Dear Droopy: Joseph Smith said the Lamanites are a race

[_MCB]

Droopy's reasoning leads to either of two choices:
Either terminate the tribes, and their special rights as indigenous peoples, or declare the LDS people to be an indigenous people, with tribal rights. Neither will happen, despite Mormonism's effort to assimilate the Natives, and therefore claim special rights through them.

Neither will happen. The racism of Mormonism has been too well established.

The Jews were the first monotheists. Therefore, they were/are a special people in the eyes of God. Mormonism has terminated its special privilege by denying one God.

[_Cylon]

Within Mormonism the "curse" or "mark of Cain" is dark skin, and it's clearly associated with racism. There's no doubt about it.

- VRDRC

Not true. God was racist. He favored the Jews over other races by calling them his chosen people. Also, how god protected the jews at the expense of others is quite amazing. Of course, you can bitch and moan to god if it will make you feel better.

Wait, how is calling God racist a refutation of the assertion that the mark of Cain was racist? Doesn't that kind of prove the point?

Also, pointing out that the God of the Old Testament absolutely was a respecter of persons doesn't really do your religion any favors.

[_Darth J]

Droopy! How delightful to hear from you. I was concerned that you would only join in this thread if it was about Master Mahan, a.k.a. John Dehlin. I was so happy to read another of your usual eloquent and well-reasoned posts.

On a completely unrelated note, I hate it when you're drinking something, and you start laughing so hard that it comes out your nose.

Joseph's rhetoric - the common, accepted, colloquial expressions used in the 19th century to denote various phenomena, such as, in this case, the term "race," does not represent official Church doctrine, nor is there any evidence that Joseph intended it to be taken as so.

Oh, Droopy. It's too bad that you don't know more about our church. The passages I quoted are from the famous Wentworth Letter. Here is it is printed in the July 2002 Ensign, an official publication of the Church on its official website, copyright Intellectual Reserve, Inc.:

http://www.LDS.org/ensign/2002/07/the-w ... r?lang=eng

As you review the Prophet's words printed in this official church publication, note the following:

We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country.

It's also unfortunate that you are able to think and express yourself only in terms of talking points---in this instance, the contrived Mopologist trope of "official doctrine." Whether the Prophet's remarks are "official doctrine" under the artifice invented by Mopolgists is irrelevant (even though, by the Anonymous Press Release on Approaching Mormon Doctrine standard, it is official doctrine). What matters is that God's Chosen Seer recognized the scripture he translated by divine power as referring to races of people. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable to call the Lamanites a "race."

"Race," as Joseph is here using it, as indicating "a group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution" is a completely non-ideological and non discriminatory usage - a common anthropological usage without racialist overtones.

In other words, contrary to your previous assertions, the Book of Mormon does refer to "race," which even Joseph Smith recognized.

Alternatively, would you be willing to admit that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior or the homosexual lifestyle, since the word "homosexual" never appears in the scriptures, and the ancient prophets would not have understood "homosexuality" the way we do today?

Let's not conflate common, unreflective usage of common linguistic conventions as being indicative of underlying doctrinal or philosophical assumptions. "Race" means different things to different people, only one of which implies innate genetic differences that determine human potential.

Curiously, nobody is doing that, except for yourself.

One notices as well that, contra the endless word gaming in this forum along these lines, Joseph clearly considered both the Nephites and Lamanites to be of the same lineage and the same biological background, and hence, of the same "race" differentiated only by slight morphological differences. If whites in the old South had only thought of black people as looking different, there would have been little problem. But they thought of blacks as a separate and distinct sub-species of human being, an entirely different concept, and one that appears nowhere in LDS scripture, or in Joseph's explications above.

Joseph Smith said that the American Indians originated with a loathsome, indolent people who were cursed with a dark skin because of their sinful ways.

As of yet, you still have not made your case. There is no mention in the Book of Mormon of "race" in the modern sense, nor any teaching regarding any innate or inherent inferiority between the Nephites or Lamanites based on anything but culture and behavior.

Fail, in other words, as is the usual case in here.

No, there is no mention of "race" in the Book of Mormon. There is, instead, mention of characteristics that a modern person recognizes as comprising "race," as the Prophet Joseph Smith acknowledged. And there is, in fact, resplendent teaching in the Book of Mormon that the unrepentant Lamanites are culturally inferior to the Nephites, and the Lamanites have been cursed with a dark skin as a sign of their inferiority.

Also, you appear to be having a hard time understanding cause and effect regarding the Lamanite curse. The Lamanites were not inferior because they had a dark skin. They were given a dark skin because they were inferior. When they became righteous, their skin became white. Third Nephi, Chapter 2, explains this. So did the Prophet Joseph Smith, when the Lord helped him recognize the bones of the righteous white Lamanite, Zelph. And of course Spencer W. Kimball, a special witness of Jesus Christ, explained that when the Lamanite children on a Navajo reservation accepted the Restored Gospel, their skin became noticeable lighter than the Gentile members of their immediate families.

In summary, according to Official Doctrine As Printed In An Official Church Publication, the Prophet Joseph Smith recognized that the scripture he translated by the power of God was talking about characteristics that we in the modern era recognize as race. So you are wrong, as you have conceded in this thread: the Book of Mormon does talk about the characteristics of a group of people that are commonly understood to be "race." It is this common, neutral understanding of "race" that I cited in the prior thread:


race

1. a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.
2. a population so related.
3. Anthropology .
a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, especially formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.
4. a group of tribes or peoples forming an ethnic stock: the Slavic race.
5. any people united by common history, language, cultural traits, etc.: the Dutch race.

