Mormon Dishonest History

[Moksha]

I was practicing suppressing information as the church does?

No way! More likely the Church demanded you cut off

[dastardly stem]

Some of these aren't dishonest claims or moves at all. Take number 1 for example. How is telling a story of his youth where he refused alcohol dishonest if he drank and sold alcohol later in life? Should they add to that story of his youth a disclaimer, "but he did drink when he was grown up." I don't know that's just how we tell stories, it seems to me. there are a few others I'd question similarly. But overall, good list.

[huckelberry]

I think a great many of these are a matter of interpretation. I am not saying I disagree with the negative interpretation but I suspect LDS believers would disagree.

I do disagree with number fourteen and find it puzzling.

14 The Mormon church knowingly and falsely portraying Joseph Smith as a monogamist in its curriculum for members for over a century.

I realize that his polygamy was not a frequent subject of Sacrament meeting talks (if ever) but It was covered in Seminary classes and church history. I thought back then that every body knew about it. It is in the doctrine and covenants.

[drumdude]

I think a great many of these are a matter of interpretation. I am not saying I disagree with the negative interpretation but I suspect LDS believers would disagree.

I do disagree with number fourteen and find it puzzling.

14 The Mormon church knowingly and falsely portraying Joseph Smith as a monogamist in its curriculum for members for over a century.

I realize that his polygamy was not a frequent subject of Sacrament meeting talks (if ever) but It was covered in Seminary classes and church history. I thought back then that every body knew about it. It is in the doctrine and covenants.

When I was an investigator in the late 2000s polygamy was explained away to me as something that was implemented out of necessity to take care of Mormon widows because so many men died on the trip to Utah.

They did not discuss Joseph starting it with affairs with his young girl house maids.

[huckelberry]

I think a great many of these are a matter of interpretation. I am not saying I disagree with the negative interpretation but I suspect LDS believers would disagree.

I do disagree with number fourteen and find it puzzling.

14 The Mormon church knowingly and falsely portraying Joseph Smith as a monogamist in its curriculum for members for over a century.

I realize that his polygamy was not a frequent subject of Sacrament meeting talks (if ever) but It was covered in Seminary classes and church history. I thought back then that every body knew about it. It is in the doctrine and covenants.

When I was an investigator in the late 2000s polygamy was explained away to me as something that was implemented out of necessity to take care of Mormon widows because so many men died on the trip to Utah.

They did not discuss Joseph starting it with affairs with his young girl house maids.

Drumdude, To help me understand, when and how did you actually learn about polygamy, the version in the doctrine and covenants not the vague hand waving about guys instead of gals dying on the way to Utah. The church I remember taught that polygamy was established by revelation to Joseph Smith and he was at first reluctant but then went ahead with it. Marriage was involved not affairs.

I am not really suprised that missionaries might skirt the subject.

[drumdude]

That was the narrative when I brought up the issue of polygamy being a problem with the LDS family I was eventually married into. There was always a faithful answer to all of the criticisms of Mormonism I was researching. But in hindsight many of those answers were uneducated.

Either that LDS family went off on their own and thought up the pioneer polygamy narrative, or they learned it at church. I think the latter is more likely.

[huckelberry]

That was the narrative when I brought up the issue of polygamy being a problem with the LDS family I was eventually married into. There was always a faithful answer to all of the criticisms of Mormonism I was researching. But in hindsight many of those answers were uneducated.

Either that LDS family went off on their own and thought up the pioneer polygamy narrative, or they learned it at church. I think the latter is more likely.

I have heard a few explanations as to why polygamy including the one you mention. I do not remember when I first heard it. It rather colors over the reasons taught in 19th century Utah.I do not think those reasons have been much focused on in the past 100 years since the church started to stop the practice. I think only a few people are looking forward to returning to it when it becomes legal.

[drumdude]

That was the narrative when I brought up the issue of polygamy being a problem with the LDS family I was eventually married into. There was always a faithful answer to all of the criticisms of Mormonism I was researching. But in hindsight many of those answers were uneducated.

Either that LDS family went off on their own and thought up the pioneer polygamy narrative, or they learned it at church. I think the latter is more likely.

I have heard a few explanations as to why polygamy including the one you mention. I do not remember when I first heard it. It rather colors over the reasons taught in 19th century Utah.I do not think those reasons have been much focused on in the past 100 years since the church started to stop the practice. I think only a few people are looking forward to returning to it when it becomes legal.

Quite a few young Mormon men enjoyed joking about the return of polygamy. Which I always felt was extremely misogynistic. But even old men like Rusty Nelson indulge in it, believing they're going to be having endless celestial sex with both wives.

It just doesn't ever sit right.

[thechair]

Two more dishonest dealings belong on the list, I think:

1. Joseph Smith's likely looting of the two Lawrence sisters' inheritance.

2. Joseph Smith's canonized lies--and the Church's perpetuation of them--at JSHistory 1:56--that old Josiah Stoal hired Joseph and other hands to dig near Harmony, Pennsyvania in search of silver from an old, rumored Spanish mine. Joseph claims Stoal's digging crew dug for a month to no avail and that ever the empathetic and sensible one, Joseph pled for Stoal to cease the project. Joseph claims that this one event launched "the very prevalent story of my having been a money digger." Horse hockey.--First for the deception-by-omission, there is nothing here about Joseph's scrying, using his magic stone, or his self-marketing and treasure-hunt instigating.

Second and more importantly, one need only read Michael Quinn's Mormonism and the Magic World View to know that Joseph Smith was seen all over New York and parts of Pennsylvania hiring himself out as the peeptone scryer for magic treasure-digging projects. The thing that stayed with me from that book was how Quinn showed Joseph did this for SIX YEARS STRAIGHT, documenting each known instance of treasure-digging in a particular location with at least two sources. I do not believe (although I don't remember just now) that Stoal's project was Joseph's first, i.e., the one that began "the very prevalent story." Quinn's book also shows Joseph continued doing this crap well into the Book of Mormon years.

thechair