33 He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.
The first installment of the Mormons in the Mist articles can be found here. This is part one of a subseries on the history of the Church. This article covers Joseph’s life through the translation of the Book of Mormon.
You cannot discuss The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without dealing with Joseph Smith, Jr.
People who know nothing else about the Church know two things: Polygamy and Joe Smith’s Golden Bible. There have been many biographies written about him, from every angle. The best of these of which I am aware is Richard L. Bushman’s 2005 Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling. Dr. Bushman acknowledges Joseph’s shortcomings without sliding into a warts-only version and describes his life without becoming hagiographic.
So, who was Joseph Smith, Jr? To the believing members of the Church, he is the Prophet of the Restoration. A seer and revelator who restored the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth, founded the Church under the direction of God, and was martyred for his beliefs. His critics say he was a con man and a fake.
Joseph Smith, Jr. started life as a farm boy. He was born 23 December 1805 in Sharon, Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. He was the 5th of 11 children (of whom 9 lived to adulthood). When Joseph was 9, the family moved to Palmyra, New York and, four years later, to the nearby town of Manchester.[ii] This positioned the family perfectly for the Second Great Awakening. When he was 14 the wave of religious revivalism swept over the area and the Smith family was caught up in it. Confused by the contention, he followed the advice of James[iii] and prayed for wisdom.
Joseph reported the results of this prayer:
I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
17 […] When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
Joseph Smith – History 1:16-17
In this vision of the Father and the Son, known as the First Vision, Joseph was instructed not to join any church at that time. A few days later, he mentioned the visitation to a local minister who contemptuously dismissed it as being of the devil and said, “that all such things had ended with the apostles.” Telling the story also “excited a great deal of prejudice against me among the professors of religion[.]”[iv]
The Golden Plates
Three years later, he had another visitation[v]. This time the messenger identified himself as Moroni and told the seventeen-year-old prophet about a book of gold plates containing the history of past inhabitants of the Americas. Moroni instructed Joseph through the night, and the next morning Joseph made his way to where the plates were hidden. In a stone box with the plates were a breastplate and two stones connected in the fashion of old fashioned spectacles. The stones were called a Urim and Thummim and were referred to as “interpreters”. He made an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve the contents of the box and was told to return every year for the next four years to receive more instruction.
Over the course of the next four years, Joseph returned for instruction each year. Among other jobs, he hired on for a month in 1825 to assist a man who was looking for old Spanish silver mines in the area. While engaged in this, he boarded with the family of Isaac Hale, where he met his future wife Emma (Isaac’s daughter). They were married (against the wishes of her family) in January 1827.
On 22 September 1827, Joseph went to receive his yearly instruction, and Moroni gave him the plates. Behind the relatively bland tale in the canonical version, there is a bit more which Dr. Bushman relates. ‘The angel had commanded Joseph to come to the hill on September 22. To be precise in his compliance and still throw off meddlers who knew of the date, Joseph chose to go to Cumorah in the dead of night, almost the minute September 22 arrived. Around twelve o’clock Joseph came into the room to ask if his mother had a chest with a lock and key. Knowing at once why he wanted it, Lucy was upset when she was unable to provide one. “Never mind,” Joseph assured her. “I can do very well for the present without it – be calm – all is right.” Minutes later Emma passed through the room in her bonnet and riding dress, and Lucy heard the two of them drive off in Joseph Knight’s wagon.’[vi]
Joseph, Emma, and the plates did not make it home before breakfast. Lucy (Joseph’s mother), covered for them until they returned. Joseph did not bring the plates home at all that day. He hid them in a birch log which he had hollowed out.[vii] In order to make money to pay a cabinet maker to make a box in which to keep the plates safe, Joseph left the next day for Macedon where he was hired to dig a well.
Along with the plates came a warning that he was “responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off[.]”[viii] Why such elaborate measures, and such a strict charge? The day after Joseph left for Macedon, his family learned of a plot to find and steal the plates: “[Joseph’s father] learned that ten or twelve men working with Willard Chase were conspiring to find the plates, and had sent for a conjuror sixty miles away whom they believed could discover the hiding place.”[ix] Emma went for Joseph, who left the well and returned quickly to the Smith farm. He then left to retrieve the plates from their hiding place. On the way back from the hiding place, he wrapped the plates in a frock he had been wearing while digging and carried them under his arm. He carried the plates (estimated to weigh between 40 and 50 pounds) that way the three miles back to the farm. Joseph was assaulted three times on the way home but made it back intact except for a dislocated thumb. Over the next several weeks, several groups of people searched for the plates but never found them.[x]
In order to escape the attacks, Joseph and Emma left Manchester in late fall 1827 and went to Harmony, Pennsylvania to live on her father’s land. There, Joseph settled down to the work of learning how to translate the plates – at the same time providing for his pregnant wife. As part of the process, he copied some characters from the plates and translated them using the Urim and Thummim.
The Translation of the Book of Mormon
In February 1828 Martin Harris, a Palmyra farmer who had helped the Smiths escape, paid a visit. He took the copied characters and the translations to Dr. Charles Anthon in New York. Harris related to Joseph what happened:
64 “I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters. He gave me a certificate, certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the translation of such of them as had been translated was also correct. I took the certificate and put it into my pocket, and was just leaving the house, when Mr. Anthon called me back, and asked me how the young man found out that there were gold plates in the place where he found them. I answered that an angel of God had revealed it unto him.
