The Rants of Issachar

Okay, I'm part way through writing this post, and it's become a bit long and self-indulgent. But since this is more of an online diary for me, I'm posting it anyway. You've been warned.

I was reading Kuro5hin and there's a discussion about Orson Scott Card's column on the Ornery American. Apparently DailyKos has a thread running too, but I wouldn't recommend reading Kos for anything intelligent. Although it is good for a laugh. Oh, and since I mention Kos, I have to mention his attempt to hide his "screw them" comment about the US contractors killed and hung from a bridge in Fallujah in March of 2004. It was that comment that prompted the Democratic Party to stop linking to him on their website. The thing about blogging is that it's supposed to be permanent and you're supposed to stake your reputation on what you say. Trying to erase your past instead of addressing it is a no-no.

But back to Card's column. I think the K5 article is a little weak. Ender's Game & Speaker for the Dead were written by commitee? Not unless they wrote all his other Sci-Fi for him too. (And since when do committees write engaging fiction?)

Card coins an interesting term with "smartland". It's really nothing new, it's just the elitism of the self-consciously intelligent. The assumption seems to be that intelligence is synonymous with moral fortitude. False assumptions lead you to bad places. Intelligence is a wonderful gift, but its no more a guarantor of moral action than blue eyes are.

This relates somewhat to my thoughts about about the increasing unpopularity of democracy among the self-proclaimed intellectual elite. "We know what's right, we'll do what's best, don't presume to know better". H.L. Mencken's statement that "Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" should give us pause, but I think Winston Churchill provides the best answer to that.

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been."

I hope we remember this as a country soon.


I'm not sure who Card is referring to when he talks about an author attacking Mormonism, but I suspect it might be Jon Krakauer who wrote Under the Banner of Heaven. If you haven't read the book, go ahead and give it a read. Krakauer is indeed attacking Mormonism, but at least some of his criticism are justified. The murder of Joseph Smith the attacks on Mormons in the early days of the LDS church were not as one-sided as Card suggests. The Mountain Meadows massacre and the attempt to blame it on natives stands a particular example of some of the nasty acts committed by Mormon authorities in the early years.

But Card is right when he says that Mormons have not rioted in the streets because of Krakauer if that is indeed what he's referring to. Good for them.

Card's use of the word Christian also makes me pause. Mormonism does of course claim to be Christian. They are not. They are followers of Joseph Smith. A man born in 1805 who claimed that the Bible was not the true record of Christ's teaching, but that Christ's teaching were contained in The Book of Mormon which he claimed to have transcribed from gold tablets that an angel provided to him written in some form of egyptian which he translated using special spectacles. This is fundamentally different from every other Christian denomination. All Christians believe that the Bible is the word of God and that as such it cannot be superseded by later writings. This is enough to make Mormonism an entirely seperate faith. Actually it's very similar to Islam in this respect. Mohammed also claimed that the Bible had been corrupted and that an angel revealed God's true message to him which he transcribed to create the Koran.

To sum up, I like Card's writing. He writes honestly and doesn't try to divorce his moral worldview from the rest of his life. I'm going to keep reading.


Update: June 6th 2005 - 6:51PM

Anonymous Lemming dropped over from K5 to have a nice discussion here. Here's corrected a few things I heard from the Mormon missionaries, but I think we have confirmed that Christianity in the Protestant/Orthodox/Catholic sense of the word is not the same thing asthe Mormon interpretation. I won't try restating what Anonymous Lemming said though. You should read for yourself below...


Update: June 6th 2005 - 7:04PM

I had another thought just now. I was up in the Okanagan this past weekend and on the drive home last night I was listening to a sermon by John Neufeld of Willingdon Church on the first part of the Book of Romans. It's just over a half hour, but seriously, listen to it for five and half minutes and tell me what you think.

I was actually thinking about the exchange with Anonymous Lemming that weekend, and John Neufeld asked the question "What is Christianity all about". It's a good sermon, and I'd recommend you listen to it, but the short answer is: "It's all about Jesus. But when you learn about Jesus, who do you believe? Who will you trust?"

Looking at what Anonymous Lemming and I have said, that's what I think it boils down to. Anonymous Lemming believes Joseph Smith and the current Mormon prophet. I do not. Of course not all choices are equally valid. Some make sense and others do not. I have many reasons that I do not trust Joseph Smith, and I'm sure Anonymous Lemming has reasons that he trusts him.

