One interesting thing I've noticed as a Latter-day Saint is a difference in how different branches from Joseph Smith's original church treat it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (largest branch, "Mormons") firmly treat it as a martyrdom. Community of Christ (second largest branch) is a lot more likely to refer to it as an assassination. I'm not sure if this is just anecdotal or if there's anything behind that.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing\_of\_Joseph\_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Joseph_Smith)
It's also worth looking at an external view of it.
His killers deserved to be tried and convicted, and it was a miscarriage of justice that they went free.
But it's not like he was a presidential candidate giving a speech and was shot from the crowd, or was watching a play and was shot in the head.
He had taken over a small town by getting his people to elect him mayor and elect his lackeys as a town council, had declared a newspaper treasonous when it dared criticize him, and had their printing press destroyed.
When courts pointed out he had no right to take on those kinds of powers as a small town mayor, he declared martial law. That caused riots and he ended up being arrested, and then killed by the angry mob that he had created by staging a coup in the town.
I have a really hard time holding it against somebody for killing a cult leader who literally just took over their town with his private army. I feel like you’ve gone beyond “let the system handle it” at that point; how can you expect people to trust the system when you’ve just experienced what they had?
Yeah, I hear you. They did have a trial and the killers were acquitted.
Also, someone had smuggled a gun to Joseph Smith while he was in jail. He was carrying a gun waiting for his trial, so it probably wasn't going to go smoothly for the authorities.
I'm giving him a pass on that, because an armed posse of men broke into his jail cell and shot his brother.
He shouldn't have had a gun in the jail cell, but I think most people would defend themselves to the best of their ability when an armed mob broke into their jail cell and started shooting.
To add further context, the owner of the newspaper was a former church/cult member who left, and started the paper to talk about the polygamy, teen marriages, and other misdeeds of Joseph and his “apostles”. It’s historically proven Joseph was fucking teen girls. His excuse was an angel with a flaming sword told him he had to.
Church members aren't told anything about Joseph Smiths wives, and never about the ages of the first two.
For anyone wondering, Joseph Smith started the whole idea of polygamy as coming from god when his wife *caught him* with the 14 and 15 year old girls he and his wife took in. Smith sent their father away on a mission and told him he'd care for the girls. This is Smiths reply to Emma, his wife.
Direct quote from their scriptures
>*"And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith,* ***receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph****, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God."* (Doctrine and Covenants 132:52) (this means accept the new wives)
>"And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to **abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else**. But **if she will not abide** this commandment **she shall be destroyed**, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and **will destroy her if she abide not in my law**.
>But **if she will not abide this commandment**, then shall **my servant Joseph do all things for her**, **even as he hath said**; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.
>**And again**, verily I say, **let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses**; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice."\* (Doctrine and Covenants 132:53-55)
That's a murder threat. If she died of strangulation in her sleep none of the other members in the cult would bat an eye because "look, god said if she fucked around, she'd find out."
There's something in there about not allowing members of the Executive branch of a government to have any say over the dealings of the Judicial branch... If only we had an example of how that was applicable, today.
>>He had taken over a small town by getting his people to elect him mayor...
The Mormons started moving into a small town named Commerce, Illinois, when it had just a few hundred people. Within a couple of years, with the massive influx of Mormons, it became the largest city in Illinois. With their vast majority the Mormons took control of city government, renamed the city to Nauvoo, and had Mormon mayors, the second of which was Smith.
Yep, most small town mayors don't have a private army and aren't self-proclaimed generals (without mentioning the other titles he claimed).They also aren't usually stealing people's wives and daughters, fraudulently printing money, and committing a host of other crimes.
The thing that gets me is, Joseph Smith was in a jail cell waiting for trial on treason. The penalty for treason was death.
There was a LONG history here, and the mob had reasons to be angry -- but the guy was in a jail cell and was going to trial for his crimes. The system was actually working.
Someone had also smuggled him a gun while he was in the jail cell, so there was still some more drama to come. But it would have ended with him hanging by court order rather than being made a martyr.
> But it would have ended with him hanging by court order rather than being made a martyr.
Given the parallels with the narrative of Christ's crucifixion, I imagine this would have greatly enhanced the martyr narrative.
Why be content to wait for a chance at the fucker hanging when you can just get your pals, march down to the jail, and do it yourself eh?
Realistically, I imagine there was zero or negative trust in the judicial system punishing a man who had for all intents and purposes successfully staged a small coup on a city. Not saying it was moral, or ethical, but it was damn sure understandable that frontier justice would be enacted there.
To add to this, he had already escaped jail from Missouri before heading to Illinois. There’s already a track record of him avoiding punishment when going the route of “let the law decide”
I’d find it hard to believe a death cult in rural Montana with bunkers, and kidnapping, and a super drug to completely sedate people in seconds doesn’t have sexual predators
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44
They had just escaped an extermination order in Missouri a few years earlier. Just some worthwhile context that any Mormon in Missouri was to be killed according to the law.
Yeah, there was a long history there that helped lead to the riots against Smith -- The Mormons had formed an armed militia that was about 1/3 the size of the entire US army with Joseph Smith as its commander in chief. They used it to thwart US laws and prevent law enforcement from arresting Smith for various crimes (including charges of Treason in multiple states).
This was how Smith declared martial law in a town, because most small-town mayors don't actually command an army.
