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So much effort goes into defending Joseph Smith regarding his polygamy, his dubious statements and his alleged prophethood.

However, the LDS church cannot possibly be true if Brigham Young fails to live up to his role as a prophet of God and all that entails.

It seems to me that Brigham Young cannot bear such scrutiny and that for many purposes this renders moot many concerns about Joseph Smith.


It comes from Joseph but by way of BY. Call it the "Brigham Young bottleneck".

Thoughts?


Edited to change "mute" to "moot". Though, the former kinda works in a weird way too. :)

Absolutely this is a problem for anyone who stops to think about it.

Blood atonement and Adam-God are bad enough.

Then you have to deal with BY's 'death for inter-racial marriage' stuff.

And the fact that he held the monopoly on coffee, whiskey and tobacco in Utah territory.

Then all that bunk about 'Uh... yeah, the constitution was divinely inspired so that, uh, Mormonism could have a chance..." Why then did BY toss the constitution out the window and run a totalitarian theocracy for 25+ years?

Let's not mention MMM.

Then the disturbing aspects of Polygamy and how it was practiced. The fact that women were relegated to the status of cattle, even overtly.

I'm not saying he wasn't a brilliant, driven and successful man. I am saying there is no way I will kneel and worship any sort of God who selected him to be his one-and-only mouthpiece on Earth. I'd rather burn in hell for eternity, knowing I spoke out against Brigham's brand of totalitarianism. And, if this world is a 'test' like many LDS believe it is, I think I will pass.

Tarski wrote:So much effort goes into defending Joseph Smith regarding his polygamy, his dubious statements and his alleged prophethood.

However, the LDS church cannot possibly be true if Brigham Young fails to live up to his role as a prophet of God and all that entails.

It seems to me that Brigham Young cannot bear such scrutiny and that for many purposes this renders mute many concerns about Joseph Smith.


It comes from Joseph but by way of BY. Call it the "Brigham Young bottleneck".

Thoughts?

Personally, I think the LDS church would have died a quiet death in the mid 1800's if Joseph Smith had lived longer. Joseph Smith was not a great leader. His antics were already causing great doubts among the faithful before his death.

Brigham Young's ascendance to "Prophet" after Joseph Smith was gone and the moving of the members to an isolated wilderness (far from government intervention) allowed the creation of a "Mormon Kingdom" i.e. the Kingdom of Brigham.

The LDS church today is the creation of Brigham Young (the FLDS for that matter, as well).

Joseph set the background. Brigham, through his ruthless rule, created the reality.

I've been castigated on this board before for having this opinion, but I see great similarities between the relationship of Joseph and Brigham and the relationship between Lenin and Stalin.

Tarski wrote:So much effort goes into defending Joseph Smith regarding his polygamy, his dubious statements and his alleged prophethood.

However, the LDS church cannot possibly be true if Brigham Young fails to live up to his role as a prophet of God and all that entails.

It seems to me that Brigham Young cannot bear such scrutiny and that for many purposes this renders mute many concerns about Joseph Smith.


It comes from Joseph but by way of BY. Call it the "Brigham Young bottleneck".

Thoughts?

This is a key point. I'm not sure how they were even able to create a Teachings of Brigham Young manual. His teachings and behavior were so foreign to modern Mormonism. He was a heresy generating machine. Just a few of many issues:

Adam/God
MMM
Ordering mafia style hits
Blood atonement
Old testament rules for the Temple and cleanliness
Thought incest was a great idea
Treated women like property
Anti-American
Pro-slavery
Anti-black

Buffalo wrote:
Thought incest was a great idea

Buff, I hadn't heard this one before. Do you have a link/reference?

jon wrote:

Buffalo wrote:
Thought incest was a great idea

Buff, I hadn't heard this one before. Do you have a link/reference?

I got it from here:

http://www.exmormon.org/Mormon/mormon036.htm

8 Oct, 1854 - In what Apostle Wilford Woodruff describes as "the greatest sermon that ever was deliveed to the Latter Day Saints since they have been a people," Brigham Young announces from the pulpit: "I believe in Sisters marrying brothers, and brothers having their sisters for Wives. Why? because we cannot do otherwise. There are none others for me to and the opposite idea has resulted from the ignorant and foolish traditions of the nations of the earth." Young's secretary George D. Watt has already married his own half sister as a plural wife. Her letter to Young shows that he was initially "unfavorable" toward allowing them to marry, but this sermon reveals theological basis for Young's authorizing Watt's brother-sister marriage and the three children born of their union.

15 July, 1886 - Apostle Lorenzo prophecises from the pulpit that in the future "brothers and sisters would marry each other in this church. All our horror at such a union was due entirely to prejudice, and the offspring of such unions would be as healthy and pure as any other. These were the decided views of President Young, when alive, for Bother Snow talked to him freely on this matter."

Another odd tidbit:

19 Jar, 1851 - Utah legislature enacts law against "Sodomoy" by "any man or boy," but removes sodomoy from criminal code on 6 Mar. 1852, without explanation. As governor Brigham Young signs both laws. Due to absence of sodomy statue, Utah judge drops charges against soldier for raping LDS boy in 1864. Young claims Utah's legislators never criminalized sodomy and he declines to instruct them to do so for the next twlve years. Utah legislators criminalize sodomy in 1876 only because federally appointed governor asks them to adopt entire criminal code of California which has five-year imprisonment for sodomoy. For next twenty years LDS judges give 3-6 months of improsoniment to those convicted of homosexual rape, the same sentencing given to young males and females convicted of consensual fornication. Mormons of this era give no known explanations for any of these legislative and jurdicial actions/inactions.

11 Dec, 1866 - Brigham Young, Jr. writes in his diary that "a nigger" is found dead in Salt Lake City with this note pinned to the corpse: "Let this be a warning to all niggers that they medle not with white women."

I think the hard part about young is in many of these cases he was not speaking from a personal stance but made it very clear that these are eternal truths. I will not bring up all the specifics but I've had it argued that he was speaking as "a man" like Paul would times speak as "a man".

What is the "Liniage" of the prophets? Are they connected in a Liniage?

I think this is another example of members who accept anything, literally anything, as long as it conforms with their family's faith tradition. If they know, which is doubtful after a lifetime of being spoon fed whitewashed history, they don't care because it never occurs to them to investigate beyond the Sunday School pablum.

And while I am somewhat impatient with their pompous BYU elitism attitudes (rampant in my ward and stake), I know what personal turmoil is caused by actually figuring out how deeply buried the truth is.

dogmatic wrote:I think the hard part about young is in many of these cases he was not speaking from a personal stance but made it very clear that these are eternal truths. I will not bring up all the specifics but I've had it argued that he was speaking as "a man" like Paul would times speak as "a man".

Hi dogmatic,

Yeah, the whole "speaking as a man" excuse is very problematic for anyone who wants to be honest in their beliefs. How does one decide when a Prophet is transmitting God's word or just talking out of his donkey?

If a Prophet's statements are up for interpretation due to the inconvenience of being obviously false (Quakers on the moon), how can any of his prophecies be taken as true?