So who will you believe? And why?

Posted by:  Anonymous

Ahem.. I will attempt a small responce to your innuendo. You are correct that some of the attacks on the Mormons in the early days of the mormon church were not as one-sided as Card suggests. To say that they can all be classified as such and are somehow justified is, however, completely false. The Mormons did participate in a bit of retaliation, however nothing like Haun's Mill was ever justified. The asssasination of the prophet was unjustified, being driven from their lands was unjustified, the list goes on and on. So Card certainly has a point. Were the Mormons 100% innocent as implied? No, they were not.

Now, with how you have written it here, you have jumped to a few conclusions and linked events that are completely unrealated. Perhaps the book you cited jumped to the conclusions for you, I'm not sure. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is not related to the earlier events you spoke of. Next, do you even understand the context of the event? The Utah War? The shear distance from Sale Lake and logistical nightmare of ordering it and blaming it on the indians? To assert that it was performed with mal intent by the mormon athorities is ground you can't stand on. It's as shaky as quicksand and circumstantial at it's best. You are assuming a lot, and they are rather malicious assumptions.

Next, is it wise to learn about someone from their enemies? Do you learn about God from the devil? Do you learn about Republicans from the Democrats? Do you learn about Mormons by reading their anti-mormon books? I would rethink the wisdom of your approach. Are some things said justified? That's certainly possible, but is wading through venom worth it?

You're claim that Joseph Smith claimed that the Bible was not the true record of Christ's teaching is false. Certainly you are open enough to see that? Have you studied about the man at all? Or have you just read hatchet jobs and are taking them at face value?

Posted by:  issachar

ARGH!!! I made a right/write mistake. So very embarassed. Well it's fixed now.

Posted by:  issachar

Welcome Anonymous...

I didn't mean to suggest that the attacks on Mormons by angry mobs in the early days were justified. Two wrongs not making a right and all that. Mormons were definitely harshly persecuted in the early years. The murder of Joseph Smith while in police custody was obviously wrong. I didn't mean to imply that those were justified.

About the jumping in my comments. Yes, that's because Krakaur dealt with a whole wack of stuff in his book. Mountain Meadows was years after Smith's murder. I didn't mean to suggest that they were related except in the larger context of hostile Mormon / Non-Mormon relations.

I'm also not sure who OSC was referring to when he said "an author" was attacking Mormonism on CBS. It may not have been Krakauer at all. If it was, OSC may have been referring to Krakauer's historical treatment or his comments on the Mormon sects still practising polygamy. I don't know. Part of what I'm reacting to there isn't OSC's statements, but his lack of comment on stuff like Mountain Meadows. Bringing up one side of the conflict smacks too much of victim culture. It's sort of like bringing up the the forced supremacy of Islam in the holy land in the 12th century without mentioning the wanton slaughter of the Crusades.

And learning about someone from their enemies? Not exclusively obviously. That's why I invited Mormon missionaries into my home to tell me about their faith and why I read LDS sites as well as anti-LDS sites when I want to learn about Mormonism. I don't learn about Republicans only from Republican sites either. If I did that, I'd get a pretty one-sided view. I don't mean to suggest that the truth is always halfway between two arguments, just that I try to get opposing views for everything.

Oh, and about Joseph Smith claiming the Bible was not the true record. To be more specific, I was told by the Mormon missionaries I mentioned before that the Bible had been corrupted and that while it still contained some truth, it couldn't be properly understood without the Book of Mormon. So I guess they told me that the Bible was the partially true record. If I was misinformed, I welcome the correction, but I then have to ask why Mormons don't use the Bible exclusively when discussing theology with Protestants/Catholics/Orthodox? It would make things simpler, because P/C/O's will automatically reject an argument that uses the truth of the Book of Mormon as an assumption.

My post was long, meandering and not terribly well thought out, and for that I apologize. (You might have noticed a couple of horrific spelling mistakes). But I'd like to ask... How did you stumble on this? I'm curious. (And feel free to share your name, I'm not a malicious person if I gave you that impression).

Cheers!

Posted by:  Anonymous

I'm anonymous for sake of lazyness mostly. I wandered over from k5 from the link associated with your name. I wandered over because there doesn't seem to be many professed Christians over there, heh.

