FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs may be serving life in prison, but his followers continue with their work on the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas where the group's white limestone Temple towers over the town they are building. Polygamy, the practice of plural marriage, appears to be alive and well in the Lone Star State, despite laws to the contrary.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Anyone see CNBC with Ross, Flora, Lost Boys etc Last night
I was flipping channels last night and saw Ross, Flora, Lost Boys, Shurtleff and Mike Watkiss being interviewed. It was interesting to watch - anyone else see it?
45 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I saw it some time ago. That Watkis is something else. He should hook up with Flora. What a matched pair they are.
Well, I am not much of a Watkis fan, but he has done an excellent job on documenting the FLDS in the Polygamy Diaries. If you have access to a high speed internet and a computer that can handle video, I recommend going to the TV station website and watching all the video's. It can take you several days, but if you want to put faces to names, it is a great place to start.
Are you talking about the Donny Deutsch show? The guy was a jerk. I saw some of a show he did on a high paid hooker who has written a book about her life, and he was all over himself to be understanding of her "lifestyle choice", etc. But he can't do an honest assessment of "polygamy." My problem with Watkiss is that for a long time he failed to understand that the FLDS are not the only polygamists around. He seems to be learning the distinction, finally, and the reports he's done with Centennial Park, for example, have been good.
I really have no idea who the guy was - I came in mid stream and there was no new information so I'm not suprised it's old. How old do you think it was?
I have seen most of his polygamy diaries and it didn't take long at all - they were just short little blips (I have a wide line - so perhaps it's faster?) He did do a good job identifying all the players and explaining the situation.
I think any one who dives into the issue of polgyamy realizes fairly quickly that the 'hot issue' isn't necissarily having plural wives. It's having *adolescent* plural wives, and then of course the issues that spin from that (welfare and lost boys).
Plural marriage suprises me, especially for a group that is quite conservative, but beyond the 'oh my gosh' factor and the 'stop asking the taxpayers to support your lifestyle/religion' factor - I could care less how many women your husbands sleep with.
We merely state that if the FLDS change a few hurtful ways in which they treat their children they will receive less/little attention. You can make this about persecution of your religion - but that's not really what it's about.
You could be agnostic, and they would still come after the individuals who perpetuate the issues that are endemic in your previous (since your now not one of them) community.
BEWARE....OF YOUR NEIGHBORS OF THE YFZ. NO TELLING WHAT UNCLE WARREN IS PREACHING TO THOSE YOUNG ADULTS AND CHILDREN BEHIND THOSE LOCKED GATES IN TEXAS.
You know, I lose interest in these discussions when they become subverted with religious dogmatic finger-pointing. I don't care if someone thinks Joseph Smith is a liar, and someone else worships him as a prophet of God. I think we could acknowledge a differing perspective without getting nasty about it. That notwithstanding, I am curious about a few things.
Onthestreet: I've heard some argue that Mary was 14 when she conceived Jesus Christ, and some of your comments reflect a similar view of this. My question to you is what is your community's doctrine that demands that your members MUST 1) marry by arrangement under the instruction of your "prophet", to whomever he deems appropriate, and 2) marry young?
Allowing that men and women have married at young ages throughout history, does this mean that it is a requirement of God to marry young, or that it is simply permitted by God (and not considered a sin), but not required?
I am not familiar with anything from Mormon theology or early Mormon teachings that either Arranged Marriages, or Young Marriages are required by God in order to live the fulness of the Gospel as taught by Joseph Smith. If the FLDS believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet, I'm curious where they derive these two teachings, especially since onthestreet asserts that if his community departs from these teachings, then they depart from the "STRAIGHT AND NARROW" way.
Do they depart because marrying young is a requirement of God? Or is it because they are not being obedient to the will of their prophet?
I can't answer for Street, but the FLDS are religiously speaking following the old text as though the old testament, where by the LDS or Mormon or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the new revised or New Testament so to speak. Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon 1830 version did not promote polygamy. When the Pearl of Great Price was published in 1851, Joseph Smith was nearly 7 years deceased and it was reported to be his earlier writings, which in effect had countered parts of his earlier writings in 1830.
In the some what twisted theology, Mr. Smith stated it was wrong to marry sisters and or a mother daughter. Both of which occured in his own relationships. The Partridge sisters are well documented and per this age of 14, Sarah Kimball was 14 and barely shy of her 15th birthday, thus the FLDS might recognize age 14 per or by example of the former prophet.
Many have defended age 12 as the age of Mary and have justified that age as an age of maturity for some young women. When puberty is past and procreation for survival was the rule of the day in less civilized times, such may have occured.
The old testament also spoke of stonings and the death of a prophet who had been wrong only ONCE! I don't believe the faithful wish to hold their leader Warren to a single standard. A double standard however that is selective, one that allows the leader to be wrong, while treating women as chattel and violating child protection laws, better suits some here and is why so many will not recognize this as a bonafide religion.
Those within the LDS faith would be better suited to defer their response to Mike Otterson, spokesman over Dale Bills of the mainstream LDS church.
The doctrine followed by the FLDS is one in the same with the mainstream church, but back dated. There is a history in common, but a present belief that is very different.
Sarah was married in a spiitual and secret ceremony on July 7 1842. Her father Heber C. Kimball started into polygamy with great reluctantcy, but was really involved after the migration to Utah, about 5 years after his daughters marriage. Emily Dow Partridge was married March 4 of 1843, followed by her sister, Eliza M. Partridge on March 8th of the same year, only 4 days later. The sister were young, though not as young as Sarah Kimball.
If you follow the Smith teachings, it does not justify the age, though by example many would assume, what was right for the prophet must be correct. As for the prophet being the only who can perform marriage selection, Smith was adamant about this being so!
To answer the questions of two religions a past in common, but seperated by the present, the following might be an allie for OTS. More than apostates monitor these message boards. No doubt Warren is having someone watch these boards and to an audience of ONE, OTS may well be demonstrating his faith, against all odds!
Arguing facts, is always met by arguing religion and abuse need not be under that umbrella!
The defense is refered to as "circling the wagons" and it effectively brings those with a common belief together. Pointing blame is a component of the defense and it avoids answering those simple and basic questions. A answer to a question is another question and 2+2 makes 3!
Just keep in mind as I have previously stated there are many reading these boards. The media of course, law enforcement, the FLDS attorneys, those representing both the LDS & FLDS churches and more! I have no doubts as to the audience OTS is playing to and its not you or I!
There are several message boards on a "to monitor" list the Texas Polygamy Blog is one of many.
Taken from http://www.fairlds.org/
Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism by Daniel C. Peterson
A Message Board Jam-Packed with Angry Apostates I will pass over very quickly a message board that I like to monitor that is, in its way, a kind of wildlife preserve for secular anti-Mormons. Some of you are probably familiar with it. Although it is of unquestionable sociological and psychological interest, it offers little if anything of intellectual merit. What was once said of William Jennings Bryan could be said of even many of the star posters on this message board: "One could steer a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact." Several, even, of the posters with the greatest intellectual pretensions on the board have consistently demonstrated themselves incapable of accurately summarizing Latter-day Saint positions and arguments, let alone of genuinely engaging them. It's hard not to think in this context of Groucho Marx: "From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down," Groucho wrote to the novelist Sydney Perelman, "I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it." Many on this particular message board seem to be of the same mentality as the academic who was asked whether he had read the new book by Professor Jones. "Read it?" he replied. "Why, I haven't even reviewed it yet!"
What the board does offer are displays of bravado, strutting, believers' arguments completely misunderstood and misrepresented, bold challenges hurled out to those who are barred from responding, and guffaws of triumph over enemies who are not permitted to reply. Dissent is rigidly excluded from this board, even as its denizens criticize the Church for its supposed "repressiveness." However, notwithstanding the rigorous exclusion of all troublesome dissent from their domain, the faith these posters have in their own unanswerably brilliant selves is oddly refreshing to see in atheists, whom you wouldn't expect to believe in any God at all.