65 “He then said to me, ‘Let me see that certificate.’ I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it and tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them. I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them. He replied, ‘I cannot read a sealed book.’ I left him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who sanctioned what Professor Anthon had said respecting both the characters and the translation.”[xi]
Harris returned to his farm in Palmyra, but returned to Harmony in mid-April. He became Joseph’s scribe as the work of translation continued. Joseph would dictate the translation (obtained through the interpreters) to Martin, who sat on the far side of a curtain which kept him from seeing the plates. By mid-June, they had a manuscript of 116 pages hand-written on foolscap. At this point, Martin – hoping to have something tangible to show his wife – asked to be allowed to take the manuscript home and show it to her. [xii]
Joseph made the request to the Lord and was told no. Martin persisted, and was told no a second time. The third time, the Lord gave permission on the condition that only Martin’s wife, his brother, his parents, and his wife’s sister could see the manuscript.[xiii] Harris left for Palmyra, manuscript in hand.[xiv]
Two weeks passed with no word from Harris and Joseph began to wonder about the manuscript. Emma encouraged him to go check up on Martin, so Joseph went to his parents’ house in Manchester. When he arrived, a message was sent to Martin, who was expected for breakfast at eight. Martin did not arrive as expected. He finally appeared at twelve-thirty. Joseph’s mother Lucy reports: “[W]e saw him walking with a slow and measured tread towards the house, his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the ground. On coming to the gate, he stopped instead of passing through and got upon the fence, and sat there some time with his hat drawn over his eyes.”[xv] Martin had not kept his word, and the manuscript was gone.
The Lord, as you might expect, was not pleased. Martin’s role in the translation of the plates ended. He also withdrew Joseph’s gift of translation until the following Spring. When He restored it, He informed the prophet that the pages were still out there in the hands of people who did not want Joseph to succeed and that to fulfill this goal they had altered the manuscript so that when the section was re-translated, they could publish the altered original and say that Joseph was a fraud.[xvi] To frustrate this, the Lord instructed Joseph not to re-translate the same section, but to begin at another point which covered the same events from another angle.[xvii]
On 5 April 1829 Oliver Cowdery came to visit the Smiths in Harmony. He had been teaching school in Manchester, and heard about Joseph and the plates while residing at Joseph Sr.’s house. Oliver became Joseph’s scribe, and the translation of the plates resumed.[xviii] In May, as the translation progressed, they came across a passage on baptism. Desiring more information from the Lord, they went to the woods to pray. Joseph relates what occurred:
“68 […] While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying:
69 Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.”[xix]
This being told them that he was John the Baptist, and instructed them to baptize one another. He also told them that there was another priesthood, called the Melchizedek priesthood which would be conferred upon them later.[xx]
We do not have a date for the conferral of the Melchizedek priesthood. Since it has the authority to organize the Church, it is reasonable to assume it was restored between the visitation of John the Baptist and the organization of the Church in April of 1830. The first acknowledgement of the event is in a revelation dated August of 1830.[xxi]
Continuing persecution required them to relocate at the end of May 1829, this time to the farm of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York. Once there, Oliver and Joseph continued the work of translation and completed it about July 1st.[xxii]
During the entire time the translation was going on, Joseph was not allowed to display the plates to anyone.[xxiii] In a revelation dated March 1829, Martin Harris was told to repent and humble himself and be patient, and he would be one of the people allowed to see the plates.[xxiv] Once the translation was completed, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer (the son of the owner of the farm where the translation was completed) received a revelation where, in their own words “And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon[.]”[xxv] An additional eight witnesses (Smith and Whitmer family members) also saw and handled the plates, but did not see an angel.[xxvi]
Joseph Smith will always be a controversial figure. He founded a church in a log cabin which has grown to over 16 million members. These people believe that he is precisely what he claimed to be – a prophet, seer, and revelator. His critics will tell you that he was a fraud and a charlatan, and that those of us who believe what he said are deluded.
[i] Photo Credit: www.mormonnewsroom.org
[ii] Pearl of Great Price Joseph Smith – History 1:3-4
[iv] Joseph Smith – History 1:21-22
[v] Joseph Smith – History 1:27-54
[vi] Bushman, Richard Lyman; Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling p 59 internal notes omitted
[vii] Ibid p 60
[viii] Joseph Smith – History 1:59
[ix] Bushman p. 60
[x] Ibid pp 60 – 62
[xi] Joseph Smith – History 1:64-65 See also Isaiah 29:11-12
[xii] Bushman p. 66
[xiii] ibid
[xiv] Ibid pp 66 -67
[xv] Ibid p 67
[xvi] Doctrine and Covenants 10:10-19
Personal side note: Those pages are still out there – or were 40 years ago. My father was friends with a man who, at the time this occurred, was a professor of religious studies at BYU. At one point while I was a teenager, this man was in our area giving a talk. After the talk, my father took him out to dinner. In the course of the conversation, the subject of the missing manuscript pages came up, and this man told my father that someone he knew had information on the whereabouts of the manuscript pages. This person had not revealed to my father’s friend where they were or who had them, merely that he had this information.
[xvii] Doctrine and Covenants 10:30,38-41
[xviii] Joseph Smith – History 1:66-67
[xix] Joseph Smith – History 1:68-69
[xx] Joseph Smith – History 1:70-72
[xxi] Doctrine and Covenants 27:12
[xxii] Bushman pp 76-78
[xxiii] Doctrine and Covenants 5:3
[xxiv] Doctrine and Covenants 5:23-24
This is very informative, thanks. I never knew the full story and had only heard the cartoon version floating around pop culture. Regardless of how the lessons were given (and how much credibility you give it, no offense), the end result has been a smashing success both for the LDS Church and for society as a whole. Overall, the world would probably be a better place with more LDS people; they seem to be extremely good citizens, sensible, kind, respectful and responsible.
Judging Smith solely by the results of his actions, I’d say he did good things.
Marie Osmond cleavage shots or GTFO !
https://salvagedstars.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/200807_marie-osmond-dancing-diet.jpg
thanks….I was just being an ass, actually (leg man)
although she has scored a solid wood with me in every decade
Thanks. Pop culture is rarely kind to religious oddities, and Joseph Smith was definitely an oddity — both in his day and ours.
This is one reason I stay instead of fading out to go to football games on Sunday. The overall fruit of the tree is good and I want my kids to be on that tree.
