph and Jumpin' Mormon Jammies. If the LDS Church can't handle little cartoons, how can one expect it to handle the really big stuff--like the utter bogusness of the Book of Mormon, the complete fakery of the Book of Abraham, the LDS Church's abuse of its tax-exempt status in pushing its political agenda and the non-prophetic antics of its cult-crusading leaders? And that's just for starters. The Kingdom of Almighty Whitey Elohim panics in the face of doodling done with a small brush and 15 cents worth of ink. That should tell us something. |
| Wednesday, Mar 22, 2006, at 11:37 AM "A Legacy Of Deception:" The Monstrous, Manipulated Myth Of The Mormon Battalion Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
Interesting and revealing information has been posted on this board recently, detailing some of the malicious machinations of Brigham Young in his devious dealings with the Mormon Battalion:
Originally posted by Mrs. Estzerhaus:Here are some more: THE MORMON LIE ". . .[An] example of official deception by [Mormon] Church leaders has to do with the Mormon Battalion. "[Mormons are] taught in Sunday School, seminary and priesthood meetings that . . . [in] 1846, the U.S. government demanded the services of 500 able-bodied Mormon men to help fight the war with Mexico. "[Mormons are told that] [t]his cruel act, while the Saints were camped in Iowa on their way west [Mormons are told], caused great hardships and many deaths among the poor Saints crossing the Plains. The women and older men [so Mormons are told] who were left had no choice but to continue their struggle without help from these 500 young and stronger men." _____ THE ACTUAL TRUTH " . . . [T]his distortion of Mormon history was all part of a legacy of deception. "Prominent Church leader and historian, B.H. Roberts, finally told the truth about the Mormon Battalion in his six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church. But since this truth is not faith promoting, it has been ignored by those who write lesson manuals intended to indoctrinate young people . . . "The truth is that Brigham Young secretly sent Jesse C. Little to Washington, D.C. to see President James K. Polk and other federal officials, with the proposal that the U.S. government send a company of 1,000 Mormons with the U.S. Army going to fight the war with Mexico. "These men were to be paid fo a one-year enlistment and be able to keep all of their weapons and equipment at the end of their service. "President Polk didn't want any Mormons in his army. The quota of 50,000 men had already been over-subscribed by three times and, besides, Polk didn't trust the loyalty, patriotism or military training of the Mormons. "But after much persuasion, he [Polk] reluctantly agreed to send 500 Mormons." [Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 3, pp. 67-84; and History of the Church, vol. 7, pp. 611-15] "When Captain James Allen, representing General Stephen W. Kearny of Ft. Leavenworth, entered the encampment of Mormons at Council Bluffs (Winter Quarters) Iowa in June of 1846, [Brigham] Young pretended to be surprised and angry but promised to raise the recruits as a demonstration of Mormon patriotism. "500 men were enlisted and paid one year in advance. The money was turned over to . . . Young. "The great hardships, suffering and even death that sending these 500 men caused would have been much greater if President Polk had granted Young's original request to send 1,000 men in order to divert the anger and resentment of Church members away from himself. "Young [then] lied to his people and blamed the U.S. government for the entire episode. "On September 13, 1857, . . . Young told a congregation of Mormons in Salt Lake City: "'There cannot be a more damnable, dastardly order issued than was issued by the Administration [of President Polk] to this people while they were in an Indian country in 1846. . . . 'While we were doing our best to leave their borders, the poor, low, degraded curses sent a requistion for 500 of our men to go and fight their battles! That was President Polk; and he is now weltering in hell with old Zachary Taylor, where the present administrators will be if they do not repent.'" [Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, pp. 231-32] "[Then,] [o]n February 17, 1861, Brigham Young, the man who . . . is still revered by Mormons as a prophet of God, again lied when he told a congregation of Church members assembled in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City: "'Did Thomas H. Benton aid in gathering the Saints? Yes, he was the mainspring and action of governments in driving us to these mountains. 'He obtained orders from President Polk to summon the militia of Missouri, and destroy every man, woman, and child, unless they turned out 500 men to fight the battles of the United States in Mexico. 'He said that we were aliens to the Government, and to prove it, he said, "Mr. President, make a requistion for 500 men, and I will prove to you that they are traitors to our Government. . . . We turned out the men and Mr. Benton was disappointed.'" [Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, pp. 335-36] "Neither Thomas Benton nor the Missouri militia had anything to do with enlistment of the Mormon Battalion. Nor was the U.S. government threatening to exterminate all of the Mormons. This entire sermon is but another example of the many, many lies told by Brigham Young and other Church leaders in order to deceive and manipulate their people. "As it turned out, despite high U.S. military casualties in [the Mexican] War, the Mormon Battalion was not used by field commanders. The Mormon Battalion didn't have to kill anyone nor did [it] suffer any casualties. "But Brigham Young didn't know in advance that many of these young men wouldn't get killed when he volunteered their services. "He was willing to jeopardize not only their lives but also the lives of their families who were left shorthanded crossing the Plains for his own selfish purposes. "Then he lied about it. "What kind of a person does it take to something like this?" (the above from Arza Evans, "A Legacy of Deception," Chapter 13, in The Keystone of Mormonism [St. George, Utah: Keystone Books, Inc., 2003], pp. 149-51), original emphasis |
| Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006, at 07:36 AM Male Pattern Smugness: Decades Later, Is The Manhandled LDS Church Still Opposed To The Equal Rights Amendment? Um, Is The Prophet Mormon? Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Onward, Mormon Muggers: The Relentless Misogynistic LDS Church Crusade Against Women's Rights In an earlier post, "jen" asked: Is the Morg STILL against the ERA? I've heard many people here state that the church is against the equal rights ammendment. I realize that this was the case in the 60's, when the ERA was first introduced, but are they still actively against it? Why were/are they? What's the official stance on this? Even when I was a regularly attending TBM, I never reallly heard a word about this. Perhaps it was because I wasn't in Utah? ("Is the Morg STILL against the ERA?, " post by "jen," jenapostate@gmail.com, Recovery from Mormonism board, 28 March 2006) _____ In answer to that question, Jessica Longaker, in her analysis, "The Role of Women in Mormonism," grimly concludes that genuine gender equality cannot be realistically achieved in the Mormon Church’s permanent patriarchal prison: The Mormon Church of today is still clinging to the beliefs of the nineteenth century; ideas which are becoming more outmoded every day. A few women in the Mormon Church are trying to make a difference but they are usually swiftly excommunicated . . . In Mormon magazines, which are full of advice for women from the heads of the Church, the message has changed in response to the feminist movement. In 1964, advice on marriage and divorce was fairly dispassionate; by 1972, these topics were addressed with increasing panic and harshness. . . . Feminists are described as “the Pied Pipers of sin who have led women away from the divine role of womanhood down the pathway of error.” . . . Obviously, the Mormon Church is not going to alter its views on women in the immediate future. It is questionable whether it is even possible for Mormonism to equalize the roles of men and women because the oppression of women is so integral to the religion. Men and women cannot truly become equal in the Church, for the basic tenets of Mormonism are so fraught with sexism that equality would change the religion beyond recognition. (http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm , emphasis added) _____ Gordon B. Hinckley's Archaic Attitude Toward the "Dear Sisters" If more nauseating proof of the Mormon Church's persistently patronizing, slave-holding attitude toward women is needed, all one has to do is read hibernating Hinckley's old school/old fool remarks to the assembled Relief Society sisterhood at General Conference: My dear sisters, you marvelous women who have chosen the better part . . . Many of you are mothers, and that is enough to occupy one's full time. . . . You are housekeepers. . . . [W]hat a job it is to keep a house clean and tidy. You are shoppers. . . . [W]hat a demanding responsibility it is to keep food in the pantry, to keep clothing neat and presentable, to buy all that is needed to keep a home running. . . . You are the family chauffeur. You are driving your children about . . . hauling here, there, and everywhere as they pursue their busy lives. . . . . . . [W]e have granddaughters who are mothers. They visit us, and I marvel at . . . their capacity to calm their children, to stop them from crying . . . They drive cars, they run computers, they attend the activities of their children, they cook and sew, they teach classes, and they speak in Church. . . . . . . [Y]ou dear women, I say thanks to you. . . . May your prayers be answered and your hopes and dreams become realities. You serve so well in the Church. You think it is so demanding. It is. But with every responsibility fulfilled, there comes a great reward. . . . We all worry about our performance. We all wish we could do better. . . . Now, my dear sisters, . . . [y]ou are doing the best you can , , , Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord; then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do. . . . Now, we have a very diverse group . . . [that] includes young women who are . . . are single . . . [and] hoping to catch that perfect man. . . . Some of you, unfortunately, will never marry in this life. . . . If that happens, do not spend your life grieving over it. . . . The Church needs your faith. It needs your strong, helping hand. . . . I see so many capable, attractive, wonderful women whom romance has passed by . . . but I know that in the plan of the Almighty, the eternal plan which we call God's plan of happiness, there will be opportunity and reward for all who seek them. . . . May