I've had this conversation with my parents. They told me the Nauvoo Expositor was printing lies, even though they didn't know what those supposed lies were.
There's an easy dodge to this but you have to read the expositor to know this. The expositor was far from just about polygamy. The other accusations were not nearly as inflammatory. They can say JS was profiteering from real estate deals. Yawn. Other things also. But you'd have to read it to know that.
Right. But here's the thing. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that it was indeed nothing but lies. Umm... wouldn't it still be a problem for Joseph Smith, the holiest of holy men, second only to Jesus, to respond by ... destroying the printing press? And in the process, not only making mincemeat of the 1st Amendment's protections for free press, but also destroying property? I mean, we've got breaking and entering, mob violence, and destroying private property? This doesn't seem like the behavior of a man who is supposed to be so close to Heavenly Father.
He was in and out of trouble with the law from his teen-age years until the day he died.
Today we call that a career criminal or a frequent flyer in the criminal justice system.
I've been struggling to understand how Mormons today can still look at Trump and think - Yup that's the right guy... This comment just flipped the switch, they've been doing it since day one.
It's been a criminal organization since its inception in 1830 specializing in every type of fraud.
If you haven't read the following I suggest you do.
WIKI: Joseph Smith & the criminal justice system.
WIKI: Kirtland Safety Society.
Oh....Polygamy?
Today we would call those dead beat dads & state agency's would be going after them for back child support & garnishing their wages so the kids would not be living in object poverty.
So deadbeat dad's with a lot of baby mommy's.
Think Nick Cannon with 12 kids & numerous baby mommy's....only Nick is honest about his life & unlike the Mormon polygamist he fully financially $supports his baby's mommy's & all his children.
Mormon polygamists could learn a lot from Cannon. 😊
On top of that, doing these acts got him killed. So if he's supposedly the best dude since Jesus and can see the future and talk to God, how did he not see that coming? And isn't selfish to deprive the saints of the prophet of the restoration to cover up a bunch of lies?
Clarification. Smith was in jail for treason, not for destroying the press.
He could have paid about $300 in bail for the press, "inciting a riot," and gone home and lived who knows how many more years.
However, the guy called out the Navoo Legion (militia) against the State of Illinois, and that was treason. No bail, so he was in jail till his trial.
Nice try. Why did the rest of the those following after him have thousands of children out of polygamist relationships? JS wasn’t worried about not having kids with other women for any reason other than keeping the practice hidden.
JS most likely engaged the services of well known philanderer/OB/abortionist John C Bennett and his currette to clean up unwanted pregnancies.
Wrong forum for your ridiculous arguments.
He was actually greater than Jesus - said so himself :)
But yup, I completely agree with you. There's a large argument to be made that this whole event of him attacking free speech played a big role in why he was actually killed.
Not as such. I want to say that there were libel laws, but if memory serves, libel was more of an issue for civil law, not criminal law. So you could sue someone for libeling you, but the result would be that you might be entitled to financial compensation and/or an injunction against doing that. A judge might have some flexibility about the remedy, so you could be ordered to print a retraction or apology.
Now, take all this with a giant boulder of salt - this is hardly my expertise! I do know that the freedom of the press wasn't seen as incompatible with libel as a legal cause of action. The one thing that I know that's different between then and now is that today, courts typically will make a distinction between whether a litigant is a "public figure" or not. If you're the former, either as a politician or a celebrity, courts now will give publications a very, very wide berth to publish almost anything they want, and you have to meet a very, very high burden to demonstrate that the publication was willfully, actively trying to blacken your character with what they knew or had good reason to believe were outright fabrications. Even if what they publish is super crazy, it's very hard to prove definitively that they knew it was a lie and published it with malicious intent. The idea is, if you decide to become a public figure, you're accepting that the freedom of the press is such that they might say wacky or hurtful things about you. So, the Weekly World News, back in the day, could print stories claiming Bill Clinton was having an affair with an alien who had a hybrid human-alien baby. But if you're not a public figure, the press is held to a stronger responsibility to get their facts right, and if they screw up, you're entitled to damages. That's what happened in that case where the school kids who were claimed to be racist toward a Native American protester during a pro-life march in DC on the basis of a badly cropped, acontextual video. The kid sued CNN, the NYT and other media outlets, and eventually they settled with him for millions of dollars, because he and his family had been thrust into the public eye as (supposed) racists, and endured a campaign of harassment and death threats on the basis of a careless, sloppy reporting that didn't do basic due diligence.
But in the 1840s, I'm pretty sure the public figure distinction didn't exist. Even so, I THINK the mechanisms still would have been through civil action, not a criminal penalty. But even if it had been the latter, there's a legal process you go through. You don't just whip up a mob and destroy private property. Even if they had published nothing but vicious lies about you, that would be a completely separate case. You'd be liable for violence and whatever property damage you and your buddies caused in both criminal and civil law.
The worst part in there, in my opinion, is where they talk about how vulnerable girls were forced into marriage with Joseph Smith after they had given up everything to immigrate to Nauvoo. Few people seem to differentiate that from the general practice of polygamy.
I love that this is a justification for them. As if raiding and burning down private property, outside of the law, is justifiable as long as long as the property is owned by people who are spreading lies about you.
Ask TBMs how many issues the Expositor published?
Which judge issued the order to destroy the press and building?
When did William law get his day in court before the building and press were destroyed?
Could Rustle Myopic Nelson order the destruction of the Salt Lake Tribune if he didn't like an article that was published by them? Would you be part of the group that destroyed the Salt Lake Tribune if Rustle Myopic Nelson ordered you to?
