Racism and the Book of Mormon

[_Chap]

I believe a member can keep faith by arguing that the Book of Mormon was filtered through Joseph's mind and therefore will contain his interpretations and views of the world.

You think a member can cling to the loose translation notion despite the explanations of the modus for the 'translation' given by scribes Oliver Cowdery and Emma Smith, which were that the English appeared, word for word, above the magic stone in the crown of a hat and would be dictated by JSJr from that, the scribe would read it back and only if it was correct, did the supernaturally given English phrase disappear and the next one appear in its place?

That racism came, word for word, from Mormon god.

If your motivation is to 'keep faith', there is no limit to the tactics available. In this case all you have to do is:

1. Tell yourself that yes, that's what must have happened - the Book of Mormon was filtered through Joseph's mind and therefore will contain his interpretations and views of the world. So we can pick the bits we like, and label the awkward passages as originating in Joseph's mind alone.

2. Decide not to pay much attention to the quite significant pieces of early testimony from those who were close to Joseph while he was translating, which state explicitly that the actual words of the translation were delivered to Joseph phrase by phrase in visibly written form, and he simply read them off to his scribes. If your desire to 'keep faith' is strong enough, you can just put those testimonies on the shelf, so long as it is a pretty strong shelf. Just avoid reading stuff like that, and you'll be OK. You may feel a bit of intellectual strain building up there, but hey - you have 'kept faith'.

If on the other hand you are more interested in finding out what probably happened whatever the consequences, you would perhaps want to look at the evidence quite closely, and come to no conclusions until you have.

[_PrickKicker]

It is not just, Mormonism... the Bible and therefore Christianity as a whole is racist.
Genesis 4:15 ...The mark of cain, is the dark skin.

Its only when you can honestly look back in retrospect, at it all and see just how blinkered you were.

How many people ever used these words???
I KNOW... the Church is true!

At that particular moment in time, nothing anyone could say would have changed your mind.
because you are euphoric, carried away in the zeitgeist, in a hypnotised state of mind that gives the same adrenal, endorphinal, loved up feelings as exercise, love making, drug taking or chemically imbalanced bipolar.

Or is it a Holy Ghoul, entering our body and tugging on our heartstrings and tweaking our nipples?

[_Themis]

You know Mary, I do like you. I appreciated your help on the postmo and enjoyed your posts over the years....but.....you really need to dig your head out of the anti-mormon hole. It seems that you are looking for reasons to believe the way you do. And I am getting the impression that you must be the life of the party with your active friends. You just may be too deep in the antimormon hole to see a light.

Hey there, Mr. me, why don't you do a blow-by-blow of all the many incorrect assumptions and outright lies in Brian's video. That should't take you very long, and I'm sure Mary would be very grateful.

But it's the tone that is anti-Mormon.

[_Mary]

It is not just, Mormonism... the Bible and therefore Christianity as a whole is racist.
Genesis 4:15 ...The mark of cain, is the dark skin.

No. I absolutely disagree. This is how slavery was justified in the 18th and 19th Century - by interpreting that passage to mean black skin, but there is no mention of what the 'mark' or 'sign' was. None, nada, nothing.

Neither, as far as I am aware is there any indication in the New Testament that when Peter saw a vision of the 'white sheet' and all animals etc upon it, that those of black or African descent were excluded. Infact some of the earliest missionary travels were to Egypt and Ethiopia.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia (wiki -but good I think)

Sock puppet, if that doesn't work (a loose translation) then the only alternative is to argue that the Book of Mormon is historical but that the Nephites were racist and were so without Gods approval. I can't see any other way out of it.

[_sock puppet]

Sock puppet, if that doesn't work (a loose translation) then the only alternative is to argue that the Book of Mormon is historical but that the Nephites were racist and were so without Gods approval. I can't see any other way out of it.

I think that the FP/12 and 70s are always just speaking as men, going back to JSJr.

The problem I see that for the modern Mormon to differentiate the pronouncements of past Mormon leaders as speaking as men, not god's mouthpieces, there is that must be discarded, both by way of Mormon scripture and its FP pronouncing matters as revelations and commandments from god:

The LDS canon continues to include the following:

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.

...their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people.

NOTE: THE TERM 'WHITE' WAS CHANGED TO 'PURE' IN 1981.

And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites.

5 Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
* * *
8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.

And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them.

Those are all Mormon scriptures.

And then there is this from from the Journal of Discourses:

You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation ...When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, [u]he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people[/u].