you [young mothers] be given strength to carry your heavy load, to meet every obligation . . . Nothing else you will ever own, no worldly thing you will ever acquire will be worth so much as the love of your children. . . . Count your blessings; name them one by one. You don't need a great big mansion of a house with an all-consuming mortgage that goes on forever. . . . Weigh carefully that which you do. You do not need some of the extravagances that working outside the home might bring. Weigh carefully the importance of your being in the home when your children come from school. . . . Now I speak to you single mothers whose burdens are so heavy because you have been abandoned or have been widowed. Yours is a terrible load. Bear it well. . . . Be grateful for any assistance that may come out of the quorums of the priesthood to help you in your home or with other matters. Pray silently in your closet, and let the tears flow if they must come. But put a smile on your face whenever you are before your children or others. . . . You are the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is no other organization to equal it. Walk with pride. Hold your heads up. Work with diligence. Do whatever the Church asks you to do. . . . (http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-401-37,00.html) _____ Boyd K. Packer: Mormonism's "Manly Man" In male-manacled Mormonism, Packer is second to none when it comes to hating women. This modern-day Neanderthal is a pathetically insecure man who apparently has never met an independent woman he didn't like. In a sermon entitled the "The Equal Rights Amendment," Packer puffed, prattled and preened in full priesthood pontification: One might ask . . . if you are against the Equal Rights Amendment, then what are you for? I am for the equitable enforcement of existing laws. There are sufficient of them to protect the rights of women and of children and of men. Or to enact judiciously and wisely any needed legislation to correct particular circumstances. I am for protecting the rights of a woman to be a woman, a feminine, female woman; a wife and a mother. I am for protecting the rights of a man to be a man, a masculine, male man; a husband and a father. I am for protecting the rights of children to be babies and children and youth, to be nurtured in a home and in a family. I am for recognizing the inherent God-given differences between men and women. I am for accommodating them so that we can have physically and emotionally and spiritually stable, happy individuals and families and communities. Without that, when the floods come, in the end what will really be worth saving? May God bless us and preserve the sacred institution of the family, to the end that this generation and future generations can be preserved. May He bless fathers and mothers and their children to be happy in the life pattern He has ordained. (http://www.fairlds.org/apol/ai138.html , under "Ensign Articles," "Boyd K. Packer, 'The Equal Rights Amendment,' Ensign, March 1977, 6.") _____ Standing up to such condescending patriarchal abuse, Sonia Johnson--the courageous Mormon woman eventually excommunicated from the LDS Church for her vocal support of the ERA--offered a brutally realistic (and depressingly dismal) assessment of the official LDS position on equal rights for women--an assessment that is just as accurate today as when it was first defiantly delivered over a quarter of a century ago: Saturated as it is with the anti-female bias that is patriarchy’s very definition and reason for being, the Mormon Church can legitimately be termed "The Last Unmitigated Western Patriarchy." . . . This patriarchal imperative is reinforced by the belief that the President of the Church is a Prophet of God, as were Isaiah and Moses, and that God will not allow him to make a mistake in guiding the Church. . . . . . . [T]he men at the head of the [Mormon] Church are strong and the patriarchs have for millennia crushed those women who escaped from their mind-bindings. . . . . . . [W]omen will not be safe from the Brethren’s capricious meddling with our inalienable human rights until we attain positions of power and authority in our Church; to control our own auxiliary money and program and to publish our own magazine for communication among ourselves have put women under total male control, requiring us to ask permission of men in even the smallest of matters. These rulings—which have seriously harmed women’s self-esteem, lowered our status, made us bootlickers and toadies to the men of the Church and destroyed what little freedom of choice we had—those rulings reveal the depth of the Brethren’s fear of independent, non-permission-asking women, the kind of women which are emerging from the women’s movement. And it is no accident that they were enacted just as the feminist tide in the United States began to swell. . . . . . . [T]he [Mormon Church's] patriarchs . . . are either afraid to talk with those of us who are alarmed at their opinions and treatment of women or they do not consider us worth their time. . . . But what it says to those of us who have survived being Mormon women is that our sisters are silently screaming for help and that they are not only NOT finding it at Church, but that at Church they are being further depressed and debilitated by bombardment with profoundly demeaning female sex-role stereotypes. Their Church experience is making them sick. (For the original posting of the expanded text of Johnson's paper, delivered to the American Psychological Association in New York City on 1 September 1979, together with the speech's footnotes, other commentary and subsequent observations from RfM contributors, see http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon415.htm) _____ Johnson’s Historic Speech, “Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church--How Women Have Been Made Bootlickers and Toadies to the Men of the Church" To understand the deep-seated bigotry that persists against women in the LDS Church, one needs only to soak in Johnson's landmark, and timeless, war cry against Mormonism's femalephobia. It was a stunning, compelling, no-holds-barred and complete dismemberment of Mormon patriarchy--one that, when it was delivered, blew the lid off of LDS maledumb's then-secretly organized, superficially disingenuous and patently dishonest efforts to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Johnson—a brave, outspoken and Mormon male bashed-and-trashed torch bearer in the ultimately futile battle over passage of the ERA--was expelled from the LDS Church largely because of the bold and unapologetic remarks she made in a speech to the American Psychological Association (APA) in New York City on 1 September 1979. Entitled “Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church: How Women Have Been Made Bootlickers and Toadies to the Men of the Church,” her speech was a powerful expose’ of the blatantly illegal, immoral and behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts by the LDS Church to prevent passage of the ERA in legislative statehouses across the country. _____ Break Out the Rash: Mormonism's Reactionary Response A typcially then-and-now, reflexive, knee-jerk Mormon reaction to Johnson's speech came from--not suprisingly--a LDS male in West Jordan, Utah, who wrote: In the case of ERA, the Federal government has lobbied for its ratification, the Church against it. I think it all boils down to whom do we trust? The government or those whom we sustain as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators? Who do we consider the wisest--the President of the United States or the President of the Church? Whose motives, goals and objectives do we align ourselves with? While it's true that members of the Church have a right to be pro-ERA, it is clear to me that this is the same as our right to smoke, drink, be inactive or withhold any contributions to the Church. It is not similar to our right to be a Republican, Democrat, Independent or whatever. The Church says it is a moral issue, the world says it's political. Who do we believe? Sonia Johnson and others apparently feel that the Church's opposition to [the] ERA is a "patriarchal panic" based on a chauvinistic desire to keep women under the thumb of men in the Church. The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve have stated their reasons for opposition and we do them a terrible disservice in discounting their statements and suspecting instead various unholy ulterior motives. Besides having the right to be wrong, Church members have the right to inspiration from the Holy Ghost (assuming personal worthiness). I submit that we should exercise that privilege rather than the former and find ourselves in peaceful agreement with those whom the Lord has charged with the great responsibility of leading us aright. (http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/searchable/Issue21.asp) _____ Speaking Truth to Priesthood "Power" Johnson’s speech was clearly not meant to placate the priesthood but to defeat it. It was a defiant, accusatory and emboldening call to arms that ended up getting her ecclesiastically beheaded by the panicked Brethren. As Mormon author Linda Sillitoe describes it: [It was] the extreme, not the norm, of Sonia Johnson’s utterances and yet it identifie[d] clearly the heart of what ha[d] become her dilemma. It is in this speech that she crosse[d] the line between equal civil rights and the patriarchal system of the Mormon Church, a border also blurred by the Church by identifying the ERA as a moral issue upon which the Church [was] taking political action (in harmony with the July 4, 1979 statement of the First Presidency which explain[ed] that moral issues, so identified by the First Presidency and Council of Twelve, may be ‘worthy of full institutional involvement’). Thus it is no more possible to remove Sonia Johnson's promotion of the Equal Rights Amendment from a Church context than it was possible for her to remove the anti-ERA petition from her ward lobby. As Sillitoe further notes, it was Johnson’s speech that, in fact, provided the final impetus for the decision of Mormon Church patriarchs to excommunicate her from its ranks. At her trial, Johnson was accused by her inquisitioners of having "publicly taught that the Church is dedicated to imposing the Prophet's moral directives upon all Americans; when it is the doctrine of the Church that all people are free to choose for themselves those moral directives dictated by their own consciences." Johnson’s unpardonable sin (at least to the covered eyes and ears of Mormonism's patriarchal and predatory prevaricators) was to blow the whistle on the Brethren’s secret political designs to torpedo the ERA. (http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/searchable/Issue19.asp) Below is the nearly complete text of Johnson’s remarks before the American Psychological Association in September 