Voltaire once explained that "My prayer to God is a very short one: 'Oh, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' God," he said, "has granted it."
But this doesn't exhaust the pleasures of that message board. It is rife with personal abuse and bloodcurdling hostility, not uncommonly obscene, directed against people they don't know and haven't even met--against President Hinckley, Joseph Smith, the Brethren, the general membership of the Church, and even, somewhat obsessively, against one particular rather insignificant BYU professor. Ordinary members of the Church--Morgbots or Morons or Sheeple, in the jargon of the board--are routinely stereotyped as insane, tyrannical, cheap, bigoted, ill-mannered, irrational, sexually repressed, stupid, greedy, foolish, rude, poor tippers, sick, brain-dead, and uncultured. There was once even a thread--and I'm not making this up--devoted to discussing how Mormons noisily slurp their soup in restaurants. Posts frequently lament the stupidity and gullibility of Church leaders, neighbors, parents, spouses, siblings, and even offspring--who may be wholly unaware of the anonymous poster's secret double life of contemptuous disbelief. It is a splendid cyber illustration of the finger pointing and mocking found in the "great and spacious building" of 1 Nephi. Whenever the poisonous culture of the place is criticized, however, its defenders take refuge in the culture of victimhood, deploying a supposed need for therapeutic self-expression as their all-encompassing excuse.
Contemplating a depressing number of the posters on that board, I've thought to myself, "If this is what liberation from the Mormon 'myth' makes you--a vulgar and sometimes duplicitous crank, cackling with malice and spite--then I would prefer to spend the few brief years left to me (before I dissolve into the irreversible and never-ending oblivion many of the board's posters prophecy for me and all humankind) with people who haven't been liberated. I think of the apostates of Ammonihah, mocking Alma and Amulek in prison, "gnashing their teeth upon them, and spitting upon them, and saying: How shall we look when we are damned?"1 Surely the damned will not look much different than this.
But I'm troubled by the capacity even of far less malevolent message boards to supply a supportive sort of ersatz community as an alternative to the fellowship of the Saints, and I worry about what participation on even relatively benign boards does to some Latter-day Saint souls. I have in mind one frequent poster in particular, who claims simply to be doubting and troubled, but who in fact never misses an opportunity for a snide remark about his Church, in which he remains active, and its teachings. These teachings involve weighty matters of utmost import. Millions have placed their hopes in the gospel's message, and, if this were false, it would be tragic and unutterably sad. Perhaps the cynicism that this poster and many others cultivate is no more than a psychologically understandable defensive shell, a self-protective whistling past the graveyard of doubt. But, even so, it is a shell that will, I fear, block the Spirit. I am not optimistic about his long-term prospects, barring a fundamental shift in attitude (and, even less hopefully, perhaps in personality).
Characteristic of much secularizing anti-Mormon participation on the Web is a corrosive cynicism that, in my experience, will erode anything with which it comes in contact. It is not so much a reasoned intellectual stance as an attitude, or even, perhaps, a personality type. Those afflicted with such cynicism are like the dwarfs in the last book of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, who are, as Aslan expresses it, so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. Such people claim to know the price of everything and everyone, but they seem to recognize the value of nothing. But the problem may well be in the cynic rather than in the object of his scorn. "No man," as the French saying goes, "is a hero to his valet."2 Why? The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel is surely right when he responds: "This is not because the hero is no hero, but because the valet is a valet."3
Onthestreet: You didn't read my post very well. First of all, you clearly took my "dogmatic finger-pointing" comment personally. The comment was not intended to say that I don't find religious references or quoting welcome, but I prefer not to move into discussions where dogmatic preaching of religious views refuse to allow that other perspectives might actually be moral and acceptable, even if they are different.
Some of your comments do provide an example of what I'm saying, however. In your response to me, you say: "Marriage is of God to us, like I just explained it above. Yet you have made it of man, selecting your mates by your own wisdom, usually lack thereof..."
My response to you is, WHAT? You feel very comfortable impuning beliefs, actions and motives to me without any real knowledge.
Since I don't know much about you or the FLDS (except what I have read in the papers), I figured I'd ask.
I did not proclaim the Bible to be my only scripture and in any way deny Mormonism. I happen to be an Independent Fundamentalist Mormon. What I do not feel the need to do, however, is spring to a determined defense of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, or the Bible just because someone posts something negative about one of them. Arguing scriptures is not of interest to me.
I AM, on the other hand, curious as to the rationale behind the belief system of your community. I'm not trying to attack you or your beliefs, but I really don't understand where they come from, because I do not recognize any teaching of Joseph Smith's or other early leaders of the church that preach perfect obedience to the prophet, or that the prophet alone could and MUST choose spouses for LDS members. In fact, Joseph Smith taught often that the members should build their own testimony through prayer and personal revelation. This was also a practice of the church, since Joseph's revelations were presented to the body of the church to be voted on. The church always had the right to accept or reject any revelation of Joseph's. Perfect obedience was not expected, though it was taught that in order to receive the blessings of a particular law of God, one must actually obey that law. The choice of whether or not to obey was left to the individual; the blessing to be received was based upon compliance by volition (not coercion).
Re-read my post and see that my language is precise in my questions. I did not ask for proof or evidence to defend the FLDS position, but a better understanding of what that position was, and why.
I do believe in divine revelation, and in personal revelation. I sought it out in the selection of my own spouse, but I didn't look to someone else to get that revelation for me. I believe each and every human being is capable of a personal relationship with God, and of receiving blessings and guidance from Him, regardless of gender, race or religious belief.
Do the FLDS believe that women can receive their own personal revelation? Under what circumstances? Do you and/or the FLDS people believe that all revelation must go through Warren, or can you receive guidance for yourselves individually?
You presume to suggest that non-FLDS marriages are wicked. I assume that is because Warren did not choose our partners for us, nor perform the ceremony or supervise the ones who did. I have been faithfully married to my husband now for 16 years, and there has been no other man, no other husbands. Likewise my husband has remained faithful and kept his covenants.
You refer to divorce, rape and abortion. I would probably, surprisingly, agree with you that the larger society has many unhealthy, dysfunctional relationships and practices; unfortunately, I think that many of those dysfunctionalities and practices also exist in some polygamous families, as they exist anywhere that human beings are. I don't believe polygamy is to blame for these problems; I think co-dependent behaviors are partly to blame, and the insistence of living your life asleep to your own motivations.
I wonder Onthestreet, have the FLDS overcome all these that you have none of them among you? No molestation (rape), no divorce? On average, how many husbands do FLDS women have in a lifetime?
Your explanation of your view of Trinity is fascinating. I have never thought of it that way. In Mormon theology it is taught that the trinity is, indeed, three separate individuals. I have always wondered how other Christians believed about the trinity, but have never had it explained so well.
To your second post: you refer to the problems of polygamy as being a fact that they are numerous. I would take issue with you in one respect: they exist in the same manner in which any problems exist in society. The problems in monogamy are numerous, and that, too, is a fact.
As far as forced licensing or registering of polygamous marriages...I recognize where you are coming from. There would definitely be benefits afforded to plural wives and their children if their marriages were recognized by the state, but from a human rights perspective, I don't agree that these relationships should be "required" to be a legal union. Certainly there are benefits available through the legal sanction of marriage that are not available otherwise, and many people desire those benefits, but no member of the larger society is forced or required to marry legally simply in order to engage in the relationship. The requirement is only there as an incentive to marry legally.
Cohabiting, monogamous couples are not required to marry legally before they can cohabit. Their children are not taken away from them because they have no marriage license.
The reality is that there are no regulations for cohabiting couples, and yet, many of these situations have been proven to swell the welfare rolls and put children at risk of molestation by in-house, revolving boyfriends, etc.