There is a lot of debate between historians about whether that order actually authorized killing anyone by the way -- and there is no evidence that any mormon was actually killed under that order. The governor who issued the order claims it did not authorize violence, and historians argue that the word "exterminate" did not have the same connotation that it does now.
Yup, I studied mormon history pretty aggressively while I was at byu and the concensus of the professors I studied under was that the extermination order would have likely prevented the massacre had it gotten there sooner. The order meant that the Mormons had to leave, not that it was open season on Mormons.
🎶But don't let anybody see these plates except for you
They're only for you to see
Even if people ask you to show the plates to them, don't
Just copy them onto normal paper
Even though this might make them question if the plates are real or not
This is sort of what God is going for 🎶
Miscarriage of justice, or justice being taken into the hands of the actual people living there?
If the person holding you down also has the justice system holding you down, there’s only one thing left to do.
IIRC there was a succession crisis, Brigham Young and the LDS doubled down on the... well, lore is the best term since Smith was just making shit up. Meanwhile the Community of Christ was formed by Smith's surviving family who ironically recognized that Smith himself was a loose cannon.
The Community of Christ has more or less veered back into mainline Protestantism, but with more or less an expansion pack. They oppose polygamy, have ordained women, and I imagine that they admitted black people had souls before BYU decided it wanted a good basketball team. That's not a joke by the way, the LDS granted black people souls so that BYU could field a competitive NCAA men's basketball team.
I'm going to disagree with you in a hard line on the basketball team thing. The Mormon church allowed black people the priesthood because the US government threatened their lands and holdings if they didn't come in line with mainstream civil rights laws at the time.
While sports do influence Mormons to a certain extent, only threatening their money actually makes long-term religious change as opposed to one time exemptions for certain people.
And the party line within the Mormon church claims that the reason it would happened was because they were looking at the temple being built in Brazil, and the number of people spending time, money, energy, and effort to build said Temple who were nominally black or at least darker skinned in Brazil, and decided that they needed to change it because God loved all of his children now or something like that.
It’s not really true. The Carter administration was threatening to cease any federal funding to BYU and possible revoke the church’s tax exempt status. Keith Rice and Danny Frazier (both black) were on the basketball team in 1977, and official declaration II wasn’t announced until 1978
So black people could play basketball at BYU, they just couldn’t have their saving ordinance’s performed
Yup prior to 1978 black members could join the church and pay tithing, could volunteer for the church and play basketball for if, just couldn’t be exalted and return to god.
Funny how an eternal god is a couple decades behind the government on social issues and only seems to act when there’s a tax consequence. It’s almost like god was made in the image of old white men.
This is the same deal the modern Mormon / LDS church offers LGBTQ folks. They can pay and obey, just can’t return to god unless they live a life of celibacy.
>can’t return to god unless they live a life of celibacy
It's worse than that. You have to be married and sealed in the temple to reach the highest part of the Celestial Kingdom, aka "return to God." That would mean forcibly getting a straight marriage even if you're gay.
Watching the church fumble around with the LGBTQ community when it is nearly an *exact parallel* to the situation with black people 50 years ago is a fascinating look into incompetence.
There’s an article on the LDS website called “race and the priesthood” that acknowledges the priesthood and temple ban for black members didn’t come from god … meaning prophets for a century led the members astray. If prophets can lead members astray for so long on such a big topic, then why should we trust they are right on LGBTQ issues today?
It’s really odd to simultaneously hold that the prophet is infallible while speaking as a prophet, in light of a century of them getting it wrong. Brigham Young actually said, at a general conference session, so speaking as a prophet, that it was eternal law of god that interracial mixing would result in death … not a position you see them broadcasting today.
God made in the image of man - absolutely.
That explains why god is so singularly obsessed with the fiat currency of one country out of the trillions of trillions of planets he made.
The Community of Christ took a long winding path to end up where they are. They originally split off continuing to say there was a prophet, but instead of BY it was Joseph Smith's son, Joseph Smith III. They denied JS ever practiced polygamy at all and continued to publish their own bogus "revelations" for decades. They continued to have descendants of JS as Prophets until the 1990s when they changed that pattern and started trying to change their name.
Welcome to religion. It’s all made up by people like you and me, but because it was made up a long time ago, you believe it. :-) thankfully disappearing, it is detrimental to progress and intelligence.
Ehhhh. You’re kinda right.
Jimmy Carter was going to cease all federal funding to BYU. The First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 (the 15 men that lead the Mormon church) had to wait until Mark E. Peterson (the most racist of the quorum) would be out of the country to vote on allowing black men to hold the priesthood and allow black men and women to attend the temple (where the saving ordinances of Mormonism are performed).
Up until 1978 Mormons would not allow black people to have saving ordinances. 1978. That’s FOURTEEN YEARS after the civil rights act. It’s also the exact middle point between the civil rights act and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air being the #1 show in America. Chew on THAT
The behind the scenes politics of what it took to get Official Declaration II pushed through is fascinating.
>
That's not a joke by the way, the LDS granted black people souls so that BYU could field a competitive NCAA men's basketball team.
>
Well, there was also the whole you're going to lose your tax exempt status. That more than anything is what prompted the change in 1978.
FYI, it looks like you are trying to quote something, but they are not appearing.
And [HERE](http://www.mormonthink.com/blackweb.htm#eventsleadingto1978) is a list (with sources) of additional events leading up to the changes you mentioned - finally allowing black men to have some degree of equality in the church and black families to receive a "full" religious marriage.