1979. (Nearly in the sense that the copy of Johnson’s speech in my possession is a typed manuscript which appears to have been photo-reproduced many times, thus resulting in occasional illegibilities at the top of some of its pages. However, despite these relatively small and infrequent gaps, the meaning of Johnson’s message is not lost). Johnson’s public exposure of the "panic" seizing Mormon male leadership in the face of rising calls for gender equality became an inspiring cry in Mormonism’s pro-ERA underground--particularly, of course, for women who to this day continue to be suffocated by the Brethren’s patriarchal grip. September 1, 1979 Paper presented at the American Psychological Association Meetings, New York City Sonia Johnson, Ed.D Chair, MORMONS FOR ERA Sexual politics is old hat in the Mormon Church. It was flourishing when my grandparents were infants, crossing the plains to Utah in covered wagons. Although different generations have developed their own peculiar variations on the theme, I believe my generation is approaching the ultimate confrontation, for which all the others were simply dress rehearsals. Mormon sexual politics today is an uneasy mixture of explosive phenomena: the recent profound disenfranchisement of Mormon women by Church leaders, the Church’s sudden strong political presence in the anti-ERA arena and the women’s movement. Saturated as it is with the anti-female bias that is patriarchy’s very definition and reason for being, the Mormon Church can legitimately be termed "The Last Unmitigated Western Patriarchy." (I know you Catholics and Jews in this audience will want to argue with that but I will put my patriarchs up against yours any day!) This patriarchal imperative is reinforced by the belief that the President of the Church is a Prophet of God, as were Isaiah and Moses, and that God will not allow him to make a mistake in guiding the Church. He is, therefore, if not doctrinally, in practice "infallible"—deified. Commonly heard thought-obliterating dicta in my Church are "When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done" and "when the Prophet speaks, the debate is ended." They forget to mention that the debate probably never even got started since in the Church there is little dialogue or real education. Indoctrination is the prime method of instruction because obedience is the contemporary Church’s prime message. The caliber of character forged by this "education to obey" is illustrated by an encounter we had two summers ago [1977] in Lafayette Square after the national ERA march in Washington, D.C. Several of us were accosted by two Brigham Young University students, former missionaries for the Church, who tried to tear down our MORMONS FOR ERA banner. During the ensuing discussion, they solemnly vowed that if the Prophet told them to go out and shoot all Black people, they would do so without hesitation. Another example: Under the Heavenly mandate against the Equal Rights Amendment, Mormons in Virginia last winter [1978], wearing their EQUALITY YES, ERA NO! buttons (a typical boggling example of patriarchal doublethink), lobbied not only against the ERA but against ALL bills for women—many of which were models of their kind. The political implications of this mass renunciation of individual conscience for direction from “God” are not clearly enough understood in this country. The Mormons, a tiny minority, are dedicated to imposing the Prophet’s moral directives upon all Americans and they may succeed if Americans do not become aware of their methods and goals. Because the organization of the Church is marvelously tight and the obedience of the members marvelously thorough-going, potentially thousands of people can be mobilized in a very short time to do—conscientiously—whatever they are told, without more explanation than "the Prophet has spoken." But Mormon anti-ERA activity, though organized and directed by the hierarchy of the Church from Salt Lake down through regional and local male leaders, is covert activity, not openly done in the name of the Church. Members are cautioned not to reveal that they are Mormons or organized by the Church when they lobby, write letters, donate money and pass out anti-ERA brochures door-to-door through whole states. . . . Instead, they are directed to say that they are concerned citizens following the dictates of their individual consciences. Since they are, in fact, following the dictates of the Prophet’s conscience and would revise their own overnight if he were to revise his, nothing could be further from the truth. In addition, Mormon women, who make up most of the anti-ERA Mormon army (and the leaders refer to it as an army in true patriarchal style. . . ), are advised not to tell people that the men of the Church have organized them, but to maintain that they voluntarily organized themselves. "People won’t understand" . . . , their male leaders explain which in patriarchal doublespeak means: "People will understand only too well that this is the usual male trick of enlisting women to carry out men’s oppressive measures against women, hiding the identity of the real oppressors and alienating women from each other." So many of us in the Church are so unalterably opposed to this covert and oppressive activity that one of the major purposes of MORMONS FOR ERA has become to shine light upon the murky political activities of the Church and to expose to other Americans its exploitation of women’s religious commitment for its self-serving male political purposes. The reaction of the Church fathers to the women’s movement and women’s demand for equal rights has produced fearful and fascinating phenomena. In the mid-1960s, Utah’s birthrate was almost exactly the same as the national rate but by last year [1978] it was double the national average—evidence of a real patriarchal panic, a tremendous reaction against the basic feminist tenet that women were meant by their Creator to be individuals first and to fulfill roles second—to the degree and in the way they choose, as men do. In almost every meeting of the Church (and Mormons are noted for [next several words illegible] "good" Mormon woman, acceptable to the Brethren and therefore to God; messages calculated to keep women where men like them best: "made" . . . (created) to nurture husband and children, housebound, financially and emotionally dependent, occupationally immature, politically naïve, obedient, subordinate, submissive, somnambulant and bearing much of the heavy and uncredited labor of the Church upon their uncomplaining shoulders. Encyclicals from the Brethren over the past ten years [1969-1979] such as those which took away women’s right to pray in major Church meetings (this right has since been restored but women will not be safe from the Brethren’s capricious meddling with our inalienable human rights until we attain positions of power and authority in our Church); to control our own auxiliary money and program and to publish our own magazine for communication among ourselves have put women under total male control, requiring us to ask permission of men in even the smallest of matters. These rulings—which have seriously harmed women’s self-esteem, lowered our status, made us bootlickers and toadies to the men of the Church and destroyed what little freedom of choice we had—those rulings reveal the depth of the Brethren’s fear of independent, non-permission-asking women, the kind of women which are emerging from the women’s movement. And it is no accident that they were enacted just as the feminist tide in the United States began to swell. But we have other, more direct, ways of knowing how badly threatened and angry our brethren are by the existence of women who are not under their control. In April [1979], we hired a plane to fly a banner over Temple Square in Salt Lake City during a break in the world-wide Conference of male leaders being held in the Tabernacle. The banner announced that MORMONS FOR ERA ARE EVERYWHERE. A reporter phoned the Jody Powell of the Church [Jody Powell was then-President Jimmy Carter’s White House press secretary] to ask how the Brethren were taking this little prank and was told that they found it "amusing." Then the Jody Powell-person suggested that the reporter put a cartoon in the next day’s paper showing our plane flying over the Angel Moroni atop the Temple (as the actual newspaper had) but instead of a trumpet, picture Moroni brandishing a machine gun. One does not need to be a psychoanalyst to understand how “amusing” the Brethren found our "little prank." . . . More recently, when an Associated Press reporter interviewed President [Spencer W.] Kimball on the subject of uppity Mormon women, the Prophet warned that Church members who support the Equal Rights Amendment should be "very, very careful" because the Church is led by "strong men and able men . . . . We feel we are in a position to lead them properly." . . . The threat here is open and clear. We had better be very, very careful. [Illegible] the men at the head of the Church are strong and the patriarchs have for millennia crushed those women who escaped from their mind-bindings. President Kimball is further quoted as saying, "These women who are asking for authority to do everything that a man can do and change the order and go and do men’s work instead of bearing children, she’s just off her base" . . . —a truly appalling revelations of ignorance about the realities of women’s lives. But perhaps the image of greatest terror crawled from the psyche of Hartman Rector, one of the General Authorities of the Church, in response to my testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights: In order to attempt to get the male somewhere near even, the Heavenly Father gave him the Priesthood, or directing authority for the Church and home. Without this bequeath, the male would be so far below the female in power and influence that there would be little or no purpose for his existence. In fact, [he] would probably be eaten by the female as is the case with the black widow Spider. . . . Given this view of women, it should come as no surprise that despite the carefully calculated public relations campaign which portrays the Mormon Church as the last bastion (and probably the inventors!) of the happy family and fulfilled womanhood, all is not well in Zion: all is particularly not well among Zion’s women. In recent years, considerable hue and cry has arisen over the subject of depression among Mormon women, inspiring a spate of documentaries and articles. . . . The Salt Lake Tribune in December of 1977 quoted local therapists as stating that up to three-quarters of their Mormon patients were women and that the common denominator was low self-image and lack of fulfillment outside the home. . . .This depression is endemic and begins at an early age: the incidence of suicide among teenaged females in Utah is more than double the national average and rising. . . . Seven