Anyway, onto your concerns. I can understand how stuff thrown together doesn't always come out right. I believe Card's comments being largely based on the early days of the LDS church are generally correct. He ignored "the boys" and other small scale retaliations, but at the time of the death of the prophet, the Nauvoo legion could have basically leveled Illinois - if they chose to do so. That's quite a bit of restraint to have nothing happen afterwards.

It was 13 years later, 10 years after completing the move to Utah that the Mountain Medows Massacre occured. There were overtones of Joseph's death, the group traveled through Salt Lake and several settlements - claiming to be the ones that killed Joseph. They were also some from Missouri, a place where a lot of really bad stuff happened. And some were oviously too young to have really partcitipated. But this is not a wise thing to be doing, especially since the US government had just dispached the US army to deal with the mormons. A defacto state of war existed before things settled down after the Army got to Utah. Alliances were made and treaties signed with the nearby Indians, as the settlers did not want to be driven again and would fight.

The group was rather roudy and messed with some Indians. The Indians didn't like this so they tailed them. The group killed a cow, and laced it with poison and left it for the Indians. The Indians ate it, and many died. Now the Indians were in this thing to the end, as far as they were concerned it was war. They tailed them through much of Utah harrasing them. The Indians approached the mormons and said something along the lines of "Look, we have a treaty, you are sworn to help us!". Brigham Young (prophet at the time) had let it be known that the group should be left alone. In Southern Utah the group got holed up by the Indians and were getting desperate, both Indians and the group were looking for help from the local mormon settlement. The settlement decided to get involved - not everything is clear but likely was John D. Lee who spearheaded the operation. I won't go into the details as they are unpleasent, but the group was almost entirely killed.

This case isn't very clear cut, there was a lot going on. It certainly isn't on par with the Crusades. It is generally ignored as an outlier and unfortunate side effect of the Utah War. I don't think this is an unreasonable position.

As for the Bible, the official line from Joseph Smith is "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." These are Smith's words, this is not the same as "...who claimed that the Bible was not the true record of Christ's teaching...". It sounds like you've had missionaries try and explain this, apparently they were unsuccessful. It's a common misconception, you aren't the only one. But I hope you can see the two ideas are very different.

As for the reason why the Bible isn't used exclusively.. From the title page of the book of Mormon, as to it's stated purpose. "--Which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the convenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever-- And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations..." Emphasis is mine.

Also, the companion message of the Book of Mormon is that there are prophets today and Christ has reorganized his Church on the earth. By knowing the Book of Mormon is true, you will also know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that the LDS Church is Christ's Church in official form again on the earth. If the missionaries stuck to the Bible, this is a hard message to transmit. They're there to teach new messages, not ones that people already have.

Generally the missionaries do not just assume the Book of Mormon is true for those they teach, it is introduced and the invite to pray about it is given.

On another note, I do not agree with everything OSC says. I'm decidedly anti-democratic (mob rule), I think it's a semantical vice that a writer, like him, should understand better.

Posted by:  issachar

What a difference perspective makes.

I've read a fair bit about the Mountain Meadows incident, and it's amazing the differences in perspective. Honestly you haven't convinced me. The case against the Mormon's of the time in that incident and a couple of others seems pretty damning. On the other hand, much of this boils down to he-said she-said. There were precious few people with video cameras selling the footage to CBS at the time.

Frankly the version of events I hear from Mormons is far too squeaky clean. People just aren't that good. Look at at Abraham. Look at David. It's not that people can't be that good. It is possible. But with contradictory evidence & claims I think it's highly unlikely. And when there were early claims that they weren't involved, then it turns out they were...

Regardless, the Mountain Meadows events shouldn't tar Mormons today, anymore than I want to be tarred for the Crusades. (Which I mention as an extreme example of bad not as a scale comparison to Mountain Meadows).

About the Bible vs. Book of Mormon thing. The missionaries were pretty clear. I listen carefully and it's pretty hard to mistake the words. But I suspect they were young and got it wrong. They did do the bit where they told us to pray to God and ask if the Book of Mormon was true. I did. The Book of Mormon is false teaching.

But the operative words in Smith's statement about the bible are "as far as it is translated correctly". That hides all manner of disagreement. A translation or interpretation that disagrees with the Book of Mormon is automatically false to a Mormon. At the very least, Luke's record of Christ's ascension into heaven has to have been corrupted from a Mormon perspective because it says that he went from teaching the Jews to heaven. No stops to teach in North America.

