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 | Monday, Feb 11, 2008, at 09:45 AM "The Most Persecuted Religious Group In American History" Original Author(s): Tal Bachman TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 7 -Guid- | ↑ |
| What never seems to occur to us as Mormons is whether there might have been some contributing factor to Mormon persecution besides "Satan knows we're the only true religion and wants to destroy us".
It never occurs to us that the founder and leader of Mormonism might have been hounded because he jumped bail, broke laws virtually everywhere he went (including Ohio's banking laws), defaulted on loans, remorselessly demanded offerings and donations from his followers, used his position to secretly take sexual advantage of numerous women in an era when chastity was highly prized, was caught lying and changing "eternal" doctrine on the fly, bankrupted so many with his stupid banking scheme, double-crossed local politicians, publicly humiliated or slandered those who criticized him, announced that only he and his apostles had any legitimate authority to govern on earth, proclaimed that every other religious creed on earth was an "abomination" and that only he had the truth, announced his designs as a presidential candidate to bring all of North and South America under his dominion through military force if necessary, taught that monogamous marriage was a "superstition", engineered the taking over of local governments, evidently told his followers that "stealing from the Gentiles" was no crime, had himself appointed "Lieutenant General" of his own private army nearly one third the size of the US standing army of the time, and organized a secret band of vigilantes and had them swear an oath to obey him "whether right or wrong"; and it also never occurs to us that his completely deluded followers, who frequently enabled Smith's virtually sociopathic behavior and protected him whenever possible, might then also naturally have been targeted. This was Jacksonian America, on the frontier, where "civilization" and "the economy" - the general prospects for survival - were a lot more fragile than they seem today. Attempts at abolishing private property, overthrowing democracy in favor of theocracy, completely reconfiguring social order including marriage, taking property which didn't belong to them, etc., wouldn't have seemed merely irksome, but incredibly alarming. This was a long time before the National Guard, or AFDC, or credit cards, or even full-time police forces, were around... Indeed, what is perhaps most amazing about Americans in that era is just how tolerant they often were: the early and mid 1800s were a time of great religious innovation all throughout America. Sects and communes arose which practiced free love, nudity, communism, all sorts of esoteric things, and believed in even stranger things; and if there is any pattern at all, it is that if they didn't bother the community at large, the community didn't bother them, and they lived in peace with each other. But presiding over a mere commune was never enough for Smith. No - he wanted to preside over - and change, disrupt, subvert - everything else, including American democratic structures and institutions themselves, at least wherever they were impediments to his own ambitions (which they almost always were). Perhaps most famously, this included the 600 year old right (originating in Magna Carta, English common law, and most recently in the US Bill of Rights) to freedom of speech and freedom of the press: Joseph Smith, like all dictators, was in favor of these rights just as long as their exercise was to his advantage. Once they weren't, and as soon as he was in a position to do so, as the virtual dictator of the city-state of Nauvoo he sought to abolish them by ordering the destruction of a printing press, the only crime of which was to have published not lies, but truths, about Smith's abuse of his position to secure sex. (Given that and his martial, imperial ambitions, one can only imagine what sorts of thingshe might have done if he'd won the presidency of the United States. He might have made the unprincipled Aaron Burr look like George Washington.) Today, a team of state or federal prosecutors might take the time make an example of such a person; but in 1840's America, such teams didn't exist in the numbers they do today. For better or for worse, communities usually policed themselves. Sometimes they did it in violent ways - but it's not as if Joseph Smith didn't know that. I would never say that I thought Joseph Smith deserved to be assassinated, or that his followers deserved to be driven away from their homes. But then, I would never say that a man who decided to leave his wallet on top of his car deserved to have it stolen. It's just that, if you do, it will be stolen; and if you do the sorts of things that Joseph Smith and his followers did in rural, frontier, Jacksonian America, what you'll get is just what they did get. It is a shame - one man's lunatic delusions of grandeur and lusts led many thousands to suffer - but...if you do what they did, when and where they did it...what would happen, is just what did happen. And they did it anyway. If Mormon Church defenders were properly educated by their seminary and church teachers, and honest and fair, they would mention this part of the story everytime they mentioned that "Mormons are the most persecuted religious group in American history" - which is why they never will. |
| | Monday, Mar 10, 2008, at 09:19 AM I'll Show You My Heresy, If You Show Me Yours Original Author(s): Tal Bachman TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 7 -Guid- | ↑ |
| The good news is that in contrast to earlier eras, nothing is more believable for folks nowadays than a "scientific" claim. The bad news is that "scientific" claims can be very wrong.
