More Latter Day Saint strangeness…

Smith bicentennial renewing debate over Mormon founder
By Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press, December 19, 2004

NEW YORK -- To loyal Mormons, Joseph Smith Jr. was an American prophet whose creed is preparing for Christ's Second Coming. To skeptics, he was a reprobate impostor, if a remarkably successful one.

Now as Smith's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepares to celebrate the bicentennial year of his birth (Dec. 23, 1805), the occasion will certainly renew debates over one of America's most important, and woolliest, religious careers.

Smith was hounded out of New York, Ohio, and Missouri; tarred and feathered, jailed, and accused of serious crimes. He repeatedly alienated close associates.

In Illinois, he ruled a theocratic city-state as prophet, mayor, chief judge, and commander of a 5,000-man militia. In 1844, he was secretly anointed an earthly king while campaigning for the US presidency. When Smith had officers pillage an opposition newspaper, he was arrested and then murdered by a mob.
Smith's prophethood was founded upon his report that, in 1827, an angel gave him golden plates inscribed in an unknown language and buried near Palmyra, N.Y. The plates told the history of Indians' ancient ancestors, who had migrated from Israel and were visited by Jesus. Smith said God miraculously empowered him to understand the language and dictate the Book of Mormon, after which the angel retrieved the plates. [right!]

Employing similar means, Smith revised -- and in his view, corrected -- large sections of the Bible. He also produced writings attributed to biblical Abraham and 134 revelations of his own as latter-day Scriptures. [sure!] Mormons and non-Mormons still argue over Smith's authenticity.

Last Sunday, a church tribunal in Utah temporarily suspended Grant Palmer -- a retired teacher and executive for classes the church provides to high school and college students -- because his book, "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins," says evidence for Smith's assertions is "either nonexistent or problematic."
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Mormons "are just driven to continually exalt" Smith, Bushman said. "What I say will run against this idealized version."

Another controversy is Smith's practice of polygamy, which the church abandoned under federal government pressure in 1890. Bushman thinks Smith felt that God commanded polygamy but Smith needed to hide his involvement in the practice because he knew it was illegal. But Bushman finds it unsettling that 10 of Smith's 28 or so wives were married to other men.

The biography also treats the established fact that, before he reported unearthing the golden tablets, Smith was active in searches for buried treasure by gazing into so-called magic peep stones.

Jan Shipps, a non-Mormon historian, said Smith's critics say, "He couldn't be a prophet because he was a money-digger," but maybe there's no contradiction and "he began somehow to search for treasure of much greater value."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 12 million adherents worldwide.

At the risk of insulting 12 million people, “God miraculously empowered him to understand the language and dictate the Book of Mormon, after which the angel retrieved the plates.” Er, ah - this ranks up with the Nigerian “send me your bank account number so I can send you money” scams in believability. Then we have polygamy: the guy liked getting laid, most guys do, so why not have God say it’s a good thing, since you’re his inerrant spokesman?

If you speak out against the Church, you are cast out; these folks do not tolerate dissent. They also don’t tolerate people who discuss their “secrets.”

When was the last time you went into a Mormon “church?” Right, never. We non-LDS types can’t go in there because they’ve got, ooooh, secret stuff in there. I’m unaware of any other mainline religion has such a practice of secrecy. Scientology is secretive, but they are a cult, leading me where I was going all along, that rather that being really mainline, Mormonism really has too many cult-like attributes to be taken seriously. 12 million members or not, I think it’s really a cult. Ah, no offence.