THE MORMON CURTAIN
Containing 5,709 Articles Spanning 365 Topics
Ex-Mormon News, Stories And Recovery
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MORMON VISITOR CENTERS
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Mormon visitor centers are located in Utah, Missouri, New York and other places where Mormon history was prevalent. Often these visitor centers peddle a carefully scripted version of Mormon history in order to try and convince non-Mormons that Mormonism is true. Most of these visitor centers are visited by Mormons wishing to reaffirm their faith and connect with Mormon history.
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As many people here are aware, the Mormon Church closely controls its archives. This has not always been the case, as the church opened its archives briefly in the 1970s. But since the archives were again closed to the public, many church defenders have supported the decision to close the archives.
One line of defense I have read a number of times is a comparison made between the church and other entities with a rich history, such as Canada's Hudson's Bay Company. D. Michael Quinn made this comparison once, and I have heard it repeated in several other places. This is evidently done to illustrate that lots of corporations have archives that they don't share with the public, and that this should not be construed as an indication that they have something to hide.
For the record, the Hudson's Bay Company has not closed its archives, but rather it has evidently made its archives public for quite a while. The link above provides a little history. The official HBC archives can be viewed online at the Manitoba Archives web site.
Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but I thought I'd point this out as yet another example where church defenders cite incorrect information to validate their position. The church's need to keep its archives closed to the public makes it look like it has something to hide.
| So you never thought you’d enter again into that insufferable museum of fantasy and illusion? Reconsider because right now on display at the Church History Museum is a collection of one of the Great Masters of art, Rembrandt. The display includes many of the original copper plate etchings created by the hand of this famous artist, as well as prints made from these.
Here is a link to the Deseret news article about the exhibit, as well as a brief history. Don’t rely on the article if your interested in a full history as it leaves out rich details such as the fact that after his wife died he hired a housekeeper who eventually became his common law wife, and served as a model in many of his pieces.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600133779,00.html
The only cost of visiting the museum will be parking, so bring around a dollar in change, two if you intend to look around at the other displays for nostalgic or research purposes.
If you take children along have them try to count how many dogs are in all the paintings on display. A volunteer staff member (missionary?) suggested this to us just as we were leaving, but it would have been nice to know beforehand. There are somewhere around 43, but you could ask one of the staff to be certain. Some knowledge of biblical stories may also be helpful in capturing children’s attention, but you could always fill them in as you walk around. The room adjoins a children’s play area for further indoctrination, or “light and knowledge” depending on your mindset ; )
| "Guides at the cove should not be telling visitors that certain parts are off-limits because they're sacred. Sacredness and public land don't mix very well; on this we can agree with the ACLU."
The LDS Church is again embroiled in a lawsuit over public access. This time, it isn't the Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City but an empty piece of land lined by granite cliffs on the Mormon Trail in Wyoming.
In June, the church joined a lawsuit on the side of the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management against the American Civil Liberties Union,
which has challenged the church's lease on Martin's Cove.
The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of the Western Land Exchange Project and four Wyoming residents who claim the church's lease allows it to promote a religious message on public land.
One of the plaintiffs, Susan Wozny of Laramie, claimed that LDS guides at the cove repeatedly asked her about her religion and forbade her from going into certain parts of the cove because it was "sacred" ground.
The cove is where members of the ill-fated 1856 Martin handcart company sought refuge from winter storms while awaiting rescue parties from Salt Lake City. Many of the handcart emigrants, suffering from exposure and starvation, died and were buried in the cove.
The church attempted to purchase the cove from the BLM, but because of a lack of support in Congress, it settled for a lease at $17,000 a year. The church owns a visitors center on private property, which serves as a gateway to the area.
http://www.newutah.com/modules.php?op... (Obviously this story was written by a Mormon)
| "Brothers and sisters, if you will all please step over this way toward the altar of stones, which you can see just ahead of you.
"Please watch where you are going. I see dead people--especially if you wander off the trail and over the cliff.
"Welcome to Adam-on-di-Amon.
"Before proceeding, we here at Faithfully Yours Mormon Tours ask that you please not touch, pick up, rearrange or remove these altar stones. We like to say that they are the original stones used by Father Adam to build an altar on this very spot.
"Unfortunately, the original stones which Adam used to build this altar have, over the years and through constant theft and vandalism, been lost and stolen--requiring that we replace them over and over again.
"This means that your tour guide crew has to waste valuable time that they could otherwise use making up more stories for you to share in sacrament meeting when you get home, in order to haul in new rocks to replace the ones you've taken off with. This rebuilding routine gets old real quick so, if you wouldn't mind, please play along and KEEP YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF THESE ORIGINAL REPLACEMENT STONES!
"If you want some stones to remember your visit here, you can buy some plastic replicas in the gift shop, located at the rear of the bus. Just ask the Mormon clerk with the plastic smile to help you.
"Thank you.
