Joseph Smith

Jesus Christ chose a holy man, a righteous man, to lead the Restoration of the fulness of His gospel. He chose Joseph Smith.

“A righteous man” – it’s an interesting phrase.  What con-notates “Righteous”?  What makes a man wicked?

Traditionally, members are praised as “Righteous” when they follow the prophet, but Joseph Smith Jr. did not follow the religious leaders of his day.  Instead, he opposed them.

The good spoken of Joseph Smith came slowly; the evil speaking began immediately.

 

This is not historically accurate.  Although Joseph recounts gunfire at him, or men surrounding the Smith home to take the plates, or himself fighting off half a dozen men while carrying a 60 lbs object, no one in Palmyra in mentioned as having injuries.  The individuals who try and get the plates are mentioned by name in the Ensign:  Samuel Lawrence, Willard Chase, Lumen Walters, among others, but none of these mention any of their group sustaining injuries as Joseph Smith describes.

Even the instance of the Preacher rejecting Joseph’s vision in 1820 does not match any preacher or similar discussion in that time period such that apologists have had to look for visiting preachers from other areas as a possibility that Joseph actually had such a conversation.

I put forward another hypothesis: “The evil speaking came forward as Joseph Smith broke the law, broke trust with those around him, and generally was disorderly”

For example, Joseph Smith Jr., having obtained the plates, had Willard Chase make a box for those plates to go in.  Joseph had signed a treasure hunting agreement, saying he would share any treasure dug up with the rest of the group that Willard was a member in.  Flaunting that he had gold plates and was not sharing in front of the treasure hunting group he was breaking an agreement with lead to the group looking for the plates.  It is just after Joseph asks for that box to be built that the group meets at Samuel Lawrence’s house to try and obtain the plates.

Further, when Joseph’s Kirtland Safety Society fails and he is unable to make payments on the money he loaned, the individuals come to collect the land in Joseph Smith’s name.  This is what any bank or other lender would do if one defaulted on a mortgage or secured loan today and was normal then.  Joseph put people in houses on land that he used as loan collateral.  Saints were not mercilessly driven out of Kirtland, but homes were seized as payment on loans Joseph did not pay.

Joseph’s polygamy was a concern for William Law; who was in the First Presidency of the Church, but William Law did not take action until Joseph married the Lawerence sisters.  You see, the Lawrence sisters were orphans who had a sizable inheritance.  Joseph had already squandered the Partridge sister’s money when he married them polygamously (That is to say, in a non-legal arrangement).  William Law’s concern for the future of the Lawrence girls drove him to publish the Nauvoo Expositor; the press that when Joseph had destroyed, he was rightfully sent to prison over until the case should be evaluated (If a mayor ordered a newspaper in his down burned down and all the servers destroyed, he would be rightfully detained until a court trial could be arranged.  His stay in jail would be just and correct.  Joseph Smith Jr.’s situation was no different.

These are only three examples of how Joseph’s actions came before the evil speaking of his name.

“The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee;

“While the pure in heart, … the wise, … and the virtuous, shall seek … blessings constantly from under thy hand.”⁷

This is an easy prophesy.  Every human could make it about themselves.  If they go on to do something great, that action will always cause others who have different beliefs or thoughts to scorn or negatively comment.  If one passes into obscurity, the prophesy would never be known either, and so the observers of prophesy would seem to see that prophets always named individuals of great importance before they became great.

Further, Joseph did not record this interaction until it was already being fulfilled.  No record of Moroni’s visit stating these words exists from 1824.  As such, it’s hardly a prophesy.

Joseph Smith is the prophet of the Restoration. His spiritual work began with the appearance of the Father and the Son, followed by numerous heavenly visitations. He was the instrument in God’s hands in bringing forth sacred scripture, lost doctrine, and the restoration of the priesthood. The importance of Joseph’s work requires more than intellectual consideration; it requires that we, like Joseph, “ask of God.”⁹ Spiritual questions deserve spiritual answers from God.

