Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

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_ludwigm
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _ludwigm »

3sheets2thewind wrote:...
So only 2 out of 5 claimed sources indicate Jospeh Smith placed his face in a hat. Once again, Gordon may have been limited by time, but clearly he provides references which do not support his claim.

Or he was simply trapped by the site's (LDS.org) search abilities - and didn't check the results he got.

For example, try search "heavenly mother". (http://www.LDS.org/search?lang=eng&query=%22heavenly+mother%22)

The first three result of 15:

The Family _ A Proclamation to the World
- there is "heavenly parents" only

Daughters of God _ Gordon B. Hinckley
- there is "Heavenly Father" only
- ("Mother in Heaven" can be found 6 times)

Church Music Home _ Church Music Player _ 292 _ O My Father
- "Father" and "Mother" can be found, no "heavenly"...
- (we can it reassemble from the text in 3rd verse: "in the hevn's are parents single? No ... I've a mother there")
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco
- To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
_beastie
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _beastie »

Seriously? One reference proves his point? So if ONE time during the church's history, someone is published saying "Joseph Smith had more than one wife", then no member has any excuse for not knowing this information?

Talk about a low bar.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_mercyngrace
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _mercyngrace »

beastie wrote:Seriously? One reference proves his point? So if ONE time during the church's history, someone is published saying "Joseph Smith had more than one wife", then no member has any excuse for not knowing this information?

Talk about a low bar.


No kidding. I didn't speak up on the other board because I know how pointless it would be but the impression I had as a kid was that Joseph Smith received the revelation in D&C 132 but died before it was really practiced. In my mind, Brigham Young was the polygamist.

The topic was avoided, regardless of whether it was in the seminary manual, and we did our level best to distance ourselves from the church's polygamist past as it did not go over well with our Bible belt friends, family, and neighbors. We passed along the faith promoting rumor that polygamy was all about taking care of women whose husbands were murdered by bloodthirsty Mormon haters who chased the saints from state to state until they fled across the plains. We also talked about how many women were sealed to Joseph Smith after his death, as if this alone accounted for the long list of wives local anti-Mormons claimed he had.

This was the narrative I was given at church, right or wrong, and it was how we coped with the local persecution for issues about which we had almost no historical data. The closest thing we had to information about our own beginnings other than manuals and church magazines were entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and the books my dad purchased from Deseret Book when we made the 7 hour trek to the nearest temple. That book store didn't open shop until the mid 70s and it's shelves were filled with faith promoting books written by church leaders and materials designed to help one succeed in teaching Primary or preparing a "Two-Minute Talk".

Even if you devoured the church magazines, it wasn't like there was an online database so you could research old issues. If you converted after one of Scott's referenced articles were released, or were a child then, the odds against encountering information about Joseph's polygamy or the stone and hat were astronomical.

At my house, where my father purchased every inspirational LDS book he could get his hands on, where we got all the church magazines, and where we attended faithfully (my dad was the bishop in my formative years, then high councilor, stake presidency counselor, etc throughout my childhood and youth - my mom went from Primary President to the Stake Relief Society Presidency for most of those years), there was a dearth of information.

We did have a copy of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of Joseph which I skimmed as a 10 or 11 year old. And there was a brother in the ward who kept mimeographed papers that looked like newsletters from FARMS in a three ring binder but he was mostly obsessed with finding archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Polygamy never came up in any conversation I had with him or overheard.

I would expect there was a lot more information to be had out West, given the reality of polygamist off shoots, and the ever present reality of church members with polygamist progenitors. Perhaps some of those claiming to have always known, really did always know, the history of polygamy being an unavoidable undercurrent of their culture and community.

In my LDS experience, far from "Zion", it simply was not so.
"In my more rebellious days I tried to doubt the existence of the sacred, but the universe kept dancing and life kept writing poetry across my life." ~ David N. Elkins, 1998, Beyond Religion, p. 81
_lulu
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _lulu »

cwald wrote:Yeah. No kidding. The other thread....THE THIRD thread today on this topic today is not going well. I guess it is my fault that I didn't know about polygamy and polyandry until I was 35 is because I failed to read d&c 132. Its all spelled out right there. -sigh-

You @*%^# anti-Mormon heretic. 132 is NOT about polygamy, it is about eternal marriage. The section heading that has been in there for, oh, I don't know, about forever is not doctrinal. You're not supposed to read that part. :wink:
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.
_Stormy Waters

Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _Stormy Waters »

beastie wrote:Seriously? One reference proves his point? So if ONE time during the church's history, someone is published saying "Joseph Smith had more than one wife", then no member has any excuse for not knowing this information?

