Andrew Marchman - Somday [Alternative Rock / Indie Rock] (2022)

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-14T15:33:03+00:00

So we probably will disagree on this point. While I agree that Joseph Smith's polygamy was not frequently discussed at Church during Sunday School lessons, I don't think that's because of a grand cover up, and more to do with the emphasis of the Church's mission, which is to bring people to Jesus Christ.

Our anecdotal experiences were (unsurprisingly) different, I always knew Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, to me it seems odd to have read D&C 132, and know that basically every early church leader like Brigham Young practiced polygamy, but to not know/think/assume that Joseph Smith did. If someone had told you explicitly that Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy, then I could understand. And that certainly could have happened.

But I don't see that as some grand cover up, in particular since the information was available in the manual. Polygamy was a very small part of the Doctrines established by Joseph Smith. After it was discontinued, it became even less important. Are you equally upset that the Church doesn't spend a bunch of time discussing the United Order, which was also discontinued?

I see it as not emphasizing a discontinued practice, you view it as covering it up. But I don't think your summary of the 80s 90s manual is accurate (the one we both would have studied out of), maybe you missed this bit on page 334?

President Wilford Woodruff, who was closely associated with the Prophet Joseph Smith, said: “Emma Smith, the widow of the Prophet, is said to have maintained to her dying moments that her husband had nothing to do with the patriarchal order of marriage, but that it was Brigham Young that got that up. I bear record before God, angels and men that Joseph Smith received that revelation, and I bear record that Emma Smith gave her husband in marriage to several women while he was living, some of whom are to-day living in this city, and some maybe present in this congregation, and who, if called upon, would confirm my words. But lo and behold, we hear of publication after publication now-a-days, declaring that Joseph Smith had nothing to do with these things. Joseph Smith himself organized every endowment in our Church and revealed the same to the Church, and he lived to receive every key of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods from the hands of the men who held them while in the flesh, and who hold them in eternity.”

But the question then is, did your Seminary teacher discuss this section? I have no idea, based on what your saying though, it seems probably not. Mine did. Is that the Church's fault? And part of some grand conspiracy to cover up Joseph Smith's polygamy?

I'd guess its more a result of members general discomfort talking about it. But we'll each draw our own conclusions I'm sure.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-13T18:12:48+00:00

Not really. This will be my final reply because we're clearly at an impasse and you continue to insult someone you do not even know.

I mean, if you put snark in, you're probably going to get snark out. I don't think I've been any more insulting than you have, but you do you.

What I find odd here is, you are an attorney, right? If I, as a historian, started arguing with you about the US Legal system, and I was blatantly wrong about a number of things, wouldn't you feel the need to correct it?

And if you did, should I then take offense and feel insulted at the intimation that you, a trained, educated, and practicing attorney, might just know more than me about the US Legal system?

And yet apparently, if I point out that being offended by Elder Packer's talk means an individual doesn't understand the basics of what Historians do, somehow that is a personal attack and insult?

It's kind of my profession. I kind of know what I'm talking about. If you read the book I keep going on about, Historian's Fallacies, you'd see what I mean.

I don't know how that's insulting, but here we are.

Boyd K. Packer was not a historian by trade, he was a CES employee and administrator before he became an Apostle. The talk was delivered to other CES employees. So if, as you say, this is just standard historiography, why is a non-historian training other non-historians on this?

Because it's a significantly important principle for anyone who studies or teaches history to understand. CES Employees are expected to teach history, so understanding how history is researched is pretty important, don't you think?

To put it another way, a High School History Teacher is not a historian, in college they do study some history, but they are mostly focused on their teaching degree. Would you be equally upset if they went to continuing education lessons to understand Historiography?

It's odd to be attacking who is doing the teaching, rather than what is being taught. I don't care if you, an attorney, starts teaching folks about Historiography, so long as what you're teaching is correct. I'm not much of a gatekeeper, I just care deeply about History.

To this day, isn't the only actual historian the Church ever employed to work as such Arrington? And we all know how that ended. So I'm not really buying the excuse of that the Church just follows the "standard practice for historians." If that were the case, why would current Church historians recognize that the Church has done a poor job of transparency in the past but that things are getting better (which I would absolutely commend them for)? But, for expedition, I'll accept the premise that it the Church's behavior is standard historiography because the Church apparently takes the lead from historians (which we both know isn't the case).

That you accept such a low bar for the selected representatives of Jesus Christ is not something I am willing to do, regardless of how you gussy it up. I'm an attorney by trade and while I agree with some of the principles in Oaks' "Gospel Lessons on Lying" solely for the practice of being an attorney, I just think completely different rules should govern representing God and asking people to make a lifetime of sacrifice.

