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From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.politics.guns,soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Who's next? Mormons and Jews?
Message-ID: <viking.735373292@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 93 06:21:32 GMT
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In <mcclaryC5snpq.KB1@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.
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^
	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
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. ;-)

	Both sects practiced the "1-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.

>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.)

	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.

>  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.

	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.

	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 #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
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