Now let us look at the common, neutral definition of racism:

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

The Book of Mormon teaches that by default, the Lamanites are a lazy, sinful, loathsome people. They are a group of people with morphological and cultural differences from the white Nephites. The Nephites are superior to the Lamanites. The American Indians are the Lamanites, as the Lord explained in the Doctrine and Covenants. The Book of Mormon teaches that the Lamanite race is inferior and fallen, otherwise their race would not need to be redeemed and, as the Lord later told the Prophet Joseph Smith, "blossom as a rose." Benign racism is still racism: it is still the belief that a race of people is inferior to one's own and needs to be brought up to your own superior state. The Book of Mormon is racist regarding the American Indians.

[_why me]

So, when He gave the commandment to 'love thy neighbour' He forgot to add 'as long as they're Jewish and not Black'?

Love your neighbor did not stop god from choosing a chosen race, the jews. And favoring these people at the expense of others. And Jesus was mainly in a small area preaching to a particular group of people. He was not exactly heading to the gentiles.

The LDS church never claimed that African Americans should not be loved. Just the opposite.

[Guest]

I see that Why Me is back to his usual tu quoque with the Bible, as if pointing out the problems with the tribal mythology of Bronze Age Hebrews makes the mythology of the church of which he is nominally a member seem more reasonable. Meanwhile, at least Marion G. Rommney, a special witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, loved them Lamanites.

Elder Marion G. Romney, April 1963 General Conference

Mis queridos Hermanos y Hermanas de los países dónde se habla Español. Me da mucho gusto a veros aquí con nosotros esta Denver International Airport. Con todo corazon, muy bienvenidos.

To you who wonder, I have just greeted and welcomed our people from Latin America. My Spanish may not have been such as they could understand, but you are in no position to challenge my interpretation of it.

I love these, my brothers and sisters. To me they are white and delightsome (2 Ne. 30:6). And of course I love you, too.

Pursuant to assignment from the First Presidency of the Church, I have for the past two years been supervising the Latin American missions. It may not, therefore, be wholly inappropriate for me to say something about the Lamanites, many of whom live in these missions.

[_Themis]

Love your neighbor did not stop god from choosing a chosen race, the jews. And favoring these people at the expense of others.

And very telling that it wasn't God, but a group of people who claimed they were chosen over others. This really is not that difficult to see you know.

[_why me]

Joseph's rhetoric - the common, accepted, colloquial expressions used in the 19th century to denote various phenomena, such as, in this case, the term "race," does not represent official Church doctrine, nor is there any evidence that Joseph intended it to be taken as so.

Ok, darth, now come close to your computer because I want to whisper something in your ear...okay...no, come closer...yea, that's right...I don't want the others to hear this...ready? Joseph, who translated the book may not have known who these people were. Unless of course, god told him the information that he repeated in the Wentworth letter. But I see no proof of this at all. I think that the people had this book and they had to make interpretations of it and hope for the best.

[_why me]

And very telling that it wasn't God, but a group of people who claimed they were chosen over others. This really is not that difficult to see you know.

The Bible is basically about the jewish people and their relationship to god. Now of course, the jews believed that they were chosen and superior to all others and treated their neighbors accordingly. And god did not exactly discourage them from believing so. And the end product is still being played out on the west bank where the chosen people are still claiming palestinian land for themselves because the Bible says that it is their land, the land of the chosen people.

[_DarkHelmet]

Joseph's rhetoric - the common, accepted, colloquial expressions used in the 19th century to denote various phenomena, such as, in this case, the term "race," does not represent official Church doctrine, nor is there any evidence that Joseph intended it to be taken as so.

Ok, darth, now come close to your computer because I want to whisper something in your ear...okay...no, come closer...yea, that's right...I don't want the others to hear this...ready? Joseph, who translated the book may not have known who these people were. Unless of course, god told him the information that he repeated in the Wentworth letter. But I see no proof of this at all. I think that the people had this book and they had to make interpretations of it and hope for the best.

[_Darth J]

Joseph's rhetoric - the common, accepted, colloquial expressions used in the 19th century to denote various phenomena, such as, in this case, the term "race," does not represent official Church doctrine, nor is there any evidence that Joseph intended it to be taken as so.

Ok, darth, now come close to your computer because I want to whisper something in your ear...okay...no, come closer...yea, that's right...I don't want the others to hear this...ready? Joseph, who translated the book may not have known who these people were. Unless of course, god told him the information that he repeated in the Wentworth letter. But I see no proof of this at all. I think that the people had this book and they had to make interpretations of it and hope for the best.

Pleeze lurn 2 reede. The quote you are attributing to me is not something I said. Droopy said that.

And here is your proof from An Official Church Publication that God told Joseph Smith the information he repeated in the Wentworth Letter, and that Joseph, who translated the book, did know who these people were:

http://www.LDS.org/ensign/2002/07/the-w ... r?lang=eng

I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country [America] and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was [also] made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things. After having received many visits from the angels of God, unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22nd of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.

But it's not like I cited that on the first page of this thread or anything.

There may be a remedial English class for adults in your area, Why Me. Perhaps developing some semblance of reading comprehension would be a good way for you to spend your free time.