Wasn’t Moroni deported to Sweden? Joking aside good article.
“Claims he’s not from there.”
That’s a fargin’ trick question!
what a buncha ice holes
I grew up in Rochester and other than the commercials for the Hill Cumorah Pageant every year I knew next to nothing about you guys. Good stuff!
That’s why I’m writing these. As Q notes above, most of the info people run into on their own is from pop culture, which (these days) means you’re getting your info from Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
My publishing partner and I published an anthology of spoof tales mocking the pop culture of the late 1800s, where all Mormons were cast as villains in pulp novels and magazine serials. Only, in our anthology, we were the heroes. It was a reclamation effort. We had a lot of fun putting that together.
Let me guess: In the originals, Mormon men were all lecherous fiends out to steal wives and daughters? That project sounds like it’d be fun to read.
You got it!
Here it is: Monsters & Mormons
Thanks. Is that the same Terryl Givens who co-authored The God who Weeps and The Christ who Heals?
Yes. We were lucky to get his blessing.
+1 Study In Scarlet
I prefer A Study in Emerald
Does the church still have the tablets?
No. After the translation was done and the witnesses had seen them, Moroni took them back from Joseph. As far as we know, they are still in his keeping.
That cabin on the main page looks like a vanishingly rare sawmill-cut log cabin, from a brief transition period from hand-cut logs to sawmill lumber. Would need to see the logs to confirm.
That is all. Carry on.
Found a bigger picture. You can see the axe marks. A very well made hand-hewn log cabin.
Now you can carry on.
Thanks for writing this up. I’m kind of with Q is that regardless of the veracity of Joseph Smith the overwhelming majority of Mormons are good people who make the world a better place. If I ever found religion again, that’s probably the direction I’d go. (This may seem to be damning with faint praise, but I mean that sincerely). From what I know of the theology from having a Mormon roommate in college, it is one of the more humane religions I can name. And it is certainly no screwier in its origins than any other major religion. So I figure judge it by its adherents and its holy texts.
I don’t know that Smith is necessarily either a prophet or a charlatan. I think he really believed what he was saying. I admit I don’t think there was any Moroni or any gold tablets. But I tend to think he was sincere in his claims that he was translating a lost testament of Christ. I suppose some might call him a mad man for that but….*shrug* that hasn’t necessarily disqualified holy men in the past.
Nonsense go Eastern Orthodox the one true faith.
Da!
(the only Romanian word I know)
Alright, I’ll accept madman as a possible third alternative. I tend to think about Joseph’s claims to being a prophet in much the same way C.S. Lewis saw Christ’s claims of divinity:
– Mere Christianity
Obviously, when discussing Joseph Smith, substitute “Prophet” for “Son of God.”
Difference is, of course, there’s iron-clad contemporaneous records of Smith’s existence and life.
This seems like a complete non sequitur.
Yeah, there are two separate issues at stake: did Jesus exist, and was he the son of God? Odds are actually very good that Jesus existed, because there were any number of Jewish messiahs popping up during that period. And historically, if you consider the history of the Christian religion, Jesus isn’t very important from a non-metaphysical standpoint; it’s the apostles who get people interested in the religion and get it to spread. Whether or not Jesus was actually the son of God, in whatever sense that might be the case, is a separate issue that can’t be proven or disproved via historical records.
Yeah, I was thinking about Lewis and that quote, though I don’t tend to give the “mad man” part a necessarily negative connotation.
The other option is that he was sincere in his conviction about being a Prophet, but thought he needed to add something suitably epic to it in order for people to listen and came up with the whole plates/translators story to make it all more palatable and believable (which might seem ironic, but people are weird).
Worst case is I’m wrong, and from my understanding that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to hell. Or rather, the Mormon afterlife for non-mormons who aren’t actively evil is sort of Elysium. Not bad, but no where near as good as it could be.
I have flirted with the concept that this life is “hell,” and death is release.
As did CS Lewis, since he was brought up.
Actually, he thought it went both ways, for those bound for hell, this life is a pretaste. And ditto heaven for the opposite.
Also, welcome to Buddhism and the 1st Nobel Truth
“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering”
Essentially, it’s all shit when you’re alive.
Personal opinion: If he did that, I’d slide him over into the con-man/actively evil category. You’d (general no specific) also have to come up with an explanation for how a man with roughly a third grade education came up with the Book of Mormon.
You are correct sir. That article is in process.
You’d (general no specific) also have to come up with an explanation for how a man with roughly a third grade education came up with the Book of Mormon.
I remember giving my father a copy of the BoM to read when he came out to visit me in Salt Lake City. His exact reaction was just that: “This reads like a third grader trying to write something that sounds like a bible.”
How much education did Peter have?
He was a fisherman. Matthew was a tax collector, so probably had a decent accounting background (or was the leg-breaker type of collector).
I see your point, but the examples of their writings we have are years to decades after Christ’s death. They had time to learn to write. Joseph got the plates in late 1827. After the manuscript was stolen from Martin Harris, the Book of Mormon was translated/written (depending on your point of view) between April 1829 (when Oliver Cowdery became Joseph’s scribe) and the beginning of July 1829 — so about a 3 month period — and published in early 1830. There was not time for him to acquire more education.
But you might not be comfortable in what is as good as it could be.
We have a healthy Jehovah’s Witness community around these parts. Really nice folks, don’t proselytize much to speak of. I was chatting with them about religious communities in general, and told them that, as far as I could tell, every religion looks nuts from outside, and that’s not an accident. Religions require faith, and faith means belief in something unlikely to impossible. So you get Xenu, golden tablets, zombie messiahs and cannibalistic rituals re-enacted every Sunday, etc. They laughed and refilled my beer.
Ok, now this I take issue with.
Let’s take a look at the evidence presented in the New Testament. Based on the reports of his miracles, Jesus was a powerful practitioner. He died as part of a gruesome ritual, and came back to life under his own power. After his return, he spoke with people, ate food, and retained his powers.