Let us use his own definition for what “Righteous man” means:

If Joseph did not see God the Father and the son in 1820; he is not a righteous man.  We can discuss how only after another boy claimed to see them as separate individuals did Joseph make this claim, or how Joseph cannot even remember how old he is when he had this experience (14,15,16, 17 and 19 are all ages Joseph Smith claims for this vision).  We can discuss the different versions of this vision.  Perhaps we should just say that God, who demands two or more witnesses according to scripture, did not give more witnesses of this account and let’s move on to point two:

Joseph Smith brought forth sacred scripture.  In the Book of Abraham, we can see a clear forgery, a funery text from 500 B.C. (Contemporary with Lehi and Nephi, for goodness sake) being called written by Abraham’s own hand.  With the Kinderhook plates, we see a clear attempt at deception.  With Adamic tongue we see gibberish passed off as the perfect language.  We see anachronisms in the Book of Mormon.  Why then should we give him credit for his Sacred Scripture as an indication of righteousness?  Further he snuck behind his wife’s back to marry 33-40 women, with many of these relationships not allowing for consent, and then blaming the rape-nature of these relationships on God.  Is that the low-bar for righteousness?

And now for perhaps the most dastardly claim in the whole piece.  That one cannot intellectually judge Joseph Smith, but one must spiritually do so.  Why does god fear unbiased testing so much?  Why is He all powerful until one introduces a confidence interval, or statistical certainty?  Did god give us logical brains just to discard them?  Why must the spiritual make no logical sense?

Why call a philandering liar a “Righteous man”?  Why call forgeries “Sacred Scripture”?  Why use a rock from a well, when divine implements were at hand?  Why spend generations having individuals carve stories on plates not to be read?

It’s not that I cannot suspend disbelief, it’s that such levels of contrast between logic and spiritual knowledge should not go unchallenged if we are to call ourselves “Reasonable humans”.  I once met a woman who insisted that Jesus appeared to her and told her to go to Africa, though an elephant on a picture.  He also insisted that she give cigarettes to children.  Should I judge her without my logical mind, and rely only upon the spiritual.

Conclusion

If we are to call Joseph Smith a righteous man, that measure should be a standard one any man could be judged by and called righteous.  If opposing authority of his day was righteous, so to are we who question the brethren of the LDS church.  If producing scripture that can only be regarded as such via spiritual minds is the standard, then why not follow Chris Nemelka over the individuals giving these talks, who have not produced a word of scripture in their lives?  If extra-marrital affairs and extra-legal marriages are righteous, why do we not call the current LDS church wicked for not doing so?

This is a talk in sophistry and deception, painting a man whom the modern church would excommunicate without much thought as “righteous” simply because the church depends upon him for its truth claims.

Come, Join with Us

Regardless of your circumstances, your personal history, or the strength of your testimony, there is room for you in this Church.

The problem with this statement, leading into the talk, is that they excommunicated or threatened temple recommends of over a half dozen members around the time it was given.   Denver Snuffer in early 2014, John Dehlin, Kate Kelly, people who doubted D&C 132.  Now, I get that an organization can declare who is and is not a representative of it.  But a statement as broad as this one given by Uchtdor, that Regardless of testimony, circumstances, or history there is room for that person in the church, while the church cuts off people because of their lack of testimony, circumstances, or history, it’s nothing less that two-faced, and a down right deception otherwise.

The quote should have read instead:

“As long as you do not publicly share your beliefs contrary to the orthodoxy, there is room for you in this church”.

Which is pretty much what the PR statements around Kate Kelly and John Dehlin said:

“You do not have the right to remain a member of the Church in good standing while openly and publicly trying to convince others that Church teachings are in error.”

Now someone is going to point out that this was a local leader’s statement to Dehlin just being restated by the Church PR department; but it sounds so similar to the official statements about Kate Kelly, the idea that the local leader is not influenced by the broader PR, or that the PR is not helping the local leader to say the correct message is dubious:

…and you must stop trying to gain a following for yourself or your cause and taking actions that could lead others away from the Church

Follow the Orthodoxy publicly, and do not talk about your private beliefs.  That is not an inclusive church like Uchtdorf’s statement above.

Consecrate All

“What doyou require of your members?”

“We do not require anything,” they replied. “But the Lordasks that we consecrate all.”

The fascinating thing is, that in the Temple, where one promises to obey the law of consecration, one does not consecrate one’s self and one’s belongings and future belongings to God, but (And it is stated in all caps in the Temple) TO THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.   This statement by Uchtdorf, couched in a story is a flat out lie.  One must give everything to the Organization.  Simply devoting it to God is not sufficient.

Do you pay your people for all the work they do?” the man asked.

“Oh, no,” the couple explained. “They offer their time freely.”

Also not true.  General Authorities receive a modest living allowance.  Bishops and stake presidents used to (in the 1920’s). Mission presidents receive compensation.  It is misdirection at the least and a straight out lie at the best to keep the lowest rank and file giving their time and talents for free.  In other situations this would be called Fraud.