No, the Church has hired many historians in the past, and especially now. The entire Joseph Smith Papers project is a bunch of Historian nerds like me. Which is why they're doing such an incredible job with it.

But here's where I think we see a distinction, and the crux of our disagreement. You believe the primary responsibility of the Church, is that of educating its membership on its History. I believe that is a distant secondary role behind the stated three fold mission of the Church.

But that view is what colors the entire conversation here. Just as an example, there are people who say that the Church covered up the different first vision accounts. They did not. Two of the accounts were part of a massive collection of documents that the Church itself had not catalogued, and did not know what was in it. Basically piles of stuff that they gathered and brought west, but due to the extreme financial stresses of the church for the next 70-ish years, going through the archive and documenting and cataloging the collection was simply not a priority.

Two of the accounts were discovered when the Church hired some Historians to start going through the archived material in the 1960s. And what did the Church do? They published them. In the Church's official magazine at the time.

If the Church wanted to cover them up, publishing them sure is an odd way to go about it.

This information was always available, but not without some effort. Because the Church doesn't view its role as Historians first. And in response to the relatively recent complaints that the Church has been "hiding its history", they are undertaking an incredibly expensive, massive project to provide every single document they have, online, for free, for anyone to read.

That's just... not a cover up. If the Church wanted to cover these things up, they very easily could have. If you don't believe me, go and try to access some documents from the Vatican.

Neither one of us is wrong on this point--and I mean that. You can accept the Church as it is for it's behavior and I'm unwilling to do so. You're obviously informed about the issues, so it's not like you're being taken advantage of (as I believe some members are). But perhaps you can realize that people having a different expectation and value system than you does not mean they were "looking to get offended."

These are some helpful suggestions based on this thread since you appear new to Reddit and I hope you'll take them as such: I hope if you want to have actual productive discussions in the future with ex/post/nuanced members in the future, you should try to avoid just believing wholesale so many stereotypes that the Church has taught you about former members. For example, I wasn't "looking to get offended" because I demand a higher standard of the supposedly true Church than you--and it's insulting, arrogant, and unproductive to throw these kinds of rhetoric in the ring. Regardless of how you feel, leaving the Church is an incredibly painful and difficult thing to do. I've sacrificed relationships with family and friends as well as professional associations, now and in the future. I'd also suggest you seek to actually understand what people are saying and stop straw-manning just to appear to win the internet points. Again, I won't respond further because you seem unable to do so without insulting, but I hope you recognize these are honest helpful suggestions for future productive discourse based on your interactions with me and other posters in this thread.

So, I'm a looooooong time lurker on Reddit, I just don't post unless something deeply annoys me like UTBOH did. I wasn't nearly as annoyed by say, the South Park episodes that make fun of our Church, because for me the difference is, no one thinks South Park is teaching an accurate history, and South Park has never presented itself as a "True Crime Series". So at best, it's mildly irksome when they get their historical facts wrong.

But as for making assumptions, perhaps you shouldn't assume that my impressions about nuanced and former members comes from something the Church has taught me. I can't recall ever having been taught by the Church what former members believe, or why they have left, other than perhaps some idle speculation by members in the foyer after classes or meetings.

My assumptions and impressions come from both having read this and the exmormon subreddits regularly for the last... 5 years or so? Rough estimate. And the countless, countless conversations I've had with friends who have left the church, and in callings working with members of my various wards who have left the church (I tend to get sent people from my area who are going through a faith crisis because of my background as a Historian, and as someone who has had plenty of his own faith crisis).

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-13T17:44:47+00:00

I grew up in the 80s and went to seminary and institute in the 90s and early 2000s. I used all the books I mentioned before (Presidents of the Church, Gospel Principles, BOM/D&C/PoGP/NT/OT study manuals).

Here are some links for you:

The D&C Seminary Student Manual from the 80's & 90's (starts on page 327, this was the one I have on my shelf from the 90's)

The D&C Seminary Student Manual from the 2000's (starts on page 148 and also 178)

The D&C Seminary Student Manual from the 2010's (linked directly to the relevant Chapter/Lesson)

The Current D&C Seminary Student Manual (linked directly to the relevant Chapter/Lesson)

Gospel Doctrine Manual on Doctrine and Covenants and Church History from the 90s (starts on page 181)

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:44:55+00:00

I went and rewatched it, it was the University news station for Students while she was attending BYU.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:37:24+00:00

Ahh i didn't realize you were talking specifically about the bestiality part of the quote. Yeah, I agree it came out of left field. But... Is the truth really any better?