Basically my point is that Mormons and what I'm calling Christianity are two entirely different religions. If you want to claim the word "Christian" as yours feel free to do that, but we're not going to go along with your usage.

Oh, and anti-democratic? I can't agree with you there. :) Worst system in the world. Except for all the others.

Posted by:  issachar

Oh, and thanks for dropping in again anonymous. I love having the conversation and the different perspective. :) I'm curious to know what your name on K5 is. Have we talked on there?

But actually I'd also like to ask you to explain more what you mean by saying you were anti-democratic and that OSC should have understood better as a writer. I didn't get you there. You don't believe democracy is good? Card does and should know better?

Posted by:  Anonymous

Greetings from Anonymous..

My name on K5 is Anonymous (Lemming) too, and I've been speaking along the same veins there. It should be fairly easy to figure out (I guess I thought it should have been easy to guess). Now that I'm fully out of the K5 closet, onto democracy...

Democracy! Democracy! Democracy! Is a semantical error that many people have today. What is it suppose to mean? Basically in lay-mans terms, democracy is substituted for good government. The problem is that democracy is not the same as good government. A Monarchy can be good government with equity and freedom, if your king has the moral fortitude for it. The original American system is a Republic for good reason. There wasn't much that was democratic about the whole thing to begin with. The laws aren't made by the people, the president isn't elected by the people, the judges aren't elected by the people, the senators aren't elected by the people. It was a conclomerate of states (I.E. EU style super-state) to support each other, as a single state has a hard time protecting itself against a predator (at the time, England). So the plan was struck out to create some body of government that would best preserve good goverment.

In a real democracy, if 51% of the people want to have the other 49% killed off, they can (I.E. mob rule). If the law is the problem you just change it. How is this to be prevented? The will of the majority is not always good (ding ding, important lesson here)! Though, in fairness, it's often not as extreem as the example I cited. Restrictions are placed on government, it is only given powers in specific areas, and those powers are usually limited as well. These ideas of limited governance designed to promote equity and freedom are completely lost when all you say is "democracy". Because, everyone knows, a democracy is a majority silly! Forget real stratagies for preserving good governance! It's disarming and promotes ignorance of principles of just governance. The USA is a Republic, as are, technically, most western nations.

The trick is "equity and freedom", not "democracy". Even the Republics of today are finding themselves with less "equity and freedom" than they've had in past times. The times are dark indeed.
Every American, most especially writers, should be aware of such detrimental word-play.

Back to Mountain Meadows.. I don't try and white wash it, it happened, mormons were involved and it was ugly. But the links to high leadership are tenuous at best (this is where most mud slinging occurs today). That and conditions of the time are usually ignored (Utah War was real, and should be researched with the context of being driven from your lands twice before). One should take it all into account. And yes, it is quite an unfortunate event.

Posted by:  Anonymous

As for the Bible. There are numerous religions out there and many use different translations of the Bible, I don't think any other book has quite the equal of varying translations. Different languages also have different translations, I speak 2, there are many passages that vary. If a translator introduces an error, it is going to be wrong. This is true with ANY book.

My point remains that those qualifiers are no where even remotely near your claim of "A man born in 1805 who claimed that the Bible was not the true record of Christ's teaching". You've constructed your argument on a very unsound basis and it sounds like you're trying to strech it to fit now. Truth is truth, right is right, perhaps there are errors in the Book of Mormon where the Bible could be correct. This was never pre-supposed to be false as you stipulate. None of the books are claimed to be perfect, for both Bible and Book of Mormon have faults - they are written by men. Their claim to fame is that they were inspired of God. You seem to be consistantly coming from a pre-concieved notion of the inherit falseness contained therein, making assumptions. All when everything is not clearly understood.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the passage of John 10:16. It is claimed that these other sheep are other peoples, one of which was in the Americas. It's not an unreasonable position. You could argue all day about the Gospels, and promote one over the other. If you take them in context of different writers with different perspectives you usually gleen more details, but you can disgress to squabbling if you really want to as well. You're approach is important.

Anyway, this doesn't appear to be constructive... Moving on...

Posted by:  issachar

Sorry Anonymous Lemming. I thought you might be a possibility over there, but I didn't want to assume.