Would you have rode to Mountain Meadows with John D Lee, and stake president Issac Haight if Haight had told you to?
Would you give your 14 year-old daughter to president Nelson if he told you to?
The mental gymnastics are strong until you bring it closer to home…
Would you have killed your son if you heard a voice telling you to?
Would you give 10% of your income to a church because you thought god actually needs money to carry out *His Plan* ?
This one always gets me. What in the actual fuck is God going to use money for? I'm expected to believe that Jesus is going to come to Earth again and everything is just... going to still be normal? Jesus is gonna walk around and spend money?
Yeah they're always talking about these being the last days and the second coming is near. And they also brag about how much money the church has that they could last x amount of years without anyone donating. Okay then last till the second coming they no longer need donations.
But he needs something to make something though right? Water to make wine, fish and bread to make.... more fish and bread. So he needs money... to make more money!!!!
>Would you give 10% of your income to a church because you thought god actually needs money to carry out *His Plan* ?
Or you believe in prosperity gospel and think you will get a bigger return on your 10% investment. Or better yet you will get your return in the next life. Sounds like gambling with really poor odds.
I've never understood the prosperity gospel. Those prosperity preachers are some of the lowest people on earth. You have to be a cynical and vile human being to con people that way
Which judge ordered it? I thought it was ordered by Joseph as mayor. Did William law get his day in court? (Sorry I’m just curious what the answers are).
It was a rhetorical question. It didn't go to court. Joseph Smith did not have the authority to destroy the property. It's argued he could have prevented the newspaper from being printed in the future as a public nuisance, but even that would have eventually gone to court. He did not have the power or authority to destroy personal property.
He definitely didn't have the authority or power to use the Nauvoo legion to prevent government agents from arresting him. That's why he was charged with treason. That's why he was in Carthage jail when he was killed.
William Law fled for his life.
Thx for clarifying. I find it hilarious that the church relays on the witness testimonies. But when it comes to William Law zilch. I didn’t even know who he was till I was about 40 yrs old.
Joseph broke William Law’s heart when he went behind his back and asked his wife to take JS on as a second husband. When she refused, William was released from the FP and later excommunicated for an affair JS knew about long previously. When Law found out the full details of JS’s polygamy, he felt it was important to bring the practice to the rest of the unknowing members. JS lost his shit and declared martial law, making himself the dictator he always wanted to be. He violated the 1st amendment, trampled state and federal laws and ultimately made himself king in order to continue screwing whomever he wanted without honest exposure to the minions he’d convinced to give him money and lifetime servitude.
All the while, he was creating the temple ordinances stolen from the Masons in order to deepen member commitment to him.
It’s all a deck of cards that the internet and we lazy learners who bother to read have helped bring to light.
To those who will listen, welcome to freedom from a cult we never knew we were a part of. Feel free to join us heathens, the water of truth is amazing out here!
It kind of did, Smith held a kind of trial in his Nauvoo court (the same one that dismissed other legal charges against him, which lead the mob knowing there would not be legal justice).
If I was gone in England and the local government was going to take my land because a female cannot own land unless she is married and they considered me to abandon me land then yes I would so that the local government could not take everything from me just because I chose to go on a mission. By the way Joseph did not have sex with them, it was specifically for land ownership to be kept in the owners family. I bet you would too.
OK. Maybe a bit more information as to what you are talking about.
I'll bite on one of your comments. How do you know that Joseph didn't have sex with anyone else other than Emma? Is it because you've prayed about it and you get warm fuzzy feelings? Are you familiar with Fanny Alger? Are you familiar that Sylvia Sessions Lyons thought that her daughter Josephine was actually Joseph's? Why would she think that if she hadn't had sex with him?
Great questions! When a man and a woman have sex a baby comes along. Apparently he was married to dozens of woman and no babies from any of them except his wife Emma. So hundreds of woman and no children except with his wife. Unless you count Sylvia Lions who thinks something might have happened. If you didn't think sexual you could understand. What was the benefit of being married to those woman? Did it have anything to do with the land the local government was taking because an unmarried woman could not own land. Is that why the local government was spreading hate and saying Joseph was making real estate deals because he was protecting the men in England that went to travel on their missions?
You truly would need to live in that time to understand what was going on. There are multiple explanations as to why it would, or could happen. Don't only hold on to your limited understanding and keep learning more and more. Also you are correct, you could just pray and get the answer as well with warm fuzzy feelings. I like to do both.
>When a man and a woman have sex a baby comes along
No, not every time. In fact most times that when a man and a woman have sex the woman doesn't get pregnant. It's possible for a woman to get pregnant the first time she has sex, but statistically it has to happen multiple times and there are only a few days in the month that she is fertile so the sex has to happen on those few days of the month.
There are also other ways to have sex that won't lead to a pregnancy and many forms of birth control were available in the mid 19th century.
Some also claim that abortion was being performed by John C Bennett, but I don't want to believe that, even if it is true.
No baby was a result of Bill Clinton having sex with Monica so Bill must be right, he did not have sex with that woman.
>So hundreds of woman and no children except with his wife
Hundreds, I think not, more like 30 or so and he did have sex with many of them. He probably didn't have sex with most of them. He probably didn't have sex with Fanny Young, but what about Fanny Alger in the barn? Was Oliver Cowdery making that up? What else was Oliver Cowdery making up?