of 10 teenaged brides are “premaritally pregnant” and 40 percent of Utah’s brides are teens. . . . The proportion of teenage marriages in Utah has been greater than for the nation each year since 1960, which might partially account for Utah’s divorce rate being higher than the national average. (The time of the beginning of the increase is also significant, as I have pointed out earlier). Alcoholism and drug abuse among women are problems in Mormon culture, as are child and wife abuse. In the last 14 years, rape in Utah has increased 165 percent and the local index of rape is 1.35 percent higher than the national average. . . . . Add to this the significant fact that attendance at Relief Society—the Church’s women’s auxiliary—and at the Young Women’s organization meetings has dropped off drastically nationwide. What all this says to the patriarchs is anyone’s guess—they are either afraid to talk with those of us who are alarmed at their opinions and treatment of women or they do not consider us worth their time. . . . But what it says to those of us who have survived being Mormon women is that our sisters are silently screaming for help and that they are not only NOT finding it at Church, but that at Church they are being further depressed and debilitated by bombardment with profoundly demeaning female sex-role stereotypes. Their Church experience is making them sick. Because Mormon women are trained to desire above all else to please men (and I include in this category God, whom all too many of us view as an extension of our chauvinist leaders), we spend enormous amounts of energy trying to make the very real but—for most of us—limited satisfactions of mother- and wifehood substitute satisfactorily for all other life experiences. What spills over into those vacant lots of our hearts where our intellectual and talented selves should be vigorously alive and thriving are, instead, frustration, anger and the despair which comes from suppressing anger and feeling guilty for having felt it in the first place. Last summer [1978], a Utah woman wrote to Senate Hatch of Utah: “A sea of smoldering women is a dangerous thing.” And that’s what the Mormon patriarchy has on its hands: a sea of smoldering women. Those whose anger is still undifferentiated, who do not realize how thoroughly they are being betrayed—their rage is exploited by Church leaders who subvert it into attacks against feminist causes such as the Equal Rights Amendment, making scapegoats of women and their righteous desires, identifying women as the source of women’s danger (a patriarchal tactic for maintaining power that has its roots in antiquity) and trying to distract us from recognizing that where our real danger as women lies, and always has lain, is in patriarchy. But women are not fools. The very violence with which the Brethren attacked an Amendment which would give women human status in the Constitution abruptly opened the eyes of thousands of us to the true source of our danger and our anger. This open patriarchal panic against our human rights raised consciousness miraculously all over the Church as nothing else could have done. And revealing their raw panic at the idea that women might step forward as goddesses-in-the-making with power in a real—not a “sub” or “through men”—sense, was the leaders’ critical and mortal error, producing as it did a deafening dissonance between their rhetoric of love and their oppressive, unloving, destructive behavior. I receive phone calls and letters from Mormon women all over the country and each has a story or two to tell: how two Mormon women in one meeting independently stood and spoke of their Mother in Heaven, how they met afterwards and wept together in joy at having found and named Her; how a courageous Mormon woman is preparing to make the first public demand for the priesthood. “The time has come,” she says calmly, “for women to insist upon full religious enfranchisement.” This statement is the Mormon woman’s equivalent of the shot heard ‘round the world! Our patriarchy may be The Last Unmitigated but it is no longer unchallenged. A multitude of Mormon women are through asking permission. We are waking up and growing up and in our waking and growing can be heard—distinctly—the death rattle of the patriarchy. |
| Thursday, Mar 30, 2006, at 08:03 AM The Magical Mystery Adam-On-Di-Amon Tour Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| "Brothers and sisters, if you will all please step over this way toward the altar of stones, which you can see just ahead of you. "Please watch where you are going. I see dead people--especially if you wander off the trail and over the cliff. "Welcome to Adam-on-di-Amon. "Before proceeding, we here at Faithfully Yours Mormon Tours ask that you please not touch, pick up, rearrange or remove these altar stones. We like to say that they are the original stones used by Father Adam to build an altar on this very spot. "Unfortunately, the original stones which Adam used to build this altar have, over the years and through constant theft and vandalism, been lost and stolen--requiring that we replace them over and over again. "This means that your tour guide crew has to waste valuable time that they could otherwise use making up more stories for you to share in sacrament meeting when you get home, in order to haul in new rocks to replace the ones you've taken off with. This rebuilding routine gets old real quick so, if you wouldn't mind, please play along and KEEP YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF THESE ORIGINAL REPLACEMENT STONES! "If you want some stones to remember your visit here, you can buy some plastic replicas in the gift shop, located at the rear of the bus. Just ask the Mormon clerk with the plastic smile to help you. "Thank you. "Moving along, like I said, this historic and holy tourist trap, er, place is known as 'Adam-on-di-Amon.' I will explain that name in a moment, although what I will be saying about it makes very little sense to me or anyone else who gets paid with your tithing dollars to make it sound like something straight out of a FARMS brochure on ancient American NASCAR racing. "If you will look at your bus tour maps, you can see that we are standing about two miles south of Jameson, Missouri, with a pleasant view overlooking the waters of the Grand River, not far from where hundreds of thousands of Book of Mormon enemy combatants slaughtered each other during the California Gold Rush. "The Saints who eventually settled here were told by the Prophet Joseph Smith that Jameson is also near the spot of an ancient Nephite city--as indicated by the discovery of hewn stones already in piles when the Saints arrived. "These stones were said to have displayed Deformed Egyptian hieroglyphs which, when translated by the Prophet Joseph using several of these altar rocks as peepstones in a hat, spelled out, "Lehi loves Sariah but hates brown people and Catholics." "Unfortunately, these stones have also been stolen. "Moving along--Hey!! Look, son, I told you not to touch those rocks! Drop them! Do it now, before the Great Jehovah strikes you down like Korihor and you suffer an ignoramius death! (Works everytime). "Now, where was I? "Oh, yes, it was on this spot that the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that Adam--the father of the human race and, according to Brigham Young, the guy who conceived Jesus through sex with the not-so-virgin Mary--was buried. "In fact, if you look closely, you can see what looks like the end of a human leg bone sticking out of the dirt. Actually, it's a cow bone. The human ones are at the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but we ain't goin' there. "The parcel of land upon which you are standing was purchased by the Saints who settled here from a man named Arrington. Who he was, I haven't a clue. Someone who actually cares and who has lots of time on their hands should do his genealogy then thank him with a dunk-tank baptism for the dead send-off into eternally polygamous potluck glory, but that's for another time and place in outer space. "It was to this hallowed spot that the Latter-day Saints flocked as their promised Zion--but only after they had been driven from all the other places they had also been promised. "Eventually this location became a town, after starting out as a farm, and from there grew rapidly into the field of weeds that you see here today. "The Saints gathered here from all quarters, even "Far West" (before they were forced to pull up stakes and move to 'Farther and Farther West')--but not before they had assembled at this sacred site and poked around, using one of Joseph Smith's witching sticks, looking for the grave of Adam. "Adam's slippery remains (not to mention his apple) have yet to be found, although a petrified fig leaf, believed to have at one time been attached to his apron, was dug up when Joseph Smith was out here hunting for buried treasure. "The town which the Saints proceeded to build on this spot was designated as 'Adam-on-di-Amon.' It is a name the Prophet Joseph came up with by writing it on a slip of paper, putting it in a hat along with several other names on their own slips of paper, then asking Emma to close her eyes and draw one out, while he stole a kiss from Fannie Alger. "Now, here is where things get a bit complicated so stick with me--and put down that rock, kid! How many times do I have to tell you?? Next time, I'll bash your head in with it!! (Which might not be a bad idea. We could tell the next tour group that the blood they see on the rock came from Jesus, who was crucified on this very spot. Hmmmmm . . .) "Anyway, the name 'Adam-on-di-Amon' was the name the Saints ended up using because it was easier to spell than other choices, including 'Addin'-on-Aladdin,' 'You-Da-Dude-Diahman,' 'Adam-played-Backgammon,' 'Princess-Di-is-Dead-'n-Gone-Man,' 'Diamond-Shamrock,' and (my personal favorite) 'Dam-Dam-bo-Bam-Banana-Fana-fo-Fam-Fee-Fi-MoMan-Adam.' "In a sermon delivered on this spot by the Prophet Joseph, he declared that name 'Adam-on-di-Amon' was the name given anciently to a nearby valley (then known as Utah Valley) where Adam, prior to his death, called his children together and blessed them, then abandoned his family for some of his other wives, since Eve had managed to get him thrown out of his favorite watering hole--known among the local pre-Adamites as the 'Garden of Cheatin'--all for giving in to Eve by partaking of a beer that was delicious to the taste, but which he hadn't paid for. "According to the Prophet Joseph, the blessing which Adam bestowed upon his children took place when the Earth was divided with the land in one place and the water in another, whatever the hell that means. "Just think about it. (Wait, you can't think. You're Mormons on a fantasy trek, for gawd's sake). Land in one place and water in another. Land and water have got to be seperate; otherwise, how could you