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

Note how the prophet and two apostles (ordained as 'prophets, seers and revelators') couched this 'talking as men' not as god's oracles--note the phrase, Official Statement of the First Presidency.

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: “Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: "The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

The First Presidency

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind; namely, that the conduct of spirits in the pre-mortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality, and that while the details of the principle have not been made known, the principle itself indicates that the coming to this earth and taking on mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the principle is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood, is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the Priesthood by Negroes

Official statement of the First Presidency to BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, dated August 17, 1951, quoted in Hyrum L. Andrus, Doctrinal Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price, 1967, pp.406- 407.

Dear Brother Nelson:

As you have been advised, your letter of June 16 was received in due course . . . We have carefully considered [its] content; and are glad to advise you as follows:

We make this initial remark: the social side of the Restored Gospel is only an incident of it; it is not the end thereof.

The basic element of your ideas and concepts seems to be that all God's children stand in equal positions before Him in all things. Your knowledge of the Gospel will indicate to you that this is contrary to the very fundamentals of God's dealings with Israel dating from the time of His promise to Abraham regarding Abraham's seed and their position vis-à-vis God Himself. Indeed, some of God's children were assigned to superior positions before the world was formed.

We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. Your position seems to lose sight of the revelations of the Lord touching the pre-existence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven, and the doctrines that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born, have a religionship in the life heretofore.

From the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith even until now, it is has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel.

Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been "most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient partiarchs till now. God's rule for Israel, His Chosen People, has been endogamous [meaning 'marriage within a specific tribe or similar social unit']. Modern Israel has been similarly directed.

We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this are, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.

Faithfully yours,
/s/
George Albert Smith
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
David O. McKay
The First Presidency

To throw these former LDS leaders' pronouncements from god--revelations, commandments, even scripture--is to eviscerate the claim of LDS authority from god, having come through them. If they were claiming to speak for god but weren't, then there was a second apostasy and those whose priesthood comes through these people, such as JSJr, BY, Geo A Smith, etc. is not from god.

* * *

I think PrickKicker is right. "At that particular moment in time [a person proclaims 'I KNOW... the Church is true!'], nothing anyone could say would have changed your mind. because you are euphoric, carried away in the zeitgeist, in a hypnotised state of mind that gives the same adrenal, endorphinal, loved up feelings as exercise, love making, drug taking or chemically imbalanced bipolar.

"Or is it a Holy Ghoul, entering our body and tugging on our heartstrings and tweaking our nipples?"

Getting the investigator to explain what he or she believes, and to egg it out of him or her even further than at first willing to go in those expressions, is part of the Mormon marketing plan (i.e., missionary tactics). Get them invested, particularly in front of husband, wife, and children, in the expressed beliefs, and you have nearly closed the sale.

[_why me]

But it's the tone that is anti-Mormon.

It is the tone. And that was the problem with the video. Plus, it was done for sensationalism.

[_why me]

I don't believe I am in an Anti-Mormon hole.

I think that you are. I have known you for many years and you are contantly reading Dale's site among others. Anything to shore up your belief system. By the way, the lamanites were not black and the nephites were not white. If anything, they were different shades of brown. In the Book of Mormon pictures inside the book, the people are brown. But don't tell anybody, okay?

[_Themis]

But it's the tone that is anti-Mormon.

It is the tone. And that was the problem with the video. Plus, it was done for sensationalism.

Called it. Everyone knows you would not address what is incorrect in the video, but just make baseless assertion of it being anti, anti being used as a meaningless word.

[_Themis]

By the way, the Lamanites were not black and the Nephites were not white. If anything, they were different shades of brown. In the Book of Mormon pictures inside the book, the people are brown. But don't tell anybody, okay?

The Book of Mormon clearly says the Lamanites were cursed with a dark skin, and the Nephites were white skinned. Start dealing with the facts of the text, not artists descriptions which do show the Nephites as light skinned and lamanites as dark.http://www.LDS.org/media-library/images/gospel-art/book-of-mormon?lang=eng&start=11&end=20#anti-nephi-lehies-bury-weapons-39657

[_Drifting]

I don't believe I am in an Anti-Mormon hole.

I think that you are. I have known you for many years and you are contantly reading Dale's site among others. Anything to shore up your belief system. By the way, the Lamanites were not black and the Nephites were not white. If anything, they were different shades of brown. In the Book of Mormon pictures inside the book, the people are brown. But don't tell anybody, okay?

CFR (please use the text in the Book of Mormon to support your assertion)