Storm over the Mormons - for Non-Mormons

[Autodidact]

Post hoc fallacy: the political pressures that are commonly cited as causes for changes in the church are cherry-picked from a long list of such pressures. There's nothing to say that one was stronger than another, rather the winners are always the things that happened right before the change.

National Organization for Women has been trying to exert such pressure for about three decades now to get women the priesthood. If you really want to do this, I'd study them first.

Right. Every time the Mormon leadership adopts the precise change that people are advocating for, it's just coincidence. It's pure coincidence that they got a revelation to stop the practice of polygamy just in time for Utah to be accepted as a state. It's just a random chance that they happened to extend priesthood to African-american males after years of agitation, pressure, and losing basketball seasons. Those Mormons picketing Mormon square were just wasting their time--the prophet would have gotten the exact same revelation without them.

 

[Autodidact]

So do I. But for it to be actual divine inspiration, the causal relationships have to be kept in order. Saying A caused C cuts B out of the equation. Saying A caused B caused C keeps it in.

More to the point of this discussion, if people want the LDS church to change, they can't just look at the pressures that succeeded. They have to look at the ones that failed. Doing the former is confirmation bias.

This is why I believe respectful dialogue is so important: in my experience, the only pressures that make any difference in revelation come from within the church. If people approach Mormons like some have on this thread, they can actually change minds and thereby contribute to the change they want to see. If they behave like others on this thread, they will actually impede that change.

Well I'm certainly not saying it always works. That doesn't mean it isn't worht doing.
But actually, if you read my post, I wasn't particularly advocating protests and agitation. What I said was, when it benefits the church more to get the revelation, they'll get it, and the way to encourage that is to change the world so that it benefits them more to get it. I don't think you're ever going to see the Mormon Church in the forefront of the movement to social justice. They tend to be some of the last ones to get on board. I don't think it will take them 300 years to grant equality to women, but they'll get there eventually.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Right. Every time the Mormon leadership adopts the precise change that people are advocating for, it's just coincidence. It's pure coincidence that they got a revelation to stop the practice of polygamy just in time for Utah to be accepted as a state.

Is it also a coincidence that they didn't get this revelation to stop the practice in time to avoid being subject to violence in Missouri?

If I had to choose between getting representation in the senate and avoiding a physical threat to my life, I know which one I'd pick.

 

[cardero]

Considering how the question requires knowledge of the future, I can hardly blame him.

I think the knowledge that is required is what GOD thinks of homosexuality now (not what GOD will think of it in the past or the future). Is GOD opposed to homosexuality or is GOD not? The way it is being described here is that there is a GOD waiting on the social structure of His creation before He is struck by revelation to pass it among humans. If GOD is offended by homosexuality why isn't GOD doing something about it now? If GOD isn't doing anything about it now, why do others insist that they need to take up the burden to inhibit it?

 

[Autodidact]

Is it also a coincidence that they didn't get this revelation to stop the practice in time to avoid being subject to violence in Missouri?

If I had to choose between getting representation in the senate and avoiding a physical threat to my life, I know which one I'd pick.

Could you expound a little?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Could you expound a little?

I'm mainly thinking about the Extermination Order issued by the Governor of Missouri that was key in prompting the Mormon exodus to Utah. It called for all Mormons to be "exterminated or driven from the state". If there was ever a time when it would've been beneficial for them to drop some of their doctrines, then would have been the time. It would have been quite handy and would have saved many lives if Brigham Young had gone to the Missouri government and said, "Wait! Wait! God just told me that we can cooperate on everything you want! You don't need to kill or banish us; we'll behave from now on."

 

[Autodidact]

I'm mainly thinking about the Extermination Order issued by the Governor of Missouri that was key in prompting the Mormon exodus to Utah. It called for all Mormons to be "exterminated or driven from the state". If there was ever a time when it would've been beneficial for them to drop some of their doctrines, then would have been the time. It would have been quite handy and would have saved many lives if Brigham Young had gone to the Missouri government and said, "Wait! Wait! God just told me that we can cooperate on everything you want! You don't need to kill or banish us; we'll behave from now on."

I think they had a great big country to immigrate to and create their own theocracy in, and that's what they did. So they didn't need to give up polygamy at that point; they had a better option.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think they had a great big country to immigrate to and create their own theocracy in, and that's what they did. So they didn't need to give up polygamy at that point; they had a better option.