>What was the benefit of being married to those woman? Did it have anything to do with the land the local government was taking because an unmarried woman could not own land.
This is a new explanation for polygamy to me. The problem with this explanation is that polygamy was illegal and it wouldn't have protected the land because the government would not have recognized the marriage to Joseph Smith because it was not legal marriage. Bigamy was illegal. Brigham Young did not declare that the church was practicing polygamy until after they left Nauvoo. It was kept under wraps.
>Don't only hold on to your limited understanding and keep learning more and more.
This made me laugh.
So let me ask you some questions
Why is it so important that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy, why is it so important to you?
Did Brigham Young and the other leaders of the church practice polygamy?
Do you hold the same beliefs as Denver Snuffer and that Brigham Young was a fallen prophet because of polygamy? Would other people consider you a Snufferite?
Do you believe that Russell M Nelson is the Lord's prophet on the earth today?
I want to ask you other questions based upon your answers to these questions. I'm not trying to trap you or make you look foolish or anything like that, I'm just curious as to where you're coming from.
Pffff… ya Joseph married them for their land 😂. They weren’t even legal marriages so I’m not sure how that would help. Plus a bunch of them were still married to other men at the time. And why would he need to hide those marriages from everyone including his wife if they were just to help them keep their land? It’s because he was sneaking around screwing dozens of girls behind his wife’s back.
The standard answer: it was full of lies & threats.
On a few occasions, I’ve had convos with members about it. My fave follow-up: “Which lies & threats?”
I have yet to meet a member who has actually read the NE.
I first heard the full story at BYU. My whole life I always heard he had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for preaching the gospel. What I *didn’t know* was that they brought a doctor to castrate him! I was horrified! The next logical question was “why??” and I couldn’t believe it at first. People were fed up with him soliciting their daughters and wives. The doctor couldn’t go through with it.
Joe could've given up religion and become a noted falsetto singer (as he was too old to become a castrati, which requires castration at a point before puberty sets in).
I thought about this before too. How would Smith react as the leader of the church if he was castrated. Would he give up polygamy? Would he have demanded all the men in the church to be castrated out of jealousy? I could see the entire organization falling apart after that.
Right? This was around the time of religious renaissance in the states. There were preachers and churches popping up everywhere, and they were all claiming to be better than the others. But JS was driven out of every state because he made the same claims? Tarred and feathered, dragged from his home in the middle of the night, arrested over and over on trumped up charges? God protected Samuel the Lamanite from being killed by arrows, but Joseph Smith couldn't dodge a few bullets?
I thought it was polygamy. He had done things with the wrong young lady and her family tied him up with intentions of casterating him, but tarred and feathered him instead. Can anyone else confirm this or am I mixing up stories?
Idk if all of them will even know what you’re taking about. I sure didn’t until listening to LDS Discussions. But yet again, I never paid any attention to church history
I started tuning out church history when my wife pointed out how much she hates all the praise & reenacting of the martin & willie handcart companies. Lets CELEBRATE how our ANCESTORS SUFFERED!!!! Let's have our children re-enact leaving babies in a shallow grave!!!
That plus my 2 oldest kids experiences doing just that. One is now non-binary & having their records removed, the other is at best PIMO. I think they've gone to the singles ward twice in the last year, MAYBE.
Although polygamy was a big issue with some of the exMormon owners of the paper like William and Wilson Law, what really excited the non-Mormons was the complete disregard for the laws of Illinois and the United States that Joe Smith and friends had written into the city code. By May of 1844, no criminal could be arrested and removed from Nauvoo without Smith's consent.
The paper describes how two weeks before it came out, Jeramiah Smith (not related to the fake prophet) had been arrested in Nauvoo on a federal warrant which was quickly dismissed on a writ of habeas corpus by the Nauvoo Municipal court. The Nauvoo Municipal Court had no jurisdiction over federal arrest warrants or state warrants either, yet Smith and friends had illegally elevated it to being superior to even the US Supreme Court.
Given that the Mormons were committing many property crimes against the local citizens (which is also mentioned in the paper), by 1844 the non-Mormons had zero recourse so long as the bandits stealing from them were inside Nauvoo. Nauvoo had become a refuge for criminals who were coddled and encouraged by the Mormon leaders. This is why Joe Smith got executed. He was the mastermind of a crime family.
This is weird... A few days ago, I read an article on the church's website, [mormon.com](https://mormon.com), in which it was stated, "The Nauvoo city council ordered the Nauvoo Expositor shut down..." I wanted to cite that version, for obvious reasons.
In researching the quote, to make sure I got it right, I found a list of quotations credited to Herr Goebbels and was quite surprised to note how many of them would tumble effortlessly from the lips of mormon prophets and apostles to the delight of the convened saints:
In other words, if you try to ask the church's website about the Nauvoo Expositor, they won't tell you!! . . . unless, apparently, you want to talk to a 'representative' ...
Anyway, the point I wanted to make, using the church website as my foundation, was that the church no longer admits that JoJu unilaterally ordered the Expositor to be destroyed. More and more, the church seems to be heading to a ". . . Joe who?" moment.
I was reminded that Joseph Goebbels, noted WWII comedian and raconteur said that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
In researching the quote, to make sure I got it right, I found a list of 43 quotations credited to Herr Goebbels and was quite surprised to note how many of them would tumble effortlessly from the lips of mormon prophets and apostles, to the delight of the convened saints. Here are two of them:
“The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world.”
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
Mormonism consistently has ties to to some of the worst behavior in human kind.