One rationale behind the common law marriage statute is to protect women from the consequences of engaging in a relationship without formal marital recognition by the state.
In concept, I agree with your idea that there should be some requirements met prior to entering into a polygamous marriage, but why shouldn't those requirements be a general standard across the board? (In fact, it would be unConstitutional if it were otherwise.)
Currently, the only requirement in Utah to marry monogamously, with all the blessing and sanctity the state has to offer, is that the parties be 18, or if not 18, have parental consent. (An additional restriction would be that the union cannot be incestuous, homosexual, or polygamous.) There are no other requirements.
They are not required to have finished high school. I'm not sure if there are additional requirements in other states. It seems to me the focus is always age, or restrictions for consanguinity. (Half of U.S. states permit first-cousins to marry, btw.)
Apparently, in Kansas the marriage age is 12! (Refer to recent news about the [monogamous] Nebraska man who got a 13-year-old pregnant, then legally married her, WITH her parents' consent, and is now facing child rape charges in home-state Nebraska for having sex with his now 14-year-old wife. Not one member of the family supports the criminal charges and the girl isn't even in high school yet.)
So, I would support marital requirements but not forced registration of marriages upon anyone simply to engage in a relationship (though my personal value system requires it).
Mercyia interesting - I hadn't realized the LDS view of the trinity was so different. Where does yours come from?
The issue of the girls is a toughie. I always hate legislating to a problem.
It's like the problem of chewing gum. Reasonable kids at school will chew their gum and throw it in the trash, but there is also a huge number of adolescents who have to take that gum and stick it somewhere (under a desk, on the ceiling, floor, locker) so that it makes a nasty mess - and schools are forced to say 'no gum at school'.
Some of these issues are rather like that. Most people are going to insist that their girls not date older men, don't get married in high school etc. Some will let their children behave differently, not a vast majority, but some. It's like gum at Microsoft in Redmond - most of the time it doesn't end up under the desk.
Now we have a specific environment where girls are arranged to be married to old men, when they are still children. This is like the school environment with the gum - happens way to often - something has to be done.
If we tell everyone at Microsoft that they can't chew gum, because the kids at Los Angeles High School are putting gum under the desks it just doesn't make too much sense to everyone else who for the most part hasn't been behaving badly.
I don't think it should be a marriage issue, because that gets too sticky. It should be a child abuse issue.
If a girl is under 18, and the man is much older in the FLDS this is a problem - big nasty problem, happening way to often.
Firstly the issue of consent has popped up, girls feeling compelled, coerced, and forced to marry. Until a girl is at the age of legal consent - her parents are to protect her. This has clearly not happened, so some rules need to be made - strictly for this group of individuals.
Secondly the issue of age regardless of a childs desire to marry. Specifically to this group, girls are encouraged to marry so that they can make it to heaven. So a burning desire to go to heaven fuels a desire to marry a man with many wives. A child desires many things, however, the parents job is to allow their children to dream and desire, but protect them until they are old enough (adult) to make those decisions. This, is not being done. So, in this situation, age limitations need to be placed on children being wed.
Where have all our hero's gone? Why Nathan hale rode for liberty, And Betsy Ross, flew the flag for me. Where have all our hero's gone? And the tax has been heaped, along. Where have all our hero's gone? That carved the roads and built the City. Where have all our hero's gone? And the Little drummer boy; Where is his song? Can it be, that freedom was buried along with them? where is the Pine tree's tall, where a boy can climb? Where is a stream, where a boy can fish with out a fine? Oh, Where have all out hero's gone? I tell you this: I walk for him. I shall walk agian. I shall sing for him, and sing again. I walked for liberty, and he did give it unto me. Where have all our hero's gone? And where is the echo of the song? I am from five generations of Faithful fundimental mormon's. I am not ashamed of my heritage. I hold my Flag for all to see. I speak this in the land of liberty. If you hate me, that is your Debt. If you kill me, there is another grave yet. If I live, I shall walk with him. If I die, I shall walk with them. The Hero's of yesterday. Like Joseph I was sold, and I carried no crime. Tho, you hunt him too, I shall walk again. I say, good country men; What flag do you fly, upon the land. The beggar's pittance or the rich man's traitor law? You fight over land like vulture's, and carry the battle cry. And the government hold's your trumpet. We shall sing the National Anthum and stand upon our land. We will stand with the man who has the right to lead us. Imposters and traitors have no claim upon our soil. And the government is losing across the sea. Where have all the hero's gone, that gave liberty to you? This is the land of Liberty; And liberty's are few, and only if you pay a fine. And cop's are cop's not peace makers on tax time. And crimnal's walk free, and God does hear the women's cry. He does hear the oppressed. He does hear the inacent; Peace be still, as they do to you, they did to me. And your crown will be like mine. I will walk with him, My Lord; upon his land. And traitor's will hold God's word. He gave you all, and you tried to rob him. And soil, is but sand. Left to blow upon the wind. And the hour is closed and you walk the heaven's. And who gave liberty to you? Who gave you land? Who gave you breath? And you fight your country man? With Liberty and the the fine? And they write another bible in the heaven's...."In that hour, the Lord did give: greatest blessings on there head......They fought and squabbled like begger's....not seeing.....his gift was hid....The sun rose...the sun set....and the battle was not over yet........Where have all our hero's gone?
Make no mistake! As you wage this war; God is our defender still. We seek not the feeble things you do. Where Gold will sell a friend or two. We stand with our Lord. And we stand firmly too. You are the one's who fight the fight. You are the one's who wage the war. We await the Second coming of Christ. He has never forsaken the rightouse. We need not your pity. WE need not your censure. We need not your help or your despise. Your professional's and your mental health is deteriorated. In life or death, we serve our Lord.
Atar_i and Mugwump, I very much agree with your comments. Mugwump, the picture you paint of a loving, responsible father is the ideal that I'm sure a great many children long for, due to the large number of single mothers in society. Divorce makes it very difficult for fathers to be as devoted, attentive and consistently present in their children's lives.
Polygamy can do the same, depending on the functionality of the family, the number and ages of the children, and the geographic arrangement of the members. Monogamy does not, unfortunately, guarantee responsible fathers in the home, but again, I do think that what you suggest is the ideal. I personally enjoy those qualities in the man I chose to father my children.
Since I was a second wife to my husband, there could have been a question as to what name my children would be given on their birth certificates (they do have them), but there never was never a doubt as to what we would do. They are his children and he has always claimed them (as he has always claimed me).
A friend of mine shared with me the trauma of having her father arrested for polygamy (cohabitation) during the 1953 raid. He was an independent, and was arrested for nothing more than cohabitation. He didn't marry underage girls, or abuse children. The only time her family used public assistance was while he was in prison. She says that as a child, she had a hard time accepting that this was a land of the "free" while her father served time in prison BECAUSE HE ACKNOWLEDGED her, her mother and her siblings as his family, his responsibility.
Atar_i, I don't like legislating to problems either, mainly because I believe that the freedoms we legislate away are almost impossible to get back, and often have far-reaching impacts that many times are unforseen initially.
Your point is well taken, though, and currently, it appears to be the approach Mark Shurtleff and Terry Goddard are taking. They're going straight to the "abuses", and the protection of minors and children. I have an appreciation for their position because I believe the child protection laws are good laws that serve a valid, significant purpose.
If the FLDS people are sincere in their religious conviction, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt (even if I have a hard time granting that same benefit to Warren), I still can't understand why they can't wait a few years. Would the women up and leave en masse if they were older and wiser before they married?
Those polygamists who are determined to continue to marry minors or commit other abuses, are going to ultimately come face to face with the law. Since the FLDS are unwilling to budge in their determination to continue to arrange marriages to minors, they will end up facing the consequences of their actions, and will have to test the law in the courts.
