Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

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_beastie
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Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _beastie »

I have been reading a book I highly recommend, "Answer Them Nothing: Bringing Down the Polygamous Empire of Warren Jeffs" by Debra Weyermann. I'm sure many LDS would hate the book because it draws a clear connection between the history of the LDS church and the FLDS. It also starts every chapter with quotes from both Brigham Young and Warren Jeffs, to demonstrate eh similarity of thought between the two.

Here's one quote that caught my eye:

I could refer you to plenty of instances where men, have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. ...I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle's being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.


BY,JoD, Vol 4

Here's the context:

Brother Cummings told you the truth this morning with regard to the sins of the people. And I will say that the time will come, and is now nigh at hand, when those who profess our faith, if they are guilty of what some of this people are guilty of, will find the axe laid at the root of the tree, and they will be hewn down. What has been must be again, for the Lord is coming to restore all things. The time has been in Israel under the law of God, the celestial law, or that which pertains to the celestial law, for it is one of the laws of that kingdom where our Father dwells, that if a man was found guilty of adultery, he must have his blood shed, and that is near at hand. But now I say, in the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life.
You are aware that when brother Cummings came to the point of loving our neighbours as ourselves, he could say yes or no as the case might be, that is true. But I want to connect it with the doctrine you read in the Bible. When will we love our neighbour as ourselves? In the first place, Jesus said that no man hateth his own flesh. It is admitted by all that every person loves himself. Now if we do rightly love ourselves, we want to be saved and continue to exist, we want to go into the kingdom where we can enjoy eternity and see no more sorrow nor death. This is the desire of every person who believes in God. Now take a person in this congregation who has knowledge with regard to being saved in the kingdom of our God and our Father, and being exalted, one who knows and understands the principles of eternal life, and sees the beauty and excellency of the eternities before him compared with the vain and foolish things of the world, and suppose that he is overtaken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin that he knows will deprive him of that exaltation which he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house but what would say, "shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with the Gods?"
All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the sheding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant. He never told a man or woman to love their enemies in their wickedness, never. He never intended any such thing; his language is left as it is for those to read who have the Spirit to discern between truth and error; it was so left for those who can discern the things of God. Jesus Christ never meant that we should love a wicked man in his wickedness.
Now take the wicked, and I can refer to where the Lord had to slay every soul of the Israelites that went out of Egypt, except Caleb and Joshua. He slew them by the hands of their enemies, by the plague, and by the sword, why? Because He loved them, and promised Abraham that He would save them. And He loved Abraham because he was a friend to his God, and would stick to Him in the hour of darkness, hence He promised Abraham that He would save his seed. And He could save them upon no other principle, for they had forfeited their right to the land of Canaan by transgressing the law of God, and they could not have atoned for the sin if they had lived. But if they were slain, the Lord could bring them up in the resurrection, and give them the land of Canaan, and He could not do it on any other principle.
I could refer you to plenty of instances where men, have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. I have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their lives had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the devil, until our elder brother Jesus Christ raises them up—conquers death, hell, and the grave. I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle's being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.
This is loving our neighbour as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain that salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind.
Christ and Belial have not become friends; they have never shaken hands; they never have agreed to be brothers and to be on good terms; no, never; and they never will, because they are diametrically opposed to each other. If one conquers, the other is destroyed. One or the other of them must triumph and utterly destroy and cast down his opponent. Light and darkness cannot dwell together, and so it is with the kingdom of God,
Now, brethren and sisters, will you live your religion? How many hundreds of times have I asked you that question? Will the Latter-day Saints live their religion? I am ashamed to say anything about a reformation among Saints, but I am happy to think that the people called Latter-day Saints are striving now to obtain the Spirit of their calling and religion. They are just coming into the path, just waking up out of their sleep. It seems as though they are nearly all like babies; we are but children in one sense. Now let us begin, like children, and walk in the straight and narrow path, live our religion, and honour our God.
With these remarks, I pray the God of Israel to bless you forever and ever, for you are the best people on earth. I can say that I am happy that you are doing so well as you are. Continue to increase in all the graces of God's Spirit until the day of His coming, which I desire with all my heart, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.


So what were the instances BY referred to:

I could refer you to plenty of instances where men, have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins.


Defenders of the faith often insist blood atonement wasn't ever practiced, and it would really just be a form of government enforced death penalty, under the perfect theology of the future, I suppose. So what, then, were these "plenty of instances"?
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.

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_Fifth Columnist
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Fifth Columnist »

The context shows that BY gave a scriptural example of an instance where God required blood atonement to save his people - i.e., the children of Israel all being slain before entering the land of Canaan - and then followed it up with the statement that he could "refer to plenty of instances" of the same thing.