Jesus was clearly not a zombie. He was a lich.
bah. Closing tags is hard. Edit fairy?
This is why I like Mormons. Good man.
One of the many phone calls from school I got about my son was exactly that. His mother decided that he needed to go to Catholic school over my objections. His principal called me, quite upset, about a class disruption. They had been teaching the resurrection story and it immediately occurred to him that Jesus was a zombie, and he pointed this out.
Principal was upset. (((I))) was proud.
If I got a call like that, I’d be pretty pissed off that neither the teacher nor the principal used it as a springboard to discuss the history of outside perception communion and resurrection in the early church. Specifically, how it absolutely was seen by outsiders as cannibalism and zombieism in Roman culture right up until the point that that French guy painted red crosses on his people’s shields and killed a bunch of guys without red crosses on their shields.
I was just generally pissed off about him getting indoctrinated over my objections. The principal was quite aware of my animus and managed to drop in his sour observation that I had refused to attend my own son’s baptism.
Fortunately, he’s almost 18 now and can make up his own mind.
Christ, what an asshole..
I don’t need lightning bolts hitting me.
And I did not approve of him being baptized over my strong objections. And to be fair, his circumcision was also done over my objections. (there’s a reason his mother is my EX-wife)
BTW, I should mention that Spudalicious WAS at the baptism and is his official godfather. He told me that I didn’t miss much.
+1 Shakes the Mohel
My in-laws are sort of peeved that my wife and I won’t be baptizing our future children. She grew up Catholic/Presbyterian and I Southern Baptist. As crazy as my former religion is, one thing they do get right is that baptism is an intimate thing where you are entering into a covenant with God and therefore have to make that decision yourself. I told my wife that we have no right to make that decision for them.
We’re gonna raise our kids in the Christian faith but as far as baptism goes, they have to make that decision to commit to God themselves.
PS: I’m not knocking anyone who did the baby baptism.
We did the “twice” thing – as a baby, and then after confirmation. First is more of a blessing than a binding, I think. The second is “OK, I’ll do this”.
It seems like they have slowed down the door to door shit too.
Here in NYC they just stand on street corners and in train stations.
We have a healthy Jehovah’s Witness community around these parts. Really nice folks, don’t proselytize much to speak of.
You must have a different strain of Witness down there then we have up here. Here they go door to door even more then the Mormons (first church is over on the East side of Cleveland). I was friends with a couple of them, including two very attractive redheaded sisters. One continued backsliding and married outside the church, the other went all holy roller and cut her sister off for her backsliding ways (drinking, doing drugs, per-marital sex, etc.).
Around here most Jehovah’s Witnesses are black, and, oddly enough considering our neighborhood, I’ve never seen any going door to door. There was one couple of college-age chicks who would come by looking for the woman who owned the place before us until after time number three I told them that she didn’t live here, I had no idea where she was and no expectation she’d return, and no interest in joining their church. Everybody was very polite and I wished them the best of luck, and they haven’t been back since.
Thanks, Gad, for another informative article.
You really need sacramental bourbon though… Although I always found the wine thing in Orthodoxism unsanitary. People drink from the same glass, not like Catholics with dipping the biscuit
Sadly, sacramental bourbon would clash with the whole “no alcohol” thing.
see that is a deal-breaker for me… not that I would be religious otherwise, to be fair
You could go old-school Norse baresark – their sacrament was massive doses of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
That, and the no shrimp cocktail or bacon cheeseburger thing.
Dipping the wafer is less common in US RC churches, ime. They do the drinking from the cup here as well. I haven’t gone in a long time, but it seems like the older folks would hold the wafer in their mouth until taking a sip.
we dont have wafers just small pieces of plain white bread
I was going to say something, but it’s been well over 20 years since I’ve taken communion. Back then it was the wafer, and the watered down wine. The chalice was wiped by a cloth between the sips though.
Pro Tip – Always lead off conversations about the alcohol content of communion wine with Baptist pastors with the line “Jesus’ first miracle was to make sure drunks got served strong wine so they could continue to have a good time and party. Don’t you think its a little presumptuous to be serving Welch’s because you think you know better than Him?”
It has never failed to work. And by work, I mean ensure that my wife doesn’t ask me to go places with her and meet people who are married to her friends.
Yeah, from what I remember reading in the bible, the joke about the “Buddy Christ” actually seemed more plausible than not.
I loved Dogma. Interestingly to me, it was faith-building.
Another of Rickman’s fine roles.
Rickman was a god.
Here each wedding in church they say the bit about how the guests told the groom most people bring the good wine first, but this time the good wine came last or something
I used that reasoning against some Jack Chick evangelicals who started talking to a friend (Roman Catholic) and me (Agnostic, raised RC) after we left an Irish pub one day. I clarified the version of the bible, and that they were going with a literal meaning instead of interpretations. Then brought up the wedding at Cana.
Their first defense was that it was jelly that was then mixed with water to dilute it and flavor it. So I then pointed out that the KJV of the bible was written in the 16th century, and they knew what wine was then.
“Oenos” and “yayin” are not ambiguous. They’re WINE.
They were Jack Chick evangelicals. Have you ever seen any of his tracts? Children’s cartoons have more depth then them.
related: http://foo.ca/wp/chick-tract-satire/who-will-be-eaten-first/
Their first defense was that it was jelly that was then mixed with water to dilute it and flavor it.
If I’m not mistaken wasn’t potable water relatively uncommon in the ancient Middle East?
So much for the Samaritan woman at the well…
I recall the Southern Baptist line is some rhetorical prestidigitation about wine being a translation for both fermented wine and grape juice and then something about Jesus taking the same vow that Hercules…I mean, Samson did only living up to it. So clearly it’s different.
1) Untreated grape juice spontaneously ferments. There was no such thing as unfermeted grape juice prior to its invention 1869 by Jack Welch.