As far as my view of the trinity: I view the trinity to be the "godhead", which in Mormon theology is comprised of three separate and distinct individuals, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now some of this has evolved in the mainstream LDS Church over the last 100 years, so I can't speak to what is now taught to the current members, though I believe the mainstream church still teaches that the godhead are separate beings.
mugwump post 9:43 am 9/10 It sounds pretty good, the rules that you say should be in place, but the problem arises when in the rest of America you have men who never support the children they father.Also, what about the boys needing a high school education when in the inner cities of this country the literacy rate is abysmal? These are good guidelines but would have to be enforced across all of the strata of society, so it dosen't look too possible. Education, and information are our best options.
To answer your question as to what the Mormons aka LDS believe, they have a website where they have a function where people can look up information as to what they believe.
http://www.mormon.org/
They also have online copies of the Holy Bible KJV as well as the Book Of Mormon, and the Doctrines & Covenants:
http://scriptures.lds.org/
It would appear that they believe the Trinity aka Godhead is made of of three persons who function as one, God the father & Jesus the son have physical bodies, while the Holy Sprit is just that, a spirit. http://www.mormon.org/learn/0,8672,1082-1,00.html
Most other Chirstians believe that the Trinity aka Godhead is made up of three persons who function as one, but all are spritual beings.
Many people around Eldorado, TX are Baptist. Here are the beliefs of the Baptists ie: their version of Doctrine & Covenants.
That is why the constitution was wrote; So that Babtist's could be Babtist's and Mormon's could be Mormon's. I do not believe all Texan's are Babtist's. I know that Mormon's built a Temple in Texas. I see that F.L.D.S. have built there too. I do not say you have to believe like me. I say we have the right as American's to worship how we choose. Take this right away, and you have un-done America. And God himself will put his law back upon the land. It is written, "This land is a land of Promise." If you take that away, he will re-arrange things. I will ask you then; Why would you vote for your own destruction? Undo our great law's and you have made your self's communists. Worship according to the dictates of your consience.
Thank you all for your dialogue. I want to add more in response to your comments, but I'll have to come back to it later
PaladinforTruth: What was the process of selecting spouses in the FLDS pre-Warren? Was it still a form of "arranged" marriage? Were there checks and balances in place and what were they?
If Warren is removed from leadership of that community, what will happen to the people? Will one of Warren's loyal followers assume control? Will the community accept the same type of leadership from someone else?
What God has done, God has done. No man can change it. Your war is upon you. We build for Zion. You shall choose your fate. Will you build Zion, or fight in the war? After the testimonie of the Prophet's come the testimonie of the hail, the wind and the storom's. You call us names and mock us, and all the words of the Prophets are fulfilled. God said, the people upon this land will be a God fearing nation, or I shall destroy them. We did not write the Book. We did not make the law. You fulfil the words with your lies and slander upon us. Zion shall rise in all her Glory. You talk about all the if's and if's! We have a Prophet in Zion.
People can sell their birth right, but What God has done, no man can undo.
I quote: "We did not write the Book. We did not make the law. You fulfil the words with your lies and slander upon us."
Where are the words of the "law" that you preach? Where are they in the "Book"?
Do you realize that you are not the only people who have been teased, mocked, or "presecuted"? All men, all races, at various times in history, have suffered egregious persecution, even to the attempted destruction and annihilation of a specific race or class of people. Look at Rwanda, look at Nazi Germany, look at Bosnia, look at the middle-eatern conflict. Any one can look to the scriptures and see themselves reflected back in the struggles emblazoned in those prophecies. That's why they are so meaningful, but is that truly what God wants us to see? Does He want us to see ourselves as victims, ripened for temporal destruction, simply awaiting His intervention to rescue us? Or does He want us to be actors, givers and saviors of others, reaching out to share our divine heritage with those suffering and in need?
What part have you chosen to play? What are you doing for your fellow man to bring about the salvation of the world, that qualifies you to receive His glory in person?
Onthestreet: If we endeavor to walk in Christ's footsteps, we should examine His life for His perfect example. Christ sat down with "sinners", and did not set about to condemn the world for destruction. He did set Himself up for salvation and leave the rest behind. He did challenge the authority of His day, but with words, not with a claim to power, though He had it at His fingertips. Acting in conjunction with God, what spirit do you bring to that partnership, one to destroy mankind, or one to save mankind?
If you walk in Christ's footsteps, though you might be persecuted and suffer the afflictions He suffered, would you also not seek to forgive as He forgave, to show mercy and compassion as He showed it? Indeed, to give it even as He was put to death?
I meant to say: "He did set Himself up for salvation and leave the rest of the world's conflicts behind." He certainly did not leave all mankind behind. He seeks to bring them with Him, though we each have our own free choice in it.
Mugwump, I reread your post on trinity, and I want to clarify my comments re the salvation. I do not believe that any of us can be literal saviors, but I do believe that as we try to walk in Christ's footsteps, we would want to emulate him. There is a popular question on necklaces that I've seen about lately, "What Would Jesus Do?" or "WWJD?"
This is the question I am really asking of onthestreet. If the FLDS, and onthestreet, believe they are obeying the "law and the prophets" and that they have a prophet in their midst, I am asking them to examine what exactly they are emulating? How can one judge a true or a false prophet? Examination is one method, and hopefully spirituality another.
I do not expect anyone to embrace my view or philosophy, and I certainly don't mean to chase anyone off. I hope you don't see me as "teaching" my beliefs, or trying to promote them, because I am not.
Believe it or not, even though we have a different view of the "trinity", I do very much appreciate your thoughts on the subject.
Well lets see now.. a false prophet would probably make things a lot better for himself than his people, he would most likely think it was his job to help God out with his judgement and punishments, he would take first and the best of everthing, he would probably claim to be as God himself to his people, he would more than likely trash all the scriptures and create new improved ones, and he would probably be immoral and call it some kind of perverted morality by his own definition. He would waste all the financial resorces on big monuments to himself, he would alienate or isolate anyone who knew anything about how it used to be before his time, he would most likely be very inaccessable and unapproachable to his people, and he would do everything in his power to establish himself as the unqestionable authority on everthing. Then he would claim all this was his calling and was done in the name of God and by his word, and he would have some really good rationalizations about why it's all different now than ever before. His message from God would be to give everything to him. And he would make sure that everyone understood that all his many problems were the result of their unworthyness.
And then of course a true prophet wouldn't do any of these things. Or at least he never has before in the history of religion. So, It's hard to tell, I guess. Maybe the answer is just to ask Street. I'm sure he can tell the difference by now.
Wow. Finally some answers. Joseph Smith taught people never to mindlessly obey him. They were to seek personal witness, divine testimony to find out for themselves if what he taught was true. Unquestioned obedience by followers is not the mark of a true prophet according to the founder of Mormonism himself.
Exactly Street...Who would have though you would disagree? Thats why you can't make any sense out of anything else either.
Those would all be good points you've made if every one of them wasn't just a twisted spin on what your fruad prophet is really doing. But then again.. maybe you have it figured out better than he does?
45 comments:
I saw it some time ago. That Watkis is something else. He should hook up with Flora. What a matched pair they are.
Well, I am not much of a Watkis fan, but he has done an excellent job on documenting the FLDS in the Polygamy Diaries. If you have access to a high speed internet and a computer that can handle video, I recommend going to the TV station website and watching all the video's. It can take you several days, but if you want to put faces to names, it is a great place to start.
Are you talking about the Donny Deutsch show? The guy was a jerk. I saw some of a show he did on a high paid hooker who has written a book about her life, and he was all over himself to be understanding of her "lifestyle choice", etc. But he can't do an honest assessment of "polygamy." My problem with Watkiss is that for a long time he failed to understand that the FLDS are not the only polygamists around. He seems to be learning the distinction, finally, and the reports he's done with Centennial Park, for example, have been good.