When I was in junior high, for example, all scientists "knew" that eggs were very bad for you, stomach ulcers came from stress, and eating before swimming made it far more likely that you would drown. "The evidence was in!". Yet scientists now are united in saying that the fear about eggs was entirely without foundation, that stomach ulcers can be cured with a routine course of antibiotics, and swimming with food in your stomach is no more dangerous than swimming without it. These examples, and so many others, raise the question of what "scientific consensus" might be wrong about now. The problem is in answering that question. After all, to broadcast one's suspicion that almost everyone is wrong about something - including our new caste of authorities, the scientists - is to commit a kind of heresy. But people only love heretics in retrospect - once they've been vindicated. Like four hundred years after they're dead. In the moment, no one but a few fellow heretics can stand them. Human nature dictates that we view contemporary heresy - heresy against what we think we know - as the result of either ignorance (the heretic doesn't understand the truth), or evil (he understands the truth, but fights against it out of ill motives). And who likes an ignoramus or an evildoer? Even more...who likes a wet blanket? Everyone loves consensus...it feels so good having your beliefs validated by others...So conjuring up the spectre of doubt in a long-sought paradise of pleasing group certainty...well, that would be like someone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling the president of the United States that his war plan sucks, wouldn't it? We can't have that. It spoils the party...chases away all the self-congratulation and feelings of rightness and validity. Everyone loves consensus, even when the supporting evidence isn't really there. Anyway, where I'm going with this is that my experience with Mormonism has left me insuperably suspicious of much of what "everyone knows", including what "the experts" know. One thing in particular I am skeptical of is the widely-believed claim that human activity has caused the one degree increase in global temperature over the past century. And the more I think about it, and read about the whole thing, try to dig deep beneath the surface and then try to step back and view it all...the more skeptical I become of it all. I don't buy it. That is my heresy. What's yours? P.S. For anyone interested, click http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/c... to read a recent National Post article on a possible coming ice age. |
| | Friday, Mar 21, 2008, at 09:32 AM Can Mormons Believe In Evolution? Original Author(s): Tal Bachman TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 7 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Can Mormons believe in evolution?
The answer is: YES. They can believe that human life evolved from lower life forms in the same way that they can believe that gays should be able to marry, that it's okay to drink beer every once in a while, and that it's okay to look at pornography. Or, like Mormon "intellectuals", that Joseph Smith's stories, while not technically true, are "true in a broader, metaphorical sense". Or, like Van Hale, that the Book of Mormon isn't an actual record of things which once happened. Strictly speaking, "Mormonism" doesn't exist; only individual versions of what people enjoy imagining is "Mormonism" exist. Hence the comment on another thread on this site by a (pitiable) man who enjoys imagining he's a devout Mormon, that Mormons can believe that humans evolved from lower life forms - notwithstanding an official First Presidency statement declaring that this is not true. Does that matter? No, not at all. All that matters, when we are devout Mormons, or devout anythings, is the effectiveness of the mind games we can play on ourselves. Here is the LDS First Presidency statement, republished in the Ensign in 2002, explaining church doctrine on the matter of human evolution: Gospel Classics: The Origin of Man It reads in part: "It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race."The meaning of these words could not be clearer. Does it matter? Judge for yourself by the comments which will be posted below by self-styled devout Mormons, who will still insist that belief in Mormonism doesn't exclude belief that humans today evolved from lower life forms. No doubt we'll hear all about B.H. Roberts et al...yet nothing that will come close to the authority of an official First Presidency statement on the matter. And it won't matter at all - because logic, fact...nothing matters to the true believer, but to continue being a true believer. |
| | Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008, at 08:00 AM Mormon Magic Original Author(s): Tal Bachman TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 7 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Many intelligent people continue to believe that Joseph Smith translated something called "reformed Egyptian" using decoding spectacles, only had sex with his teenaged foster daughters because an angel would have killed him if he hadn't, and that there are three, two-thousand-year-old "American Israelites" wandering around performing anonymous good deeds, like plowing fields while farmers are asleep.