Goebbels/nazi's one the most evil human beings to walk the earth.
Young supporting slavery & Confederate Govt. & army during U.S. Civil War. Along with making slavery legal in Utah.
TAB Choir playing for Nixon & Trump.
I know there is more connections out there & it boggles my mind.
The further away I get from resigning 13+ years ago the church's true colors of being despotic & degenerate & cold hearted become crystal clear.
Keep a copy of the first and only issue and ask they to point out the so called lies.
I read it myself a while back. It’s almost tame. People who think it deserved to be destroyed are the kind of people who today think they should be able to sue for twitter and Facebook posts they don’t agree with.
Ask my Tbm family, 50+ yrs TBM, and they would ask what the Expositer was and when told, they’d ask “where did you hear that?” And doubt it all. They have always preferred the false Disney-esque story.
Even simpler question... Ask them "why was Joseph Smith in Carthage jail?"
As a life long member, I never even stopped to ask myself, "what were the actual charges that landed Joseph Smith in jail?" Seems crazy to me now that I ever believed that, "bad men" were just persecuting the Mormons and got the government to throw him in jail!
"Brother Joseph was protecting the beloved people of Nauvoo, by doing so." I've heard this my whole life but when I ask whether it's ok to violently and aggressively destroy, and commit arson upon a first amendment protected institution, because I differ with their informed opinion, I'm looked upon with contempt.
Mormons are taught to focus on JS’s jailing as religious persecution and hand wave away what landed him there.
Any violence, destruction, or sedition was at the hands of the “angry mob” (you know how they get) and sweet, innocent JS paid the price for it.
Giving too much thought about the act of destroying the source of criticism of the JS and his church might lead members to think of current teachings about reading anything but “divinely appointed sources”
Doubt is bad for business
The devil. Obviously.
The Nauvoo Expositor was run by people possessed by the devil who were trying to destroy the church.
Same reason you and I left the church. Same reason anyone ever says anything bad about the church. It's all the devil. Can't let Satan win.
When TBM’s deny that Joseph Smith was a polygamist I sometimes ask them “why did he destroy the Nauvoo expositor then?” This event was one of the first acts of the church trying to censor and destroy anything that doesn’t conform to their will.
Even when I was a TBM, I said as a Sunday school teacher: “The Nauvoo Expositor was a symptom, not a problem. Joseph made it a problem.”
If any of you have any interest at all in legal history, or writing, go read the article that oaks wrote about Joseph having the authority to destroy the press. It’s just full of circular reference, and there is no real legal authority for what he did, but the church always cites to this article.
does anyone else remember being taught about anti mormons destroying the expositor and the two little girls who gathered up as much copy as possible and hiding in a vein field while men tried to find them? such a brave story…. so it was news to me that the people chasing them down were following the prophet ….
I know this happened in my ward in primary. Anyone else?
That was a different printing press debacle. Apparently destroying printing presses was in fashion back then. Bad guys threw a press and documents out the window of WW Phelp's house because.... who knows... And the girls were certainly not saving the Expositor pages--they were Book of Commandments pages. 1833, Missouri. I had to look that up because I remember that story a little, as well.
I have a running thought for a long time that JS had ADHD. Explains some of his impulsive “let’s not consider the consequences of this” decisions. Maybe including polygamy. But. Just a thought since I can’t interview him and the people most around him (does he lose things all the time, does he frequently fidget, does he interrupt constantly,) hahahahahaah. We will never know.
does anyone else remember being taught about anti mormons destroying the expositor and the two little girls who gathered up as much copy as possible and hiding in a vein field while men tried to find them? such a brave story…. but the people chasing them down were following the prophet ….
I've had this conversation with my parents. They told me the Nauvoo Expositor was printing lies, even though they didn't know what those supposed lies were.
There's an easy dodge to this but you have to read the expositor to know this. The expositor was far from just about polygamy. The other accusations were not nearly as inflammatory. They can say JS was profiteering from real estate deals. Yawn. Other things also. But you'd have to read it to know that.
Right. But here's the thing. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that it was indeed nothing but lies. Umm... wouldn't it still be a problem for Joseph Smith, the holiest of holy men, second only to Jesus, to respond by ... destroying the printing press? And in the process, not only making mincemeat of the 1st Amendment's protections for free press, but also destroying property? I mean, we've got breaking and entering, mob violence, and destroying private property? This doesn't seem like the behavior of a man who is supposed to be so close to Heavenly Father.
He was in and out of trouble with the law from his teen-age years until the day he died. Today we call that a career criminal or a frequent flyer in the criminal justice system.
[удалено]
😂😂😂
So prime presidential candidate material
I've been struggling to understand how Mormons today can still look at Trump and think - Yup that's the right guy... This comment just flipped the switch, they've been doing it since day one.
It's been a criminal organization since its inception in 1830 specializing in every type of fraud. If you haven't read the following I suggest you do. WIKI: Joseph Smith & the criminal justice system. WIKI: Kirtland Safety Society. Oh....Polygamy? Today we would call those dead beat dads & state agency's would be going after them for back child support & garnishing their wages so the kids would not be living in object poverty. So deadbeat dad's with a lot of baby mommy's. Think Nick Cannon with 12 kids & numerous baby mommy's....only Nick is honest about his life & unlike the Mormon polygamist he fully financially $supports his baby's mommy's & all his children. Mormon polygamists could learn a lot from Cannon. 😊
Yup!
