re who s next mormons and jews dan sorenson viking iastate edu writes in mcclaryc snpq kb netcom com mcclary netcom com michael mcclary writes just thought i d clear up a few of the murky areas actually after surviving being driven out of nauvoo and later carthage the mormons did fortify utah they still arm themselves to defend the faith and stockpile food as well they have been involved in quite a lot of illegal activity including multiple and often underage wives for the leaders a practice still in vogue with some splinters of their sect the parallels between koresh and joseph smith are striking by they you mean the leaders of the lds church i grant you that when joseph smith was still alive plenty of accusations were filed most of which had little bearing with reality as evidenced by various verdicts i have studied lds history for years now and i have yet to see prove that the lds leadership was involved in quote illegal activities plural marriage yes but your charge of underage wives sounds like it could have originated from a tabloid and discredits the high moral standards which characterized these leaders and families unlike as it appears those of david koresh joseph smith started the sect after he and his brother hyram were murdered in a nauvoo il jail cell church membership split over who to follow initially smith was considered a prophet just like mohammed a rather interesting parallel considering muslims consider christ to be a prophet the same as jews i m led to understand make no mistake this was no messiah we re talking about in smith the and neither did he claim he was as the church reflects the moral aptitude of its leaders and especially those of joseph smith i have nothing but the highest respect for this inspired man whose only crime was that he refused to deny that he had seen a vision many have tried to explain the smith phenomenon away but the bold presence of an million member strong church stands as a witness that joseph smith s testimony had enough resilience and power to carry on the message thought at the time was that the gift of prophecy was to be handed down father to son after joseph smith died his son was only entering his teens brigham young and a few others claimed to have been bequeathed the gift and leadership prior to his death the council of twelve the church governing body wasn t of much help here and this basic conflict is still a wedge between the sects brigham young took his followers to salt lake the rest waited for smith jr to grow up enough to assume leadership the other claimants to the leadership were soon ignored like mike dukakis the rest were apostates and excommunicated members of the church while the great majority of the membership the twelve and the various auxiliary organizations chose to accept brigham young as the new prophet and leader of the church if you knew your lds scriptures and doctrine you would have known that brigham young was the first in line to fill the prophet joseph smith s vacancy he was the senior apostle in the quorum and various comments made by joseph indicated that it was brigham who would lead the latter day exodus to the west other rightful heirs were either dead hyrum smith or excommunicated oliver cowdery and while persecutions abounded and intensified joseph smith had already given orders to look for a new place an empty land beyond the boundaries of the united states at that time this rekhabite principle pseudographia was well understood and antipated by the great majority of lds faithful and was not questioned by them granted a couple of do it yourselfers stayed behind unwilling to sacrifice and to undertake the perilous journey to the unknown but this also was necessary to separate the tares from the wheat the church benefitted from this purification process they became even more unified and willing to carry out their mission to the world both sects practiced the year food stockpile doctrine and this being frontier and farming country most carried or at least owned weapons there is little evidence that they were a militaristic sect given that they tended to move on rather than face large scale opposition brigham young having suffered a great deal getting to salt lake seems to have been quite justified in making military training a good thing remember this was far beyond where even the us army went and these people had nobody to turn to save themselves just a little context to put this all in perspective btw since when is the church of jesus christ of latter day saints one of the largest denominations in the country a sect it didn t splinter from any other religion as did say the southern baptists or methodists so what did the mormons get it seems that j edgar hoover was very impressed with the way they kept secrets they re pledged to defend secrets with their lives and atone for sin with blood many actually do even to the point of suicide what a balloney suicide is sinful and against the law of god i am not comfortable with this alleged cosiness with mammon i assure you that many among us reject this attitude categorically period our only true allegiance is to our god and to the leaders which he has appointed to represent him in any regard to read this trash about suicide and atone for sins with blood is yet another insulting misrepresentation of what my church believes in and stands for the rlds the reorganized lds are friendly rivals of the lds and delight in telling stories about them which generates quick retorts from the lds members and everybody has a grand time at no time have i ever even heard this hinted at i m taking it with a salt block make it a really big salt mountain with a glacier on top so he hired virtually no one but mormons until the fbi was almost exclusively staffed by members of the church of later day saints though j edgar is finally gone the fbi personnel especially the field agents are still heavily mormon i have often wondered how this might affect the fbi s treatment of religious organizations a mormon would consider heretical preposterous even if this were true reliable data please i am convinced that those officers would perform to the highest codes of honor and conduct that s why they were selected for in the first place remember besides one of our articles of faith strongly states the principle of freedom of religion and that all people are free to worship how where or what they may if it s true there would be little affect lds and rlds philosophy is that all other religions have strayed from the true church as set down by jesus but that god will judge each on his own merits in addition the rlds also contend and the lds may as well that ignorance of the true way tm is an excuse you can only be condemned if you had been tought the way and rejected it in short lds and rlds suffer everybody from lutherans to buddhists secure in the knowledge that though they are wrong they will not be penalized for ignorance it is more likely that hoover liked them because of their rather strict upbringings which forbade alcohol tobacco hot drink like coffee or tea and the like these people are the salt of the earth and as such are more easily made to follow orders and have few vices to be used against them a good explanation i can accept that you are right that lds people are sometimes a little too cosy with mammon s orders the late president kimball for example was an exception with his strong opposition of the selection of the mx peace keeper missile maze in utah that s my somewhat educated guess anyway both sects have splinter groups that don t mirror the masses but these are small and rare and hardly worth noting their common ancestry none of this has any relevance to guns though when a man s religion is used to deny him the right of self protection with the weapons suitable for the job he ll find an ally in me dan sorenson dod z dan exnet iastate edu viking iastate edu isu only censors what i read not what i say don t blame them usenet post 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