2) Southern Baptists assert that the Bible, and only the Bible, guides their church service. And while this is a common assertion that I hear from my wife’s family all the time, there is no passage that supports that argument. And thus by their own otherwise favored mode of interpretation, its a shitty argument.
But you know. Motivated reasonings gotta motivate. Potatoes gotta potate.
As a former southern baptist (and didn’t leave over disagreements, just am a member of a non-denominational church now that boarders on charismatic and is also anti-alcohol) I always laugh at the grape juice thing. But even some of the most anti-alcohol pastors I know think that is a stupid interpretation, that it was clearly wine. There is no biblical ban on alcohol, its just a bad idea.
Obviously I dont agree with that last part, but it is more honest than the grape juice thing.
the Southern Baptist line is
I’ll just mention that there is no official Southern Baptist line on most things. The southern Baptist convention is a bottom-up organization believing that individual churches are in charge of their own doctrine.
Sure, but I have heard that from multiple Southern Baptist preachers and church members (all my family are Southern Baptist) in multiple locations for going on 30 years. There may be no official line, but it’s a pretty standard line of thought.
The SBC updated the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000, but individual church’s aren’t required to accept it all.
And I just checked, booze and dancing aren’t mentioned at all.
Correct. SBC has positional statements on a number of big-picture topics, but alcohol use is not one of them. I was referring to the line common among Southern Baptists people.
There may be no official line, but it’s a pretty standard line of thought.
And I’ve been drinking with southern Baptist pastors before. There’s all sorts of crazy that falls under the southern Baptist banner (*glares at the KJV-only churches*), but theyre no more the true southern Baptist belief than Reason is the true libertarian belief.
dipping the biscuit
Is that what we’re calling it now?
those crazy choir boys these days
Intinction sounds dirtier.
They don’t dip the biscuit in the US.
The shared chalice is important because it is “take this cup and drink from it” – shared. Communion. Not “hoist your glass”.
The bread should be unleavened, since it has its roots in the passover feast.
I’ll join in the chorus of thanks for an interesting and well-written article. Not to mention your even-handedness.
Thanks. I’m trying to present rather than proselyte. I assume that if I slide over the line, all y’all will let me know.
“Not to worry, so will I!”
(I’ll put a few extra bucks in the collection plate on Sunday, to make up for this lame joke)
There should be a faith poll among the glibs. or maybe there was…
Catholic — Retired
0-5: Nothing
5-10: Mom’s new Italian-American boyfriend got us kids baptized RC
10-18: Mom’s better new boyfriend wasn’t interested and neither was I
18-: Atheist for awhile, now I guess agnostic? Not religious, at any rate. More live and let live than anything else.
0-14 (or so): Lutheran attender of varying regularity. Baptized as an infant. Confirmed in the church. Didn’t really do much in the church after confirmation.
15-22: agnostic, but with a mild “culturally Christian”/Republican ethics
23+: Protestant – vaguely Baptist, but not really beholden to a specific denomination.
I am also a charter member of The Church of Indifferent.
I decided to re-read a Rifts rule book recently (send help,) so when I saw this, I thought it was a random table to generate an RPG character
Did 14-20 year old me love that game.
Me too. Nothing like trying to get a game going where one player is playing a Splugorth, one guy is playing a Zentradi Cosmoknight, and the third guy shows up and is all “Yeah, I’m playing a dog solder. He’s got a vibro knife… so….”
Fortunately we were all…..uh, shall we say, power gamers. So it was equally overpowered.
Did you know that CJ Carella that wrote the Nightbane books, the Phase World stuff, and some of the better Source Books has started writing novels? He’s got a sci-fi series called Warp Marine Corp that is pretty kick-ass. I really like it, but I always dug his flavor/world building text.
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time….
I’ve just added Decisively Engaged to my Audible wish list.
I bought and read pretty much all the Rifts books but could never find anyone to play with me 🙁
Roll 3d6 + 1 for religiosity?
More like roll d100 and compare to the random chart
Random Religion Table
1-12: Atheist
13-17: Zoroastrian
18: Buddhist
19-75: Christian – Roll on Table II Christian Denomination
76-80: Jewish
81-82: Found your own cult – Roll on Table III Cult Features
83-90: Join a cult
91-100: Reroll twice and keep results
Here’s a real example if you think I’m making this up.
Everything from this company is like what you would get if you took every 14 year old boy from 1991 with no hope of touching a boob in the next half decade, collected their math notebooks, and turned all the scribbles from the margin into an RPG.
Someone’s never played any ICE games. In some of them, you could die during character creation. Not as part of a bad choice, but because you had a bad roll. At least GDW in Twilight 2000 just had the chance you could have your character plans get derailed by the war happening.
Never got into those, but I’ve killed more than on Traveler character during char gen.
They use to have the insanity table that was based on the 80s version of the DSM. So you could face and eldritch horror and have it turn you gay. Not sure
Or lose the ability to type coherently, apparently.
0 – present: (((shitlord)))
Church of the Subgenius. But only cause they have cute stop-action commercials .
Praise Bob!
καλλίστι.
I meant like a poll post not people saying here… don’t wanna offtopic the post
SP will note that.
Raised CRC – by a rather agnostic mother and a more religious father. I think they did it more of expectation / social mores. But after a while they just lost interest in going to church. Hardly surprising since my dad worked 70+ hours a week. Sunday was his only full day off, so why waste an hour at church when he could go to their cottage?
By age 10 or 11- after reading (and watching) Cosmos, I became a die-in-the-wool atheist. And that’s been my belief ever since. But over the years I’ve lost my militant-atheism and now it’s more of a “meh – knock yourself out with whatever religion you prefer. No skin off my back.”
As an aside – even after 30+ years of being a non-believer I still find myself in awe with Jesus. The whole die to forgive our sins is a powerful message. Of course I get a bit misty when I read Medal of Honor stories.