have, like, land, over here and water over there? Maybe that's a Gospel mystery for Bruce R. McConkie to figure out for us. "It was also on this spot, brothers and sisters, that Father Adam dwelt ("Dwelt." What a dumb word. Why can't we just say "lived" or "hung out"? Because it's not in the damn script out of the Correlation Committee, that's why). "Anyhoo, this is where Adam dwelt with his people prior to his death, which occured when he was bitten by a snake that Eve had let into the house without telling him. "Before he died, Adam constructed the altar, represented here by this pile of meaningless rubble. It was at this altar that Father Adam, now advanced in years and by this time just plain sick and tired of earning too little bread by too much sweat of his brow, also offered sacrifices, since they were easier to come by. "Following Masonic rituals that he would later reveal to the Prophet Joseph, Adam would slay chickens and goats(which he stole from the neighborhood Gentiles). This he did in the upper room of a mudhut prototype of what was later to become the Nauvoo Temple--and then drink their blood here, out of sight of the local authorities. "Also at this stone altar--Hey!! OK, that's it, punk! (Sound of stone from altar hitting skull of kid) "I apologize for the interruption. "It was also here at this stone altar that, according to the early Mormon polygamist Zelph the White Danite, Adam leaned on his staff and prophesied many events that were to come to pass in the present generation, including the destruction of the Mormon Church due to the HBO special, "Big Love" and Mitt Romney's failed bid to lie his way into the White House by claiming he was baptized against his will by Mormon missionaries desperate for numbers. "To wrap things up (as the Prophet Joseph used to say when referring to his Egyptian mummies), it was at this very spot that Adam bestowed his final blessings on his descendants--before the venom from that snake that Eve let loose in their house took effect and paralyzed Adam's vocal cords, causing his children to cry out, "What is wanted?," whereupon Adam managed to get out his last words, "Adam, having been true and faithful, desires a glass of water from the pail," before collapsing and dying. "Are there any questions? . . . "No? (That figures. Mormons never question). "Well, if there aren't any questions, does anyone have any answers? "Yes? Too bad. They're all wrong. "OK, then, everyone on the bus for Denny's." |
| Thursday, Mar 30, 2006, at 08:12 AM The Mormon Church Says It Doesn't Like To Be Called "Mormon" But Violates Its Own Damn Style Guide Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Go to the official Style Guide site for the LDS Church and there you will find the official LDS Church explanation for the official name of the LDS Church, along with official directions from the LDS Church on what names to use or not use when officially referring to the LDS Church: Style Guide - The Name of the Church The official name of the Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This full name was given by revelation from God to Joseph Smith in 1838. While the term "Mormon Church" has long been publicly applied to the Church as a nickname, it is not an authorized title, and the Church discourages its use. When writing about the Church, please follow these guidelines: In the first reference, the full name of the Church is preferred: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please avoid the use of “Mormon Church,” “LDS Church” or “the Church of the Latter-day Saints.” When a shortened reference is needed, the terms “the Church” or “the Church of Jesus Christ” are encouraged. When referring to Church members, the term “Latter-day Saints” is preferred, though “Mormons” is acceptable. "Mormon” is correctly used in proper names such as the Book of Mormon, Mormon Tabernacle Choir or Mormon Trail, or when used as an adjective in such expressions as “Mormon pioneers.” The term “Mormonism” is acceptable in describing the combination of doctrine, culture and lifestyle unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When referring to people or organizations that practice polygamy, the terms “Mormons,” “Mormon fundamentalist,” “Mormon dissidents,” etc. are incorrect. The Associated Press Stylebook notes: “The term Mormon is not properly applied to the other ... churches that resulted from the split after [Joseph] Smith’s death.” http://www.lds.org/newsroom/page/0,15606,3899-1---15-168,00.html (emphasis added) _____ So, you're not supposed to refer to the LDS Church as the "Mormon Church," because that's not the LDS Church's real name. Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuze me but I just heard one of those LDS family "it's about time" radio spots and it referred interested listeners to, golly, guess what? . . . mormon.org. So, when you go to http://mormon.org , you'll see it's an officially owned and operated propaganda site for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (you know, the Mormons). Upon entering the site, viewers are hit up with the following greeting, front and center, written in lacey script and accompanied by a photo of happy-faced Mormons: This site is for anyone interested in learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We invite you to view information about The Church itself or to explore our beliefs about Families, the Nature of God, and the Purpose of life. We also encourage you to view answers to Frequently asked questions. _____ So, the MORMONS and the MORMON CHURCH will getchya any way they can, even if it means throwin' out a hook with the worm "Mormon" on it. Obviously, it must not bother them too much, as long as they can make a sale and reel you in. Yup, anything to close the deal. Wormy little liars. |
| Thursday, Apr 6, 2006, at 09:01 AM "Justice" For The Victims Of The Bennett / Wheeler Sex Abuse Case: Yavapi County Style Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
 http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/benson/ |
| Thursday, Apr 13, 2006, at 07:28 AM This Month's Spiritual Living Lesson: Knowing The Mormon Church Is True Through "Cutis Anserina" Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Otherwise known as "goose bumps." They are the follicles of our faith. The whisperings of Frosty the Snowy Ghost. They speak to us in the chill small voice that "goosiness is next to godliness." Listen, then, and learn, oh ye of little goose bumps: Understanding the Tickling Testimonial of Tingling Flesh . . . [G]oose bumps [are] a temporary local change in the skin when it becomes rougher due to erection of little muscles, as from cold, fear, or excitement. The chain of events leading to this skin change starts with a stimulus such as cold or fear. That stimulus causes a nerve discharge from the sympathetic nervous system, a portion of the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system. The nerve discharge causes contraction of little muscles called the arrectores pilorum (the hair erector muscles). Contraction of these muscles elevates the hair follicles above the rest of the skin. And it is these tiny elevations we perceive as goose bumps. . . . Goose bumps are also referred to as "gooseflesh." A fancier term for this familiar phenomenon is "horripilation." Horripilation was compounded from the Latin "horrere", to stand on end + "pilus", hair = hair standing on end. . . . Medicine has a special term, "cutis anserina" for goose bumps. But it goes back to the goose again, since "cutis," skin + "anser," goose = goose skin. Some biologists believe that goose bumps evolved as part of the fight-or-flight reaction along with heart rate increases that send the heart racing while blood rushes to the muscles to give them additional oxygen. A similar phenomenon, bristling, in fur-covered animals may have made them look larger and more frightening and kept them warmer by increasing the amount of air between hairs which traps body heat. But in people there seems to be no practical purpose for goose bumps except, of course, to make our skin crawl. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7112 _____ The Glory of God is in the Goose Bumps Ever hear a song on the radio that makes your arm hair stand on end? Does thinking about your child being born also give you goose bumps? Memories are tied to emotion, and emotion triggers your body to release adrenaline and endorphin. Your brain responds to that hormonal rush by, among other things, giving you goose bumps . . . Goose bumps also pop up when you are cold. The body responds to the temperature change by releasing adrenaline, which causes the tiny muscles connected to hairs to contract. The response is the same with emotion. Adrenaline is released, the brain responds, and you get goose bumps. In extreme emotional situations, such as the birth of a child, the brain receives such a surge of hormones, the body's response can move beyond goose bumps to all-over shaking. It does not matter whether the emotional event is live or recalled from memory. The bond between emotion and memory is so strong, we can hear a song that reminds us of our past, or think about emotional events, and give ourselves goose bumps. . . . However, the brain cannot distinguish between pleasure and a dangerous emotion. The reaction to hearing a memorable song on the radio or spotting a bear in your backyard will be the same: goose bumps. . . . http://www.uoguelph.ca/mediarel/archives/001441.html _____ I say these things in the name of our Lo-Lo-Lord and Shiv-Shiv-Shiverin' Savior, even Gee-Gee-Gee-Geezus Christ, It's Cold! |