Doubts

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters—my dear friends—please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith

Whenever we want to know something we should approach it two ways.  We should look for patterns, form a guess as to how those patterns are connected, and try to build up connections.  But this alone is not sufficient.  I’ll let this guy explain why (Play along with him and see if you guess like the people he interviews):

You see, you need to also try to disprove one’s beliefs to reach true conclusions.  One must Doubt one’s beliefs to reach accurate conclusions.  Just like in the above example, the couples could only arrive at the true rule by thinking of what did not fit the pattern.  So Must we have doubts.  If we doubt our doubts, before we doubt our faith, we will succumb to confirmation bias.

So how can we test our faith in a way that doesn’t lead to confirmation bias?

• Stop paying tithing for 6 months.  Record all the good and bad income and loss.  Pay it for 6 months and Record the good and bad income and loss.  Review whether this had a noticeable impact
• Do not pray when you lose your keys.  Time how long it takes to find your keys.  Repeat while praying.  Do this 30 times both with praying and without.
• Do not attend church for 6 months.  Record spiritual promptings, thoughts, and moments that are successful.  Attend for 6 months and do the same.  Compare.

See how the Pro-church side tells you to never stop doing the confirming actions, but the way to actually know something includes both doing the thing and not doing it to compare results.

And not just missing one Sunday here or there, but in a continuous run (This helps remove factors such as seasonality (missing church when it snows if one hates snow could lead to negative feelings about missing church because it is associated with something else one hates… snow!) or natural random occurrences.

Conclusion

Uchtdorf’s talk is deceptive, hypocritical and pushes one towards confirmation bias as a way of knowing truth.  We would encourage members to press their leaders to be honest,m even if they are tall, have great hair and a cute German accent.

Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen

“Your fast offering will do more than help feed and clothe bodies. It will heal and change hearts.”

Possibly, but let’s take a look at what the Fast Offering money gets used for.  It’s hard with a church so secretive about its finances to verify such a claim.  We can look at the Humanitarian aide portion of the church’s website and see that in 2010, about $1.3 Billion was given to individuals to help them, which seems like a lot until one does a bit of math.  1.3 Billion from 1985-2010 (15 years) divided by number of members (14 million) is about $3.71 per member.  If we go with active members (~5 million) it’s around $9 per member per year, which… frankly seems a bit like someone is skimping some dollars.  I know that as a member I gave between $30-60 each month to Fast Offering, so either I was WAY above average (about 40-80 times the average payer) or some of the money isn’t making it to “heal and change hearts”.

As further evidence of issues the church has stopped publishing the dollars used for humanitarian aid after Business Week investigated as you can see on the 2014 welfare sheet, only hours are reported, no dollar values.

On this sheet, we have some noble goals.  Fighting Ebola, Phillipean Earthquakes, Immunization campaigns and Clean water initiatives are all nobel (although I feel it necessary to point out that the church took credit for a member, Bishnu Adhikari‘s, private initiative for clean water that happened to be run by a Mormon in its film Meet the Mormons, so one must question if these are church initiatives or member-led initiatives that the church is claiming as its own).  And I totally respect the church in these efforts, but noble goals aren’t evidence against someone skimming funds for less-than-noble goals.

Fast Offering can also cause a lot of pain.  Fast offering money was funneled into West Ridge Academy, a for-profit venture that tried to reprogram homosexuals and troubled teens with reparative therapy and harsh conditions.  It was heavily sued by boys who left the organization.  I wonder how many times tithing has been said to go to feed poor families, when the idea that Gays were being sent to reformation camps was left unmentioned.

When we offer succor to anyone, the Savior feels it as if we reached out to succor Him.

Hiding finances, misappropriating funds, changing tithing slips to state that money donated in any category can be used for any other category.  Mr. Eyering might have said

“When we offer to sucker anyone, the Savior feels it as if we suckered him”

Why so many shady business practices?  I guess Jesus never said “blessed are the transparent”.

“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

“Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

“When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

“Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”¹

I can’t help but wonder if another scripture might apply if one trusts an organization so completely that one only donates to that organization and very little of the money reaches the hungry, the naked, but instead is used to abuse a portion of Heavenly Father’s children:

Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Eyring then states that this God asks something so simple, even a child can understand it: to pay the church money:

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

We call upon members everywhere to demand of their leaders that money donated is accountable.  That it cannot be hidden once discovered that the numbers are low.  That no more camps where individuals are tortured or abused be funded by dollars dedicated to feeding the homeless.  That leaders be held accountable for building Malls and Real Estate for-profit ventures while LDS members starve.

Finally, we leave with the reader with the thoughts of George Carlin: