Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Mormon Movie

Mannlicher can you tell me when and where? It is Germaine to another discussion.

It's germaine to dredging up the schit that got CATC nuked.... and has resurrected itself here.....

Same schit, different location. They just picked a different religious sect to zero in on first.

FreeMe,

Maybe I am too sensitive...I have the opportunity to bow and or gun hunt 5 different private properties here in Montana. A couple of the places belong to Mormons, one great place to a Catholic, and the others, who knows? All of them are great people, whom I'm glad to call friends.

I just get tired of the tone of certain threads that Catholics suck, Mormons suck, basically that all religions suck. Plenty of people of different faiths or beliefs really are slime and have done some horrific things. On the other hand, there are way more, that are just good, honest and decent people.

I lived on a reservation for 14 years here in Montana...I could tell you a hundred horror stories of Indians. All true, that I witnessed personally! By the time I got done, I could have you convinced that all tribal members are scum and deserve no less than life long imprisonment/death.

Or, I could tell you a hundred stories of Indians that I witnessed personally, that would make you want to move to Montana and live on a rez.

Every religion, born again, faith, country, race or creed has a part of their history that they are not proud of. It's just the glee with which some find and then parrot all the negative they can find about their favorite group to bash.

So many of our historians today are constantly ferreting out as much bad about our past as they can. How many loved it when Jefferson was proved to have a child by a slave. See, I told you he wasn't much, is the attitude.

At 51, I'm grateful everyday, that my wife, kids, extended family and friends don't constantly focus on my faults and past mistakes. There are plenty enough to go around. Instead they focus on my few talents and the good things I do and help me to be a better husband, father and friend.

It's not that all religions suck. It's that there is a contingent here that fervently believes that all religions except THEIRS (ultra-conservative Christianity, of the Southern Baptist stripe) suck.

VAnimrod,

Sadly with some, if you're Christian, there's not enough Christ like (charity kind of) behavior, or if atheist, not enough of, just the Golden Rule, around these days. But I still stand by the position the good guys out number the bad.

Maybe a little Dale Carnegie would help. I still remember reading him years ago and the phrase, "Never criticize, condemn or complain" always stuck with me. Not that I have followed that counsel very well, but it is excellent advice.

Henry - you and I probably agree pretty much on our view of religions in general. Where we disagree is in the idea that you or anyone else could "make me" think one way or the other. I've been around a good variety of cultures and can see the good and bad - though I tend to see the good more than the bad. I have some very good friends from various religions and cultures (including Mormon, Catholic, and various other Christian faiths - as well as various native descent, particularly Navajo) but I don't get bent over someone pointing out or elucidating on questionable history - even when it's associated with my own beliefs.

I don't think BW is particularly gleeful or scornful about any of it either.

I know one thing for sure if we had no religions- we would have anarchy.

Very good comments Henry.

I saw the movie - didn't like it. Voight did a good job but the rest of the acting was poor (imo) and the whole story with the horse, the love interest etc. Just wasn't worth the 6.00 to me to see it.

kenjs1 - I'm staying out of this post but to answer your question
the Spanish Inquisiton (sp) killed or tourtured thousands of people during their reign of terror during the middle ages. You'll find more about it on the web... CEJ

This is just a suggestion, which I fully expect to be ignored, and/or draw flames. But, for those who have a need to save souls, this may not be the place.
This is Ricks house, and he has clearly been offended by some actions here. So have I, but I open the door to it, so that's my fault.

The Spanish Inquisition was only a small part of the whole, but a very bloody part. The Inquisition started almost 1000 years before that. The Spanish part started in 1492 when Spain finally overthrew the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to honor God for his aid so they started the most unChristian part of the whole unChristian Inquisition. It didn't end until the mid 1800's. Before, the Inquisition was carried out by the church but Spain made it a secular butchery.

There were many good Christian Catholics throughout the middle ages, but the Inquisitian wasn't carried out by them. It was done by a very corrupt and power hungry leadership who ignored anything and everything that the Bible teaches.

Dick

Hey I'm a Catholic and I'll agree with you. It's History and changing it, or covering it up to suit the PC mindset is NOT doing anyone a service here. I have nothing against Mormons today either, but I'm not ready to flush, as was Winston Smith's job in "1984," history down the drain. You know what white people used to own black people, Germans killed Jews, Catholics have the Inquisition, Americans stole Indian lands, and it is all part of our past that should not be a secret. I haven't listed one source here yet that was not a primary source, and I don't buy into secondary sources much, because, yes, they do have an agenda. Heck , I do too, it's trying to understand what happened to us in the past and how we all got to be the way we are, and what can we possibly do about the future. Rewriting history is not an approach I'd recommend on this path.