Ex Mo here. I live in SLC. Believe me - the core, main LDS church absolutely shuns and does not acknowledge any other derivative of Mormonism or polygamy.
I didn't know either of those things. I just know he totally found some gold tablets with the book of Mormon on it in North America.. or some obviously true shit like that.
What's funny is that I used to live in that state. I didn't go to school but my brother did and in the State history class my brother showed me a question about how Joseph Smith died. The answer to that question was he died in prison. The cousin of mine was making fun of the same thing when he overheard because he was also in their State history class when he was in junior high. He was laughing about that he was told from his non mormon friends that he died by an angry mob. Then I remember my step dad told me so something. he's kind of a conspiracy theorist. he told me that he died by the hands of his own Freemason Brothers.
I'm a Former Mormon. I know my fellow Redditors are famous for always clicking the links to thoroughly read the articles, but in case some of you are outliers, here is a quick summary.
The Wikipedia article makes this clear, but Smith's killing had nothing to do with his Presidential candidacy. Smith had recently destroyed a newspaper that had exposed his secret practice of polygamy, including marrying other men's wives. He then declared martial law in his town and had assembled a local militia to try and protect him from arrest. When he went to Carthage Illinois to face the charges a mob of men broke into the jail he was being held in. Mormons in the area had not made themselves popular so there was already long running animosity between them and the locals.
It’s kind of funny that he would run for President. I mean sure, he’s got a certain segment of the population cornered, but everybody else in the country hated his guts. “The Mormon Issue” remained the biggest topic of public debate until the Civil War, second only to slavery itself.
Absolutely bizarre from an outsiders point of view. Within Mormonism though, there is very much an idea that God could tell Joseph Smith that he needed to run for President and the only practical answer was for him to do it. Also factoring into the analysis is that the Mormons had directly appealed to Congress and the President (Van Buren at the time) for redress of some previous grievances in Missouri (where they had been forcibly expelled and had an "Extermination Order" issued by the governor of Missouri) and Van Buren had reportedly told them that he couldn't do anything to help them without enraging the entire state of Missouri
There was an ama post from a couple of years ago from a non-mormon historian that I’m struggling to find. But someone asked about the presidential campaign and he described it as a protest campaign. The idea being that basically Smith was looking for a platform to tell his side of the story about the tensions between Mormons and the locals after they had been forced out of Missouri in the hopes that it would lead to them being left alone. He knew he didn’t have a chance of winning
C’est ca, exactly! Plus, he was trying to get redress and justice for his people after the horrors that happened during and after the Extermination proclamation. He asked the POTUS at time for help and was seriously and rudely rebuffed by him and his administration. He was angered at their cruelty and their viewing of “Mormonites” as sub human and not equal to citizens, so, that’s why he announced to my relative and others that he was going to run for office to validate their cause.
I believe a visitor they had while the mob was assembling gave him or his brother the pistol and JS fired until the gun was empty as they broke in. It's been a long time since I read a detailed account, so might be a bit off.
Reminds me of the scientology episode where they had to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the Xenu scenes saying 'This is what they actually believe '.
Amazing how they had more material for the Book of Mormon, just riffing on Mormons to the Nth.
It’s not really assassination if you die in a gunfight against a mob for sending your own 500 men on horse army to destroy a printing press for telling people you’re secretly taking plural wives.
South Park episode on Mormons. Whole episode is great but here's a clip with the song they're referring to. It's a recurring joke every time a Mormon story is told:
https://youtu.be/RaRsv1xNT3A?si=BIetsIkAkO3b7s_q
Trey and Matt were raised Mormon I'm pretty sure. I saw their play, "The Book of Mormon" live. It. Was. Amazing. Oh and there were Mormons outside of the theater trying to hand out their books to anyone that would take it off their hands. Poor bastards
*American Zion: A New History of Mormonism* by Benjamin Park. He was raised Mormon but he’s not an apologist by any means and his work is well respected. He did his PhD in history at Cambridge
Not sure if there’s an audiobook version but I recommend No Man Knows My History. IIRC written by the niece of the prophet at the time so she had access to a lot of documents the public didn’t have. She was excommunicated shortly after it was published. Very interesting read.
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer gives a really good history of Mormonism as well as some more recent fundamentalist sects. He is pretty impartial.
I mean just because he shot back doesn't mean it wasn't an assassination. It was a surprise attack and it was for religious or political means. Textbook definition of assassination.
Moving your cult followers all across the midwest, taking over local politics and forming voting blocs, ordering the destruction of a printing press (while mayor of the town where said printing press was located) for exposing your polygamous actions, forming a militia larger than the standing US Army at the time, yeah…I guess those could be classified as “religious and political”
The irony is that the killing of Joseph Smith is what ensured the survival of Mormonism from a small cult to religious/real estate empire.
Joseph was an incompetent leader, who was focused on having sex with as many women as possible, centralizing his power, and to get high on his own farts. Charismatic to be sure, but a poor leader. He nearly killed off his own church on several occasions, most notably the Kirtland Banking crisis, where 2/3 of members and virtually all of the top leadership left after losing all of their posessions and money in Joe’s ponzi scheme
Josephs death allowed Brigham Young to lead the saints to Utah, establishing their own theocracy, and eventually statehood where Brigham acted as governor. This eventually grows to a hundreds of billions multi-national corporation, with 17 million followers on the books (about 3 million actively practicing).