How can this be? I think the answer is that posessing intelligence is not equivalent to critical thinking, any more than posessing a vast amount of wealth is equivalent to being an astute investor. No matter what we tell ourselves as Mormons, belief in Mormonism ultimately requires the same sort of uncritical thinking that facilitates belief in Scientology, astrology, or iridiology. It is a kind of thinking that denies that empirically-discovered facts and the rules of logic impose constraints on what we may justifiably believe. It is one which claims that the content of things like "private intuitions", "privately heard voices" (see Son of Sam, Nephi, etc.), or "metaphysical inspiration", should be granted just as much credibility as a replicable test under controlled conditions, or one corroborated by facts discovered by a multitude of disciplines. To put it baldly: the psychological state in which it makes sense to us to credit to a voice telling us that the sun is drawing its light from a star called Kolob, rather than creating it by internal nuclear processes, is the same one in which, potentially, it makes sense to credit a voice telling us to kill. Where we deny the validity of empirical or logical checks upon our privately heard voice, or privately felt intuitions, any belief or action becomes potentially possible. Mormons like my former self might object that "the spirit" is the check; but that is a tautology. It is "the spirit" - however we choose to define it - itself which represents a rejection of the constraints on belief. It itself is no "check"; it is itself the symptom that we have given ourselves over to magical thinking (where 2+2 can equal whatever we wish it to equal). |
| | Tuesday, Apr 15, 2008, at 07:57 AM Why The Church Should Open Its Archives (Not What You Think) Original Author(s): Tal Bachman TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 7 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Former Mormons argue that the church should open its archives on grounds of justice. It is not just, they (we) say, that sincere members around the world should in good faith devote their lives to an organization which withholds facts relevant to its truth and authority claims. Well, yes - of course.
But there is another reason why the church should open its archives: it is in the best interests of the church, as a purely man-made organization bent on surviving and growing, to do so. Consider, amigos: 1.) An overwhelming avalanche of evidence from disciplines as diverse as linguistics, anthropology, geography, zoology, botany, metallurgy, ethnology, and most importantly, molecular biology, has exploded virtually every single BOM claim about the indigenous peoples of America. And...what? Most Mormons don't care. Like certain MD posters, they simply find mental "outs", privately re-define key words, retroactively change 160 years worth of LDS doctrine, and voila! - no problem; 2.) Same with the Book of Breathings scrolls. Does the fact that Smith's "translation" have no relationship to the source text matter to devout Mormons? No. 3.) Same with Smith's lying about polygamy. Does what that lying say about his credibility mean anything to devout Mormons? No. 4.) Same with doctrines like evolution. LDS doctrine could not be clearer on this. It has been announced in an official First Presidency statement which declares itself to reveal "eternal truth"; it is in LDS scriptures; it is reiterated in the LDS Bible dictionary. Yet a few mind games, a bit of selective blindness and amnesia, are all that's needed for this to be no problem whatsoever for devout Mormons. 5.) The list goes on forever - Smith didn't use any plates for the translation? No problem. He stared into a stone and dictated? No problem. He was charged with fraud ("disorderly conduct")? No problem. He tried to get rid of all those "Books of Commandments" and re-wrote some of his "prophecies" in the subsequent edition ("D&C")? No problem. The sun doesn't draw its light from a star called Kolob? No problem. DNA evidence refutes Smith's claims? No problem. He deflowered a bewildered 14 year old? No problem. He changed his "first vision" story fundamentally over the years? NO PROBLEM. The truth is that NOTHING is, or ever could be, a problem for a huge segment of believing Mormons - nor should this be surprising. Paraphrasing Frank Kermode, for the "true believer" there can be no such thing as "disconfirming evidence", simply because his "true belief" was never based on evidence in the first place. Mormon belief, like all fanatical, false beliefs, only maintains a veneer of rational justification; underneath, it is virtually content-free. It is, in fact, merely a psychological state, distinguishable only by the particular totems it anchors itself with (the Book of Mormon itself, a man-as-true-prophet itself, etc.). Consider - what would the flaming Mormons on here say, if Monson announced in General Conference that "the Book of Mormon should be regarded as an inspiring allegory, rather than as strictly literal history"? Would that drive the Englunds or Schryvers or BCSpaces away? Hinckley's denial of doctrinal status to eternal progression - the actual engine of all Mormon theology - didn't phase them...why would anything else? It wouldn't. Mormon prophets can say or do anything; LDS archives could yield anything; it will not disrupt the hardened psychological state of most Mormons. Nothing, for the most part, will happen. Therefore, Mormon leaders have little or nothing to fear from throwing open the archives to any who wish to peruse them - even the big bad anti-Mormons. But best of all for church leaders is that throwing them open would remove a huge club from the hands of church critics. Consider one of the most devastating books to Mormonism's image of the past fifty years (and maybe ever): Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven". One of Krakauer's primary motivations in writing that book was his irritation at the Mormon church's obfuscation and deception about its origins. Throw open the archives and that's one less club for Krakauer, with virtually no cost in number of followers. More obvious is that throwing them open would lessen the suspicion some members do end up feeling as they start out investigating their own church's origins. Opening up the archives, then, would not only be the right thing to do, but would also be in the church's best interests. |