Talk about a low bar.


What, you haven't read every Ensign article in every issue including the ones that came out before you were born? Well then it's your fault you didn't see that one article from 40 years ago.
_sock puppet
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _sock puppet »

Did Scott Gordon explain what title he had in mind, the one the didn't get used, the one that would accurately describe the category of his listing?
_Cicero
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _Cicero »

mercyngrace wrote:This was the narrative I was given at church, right or wrong, and it was how we coped with the local persecution for issues about which we had almost no historical data. The closest thing we had to information about our own beginnings other than manuals and church magazines were entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and the books my dad purchased from Deseret Book when we made the 7 hour trek to the nearest temple. That book store didn't open shop until the mid 70s and it's shelves were filled with faith promoting books written by church leaders and materials designed to help one succeed in teaching Primary or preparing a "Two-Minute Talk".

Even if you devoured the church magazines, it wasn't like there was an online database so you could research old issues. If you converted after one of Scott's referenced articles were released, or were a child then, the odds against encountering information about Joseph's polygamy or the stone and hat were astronomical.

At my house, where my father purchased every inspirational LDS book he could get his hands on, where we got all the church magazines, and where we attended faithfully (my dad was the bishop in my formative years, then high councilor, stake presidency counselor, etc throughout my childhood and youth - my mom went from Primary President to the Stake Relief Society Presidency for most of those years), there was a dearth of information.

We did have a copy of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of Joseph which I skimmed as a 10 or 11 year old. And there was a brother in the ward who kept mimeographed papers that looked like newsletters from FARMS in a three ring binder but he was mostly obsessed with finding archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Polygamy never came up in any conversation I had with him or overheard.

I would expect there was a lot more information to be had out West, given the reality of polygamist off shoots, and the ever present reality of church members with polygamist progenitors. Perhaps some of those claiming to have always known, really did always know, the history of polygamy being an unavoidable undercurrent of their culture and community.

In my LDS experience, far from "Zion", it simply was not so.


Well, I grew up in Northern Utah and this sounds awfully familiar to me. The internet has really changed the game.
_sock puppet
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _sock puppet »

Cicero wrote:
mercyngrace wrote:This was the narrative I was given at church, right or wrong, and it was how we coped with the local persecution for issues about which we had almost no historical data. The closest thing we had to information about our own beginnings other than manuals and church magazines were entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and the books my dad purchased from Deseret Book when we made the 7 hour trek to the nearest temple. That book store didn't open shop until the mid 70s and it's shelves were filled with faith promoting books written by church leaders and materials designed to help one succeed in teaching Primary or preparing a "Two-Minute Talk".

Even if you devoured the church magazines, it wasn't like there was an online database so you could research old issues. If you converted after one of Scott's referenced articles were released, or were a child then, the odds against encountering information about Joseph's polygamy or the stone and hat were astronomical.

At my house, where my father purchased every inspirational LDS book he could get his hands on, where we got all the church magazines, and where we attended faithfully (my dad was the bishop in my formative years, then high councilor, stake presidency counselor, etc throughout my childhood and youth - my mom went from Primary President to the Stake Relief Society Presidency for most of those years), there was a dearth of information.

We did have a copy of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of Joseph which I skimmed as a 10 or 11 year old. And there was a brother in the ward who kept mimeographed papers that looked like newsletters from FARMS in a three ring binder but he was mostly obsessed with finding archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Polygamy never came up in any conversation I had with him or overheard.

I would expect there was a lot more information to be had out West, given the reality of polygamist off shoots, and the ever present reality of church members with polygamist progenitors. Perhaps some of those claiming to have always known, really did always know, the history of polygamy being an unavoidable undercurrent of their culture and community.

In my LDS experience, far from "Zion", it simply was not so.


Well, I grew up in Northern Utah and this sounds awfully familiar to me. The internet has really changed the game.

