Mormon Shmormon

Religion is based on the fear of death.  That fear of the unknown drives religious hope, which vests in the asserted power of a deity, the ultimate boy toy of various priesthoods.

This absurd deity construct has always astonished and disgusted the more intelligent of mankind:  "God?" asked Voltaire.   "I don't believe that I have ever been introduced to a gentleman by that name."²  Mill elaborated:  "I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."³

Every argument ever advanced to prove the existence of a deity has failed:  the arguments from Cause, Design, Perfection, Life, Revelation, MIracles, Religious Experience, Morality, Wishes, and Faith fare no better than le pari de Pascal:  the classic argument for crippling oneself as to ability, time, and clear thinking.⁴

The patent silliness of the religion and god ideas is so obvious that only fools would embrace them; and only ambitious fools would build their empires in these mares' -nests.  Our purpose here is to examine just such an attempt by Elder Lieutenant General Mayor Supreme Justice President Prophet King Joseph Smith Junior, for such lessons as may lie hidden there.

Though an industrious child, Smith was regarded by his family as an illiterate bungling ass.⁵  From weaving baskets and peddling beer,⁶  Smith took to hunting buried treasure via seer stones.  For this fraud he was eventually arrested and convicted of being a disorderly person and an impostor.⁷   Mormonism's foremost apologist declared this trial "mythical" and "a product of wishful thinking" in 1961, adding that "if this court record is authentic it is the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith."   He had nothing to say when the record was found in the summer of 1971 in the basement of the Chenango County New York sheriff's office, showing Smith was tried and convicted of fraud before Justice Albert Neely on 20 March 1826.⁸

Smith thereupon eloped with the daughter of his landlord, who accosted him in August 1827.  Smith admitted "he could not see in a stone now, nor never could; and that his former pretensions in that respect, were all false."   Father-in-law Isaac Hale offered a grubstake if Smith would engage in honest work.   Offer accepted, Smith double-crossed Hale and produced the Book of Mormon two years later.  Hale's final assessment, 20 March 1834:  "[T]he whole Book of Mormon (so called) is a silly fabrication got up for the speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous and unwary."⁹

A neighbor of Smith's family had published a work entitled View of the Hebrews in 1823.  Its author Ethan Smith was the pastor of the family of Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith's principal scribe for the Book of Mormon; and Joseph Smith was well aware of Ethan Smith's book.¹⁰  View of the Hebrews called for a work such as the Book of Mormon (p. 217).  Joseph Smith rose to the bait and proved an assiduous student.

Ethan Smith claimed ancient American Indians worked in iron (pp. 192, 194), copper (pp. 193, 195, 196, 197), silver (pp. 194, 196, 197, 198), and swords (pp. 194, 197).  Following suit, Joseph Smith claimed ancient America Indians worked in iron (II Nephi 5:15, Mosiah 8:10), silver (Mosiah 11:8, Alma 4:6, Helaman 13:28, Ether 10:23), and swords (Alma 1:9 and 17:37-38, Ether 14:2).  To date (1999), no trace of any ancient American work in iron, copper, silver, or swordsmithing has been found by any archeologist.¹¹  There are dozens of similar parallels, including word-for-word lifting from Ethan Smith's work.¹²

Joseph Fielding Smith, later a Mormon president, wrote that View of the Hebrews was but one of a score of 19th century books written to prove the American Indians are the lost tribes of Israel.¹³  As View's sequel, the Book of Mormon belongs exactly in this nondescript company.  It has no connection whatever to history.  Otherwise, its portrayal of Jesus Christ making public announcements on the day before he was born¹⁴ would be a fatal fetal flaw of the first magnitude.  Extensive studies of the book's geography, fauna, archeology, and agriculture have produced no evidence that would support its reality as an historical record.¹⁵ 

In tying his future to it, Joseph Smith inescapably shouldered the burden of the dead religions of Christianity and Judaism.  He gamely threw in and lopped off whatever he could to make his religion fly.  He stole Masonic ritual wholesale and symbol for symbol, claiming it was rightly his.¹⁶  He introduced polygamy, informing his first wife the god of the universe directed her to allow him to copulate with other women.¹⁷  Her reply is not on record; but she was busy rearing their children at the time.  With Smith out of the way in 1844, she lost no time marrying second husband Lewis Bidamon, who helped rear Smith's legitimate children, in whom Smith had taken minimal interest.

Towards the end, Smith claimed, "I am above the world, for I have no laws."  He boasted that he had seen and heard (and recorded it in four discrepant versions) god almighty "at sundry times, and in divers places," also Jesus Christ, Michael the archangel, Raphael, Gabriel, Moses, Elijah, John the baptist, Peter, James, John, Elias, Moroni out of the Book of Mormon, and other "divers angels from Adam down to the present."¹⁸  Having covered most bases with these claims, shortly before he was killed he declared his faithful followers would become gods themselves, complete with authority and ability to continue copulating after death for billions and billions of years. 

Not exactly the Carl Sagan of his time, he told one follower:   "The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the earth, being about 6 feet in height.  They dress very much like the Quaker style....  They live to be very old; coming generally near a thousand years."¹⁹   Not quite the brightest sheep in the flock, this faithful brother immediately copied down and preserved the revelation.

So wrapped up was Smith in his myth that he remained contemptuous of his own country's government.  In the 1840s he promised the Mormon vote to both Whig and Democrat, double-crossing one for the other.²⁰  No suggestion of church/state separation here.²¹  In 1844 he ordered destroyed the press and type of an unfriendly newspaper, which led directly to his incarceration and the fatal shoot-out with his guards.  So much for freedom of the press.

His followers then set about salvaging a workable religion from the wreck of his frenetic flight through the supernatural ruins of his day.  The unscrupulous ruffian who succeeded him claimed that Smith had never been convicted of any charges brought against him, which is a boldfaced lie, since he had personal knowledge to the contrary.²²  The sordid trail Smith left behind him has been detailed elsewhere,²³  so let us conclude with such useful pointers as we can deduce, for the guidance of others who may fancy a similar run along the lines of Joseph Smith's vulgar nightmare.
            1.  Take care not to set yourself up as the ultimate authority.²⁴
            2.  Take care not to wander too far afield from your game plan.²⁵
            3.  A pinch of self control goes a long way.²⁶
            4.  High class flim-flam need not violate the law.²⁷
            5.  Compromise your henchmen.²⁸
            6.  Never make a disprovable prediction or prophecy.²⁹
            7.  Never overestimate the intelligence of your followers.³⁰

And yes, Joseph Smith Junior betrayed himself by assuming the titles of Elder, Lieutenant General, Mayor, Supreme Justice, President, Prophet, and King. Basket Weaver would reflect credit on an honorable man. So,
            8.  No titles, this time.

This summary of a person of no integrity is presented as a contrast to the courage of the man or woman who chooses to put by that "baby talk of adults"³¹ called theology, in order to mature into a self-reliant adult in the real world of nature in which we live.

Notes

Browse all articles.