I really have no idea who the guy was - I came in mid stream and there was no new information so I'm not suprised it's old. How old do you think it was?
I have seen most of his polygamy diaries and it didn't take long at all - they were just short little blips (I have a wide line - so perhaps it's faster?) He did do a good job identifying all the players and explaining the situation.
I think any one who dives into the issue of polgyamy realizes fairly quickly that the 'hot issue' isn't necissarily having plural wives. It's having *adolescent* plural wives, and then of course the issues that spin from that (welfare and lost boys).
Plural marriage suprises me, especially for a group that is quite conservative, but beyond the 'oh my gosh' factor and the 'stop asking the taxpayers to support your lifestyle/religion' factor - I could care less how many women your husbands sleep with.
Don't try and change the subject.
We merely state that if the FLDS change a few hurtful ways in which they treat their children they will receive less/little attention. You can make this about persecution of your religion - but that's not really what it's about.
You could be agnostic, and they would still come after the individuals who perpetuate the issues that are endemic in your previous (since your now not one of them) community.
But this isn't even about LDS or FLDS or Buhdism or Hinduism or Taoism or any other religion.
It's basically about not hurting your children. Stop the hurtful behavior and everyone will walk away from you.
I wonder what Mugwump would do if someone starting persuading him that the Bible was more ridiculous that Greek Mythology.
Convince a man against his will,
He's of the same opinion still.
Why must people argue about scripture? Do they feel better when they put others down?
It certainly doesn't lift them any higher by doing so.
No OTS, stop sexualizing your little girls. NO one has the right to sexualize a child in the name of religion.
Stop neglecting your young boys. That's not straight and narrow, thats refusal to take care of a child.
'Let the little children come unto me'
God has a pretty big heart for little kids, and before you so cavalierly hurt them in the name of your religion - you should think twice.
Mugwump and OTS both need a good bitch-slap. Where's Richard Simmons when you need him?
Very good comeback Mugwump!
BEWARE....OF YOUR NEIGHBORS OF THE YFZ. NO TELLING WHAT UNCLE WARREN IS PREACHING TO THOSE YOUNG ADULTS AND CHILDREN BEHIND THOSE LOCKED GATES IN TEXAS.
You know, I lose interest in these discussions when they become subverted with religious dogmatic finger-pointing. I don't care if someone thinks Joseph Smith is a liar, and someone else worships him as a prophet of God. I think we could acknowledge a differing perspective without getting nasty about it. That notwithstanding, I am curious about a few things.
Onthestreet: I've heard some argue that Mary was 14 when she conceived Jesus Christ, and some of your comments reflect a similar view of this. My question to you is what is your community's doctrine that demands that your members MUST 1) marry by arrangement under the instruction of your "prophet", to whomever he deems appropriate, and 2) marry young?
Allowing that men and women have married at young ages throughout history, does this mean that it is a requirement of God to marry young, or that it is simply permitted by God (and not considered a sin), but not required?
I am not familiar with anything from Mormon theology or early Mormon teachings that either Arranged Marriages, or Young Marriages are required by God in order to live the fulness of the Gospel as taught by Joseph Smith. If the FLDS believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet, I'm curious where they derive these two teachings, especially since onthestreet asserts that if his community departs from these teachings, then they depart from the "STRAIGHT AND NARROW" way.
Do they depart because marrying young is a requirement of God? Or is it because they are not being obedient to the will of their prophet?
I can't answer for Street, but the FLDS are religiously speaking following the old text as though the old testament, where by the LDS or Mormon or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the new revised or New Testament so to speak. Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon 1830 version did not promote polygamy. When the Pearl of Great Price was published in 1851, Joseph Smith was nearly 7 years deceased and it was reported to be his earlier writings, which in effect had countered parts of his earlier writings in 1830.
In the some what twisted theology, Mr. Smith stated it was wrong to marry sisters and or a mother daughter. Both of which occured in his own relationships. The Partridge sisters are well documented and per this age of 14, Sarah Kimball was 14 and barely shy of her 15th birthday, thus the FLDS might recognize age 14 per or by example of the former prophet.
Many have defended age 12 as the age of Mary and have justified that age as an age of maturity for some young women. When puberty is past and procreation for survival was the rule of the day in less civilized times, such may have occured.
The old testament also spoke of stonings and the death of a prophet who had been wrong only ONCE! I don't believe the faithful wish to hold their leader Warren to a single standard. A double standard however that is selective, one that allows the leader to be wrong, while treating women as chattel and violating child protection laws, better suits some here and is why so many will not recognize this as a bonafide religion.
Those within the LDS faith would be better suited to defer their response to Mike Otterson, spokesman over Dale Bills of the mainstream LDS church.
The doctrine followed by the FLDS is one in the same with the mainstream church, but back dated. There is a history in common, but a present belief that is very different.
Sarah was married in a spiitual and secret ceremony on July 7 1842. Her father Heber C. Kimball started into polygamy with great reluctantcy, but was really involved after the migration to Utah, about 5 years after his daughters marriage. Emily Dow Partridge was married March 4 of 1843, followed by her sister, Eliza M. Partridge on March 8th of the same year, only 4 days later. The sister were young, though not as young as Sarah Kimball.
If you follow the Smith teachings, it does not justify the age, though by example many would assume, what was right for the prophet must be correct. As for the prophet being the only who can perform marriage selection, Smith was adamant about this being so!
MIB
To answer the questions of two religions a past in common, but seperated by the present, the following might be an allie for OTS. More than apostates monitor these message boards. No doubt Warren is having someone watch these boards and to an audience of ONE, OTS may well be demonstrating his faith, against all odds!
Arguing facts, is always met by arguing religion and abuse need not be under that umbrella!
The defense is refered to as "circling the wagons" and it effectively brings those with a common belief together. Pointing blame is a component of the defense and it avoids answering those simple and basic questions. A answer to a question is another question and 2+2 makes 3!
Just keep in mind as I have previously stated there are many reading these boards. The media of course, law enforcement, the FLDS attorneys, those representing both the LDS & FLDS churches and more! I have no doubts as to the audience OTS is playing to and its not you or I!
There are several message boards on a "to monitor" list the Texas Polygamy Blog is one of many.
Taken from http://www.fairlds.org/
Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism
by Daniel C. Peterson
A Message Board Jam-Packed with Angry Apostates
I will pass over very quickly a message board that I like to monitor that is, in its way, a kind of wildlife preserve for secular anti-Mormons. Some of you are probably familiar with it. Although it is of unquestionable sociological and psychological interest, it offers little if anything of intellectual merit. What was once said of William Jennings Bryan could be said of even many of the star posters on this message board: "One could steer a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact." Several, even, of the posters with the greatest intellectual pretensions on the board have consistently demonstrated themselves incapable of accurately summarizing Latter-day Saint positions and arguments, let alone of genuinely engaging them. It's hard not to think in this context of Groucho Marx: "From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down," Groucho wrote to the novelist Sydney Perelman, "I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it." Many on this particular message board seem to be of the same mentality as the academic who was asked whether he had read the new book by Professor Jones. "Read it?" he replied. "Why, I haven't even reviewed it yet!"
What the board does offer are displays of bravado, strutting, believers' arguments completely misunderstood and misrepresented, bold challenges hurled out to those who are barred from responding, and guffaws of triumph over enemies who are not permitted to reply. Dissent is rigidly excluded from this board, even as its denizens criticize the Church for its supposed "repressiveness." However, notwithstanding the rigorous exclusion of all troublesome dissent from their domain, the faith these posters have in their own unanswerably brilliant selves is oddly refreshing to see in atheists, whom you wouldn't expect to believe in any God at all.
Voltaire once explained that "My prayer to God is a very short one: 'Oh, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' God," he said, "has granted it."