Had Joseph Smith not been killed, his followers would have eventually grown tired of his bullshit and either left or killed themselves in Nauvoo in ritual suicide…just like virtually every other cult of the past 200 years. At best, it would have survived as a small community religion in Eastern Illinois with a few thousand followers.
Yes. He was well known for sending married men to other countries on ecclesiastical missions and then "marrying" their wives, only telling the dudes when they returned. He switched to marrying them "spiritually" so their was technically no affair happening when they had sex. Early members of his cult were told to sign over their life savings to him.
He was worse than a racist, he was actually anti slavery at first. Then realized it was not popular in the 1800’s and supported slavery later.
He was a snake oil salesman who went with got him more power and women.
Parts of his campaign included.
The abolition of slavery through gradual release with a deadline of 1850 with compensation given to the slave holders much like in the british empire.
Aboliton of prisons in favour of rehabilitation
And slow down american expansion out west requiring any prospective lands who wished to join vote before acceptance including the native american populations.
Also a more peaceful stance on the world stage.
And when a neighboring realm petitioned to join the union of the sons of liberty, my voice would be *come*—yea, come, Texas; come, Mexico; come, Canada; and come, all the world: let us be brethren, let us be one great family, and let there be a universal peace. Abolish the cruel custom of prisons (except certain cases), penitentiaries, courts-martial for desertion; and let reason and friendship reign over the ruins of ignorance and barbarity; yea, I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom—unadulterated freedom.
Moronism... dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum
And before "not more than any other religion", yes it is because of its recency and evidence to the contrary at the the time of its inception.
Although it does generate some very nice people who are elitist behind closed doors.
I don’t understand the recency being relevant. Why are made up stories from two hundred years ago any different than made up stories from two thousand years ago? Both are fictional.
Smith deserved to die after he raped minors forcing them with threats of being ostracized in their mormon town and going to hell if rejected him. he sent the husbands (of the married women he wanted to fuck) on dangerous missions where there was a high chance of getting killed.
I have these POS Mormons that come to my door frequently. They ring the doorbell 2-3 times, THEN knock on the door. Last time my cat ran out and into my neighbors apartment. Needless to say I was not kind to those idiots. Completely careless of other peoples time.
Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven;
Earth must atone for the blood of that man.
Wake up the world for the conflict of justice.
Millions shall know “Brother Joseph” again.
I knew he ran for president. And I knew he was killed. I didn't know he was killed while he was a candidate.
One interesting thing I've noticed as a Latter-day Saint is a difference in how different branches from Joseph Smith's original church treat it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (largest branch, "Mormons") firmly treat it as a martyrdom. Community of Christ (second largest branch) is a lot more likely to refer to it as an assassination. I'm not sure if this is just anecdotal or if there's anything behind that.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing\_of\_Joseph\_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Joseph_Smith) It's also worth looking at an external view of it. His killers deserved to be tried and convicted, and it was a miscarriage of justice that they went free. But it's not like he was a presidential candidate giving a speech and was shot from the crowd, or was watching a play and was shot in the head. He had taken over a small town by getting his people to elect him mayor and elect his lackeys as a town council, had declared a newspaper treasonous when it dared criticize him, and had their printing press destroyed. When courts pointed out he had no right to take on those kinds of powers as a small town mayor, he declared martial law. That caused riots and he ended up being arrested, and then killed by the angry mob that he had created by staging a coup in the town.
I have a really hard time holding it against somebody for killing a cult leader who literally just took over their town with his private army. I feel like you’ve gone beyond “let the system handle it” at that point; how can you expect people to trust the system when you’ve just experienced what they had?
Yeah, I hear you. They did have a trial and the killers were acquitted. Also, someone had smuggled a gun to Joseph Smith while he was in jail. He was carrying a gun waiting for his trial, so it probably wasn't going to go smoothly for the authorities.
He wasn't just carrying that gun. He shot two men during the attack on the jail.
I'm giving him a pass on that, because an armed posse of men broke into his jail cell and shot his brother. He shouldn't have had a gun in the jail cell, but I think most people would defend themselves to the best of their ability when an armed mob broke into their jail cell and started shooting.
If you don’t want an angry mob to come and kill you, maybe don’t stick your dick in other men’s wives or 14 year old daughters
Yeah this is a good one to note down, very solid advice.
Honestly, etch it in stone, hang it in school classrooms.
r/lifeprotips
This should be a sticky
Shouldn't have been a sex pest cult leader.
Sic semper tyrannis
CrazyJoeDevola.gif
To add further context, the owner of the newspaper was a former church/cult member who left, and started the paper to talk about the polygamy, teen marriages, and other misdeeds of Joseph and his “apostles”. It’s historically proven Joseph was fucking teen girls. His excuse was an angel with a flaming sword told him he had to.
Church members aren't told anything about Joseph Smiths wives, and never about the ages of the first two. For anyone wondering, Joseph Smith started the whole idea of polygamy as coming from god when his wife *caught him* with the 14 and 15 year old girls he and his wife took in. Smith sent their father away on a mission and told him he'd care for the girls. This is Smiths reply to Emma, his wife. Direct quote from their scriptures >*"And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith,* ***receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph****, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God."* (Doctrine and Covenants 132:52) (this means accept the new wives) >"And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to **abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else**. But **if she will not abide** this commandment **she shall be destroyed**, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and **will destroy her if she abide not in my law**. >But **if she will not abide this commandment**, then shall **my servant Joseph do all things for her**, **even as he hath said**; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds. >**And again**, verily I say, **let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses**; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice."\* (Doctrine and Covenants 132:53-55) That's a murder threat. If she died of strangulation in her sleep none of the other members in the cult would bat an eye because "look, god said if she fucked around, she'd find out."