Aside two – I find beauty in the sheer chaos of the universe, but the fact that I’m here, against so many odds is truly breathtaking. Living on a planet that’s “not too close” nor “too far”, the mass extinctions, and the sheer randomness that created clever monkeys that can think beyond the present is amazing.
I usually feel the urge to hide.
Respectful Atheist
0-20 Christian Scientist.
20-present Atheist but not a militant one.
0-sometime in high school: typically Catholic boy from an Irish/Italian family
sometime in high school through college: aggressively atheist
late college till around 30: agnostic type, had no idea what to believe
early 30s – now: My Lutheran wife succeeded in getting me to go to church with her. It’s not weird like other Protestant churches I’d been to, actually is fairly similar to Catholic mass. I re-examine some things, and I would say I’m at least mildly Christian now. I guess? I still have many doubts, and questions that can’t really be answered, but I do think there are good reasons to believe that there was a creator behind all of this. Order does not spontaneously arise from total chaos.
Funny how many late teenagers and college students are atheists….
I just liked being an asshole. Being the most obnoxious type of atheist to religious people amused the hell outta me. Fairly standard for obnoxious 16-22 year olds, I’d say.
It’s almost like the church is laughably bad at presenting their case to children and adults alike.
0-10 Lutheran
11-13 agnostic
14-18 asshole atheist
19-22 atheist
23-present (27) agnostic
Good article. It was very interesting. Thanks Gad!
I read that as “Thanks God!” and thought you really enjoyed the article.
And I’ll second the “Thanks Gad”. Another great article!
I dont care what people believe. I look to see what they do. By that measure Mormons are alright in my book.
When people where giving Romney shit over his Mormon beliefs, it pissed me off to no end because Mormons are some of the nicest folks you meet. Their devotion to family, their beliefs about hard work and personal responsibility along with being charitable should be applauded.
Yeah, I also didn’t get that. Mormons I’ve known have tended to be fine folks, and although I think the religion is nutty, it’s no nuttier than the one I was raised in.
That’s right. Once you start down the road of magical thinking one thing is just like another.
Pretty much. The all look kinda nuts from the outside.
Religions require faith, and faith means belief in something unlikely to impossible.
Meh, I’m certain there are assholes amongst the ranks of the Mormons, just as there are assholes amongst the ranks of any subset you want to split people into (other than assholes versus non-assholes) Mormons may have a lower asshole to great guy ratio than other groups but it’d be foolish to attack or praise an individual for his religious persuasion alone.
Same here. To be fair, though, I’ve never really had any issues with people of faith related to their faiths. Although, sometimes it does seem like there’s a secret commandment the Mormons got along the lines of “Ps. Be pleasant and neighborly or else you’re going to the absolute worst part of Hell I can find. – Sincerely, G-D”
Beloved celebrities stand with Christine Ford
From Rosie to Patricia Arquette to Kathy Griffin to Alyssa Milano, the seemingly unanimous verdict is that Kavanaugh is guilty and the nomination process should be blocked.
“I stand in solidarity with Christine Blasey Ford,” exclaimed Alyssa Milano.
“I believe you Professor Christine Blasey Ford,” cried Kathy Griffin.
“Brett Kavanaugh attempted rape,” said Rosie O’Donnell.
Well, if you say so. You guys should do another psa. Those work wonders. And Alyssa, still would, despite her retarded politics.
Alyssa, still would,
Same here, provided a ball gag is involved.
That’s kind of weird. Is that your kink, or do you just need something to prevent yourself from saying something to piss her off before you seal the deal?
I see we’ve moved on from “innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent” to “guilty no matter what”.
Yes, but she gets just a tish less attractive each time she opens her mouth about politics.
And wow, what a list of luminaries coming out to stand behind Ford. A veritable think tank of progressive thought.
A veritable think tank of progressive thought.
The sad thing is, it actually is the prog braintrust.
Brett Kavanaugh attempted rape
Not even her own account supports that. All I’ve seen is “groping with clothes still on”.
These assholes are no better than the men who murdered Emmett Till based on an accusation.
Whenever you point this out to some Lefty, they go apeshit.
Rekt.
Think about it:
Racist assholes pre-1950’s: We have to believe a white woman when she claims that she was raped by a nigger because white women are pure and niggers are sex crazed animals
Third Wave feminists: We have to believe a woman when she claims that she is raped because women don’t lie and men are misogynists who needs to be taught to not rape.
These assholes both have no problem throwing away due process even if an innocent person is fucked because they have an agenda.
That is a good one. I am gonna use that.
Oooh. Good one. This needs to be spread far and wide on Twitter. Any volunteers to venture into that shit hole?
The only reason I got to Twitter is this guy.
The response would probably be: Those guys were racist white misogynists while we are actually fighting against sexual assault.
“Let the hate flow through you…”
Verily, thou shalt not entwine thine self with crazy. – Book of Man 1:1
Because someone has to link it.
I’m somewhere between facepalming and rolling on the floor. I don’t watch South Park, so that’s the first time I’ve seen that (as much of it as I watched).
Dum Dum dum Dum Dum,
I heard it before I read the article, as nice as it is, and as nice as they are,
I’m of the Indifferent variety,
OT: Pretty much sums it up.
https://spectator.us/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-democrats-kavanaugh/
OT: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/calls-mount-for-regulation-of-sex-robots
So does that mean that the sexbots keep moving no matter what? Kinky.
I dont get it. Those things creep me out.
your old. past it. out of touch
Old American> Romanian
Honest question: Why does Flake still have a seat on any committee?
I thought if you turned Quisling like that, the leadership banished you.
The unofficial rules in the Senate that are durable are the ones that protect the leadership in the Senate. You can vote against a bill, but you can never surprise the whip. You won’t lose your seat on a committee for going against the president or the party as long as you support the speaker. You can attack the opposing party without retribution, you can attack an executive functionary without retribution, but you can never, ever question another Senator directly.