But this doesn't exhaust the pleasures of that message board. It is rife with personal abuse and bloodcurdling hostility, not uncommonly obscene, directed against people they don't know and haven't even met--against President Hinckley, Joseph Smith, the Brethren, the general membership of the Church, and even, somewhat obsessively, against one particular rather insignificant BYU professor. Ordinary members of the Church--Morgbots or Morons or Sheeple, in the jargon of the board--are routinely stereotyped as insane, tyrannical, cheap, bigoted, ill-mannered, irrational, sexually repressed, stupid, greedy, foolish, rude, poor tippers, sick, brain-dead, and uncultured. There was once even a thread--and I'm not making this up--devoted to discussing how Mormons noisily slurp their soup in restaurants. Posts frequently lament the stupidity and gullibility of Church leaders, neighbors, parents, spouses, siblings, and even offspring--who may be wholly unaware of the anonymous poster's secret double life of contemptuous disbelief. It is a splendid cyber illustration of the finger pointing and mocking found in the "great and spacious building" of 1 Nephi. Whenever the poisonous culture of the place is criticized, however, its defenders take refuge in the culture of victimhood, deploying a supposed need for therapeutic self-expression as their all-encompassing excuse.
Contemplating a depressing number of the posters on that board, I've thought to myself, "If this is what liberation from the Mormon 'myth' makes you--a vulgar and sometimes duplicitous crank, cackling with malice and spite--then I would prefer to spend the few brief years left to me (before I dissolve into the irreversible and never-ending oblivion many of the board's posters prophecy for me and all humankind) with people who haven't been liberated. I think of the apostates of Ammonihah, mocking Alma and Amulek in prison, "gnashing their teeth upon them, and spitting upon them, and saying: How shall we look when we are damned?"1 Surely the damned will not look much different than this.
But I'm troubled by the capacity even of far less malevolent message boards to supply a supportive sort of ersatz community as an alternative to the fellowship of the Saints, and I worry about what participation on even relatively benign boards does to some Latter-day Saint souls. I have in mind one frequent poster in particular, who claims simply to be doubting and troubled, but who in fact never misses an opportunity for a snide remark about his Church, in which he remains active, and its teachings. These teachings involve weighty matters of utmost import. Millions have placed their hopes in the gospel's message, and, if this were false, it would be tragic and unutterably sad. Perhaps the cynicism that this poster and many others cultivate is no more than a psychologically understandable defensive shell, a self-protective whistling past the graveyard of doubt. But, even so, it is a shell that will, I fear, block the Spirit. I am not optimistic about his long-term prospects, barring a fundamental shift in attitude (and, even less hopefully, perhaps in personality).
Characteristic of much secularizing anti-Mormon participation on the Web is a corrosive cynicism that, in my experience, will erode anything with which it comes in contact. It is not so much a reasoned intellectual stance as an attitude, or even, perhaps, a personality type. Those afflicted with such cynicism are like the dwarfs in the last book of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, who are, as Aslan expresses it, so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. Such people claim to know the price of everything and everyone, but they seem to recognize the value of nothing. But the problem may well be in the cynic rather than in the object of his scorn. "No man," as the French saying goes, "is a hero to his valet."2 Why? The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel is surely right when he responds: "This is not because the hero is no hero, but because the valet is a valet."3
Thanks Jay and Mercyia
Onthestreet:
You didn't read my post very well. First of all, you clearly took my "dogmatic finger-pointing" comment personally. The comment was not intended to say that I don't find religious references or quoting welcome, but I prefer not to move into discussions where dogmatic preaching of religious views refuse to allow that other perspectives might actually be moral and acceptable, even if they are different.
Some of your comments do provide an example of what I'm saying, however. In your response to me, you say: "Marriage is of God to us, like I just explained it above. Yet you have made it of man, selecting your mates by your own wisdom, usually lack thereof..."
My response to you is, WHAT? You feel very comfortable impuning beliefs, actions and motives to me without any real knowledge.
Since I don't know much about you or the FLDS (except what I have read in the papers), I figured I'd ask.
I did not proclaim the Bible to be my only scripture and in any way deny Mormonism. I happen to be an Independent Fundamentalist Mormon. What I do not feel the need to do, however, is spring to a determined defense of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, or the Bible just because someone posts something negative about one of them. Arguing scriptures is not of interest to me.
I AM, on the other hand, curious as to the rationale behind the belief system of your community. I'm not trying to attack you or your beliefs, but I really don't understand where they come from, because I do not recognize any teaching of Joseph Smith's or other early leaders of the church that preach perfect obedience to the prophet, or that the prophet alone could and MUST choose spouses for LDS members. In fact, Joseph Smith taught often that the members should build their own testimony through prayer and personal revelation. This was also a practice of the church, since Joseph's revelations were presented to the body of the church to be voted on. The church always had the right to accept or reject any revelation of Joseph's. Perfect obedience was not expected, though it was taught that in order to receive the blessings of a particular law of God, one must actually obey that law. The choice of whether or not to obey was left to the individual; the blessing to be received was based upon compliance by volition (not coercion).
Re-read my post and see that my language is precise in my questions. I did not ask for proof or evidence to defend the FLDS position, but a better understanding of what that position was, and why.
I do believe in divine revelation, and in personal revelation. I sought it out in the selection of my own spouse, but I didn't look to someone else to get that revelation for me. I believe each and every human being is capable of a personal relationship with God, and of receiving blessings and guidance from Him, regardless of gender, race or religious belief.
Do the FLDS believe that women can receive their own personal revelation? Under what circumstances? Do you and/or the FLDS people believe that all revelation must go through Warren, or can you receive guidance for yourselves individually?
You presume to suggest that non-FLDS marriages are wicked. I assume that is because Warren did not choose our partners for us, nor perform the ceremony or supervise the ones who did. I have been faithfully married to my husband now for 16 years, and there has been no other man, no other husbands. Likewise my husband has remained faithful and kept his covenants.
You refer to divorce, rape and abortion. I would probably, surprisingly, agree with you that the larger society has many unhealthy, dysfunctional relationships and practices; unfortunately, I think that many of those dysfunctionalities and practices also exist in some polygamous families, as they exist anywhere that human beings are. I don't believe polygamy is to blame for these problems; I think co-dependent behaviors are partly to blame, and the insistence of living your life asleep to your own motivations.
I wonder Onthestreet, have the FLDS overcome all these that you have none of them among you? No molestation (rape), no divorce? On average, how many husbands do FLDS women have in a lifetime?
You go girl!
Mugwump:
Your explanation of your view of Trinity is fascinating. I have never thought of it that way. In Mormon theology it is taught that the trinity is, indeed, three separate individuals. I have always wondered how other Christians believed about the trinity, but have never had it explained so well.
To your second post: you refer to the problems of polygamy as being a fact that they are numerous. I would take issue with you in one respect: they exist in the same manner in which any problems exist in society. The problems in monogamy are numerous, and that, too, is a fact.
As far as forced licensing or registering of polygamous marriages...I recognize where you are coming from. There would definitely be benefits afforded to plural wives and their children if their marriages were recognized by the state, but from a human rights perspective, I don't agree that these relationships should be "required" to be a legal union. Certainly there are benefits available through the legal sanction of marriage that are not available otherwise, and many people desire those benefits, but no member of the larger society is forced or required to marry legally simply in order to engage in the relationship. The requirement is only there as an incentive to marry legally.
Cohabiting, monogamous couples are not required to marry legally before they can cohabit. Their children are not taken away from them because they have no marriage license.
The reality is that there are no regulations for cohabiting couples, and yet, many of these situations have been proven to swell the welfare rolls and put children at risk of molestation by in-house, revolving boyfriends, etc.
One rationale behind the common law marriage statute is to protect women from the consequences of engaging in a relationship without formal marital recognition by the state.