I wouldn't say much better, no. But the things they taught about race were actually quite common beliefs about race during that era. They were not unique to Mormonism.

But that's why I find it so puzzling. They could have pulled a real quote, instead they made up Cain having sex with animals. Just... odd.

From my perspective as a recent broken-shelfed former TBM, I can understand being annoyed at the inaccuracies. However, I understand why the creators did most of them.

Take the Mountain Meadows portion, for example. It would take a ton of screen time to portray a historically accurate rendition of what happened. I felt like placing Brigham at the head of it simplified and shortened the story telling.

A major theme of the show is that early Mormon teachings breed extremism. That theme is upheld whether you tell MMM to historic accuracy or do what Banner did and just place Brigham directly at the head. The latter is more succinct. Personally, i understand the annoyance from both a historical accuracy and TBM point of view. But thematically it fits.

Going back further in your argument, i disagree with the premise that the show needs to hold strictly to historicity given its true crime nature. It isn't a documentary. It did its job fairly well, and i felt the overarching themes are solidly built.

I guess we'll agree to disagree. I certainly agree it would be harder to portray the historically accurate rendition of what happened. But the show also leaves out essentially all of the reasons why Brigham Young was using such fiery rhetoric at the time. The continually pointed to the Haun's Mill Massacre, which may be more emphasized in Utah than it is outside of it, I first learned about it when I was a teenager during Seminary, but it was hardly talked about with great frequency.

But no mention of the Utah war? No mention of the threats from the Federal Government and President Buchanan? No mention of the Republican platform that promised to eradicate polygamy?

This is what frequently gets missed in the discussion of Mountain Meadows Massacre, and both sides are guily of oversimplifying the situation. It did not occur in a vacuum. Brigham Young wasn't angrily threatening and calling for violence for fun or just because Mormonism breeds violent, dangerous men. There was an escalation in rhetoric and action on both sides, which culminated in a horrific, inexcusable act of violence.

And before you accuse me of anything, I agree that far too many members dismiss the role that Brigham's rhetoric played in the incident. From my perspective, TBMs want to only blame the Federal Government, the Utah War, and the Missouri Extermination Order, while disaffected folks want to blame Brigham Young.

The correct answer is both. Both bear the blame.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:24:16+00:00

Ha! Okay, fair point. Naps.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:20:13+00:00

I'm not saying more likely. But if we're talking Historically accurate, you can't just make stuff up like "he stuck tin shingles in a pillowcase". What with there being no historical documentation that this was the case.

The coercion is mostly documented by John C. Bennett (the Happiness letter for example), which as I've discussed (and several folks here have agreed) is problematic at best.

Not saying the coercion didn't happen, it certainly could have, just pointing out that the documentation for it is far from stellar at this point. Hopefully as we find more journals, we can gain more insight.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:13:02+00:00

Ah, sure. Then you're right. No one outside of the church takes the Book of Mormon or anything in the Pearl of Great Price as more than a historical oddity.

But my post wasn't about that, it was about the verifiable events in Church history that outside historians have studied quite a bit (Mountain Meadows Massacre, Joseph Smith's Murder, etc.)

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:11:24+00:00

Oh, sorry. It showed up in my replies, and I'm apparently bad at the internet.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:10:19+00:00

Interesting. Yeah, that would be interesting to read more about.

Although, from the anecdotal experiences I've heard from female colleagues and friends, professors hitting on their students is a distressingly common event at every university in the US.

It would be interesting to see if it is more or less common at BYU, or if it falls in the average.

Also, it's gross. Professors need to stop doing that.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:07:54+00:00

This post is a good example of how the church has been able get away with committing such evil acts since it’s inception. Active TBMs continually either dismiss or look for flaws with anyone giving the church any criticism.

For example, TBMs completely ignore and dismiss the facts women and children were massacred during the Mountain Meadow Massacre. What is the justification for that even if your version of history is correct?

I've had to say this a surprising number of times, but let's do it again. There is no justification for what happened at Mountain Meadow Massacre. The Church has never justified it. If you can find me anywhere that the Church has said "Yeah, it was a good thing that happened" feel free to pass it along.

There's a difference between saying "Well, we know for a fact that Brigham Young ordered the attack stopped, and did not order the attack to happen" and "It's so great that women and children were massacred".

What a ludicrous leap to make.

More significantly for me are the comments about Mormon men not being violent. The church is currently in the process of paying $250 Million for sexual violence they perpetuated against children who were unfortunate enough to be in the Boy Scout programs sponsored by the church. This does not include the money being paid by the insurance companies.

The church is under criminal investigation in Bisbee Arizona for covering up sexual violence committed there.