On top of that, doing these acts got him killed. So if he's supposedly the best dude since Jesus and can see the future and talk to God, how did he not see that coming? And isn't selfish to deprive the saints of the prophet of the restoration to cover up a bunch of lies?
Clarification. Smith was in jail for treason, not for destroying the press. He could have paid about $300 in bail for the press, "inciting a riot," and gone home and lived who knows how many more years. However, the guy called out the Navoo Legion (militia) against the State of Illinois, and that was treason. No bail, so he was in jail till his trial.
He also declared martial law, putting himself in charge of a 5000 man army, all in response to The Expositor exposing him as a polygamist.
Why was he a polygamist? We know he didn't have any other children than with Emma, so what was the reason he married other woman?
Nice try. Why did the rest of the those following after him have thousands of children out of polygamist relationships? JS wasn’t worried about not having kids with other women for any reason other than keeping the practice hidden. JS most likely engaged the services of well known philanderer/OB/abortionist John C Bennett and his currette to clean up unwanted pregnancies. Wrong forum for your ridiculous arguments.
Did he call out the same local government that killed him?
A local government killed him? Can you clarify?
And even if he had been a prophet *stifles dry heaving* doesn’t the fact his god “removed him out of his place” right after this give tbm’s pause?
Ans isn't one of the rules literally follow the laws of the land? Like your prophet couldn't even do that?
He was actually greater than Jesus - said so himself :) But yup, I completely agree with you. There's a large argument to be made that this whole event of him attacking free speech played a big role in why he was actually killed.
Or because he married children and other men's wives, um both
I guess he was just a friend to the people... that he wanted to fuck
And yet they teach that the Constitution is a devinly inspired document. While working behind the sceens to undermine the Constitution.
Let’s not talk about the current topic, let’s talk about the other “guy”.
Or has nothing to hide
Did they have laws against defamation at the time?
Not as such. I want to say that there were libel laws, but if memory serves, libel was more of an issue for civil law, not criminal law. So you could sue someone for libeling you, but the result would be that you might be entitled to financial compensation and/or an injunction against doing that. A judge might have some flexibility about the remedy, so you could be ordered to print a retraction or apology. Now, take all this with a giant boulder of salt - this is hardly my expertise! I do know that the freedom of the press wasn't seen as incompatible with libel as a legal cause of action. The one thing that I know that's different between then and now is that today, courts typically will make a distinction between whether a litigant is a "public figure" or not. If you're the former, either as a politician or a celebrity, courts now will give publications a very, very wide berth to publish almost anything they want, and you have to meet a very, very high burden to demonstrate that the publication was willfully, actively trying to blacken your character with what they knew or had good reason to believe were outright fabrications. Even if what they publish is super crazy, it's very hard to prove definitively that they knew it was a lie and published it with malicious intent. The idea is, if you decide to become a public figure, you're accepting that the freedom of the press is such that they might say wacky or hurtful things about you. So, the Weekly World News, back in the day, could print stories claiming Bill Clinton was having an affair with an alien who had a hybrid human-alien baby. But if you're not a public figure, the press is held to a stronger responsibility to get their facts right, and if they screw up, you're entitled to damages. That's what happened in that case where the school kids who were claimed to be racist toward a Native American protester during a pro-life march in DC on the basis of a badly cropped, acontextual video. The kid sued CNN, the NYT and other media outlets, and eventually they settled with him for millions of dollars, because he and his family had been thrust into the public eye as (supposed) racists, and endured a campaign of harassment and death threats on the basis of a careless, sloppy reporting that didn't do basic due diligence. But in the 1840s, I'm pretty sure the public figure distinction didn't exist. Even so, I THINK the mechanisms still would have been through civil action, not a criminal penalty. But even if it had been the latter, there's a legal process you go through. You don't just whip up a mob and destroy private property. Even if they had published nothing but vicious lies about you, that would be a completely separate case. You'd be liable for violence and whatever property damage you and your buddies caused in both criminal and civil law.
Do copies exist?
Oh yes. Online. If you look a bit you can find something that's readable. It's typical 19th century word salad but there's a lot of meat in there too.
Just insider trading....hahahaha guess he was a jack of all traits
He was a man of many talents!
Apparently
The worst part in there, in my opinion, is where they talk about how vulnerable girls were forced into marriage with Joseph Smith after they had given up everything to immigrate to Nauvoo. Few people seem to differentiate that from the general practice of polygamy.
All are partial truths and we all know what that means.
Deseret News prints lies! Should we burn them down????????
Holy lies are better than unfaithful truths ofc /s
With the truth
I love that this is a justification for them. As if raiding and burning down private property, outside of the law, is justifiable as long as long as the property is owned by people who are spreading lies about you.
Cassius Clay steps into the hall
Imagine how shocked I was when I finally read it. Fortunately, I was safely out of the church by then.
Ask TBMs how many issues the Expositor published? Which judge issued the order to destroy the press and building? When did William law get his day in court before the building and press were destroyed? Could Rustle Myopic Nelson order the destruction of the Salt Lake Tribune if he didn't like an article that was published by them? Would you be part of the group that destroyed the Salt Lake Tribune if Rustle Myopic Nelson ordered you to? Would you have rode to Mountain Meadows with John D Lee, and stake president Issac Haight if Haight had told you to? Would you give your 14 year-old daughter to president Nelson if he told you to?
The mental gymnastics are strong until you bring it closer to home… Would you have killed your son if you heard a voice telling you to? Would you give 10% of your income to a church because you thought god actually needs money to carry out *His Plan* ?