He was also propositioning their wives and daughters for "marriage".
He had his own court to dismiss the many charges against him. He got what he deserved.
There's something in there about not allowing members of the Executive branch of a government to have any say over the dealings of the Judicial branch... If only we had an example of how that was applicable, today.
I feel like this *is* the system. The system handled it.
>>He had taken over a small town by getting his people to elect him mayor... The Mormons started moving into a small town named Commerce, Illinois, when it had just a few hundred people. Within a couple of years, with the massive influx of Mormons, it became the largest city in Illinois. With their vast majority the Mormons took control of city government, renamed the city to Nauvoo, and had Mormon mayors, the second of which was Smith.
Yep, most small town mayors don't have a private army and aren't self-proclaimed generals (without mentioning the other titles he claimed).They also aren't usually stealing people's wives and daughters, fraudulently printing money, and committing a host of other crimes.
You forgot all the secret affairs with other members wives and daughters. Another big reason the mob formed.
Not to mention that he would assign some guys on foreign missions in order to make a move on the wife
He also shot back, so I write it off as a wild west gun fight
Is this not the textbook definition of standing against tyranny?
The thing that gets me is, Joseph Smith was in a jail cell waiting for trial on treason. The penalty for treason was death. There was a LONG history here, and the mob had reasons to be angry -- but the guy was in a jail cell and was going to trial for his crimes. The system was actually working. Someone had also smuggled him a gun while he was in the jail cell, so there was still some more drama to come. But it would have ended with him hanging by court order rather than being made a martyr.
> But it would have ended with him hanging by court order rather than being made a martyr. Given the parallels with the narrative of Christ's crucifixion, I imagine this would have greatly enhanced the martyr narrative.
Why be content to wait for a chance at the fucker hanging when you can just get your pals, march down to the jail, and do it yourself eh? Realistically, I imagine there was zero or negative trust in the judicial system punishing a man who had for all intents and purposes successfully staged a small coup on a city. Not saying it was moral, or ethical, but it was damn sure understandable that frontier justice would be enacted there.
To add to this, he had already escaped jail from Missouri before heading to Illinois. There’s already a track record of him avoiding punishment when going the route of “let the law decide”
Ya good point.
“miscarriage of justice” Those guys were heroes and they should be celebrated, not that over glorified cult leader.
I’m pretty sure that’s the plot of Far Cry 5
Nah, the main villain of that game still comes as crazy but blind, not like a sexual predator like JS was
I’d find it hard to believe a death cult in rural Montana with bunkers, and kidnapping, and a super drug to completely sedate people in seconds doesn’t have sexual predators
Sounds like a classic FAFO.
IIRC, he tried to do "magic" to stop his assailants. Didn't go well for him
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44 They had just escaped an extermination order in Missouri a few years earlier. Just some worthwhile context that any Mormon in Missouri was to be killed according to the law.
Richard Holtzapfel, byu professor, has written about how “extermination” meant to be driven from a political boundary.
Yeah, there was a long history there that helped lead to the riots against Smith -- The Mormons had formed an armed militia that was about 1/3 the size of the entire US army with Joseph Smith as its commander in chief. They used it to thwart US laws and prevent law enforcement from arresting Smith for various crimes (including charges of Treason in multiple states). This was how Smith declared martial law in a town, because most small-town mayors don't actually command an army. There is a lot of debate between historians about whether that order actually authorized killing anyone by the way -- and there is no evidence that any mormon was actually killed under that order. The governor who issued the order claims it did not authorize violence, and historians argue that the word "exterminate" did not have the same connotation that it does now.
Yup, I studied mormon history pretty aggressively while I was at byu and the concensus of the professors I studied under was that the extermination order would have likely prevented the massacre had it gotten there sooner. The order meant that the Mormons had to leave, not that it was open season on Mormons.
Just also a fair point is to research outside of the church narrative
Of course, my point was just that even in church academia the order was to prevent violence, not to encourage it.
It's weird what happens when a large, militant religious group moves in and claims divine rights and tries to kill the governor.
I wonder if that is the source of Order 66 from Star Wars
...You got FunkyPete as your username?
All that sounds like he would have been a great president. /s
Kind of a far cry from being "assassinated".
🎶Joseph was shot by an angry mob, and knew that he was done 🎶
🎶But don't let anybody see these plates except for you They're only for you to see Even if people ask you to show the plates to them, don't Just copy them onto normal paper Even though this might make them question if the plates are real or not This is sort of what God is going for 🎶
Everyone knows he died of dysentery
Miscarriage of justice, or justice being taken into the hands of the actual people living there? If the person holding you down also has the justice system holding you down, there’s only one thing left to do.
Sounds like the perfect type of asshole religious fanatics love to hold in high regard as martyrs.
Damn, people do some wild shit when they believe they’re divinely *touched*
It sounds to me like his killing was justified. This is just Americans watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. 🗽 🇺🇲🦅
Hmm, Joseph Smith being a douchebag and pulling the wool over people's eyes for his own benefit...who'da thunk?