| Wednesday, Apr 19, 2006, at 07:14 AM Getting It Off Your Chest: Not Only Resigning Your Membership But Telling The Cult Why Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| A soon-to-be official ex-Mo friend of mine (who has given me permission to post this here) recently sent his letter of separation to Mormon Cult headquarters. Before dispatching it, he asked me what I thought of what he had written. I told him I thought it was "powerful and direct," but that the bureaucrats in the bowels of the de-membering office probably wouldn't bother to read his reasons for deciding to bolt the Cult. I responded: ". . . While I think it is important for you, personally, to explain why you are having your membership terminated, the bureaucrats in the name removal department frankly don't give a rat's a[**]. They probably will merely skim over that part of your letter, if they read it at all. "My advice? Think about not casting your pearls before swine. Just order them to get you the hell off the records of their cult, tell them you understand the consequences and ramifications (blah, blah, blah) and tell them to do it now, dammit." "Then get down here so we can go motorcycle riding." My friend replied that he knew that was most likely the case but wanted to lay it out for, in nothing else, his own benefit. He answered thusly: "I had the same thought of casting the pearls, but that part was more for me. I guess I want it to be matter of record, even if the don’t give a rat’s a[**]. I’m sure that it is all getting mechanical for them, anyway. "I had visions of GBH reading it & weeping, but then I woke up. . . . "My kids . . . are sending in their letters also in a few days. Maybe we should get the bulk mail rate. "I am anxious to get back on my bike. . . ." _____ Enjoy the liberation launch of another freedom-finder, as he told the Cult to take a hike: "Member Records, LDS Church 50 E North Temple Rm 1372 SLC UT 84150-3810 "RE: Resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "This letter is my formal resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it is effective immediately. I hereby withdraw my consent to being treated as a member and I withdraw my consent to being subject to Church rules, policies, beliefs and 'discipline'. As I am no longer a member, I want my name permanently and completely removed from the membership rolls of the Church. "I have given this matter considerable thought. I understand what you consider the 'seriousness' of my actions. I am aware that the Church handbook says that my resignation "cancels the effects of baptism and confirmation, withdraws the priesthood held by a male member and revokes temple blessings.' I also understand that I will be 'readmitted to the Church by baptism only after a thorough interview' (quotes from the 1999 Church Handbook of Instructions). "My resignation should be processed immediately, without any 'waiting periods.' I am not going to be dissuaded and I am not going to change my mind. "I am asking for a simple administrative procedure under my constitutional right to practice freedom of religion. I expect this matter to be handled promptly and with full confidentiality. If my friends, family or neighbors learn of my resignation through anyone but myself, I will consider it invasion of privacy and I will consider taking legal action against the Church. "After today, the only further contact I want from the Church is a single letter of confirmation to let me know that my name has been removed from the membership rolls of the Church. "My reasons for taking this step are too many to list, but fundamentally, I have had doubts & concerns from the time I joined the Church that I have tried to suppress & I found I could no longer do that anymore. As I began my search for answers I turned to the early teachings of the Church, being the foundation of its teachings, & made the mistake of reading the Journal of Discourses w/ Brigham Young’s talks & then followed up with History of the Church. I was appalled by the declarations made by Joseph & Brigham. I tried to assuage my concerns that they were in the formative years of the Church & had to make the declarations that they did to spur on the members. "I have always been bothered & embarrassed by polygamy. I tried using the pat answers that we don’t practice it any more & brushed it under the rug. The reality is that we do still practice it by teaching that we will have multiple wives in the Celestial kingdom. I think the whole idea is a 'crock.' I believe that Joseph Smith was 'hormonally' inspired in this teaching. I believe it was anatrocity to seal himself to women that had husbands in the mission field. I believe that in most cases that families that practiced polygamy suffered emotionally & psychologically. "And furthermore to have the declarations by the Brethren that polygamy was required of it’s 'worthy' members & that the policy would never cease, and then to abandon the policy under political pressure to gain Statehood. It falls under the same category as the standing on Blacks. They held firm to a ridiculous mentality until the pressure was to great & then they abandon another 'never-to-change' policy. "The list goes on from the way women are viewed & treated as 'baby machines' to the pompous attitude the members have that if you’re not a member of the Church, you’re inferior. I know too many non-Mormons that are far superior to me that are perfectly happy & fulfilled in their pursuit of happiness. "There’s always the Church’s convenient denial of its own history. Negating comments that don’t coincide with today’s teachings by the earlier brethren, like Brigham Young, by stating that he was speaking for himself & not the Lord. Brigham claims that he never uttered a word that didn’t come from the Lord. If the Church would at least acknowledge the discrepancy & say, 'Yeah, that’s was then, but we need to evolve or change.' Something, other than denial. "What is a person to believe? I can’t keep up anymore. I can’t do the juggling act. Most importantly, I don’t buy into the 'motivation by guilt' method imposed by the Church, the dangling carrot of eternal increase. The stress in the member’s lives is greatly enhanced & augmented by the Church. I don’t believe this is the Lord’s plan. "I have shed the mantle of control by the Church & I feel liberated. I now longer acknowledge the Church’s influence in my life. The Church has many great programs & has a lot to offer, but the belief system is incongruent with what I feel in my heart. I have made this a matter of fervent prayer & found peace in this decision. Please respect my wishes. "Sincerely, "[signed]" |
| Wednesday, Apr 19, 2006, at 07:08 AM This Is My Last Post Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Sincere wishes for peace and happiness to all of you in your respective journeys of personal recovery.
May you find purpose and fulfillment in your lives--and may you have respect, love and appreciation for those special, one-of-a-kind individuals in your lives who mean the most to you and who have so richly blessed you. May I suggest The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz: Be impeccable with your word. Avoid making assumptions. Don't take things personally. Do the best you can. This is it for me on RfM. No more posting or lurking. Life moves on. Enjoy the moment. Make your life as good for yourself as you can, and as you are able. You have that power, that choice and that right. Thanks. --Steve Benson |
| Tuesday, Jan 2, 2007, at 06:25 AM Exposing The Mormon Myth Of Rugged Pioneer Individualism Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| One of the most obvious and easily dispensed-with lies of sanitized Mormon "history" books is the no-way notion that members of the LDS Cult have traditionally been fervent defenders of the pioneer spirit of rugged individualism and freedom.
Richard Shenkman puts that faithful fable to rest in his book, "Legends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History" (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 1988). Challenging the unhistorical hooey that Mormons have been a people committed to personal liberty and choice, Shenkman reminds readers of the actual history of the American frontier, including the parts settled and controlled by Mormons in their then-Utah-confined cul-de-sac sphere of influence: " . . . [T]he [American] frontier is identified most with individualism, courage, and candor. Individualism, no doubt, flourished on the frontier, but not precisely in the way many people think. Historians are pretty much agreed that the frontier did not encourage . . . the individualism of eccentricity. Indeed, the historical record suggests that frontier society did its best to discourage individuals who wished to be different, whether heathen, heretic, or hell raiser. If anything, a high value was placed on conformity. Those who asserted their uniqueness were apt to be scorned or worse. . . . "Some frontier communities, primarily religious ones, took a downright dim view of individualism, sensibly believing that only by sticking close together could they survive. . . . Mormons experimented with communism . . . Pioneers in parts of Utah pooled their profits; property was held in common. In the early years Mormon church leaders urged members to vote alike on political questions." (p. 115) In keeping with the Mormon theme of faking a commitment to freedom, Shenkman also notes that Mormon-controlled Utah, on its state capitol grounds, displays a fake of one of America's most cherished shrines: "Of all American shrines, perhaps none is more sacred than the Liberty Bell which, as everyone knows, was rung when independence was declared on July 4, 1776. . . . "Such is the popular fascination with the Liberty Bell that a few years ago a group of industrious citizens had full-size replicas of the shrine made up for every state in the Union, so that people who couldn't travel to Philadelphia could benefit from the uplifting sight. "In Utah the replica stands just outside the state's House of Representatives. Tour guides point to the bell with reverence, and it's only a duplicate." (p. 142) Only a duplicate, indeed--and so symbolically significant in that regard, given that Mormonism is succh grandly phony display of supposed respect for individual liberty. |
| Tuesday, Jan 2, 2007, at 06:28 AM The Mormon Cult's Dependence On Doctored Art To Peddle Its Propaganda Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Mormons are notorious for relying on supposedly history-based paintings in order to perpetuate their non-stop myth that their religion is a legitimate one, rooted in fact, not fancy (For evidence of that preposterous position, simply stroll through any LDS visitors center display on the bogus Book of Mormon).
Richard Shenkman, in his book "Legends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History" (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 1988), exposes an example of Utah-related faith-based fake-based art that has been railroaded over the years into the consciousness of an unsuspecting public: ". . . [O]ne of the most interesting [among historical paintings] is Thomas Hill's renowned rendition of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads in Utah in 1869. Hill's painting gives the impression that the ceremony was like a small-town nineteenth-century Fourth of July picnic. The painting shows men in frock coats, women in long, elegant dresses, and in the backgrounds, waving in the wind, several broad, clean American flags. "The real spirit of the occasion was captured in a photograph by Colonel Charles Savage. Not only are most of the people in the crowd wearing work clothes, but several are holding liquor bottles, and many are evidently drunk. There are even a few 'painted' women, said by historians to be work camp prostitutes." (p. 156) |
| Wednesday, Jan 3, 2007, at 06:11 AM Who Really Controls The Mormon Cult: Its "Prophet" Or Its Board Of Directors? Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| "Primus," in a previous thread, asked a question about who actually has been in charge of at the top of the Mormon Corporate Cult pyramid (with particular emphasis on the time period when Howard W. Hunter was its president).