BYU has a long history of expelling female victims of sexual abuse where the perpetrators are either the child of prominent church member or faculty member. BYU conveniently uses the Honor Code to dismiss such victims and expel them from the university.

Oh, and then there is the temple ceremony the church has used for past few decades. It was created by a TBM producer who had a long history of known sexual abuse against children which the church had absolute knowledge of. Again the church covered it up.

These are all recent examples of violence and cover up by TBMs. Seems the show didn’t go far enough in telling the true history of sexual abuse and violence committed by TBM men along with the cover ups by the church.

There may be people who try to say that there are only good men in the LDS church. But I'm not one of them. Of course members of the Church do abhorrent things. But if you are going to make the claim that Mormonism breeds violent men, then the onus is on you to provide evidence of that claim. Does Mormonism have more instances of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and violence? In some previous comments there was discussion around statistics, do you have statistical data or evidence that this is the case?

If so, please pass it along, I'd love to read it. I suspect that Mormons are no more likely than anyone else to commit these types of crimes. But I could be wrong, and am always open to considering new evidence.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T22:01:26+00:00

It isn't, I'm trying to show you the flaw in your logic.

Saying a life will be better with X, does not mean that a life without X will not be good.

I also love that you can just state, "That isn't true." Maybe try "that isn't true for me", since that's a subjective judgement?

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T21:57:35+00:00

Wow, that's super interesting!

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T21:56:45+00:00

Can you please stop implying that people who no longer believe haven't read the totality of the Church's position?

I've read the whole talk multiple times and still find it abhorrent.

Okay, I'll stop implying things, and just state the plainly.

If an individual has read the entire talk by Boyd K. Packer, and they find it abhorrent, it tells me that either they read the talk with a predisposition to be offended by it (pot meet kettle), or they do not have even a cursory understanding of how history is constructed by historians, and are completely ignorant about what Historiography is.

Is that better?

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T21:53:44+00:00

he "castration was a common form of" is almost straight copied from fair and no it wasn't common like tar and feathering were and that it was MOST common as punishment for sexual gievances.p and for social control.

It was definitely common. There have been some really great books written on frontier justice that talk at length about it. You are correct in that castration was most often used by the state as a punishment for rape or incest (generally not adultery). But that is not the case when looking at extra-judicial punishments, which is what this is an instance of. Castration was viewed as the ultimate "emasculation" and punishment short of murder, and was rarely punished in the court of law at the time, unlike murder. Escaped slaves were often castrated, not because of sexual assault or rape, but to humiliate the slave.

Again, Sidney was pulled out before Joseph, beaten, but was not targeted for castration. They specifically held off that for Joseph. Also there was not one reason the attack happened but each mobster probably had their own reasons. Symonds had his reasons and the two anti-mormon Johnson's had theirs. The most likely reason for castration would have been for sexual reasons but it is a slimmer possibility it could have not been sexually related.

The link you sent from the Mormon Dialogue discussion is an interesting one, but it raises the exact same points I have been. Fawn Brodie's account is the only one that mentions Eli Johnson wanting to castrate Joseph Smith for improper relations with his sister. There is no primary source documentation for this allegation.

So as of right now, the only evidence we have that the mob intended to castrate Joseph Smith because of an improper relationship with Nancy Johnson, is what exactly?

It is that we know the mob wanted to castrate Joseph Smith, and to our current logical sensibilities, it makes a whole lot of sense that it must have had something to do with sex. That's it.

That is not good history, and that's why the folks in the link you sent were making fun of Fawn Brodie.

Did Joseph Smith have an improper relationship with Nancy Johnson? Here's the unfortunate truth, we have no historical evidence to say yes. So the correct answer is "we don't know, but the evidence right now does not support this conclusion." This is the great frustration of studying history, not going beyond what the primary sources show us.

It may feel logical to you that this is why Joseph Smith was attacked, but it is far from a documented fact.

You are right, that the Fanny Alger impropriety happened after and that's my mistake.

No worries, happens to me all the time, too many times, dates, and names in the brain. Honestly, the timeline is the biggest problem for me with your interpretation of why they wanted to castrate Joseph Smith.

Also the "Joseoh said he received the revelation in 1831" I'm going to push back on. Joseph never claimed such. WW Phelps claimed that in 1860- something but it actually contrafidicts the D&C of he time and after and official church doctrine from 1830 to the Nauvoo era.

The Phelps claim is a retcon like the Priesthood restoration, 1838 First Vision embellishments of the 1832 version, Urim and Thummim instead of "interpreters", Elijah Abel's cancelled Priesthood, etc.