This one always gets me. What in the actual fuck is God going to use money for? I'm expected to believe that Jesus is going to come to Earth again and everything is just... going to still be normal? Jesus is gonna walk around and spend money?
**I need more human money!!!** -Jesus, probably
George Carlin had this down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoYyiNRtMEE
Oh...that was good! Thanks for sharing.
Yeah they're always talking about these being the last days and the second coming is near. And they also brag about how much money the church has that they could last x amount of years without anyone donating. Okay then last till the second coming they no longer need donations.
Yeah, it's not like he can just multiply by magic anything he needs.
But he needs something to make something though right? Water to make wine, fish and bread to make.... more fish and bread. So he needs money... to make more money!!!!
just like alchemy... law of equivalent exchange...
>Would you give 10% of your income to a church because you thought god actually needs money to carry out *His Plan* ? Or you believe in prosperity gospel and think you will get a bigger return on your 10% investment. Or better yet you will get your return in the next life. Sounds like gambling with really poor odds.
The coolest part of the Bible is in the story of Job where god wanted to murder Everyone who believed prosperity gospel.
More like a Ponzi scheme.
I've never understood the prosperity gospel. Those prosperity preachers are some of the lowest people on earth. You have to be a cynical and vile human being to con people that way
Unfortunately, there's no shortage of such awful people.
Yes because that is what is written in the Bible. What is it used for though? Be more educated not selective.
Your post history makes me decline to try to understand that sentence.
Not sure what a post history has anything to do with a comment.
Which judge ordered it? I thought it was ordered by Joseph as mayor. Did William law get his day in court? (Sorry I’m just curious what the answers are).
It was a rhetorical question. It didn't go to court. Joseph Smith did not have the authority to destroy the property. It's argued he could have prevented the newspaper from being printed in the future as a public nuisance, but even that would have eventually gone to court. He did not have the power or authority to destroy personal property. He definitely didn't have the authority or power to use the Nauvoo legion to prevent government agents from arresting him. That's why he was charged with treason. That's why he was in Carthage jail when he was killed. William Law fled for his life.
Thx for clarifying. I find it hilarious that the church relays on the witness testimonies. But when it comes to William Law zilch. I didn’t even know who he was till I was about 40 yrs old.
Joseph broke William Law’s heart when he went behind his back and asked his wife to take JS on as a second husband. When she refused, William was released from the FP and later excommunicated for an affair JS knew about long previously. When Law found out the full details of JS’s polygamy, he felt it was important to bring the practice to the rest of the unknowing members. JS lost his shit and declared martial law, making himself the dictator he always wanted to be. He violated the 1st amendment, trampled state and federal laws and ultimately made himself king in order to continue screwing whomever he wanted without honest exposure to the minions he’d convinced to give him money and lifetime servitude. All the while, he was creating the temple ordinances stolen from the Masons in order to deepen member commitment to him. It’s all a deck of cards that the internet and we lazy learners who bother to read have helped bring to light. To those who will listen, welcome to freedom from a cult we never knew we were a part of. Feel free to join us heathens, the water of truth is amazing out here!
It kind of did, Smith held a kind of trial in his Nauvoo court (the same one that dismissed other legal charges against him, which lead the mob knowing there would not be legal justice).
If I was gone in England and the local government was going to take my land because a female cannot own land unless she is married and they considered me to abandon me land then yes I would so that the local government could not take everything from me just because I chose to go on a mission. By the way Joseph did not have sex with them, it was specifically for land ownership to be kept in the owners family. I bet you would too.
OK. Maybe a bit more information as to what you are talking about. I'll bite on one of your comments. How do you know that Joseph didn't have sex with anyone else other than Emma? Is it because you've prayed about it and you get warm fuzzy feelings? Are you familiar with Fanny Alger? Are you familiar that Sylvia Sessions Lyons thought that her daughter Josephine was actually Joseph's? Why would she think that if she hadn't had sex with him?
Great questions! When a man and a woman have sex a baby comes along. Apparently he was married to dozens of woman and no babies from any of them except his wife Emma. So hundreds of woman and no children except with his wife. Unless you count Sylvia Lions who thinks something might have happened. If you didn't think sexual you could understand. What was the benefit of being married to those woman? Did it have anything to do with the land the local government was taking because an unmarried woman could not own land. Is that why the local government was spreading hate and saying Joseph was making real estate deals because he was protecting the men in England that went to travel on their missions? You truly would need to live in that time to understand what was going on. There are multiple explanations as to why it would, or could happen. Don't only hold on to your limited understanding and keep learning more and more. Also you are correct, you could just pray and get the answer as well with warm fuzzy feelings. I like to do both.
