Dear Droopy: Joseph Smith said the Lamanites are a race

[_Droopy]

The context of the discussion is the depiction of Lamanites and how that depiction is offensive to people living today? This is the culture we are talking about. What other people living today would be offended by the depiction of Lamanites? Rednecks? bikers? Why are you bringing rednecks and bikers into this? You are all over the place.

The context of that particular post, Mr. Goebbles, was any negative proposition regarding any culture from a member of another culture as being, be definition, racist.

Another thread bites the dust as to any degree of intellectual seriousness or honesty.


I must be going...

[_DarkHelmet]

The context of that particular post, Mr. Goebbles, was any negative proposition regarding any culture from a member of another culture as being, be definition, racist.

LOL. Here is the context.

Droopy, inferiority based on culture is racism. If it stayed in the pages of the fictional Book of Mormon there would be no complaint, but Mormonism applies it to living people.

No, its an inferior culture, period. Its a culture that does not "work" in that it does not encourage or support, in a critical number of its members, the kind of values, attitudes, perceptions, ethics, virtues, and moral concepts necessary to the maintenance of a viable and successful social order.

Nice try. Now show me where I lied about what you said?

[_Bob Loblaw]

The context of that particular post, Mr. Goebbles, was any negative proposition regarding any culture from a member of another culture as being, be definition, racist.

Look out! Droopy is not just bringing up Nazism (he did that a few posts back), but now he's naming names! Might as well wave the white flag, Loran. You lose.

Another thread bites the dust as to any degree of intellectual seriousness or honesty.

Says the guy who inserted Godwin's Law into the thread. You are about as intellectually serious as a banana slug, except most banana slugs aren't racists.

I must be going...

He says for the hundredth time. Where else are you going to go? Nobody puts up with your BS except this board.

[_tapirrider]

Here was the broad, generalized claim made by tapirrider:

Droopy, inferiority based on culture is racism.

Mine was referenced to a source that the world is agreeing to, including the United States government. No, it was not "broad, generalized".

"Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust"

Advocating superiority of peoples on the basis of cultural differences is racist in the definition that the nations throught the world have agreed to (except in droopy's world).

[_DarkHelmet]

Advocating superiority of peoples on the basis of cultural differences is racist in the definition that the nations throught the world have agreed to (except in droopy's world).

Everyone learns this in 3rd grade Social Studies class. But I'm sure Droopy thinks the public school system is a communist plot.

[_Cylon]

The Jaredites weren't from the house of Israel. They left shortly after the confounding of languages at the tower of Babel, which was long before Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob were even born. And the Book of Mormon says nothing about the ancestry of Jared or his family. It also says nothing about the color of their skin. It's too bad Joseph Smith decided to have them be wiped out before the Nephites got there. Otherwise apologists could claim that they were from Asia and that's why Native Americans have Asian DNA.

Abraham's progenitors must have been among them, in which case, being from a very similar and closely related geographical and ethnic background, contributed to the future DNA of the 12 tribes.

Roll the dice again.

Not necessarily. Just because they were all in the same city at the same time does not in any way guarantee they had the same ancestry. Jared and Co. or the ancestors of Abraham could have come there from somewhere else and just happened to be there. But even if they did share ancestry, it makes no sense to call them the house of Israel, since that is a term that has a very well accepted meaning, and that group didn't exist before Israel, or if you're being more expansive, before the Abrahamic covenant.

[_Bob Loblaw]

In the past few weeks, we've been treated to Peterson and Schryver saying that blacks should be grateful they live in America, not Africa, and Droopy saying that black culture is to blame for their inferiority. Is it merely coincidental that they all cite Thomas Sowell? All this racist spluttering reminds me of this passage from "A theology for racism: Southern Fundamentalists and the civil rights movement":

Rather than complain, however, blacks should affirm the benefits of their American citizenship. Noel Smith insisted that the "facts of history" revealed "that the South was the only place on the face of this earth where the masses of Negroes have found general understanding and friendships." Indeed, he concluded that "Negroes have made more progress in the South than they have anywhere on this earth."

