You are right, “justified” is a completely wrong and inappropriate word. Using that word was a mistake on my part.
Even if someone rapes or murders your daughter (or say, for example, your unborn grandchild), you are even then not ever justified to murder or to rape. But your extreme anger would be justified.
So subside “understandable”.
I appreciate the change of terms. I personally do NOT understand why someone would figure that another person’s religious beliefs or practices would be at all pertinent to me, or how I could possibly have the right to be upset about it.
If the young girls in town are falling in love with this charismatic, powerful, persuasive and charming prophet at alarming rates, and are quickly willing to throw away marriage and family for “celestial” childless marriage (what marriage to Smith was turning out to be - somehow, mysteriously childless, despite the marital act - unless you were Emma, that is).
Have you looked at the ages of these ‘young girls?’ At the time of their marriages to Joseph, two were 14, (though they were both within weeks of turning 15, and both lived with their parents, not Joseph), two were 15, and three were 17. Yes, they were 'young girls…" but they weren’t NON-Mormon young girls. The neighbors didn’t have to worry. All the rest were over 18, and of the 34 wives he had, more than half were over 30. Four were in their fifties. Facts are good things.
And then Smith orders the burning of the printing press to avoid exposure. The people would be* understandably* driven to great anger. But we agree 100%: even an understandably angry mob is never justified in murder, or anything else illegal or immoral. .
That particular paper actively promoted violence against the Mormons; the owner had just been caught plotting to murder Joseph and Hyrum (and there is quite a bit of evidence that he played a part in the completed murder of both men.) …and by the way, the press was not burned. It was declared a ‘public nuisance’ by the city council and ordered destroyed. While it was an unwise move, the legality of the order is still being debated.
However, if you want to talk about destroyed printing presses, why aren’t you upset about the one that was destroyed in Jackson County, Missouri, in 1833? The one that WAS burned, along with all the copies of the Book of Mormon that were being printed on it…that resulted in a little more than damage–like the wholesale attack on over 200 hundred Mormon homes, and the eviction of over 1200 Mormons, thrown out of their homes, which were also burned.
I can see where THEY might feel a little angry having their press destroyed. Given that, and given that the whole idea behind the Expositor was to roil up the waters again and get the mobs marching against the Mormons, do you “understand” why the Mormons would want to put a stop to the printing press…or does your understanding only go one way?
And those incidents are such a tiny piece, a mere whiff of the persecutions the Church founded by Jesus Christ has suffered these 2000 years. And She still stands, and will, till the end of time.
I see that you didn’t get the point of those examples.
I can understand how sidetracking it would be, when I wrongly used the word “justified”.
What I responded to is this: you said, "However, the persecution they [Mormons] experienced here [in America] was a bit on the extreme side. "
And my point is that the the persecution, the most extreme of which was at Nauvoo, was certainly understandably motivated. Not justified though. No matter how angry you are, and how understandable the anger is, you must not sin.
The anger itself is unjustified, and a sin. Angry people do evil things…and if you think that ‘the worst’ was at Nauvoo, you need to do a little more research. All Nauvoo was, was 'more of the same."
Okay, I’m glad you weren’t making that comparison. As to the “cult” thing, I am not inclined to call Mormonism a cult personally. Perhaps from a theological standpoint alone one could make that argument. But to me it seems to me “religion” is the right term. But I am no expert. Thats just my gut feeling.
I don’t see why you’d say that. Maybe just because you were perturbed when you wrote this. Understandably.
Yep. I was perturbed. You see, it’s a little personal, since I am the great grand daughter and grand daughter of people who actually went THROUGH that. My grandfather told us stories of his personal experiences, and stories about what his parents went through. I have their journals and diaries. We aren’t talking about stuff that happened three hundred or more years ago here, Eliza. We are talking about stuff that happened to people I knew and loved. People who are only two or three steps up the 'family group sheet."
…and yes. I’m really very prickly about people who think it is at all ‘justifiable,’ or even ‘understandable’ for one group of people to do that sort of violence and evil to another group because of a difference in religious beliefs, and because of lifestyles that do not affect anybody else.
And if you don’t think it does not, or cannot, happen now—remember the Texas polygamous compound where the TCPS invaded, tore even NON polygamous families apart and carted them off in Baptist busses? Those cases which, thank reason and intelligent people, have been thrown out?
There is nothing ‘understandable’ about what happened then.
Unless of course you are willing to use it in the same sense that I would use ‘understandable’ in regard to what a group of Southern Utah Mormons did to a certain wagon train at Mountain Meadows. If you are using it in that sense, we can talk.