In concept, I agree with your idea that there should be some requirements met prior to entering into a polygamous marriage, but why shouldn't those requirements be a general standard across the board? (In fact, it would be unConstitutional if it were otherwise.)
Currently, the only requirement in Utah to marry monogamously, with all the blessing and sanctity the state has to offer, is that the parties be 18, or if not 18, have parental consent. (An additional restriction would be that the union cannot be incestuous, homosexual, or polygamous.) There are no other requirements.
They are not required to have finished high school. I'm not sure if there are additional requirements in other states. It seems to me the focus is always age, or restrictions for consanguinity. (Half of U.S. states permit first-cousins to marry, btw.)
Apparently, in Kansas the marriage age is 12! (Refer to recent news about the [monogamous] Nebraska man who got a 13-year-old pregnant, then legally married her, WITH her parents' consent, and is now facing child rape charges in home-state Nebraska for having sex with his now 14-year-old wife. Not one member of the family supports the criminal charges and the girl isn't even in high school yet.)
So, I would support marital requirements but not forced registration of marriages upon anyone simply to engage in a relationship (though my personal value system requires it).
Mercyia interesting - I hadn't realized the LDS view of the trinity was so different. Where does yours come from?
The issue of the girls is a toughie. I always hate legislating to a problem.
It's like the problem of chewing gum. Reasonable kids at school will chew their gum and throw it in the trash, but there is also a huge number of adolescents who have to take that gum and stick it somewhere (under a desk, on the ceiling, floor, locker) so that it makes a nasty mess - and schools are forced to say 'no gum at school'.
Some of these issues are rather like that. Most people are going to insist that their girls not date older men, don't get married in high school etc. Some will let their children behave differently, not a vast majority, but some. It's like gum at Microsoft in Redmond - most of the time it doesn't end up under the desk.
Now we have a specific environment where girls are arranged to be married to old men, when they are still children. This is like the school environment with the gum - happens way to often - something has to be done.
If we tell everyone at Microsoft that they can't chew gum, because the kids at Los Angeles High School are putting gum under the desks it just doesn't make too much sense to everyone else who for the most part hasn't been behaving badly.
I don't think it should be a marriage issue, because that gets too sticky. It should be a child abuse issue.
If a girl is under 18, and the man is much older in the FLDS this is a problem - big nasty problem, happening way to often.
Firstly the issue of consent has popped up, girls feeling compelled, coerced, and forced to marry. Until a girl is at the age of legal consent - her parents are to protect her. This has clearly not happened, so some rules need to be made - strictly for this group of individuals.
Secondly the issue of age regardless of a childs desire to marry. Specifically to this group, girls are encouraged to marry so that they can make it to heaven. So a burning desire to go to heaven fuels a desire to marry a man with many wives. A child desires many things, however, the parents job is to allow their children to dream and desire, but protect them until they are old enough (adult) to make those decisions. This, is not being done. So, in this situation, age limitations need to be placed on children being wed.
.02
Where have all our hero's gone?
Why Nathan hale rode for liberty,
And Betsy Ross, flew the flag for me.
Where have all our hero's gone?
And the tax has been heaped, along.
Where have all our hero's gone?
That carved the roads and built the City. Where have all our hero's gone?
And the Little drummer boy; Where is his song?
Can it be, that freedom was buried along with them? where is the Pine tree's tall, where a boy can climb? Where is a stream, where a boy can fish with out a fine?
Oh, Where have all out hero's gone?
I tell you this: I walk for him. I shall walk agian. I shall sing for him, and sing again. I walked for liberty, and he did give it unto me. Where have all our hero's gone? And where is the echo of the song? I am from five generations of Faithful fundimental mormon's. I am not ashamed of my heritage. I hold my Flag for all to see. I speak this in the land of liberty. If you hate me, that is your Debt. If you kill me, there is another grave yet. If I live, I shall walk with him. If I die, I shall walk with them. The Hero's of yesterday. Like Joseph I was sold, and I carried no crime. Tho, you hunt him too, I shall walk again. I say, good country men; What flag do you fly, upon the land. The beggar's pittance or the rich man's traitor law? You fight over land like vulture's, and carry the battle cry. And the government hold's your trumpet. We shall sing the National Anthum and stand upon our land. We will stand with the man who has the right to lead us. Imposters and traitors have no claim upon our soil. And the government is losing across the sea. Where have all the hero's gone, that gave liberty to you?
This is the land of Liberty;
And liberty's are few, and only if you pay a fine. And cop's are cop's not peace makers on tax time. And crimnal's walk free, and God does hear the women's cry. He does hear the oppressed. He does hear the inacent; Peace be still, as they do to you, they did to me. And your crown will be like mine. I will walk with him, My Lord; upon his land. And traitor's will hold God's word. He gave you all, and you tried to rob him. And soil, is but sand. Left to blow upon the wind. And the hour is closed and you walk the heaven's. And who gave liberty to you? Who gave you land? Who gave you breath? And you fight your country man? With Liberty and the the fine?
And they write another bible in the heaven's...."In that hour, the Lord did give: greatest blessings on there head......They fought and squabbled like begger's....not seeing.....his gift was hid....The sun rose...the sun set....and the battle was not over yet........Where have all our hero's gone?
Make no mistake! As you wage this war; God is our defender still. We seek not the feeble things you do. Where Gold will sell a friend or two. We stand with our Lord. And we stand firmly too. You are the one's who fight the fight. You are the one's who wage the war. We await the Second coming of Christ. He has never forsaken the rightouse. We need not your pity. WE need not your censure. We need not your help or your despise. Your professional's and your mental health is deteriorated. In life or death, we serve our Lord.
Atar_i and Mugwump, I very much agree with your comments. Mugwump, the picture you paint of a loving, responsible father is the ideal that I'm sure a great many children long for, due to the large number of single mothers in society. Divorce makes it very difficult for fathers to be as devoted, attentive and consistently present in their children's lives.
Polygamy can do the same, depending on the functionality of the family, the number and ages of the children, and the geographic arrangement of the members. Monogamy does not, unfortunately, guarantee responsible fathers in the home, but again, I do think that what you suggest is the ideal. I personally enjoy those qualities in the man I chose to father my children.
Since I was a second wife to my husband, there could have been a question as to what name my children would be given on their birth certificates (they do have them), but there never was never a doubt as to what we would do. They are his children and he has always claimed them (as he has always claimed me).
A friend of mine shared with me the trauma of having her father arrested for polygamy (cohabitation) during the 1953 raid. He was an independent, and was arrested for nothing more than cohabitation. He didn't marry underage girls, or abuse children. The only time her family used public assistance was while he was in prison. She says that as a child, she had a hard time accepting that this was a land of the "free" while her father served time in prison BECAUSE HE ACKNOWLEDGED her, her mother and her siblings as his family, his responsibility.
Atar_i, I don't like legislating to problems either, mainly because I believe that the freedoms we legislate away are almost impossible to get back, and often have far-reaching impacts that many times are unforseen initially.
Your point is well taken, though, and currently, it appears to be the approach Mark Shurtleff and Terry Goddard are taking. They're going straight to the "abuses", and the protection of minors and children. I have an appreciation for their position because I believe the child protection laws are good laws that serve a valid, significant purpose.
If the FLDS people are sincere in their religious conviction, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt (even if I have a hard time granting that same benefit to Warren), I still can't understand why they can't wait a few years. Would the women up and leave en masse if they were older and wiser before they married?
Those polygamists who are determined to continue to marry minors or commit other abuses, are going to ultimately come face to face with the law. Since the FLDS are unwilling to budge in their determination to continue to arrange marriages to minors, they will end up facing the consequences of their actions, and will have to test the law in the courts.