Pulling all your worldly belongings a thousand miles in a handcart while watching loved ones die of injury, disease and exposure just to scratch out a living in the desert that nobody else wanted is a "better option"?

Heck; I still hold a bit of a grudge against the American revolutionaries for forcing my ancestors to flee a hundred miles to fertile farmland on the shores of the Great Lakes.

 

[Autodidact]

Pulling all your worldly belongings a thousand miles in a handcart while watching loved ones die of injury, disease and exposure just to scratch out a living in the desert that nobody else wanted is a "better option"?

Remember, those weren't the prophets. Those were the poor shlubs who believed the prophets.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Remember, those weren't the prophets. Those were the poor shlubs who believed the prophets.

Right - the prophet got the added benefit of a horse and wagon. Still, it's not something I'd consider to be a pleasant experience.

 

[Autodidact]

Worked out well in the long run though.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Worked out well in the long run though.

Maybe, but that would not have been first on my mind when contemplating taking the same route that the Donner party had taken, and died on, the year before.

 

[Autodidact]

Thought about this some more. I think the Church hierarchy tends to act in the best interest of the Mormon Church (as they see it), not in the best interest of the Mormon people.

 

[Watchmen]

Remember, those weren't the prophets. Those were the poor shlubs who believed the prophets.

Early church leaders had children and loved ones die too in the early days of the church due to persecution.

 

[SoyLeche]

Is it also a coincidence that they didn't get this revelation to stop the practice in time to avoid being subject to violence in Missouri?

Polygamy, if it was practiced in Missouri, wasn't publicized at all. I don't think it had much of anything to do with the persecution that happened there.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Polygamy, if it was practiced in Missouri, wasn't publicized at all. I don't think it had much of anything to do with the persecution that happened there.

My mistake. What exactly did the Missorians (is that the right spelling) object to, then?

 

[linwood]

My mistake. What exactly did the Missorians (is that the right spelling) object to, then?

I believe their main objection was that they considered Mormonism as Christian heresy.

 

[SoyLeche]

My mistake. What exactly did the Missorians (is that the right spelling) object to, then?

They didn't much care for the fact that Mormons tended to oppose slavery, and they tended to vote the same way as one another, so as the concentration of Mormons increased the "native" Missourians would lose political control. All of that aside from the general 'peculiarness' of Mormonism.

As an interesting aside: After they whole "Utah became a state" thing, Reed Smoot was elected to the US Senate. The Senate refused to seat him, mostly due to the polygamy thing, although the attorney representing those who didn't want him admitted explained that "polygamy was irrelevant and the real danger was Mormon belief in revelation." A senator who had 2 wives wouldn't be that big of a deal (Addressing the subject of polygamy, Penrose reportedly glared at one or more of his Senate colleagues who had a reputation for philandering and said, "As for me, I would rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monag."[5]), but to have a person who actually believed that God can and does talk to man today, that would be unacceptible.

While polygamy was a good excuse, I'm not sure that it was ever really the "main" reason that the Mormons were persecuted.

 

[Autodidact]

My mistake. What exactly did the Missorians (is that the right spelling) object to, then?

They didn't want to live under a Mormon theocracy. They were concerned that the Mormons voted as a bloc as Smith told them to. They objected to Smith functioning as religious and political leader, Judge and Jury. They objected when he destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor.

I don't think abolitionism had anything to do with it, and don't know where that myth got started. Slavery was practiced by the Mormons in Utah when they got there, so that makes no sense.

 

[Autodidact]

They didn't much care for the fact that Mormons tended to oppose slavery, and they tended to vote the same way as one another, so as the concentration of Mormons increased the "native" Missourians would lose political control. All of that aside from the general 'peculiarness' of Mormonism.

As an interesting aside: After they whole "Utah became a state" thing, Reed Smoot was elected to the US Senate. The Senate refused to seat him, mostly due to the polygamy thing, although the attorney representing those who didn't want him admitted explained that "polygamy was irrelevant and the real danger was Mormon belief in revelation." A senator who had 2 wives wouldn't be that big of a deal (Addressing the subject of polygamy, Penrose reportedly glared at one or more of his Senate colleagues who had a reputation for philandering and said, "As for me, I would rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monag."[5]), but to have a person who actually believed that God can and does talk to man today, that would be unacceptible.

While polygamy was a good excuse, I'm not sure that it was ever really the "main" reason that the Mormons were persecuted.

Right. Ha ha ha.