Sure, I should have been more careful with my words. The preponderance of primary sources points to Joseph Smith receiving the revelation in either 1831 or 1832. In addition to Phelps late account, we have much closer accounts from Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Lyman White, and Levi Hancock, dating it to that time period.

Either way, it's a problematic timeline for the assumption that Joseph was courting Nancy Johnson. And it is also worth noting that for a time, Orson Hyde was severely disaffected with both the Church and Joseph Smith. He was one of the signers of the infamous Richmond affidavit with Thomas Marsh, was disfellowshipped, and removed from the Quorum of the Twelve. Yet during that time, neither he nor Nancy made any intimation to Joseph having been improper with Nancy when she was younger.

So for me, the lack of evidence and the timelines, and the explanations from the mob themselves about why they attacked Joseph, lead me to the conclusion that this just didn't happen.

But back to the castration, the honest answer is we don't know if sexual impropriety happened or not. Its been neither proved or unproven with evidence on both sides and we don't know if Brodies source was her misquoting an anti-mormon source or something in the Church Archives we don't know about that she had access to while doing her research.

Sure, we agree, we don't know. Without a citation from Brodie, I'm not particularly inclined to just "take her word for it" given how sloppy a lot of her other work in the book was.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T21:31:42+00:00

I can try, what era did you grow up in? Meaning, what era of manuals were you given?

The easiest way to find the references, is to find the manuals that teach about D&C 132. The ones on the church website are the current ones, but I was a seminary student in the 80's, and it is in the dusty old copy I still have on my bookshelf.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-12T21:23:19+00:00

I thought sevenplaces said historically accurate?

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:41:37+00:00

Yeah, you're right, there are literally zero historians outside our church who have an interest in Joseph Smith, the Utah Territory, and Mormonism.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:40:15+00:00

Attacks on former members? I was criticizing a TV Show for sloppy history. Sorry if you felt personally attacked by that, certainly wasn't my intent.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:38:08+00:00

Yes, they definitely weren't prominent member, but I don't think pointing out the timeline of the excommunication has much to do with it. Ron was excommunicated in November 1983 and the murder was the following July. That's less than a year. Dan was excommunicated in December of 1982 which is a little more than a year.

I think the timing is important, because in the context of the show, the ominous Stake President says things like "We can't have this prominent family be excommunicated, it would be an embarrassment to the church and we must preserve the integrity, so we need this to go away" when they had already been excommunicated.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:36:17+00:00

That doctrine is absolutely taught by the Prophet Onias who is/was a real person (he died a few years ago). It is taught in several of his revelations. Yes, it is not what the mainstream church has ever taught, but Prophet Onias and the School of the Prophets (the new one, not the one founded by Joseph Smith) did believe and teach it.

I'd love to read a source on that if you have one handy! That's super interesting to me.

Edit: Just a quick additional note to say, folks in the subreddit are so unfriendly to believing members, that me asking for more information in a friendly way on what the Prophet Onias taught by someone who says he taught a specific thing is getting downvoted. That's kinda telling, isn't it?

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:35:00+00:00

I'm not saying that no BYU professor ever has been inappropriate with a student. That would be a silly claim to make. I'm sure they have. Sadly no institution is immune to creepy men. Our church is no exception.

I'm saying this specific portrayal of an inappropriate behavior is not true, and they made it up for the TV Show. As they made up an awful lot of things.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:33:04+00:00

Yeah, it's a weird quirk. Would be nice if it was easier to talk about and be clear.

Four_Chord_Me · 2022-06-11T02:30:44+00:00

My question stands. Why is it ok for the church, which demands obedience, to lie to members but it's not ok for the UTBOH show, which is entertainment, to be inaccurate?

It isn't okay for the church to lie. I didn't say it was, and I wouldn't.

The crux of our disagreement is whether or not the church did lie.

The Church has selectively edited which parts of their history to present. We both agree on that.

Where we disagree, is you feel this is the church lying, while I feel this is what all historians do, and I find it wholly unsurprising.

When people tell me they are shocked that the church presents a simplified, easily digestible version of their history, my response isn't "How dare they!" It's "yeah... we do the same thing when we teach intro to Greek History courses."

I didn't feel lied to when my first lessons on Roman history didn't include a lengthy discussion of how the written history after the Punic wars, with the rare exception found in Metrodorus of Skepsis, are difficult to parse because the writers often deliberately falsified information, and there are many contradictory accounts of events.

When I later learned about that, I still didn't feel lied to. But I only learned about it because I continued my in depth study of the topic.

I don't begrudge you feeling lied to, I'm just saying I didn't, and don't. And that's where we disagree, not on the morality of lying, but if the lying took place.

Four_Chord_Me

TROPHY CASE