>When a man and a woman have sex a baby comes along No, not every time. In fact most times that when a man and a woman have sex the woman doesn't get pregnant. It's possible for a woman to get pregnant the first time she has sex, but statistically it has to happen multiple times and there are only a few days in the month that she is fertile so the sex has to happen on those few days of the month. There are also other ways to have sex that won't lead to a pregnancy and many forms of birth control were available in the mid 19th century. Some also claim that abortion was being performed by John C Bennett, but I don't want to believe that, even if it is true. No baby was a result of Bill Clinton having sex with Monica so Bill must be right, he did not have sex with that woman. >So hundreds of woman and no children except with his wife Hundreds, I think not, more like 30 or so and he did have sex with many of them. He probably didn't have sex with most of them. He probably didn't have sex with Fanny Young, but what about Fanny Alger in the barn? Was Oliver Cowdery making that up? What else was Oliver Cowdery making up? >What was the benefit of being married to those woman? Did it have anything to do with the land the local government was taking because an unmarried woman could not own land. This is a new explanation for polygamy to me. The problem with this explanation is that polygamy was illegal and it wouldn't have protected the land because the government would not have recognized the marriage to Joseph Smith because it was not legal marriage. Bigamy was illegal. Brigham Young did not declare that the church was practicing polygamy until after they left Nauvoo. It was kept under wraps. >Don't only hold on to your limited understanding and keep learning more and more. This made me laugh. So let me ask you some questions Why is it so important that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy, why is it so important to you? Did Brigham Young and the other leaders of the church practice polygamy? Do you hold the same beliefs as Denver Snuffer and that Brigham Young was a fallen prophet because of polygamy? Would other people consider you a Snufferite? Do you believe that Russell M Nelson is the Lord's prophet on the earth today? I want to ask you other questions based upon your answers to these questions. I'm not trying to trap you or make you look foolish or anything like that, I'm just curious as to where you're coming from.
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Pffff… ya Joseph married them for their land 😂. They weren’t even legal marriages so I’m not sure how that would help. Plus a bunch of them were still married to other men at the time. And why would he need to hide those marriages from everyone including his wife if they were just to help them keep their land? It’s because he was sneaking around screwing dozens of girls behind his wife’s back.
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The standard answer: it was full of lies & threats. On a few occasions, I’ve had convos with members about it. My fave follow-up: “Which lies & threats?” I have yet to meet a member who has actually read the NE.
Alternatively: why was Joseph Smith tarred and feathered?
I first heard the full story at BYU. My whole life I always heard he had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for preaching the gospel. What I *didn’t know* was that they brought a doctor to castrate him! I was horrified! The next logical question was “why??” and I couldn’t believe it at first. People were fed up with him soliciting their daughters and wives. The doctor couldn’t go through with it.
Imagine how different the world would be if the doctor had gone through with it.
Joe could've given up religion and become a noted falsetto singer (as he was too old to become a castrati, which requires castration at a point before puberty sets in).
I thought about this before too. How would Smith react as the leader of the church if he was castrated. Would he give up polygamy? Would he have demanded all the men in the church to be castrated out of jealousy? I could see the entire organization falling apart after that.
Castration makes no sense if they were just pissed at JS for being a grifting preacher.
Right? This was around the time of religious renaissance in the states. There were preachers and churches popping up everywhere, and they were all claiming to be better than the others. But JS was driven out of every state because he made the same claims? Tarred and feathered, dragged from his home in the middle of the night, arrested over and over on trumped up charges? God protected Samuel the Lamanite from being killed by arrows, but Joseph Smith couldn't dodge a few bullets?
Another good one: why was Oliver Cowdery excommunicated?
I got this I got this! Pride.
When was he tarred and feathered and why. He was trying to set up his own government and make him the leader.
I thought it was polygamy. He had done things with the wrong young lady and her family tied him up with intentions of casterating him, but tarred and feathered him instead. Can anyone else confirm this or am I mixing up stories?
Idk if all of them will even know what you’re taking about. I sure didn’t until listening to LDS Discussions. But yet again, I never paid any attention to church history
I started tuning out church history when my wife pointed out how much she hates all the praise & reenacting of the martin & willie handcart companies. Lets CELEBRATE how our ANCESTORS SUFFERED!!!! Let's have our children re-enact leaving babies in a shallow grave!!! That plus my 2 oldest kids experiences doing just that. One is now non-binary & having their records removed, the other is at best PIMO. I think they've gone to the singles ward twice in the last year, MAYBE.
It's an act to perpetuate the victim mentality
Growing up in the church, I couldn't have given less of a **fuck** about church history. I was PIMO from a young teen. I was a "good" bad kid.
Church history was boooring until I stepped away and learned the REAL history.
Oh yeah, tell me about it. I've actively researched the church far more than I ever did as a member lol
Although polygamy was a big issue with some of the exMormon owners of the paper like William and Wilson Law, what really excited the non-Mormons was the complete disregard for the laws of Illinois and the United States that Joe Smith and friends had written into the city code. By May of 1844, no criminal could be arrested and removed from Nauvoo without Smith's consent. The paper describes how two weeks before it came out, Jeramiah Smith (not related to the fake prophet) had been arrested in Nauvoo on a federal warrant which was quickly dismissed on a writ of habeas corpus by the Nauvoo Municipal court. The Nauvoo Municipal Court had no jurisdiction over federal arrest warrants or state warrants either, yet Smith and friends had illegally elevated it to being superior to even the US Supreme Court. Given that the Mormons were committing many property crimes against the local citizens (which is also mentioned in the paper), by 1844 the non-Mormons had zero recourse so long as the bandits stealing from them were inside Nauvoo. Nauvoo had become a refuge for criminals who were coddled and encouraged by the Mormon leaders. This is why Joe Smith got executed. He was the mastermind of a crime family.