I found much more Mormon history information from TBMs and inactive Mo's when I was in the mission field than in my previous 19 years deep in Zion. It seems it was not as easy to shield a young TBM as I then was when out in the mission field, as it was in Zion where the Mo society kept your attention to history diverted.
_beastie
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _beastie »

mercyngrace wrote:No kidding. I didn't speak up on the other board because I know how pointless it would be but the impression I had as a kid was that Joseph Smith received the revelation in D&C 132 but died before it was really practiced. In my mind, Brigham Young was the polygamist.

The topic was avoided, regardless of whether it was in the seminary manual, and we did our level best to distance ourselves from the church's polygamist past as it did not go over well with our Bible belt friends, family, and neighbors. We passed along the faith promoting rumor that polygamy was all about taking care of women whose husbands were murdered by bloodthirsty Mormon haters who chased the saints from state to state until they fled across the plains. We also talked about how many women were sealed to Joseph Smith after his death, as if this alone accounted for the long list of wives local anti-Mormons claimed he had.

This was the narrative I was given at church, right or wrong, and it was how we coped with the local persecution for issues about which we had almost no historical data. The closest thing we had to information about our own beginnings other than manuals and church magazines were entries in Encyclopedia Britannica and the books my dad purchased from Deseret Book when we made the 7 hour trek to the nearest temple. That book store didn't open shop until the mid 70s and it's shelves were filled with faith promoting books written by church leaders and materials designed to help one succeed in teaching Primary or preparing a "Two-Minute Talk".

Even if you devoured the church magazines, it wasn't like there was an online database so you could research old issues. If you converted after one of Scott's referenced articles were released, or were a child then, the odds against encountering information about Joseph's polygamy or the stone and hat were astronomical.

At my house, where my father purchased every inspirational LDS book he could get his hands on, where we got all the church magazines, and where we attended faithfully (my dad was the bishop in my formative years, then high councilor, stake presidency counselor, etc throughout my childhood and youth - my mom went from Primary President to the Stake Relief Society Presidency for most of those years), there was a dearth of information.

We did have a copy of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of Joseph which I skimmed as a 10 or 11 year old. And there was a brother in the ward who kept mimeographed papers that looked like newsletters from FARMS in a three ring binder but he was mostly obsessed with finding archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Polygamy never came up in any conversation I had with him or overheard.

I would expect there was a lot more information to be had out West, given the reality of polygamist off shoots, and the ever present reality of church members with polygamist progenitors. Perhaps some of those claiming to have always known, really did always know, the history of polygamy being an unavoidable undercurrent of their culture and community.

In my LDS experience, far from "Zion", it simply was not so.


This was my experience as well.

I converted to the church at the age of 19 in 1976. I was attending a small, private Methodist college in the southeast, and its library only had two books on Mormonism - both EV anti-mormon screeds that were easy to dismiss. I did my best to find out more information about the LDS church, but just didn't have access to anything helpful. So I believed what the missionaries told me about polygamy, which correlates to what you were told - it was to take care of widows and orphans. (I now wonder why it didn't occur to me that church members could take care of widows and orphans without marrying the widows as plural wives.) I don't remember ever hearing that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy himself, much less some of the more controversial details. I remember being told repeatedly that Emma was adamantly opposed to the practice. Did I draw the conclusion myself that Joseph Smith refrained from the practice for Emma's sake, or was I told that? I have no idea, but it was a firmly implanted idea in my head. This was true for my other family members that joined when I did, too. We didn't find out about Joseph Smith's polygamy until we read Mormon Enigma many years later.

I told this story on MAD years ago, and was heavily criticized for being too lazy to engage in due diligence before joining the church. When I pointed out that I had no resources at all, I was told that I should have searched the microfiches of the library. I pointed out that I would not have known what to look FOR, having no idea what the controversies are, and they didn't care. It was still my fault. I was lazy.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_Cicero
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Re: Scott Gordon Auto-Bio: It does not matter that I lied.

Post by _Cicero »

beastie wrote:I told this story on MAD years ago, and was heavily criticized for being too lazy to engage in due diligence before joining the church. When I pointed out that I had no resources at all, I was told that I should have searched the microfiches of the library. I pointed out that I would not have known what to look FOR, having no idea what the controversies are, and they didn't care. It was still my fault. I was lazy.


This is one common tactic of apologists that really, really irks me. As I've said before, it is all part of their hallmark practice of addressing the faults of the questioner rather than the question itself.
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