Even Joseph Smith Talked Like a Pirate

September 19, 2011 By vorjack 4 Comments

Some folks on the Ex-mormon forum mentioned a connection between Captain William Kidd and Joseph Smith. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense: Smith was a treasure seeker, using his peep-stones as divining tools, and Kidd is the most famous pirate to have ever buried treasure.

Searching a bit, I found this bit on Wikipedia’s entry on the Angel Moroni:

Some scholars have theorized that Smith became familiar with the name “Moroni” through his study of the treasure-hunting stories of Captain William Kidd. Because Kidd was said to have buried treasure in the Comoros islands, and Moroni is the name of the capital city and largest settlement in the Comoros, it has been suggested that Smith borrowed the name of the settlement and applied it to the angel who led him to buried treasure—the golden plates. Complementing this proposal is the theory that Smith borrowed the names of the Comoros islands and applied them to the hill where he found the golden plates, which he named Cumorah.

So do we need a “Talk like a Mormon” day next?

Filed Under: History, Mormonism 4 Comments

Warren Jeffs Convicted

August 11, 2011 By vorjack 33 Comments

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the splinter sect of Mormonism called the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, has been convicted of sexually assaulting the young girls who had been “spiritually married” to him. Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison.

During the trial, Jeffs behaved about the way you’d expect him to. He fired his high-profile defense team and represented himself, reminding us all about the lawyers who have a fool for a client. He also tried several times to get the judge removed. The third and final time, he phrased the request as a commandment from God:

The 15-page recusal motion and exhibit was styled as a revelation from God given to Jeffs in his jail cell Sunday, speaking to Walther, including a paragraph 8, which read, “I am to now recuse you from this case;” paragraph 11, which read in part, “now to recuse yourself from present case, now to be of honor and step away from this abuse of power against a religious and pure faith in the Lord; who is now judge of you, through my servant now voicing my will;” and paragraph 21, which read, “I, the Lord, have spoken. Amen.”
[...]
In Exhibit A, attached to the motion, Jeffs recounts another revelation he claims to have received Thursday, paragraph 21 and 22 of which read, “Let also Barbara Walthers (sic) be of a humbling to know I have sent a crippling disease upon her which shall take her life soon. … She is no longer to be of a respect to peers.”

According to the prosecution, Jeffs has “78 plural wives, including 12 girls married at age 16 and another 12 who were 15 or younger.”

Filed Under: Current Events, Mormonism 33 Comments

Sister Wives

July 15, 2011 By vorjack 121 Comments

From CNN’s Belief Blog, I see that there’s a new constitutional test on the horizon. I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that this one involves the stars of a reality TV show:

Kody Brown and his four wives – the stars of the reality TV show “Sister Wives” – will soon be the subjects of another real-life drama, this one at the federal court in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Browns plan to challenge the state’s anti-bigamy statute Wednesday, when attorney Jonathan Turley files a complaint on behalf of the family’s fight for the rights of “plural families.”

On one hand, I’m not real sympathetic to this style of polygamy. Brown states, “There are tens of thousands of plural families in Utah and other states.” If so, I suspect that almost every one shares the same model as the Browns: one man, multiple women. I don’t see an inherent problem with that, but every example of this sort of polygamy that I’ve seen has been heavily patriarchal.

On the other hand, the lawyer knows what buttons to press:

Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said on his website that he and the Browns aren’t calling for the “recognition of polygamous marriage.”

“We are only challenging the right of the state to prosecute people for their private relations and demanding equal treatment with other citizens in living their lives according to their own beliefs,” he said.

The article is a bit confusing, but it states that the Browns do not have multiple marriage licenses. I don’t know what their exact relationship is, (anyone watched the show?) but it appears to be consensual and legal. But by appearing on a television show they’ve invited a lot of government scrutiny that they don’t feel is just.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m conflicted about this. I generally feel that people should be allowed to manage their own relationships. But polygamous marriage has an ugly history in America, and I’m afraid that legalizing it would just perpetuate its inequalities. I’d be perfectly fine with a single woman wanting to marry multiple men, or more complex marriages with multiples of both genders.

I feel that marriage is just the legal recognition that two people’s lives can become so intertwined that they become legally, financially and emotionally inseparable. I don’t see why that can’t be expanded to more than two people. I don’t want to support the kind of rigid patriarchy we see in the polygamous fringe cults of the Mormon church, but I also don’t want to punish the innocent. Any help?

Filed Under: Mormonism, Sexuality 121 Comments

Dear Church of Latter Day Saints,

June 27, 2011 By vorjack 4 Comments

Hey, how’s that Proposition 8 thing going?

Great, listen. I just wanted you to know that while you were focused on California, New York has made it so that gay couples can get married in Palmyra, birthplace of Mormonism and home of the Sacred Grove. And Manchester, where Joesph Smith found the golden plates at Cumorah.

So in late July, gay folks may be getting married within sight of some of the holiest spots in the Mormon universe.

Just thought you should know.

Didn’t you realize that New York is the original California? We had sailors sitting in gay bars while the west coast had nothing but natives and missionaries. We had pirates dressing in drag while San Francisco was just a hilly spot on the peninsula.

Oh, and we had our religious kooks as well, and we put up with them. Shakers and Quakers and Swedenborgians, oh my. William Miller, Cyrus Teed … and Joseph Smith. Tell me, how do you think your founder would have fared in Boston?

We made you. You’re a product of our wildness and our tolerance. But you went away. Look, I’m sorry about the credit crash that drove you out, blame Wall Street. But now you’ve turned your back on the virtues that brought you into being. Revolutionaries become reactionaries within a generation.

So now we’ve left you behind.

Sincerely,
VorJack

Filed Under: Current Events, Mormonism 4 Comments

Dead Dunking

June 21, 2011 By vorjack 18 Comments

Via Dangerous Minds, I found the blog Famous Dead Mormons: “Saved After Death, whether willing or not.” It lists some of the famous folks who have been posthumously baptized into the Church of Latter Day Saints. That’s “vicarious baptism” or “proxy baptism” to the Mormons, “dead dunking” to the ex-mormons.

I’m surprised it took them until the 1990s to baptize Alexander the Great, but baptizing Frank Zappa, Eazy-E and George Carlin is a bit much.

Seems like a good time to repost an old favorite…

YouTube Preview Image

Filed Under: Mormonism, Videos 18 Comments
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