As far as my view of the trinity: I view the trinity to be the "godhead",
which in Mormon theology is comprised of three separate and distinct individuals, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now some of this has evolved in the mainstream LDS Church over the last 100 years, so I can't speak to what is now taught to the current members, though I believe the mainstream church still teaches that the godhead are separate beings.
Onthestreet, I find it interesting that you chose to completely ignore my questions. Should I take this to mean that you really don't have an answer?
mugwump post 9:43 am 9/10
It sounds pretty good, the rules that you say should be in place, but the problem arises when in the rest of America you have men who never support the children they father.Also, what about the boys needing a high school education when in the inner cities of this country the literacy rate is abysmal?
These are good guidelines but would have to be enforced across all of the strata of society, so it dosen't look too possible.
Education, and information are our best options.
Merycia,
To answer your question as to what the Mormons aka LDS believe, they have a website where they have a function where people can look up information as to what they believe.
http://www.mormon.org/
They also have online copies of the Holy Bible KJV as well as the Book Of Mormon, and the Doctrines & Covenants:
http://scriptures.lds.org/
It would appear that they believe the Trinity aka Godhead is made of of three persons who function as one, God the father & Jesus the son have physical bodies, while the Holy Sprit is just that, a spirit.
http://www.mormon.org/learn/0,8672,1082-1,00.html
Most other Chirstians believe that the Trinity aka Godhead is made up of three persons who function as one, but all are spritual beings.
Many people around Eldorado, TX are Baptist. Here are the beliefs of the Baptists ie: their version of Doctrine & Covenants.
http://www.bgct.org/TexasBaptists/Document.Doc?&id=569
Now mugawaump will be displeased with this info being posted, don't think he likes Baptists or Mormons.
That is why the constitution was wrote; So that Babtist's could be Babtist's and Mormon's could be Mormon's. I do not believe all Texan's are Babtist's. I know that Mormon's built a Temple in Texas. I see that F.L.D.S. have built there too. I do not say you have to believe like me. I say we have the right as American's to worship how we choose. Take this right away, and you have un-done America.
And God himself will put his law back upon the land. It is written, "This land is a land of Promise." If you take that away, he will re-arrange things. I will ask you then; Why would you vote for your own destruction? Undo our great law's and you have made your self's communists. Worship according to the dictates of your consience.
Thank you all for your dialogue. I want to add more in response to your comments, but I'll have to come back to it later
PaladinforTruth: What was the process of selecting spouses in the FLDS pre-Warren? Was it still a form of "arranged" marriage? Were there checks and balances in place and what were they?
If Warren is removed from leadership of that community, what will happen to the people? Will one of Warren's loyal followers assume control? Will the community accept the same type of leadership from someone else?
Anyone feel free to answer.
What God has done, God has done. No man can change it.
Your war is upon you. We build for Zion. You shall choose your fate. Will you build Zion, or fight in the war? After the testimonie of the Prophet's come the testimonie of the hail, the wind and the storom's. You call us names and mock us, and all the words of the Prophets are fulfilled. God said, the people upon this land will be a God fearing nation, or I shall destroy them.
We did not write the Book. We did not make the law. You fulfil the words with your lies and slander upon us.
Zion shall rise in all her Glory. You talk about all the if's and if's! We have a Prophet in Zion.
People can sell their birth right, but What God has done, no man can undo.
I quote: "We did not write the Book. We did not make the law. You fulfil the words with your lies and slander upon us."
Where are the words of the "law" that you preach? Where are they in the "Book"?
Do you realize that you are not the only people who have been teased, mocked, or "presecuted"? All men, all races, at various times in history, have suffered egregious persecution, even to the attempted destruction and annihilation of a specific race or class of people. Look at Rwanda, look at Nazi Germany, look at Bosnia, look at the middle-eatern conflict. Any one can look to the scriptures and see themselves reflected back in the struggles emblazoned in those prophecies. That's why they are so meaningful, but is that truly what God wants us to see? Does He want us to see ourselves as victims, ripened for temporal destruction, simply awaiting His intervention to rescue us? Or does He want us to be actors, givers and saviors of others, reaching out to share our divine heritage with those suffering and in need?
What part have you chosen to play? What are you doing for your fellow man to bring about the salvation of the world, that qualifies you to receive His glory in person?
Onthestreet: If we endeavor to walk in Christ's footsteps, we should examine His life for His perfect example. Christ sat down with "sinners", and did not set about to condemn the world for destruction. He did set Himself up for salvation and leave the rest behind. He did challenge the authority of His day, but with words, not with a claim to power, though He had it at His fingertips. Acting in conjunction with God, what spirit do you bring to that partnership, one to destroy mankind, or one to save mankind?
If you walk in Christ's footsteps, though you might be persecuted and suffer the afflictions He suffered, would you also not seek to forgive as He forgave, to show mercy and compassion as He showed it? Indeed, to give it even as He was put to death?
I meant to say: "He did set Himself up for salvation and leave the rest of the world's conflicts behind." He certainly did not leave all mankind behind. He seeks to bring them with Him, though we each have our own free choice in it.
Mugwump, I reread your post on trinity, and I want to clarify my comments re the salvation. I do not believe that any of us can be literal saviors, but I do believe that as we try to walk in Christ's footsteps, we would want to emulate him. There is a popular question on necklaces that I've seen about lately, "What Would Jesus Do?" or "WWJD?"
This is the question I am really asking of onthestreet. If the FLDS, and onthestreet, believe they are obeying the "law and the prophets" and that they have a prophet in their midst, I am asking them to examine what exactly they are emulating? How can one judge a true or a false prophet? Examination is one method, and hopefully spirituality another.
I do not expect anyone to embrace my view or philosophy, and I certainly don't mean to chase anyone off. I hope you don't see me as "teaching" my beliefs, or trying to promote them, because I am not.
Believe it or not, even though we have a different view of the "trinity", I do very much appreciate your thoughts on the subject.
Boy Street You hit the nail on the head saying some of you have offered up alot of interesting details. The devil is in the details."
Street What is your postion on the Jewish population. Will they see Zion.
Boy Street You hit the nail on the head saying some of you have offered up alot of interesting details. The devil is in the details."
Street What is your postion on the Jewish population. Will they see Zion.
ots is hallucinating again
Well lets see now.. a false prophet would probably make things a lot better for himself than his people, he would most likely think it was his job to help God out with his judgement and punishments, he would take first and the best of everthing, he would probably claim to be as God himself to his people, he would more than likely trash all the scriptures and create new improved ones, and he would probably be immoral and call it some kind of perverted morality by his own definition. He would waste all the financial resorces on big monuments to himself, he would alienate or isolate anyone who knew anything about how it used to be before his time, he would most likely be very inaccessable and unapproachable to his people, and he would do everything in his power to establish himself as the unqestionable authority on everthing. Then he would claim all this was his calling and was done in the name of God and by his word, and he would have some really good rationalizations about why it's all different now than ever before. His message from God would be to give everything to him. And he would make sure that everyone understood that all his many problems were the result of their unworthyness.
And then of course a true prophet wouldn't do any of these things. Or at least he never has before in the history of religion. So, It's hard to tell, I guess. Maybe the answer is just to ask Street. I'm sure he can tell the difference by now.
Anon 7:42
Very good analogy!
Wow. Finally some answers. Joseph Smith taught people never to mindlessly obey him. They were to seek personal witness, divine testimony to find out for themselves if what he taught was true. Unquestioned obedience by followers is not the mark of a true prophet according to the founder of Mormonism himself.
Exactly Street...Who would have though you would disagree? Thats why you can't make any sense out of anything else either.
Those would all be good points you've made if every one of them wasn't just a twisted spin on what your fruad prophet is really doing. But then again.. maybe you have it figured out better than he does?
Boy, what are you doing up at 3 in the morning?
Mugwump sounds like he got hold of Street's scriptures. I want a copy where did you find it?
It's a lot better than your always clanging on it Street.
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