Lance Armstrong and Joseph Smith

[_Jason Bourne]

One other point. I mainly wanted to draw the parallels between how people react to learning about Joseph Smith and about how they react to Lance Armstrong. I think there is a a very emotional element involved in being told your hero is not who you thought he/she was. I think this is something that we apostates easily forget. We can forget just how hard it is to process that, and that probably accounts for a large portion of the denial among TBMs. It was a call to be a bit more understanding and sympathetic.

There are more sinister parallels as well. For example, it's clear that Lance's tactic to keeping this stuff "secret" was not to engage in it himself and tell nobody. His plan was to make sure his entire team was implicated so that everyone would feel guilty and be scared to come forward. It's a great lesson in human psychology that sometimes the best secrets are the ones that are spread widely. By involving others he was also able to run a better operation. He could openly transport his drugs among his team mates. He had a built in network of people who could tell him when to drop out of races and help him steer clear of problems. Had Lance tried to do this on his own, without involving his team manager or team mates, he likely would have been busted years ago.

The parallel to Joseph Smith is polygamy. He tried to keep polygamy secret with Fanny Alger and it blew up in his face. It's hard to keep a big secret like that without involving others in the operation. By the time he got to Nauvoo he had learned his lesson. He made sure the inner circle was fully on board with polygamy. By doing this he was more easily able to procure more wives, sneak around to visit them, and keep the whole thing within the inner circle.

Well said.

[_Jason Bourne]

Also I have an issue with his poor little teammates who seem to be saying "we doped cause Lance made us do it." Really? Seek another team. Hamilton did not stop doping when he went out on his own. Nor did Landis. The list goes on. My respect for all of them is just slipping away.

[_Dr. Shades]

I am fascinated by your response to all of this Sethbag. Take for example the paragraph quoted above, it has the same form and content as does a FARMS style defense of the priesthood ban (everyone was doing it, they were all racists back then, going after Mormons is nothing but a witch hunt, therefore the LDS church is still the Lord's true church because at worst it's no worse off than any other church and at best people have nice warm fuzzies about their involvement in the LDS church).

Perhaps, but the difference is that Lance Armstrong isn't asking everyone for 10% of their incomes or requiring them to spend untold hours away from their families performing mindless busy work. Nor does Lance Armstrong drive a wedge between family members based on who is or isn't a fan of his.

So we can cut Lance Armstrong much more slack than we can Joseph Smith.

[_Drifting]

I am fascinated by your response to all of this Sethbag. Take for example the paragraph quoted above, it has the same form and content as does a FARMS style defense of the priesthood ban (everyone was doing it, they were all racists back then, going after Mormons is nothing but a witch hunt, therefore the LDS church is still the Lord's true church because at worst it's no worse off than any other church and at best people have nice warm fuzzies about their involvement in the LDS church).

Perhaps, but the difference is that Lance Armstrong isn't asking everyone for 10% of their incomes or requiring them to spend untold hours away from their families performing mindless busy work. Nor does Lance Armstrong drive a wedge between family members based on who is or isn't a fan of his.

So we can cut Lance Armstrong much more slack than we can Joseph Smith.

Interesting points.

Would you agree that Lance's prolific skullduggery has perhaps prevented others reaching the heights that their natural talent deserved? That he has maybe taken titles and glory and celebrity and the sponsorship and the earnings that come with those things, that should have been somebody else's?
There is no doubt that Lance Armstrong has illegally deprived others of income, the Church on the other hand doesn't do anything illegal to deprive members of 10% of their income. He is a douchebag of the highest order who bullied others into supporting his regime of cheating.

Now on a slightly different tack:
You will have read recently of the evidence coming out about Jimmy Saville in the UK. Evidence that he was a prolific and long term sex offender. I am not attempting to equate Lance Armstrongs actions with those of Jimmy Saville, not at all. However, it is interesting that both men (and the Church for that matter) have gone to great lengths to be seen to be supporting charitable causes.

Is this perhaps them offsetting the guilt they feel about their hidden actions?

[_Aristotle Smith]

Perhaps, but the difference is that Lance Armstrong isn't asking everyone for 10% of their incomes or requiring them to spend untold hours away from their families performing mindless busy work. Nor does Lance Armstrong drive a wedge between family members based on who is or isn't a fan of his.

So we can cut Lance Armstrong much more slack than we can Joseph Smith.

Again I am fascinated by the apologetic stances people are taking towards this comparison. This is another old chestnut from the FARMS bag-o-tricks. As an example, take the following. The reason the LDS church is better than other churches because LDS church has never waged war in the name of religion (like the Crusades), the LDS church has never set up an inquisition, nor have they conducted public heresy trials. Plus, unlike many religious leaders, Joseph Smith never had mistresses, he always married the women with whom he slept. This gave them a sense of dignity and rights within the community that no mistress could ever have.

So we can cut Joseph Smith much more slack than we can any other religion and excuse his minor foibles.