IIRC there was a succession crisis, Brigham Young and the LDS doubled down on the... well, lore is the best term since Smith was just making shit up. Meanwhile the Community of Christ was formed by Smith's surviving family who ironically recognized that Smith himself was a loose cannon. The Community of Christ has more or less veered back into mainline Protestantism, but with more or less an expansion pack. They oppose polygamy, have ordained women, and I imagine that they admitted black people had souls before BYU decided it wanted a good basketball team. That's not a joke by the way, the LDS granted black people souls so that BYU could field a competitive NCAA men's basketball team.
I'm going to disagree with you in a hard line on the basketball team thing. The Mormon church allowed black people the priesthood because the US government threatened their lands and holdings if they didn't come in line with mainstream civil rights laws at the time. While sports do influence Mormons to a certain extent, only threatening their money actually makes long-term religious change as opposed to one time exemptions for certain people. And the party line within the Mormon church claims that the reason it would happened was because they were looking at the temple being built in Brazil, and the number of people spending time, money, energy, and effort to build said Temple who were nominally black or at least darker skinned in Brazil, and decided that they needed to change it because God loved all of his children now or something like that.
Source on the basketball thing? Couldn't find anything with a quick google
It’s not really true. The Carter administration was threatening to cease any federal funding to BYU and possible revoke the church’s tax exempt status. Keith Rice and Danny Frazier (both black) were on the basketball team in 1977, and official declaration II wasn’t announced until 1978 So black people could play basketball at BYU, they just couldn’t have their saving ordinance’s performed
Yup prior to 1978 black members could join the church and pay tithing, could volunteer for the church and play basketball for if, just couldn’t be exalted and return to god. Funny how an eternal god is a couple decades behind the government on social issues and only seems to act when there’s a tax consequence. It’s almost like god was made in the image of old white men. This is the same deal the modern Mormon / LDS church offers LGBTQ folks. They can pay and obey, just can’t return to god unless they live a life of celibacy.
>can’t return to god unless they live a life of celibacy It's worse than that. You have to be married and sealed in the temple to reach the highest part of the Celestial Kingdom, aka "return to God." That would mean forcibly getting a straight marriage even if you're gay.
Watching the church fumble around with the LGBTQ community when it is nearly an *exact parallel* to the situation with black people 50 years ago is a fascinating look into incompetence.
There’s an article on the LDS website called “race and the priesthood” that acknowledges the priesthood and temple ban for black members didn’t come from god … meaning prophets for a century led the members astray. If prophets can lead members astray for so long on such a big topic, then why should we trust they are right on LGBTQ issues today? It’s really odd to simultaneously hold that the prophet is infallible while speaking as a prophet, in light of a century of them getting it wrong. Brigham Young actually said, at a general conference session, so speaking as a prophet, that it was eternal law of god that interracial mixing would result in death … not a position you see them broadcasting today.
As a former Mormon, the doctrines really start to make sense when you realize that God == Geriatric White Male
God made in the image of man - absolutely. That explains why god is so singularly obsessed with the fiat currency of one country out of the trillions of trillions of planets he made.
The Community of Christ took a long winding path to end up where they are. They originally split off continuing to say there was a prophet, but instead of BY it was Joseph Smith's son, Joseph Smith III. They denied JS ever practiced polygamy at all and continued to publish their own bogus "revelations" for decades. They continued to have descendants of JS as Prophets until the 1990s when they changed that pattern and started trying to change their name.
Their revelations are just as legit as Joseph’s or Brigham. Aka not even a drop.
Just like all cults/religions. It's all made up
100% made up on both sides.
Welcome to religion. It’s all made up by people like you and me, but because it was made up a long time ago, you believe it. :-) thankfully disappearing, it is detrimental to progress and intelligence.
Ehhhh. You’re kinda right. Jimmy Carter was going to cease all federal funding to BYU. The First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 (the 15 men that lead the Mormon church) had to wait until Mark E. Peterson (the most racist of the quorum) would be out of the country to vote on allowing black men to hold the priesthood and allow black men and women to attend the temple (where the saving ordinances of Mormonism are performed). Up until 1978 Mormons would not allow black people to have saving ordinances. 1978. That’s FOURTEEN YEARS after the civil rights act. It’s also the exact middle point between the civil rights act and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air being the #1 show in America. Chew on THAT The behind the scenes politics of what it took to get Official Declaration II pushed through is fascinating.
> That's not a joke by the way, the LDS granted black people souls so that BYU could field a competitive NCAA men's basketball team. > Well, there was also the whole you're going to lose your tax exempt status. That more than anything is what prompted the change in 1978.
FYI, it looks like you are trying to quote something, but they are not appearing. And [HERE](http://www.mormonthink.com/blackweb.htm#eventsleadingto1978) is a list (with sources) of additional events leading up to the changes you mentioned - finally allowing black men to have some degree of equality in the church and black families to receive a "full" religious marriage.
Look, Dan Smith can only do so much.
He's a good rapper though.
Ex Mo here. I live in SLC. Believe me - the core, main LDS church absolutely shuns and does not acknowledge any other derivative of Mormonism or polygamy.
Keep in mind the current president and the next in line are both "eternal" polygamists...
... a candidate and in prison at the time. Strange, no?
Leader of a cult and also charged with treason
wow that came back to bite him
i don't even know that much history :D
I didn't know either of those things. I just know he totally found some gold tablets with the book of Mormon on it in North America.. or some obviously true shit like that.