I didn't mean to digress to squabbling. Honestly, what you're telling me now is slightly different from what I thought I heard from the Missionaries. I stand corrected.

I guess it's not really fair to have this discussion here as I get an e-mail telling me when someone posts and you have no such notice. But thank you for giving me more correct information on Mormon beliefs. I should refrain from making statements about Mormon beliefs when actually conversing with a Mormon. :P (Such as "automatically false to a Mormon).

The "other sheep" of John 10:16 seems to me to suggest gentiles, (as in non-Jews), what I wonder about is why one would not assume that this doesn't apply to all gentiles? Why only North American natives? Why not the Aboriginees of Australia? Of course, if you're operating from the assumption that Joseph Smith was a prophet, the reason is obviously contained in the Book of Mormon. But if you're looking in the Bible for suggestions that the (obvious to me), assumption that "other sheep" applies to gentiles in general, using the Book of Mormon would be begging the question.

In general about Mormon perspectives on the Bible, I think it's pretty obvious I was wrong, but I think it's also pretty clear from our discussion that Protestant/Orthodox/Catholic Christianity is quite a bit different from the Mormon interpretation. Different enough in my opinion to constitute a difference in kind.

Your comment on "Good Governmment" brought a smile to my face. In school in Canada we're taught to compare the American line of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" to the Canadian line of "Peace, Order and Good Government". You're absolutely right about the problems of absolute democracy. I guess I think that limited democracy and an engage (and moral) citizenry is the best guarantor of good government. In writing that I notice that I've added a lot to "democracy" there...

Posted by:  issachar

Oh, if you're back Anonymous Lemming, I should mention that I posted a couple of updates above.

Posted by:  issachar

Oh, and if I can trouble you for one more question, could you tell me why Mormons say that the original gold tablets that Smith transcribed to create the Book of Mormon are not available?

The original texts of the Old & New Testaments are simply lost to time, but that would apply to the Book of Mormon. So why are the originals not available any more?

Posted by:  Anonymous

I should refrain from making statements about Mormon beliefs when actually conversing with a Mormon.

Yeah, that get's a little frustrating. But you apparently try not to, and that's encouraging :-)

The "other sheep" of John 10:16 seems to me to suggest gentiles,

It does tend to suggest that on an initial reading. Keep in mind that he said "and they shall hear my voice". I think this suggests that He, personally, would visit these sheep. The Apostles preached unto the gentiles. We have no records at all of Christ Himself preaching unto the gentiles. At the very least, the Mormon interpretation is plausable.

Why only North American natives? Why not the Aboriginees of Australia?

There is no limitation to just American natives. In fact, in The Book of Mormon it is mentioned that he will visit yet other sheep. The Book of Mormon also has a detail that he would yet visit the lost 10 tribes of Israel. That they would also hear his voice personally.

In general about Mormon perspectives on the Bible, I think it's pretty obvious I was wrong, but I think it's also pretty clear from our discussion that Protestant/Orthodox/Catholic Christianity is quite a bit different from the Mormon interpretation. Different enough in my opinion to constitute a difference in kind.

As a community I believe most Mormons would agree with you. There are a great deal of differences. Most especially in the ideas of the modern revealed word (additional scripture, living prophet, etc), and belief in being the "only true and living church" on the earth.

Your comment on "Good Governmment" brought a smile to my face. In school in Canada we're taught to compare the American line of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" to the Canadian line of "Peace, Order and Good Government". You're absolutely right about the problems of absolute democracy. I guess I think that limited democracy and an engage (and moral) citizenry is the best guarantor of good government. In writing that I notice that I've added a lot to "democracy" there...

I'd agree with you there. An immoral people will end up with a despotic government as that will be the only way any semblance of order could be maintained.

Oh, and if I can trouble you for one more question, could you tell me why Mormons say that the original gold tablets that Smith transcribed to create the Book of Mormon are not available?

For reasons that men can really only speculate on, God has taken them up. It is worth noting that not all the plates were translated - only the parts that were commanded to be. Some things aren't intended for men yet. If you're looking for evidence of authenticity, there are the testimonies of the eight witnesses (who saw the plates) and testimonies of the three witnesses (who saw the plates along with the angel Moroni) in the front of the book. The historical record is that these are upstanding men of their time and that they never denied their given testimony even though many left the church.

I'm not sure about the original manuscript used in translation.