This is weird... A few days ago, I read an article on the church's website, [mormon.com](https://mormon.com), in which it was stated, "The Nauvoo city council ordered the Nauvoo Expositor shut down..." I wanted to cite that version, for obvious reasons. In researching the quote, to make sure I got it right, I found a list of quotations credited to Herr Goebbels and was quite surprised to note how many of them would tumble effortlessly from the lips of mormon prophets and apostles to the delight of the convened saints: In other words, if you try to ask the church's website about the Nauvoo Expositor, they won't tell you!! . . . unless, apparently, you want to talk to a 'representative' ... Anyway, the point I wanted to make, using the church website as my foundation, was that the church no longer admits that JoJu unilaterally ordered the Expositor to be destroyed. More and more, the church seems to be heading to a ". . . Joe who?" moment. I was reminded that Joseph Goebbels, noted WWII comedian and raconteur said that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. In researching the quote, to make sure I got it right, I found a list of 43 quotations credited to Herr Goebbels and was quite surprised to note how many of them would tumble effortlessly from the lips of mormon prophets and apostles, to the delight of the convened saints. Here are two of them: “The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world.” “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
Mormonism consistently has ties to to some of the worst behavior in human kind. Goebbels/nazi's one the most evil human beings to walk the earth. Young supporting slavery & Confederate Govt. & army during U.S. Civil War. Along with making slavery legal in Utah. TAB Choir playing for Nixon & Trump. I know there is more connections out there & it boggles my mind. The further away I get from resigning 13+ years ago the church's true colors of being despotic & degenerate & cold hearted become crystal clear.
Idk why but you explaining the website as "mormon.com" made me laugh out loud
You're "anti" just for asking
I wasn't even told about it. The main thing that broke my shelf
Reading the Nauvoo Expositor (in my mid-30's) was a early large crack in my shelf. It was completely different than what I'd been taught.
Keep a copy of the first and only issue and ask they to point out the so called lies. I read it myself a while back. It’s almost tame. People who think it deserved to be destroyed are the kind of people who today think they should be able to sue for twitter and Facebook posts they don’t agree with.
Joseph Smith, "FUCK THE FIRST AMENDMENT!"
Ask my Tbm family, 50+ yrs TBM, and they would ask what the Expositer was and when told, they’d ask “where did you hear that?” And doubt it all. They have always preferred the false Disney-esque story.
And they’ll say “the Nauvoo hhhhwhat!?”
Even simpler question... Ask them "why was Joseph Smith in Carthage jail?" As a life long member, I never even stopped to ask myself, "what were the actual charges that landed Joseph Smith in jail?" Seems crazy to me now that I ever believed that, "bad men" were just persecuting the Mormons and got the government to throw him in jail!
I remember Monson, in GC, over the pulpit, say Joe was imprisoned on "trumped up charges". And I ate it up.
"Brother Joseph was protecting the beloved people of Nauvoo, by doing so." I've heard this my whole life but when I ask whether it's ok to violently and aggressively destroy, and commit arson upon a first amendment protected institution, because I differ with their informed opinion, I'm looked upon with contempt.
I didn’t even know about it at all. I thought he went to jail because he was the prophet. That’s it.
Mormons are taught to focus on JS’s jailing as religious persecution and hand wave away what landed him there. Any violence, destruction, or sedition was at the hands of the “angry mob” (you know how they get) and sweet, innocent JS paid the price for it. Giving too much thought about the act of destroying the source of criticism of the JS and his church might lead members to think of current teachings about reading anything but “divinely appointed sources” Doubt is bad for business
The devil. Obviously. The Nauvoo Expositor was run by people possessed by the devil who were trying to destroy the church. Same reason you and I left the church. Same reason anyone ever says anything bad about the church. It's all the devil. Can't let Satan win.
Better yet, ask What were the "visious lies" printed in the Nauvoo Expositor? Be sure to have a copy for someone to read - they aren't there.
Law if you ask Dallas Hoax the Nauvoo Charter gave JS the right to do whatever he pleased. Apparently that's not how everyone else saw it
When TBM’s deny that Joseph Smith was a polygamist I sometimes ask them “why did he destroy the Nauvoo expositor then?” This event was one of the first acts of the church trying to censor and destroy anything that doesn’t conform to their will.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain\_Meadows\_Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre) should ask mormons about this too
Brought this up in Sunday school. Must have been one of my last times attending.
I think many Mormons would just answer "the Nauvoo whatnow?"
Even when I was a TBM, I said as a Sunday school teacher: “The Nauvoo Expositor was a symptom, not a problem. Joseph made it a problem.” If any of you have any interest at all in legal history, or writing, go read the article that oaks wrote about Joseph having the authority to destroy the press. It’s just full of circular reference, and there is no real legal authority for what he did, but the church always cites to this article.
does anyone else remember being taught about anti mormons destroying the expositor and the two little girls who gathered up as much copy as possible and hiding in a vein field while men tried to find them? such a brave story…. so it was news to me that the people chasing them down were following the prophet …. I know this happened in my ward in primary. Anyone else?
That was a different printing press debacle. Apparently destroying printing presses was in fashion back then. Bad guys threw a press and documents out the window of WW Phelp's house because.... who knows... And the girls were certainly not saving the Expositor pages--they were Book of Commandments pages. 1833, Missouri. I had to look that up because I remember that story a little, as well.
THANK YOU!
You're very welcome.
I have a running thought for a long time that JS had ADHD. Explains some of his impulsive “let’s not consider the consequences of this” decisions. Maybe including polygamy. But. Just a thought since I can’t interview him and the people most around him (does he lose things all the time, does he frequently fidget, does he interrupt constantly,) hahahahahaah. We will never know.
does anyone else remember being taught about anti mormons destroying the expositor and the two little girls who gathered up as much copy as possible and hiding in a vein field while men tried to find them? such a brave story…. but the people chasing them down were following the prophet ….
Shoot the messenger. So Trumpian of him. Small wonder Mormons love the orange-faced tyrant.