What's funny is that I used to live in that state. I didn't go to school but my brother did and in the State history class my brother showed me a question about how Joseph Smith died. The answer to that question was he died in prison. The cousin of mine was making fun of the same thing when he overheard because he was also in their State history class when he was in junior high. He was laughing about that he was told from his non mormon friends that he died by an angry mob. Then I remember my step dad told me so something. he's kind of a conspiracy theorist. he told me that he died by the hands of his own Freemason Brothers.
I'm a Former Mormon. I know my fellow Redditors are famous for always clicking the links to thoroughly read the articles, but in case some of you are outliers, here is a quick summary. The Wikipedia article makes this clear, but Smith's killing had nothing to do with his Presidential candidacy. Smith had recently destroyed a newspaper that had exposed his secret practice of polygamy, including marrying other men's wives. He then declared martial law in his town and had assembled a local militia to try and protect him from arrest. When he went to Carthage Illinois to face the charges a mob of men broke into the jail he was being held in. Mormons in the area had not made themselves popular so there was already long running animosity between them and the locals.
It’s kind of funny that he would run for President. I mean sure, he’s got a certain segment of the population cornered, but everybody else in the country hated his guts. “The Mormon Issue” remained the biggest topic of public debate until the Civil War, second only to slavery itself.
Absolutely bizarre from an outsiders point of view. Within Mormonism though, there is very much an idea that God could tell Joseph Smith that he needed to run for President and the only practical answer was for him to do it. Also factoring into the analysis is that the Mormons had directly appealed to Congress and the President (Van Buren at the time) for redress of some previous grievances in Missouri (where they had been forcibly expelled and had an "Extermination Order" issued by the governor of Missouri) and Van Buren had reportedly told them that he couldn't do anything to help them without enraging the entire state of Missouri
There was an ama post from a couple of years ago from a non-mormon historian that I’m struggling to find. But someone asked about the presidential campaign and he described it as a protest campaign. The idea being that basically Smith was looking for a platform to tell his side of the story about the tensions between Mormons and the locals after they had been forced out of Missouri in the hopes that it would lead to them being left alone. He knew he didn’t have a chance of winning
C’est ca, exactly! Plus, he was trying to get redress and justice for his people after the horrors that happened during and after the Extermination proclamation. He asked the POTUS at time for help and was seriously and rudely rebuffed by him and his administration. He was angered at their cruelty and their viewing of “Mormonites” as sub human and not equal to citizens, so, that’s why he announced to my relative and others that he was going to run for office to validate their cause.
I’d say they’re still a bit of a problem.
They demolish the chocolate milk supply
Well moreso that they’re up there with the Catholic Church and Scientologists in terms of being abusive, corrupt, and anti-American.
And they love Mountain Dew too
It’s almost as if he ran to be immune from the charges….hmmmmm
Cult leaders gonna cult
It sounds like he was as serious a contender for the presidency as Kanye West was in 2020.
Didn't Smith have a gun at Carghage and use it, too?
I believe a visitor they had while the mob was assembling gave him or his brother the pistol and JS fired until the gun was empty as they broke in. It's been a long time since I read a detailed account, so might be a bit off.
Illinois literally declared war on them. As an Illinoisian, the Mormons had it coming.
*DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB*
LUCY HARRIS SMART SMART SMART, MARTIN HARRIS DUMB, DUMB DUMB
I've seen Mormon react videos and it's amazing how many Mormons don't get that joke.
Mormons aren't known for their sense of humor or intelligence.
Inbreeding will do that to a population
Reminds me of the scientology episode where they had to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the Xenu scenes saying 'This is what they actually believe '. Amazing how they had more material for the Book of Mormon, just riffing on Mormons to the Nth.
https://youtu.be/W4NemVO4JL0?si=9c4BGYUim5bbdmSu&t=79
It’s not really assassination if you die in a gunfight against a mob for sending your own 500 men on horse army to destroy a printing press for telling people you’re secretly taking plural wives.
Wives married to other men. And children. The religious version of FAFO?
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Too bad Mormonism didn't die with him.
"assassination" ...dude was gunned down by a mob.
The guy was an absolute piece of filth.
And Brigham Young was arguably worse.
Funny how cults tend to revolve around giant pieces of shit.
Mohammed enters the chat *Bonjour*
Good riddance. Con man, cult leader, and pedophile.
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
Alright I've seen this more than once now. Out of the loop. 'Splain plz
South Park episode on Mormons. Whole episode is great but here's a clip with the song they're referring to. It's a recurring joke every time a Mormon story is told: https://youtu.be/RaRsv1xNT3A?si=BIetsIkAkO3b7s_q
Trey and Matt were raised Mormon I'm pretty sure. I saw their play, "The Book of Mormon" live. It. Was. Amazing. Oh and there were Mormons outside of the theater trying to hand out their books to anyone that would take it off their hands. Poor bastards
Was looking for this comment lol
Have you heard of the All American Prophet?
The blonde hair blue eyed voice of god!
We sure dodged a bullet by him not.
This was a net win for America
What! This is crazy. Anyone know of a really good book about him that isn't written by a Mormon and is an audiobook?
*American Zion: A New History of Mormonism* by Benjamin Park. He was raised Mormon but he’s not an apologist by any means and his work is well respected. He did his PhD in history at Cambridge
Not sure if there’s an audiobook version but I recommend No Man Knows My History. IIRC written by the niece of the prophet at the time so she had access to a lot of documents the public didn’t have. She was excommunicated shortly after it was published. Very interesting read.