Blacks were their own "worst enemy," Noel Smith believed. The real battle for progress pitted black against black. He observed that "the most strutting, merciless, brutal enemy the Negro ever had on this earth is the Negro." Martin Luther King and Stokley Carmichael were "lying" when they tried to blame whites for the problems of blacks. Only when the Negro, like the white man, made "progress on the basis of his character, not on the basis of the color of his hide could racial progress be made." Only when they "earned" the respect of white society, would blacks receive it.

Blacks themselves were to blame for much of their plight. It was a responsibility, Smith believed, that they did not want to accept. He wrote, "on the whole, self-discipline, responsibility, energy, persistency, sound judgment, and pride in their surroundings, are foreign terms to them."

[_Droopy]

One must also wonder why God didn't curse the deeply wicked Nephites, during the dregs of their many "pride cycles" with a dark skin, or the Jaradites, who also self destructed in their own wickedness centuries prior to the arrival of the Nephites.

Don't you read your scriptures? They were cursed, too.

And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.

There is no text in the Book of Mormon that mentions any other lineage descending from Lehi, save the descendents of Laman and Lemual, as being given a darker skin as a symbol of their rebellion against God. The "curse" you mention here is the curse of cultural and spiritual separation from God. Nowhere in the Book of Mormon is dark skin itself ever a curse, in and of itself, beyond its signification as an outward sign or symbol of the inward state of the one cursed. Nor is skin color a sole determinant of any such cursing. It is only a marker, and, as when the Lamanites were much more righteous than the Nephites (as in the Book of Helaman), its symbolic meaning becomes a cultural memory and memorial of spiritual significance, but no longer a symbol of one's present state. Speaking of reading the scriptures, you might want to give that a shot instead of just quote mining for debating points:

And the Amlicites [i]were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites.

First point: Anyone can become a "Lamanite" (or a redneck, or a "gangsta," or "hip-hop," or "goth," etc.) by marking themselves - adopting the culture and cultural artifacts, of "Lamanites."

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.

And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.

No one else but these family lines received the mark, including the Nephites in their later wickedness, for which no supporting text exists in the Book of Mormon.

And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.

Its all about culture, and culture transmits, maintains, and preserves traditions, correct or incorrect, righteous, indifferent, or degenerate and wicked.

And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.

This could mean either intermarriage (genetic transmission of the marker) as well as absorption of Lamanite culture. I suspect it probably implies both.

Therefore, whosoever suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and there was a mark set upon him.

This mark, according to the above and other scriptures, could be either acquisition of the symbolic outward mark through intermingling of genes, or through new adherents to Lamanite culture and society marking themselves as members of that cultural group.

Thus the word of God is fulfilled, for these are the words which he said to Nephi: Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed, and I will set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them.

This cannot conceivably be termed "racism" in any coherent sense save by the most multiculturalism-addled modern mind. This is separation based upon culture and spiritual state - behavior, norms, mores, attitudes, and values, not race. There is no claim here of underlying, innate, and inherent inferiority. None.

All of this, by the way, has deep modern application, none of which have anything to do with race, or physical appearance at all, in any genetic or biological sense.

[_Droopy]

In the past few weeks, we've been treated to Peterson and Schryver saying that blacks should be grateful they live in America, not Africa, and Droopy saying that black culture is to blame for their inferiority. Is it merely coincidental that they all cite Thomas Sowell? All this racist spluttering reminds me of this passage from "A theology for racism: Southern Fundamentalists and the civil rights movement":

David Horowitz made precisely this point about contemporary Amercan blacks many years ago, and he is, without question, correct. Indeed, the same argument could be made for the descendents of coutless Europeans who came here as indentured servents, as for anybody else.

Contemporary Africa is, for the most part, under generations of black rule, a nightmare hellhole, and has been for a very, very long time (indeed, it has been termed "the nightmare continent") Who would want to live there at all, regardless of skin color (and what possible connection do modern American blacks, who's family lines have been here for centuries, have with Africa?)?

and Droopy saying that black culture is to blame for their inferiority.

Another bald faced agenda-driven lie for the cause. You guys are really racking them up today. Its also nice to find out from the wizards of smart here that Thomas Sowell is, not only a racist, but apparently a Southern fundamentalist redneck.

Just fascinating.

[_Drifting]

some stuff

Welcome back Droopy, we missed you during your latest absence from the board...