Despite Mormon claims that they are uniquely blessed with a prophet of God leading them--and through whom and no one else the Lord dispenses divine revelation and truth to the planet at large--the plain truth of the matter is altogether different. Who really runs the Mormon Church Corporate Machine is its Board of Directors--i.e., the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, jockeying as they all do for position and power and, through inside-the-Cultway power plays, arriving eventually at some kind of workable agreement. It's often done, in other words, through good ol' fashioned inspired in-fighting. How this actually is manifest in everyday control of the Mormon Church is quite basic: 1) The counselors in the First Presidency are put in place to help keep the Mormon "head prophet" from making bone-headed, uninformed and Church-damaging mistakes. 2) Likewise, its lip service to "following the prophet" notwithstanding, the Quorum of the Twelve retains both the practical power and the demonstrated inclination to circumvent (meaning, cut off at the pass) any moves by the Mormon Church president which the Quorum, as a voting body, opposes or which it considers to be at cross purposes with the advancement of the Kingdom of the Cult on Earth. Without the support of his First Presidency counselors and the majority of the Quorum of the Twelve, the Mormon Church's president is essentially neutered, unable to do much of by way of revelatory, meaningful leading. This balance of power approach to dispensing God's will is so much an operational reality at the top of the Mormon High Command that the LDS Board of Directors effectively functions only through in-house group consensus, since its individual members feel unable and unauthorized to make major decisions without board input and direction. This management fact therefore completely undercuts the Mormon lie that the LDS Church is allegedly led by a singularly-chosen prophet of God who receives direct and personal revelation intended to be channeled through said prophet--and who leads the Mormon Church according to the Lord's will without ultimate regard for, or dependence on, others. _____ These facts were confirmed in personal, private discussions I had with Apostles Dallin H. Oaks and Neal A. Maxwell in September 1993, in Maxwell's office. They were discussions that, in effect, amounted to confessionals from inside power brokers who truly know how the Cult is run. Let's take their admissions one at a time: _____ The Mormon "Prophet" Depends on His First Presidency Counselors To Act as His Handlers Earth to the flock: Without his counselors, the Lord God's prophet can do nothing. So admitted Oaks and Maxwell, using Brigham Young's false doctrine teachings on Adam-God as an example. Both men confessed that what Young taught with regard to the God of the human race was false doctrine--blaming it, however, on his lack of counselor input. They informed me that when Young was spouting his false Adam-God teachings, he was a relatively young, wet-behind-the-ears prophet who could have used some good advice from other Church leaders. Indeed, they said they wished Young had had the benefit of "a couple of good counselors to help him with some of the things he was saying." In this regard, Maxwell repeated a common maxim used among the Mormon faithful: "A prophet is not always a prophet. He is only a prophet when he speaks as such." So, without the counter-balancing weight of more mature First Presidency counselors to keep him on the straight and narrow, the Lord's one true prophet can't be relied upon to get the revealed truth straight on such basic matters as, say, the very identity of God--and is especially handicapped if the prophet happens to be youthfully inexperienced. For clarification, I asked Oaks and Maxwell asked what constitutes an official Mormon Church statement and inquired whether Young's declarations on Adam-God could be considered as such. Maxwell fell back on the convenient first-funnel-the Mormon-prophet's-revelatary-impulses-through-the-First-Presidency truth filter. He cited D&C 107, saying that "we have a scriptural admonition that three High Priests preside over the Quorum of the Twelve." Maxwell went even further at that point, declaring that post-Joseph Smith Church presidents can't be depended on to correctly convey the truth from God to His children, so Mormon Church presidents now need their counselors to assist them in not flubbing up. Maxwell said "the more modern approach" to matters of Mormon doctrine are governed by the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, acting together as a body. Maxwell asserted that once Joseph Smith had established the basic doctrines of the Church, then he was instructed by the Lord to call counselors. After that, Maxwell said, Joseph Smith's role as unilaterally revealing doctrine was much more reduced. Maxwell summarized by telling us there are four levels of fundamental Church doctrine: 1. those doctrines revealed by the prophet speaking alone; 2. those doctrines revealed by the prophet in conjunction with his First Presidency counselors; 3. those doctrines revealed in First Presidency statements, with the words of the First Presidency assuming "a special status;" and 4. those doctrines revealed by official declaration. Actually, however, Oaks needed to quickly qualify what his fellow Apostle had just said. He followed up with a reality check on when it is advisable believe Mormon Church presidents. And that reality check came in the form of his recommendation to forget #1. Oaks emphasized that all of the basic Church doctrines were revealed by Joseph Smith early in the history of the Church. He said that the more modern approach of Church governance has been, since the time of President Joseph F. Smith, to "beseech his counselors in the First Presidency to help him, to watch over him, so that they could together make the right decision that God wanted them to make." In other words, three heads are better than one, even if the one head happens to be God's head prophet and supposed sole mouthpiece. _____ The Mormon "Prophet" is Vulnerable to Being Overruled by the Vote-Wielding Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Oaks made it clear that even the Mormon prophet's utterances are subject to an affirming vote from the Quorum of the Twelve. This came with both his and Maxwell's admission that the Mormon prophet can't always be trusted to tell the truth--especially when it comes to prophesying--especially since since Oaks said prophesying isn't actually a main job requirement for prophets. Oaks told me that "we shouldn't be citing fulfilled [Mormon prophet' prophecies, because prophesying is only a minor aspect of what a prophet does." Oaks said that, in actuality, the fundamental role of a prophet is "to testify of Christ." He said that "foretelling events" is a prophet's "minor responsibility." Maxwell added that Church members "shouldn't use fulfilled prophecies to keep box scores." He added, "We've never had a perfect prophet or a perfect general authority." When it was then pointed out to Oaks and Maxwell that Joseph Smith had failed in his prediction of a temple being built in Missouri before those living in Smith's generation would pass away, Maxwell commented with a laugh, "Maybe there was too much foretelling and not enough testifying." Oaks observed, "Prophecies are for private use and private application, more than they are for general Church application." I asked if it was not problematic for a Church to be led by prophets who are making frequent mistakes in their prophesying. Oaks replied, "In total, there aren't that many mistakes that have been made." Of 5,000 prophecies, he said, "only five haven't been fulfilled." He then added, "But we shouldn't be keeping track, anyway." Maxwell noted that according to one scripture, even Jesus was said not to know when the Second Coming is scheduled, so, Maxwell said, "no one really knows" and "everyone could be mistaken." The bottom line, Maxwell declared, is that "it is our duty to be loyal to the prophet." He said that he disagreed politically with Ezra Taft Benson "on certain things" but felt he could always follow him in good conscience when, as prophet, President Benson was emphasizing a particular aspect of the gospel. Oaks agreed--but with a very important condition. Oaks vowed he would "march from sunup to sundown" in following the prophet on a particular teaching but said "if the prophet was to come out and say that we are no longer going to preach the Book of Mormon as true," he "would look around for an affirmation of that by the Quorum of the Twelve." So, in the end, the Lord's specially-anointed prophet, revelator and president of the Lord's one and only true Church can be overruled by a vote of the Church's Board of Directors. _____ Mormon Church Institutional Inertia Prevents Its Top Leadership from Making Authoritative Decisions Without First Getting Board Input and Approval Declarative positions from the top of the Mormon chain of command can actually be delayed or prevented by--yes, brothers and sisters--vacation schedules. A case in point was when the Mormon Church blatantly refused to release, despite subpoena directive from the Salt Lake City police department, documents from the William McLellin collection deemed important to the investigation of the Mark Hofmann bombing murders. Oaks said that one of the reasons why the Church did not cough up the legally-demanded documents was because there was no one around Church headquarters at the time who was in a position of authority to approve such a release. Oaks said that there were no Church leaders available at the time to work with the police on the McLellin paper caper because the Church authorities authorized to do so were all on vacation. Oaks insisted argued that the Church only had between May and August of the year in which it was subpoenaed as the available interval in which to get the McLellin papers out. Since, Oaks argued, that everyone who apparenlty counted was on vacation in August, there was no one to make decisions during that time frame. So, the Lord's mouth can have a stock stuffed in it when His appointed servants are out of the office for rest and relaxation. _____ This, then, is how and why the Mormon Church is run the way it is. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous? |
| Monday, Jan 8, 2007, at 06:57 AM Why Am I Back? Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| I am returning to the RfM board to engage and contribute in ways, based on my own experiences and perspectives, that hopefully can provide resources and information to others in their own personal struggle with (and, hopefully as well, their eventual escape and relative recovery from) the Mormon Cult.
It is also a way for me to continue my own healing process. Like it or not, both Mormonism and ex-Mormonism are my community and my reality. I accept that as foundational facts, from which I do not run or hide. As I have said before, cut me and I will always, to some extent, bleed Mormonism--both the good and the bad. I didn’t choose to be born into the inner sanctum of Mormonism’s “Auschwitz of the Mind” (as excommunicated Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn has so perfectly described it). I do, however, choose and take personal responsibility for how I deal with the fact that I was born into a family that had access to the top of the Mormon pyramid of power. From that perch, I saw, heard and learned things that I feel a strong obligation--out of a sense of truth and duty--to share with others. Part of my choice in dealing with that reality involves my decision to help others, as best I can, in digging escape tunnels of their own out of the Mormon prison. Another part of coming back to the community of non-believers involves my decision to eventually write my personal account, in book form, of what I experienced in regard to the ugly realities, lies, racism, sexism, homophobia, psychological trauma, deceitful power plays and historical make-believe foisted upon unsuspecting believers by the authoritarian thugs at the top of the LDS Cult. I do that from my own (and arguably unique) vantage point, one which I have described in years past as being “behind the Mormon curtain.” I make no apologies for coming back and being here. I am glad, in fact, to have returned. Those who wish to read what I post are welcome. Those who wish I wasn’t here can keep me out of their world by ignoring what I have to say. Now, that's real free agency: you control the mouse, not the Mormon Cult. |
| Thursday, Jan 18, 2007, at 07:30 AM We Interrupt This Program To Bring You The Following Message From The Lord To His Living Prophet On The Earth Today : Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
We now return to your regularly scheduled programming. |
| Monday, Jan 22, 2007, at 07:06 AM Joseph Smith And Gordon B. Hinckley: Both "Pious Frauds"? Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Let's first define the term, "pious fraud," as used and popularized in these circles by former Mormon writer Dan Vogel.
