The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Have any of you read any of these books on Joseph Smith? What did you think? Did any of you read both? Which one was better?
Rough Stone Rolling vs No Man Knows My History
- Thread starter The Thriller
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I studied "No Man Knows My History" pretty carefully. Faun Brodie or Faun MacKay Brodie was an embittered critic, though a niece of the President, then, of the LDS Church, who was perhaps the most popularly beloved President the LDS Church has had since Joseph Smith.
Facts are one thing, but if you can't deal with them objectively, you lose credibility. The first objection then becomes "selection" of facts, and forced interpretations or conclusions which many be worked up from a selection of convenient facts.
I might be a more demanding critic of the LDS history, really. I just realize that no one "believes" in religion because of "facts". The believers who are basing on a selection of facts are in truth not "religious", but the worst sort of objectivists or secularists. A religion that is rational may be an oxymoron, but most importantly it is a religion without a soul, without a heart, and without love. People who advance proofs of religion are essentially the same as people who advance disproof of religion, as I take it some "historical" objectors of official Mormon "history" are, just as those rational supporters of some idealized version of LDS history must be. A religion with absolute factual imperatives is like a fascist government with absolute control of science and education. As low as the human soul can go.
Good people believe in LDS theological constructs, such as a more accessible "God" who is our Father, because of the appeal of the belief. If anyone still believes Mormonism because Joseph Smith had a peeping stone in his hat, it's like a scientist who believes Science because it proves the Earth flat.
Facts are one thing, but if you can't deal with them objectively, you lose credibility. The first objection then becomes "selection" of facts, and forced interpretations or conclusions which many be worked up from a selection of convenient facts.
I might be a more demanding critic of the LDS history, really. I just realize that no one "believes" in religion because of "facts". The believers who are basing on a selection of facts are in truth not "religious", but the worst sort of objectivists or secularists. A religion that is rational may be an oxymoron, but most importantly it is a religion without a soul, without a heart, and without love. People who advance proofs of religion are essentially the same as people who advance disproof of religion, as I take it some "historical" objectors of official Mormon "history" are, just as those rational supporters of some idealized version of LDS history must be. A religion with absolute factual imperatives is like a fascist government with absolute control of science and education. As low as the human soul can go.
Good people believe in LDS theological constructs, such as a more accessible "God" who is our Father, because of the appeal of the belief. If anyone still believes Mormonism because Joseph Smith had a peeping stone in his hat, it's like a scientist who believes Science because it proves the Earth flat.
Rough Stone Rolling has set many people I know on a path that ends in leaving the church. I started it, but wasn't interested. My journey out of the church wasn't based on historical issues. I do plan to read it someday when I can be more objective.
It is written by a man who is still an active member, so it obviously doesn't affect everyone the same way.
As far as which one to read, it depends on your reasons and interest. Rough Stone has the reputation of being the most accurate based on information now available.
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It is written by a man who is still an active member, so it obviously doesn't affect everyone the same way.
As far as which one to read, it depends on your reasons and interest. Rough Stone has the reputation of being the most accurate based on information now available.
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I guess I need to read "Rough Stone Rolling", but hey, I could probably write a worse book myself, if I wanted to. I studied the whole primary evidence base. My neighbor as a kid, two houses away, is the LDS Church historian today. You will never find a more honorable and decent human being. His little sister was the nicest person in her class, one year younger than me, but I fell in love with a little smart redhead. Otherwise, might have had such a good life I didn't ever need to become a philosopher.
The thing about the LDS faith is the way it does work for people who love God, and their fellow humans. I'll take that LDS fact over any other faith humans have ever had.
The thing about the LDS faith is the way it does work for people who love God, and their fellow humans. I'll take that LDS fact over any other faith humans have ever had.
I understand your intended meaning, but that last paragraph leaves a lot to be desired. I call myself a Christian. I don't believe any religion has cornered the market or has some exclusive license to loving their fellow humans. Yes, I know you didn't say that it does.. but it would read that way to a non-believer.
One of the major things that turns people off to any religion is the air of pretentiousness about "having" something in the way of being "good" that they couldn't possibly have without religion.
I know you, babe, don't believe that's true... but MANY do.. or at least communicate in a way that comes across the same.
No one needs the LDS church or any religion whatsoever to be a good, kind, loving, nurturing friend, parent, child, or neighbor.
Unfortunately, most believers don't seem to act in a way that seems to believe that's true... and it's a turnoff.
Odd. As you know, I'm devout LDS and I highly recommend Rough Stone Rolling. If anything, it strengthened my own belief. And it does a fantastic job of placing things in proper historical context, cutting through LDS folklore, and giving a sense of Joseph Smith as a real person. I even gave a copy of the book to a newly baptized friend of mine as a gift. (He thought it was fantastic, too.)
Like everything, it all depends on your personality and experiences, I suppose. The biggest problem that many of my younger friends feel is that they were lied to about church history, and if they lied about this they probably lied about the rest. The walls crash down fast once your perspective shifts.
I grew up in a more open time of the church before correlation, and many of these stories that upset them weren't new to me. So even though I haven't read it, I don't think it would have had the same effect as it did on many of my friends.
