How do you deal with the real history on Joseph Smith?

[_BartBurk]

I find her answer pretty reasonable. I guess that's because I can see both good and bad in just about everyone including myself. At the same time a lot of the doctrines that were taught by Joseph Smith ring true for me. Nevertheless some of the things he taught (King Follett, Sermon in the Grove, plural marriage) not so much.

[_Stormy Waters]

I would hate to read the biographies of the apostles of Christ before they became apostles. Or Paul's biography before he bacame Paul. Not good.

Just a straight moral equivalence argument. And not even about what the early apostles actually did just insinuating that there were things.

How is this comparable to Paul before he became Paul? Did Joseph Smith turn his life around after he did these things and repent of the error of his ways?

To sum up your argument Why Me you're saying, 'I deal with the real history on Joseph.... well maybe the early apostles did bad things as well.'

Funny how just yesterday you were trying to smear consig by implying flirting with another's man's wife. But someone actually taking another man's wife? Well I guess you're okay with that.

[_Stormy Waters]

I find her answer pretty reasonable. I guess that's because I can see both good and bad in just about everyone including myself. At the same time a lot of the doctrines that were taught by Joseph Smith ring true for me. Nevertheless some of the things he taught (King Follett, Sermon in the Grove, plural marriage) not so much.

Can you see the good and bad in Warren Jeffs? Joseph Smith wasn't engaging in everyday mistakes. He was ruining marriages. Using high pressure on young girls to get them to marry him and using his role as prophet to facititate it. He was lying to his own wife about it.

[_BartBurk]

I find her answer pretty reasonable. I guess that's because I can see both good and bad in just about everyone including myself. At the same time a lot of the doctrines that were taught by Joseph Smith ring true for me. Nevertheless some of the things he taught (King Follett, Sermon in the Grove, plural marriage) not so much.

Can you see the good and bad in Warren Jeffs? Joseph Smith wasn't engaging in everyday mistakes. He was ruining marriages. Using high pressure on young girls to get them to marry him and using his role as prophet to facititate it. He was lying to his own wife about it.

I think everything about Joseph Smith after Fanny Alger is questionable.

[_Aristotle Smith]

I had to laugh at using a quote from Thomas Merton to justify Joseph Smith's behavior. Sure, let's use a quote from a Trappist monk who had taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to justify the behavior of someone who believed in none of those three things.

Besides, as a mystic I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Merton did not mean what she wants him to mean. As a mystic, Merton likely was talking about transcending religion. Ironically, he would probably say that if anyone needed some religion (in the sense of acting ethically, reforming your behavior, repenting, etc.) it would be Joseph Smith. The point is that transcending religion doesn't mean giving a free pass to horrible behavior because you were conveniently born Mormon.

By the way, it's crap like this that gives religious people a bad name. Stuff like "the religious movement Smith founded has given me some of the most intense and meaningful experiences of my life," therefore Joseph Smith gets a pass is just wrong. Also, if you are still going to believe he was a prophet, you can't hide behind the "Joseph Smith was a complex and flawed human being" idea, it's just too vague. You have to identify exactly what he did that was evil and condemn it as such. It is reasonable to realize that people, including purported prophets, are not perfect. It is also reasonable to expect followers of a purported prophet to own up to their prophet's flaws and not justify the flaws, nor hide behind vague platitudes. Evil is evil, even if you have vaguely good feelings associated with it.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Evil is evil, even if you have vaguely good feelings associated with it.

The problem is exactly what you said: they will say that Joseph Smith was a flawed person and we must overlook the flaws, but they will never tell you what those flaws are and whether they should be repudiated as evil.

[_DrW]

In evolutionary terms, I think of Joseph Smith (and Joseph Smith's religion) as a kind of mutation - one that would almost certainly not have developed into what it is today unless it had been able to isolate itself from the rest of society.

All kinds of genetic mutations (or variants) that would not survive in the general population over time can serve to form entire new species when kept in isolation.

These new species are successful in their new environment. As a general rule, these species shrink in size relative to the founding populations because, more often than not, they are relatively free of predators and the environment they have adapted to is resource poor.

But when introduced back into the general population from which their founders came, these mutants generally do not well.

The LDS Church we see today is such a social (or religious) mutant. It can be thought of as the product of "allopatric speciation". It developed in relative isolation, and now finds itself at a distinct disadvantage because it has not bothered to re-adapt to the larger social environment.

Pygmy elephants (some two - three feet tall) are such an allopatric species. They are lot more important (and do a lot better) on the island of Borneo than they are (or do) on the continent of Africa.

[_Abaddon]

I deal with the real history by rejecting Joseph Smith and the Christian God he claimed inspiration from.

That god has disappointed me so many times with his crazy situational ethics, bigotry and sexism.

[_Madison54]

But it’s up to me to decide how these facts of written history shape my faith practice. A Mormon friend recently gave me a book by Annie Dillard, who quotes the Catholic priest and philosopher Thomas Merton, writing in 1968, a few days after leaving a Buddhist monastery and a few days before his death: “Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.”

Nevertheless. For the religious, everything turns on the nevertheless. The word that offers merciful refuge to the human complexity in ourselves and the human complexity in our faith traditions

Nevertheless. I am a religious person. I love a merciful God. And the religious movement Smith founded has given me some of the most intense and meaningful experiences of my life. That wide-open answer is the only way I know how to respond to the emails both hurtful and heartfelt that the legacy of Joseph Smith channels into my inbox.

Nevertheless? That's how you deal with it?

Well, that seems to be how Joanna Brooks deals with it.

That didn't work for me and it still doesn't.

But, I've learned that many can know the entire truth regarding Joseph Smith and church history and still maintain their testimonies and stay active. I don't understand how they do it, but I don't judge them and just figure they can compartmentalize well enough to just look at the good the church does today and what it brings into their lives, etc.

Then, I look at things like the new mall and so on, and I shake my head again and wonder how they do it.

[_Nightlion]

Funny how after Warren Jeffs gets famous for his teenage escapades Joseph Smith IS absolutely guilty of the same. BS!
You got so many punk researchers combing through every lie ever spoken of Joseph to paint THE picture there never will be a real history anymore. His name is tagged for good and evil. His fate. Your loss because you did not savor that which he did accomplish and neither do the Mormons and they never will get it right. PUNKS everyone.