Posted on 08/18/2007 11:25:10 AM PDT by tantiboh
Due to USA Today's copyright complaints, I couldn't link to the actual editorial, and I didn't think it wise to excerpt the actual piece, but here's the address:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/hollywoods-terr.html
The review is also discussed here:
http://www.romneyexperience.com/2007/08/14/new-defenses/
Excerpt: "Michael Medved reviews September Dawn, the upcoming flick about an episode of 19th century Mormon violence. Medved makes the very good point that Mormons generally take their public opinion licks pretty well, with no signs of rioting in the streets or driving explosives laden cars into crowds. Given this, Medved argues that Hollywood’s drive to portray Mormons as terrorists, while giving Islamic Jihadists a complete pass, is a little suspicious. This is not a Romney-focused argument, but it’s nice to see a vigorous defense of a minority religious community that is full of nothing if not good citizens."
Factually incorrect.
The only detailed account of the events leading up to the massacre is found in Lee's Confession. This is precisely because the Church stonewalled all investigations and refused to provide any alternate accounts. So it is just wrong to say that "all accounts" agree that Lee was "ringleader and instigator." The only account we have states that he was acting under orders to do what he did.
While Lee may certainly have spun the account to exculpate himself, according to him he was ordered to do exactly what he did by higher authority in the Church. This was by the local and regional authorities in SW Utah, not the highest authorities, Young and the leaders in SLC. Lee was the field commander, but could not by himself have organized the attack.
While Lee was understandably bitter about his abandonment by the Church, it is difficult to read his Confession with an open mind and not come to the conclusion that the account is largely honest, expressing his beliefs as to what happened, whether those beliefs were objectively true or not. In particular, if he wanted to just shift blame, why did he not say that Young had planned and ordered the attack? He obviously felt Young's betrayal of him most keenly, yet he did not pin the actual order for the attack on him.
Lee had already been sentenced to death. What did he personally gain by lying? My personal opinion after reading the entire Confession is that it is an honest account by a man who was misled into committing great atrocities in the belief that by doing so he was fulfilling God's Will.
You’re right. I don’t understand.
You are saying that under Mormon doctrine of the time a pre-existing valid, legal marriage was irrelevant to whether a woman was eligible to be “sealed” to a man other than her legal husband.
I find this a good deal more appalling than my original assumption that the existing marriage was just unofficially ignored.
My understanding is that temple marriage
1- for time and eternity
2- for eternity only (No time) only earth has time
There were plural marriages that had both but not all sme of them had both Smith, and Brigham had them I am not sure if Smith was for both because he was so busy he hardly had time for Lucy and she is the only one who had his children.
Brigham situation was different they were mixed and it was easier I believed Brigham first wife had died before this so there was no uneasiness there.
Interesting take. Thank you for the clarification.
I don’t understand you appalling?
I am sure when come across those part in the Bible you would see it mention there.
Sorry, I don’t understand your post.
Time no sex!
Thank you sherman.
Others disagree with you.
On the other hand, both Mormonism and Islam are full of calls to violence.
I agree with you on Islam, as I have read parts of the Quran, and of course, see the behavior of the Jihadists. But can you point me to something in the Book of Mormon that calls for violence? Can you point me to enough violent acts called for by the Mormon church to prove some sort of pattern?
I doubt that the answer to either is yes.
D&C 121:5
D&C 103:26
D&C 98:44-48
D&C 105:30-32
ping to post 130. The Doctrine & Covenants is full of vengence.....thus sayeth the lord of Mormonism.
I'm not Mormon, so I have no idea what 'D & C' means. Can you clarify or just post the verses?
Yeah, except for the whole blow-up-your-neighbor thing, and the behead-those-who-convert-to-another-religion thing, and the rape-the-women-of-your-enemies thing, and the teach-your-children-to-hate-Jews thing, and...
They're just the same!
Here are links...
Since I haven't heard of anything in Mormon history to indicate they take this to mean they should behave violently (except, of course, the one incident pointed to in this article), I can't agree that Mormonism produces terrorism anywhere near on par with Islam.
You are correct they aren’t any more aggregious than the Old Testament.
But neither is the Koran. What Christians believe is the fulfillment of the Old Testament via the Atonement of Christ. Christ said all the laws of the OT are summed up in just two....love God and love your brother. And so we don’t see, in the New Testament, the same kind of “vengeful” God that we see in the Old Testament.
The Koran and the Doctrine in Covenants seem to negate Christ - his teachings and his atonment, and harken us back to a day of blood, war, and vengence.
That is my point, precisely!
