"I tend not to rely very heavily on first-person" accounts: 'SeN" Delivers a Devastating Blow to the Witnesses

[Doctor Scratch]

On “SeN” he announced that his “old” views of BY as an appallingly racist bigot have now been totally reversed thanks to a couple of books that he read. Now, his position seems to be that *nobody* has the right to label BY a “racist” unless they’ve read these books.

It’s interesting to think about what’s been said here. Apparently, all throughout the development and production of 6DIA, the Afore harbored the opinion that Brigham was a racist bigot… Did that make it into the film, I wonder? Based on the reviews that have been posted, the answer seems to be a very clear “No.”

What this means is that the Afore’s most recent blog post is a clear admission that he engaged in deliberate whitewashing of Church history. He *knew* about BY’s racism and even viewed it as a “stain” on his character and record, and yet this did not appear in the film. It was deliberately withheld.

[Dr Moore]

What this means is that the Afore’s most recent blog post is a clear admission that he engaged in deliberate whitewashing of Church history. He *knew* about BY’s racism and even viewed it as a “stain” on his character and record, and yet this did not appear in the film. It was deliberately withheld.

Sounds par for the course. The sequencing is interesting, though, and raises two questions for me. (1) Was he led by the spirit to find those books, as a reward for having faith to lie for the Lord? (2) Or, did a particle of cognitive dissonance compel him to read 2 more books about BY, and while doing so, to apply mental gymnastics in order to rationalize a version of BY’s racism that was maybe not super racist if a sufficient number of speculative and maybe mutually inconsistent apologetic interpretations are allowed to maybe exist simultaneous to the documentary record.

[Moksha]

What this means is that the Afore’s most recent blog post is a clear admission that he engaged in deliberate whitewashing of Church history. He *knew* about BY’s racism and even viewed it as a “stain” on his character and record, and yet this did not appear in the film. It was deliberately withheld.

The recent discussion of fascist rhetoric being linked to LDS belief has probably prompted this new apologetic. Dr. Peterson's new claim is however weakened by the words of Brigham Young. As long as the Saints can be persuaded to ignore the words of President Young, perhaps Dr. Peterson can pull off his claim.

[I Have Questions]

On “SeN” he announced that his “old” views of BY as an appallingly racist bigot have now been totally reversed thanks to a couple of books that he read. Now, his position seems to be that *nobody* has the right to label BY a “racist” unless they’ve read these books.

Peterson is now the arbiter of who gets to label BY a racist, because he’s read a couple of books. Wow. What an ego!

Under Young, though, racism became systematically entrenched and codified. Whereas Elijah Abel/Ables had been able to perform sacred ordinances on behalf of two deceased members of his family (both female, interestingly enough), during Young’s presidency blacks were denied not only the priesthood but all access to endowment, temple marriage, and other temple rituals, including baptism for healing.
As for priesthood, Young said that “any man having one drop of the seed of Cane in him Cannot hold the priesthood, & if no other Prophet ever spake it Before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ.”
He went on to say that “the day will Come when all the seed of Cane will be Redeemed & have all the Blessings we have now & a great deal more”—presumably including the priesthood—but that “the seed of Abel will be ahead of the seed of Cane to all Eternity.”**
“All eternity.” In other words, Young thought whites would and should receive preferential treatment now and forever.
It makes me shudder.
Bottom line: Yes, Brigham Young was clearly a racist. If racism is as the dictionary defines it—“the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races”—then there is no denying it in Brigham Young.

https://religionnews.com/2014/04/16/bri ... ng-racist/

I’m guessing none of this was covered in 6DIA.
Maybe in the final part of the trilogy? “Seventy Brides For One Brother” The BY Story.

[Markk]

Scratch wrote....Whoa! What?? He tends "not to rely very heavily upon first-person" accounts of their own NDEs?? This is shocking! Can you imagine what would happen if he applied this same standard to the Book of Mormon Witnesses? Does he not worry that voicing this tendency (and thus revealing his hypocrisy) might steer some of his readership straight towards apostasy? If the Witnesses should be treated with "skepticism" and curious Latter-day Saints don't need to "rely very heavily" upon the Witnesses's first-person accounts....then what will happen?

Dan can't apply it to the Book of Mormon witness without rejecting his 5th standard work by his personal prophet, seer, and revelator....Richard Lloyd Anderson. He wrote the following after his passing in 2010 in the Deseret News....

Serious critics of the Book of Mormon must neutralize the testimonies of the witnesses to the Golden Plates.

This, however, is not easy. (It may be impossible.) Largely thanks to the meticulous research of professor Richard Lloyd Anderson, we know a great deal about them and about the six decades, both when they were dedicated followers of Joseph Smith and after they had been alienated from him and his church for many years, during which they testified to the Book of Mormon. For a very long time, those seeking to discredit their testimony accused them of insanity, or of having conspired to commit fraud. In the light of Anderson’s work, however, neither accusation can be sustained. They were plainly sane, honest, reputable men. ...


...Even Latter-day Saints may not appreciate the strength of the witness testimonies. Fortunately, though, Anderson, trained in both legal reasoning at Harvard Law School and historical method through a doctorate at Berkeley, has devoted a lifetime to demonstrating the solidity of the evidence they provide. In his classic volume “Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses” — described by one of my BYU colleagues, not unreasonably, as “next to the scriptures themselves, the most faith-promoting book (he had) ever read”— and in later studies (two of which are available on the Web site of Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship), he has set out a deeply impressive case. I earnestly commend his work to those unfamiliar with it."

