Our leaders

[_Jason Bourne]

The example I used was valid. Read it again. I asked TD if driving a group out of town was justifiable because the people did not like them. The example was spot on. And while I do not think Mormons were persecuted like Jews were they were persecuted. Only an idiot thinks otherwise.

Of course, a mitigating factor is the fact that Mormons threatened and attacked others as well.

I think you may have a point but only to a certain extent. It seems that the problems in the early 1830s in Jackson County was really started by the local and not the saints. Later, in Caldwell and Clay Counties it seems the saints had had enough and yes they did retaliate as well as give flamboyant rhetoric. But who can blame them? Still I think the Missourians were primarily at fault.

Illinois is another matter. The saints had remarkable strength and power there and in the final analysis showed remarkable restraint.

[_Jason Bourne]

Hi Jason,

My point was not that the Saints should not have been driven out, but that they WERE driven out because they were not well liked. It was supporting evidence for my impression.

I was stating that I do not think Joseph Smith & Co, were considered honorable, honest, moral men by people other than their followers.

The initial problems in Missouri were primarily religious, political and economic bigotry. So what if they were not well liked. If scum does not like you maybe that is good thing and many of the local Missourians were scum. They may not have liked Smith and Co because they actually were honorable men. Just because your neighbors do not like you does not make you unhonorable. You are attempting to connect dots that just were not there. Take Thomas Sharp for example. Now there is someone who flamed up the countryside agains SMith and the CHurch. He was not and honorable man and in fact part of the murder of the Smiths.

See you say they must not have been decent because their neighbors did not like them and drove them out. My point is there are lots of other reasons that someone may drive another group out.

[_Jason Bourne]

The example I used was valid. Read it again. I asked TD if driving a group out of town was justifiable because the people did not like them. The example was spot on. And while I do not think Mormons were persecuted like Jews were they were persecuted. Only an idiot thinks otherwise.

Of course, a mitigating factor is the fact that Mormons threatened and attacked others as well.

The Mormons were not exterminated - it never happened.

Kind of a stretch to compare genocide with several corrupt men being lynched/murdered in isolated incidences due to accusations of immorality (among other things which apparently were true). Justifiable behavior by the mob? no.

However, is the value of 1 or a few Mormons equal to lives of 6 million of another faith? Is that what the Mormon prophets meant by the "best blood of the 19th century"?

Is that why the comparison between the holocast of 1940's European Jews and a few amoral Mormons that influenced the entire faith perpetuates?

Sheeesh. Does anyone read what I said? I certainly did not do what you imply here.


I think a number of you have lost your ability to think rationally about things LDS.

[_Jason Bourne]

I would have opted for prosecution and imprisonment of the leaders. Unfortunately, Smith was killed and Young took his flock and fled before them to insulate himself and others from the justice that would have come upon them. Please understand, the Mormons fled because they resisted the laws of the land. Smith and other law breakers spending the rest of their lives in prison would have served as a lasting indictment upon the twisted religeon. I believe it would have prevented it to be any more than a blip in an American history book.

Another sample of irrational thought. Other than polygamy and the press issue what laws were being broke? The saints did not flee because they were resisting the laws of the land. Are you really this goofy? Make you case rather than your asinine irrational claims. You think it justice to kill and drive people from their homes? Because they have a large voting block? If so you are a scary person.

There was not one bit of justification for what happened in Nauvoo. Not one. ANd even with that Smith and crew had broken no laws that deserved life time punishment. You really need to get a grip man.

[_rcrocket]

Illinois is another matter. The saints had remarkable strength and power there and in the final analysis showed remarkable restraint.

Indeed. The battle for Nauvoo is a very little-known event in the history of the Saints.

After Brigham Young left, the Church really had no intention of simply giving up possessions a property in Nauvoo for nothing. There were efforts to sell property at market, including the temple. There were hundreds of saints left behind. They were forced to leave after hand-to-hand armed conflict in the streets of Nauvoo between its residents and members of the state and local militia. (See Glen Leonard's Nauvoo.) Think of it -- being forced from your home, without your possessions, and marched down to the riverbank at the point of a bayonet held by a member of the state militia.

[_Jason Bourne]

Illinois is another matter. The saints had remarkable strength and power there and in the final analysis showed remarkable restraint.

Indeed. The battle for Nauvoo is a very little-known event in the history of the Saints.

After Brigham Young left, the Church really had no intention of simply giving up possessions a property in Nauvoo for nothing. There were efforts to sell property at market, including the temple. There were hundreds of saints left behind. They were forced to leave after hand-to-hand armed conflict in the streets of Nauvoo between its residents and members of the state and local militia. (See Glen Leonard's Nauvoo.) Think of it -- being forced from your home, without your possessions, and marched down to the riverbank at the point of a bayonet held by a member of the state militia.

And Inconceivable thinks the saints did something to deserve this justice. Man I am glad I am not his neighbor. So let's have it Inc. What crime justified this treatment?

[_truth dancer]

Aside from their followers they were certainly not looked upon as men of honor.

Jason, I am suggesting that besides their followers, Joseph Smith & Co, were not looked upon as men of honor.

That is all. My post regarding the saints being kicked out of town was to support this claim.

If you think Joseph Smith & Co, WERE looked upon (by non-believers) as great and noble men please give me some evidence for this.

Besides this point, no I do not think that men who sleep around, lie to their wives, coerce girls and women into a relationship, and claim God told them to behave in such a way are men of honor.

Joseph Smith is not the only man who has used the God excuse to get women and generally speaking I think most people in the modern world do not think such men are honorable.

~dancer~

[_moksha]

Can one be a Charismatic leader without being a bit of a scoundrel? Just be glad the leaders we have are both men of integrity and old enough not to be tempted into some dalliance with the nubile young women of the Church.

[_Nevo]

Can one be a Charismatic leader without being a bit of a scoundrel?

Neal Chandler offered some thoughts on this a few years back:

The questioned begged by Quinn's [description of Joseph Smith]--why would God choose such a paradoxical man?--is transformed into this juxtaposition. Why wouldn't God choose just such a man--part prophet, part charlatan, part guru and heretic, high church cleric and sandlot politician--the enigmatic, multifarious sort of man who demonstrably, historically has always come equipped for the founding of a new religious tradition.

And then, moreover, why wouldn't God replace him with the kind of men, able and devoted lieutenants, who have always extended and consolidated and also distorted an incipient movement?

-- Neal Chandler, "Beyond a Shadow of Certitude: Field Notes from a Stupor of Thought," Sunstone (February 2000): 36-37.

Jesus of Nazareth was also a troubling, paradoxical figure, whose teachings and behavior challenged and scandalized the society in which he lived.

[_beastie]

When you put it that way, he does sound like a scoundrel. But I don't think your summary is accurate. I happen to think Joseph was sincere in his practice of polygamy. I think he really believed that God required it--and that he would lose his calling and incur the vengeance of God if he didn't comply (see D&C 3:4-11; 35:17-18). I don't think he would have done it otherwise.

Would you be so generous to the leader of any other religious group that engaged in this behavior?

How about this fellow?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/06/sec ... index.html