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b_line
Well-Known Member
Genuinely curious how knowing about Joseph Smith marrying other men's wives strengthens your testimony?
Quin's Murderface
Well-Known Member
Rough Stone rolling definitely humanizes (with all the negative and positive attributes) Smith. I can see how this kind of thing would be very jarring for people who grew up learning about him through movies, his best quotes/revelations, and church manuals that were lacking in depth and context. I think this is the effect that any "anti-mormon" info has. Most of it has at least a basis in truth, but much of what you conclude depends on interpretation. As somebody who has studied a lot of historical accounts in another area for part of my degree it always amuses me when people just believe any single source alone. There are almost always several versions of events, different interpretations, contextual issues that are left out of a particular argument,etc. Rough Stone rolling puts a positive, mostly fair-minded spin on most events from what I've seen. I think it tries to provide the plausible explanations for some of the more delicate subjects, so at times becomes a bit apologetic. It does try quite hard to be fair, or at least inclusive of the major criticisms where much of the more critical literature is not quite as restrained in point of view. As somebody who enjoys less opinionated accounts I was a little disappointed overall with that part of it. Though again the critical things I've read have almost all been much worse in this regard, and previous positive portrayals have been perhaps the least informative. It's hard for people to be completely objective about this kind of topic.
As to b-line's question I think that if you can still believe (or in the LDS parlance if you can "gain a witness") of all the tenets of the faith (including that Smith was a prophet, church is guided by revelation etc) after seeing some of the warts then theoretically your testimony would be stronger, and less likely to be threatened by extra-doctrinal issues in the future.I mean, it's plausible that any number of acceptable things contributed to Smith marrying the wives of other men. And even if he was completely in the wrong in this instance it doesn't necessarily delegitimize his claims. But I agree that much of the info should at least cause an honest, open person to have serious questions.
As to b-line's question I think that if you can still believe (or in the LDS parlance if you can "gain a witness") of all the tenets of the faith (including that Smith was a prophet, church is guided by revelation etc) after seeing some of the warts then theoretically your testimony would be stronger, and less likely to be threatened by extra-doctrinal issues in the future.I mean, it's plausible that any number of acceptable things contributed to Smith marrying the wives of other men. And even if he was completely in the wrong in this instance it doesn't necessarily delegitimize his claims. But I agree that much of the info should at least cause an honest, open person to have serious questions.
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I already knew a fair amount about that, so what Rough Stone Rolling had to say on that didn't affect my testimony at all in that regard.
As I said, I highly recommend it. If you like history at all, or if you'd just like to better understand the founding of Mormonism, I don't think you could ask for a better book.
Very well put, thanks for the post.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Which one is better? I know fanie, the author of "No Man Knows My History" was exed after its publication. But that was after she had already written it. And in a different time period when I think the church was less forthcoming.
Divorces were hard to come by, legally. The LDS sealings were not "legal" and in the case of Smith were, most often, relevant to the next life, not this one.
I know of some folks who believe they are actually descendants of Joseph Smith through polygamous marriages. Two of Benjamin F. Johnson's sisters were sealed to Joseph, one wrote of actually having a husband/wife relation. It might be possible there were some children, but no documentation of the fact. Which makes this a sort of exception that proves the rule. Joseph Smith kept pretty good records of his whereabouts, and he was at home with Emma, nights.
I struggled over this point myself, having a more Catholic notion of marriage vows. At least one case of the woman being married, advised by Joseph she should leave him, I believe, went unheeded, and it proved Joseph a prophet for what he (the husband) did later. . . . I think it might have been a genuine concern, but it is also true that at the close of the Nauvoo era, there were a whole lot of temple sealings re-arranged as people took off for various new paths. Some say the idea of "spiritual wives" or sealings only for the next world, had to give way to the need for concrete family ties in this world when facing the flight to the Rockies.
God only knows, sometimes at least. Nobody else could judge me very well.
I held it as a point against the Church for exing Faun, for a while, until I realized she didn't believe Mormonism at all anyway, and should have just asked to be exed because she was actually against the Church. So, for me, it's a "Who Cares" issue now.
"Faithful Critics", as I term it, have become a sort of plague. It was, as JazzGal said, quite different before the LDS turned to the correlation concept and hired sociologists and psychologists to create the most seamless story line humanly possible. Real life has no seamless story lines.
OK. But what you're saying calls for a re-statement of a different idea. Anyone who holds that a "Restoration" was needed sorta has an obligation to explain why.
Sure I can think of some people who it seems reached a higher state without knowing about or needing a "Restoration"..... Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth Elliot.... probably scores of others across the past 100 years alone.....
My great Aunt told me "A man's reach should exceed his grasp"..... not that we should consider ourselves failures at all, but that it is as essential to life as breath, as air, water, and food, for the human soul to aspire towards the unattainable. But the essential fact of the Restoration, in LDS theological terms, is knowing what to reach for. Sure, the LDS Church has sorta lost it, trying too hard to be like other Christians, trying not to offend, trying to pretend not to be special. . . .
It is that aspect of Mormonism that I referred to, and don't apologize for.