Full context https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -2018.html

One could have a field day showing the hypocrisy of such a loose approach. Every witness except for the Smith's rejected the church and left it at one time or another. What first comes to my mind is of David Whitmire's firsthand account of their being no PH in the beginnings of the church. One can only repeat "but but....they never denied the Book of Mormon testimony!" Even after they signed it as being true and it was sold as such. I assume which would be some sort of fraud, I guess. In other words they are liars about anything negative yet honest beloved men when it comes to the Book of Mormon.

[yellowstone123]

On “SeN” he announced that his “old” views of BY as an appallingly racist bigot have now been totally reversed thanks to a couple of books that he read. Now, his position seems to be that *nobody* has the right to label BY a “racist” unless they’ve read these books.

It’s interesting to think about what’s been said here. Apparently, all throughout the development and production of 6DIA, the Afore harbored the opinion that Brigham was a racist bigot… Did that make it into the film, I wonder? Based on the reviews that have been posted, the answer seems to be a very clear “No.”

What this means is that the Afore’s most recent blog post is a clear admission that he engaged in deliberate whitewashing of Church history. He *knew* about BY’s racism and even viewed it as a “stain” on his character and record, and yet this did not appear in the film. It was deliberately withheld.

Interesting.

One might make a better argument by using terms of that time period.

Racist wasn’t used during Brigham Young’s life. Clearly he embraced what republicans of that time viewed as the twin relics of barbarism: slavery and polygamy. Plenty of writing by good people of that time opposing what Brigham Young thought was good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_twin_ ... _barbarism

[Doctor Scratch]

Quite devastating, Markk. It would be fascinating to see you point all that out in the Comments over at SeN, but I assume that DCP has banned you from commenting.

[Markk]

Quite devastating, Markk. It would be fascinating to see you point all that out in the Comments over at SeN, but I assume that DCP has banned you from commenting.

Last time I dared challenge him I lasted about three or four back and forth's, and of course he had the last word and did not post any more of what I had to say, which showed he had no real response, at least in my opinion. Maybe I'll give it a shot again and see if he will engage.

If you haven't read Richard Lloyd Andersons book, it is so bias (one sided) it is sad. It is the second "saddest" Mopoligentic book I have ever read, from a person that in all honesty really needed it to be true after spending a literal life time of study on a subject. The saddest, by a long shot for me was Mormon's Codex (John Sorenson). It was nothing but a 2.5"-3" thick book of "could've and "maybe's," while ignoring the whole Maya. Olmec, and Aztec cultures, architectures, archeology, and existence. I still can't believe I paid like 40 bucks for his "opus." I could have bought a couple of Happy Meals at McDonalds for that, and at least got a toy.

From RLA's book....Picture the famous courtroom scene where Oliver, an apostate lawyer, did not deny the Book of Mormon. The reality is, in in my opinion, the opposing attorney played OC like a fiddle. Oliver had no choice. If Oliver said "I don't believe that" or "I never claimed that" then the attorney would just say " Well Oliver, (holding a copy of the Book of Mormon in his hand) ..., then why did you sign a testimony (basically a affidavit) in front of the the Book of Mormon that was sold to who knows how many folks who believed you and gave their time, treasures and talents to a church, partly based on your signed testimony."



60When I was a boy ( George Q. Cannon) I heard it stated concerning Oliver Cowdery, that after he left the Church he practiced law, and upon one occasion, in a court in Ohio, the opposing counsel thought he would say something that would overwhelm Oliver Cowdery, and in reply to him in his argument he alluded to him as the man that had testified and had written that he had beheld an angel of God, and that angel had shown unto him the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. He supposed, of course, that it would cover him with confusion, because Oliver Cowdery then made no profession of being a "Mormon," or a Latter-day Saint; but instead of being affected by it in this manner, he arose in the court, and in his reply stated that, whatever his faults and weaknesses might be, the testimony which he had written, and which he had given to the world, was literally true. 22

Anderson, Richard Lloyd. Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (p. 47). Deseret Book Company. Kindle Edition.

[Physics Guy]

Suppose I had a fifty-year-old memory of something. The thing is something I heard when I was a child with unreliable impressions. My memory does not include any evidence for the accuracy of what I heard; it was itself simply hearsay. The content of the hearsay was that someone else had said something. What they supposedly said was to reaffirm something that they had said decades before. The purported circumstances of this supposed reaffirmation were a courtroom dispute in which the reaffirmer had an obvious incentive not to deny their old statement.

This would be homeopathic evidence, diluted so many times in succession that it’s not clear that even one particle of authority finally remains.

[Markk]

Suppose I had a fifty-year-old memory of something. The thing is something I heard when I was a child with unreliable impressions. My memory does not include any evidence for the accuracy of what I heard; it was itself simply hearsay. The content of the hearsay was that someone else had said something. What they supposedly said was to reaffirm something that they had said decades before. The purported circumstances of this supposed reaffirmation were a courtroom dispute in which the reaffirmer had an obvious incentive not to deny their old statement.

This would be homeopathic evidence, diluted so many times in succession that it’s not clear that even one particle of authority finally remains.

There is a lot of that in most histories, as here with Geroge Q. Cannon. The long scroll theory of the Book of Abraham being built on old memories as a prime example. It is playing telephone and writing history on the last call. That's why, in my opinion, it is important to have complimentary accounts from both friends and foe, which is why Mormonism Unveiled is so valuable on things like money digging and folk magic. Smiths neighbors, his friends, and his family all agree it happened.