End Apologetic Exercise.

Plus, the comparison doesn't really work because Lance Armstrong has ruined the lives of others in protecting his secret. The best example of this is Betsey Andreu:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more- ... -1.1181408

Betsey's story is basically a replay of Nancy Rigdon's story. She didn't play along with Lance, so Lance and his surrogates smeared and denigrated her and her family.

This was all a pattern for Lance. As another example, see this article:

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-ad ... trong.html

The tactics used by Lance and Joseph were very similar.

But beyond that, just take a look at Jason Bourne's commitment to Lance Armstrong here:

viewtopic.php?p=645180#p645180

From Jason's comment:

I am an avid cyclist. I am a cancer survivor. Armstrong's book inspired me greatly when I had cancer. After wards I climbed on a bike for the first time in years in order to get fit. I did this again because of Armstrong. To give back to the cancer community I have ridden in 7 LIVESTRONG Centuries to raise money for Armstrong's foundation. I have raised over $45,000 for them. I wear the yellow wrist band. I have a half dozen LIVESTRONG cycling jerseys, a couple hoodies as well as shirts. I was never much a sports fan but I did start following cycling and Armstrong became my sport hero.

It sounds to me like Lance was able to convince people to give a lot of time, money, and effort to his LIVESTRONG campaign. The only problem is that the entire campaign was predicated on a massive lie. If Lance had bounced back from cancer and rode clean, he likely would have been a mediocre cyclist and would never have been able to attract the massive publicity and support that he did.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Apparently you weren't talking about me. The evidence convinces me that Armstrong apparently lied his ass off. I don't deny that.

The only thing I think that would apply to you would possibly be a call to be more sympathetic to TBM's who refuse to face facts, it's very similar to the Lance worshippers who will refuse to face facts if Lance doesn't admit to doping. If you are already sympathetic to TBM's, then nothing I said would apply to you.

[_sock puppet]

Apparently you weren't talking about me. The evidence convinces me that Armstrong apparently lied his ass off. I don't deny that.

The only thing I think that would apply to you would possibly be a call to be more sympathetic to TBM's who refuse to face facts, it's very similar to the Lance worshippers who will refuse to face facts if Lance doesn't admit to doping. If you are already sympathetic to TBM's, then nothing I said would apply to you.

One difference that I see is that Lance fans are contemporaries, and current fans of JSJr are not. Today's JSJr fans are of the JSJr image that has been carefully crafted by an institution.

Comparisons of the way JSJr's contemporary fans, like Willard Richards, treated JSJr's indiscretions and coverups with the way Lance's fans are giving him a pass seems more apples-to-apples, than if it is how the LDS Church and the mopologists currently protect the image of JSJr.

Maybe not a big distinction, but I think the institutional aspect of the current fanaticism for the image of JSJr from the way contemporaries might be giving Lance somewhat of a pass is at least noteworthy.

[_Maxrep]

I remember when my moment of clarity came, with regards to competitive cycling. Frankie Andreu( Lances team mate) and I were racing in Canada. Frankie had just come off his final tour and his body was saturated with drugs. He was a rolling pharmacy. During that race he showed all of us mortals what a superhuman show of strength looked like.

[_Tchild]

Here is the difference for me:

I just don't give a flying F*** that Lance Armstrong used steroids. Life is too short, and has too much beauty and wonder for me (or anyone) to care in the slightest. If anything, he should have tripled his dosage and been the first to bike to the moon or broken the sound barrier. It is all a meaningless and arbitrary human designation concerning steriods. Steriods, no steriods? utterly irrelevant. It was his own body and he maximized what he could do with it using science. He will be dead in a few years, as will every one who will ever knew him, and then what will it matter at all?

Did anyone here serve a mission in some God forsaken slum for Lance Armstrong? Did anyone spend years fasting and praying to cure something that was never wrong? Pay tithing to build a corporate empire? Live a muted life because of his using steriods that somehow impeded what was possible for you?

Lance is a failing human being like we all are. He didn't claim to speak for God about humanity. He just wanted to ride a bicycle well, and he did.

[_Maxrep]

To the OP; in both cycling and participating in Mormonism, one has the opportunity to make observations. These observations, if followed, will naturally unfold over time in the form of conclusions. At some point along this path, both cyclists and Mormons may choose to disrupt this process before the conclusion is arrived at. There may be multiple reasons for this course of action. In the end, perhaps this new course is set upon to help the individual feel more at ease with some aspect of their life, their culture.

Cyclists may opt to hold out for a true hero in Lance, while Mormons are holding out for a hero in Joseph.

In the end though, I'm not fond of comparing Joseph and Lance. Cyclists cannot hold a candle to Josephs stunts. He is in his own league altogether.

Seth and Jason have made some reasonable points. I think most involved with the sport of cycling, and especially those of us who are competitive, feel that this episode with Lance and the state of drug use in all sports, is truly unfortunate. It is a complex problem....