A charitable interpretation is that BY is referring to additional scriptural examples and not examples from his lifetime. A less charitable interpretation is that he had some examples in mind from his time.

I find it very disturbing that BY taught the people to show their love for those who stray by spilling their blood to assure they enter the celestial kingdom. Talk about dangerous cultish teachings!
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Buffalo »

Fifth Columnist wrote:The context shows that BY gave a scriptural example of an instance where God required blood atonement to save his people - i.e., the children of Israel all being slain before entering the land of Canaan - and then followed it up with the statement that he could "refer to plenty of instances" of the same thing.

A charitable interpretation is that BY is referring to additional scriptural examples and not examples from his lifetime. A less charitable interpretation is that he had some examples in mind from his time.

I find it very disturbing that BY taught the people to show their love for those who stray by spilling their blood to assure they enter the celestial kingdom. Talk about dangerous cultish teachings!


I assure you the apologists who defend him on it find it just as chilling and disturbing as you do. They will just never acknowledge it - that is, until their shelves finally break.

There may be some exceptions, but those would be the sociopaths, not typical apologists.
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_Some Schmo
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Some Schmo »

Buffalo wrote:There may be some exceptions, but those would be the sociopaths, not typical apologists.

I wonder why Will/Wheat jumped to mind when I read this...
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Fifth Columnist »

Brigham Young wrote:All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the sheding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant.

Jesus said love your neighbors as yourself, which, according to BY, means you should be willing to kill them to make sure they reach the celestial kingdom. That is completely insane. That is the kind of thing David Koresh or Jim Jones would preach.
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _stemelbow »

The conversation has brought up something interesting to me. Does this book suffer from a bit of presentism?

I don't think BY was insance. I think he held a different perspective than we do. I mean there are passages in scripture that indicate it'd be better for someone to not have been born--like if they offend little ones. I can easily see how BY could take something liek that to mean, in essence, people who are out to offend God after having accepting Him, would probably be better off if their life somehow ended before they went off to reject. I don't think he's correct, but I think critics can and probably will take his words in a direction he might not have intended and perhaps out of the context of his era and culture.
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_beastie
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _beastie »

Fifth Columnist wrote:Jesus said love your neighbors as yourself, which, according to BY, means you should be willing to kill them to make sure they reach the celestial kingdom. That is completely insane. That is the kind of thing David Koresh or Jim Jones would preach.


That is what is so disturbing about it. That's also why the author of this book has been including these sort of quotes throughout the book. She's flat out stated that BY's vision of Utah was pretty much the same as Warren Jeff's vision of his piece of Texas.

I think that there was one crucial difference: in BY's Utah, they tried to resolve the problem of female shortage by trying to convert young women and bringing them back to utah, and shipping men off on missions. Jeffs, by contrast, pushed marrying and impregnating girls just on the brink of puberty and made families dump their teen sons like trash.

Of course, there are statements from BY's Utah that make it sound like very young girls were getting "married" there, too. But more like 14, instead of 12. like Jeffs seemed to want.
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.

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_Some Schmo
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Some Schmo »

beastie wrote:Of course, there are statements from BY's Utah that make it sound like very young girls were getting "married" there, too. But more like 14, instead of 12. like Jeffs seemed to want.

When these guys were pushing marriage on girls at that age, just remember, they weren't speaking as prophets then, they were speaking as creepy pedophiles.
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Fifth Columnist »

stemelbow wrote:I don't think BY was insance. I think he held a different perspective than we do.

I believe that's what Warren Jeffs, David Koresh, Jim Jones, [insert names of numerous other psycho pseudo religious leaders] would say.

stemelbow wrote:I mean there are passages in scripture that indicate it'd be better for someone to not have been born--like if they offend little ones. I can easily see how BY could take something liek that to mean, in essence, people who are out to offend God after having accepting Him, would probably be better off if their life somehow ended before they went off to reject.

Stem, BY wasn't simply musing about how it would be nice if these sinners' lives "somehow ended." He was telling his followers to kill the sinners as an act of love - to save their soul.

Moreover, BY took his inspiration for blood atonement from Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself, not the passage about offending children.

stemelbow wrote:I don't think he's correct, but I think critics can and probably will take his words in a direction he might not have intended and perhaps out of the context of his era and culture.

Stem, please point to some of BY's own words that back up your completely unsupported speculation. Until you do, we have to go by what BY actually said, not what you wish he said.
Last edited by Guest on Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Did Brigham Young know of people who'd been "blood atoned?"

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15688354

Did Brigham Young model himself off of Muhammed's example?

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In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
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