Vogel, in his book "Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet," defines "pious fraud" (as applied to Smith) as follows: "To my mind, . . . Smith was a well intentioned 'pious deceiver' or, perhaps otherwise worded, a 'sincere fraud,' someone who prevaricated for 'good' reasons. Admittedly, the terms are not entirely satisfying. "Nevertheless, 'pious' connotes genuine religious conviction, while I apply 'fraud' or 'deceiver' only to describe some of Smith's activities. I believe that Smith believed he was called of God, yet occasionally engaged in fraudulent activities in order to preach God's word as effectively as possible." http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpt... But was Smith really all that "pious"? Benjamin Winchester, a Mormon convert who knew Smith personally, described Smith thusly: "In the winter of 1839 and 1840 Smith, in company with Rigdon and with Porter Rockwell, acting as a sort of body guard, fled from the officials that were after them, acting for the State of Ohio, on the charge of criminal practice at Kirtland, and they came to Philadelphia where I was stationed and where I was stake president. "There they remained with me in the best degree of secrecy that could be maintained. Smith and I slept in the same bed and Porter Rockwell occupied a bed near the foot of our couch in the capacity of a body guard for the 'prophet.' It was there and at that time that I had a good opportunity to study the character of the 'prophet.' It then began to be apparent to me that he was tyrannical by nature, a libertine, in short a gross, sensual, corrupt man . . ." "It was a subject of common talk among many good people in Nauvoo that . . . that Joseph Smith . . . had illicit intercourse with the wives of a number of the missionaries, and that the revelation on spiritual marriage, i.e. polygamy, was gotten up to protect themselves from scandal." "Joseph was very bitter in some of his public discourses relative to the talk among people about his lewdness, especially the women gossipers. On one occasion he said these women deserved to be threshed. . . . " "He was possessed with an inordinate degree of vanity and was quite susceptible to flattery. He was a perfect adept in the use of abusive and obscene language." "I have entertained him [Joseph Smith] for a month at a time while we lived in Philadelphia, while he was hiding from a mob. There was not a particle of true religion in him. His talk was never about anything pure or elevating. He liked to talk about be[ing] a great general or leader, and commanding people, and getting before the public. "He could not reason on anything. . . . He liked to use slang and cutting remarks on his persecutors. He loved to give orders to the church and to show authority. As a boy he was wild and curious. . . . He carried what he called a 'Peep stone' through which he claimed to see hidden treasure & etc. This is what he afterwards called his 'Urim and Thummem.' Finally he took the notion to get up a book. Then he claimed to have made the discovery of the plates. Then he got Cowdery, Harris and Whitmer into it." "I often saw Smith's bad conduct but they [fellow Church members] admonished me to keep on. They pointed out to me just as bad things in other churches. They pointed to the men of the Bible, how wicked many of them were, and how oppressive they were; yet that God approved of them--so I kept on and thought it was all right. "They showed me how God 'took the weak things to confound the wise' & etc. After Smith died I left them and have had nothing to do with them since, though I had written much in their defense." "No [Smith was not prayerful]. He often stopped at my house and though I have asked him to say grace at the table or to offer family prayers he always refused. There was not a particle of piety in him. He never wanted to talk on piety or any thing religious or on piety, but always on some ideas of greatness, etc." "Smith was a perfect libertine. Women got to running after him because they believed him to be a prophet. The whole church is a rotten concern." "A Professor of the Electic college of Cincinnatti got to running around with Smith. His name was John C. Bennet. They ran with other men's wives so much that much trouble arose over it. Then Bennet got up this revelation on polygamy, which was a fraud, to cover their perfidy. He got out of Nauvoo before Smith's assassination, but he and Smith had a 'big time' before that." Fast forward to the present. "Flew the Coop," a former Mormon Church insider who worked at high levels of Church finance, describes Gordon B. Hinckley as follows: "My experience in the COP [Corporation of the President] is that Hinckley could care less about doctrine. He was only concerned about budgets, projects, and secrecy of the Church investments and assets. This is one thing that helped me see the light, turn the corner and exit the Church and thus Church employment. If you want to get to the bottom of an organization--just follow the money trail." Did Smith really care about Mormon doctrine? Does Hinckley really care about Mormon doctrine? Did Smith only really care about budgets, projects and keeping Church financial dealings under wraps? Does Hinckley only really care about budgets, projects and keeping Church financial dealings under wraps? To get to the bottom of Smith's Mormon Church, did one merely have to follow the money trail? To get to the bottom of Hinckley's Mormon Church, does one merely have to follow the money trail? In short: Was Smith a "pious fraud"? Is Hinckley a "pious fraud"? What do you know about "pious frauds"? Would you like to know more? :) |
| Friday, Mar 30, 2007, at 07:43 AM The Greatest Damage Wreaked By The Mormon Church Is Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| The greatest damage wreaked by the Mormon Church is in my opinion, the cult-ivation of a frantic, obligatory impulse among faithful Mormons (driven by relentless indoctrination, pressure and expectation from the top down through all ranks of LDS authoritarian ranks) to place a great--and inordinate amount--of importance on external affirmation/validation of one's goodness (i.e., on approval from Church authorities and LDS peer groups), rather than relying ultimately on one's own sense of self, inner-recognized and -accepted identity, individually-defined worth and personal moral compass.
This is where I think the Mormon Church does its most devastating damage--by undermining, minimizing, disrespecting and destroying one's sense of individual uniqueness and--attendant to that uniqueness--the power and right of personal choice-making in life. In that sense alone, Mormonism is a horrifically destructive cult. |
| Friday, Apr 13, 2007, at 09:24 AM Lorenzo Saunders: A Tell-All Neighbor And Damning Witness Against Joseph Smith And The Book Of Mormon Posted By Steve Benson STEVE BENSON - SECTION 3 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Lorenzo Saunders was a native of Palymra, New York--a contemporary of Joseph Smith who knew Smith well.
Indeed, well enough to be less than impressed. Saunders was a key, first-hand witness to early Mormon-forming events involving Joseph Smith which have served to fundamentally undermine claims regarding Smith's alleged personal integrity, Smith's supposed ability to prophesy and Smith's purported discovery and translation of the Book of Mormon. Lorenzo Saunders on Joseph Smith's Character In Saunders' first-hand accounts of his personal acquaintance with Joseph Smith, he described the Smith family as being "shiftless and . . . in the money digging business." Lorenzo Saunders on Joseph Smith's Ability to Prophesy Saunders noted that when he asked Smith if "he could not look into futurity," Smith admitted that "he could not look into any holy thing." Lorenzo Saunders on Joseph Smith's Collusion with Sidney Rigdon in Producing the Book of Mormon Saunders asserted that Sidney Rigdon was seen in Joseph Smith's Palymra neighborhood at least 18 months before the Book of Mormon was published. Moreover, Saunders claimed, Rigdon was spotted in the company of Smith during this time, leading many to conclude that Rigdon was in the area helping Smith write the Book of Mormon. Saunders also declared that he had personally met Rigdon in March of 1827, three years before Rigdon began "preaching the Mormon Bible" in the Palymra area. Saunders reported subsequently seeing Rigdon again in December of the same year, as well as in summers of 1828 and 1830. Lorenzo Saunders on the Supposed Discovery and Actual Writing of the Book of Mormon In an affidavit, dated 21 July 1887, sworn and sealed before Justice of the Peace Linus S. Parmalee of Reading, Michigan, Saunders testified as follows: "I lived in . . . [the] town of Palmyra until I was 43 years of age. . . . "I lived within one mile of Joseph Smith at the time said Joseph Smith claimed that he found the 'tablets' on which the 'Book of Mormon' was revealed. . . . "I went to the 'Hill Cumorah' on the Sunday following the date that Joseph Smith claimed he found the plates, it being three miles from my home, and I tried to find the place where the earth had been broken by being dug up, but was unable to find any place where the ground had been broken." " . . .[I]n March of 1827, on or about the 15th of said month, I went to the house of Joseph Smith for the purpose of getting some maple sugar to eat . . . "[W]hen I arrived at the house of said Joseph Smith, I was met at the door by Harrison Smith, Joe's brother. . . . "[A]t a distance of 10 or 12 rods from the house there were five men that were engaged in talking, four of whom I knew, the fifth one was better dressed than the rest of those whom I was acquainted with. "I inquired of Harrison Smith, who the stranger was. He informed me his name was Sidney Rigdon with whom I afterwards became acquainted and found to be Sidney Rigdon. . . . "I was frequently at the house of Joseph Smith from 1827 to 1830. . . . "I saw Oliver Cowdery writing, I suppose the 'Book of Mormon' with books and mansucripts laying on the table before him . . . "[I]n the summer of 1830, I heard Sidney Rigdon preach a sermon on Mormonism. This was after the 'Book of Mormon' had been published, which took about three years from the time that Joseph Smith claimed to have had his revelation." (Sources: Rodger I. Anderson, "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Re-Examined" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1990); and Wayne L. Cowdery, Howard A. Davis and Arthur Vanick, "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma" [St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 2005]) |