Those rules are old, and they ain’t going anywhere. Flake isn’t doing the kind of things that get one the boot.
The best thing you’ll listen to all day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g4dkBF5anU
wrong
Excellent.
I’m impressed.
If by best you mean absolute worst; yes it is.
A nice summary of the Ford kerfuffle.
I would say that Beto has shown that he has the proper character to fit right in. A bit of a lightweight, perhaps (I mean, he didn’t actually leave somebody to die), but certainly not unusual.
Right? i thought those were sort of prerequisites.
If Republicans refuse to offer more hearings now, they will be accused of ignoring sexual assault.
they’re already accused of ignoring sexual assault. the one who should be blamed and accused of gaming sexual assault should be Feinstein who sat on that letter throughout the interviews and vetting process. it’s too late. confirm him.
Grassley moves to interview Ford, Dems stall. Yeah, get fucked.
Just hold the fucking vote. Stop falling for this shit.
Good move by Grassley, IMO. He can now say “Hey, we tried, but allofasudden the Dems don’t want her to testify, and obviously never did because they withheld her accusations until after the hearings. Since the Dems don’t want her to testify, there is no reason to delay.”
The ghost of Ted Kennedy is disappointed in Beto.
Just in case you think this hasn’t gotten ridiculous enough.
Oh fuck off
“Dr. Blasey Ford’s experience is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton,” the letter says.
They hear the same stories Scruffy. Granted not about Kavanaugh but teenage boys.
So, by “schoolmates”, they mean complete strangers who attended the same school two decades apart? Good enough for me!
^This should be the response to everything they have to say^
Pointing at Scruffy
So the accuser cheated on her husband and made up a “rape” story during marital counseling. That’s my take on it: she’s a lying slut.
I see they used the term “schoolmates” pretty loosely…
If by “pretty loosely” you mean “inaccurately and dishonestly”, I agree.
Somebody who attends one of my alma maters decades after I graduated is not my “schoolmate”. They have to have been there while I was there to be my schoolmate.
My school had 44,000 students while I was there. Since 1/4 rotate out every year, then that means there were more than 75,000 people that were on campus at the same time I was. There were < 100 that I would consider "classmates."
I think the Democrats know that this will not derail him, nor is it what they intend.
I think the real purpose is to sow some doubt or create an issue that they can campaign on later. They want to be able to wail and shriek about the slanted Supreme Court and how the GOP confirmed a known predator to it.
now i’m not so sure. but if this doesn’t cause a delay, then you can expect a second accuser to magically appear.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaughs-accuser-willing-to-testify-before-senate-committee-1537188729
At least four Republican senators—Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Roy Blunt of Missouri—have called for the process to be delayed.
Christ on a cracker, what a bunch of weak sisters.
I guess its gut check time. One simple question: “If we hold the vote as scheduled, will you vote for or against.”
I think Flake would vote against, unfortunately. He’s angling for some kind of post-retirement gig and no longer gives a shit. All they need is to pick off one R and the whole thing is torpedoed.
Not necessarily. There are some very nervous Dem Senators up for re-election this year.
committee is 11-10. Flake’s defection makes it 10-11.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if Flake votes against in committee, the nomination does not move forward right? That’s more what I was thinking. I have no doubt if it actually made it to a full vote, he’d be confirmed, but I think they’re trying to nuke him in the committee.
My guess is they have Flake with a #metoo from his party days and are threatening to wreck his post-pol career with it.
I will 99% bet Flake has nothing of the sort in his past.
I agree he drank from the waters of left-approved good Republican and liked it (I liked the analogy).
We all have a #metoo in our past. For most of us its not real, but that doesn’t really matter anymore.
Well, we knew Collins would go for the delay because of political implications. But the rest of them, particularly Flake, have turned out to be a raging fucksticks.
Flake is a piece of shit. I think he’s angling to be the new Joe Scarborough post retirement.
Such a fucking disappointment. I thought he was better.
Yep. He has drank deeply from the waters of Being a Leftist-Approved “Good Republican” and found them sweet and delicious.
They’re RINOs that need to be culled. If they want to carry the Ds water, kick them out.
But watch out, if he played doctor when he was 11 years old, then he’d have to be run out of town on a rail… oh wait, he has a (D), nevermind.
Even if you take her account at face value, what actually happened? A drunken teenaged boy got handsy with a girl, something that quite frankly happens all the time. To claim that this brief unpleasant encounter caused decades of supposed emotional trauma is patently ludicrous. Shit, my wife’s told me stories of bad dates she had way back when with guys who groped her, tried to immediately move from kissing to shoving her head to their crotches, etc. She just rolls her eyes about them now. Either my wife is an exceptionally tough woman, or this is all bullshit. And that’s the best case scenario for her, IF you don’t think she’s making shit up.
Exactly this. I’m about as Mama Bear as you can get regarding protecting the off-spring (all boys – now young men), as I said last night, if this happened to my daughter I would have some harsh words with the young man and his parents but that would be the end.
You are leaving out one detail: Ford revealed this to a mental health professional->(red flag). She is a progressive activist California college professor->(parade of red flags with a marching band). In short, she’s nuts. Her crazy doesnt have to be connected to the alleged Kavenaugh debacle.
Today’s Lesson: Don’t put it within arm’s reach of crazy.
Late to the party, but thank you for your article, G. It is all very interesting to this ex-Catholic.
This might be a good time to ask that all the records of sexual harassment claims that have been settled by Congress using government money be unsealed. In fact, make an offer they can’t accept: “We will delay the vote on Kavanaugh if you agree to unseal these records. I mean, we’re all about putting the light of day on accusations of sexual misconduct, right?”
Considering I would say that most politicians have money, sex, or substance problems; This will go over like a lead balloon.
Excellent idea. Let’s get it all out in the open.
You mean the tax-payer funded slush fund to pay off the staffers/prostitutes they’re fucking?
It’s good to be a nobleman.