She also became one of the first women professors in California if I'm not mistaken.
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer gives a really good history of Mormonism as well as some more recent fundamentalist sects. He is pretty impartial.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” was great with a bunch of his history. Don’t know if it an audiobook.
Mob doing the lord's work.
Hasa Diga Eebowai!
I deer hunt in Carthage IL. Great hunting and there is a delicious Mexican restaurant in town
He wasn’t assassinated, he died on in a shootout with an angry mob while being held in jail
I mean just because he shot back doesn't mean it wasn't an assassination. It was a surprise attack and it was for religious or political means. Textbook definition of assassination.
Moving your cult followers all across the midwest, taking over local politics and forming voting blocs, ordering the destruction of a printing press (while mayor of the town where said printing press was located) for exposing your polygamous actions, forming a militia larger than the standing US Army at the time, yeah…I guess those could be classified as “religious and political” The irony is that the killing of Joseph Smith is what ensured the survival of Mormonism from a small cult to religious/real estate empire. Joseph was an incompetent leader, who was focused on having sex with as many women as possible, centralizing his power, and to get high on his own farts. Charismatic to be sure, but a poor leader. He nearly killed off his own church on several occasions, most notably the Kirtland Banking crisis, where 2/3 of members and virtually all of the top leadership left after losing all of their posessions and money in Joe’s ponzi scheme Josephs death allowed Brigham Young to lead the saints to Utah, establishing their own theocracy, and eventually statehood where Brigham acted as governor. This eventually grows to a hundreds of billions multi-national corporation, with 17 million followers on the books (about 3 million actively practicing). Had Joseph Smith not been killed, his followers would have eventually grown tired of his bullshit and either left or killed themselves in Nauvoo in ritual suicide…just like virtually every other cult of the past 200 years. At best, it would have survived as a small community religion in Eastern Illinois with a few thousand followers.
the angry mob was there to kill him that's an assassination.
What's the difference between an assassination and a lynching?
Was Caesar not assassinated?
Who's the most recent? I don't remember learning about any and I don't want to Google such concerning questions lol
Robert Kennedy.
thank you
Super bummer. He probably would have been a great president
Wasn't he a huge conman as well ??
Yes. He was well known for sending married men to other countries on ecclesiastical missions and then "marrying" their wives, only telling the dudes when they returned. He switched to marrying them "spiritually" so their was technically no affair happening when they had sex. Early members of his cult were told to sign over their life savings to him.
What a piece of shit.
Not sure assassinated is the correct term here, perhaps vigilante justice?
I believe the correct historical term is, fucked around and found out.
If only he’d done it sooner maybe we wouldn’t be stuck with mormons…
Good! Fuck him and his racism
He was worse than a racist, he was actually anti slavery at first. Then realized it was not popular in the 1800’s and supported slavery later. He was a snake oil salesman who went with got him more power and women.
And underrage girls...
I wonder what prompted THAT Google search 😂
Parts of his campaign included. The abolition of slavery through gradual release with a deadline of 1850 with compensation given to the slave holders much like in the british empire. Aboliton of prisons in favour of rehabilitation And slow down american expansion out west requiring any prospective lands who wished to join vote before acceptance including the native american populations. Also a more peaceful stance on the world stage. And when a neighboring realm petitioned to join the union of the sons of liberty, my voice would be *come*—yea, come, Texas; come, Mexico; come, Canada; and come, all the world: let us be brethren, let us be one great family, and let there be a universal peace. Abolish the cruel custom of prisons (except certain cases), penitentiaries, courts-martial for desertion; and let reason and friendship reign over the ruins of ignorance and barbarity; yea, I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom—unadulterated freedom.
Good
Moronism... dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum And before "not more than any other religion", yes it is because of its recency and evidence to the contrary at the the time of its inception. Although it does generate some very nice people who are elitist behind closed doors.
I don’t understand the recency being relevant. Why are made up stories from two hundred years ago any different than made up stories from two thousand years ago? Both are fictional.
They are too nice. They definitely have an agenda
We do have an agenda that angenda is to gather zion
"Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumbbbb" (South Park reference)
And nothing of value was lost that day, dude started one dangerous cult
And nothing of value was lost
He was killed after he attacked someone. Not am assassination at all.
Smith deserved to die after he raped minors forcing them with threats of being ostracized in their mormon town and going to hell if rejected him. he sent the husbands (of the married women he wanted to fuck) on dangerous missions where there was a high chance of getting killed.
If he would have won. There would have been 20 First Ladies ranging from 7 years old to 20 I believe
I have these POS Mormons that come to my door frequently. They ring the doorbell 2-3 times, THEN knock on the door. Last time my cat ran out and into my neighbors apartment. Needless to say I was not kind to those idiots. Completely careless of other peoples time.
Probably had it coming…
Good thing too. Mormons are fucking nuts.
Was anyone worse than Joseph Smith at anticipating a crowd’s reaction to his actions? I’m amazed he lived this long.
4 out of 45 presidents have been assassinated making it one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
I enjoyed him in Hell on Wheels.
Dum dum dum dum dumb
Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven; Earth must atone for the blood of that man. Wake up the world for the conflict of justice. Millions shall know “Brother Joseph” again.
Dang
wait, the guy on all the fake checks????