You couldn’t get away with that today, record keeping being what it is. I actually have heard that bigamy was quite common in the West (or in underdeveloped nations), as many people were not officially divorced before taking up with another woman. Didn’t the same thing happen with Obama’s father? He left his first wife, then married another prior to actual divorce.
Wish I could find the early review I saw again. It was a completely non-biased review that looked at the cinematography, acting, how the movie was adapted from real life accounts, etc etc. Left all the religion out of it.
Basically it came down to it being a really really poor movie that only fanatics on either side would watch, but still probably not enjoy because it was that poorly done.
Under the Banner of Heaven, is the perfect illustration of an odd phenomenon that happens with Mormonism. Basically some otherwise good conservatives turn off their liberal warning sirens alert and believe any old trash they read.
Don’t want to sound like I am defending the MMM murderers. they should be drawn and quartered and executed like all murderers. However, Krakauer and his book are crap. I read it when I found out a liberal atheist professor was teaching out of it on the local college campus. He was using it of course to show how Reason is better than faith.
In her book “Godless: The Church of Liberalism” Pages 16-17 Ann Coulter writes “In the book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer wrotes of the Bush administration, “This, after all, is a country led by aborn-again Christian.... who characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest officer in the land, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect- The Pentecostal Assemblies of God of America... and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City”.
So is it Ok for Krakauer to slam “Mormons” but does he go too far in including Pentecostals?
He’s a Godless Humanist Secularist Liberal teacher of “Anti-Christ” messages. And he's not a historian either. The facts in his other books about mountain climbing have been called "lies" by his co- climbers.
Here are more of Krakauer’s own words.
“I don’t know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact I don’t know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.”
“Faith is the very antithesis of reason...,”
His book bashes religious fundamentalism in general. I would say he is not an unbiased source. Hence the lavish prasie by the MSM.
Official Church response to Under the Banner of Heaven.
His book came out in 2003 and joins in the liberal chorus that Fundamental religion is bad. In other words he is part of the larger movement to try to discredit and bash religion. You shouldn’t be promoting stuff like this on FR. in his own words.
“There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied,” he posits in the prologue. “As a means of motivating people to be cruel and inhumane—as a means of motivating people to be evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout—there may in fact be nothing more effective than religion.” Referring to the “Islamic fundamentalism” that resulted in the killings of 11 September 2001, he goes on to say that “men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions.” He finds that “history has not lacked” for Muslims, “Christians, Jews, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Faith-based violence was present long before Osama bin Laden, and it will be with us long after his demise”
Soon after 9/11 liberals and their ilk started blaming fundemental religion and then progressivly bit by bit Christian Funadementalism for such things as 9/11. The message the MSM promoted was a hit on Christians not on Muslims. This book fits into that larger political context of what is going on post 9/11.
The author picks two murderers (fundamentalists) to bash mormon fundamentalism. But he doesn't stop there like the MSM and liberals he uses the beliefs of a small group to try to bash the larger church. Just as the MSM uses Christian fundamentalists to bash the larger group. He tries to link the murders in 1984 to the Lee Murder in 1877. He’s digging deep. For his thesis to prove that mormon fundamentalists are murderers he comes up with a few examples in the course of over 100 years. Not much of a trend.
he also talks about “relgious extremism” Of course all religious people are extremists in the Liberal worldview. Which he treis to prove also. using a few murderes to prove all mormons are “extremists” Its all BS. Most of your politically related comments on FR are truly conservative. So why the blind spot when it comes to mormonism?
THE MSM did this earlier also with Timothy Mcveigh and the OKC bombing. Even though he claimed to be an atheist the media soon labeled him the “Christian Terrorist”. they still refer to him as such as a way to bash Christians.
A pretty reasonable analysis. Except this last line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres
1838 Haun's Mill massacre 17 Missouri, USA Mormon men and boys are killed by over 200 militia.
1852 Bridge Gulch massacre c.150 to 300 Hayfork, California, USA A posse from Weaverville attacks an undefended Wintu village.
1857 Mountain Meadows massacre 120 Utah, USA A wagon train of farming families from Arkansas is killed by Mormon militia.
1864 Sand Creek massacre c.150 Colorado Territory, USA United States Cavalry troops attack an undefended Cheyenne/Arapaho village.
January 1923 Rosewood massacre 26-150 Rosewood, Florida, USA This African-American town is burned and residents are killed by white mobs.
1782 Gnadenhutten massacre 96 Gnadenhutten, Ohio, USA Pennsylvanian militia execute Christian Lenape non-combatants, mostly women and children.
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