I loathe our “betters”. It is a good thing we are as prosperous as we are or there’d be violence.
Oops, their hard drives just crashed.
See RC, this is one of the reasons I would vote for you in a second.
One lesson I am sure the Repubs haven’t learned:
Its pointless to try to nominate somebody who is a consensus guy with a spotless record. No matter who you nominate the Dems will go after them like rabid hyenas, so nominate some hardcore Constitutionalists who have a hard-on for knocking down the administrative state and applying the Constitution as written, not necessarily as rewritten by SCOTUS.
Don WIllett Intensifying.
Why would Republicans want to knock down the administrative state and apply the Constitution as written?
Dammit, you’re right. For a moment there I forgot that nearly everyone in Congress is interested first and foremost in exercising the privileges and prerogatives of being in Congress for the least amount of work and responsibility possible. Nothing helps that along like the administrative state.
I thought I saw a tiny glimmer of accidental hope there. Thank goodness we both caught it in time.
I owe you one, Hitler.
Man, now you’re _never_ going to get that SC nod.
There won’t be confirmation hearings next time. Trump assures me that he’s going to have more flexibility after the re-election.
Why should the Republicans do something like that?!? They adore the administrative state and progressive government. It gives them money, power, and all the pleasures of the flesh available to those with money and power.
They only pretend otherwise to get votes. Like the Democrats’ claimed love for the poor and downtrodden, it’s all a pretense.
Beaten to the punch by HITLER!?!?!?!!!!
I hate that guy!
You Know Who Else was beaten to the punch . . . .
Oh, wait it doesn’t work like that.
Ernst Roehm?
Joe Frazier?
Not this guy
I call it a lightning reply.
More seriously, I think the opportunity which they have here, and which they will of course squander, is the opportunity to make some substantive changes to the “advice and consent” process. They should be able to hold up the fact that whether it’s true or not, critical information was purposefully withheld until the very last moment, and seriously gut the clown show that is the current process.
Admittedly, I may be making the very same mistake I accused you of, thinking they want to actually improve anything. But at least this would have some potential short-term gains for them in teeing up subsequent candidates while they still have control of the senate.
These people are not stupid. Many of them understand what they are doing. Either they don’t care, or they are so terrified of the consequences of doing anything other than the wrong thing that they dare not even utter a peep. Those consequences must be very devastating.
Contemplate that on the tree of woe.
I don’t know, I’ve seen clear evidence that a lot of them are pretty goddam stupid. However, I’m open to the possibility that the stupidity is seasoned with touches of malice here and there.
I’d pay to see Dick Durbin up there.
Had to run to the store. Heard an interesting take on the Ford/Kavenaugh subject.
Ford came forward to her therapist in 2012 with this. Romney was running and the election wasn’t entirely in the bag for the D’s. If he had won he was expected to choose Kavenaugh for SC. That’s why she, a raging progressive activist, came forward on the record then. The D’s were getting prepared to ‘Anita Hill’ Kavenaugh all the way back in 2012.
I have no idea how much, if any, of that is true. Sounds kinda tin-foily but if I have learned anything in the last ten years it is to never put anything past the left. There is no low they wont sink to, no amount of scheming and conniving they wont engage in.
I wouldn’t doubt it.
It’s also far too convenient that Kavanaugh’s direct relative presided over Ford’s legal proceeding years ago.
funny i’m only seeing the source docs on Twitter and nobody’s reporting on it.
I don’t put ANYTHING past the progs when it comes to political dirty tricks. It would explain why the subject just came up out of nowhere 30 years after the incident supposedly took place.
If there were any there there, and I trust that Feinstein is a canny enough partisan to know, the accusation would have been produced ages ago.
Bingo. The Dems pulled every possible trick to delay selection and confirmation hearings – if this was legit it would have easily derailed selection or created a confirmation hearing circus.
https://imgur.com/UPmlKdw
Today I learned why stack gas analyzers are so expensive.
ruby?
Yeah. I’ve been working with those boxes for 5 years and had no idea there was an orfice made out of a ruby in them.
I love myself some ruby orifice.
*narrows gaze*
That’s so weird. In high school my nickname was Critical Flow Orifice.
Also, just reading about that and getting to “as long as the ratio stays at least 2:1” made my sphincter involuntary squeeze up. I’m sure that the people designing those things know what they are doing, put handling trans-sonic flow events with a restrictor like that seems like its just asking to explode and kill everyone in line of sight. (But I’m not a mechanical engineer, not that there’s anything wrong with that)
Meh. Thats not the expense, necessarily.
Just by looking, Im gonna guess you’re taking apart a NOx instrument?
Go with the Horiba CLA-510ss. They’ve always been a workhorse for me.
Nevermind….you got an API/teledyne UV instrument.
Have fun with that. In my experience, they’re better suited for door-stops. Or a boat anchor.
Correct. It’s a teledyne. I’ve not had much trouble out of it over the past few years. The recurring issue I’ve seen is the vacuum pump needs to be rebuilt ever 9 months or so. And I’m sure you’re correct about the cost thing. There are a lot of other components that are expensive as hell in there, but I thought it was neat to discover that there was an actual gemstone in it.
I like how they capitalize ‘The Orifice’.
Please wait while we calibrate The Nozzle
I think its more the complexity and precision that costs. Man made rubies are used in most industrial processes and their cost is negligible. 5 to 75 bucks per Carat. It’s the laser that is the most expensive component. The specialized lasers have to produce wavelengths past both ends of the visible spectrum. Ruby and sapphire are used as lenses because they transmit across a wide range of wavelengths.
If that picture of Mr. Smith is accurate, I can see why he was pro-polygamy: he probably had a lot of options and thought, why chose one?
Heh. I haven’t even begun that article yet. I haven’t even started the article on marriage which has to come before that one.
Thanks again for all the kind comments.
Good writeup. Thanks for doing this.
Thank you – I’m enjoying this series and also passing along to family!