If you'll read the whole thread you'll see where somebody linked the Klan with Baptists-so I guess you can't hang the whole thing on them.

If somebody doesn't believe their religion is the best, why would they have truck with it? Most people that tell you you're going to hell if you don't convert are well-meaning. They feel they've been blessed and want to share the blessing. There's also the chance that they're right and the anger the person feels is a burning conscience.

The people who should be avoided are those who wish to persecute others for their differing beliefs when said beliefs are totally within the bounds of common morality. Don't ask me what "common morality" is because it's difficult to define. I just know I didn't want to say "within the law" because many times certain totally inobjectionable religions are not. Then again there are few folks who think Satanists sacrificing humans is within the bounds of human decency.

What is my agenda?

This whole episode DOES reek of a cover-up, and the Mountain Meadows Association for one are decent folk motivated by a genuine sense of grievance.

On this occasion, the Cedar City area Mormons, after being unable to prevail by force of arms, lied to, disarmed by more lies, and then systematically killed in cold blood 120 men, women and children, down to age seven.

The only thing I can think of close to it was the systematic clubbing to death of 90 bound and unresisting Moravian Christian Delaware men, women and children by Pennsylvania Militia along the Ohio River in the 1780's, an act for which the offending Paxton Boys are soundly castigated, migitating circumstances notwithstanding.

Neither does anyone defend or try to hide the actions of the Catholic Inquisitors, nor for that matter do they defend the Protestants who crushed a distant ancestor of mine to death under a door by piling rocks on top of it for the crime of him being a Catholic.

OTOH, give even a whiff of cover-up, such as the Catholic church systematically hiding the actions of priests committing sexual abuse, and the outrage is immediate, and justified.

Certainly this sense of a cover-up fuels continuing outrage over the Meadows.

BTW... what I skipped metion of in the reference to Bagley's article was that the Professor and Brigham Young descendant who made that Dixie College documentary was, according to Bagely's account, first motivated to study the issue when he sought to date a girl who was a descendant of Lee, and was angrily refused by the girl's mother, stil bitter at Young for what they regarded as the betrayal of their ancestor.

Clearly feelings still run deep on this issue.

As a side note, two incidents showing the actions of Mormon enforcers in the movie are at least loosely based upon fact. In one a man is dragged out of a house and castrated. This apparently was the fate of a Black man who was comitting a dalliance with a white woman in Salt Lake during that era (I can dig up the link again if you want), castration before having his throat cut and his breast slashed.

This appears to have been vigilante justice by "friends" of the woman, acting at least in part upon Brigham Young's prior pronouncement that for one of these "cursed descendants of Cain" to mingled his blood with a Mormon was a crime worthy of death (I can dig up that link too).

Similarly, in one scene a man is shown having his throat cut after digging his grave. This too is based upon an incident related by John Lee of a Utah Mormon of that era (a Swedish immigrant) who admitted to sexual relations with his step daughter, apparently seeking permission to marry her as a second wife.

Instead he was ritually forgiven, but enjoined that he should have to atone in blood for further adultery. He did, was condemned, made his arrangements and voluntarily went out to his execution, his blood being spilled into the grave before his body was cast into it.

The widow was given his bloody clothes to wash, according to the account, with the instructions that she should tell people he had gone to California (the theme of lying to the gentiles being as disturbing as the act, which in this case was perhaps partly a form of religiously motivated suicide).

It would be different if the likes of Lee were the only account along these general lines from that time and place, but they are not, as others here have given sources.

Also I found the provenance of the quote attributed to Young on the occasion of the tearing down of the first cairn, the diary of a Mormon on the scene (I can dig that up too).

As far as me being "anti-Mormon" or having an "agenda", if these people had been MY kin, perpetrator or victim, I'd be all about finding out the unvarnished truth.

Neither do I care much if my own Biblical prophets were flawed men, the Bible readily admits as much. Only Jesus was perfect.

I am not in any way responsible for the sins of my fathers, unless I become an accessory after the fact by lying or obstructing.

Stating the truth does not consitute "having an agenda", it is merely stating the truth.

Along those lines, please point out in detail anything that I have said or anthing that I have attributed to Bagley that is untrue.

Birdwatcher

JaquesLaRami - I am too and I agree with you.. GOD has been used throughout history as an excuse by men to justify killing other men. What's worse though is trying to use our modern values to condemn or condone the murders. It happened back then, right or wrong and no amount of "discussion" will change those facts..

Rock Chuck - You are correct sir, it was a quick attempt by me to try and answer kenjs1's question.. Thank you for filling in the blank spots for me..

Birdwatcher,

They are not your kin, neither the victims or perpetrators. You are not Mormon, yet you are spending an inordinate amount of time on the massacre and are full of horrific stories of Mormons abusing, killing and torturing others that you readily relate on the internet.

I don't know any of these stories about Mormons. I don't know any of these kinds of stories about Catholics, Methodists, Baptists or any other religion. I would gather very few people do, except those with an agenda. The agenda being, to dig up as much negative about a religion or group to bolster negative attitudes already in place. Or maybe simply the agenda to dig up the shocking and gross, that so fills our airwaves from print, to internet to media.

Many professional historians do that today. How much dross can I dig up about whatever famous person I'm studying? How can I show, that no matter what for example, George Washington may have done as a General or President, he had feet of clay and really isn't worthy of our respect.

Rap stars always talk about keeping it real. Their real translates to, drugs, rape, robbery, murder and hate. Sure that stuff is real, "the truth", but completely avoids and forgets, the honest, good, honorable and charitable acts that keep this world a place worth living in.

Newsweek some years ago went looking for the good in people, in actions and deeds. They were stunned there was so much out there. Why, because all they ever looked for was the vile. When all you seek is the dark side of everything, believe me you can find it!

As I stated in another post on this thread, I could write pages of "truth" (terrible actions) by tribal members, that happened to me, or my immediate family. Much more recent and "truthful" than history that happened decades ago. Yet it would still be slanted by my prejudices and attitudes, like all personal reports are. And it would be completely one sided, because it would leave out all the good done by Indians on that reservation.

I work with the public everyday as a library director. I could spend my day pointing out and trumpeting the mistakes and weaknesses of those I work with and the patrons that use our library. I might spend my time researching and then sharing the problems and ugly past of their religions, faith, civic groups, school, race, family or the town. If I research carefully I can stand behind my facts and figures, because it's the TRUTH.

I have an uncle that struggled with honesty all his life. Some of his illegal actions caught up with him and he lost pretty much all his worldly goods and the respect of many. He made some very stupid choices and mistakes and paid the price.

I choose to remember and repeat to my kids, the stories of his generosity in feeding me and hundreds of others in his lifetime. Of watching out for me as a kid, when my dad was in Viet Nam and Korea for three years. Of his making sure I had a job when I needed one. He always had a listening and sympathetic ear, a ready joke and a hug when I was struggling. These are the truths I share, because they are just as true as the other things.

Mercy should never, and I repeat NEVER rob justice and our history should never be whitewashed, no matter whose it is. But does our study, research and focus in the end uplift, build and support others or does it destroy?

Just like Watergate, the real story with the Moutain Meadows Massacre is not the act, but the cover-up. If the Mormans had just admitted that Brigham Young was probably involved and knew a lot, he would be remembered today as merely another kooky religious leader dead for more than a century. As it is, the Mormans seem to have invested a lot of credibility in trying to prove that he didn't know about it and as a result, people are still trying to find the truth.

To me, it makes absolutely no sense that Brigham Young didn't know about and approve it before it happened. Utah was a theocracy at the time and many saw Young as God on earth. If God resides in Salt Lake City, don't you think you would ask him his opinion before killing a bunch of people in southern Utah?

� Read a contemporary historian's account of the Mountain Meadows massacre in Dunn's Massacres of the Mountains,

� Guilt is a matter of what the accused allegedly did or didn't do, not a matter of who he was � be he Michael Vick, O J Simpson, Robert Blake, David Koresh, or somebody else whose name hasn't even made the evening news.

� "Christian" zealots have been massacring "heretical" Christians for centuries � some early Roman Catholics officially slaughtered non-Catholic Christians by the tens of thousands � Lutherans drowned Anabaptists � etc.

� The one legitimate template for truly Christian belief and behavior is Jesus, not any of the many who have tattooed His name on their foreheads or embroidered His name on their shirts.

� None of the above makes anyone guilty of what others did generations or even centuries ago. I'm not guilty of anything that my former neighbors' forefathers did to other neighbors' forefathers a couple of centuries ago.

Sift the facts � don't blend 'em.

Has anyone argued that modern Mormans are guilty of anything other than willful ignorance or a cover-up about the role of Young in this affair? No one has made any negative comments about Mormans in general and modern Mormans in particular.