"Moving along, like I said, this historic and holy tourist trap, er, place is known as 'Adam-on-di-Amon.' I will explain that name in a moment, although what I will be saying about it makes very little sense to me or anyone else who gets paid with your tithing dollars to make it sound like something straight out of a FARMS brochure on ancient American NASCAR racing.
"If you will look at your bus tour maps, you can see that we are standing about two miles south of Jameson, Missouri, with a pleasant view overlooking the waters of the Grand River, not far from where hundreds of thousands of Book of Mormon enemy combatants slaughtered each other during the California Gold Rush.
"The Saints who eventually settled here were told by the Prophet Joseph Smith that Jameson is also near the spot of an ancient Nephite city--as indicated by the discovery of hewn stones already in piles when the Saints arrived.
"These stones were said to have displayed Deformed Egyptian hieroglyphs which, when translated by the Prophet Joseph using several of these altar rocks as peepstones in a hat, spelled out, "Lehi loves Sariah but hates brown people and Catholics."
"Unfortunately, these stones have also been stolen.
"Moving along--Hey!! Look, son, I told you not to touch those rocks! Drop them! Do it now, before the Great Jehovah strikes you down like Korihor and you suffer an ignoramius death! (Works everytime).
"Now, where was I?
"Oh, yes, it was on this spot that the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that Adam--the father of the human race and, according to Brigham Young, the guy who conceived Jesus through sex with the not-so-virgin Mary--was buried.
"In fact, if you look closely, you can see what looks like the end of a human leg bone sticking out of the dirt. Actually, it's a cow bone. The human ones are at the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but we ain't goin' there.
"The parcel of land upon which you are standing was purchased by the Saints who settled here from a man named Arrington. Who he was, I haven't a clue. Someone who actually cares and who has lots of time on their hands should do his genealogy then thank him with a dunk-tank baptism for the dead send-off into eternally polygamous potluck glory, but that's for another time and place in outer space.
"It was to this hallowed spot that the Latter-day Saints flocked as their promised Zion--but only after they had been driven from all the other places they had also been promised.
"Eventually this location became a town, after starting out as a farm, and from there grew rapidly into the field of weeds that you see here today.
"The Saints gathered here from all quarters, even "Far West" (before they were forced to pull up stakes and move to 'Farther and Farther West')--but not before they had assembled at this sacred site and poked around, using one of Joseph Smith's witching sticks, looking for the grave of Adam.
"Adam's slippery remains (not to mention his apple) have yet to be found, although a petrified fig leaf, believed to have at one time been attached to his apron, was dug up when Joseph Smith was out here hunting for buried treasure.
"The town which the Saints proceeded to build on this spot was designated as 'Adam-on-di-Amon.' It is a name the Prophet Joseph came up with by writing it on a slip of paper, putting it in a hat along with several other names on their own slips of paper, then asking Emma to close her eyes and draw one out, while he stole a kiss from Fannie Alger.
"Now, here is where things get a bit complicated so stick with me--and put down that rock, kid! How many times do I have to tell you?? Next time, I'll bash your head in with it!! (Which might not be a bad idea. We could tell the next tour group that the blood they see on the rock came from Jesus, who was crucified on this very spot. Hmmmmm . . .)
"Anyway, the name 'Adam-on-di-Amon' was the name the Saints ended up using because it was easier to spell than other choices, including 'Addin'-on-Aladdin,' 'You-Da-Dude-Diahman,' 'Adam-played-Backgammon,' 'Princess-Di-is-Dead-'n-Gone-Man,' 'Diamond-Shamrock,' and (my personal favorite) 'Dam-Dam-bo-Bam-Banana-Fana-fo-Fam-Fee-Fi-MoMan-Adam.'
"In a sermon delivered on this spot by the Prophet Joseph, he declared that name 'Adam-on-di-Amon' was the name given anciently to a nearby valley (then known as Utah Valley) where Adam, prior to his death, called his children together and blessed them, then abandoned his family for some of his other wives, since Eve had managed to get him thrown out of his favorite watering hole--known among the local pre-Adamites as the 'Garden of Cheatin'--all for giving in to Eve by partaking of a beer that was delicious to the taste, but which he hadn't paid for.
"According to the Prophet Joseph, the blessing which Adam bestowed upon his children took place when the Earth was divided with the land in one place and the water in another, whatever the hell that means.
"Just think about it. (Wait, you can't think. You're Mormons on a fantasy trek, for gawd's sake). Land in one place and water in another. Land and water have got to be seperate; otherwise, how could you have, like, land, over here and water over there? Maybe that's a Gospel mystery for Bruce R. McConkie to figure out for us.
"It was also on this spot, brothers and sisters, that Father Adam dwelt ("Dwelt." What a dumb word. Why can't we just say "lived" or "hung out"? Because it's not in the damn script out of the Correlation Committee, that's why).
"Anyhoo, this is where Adam dwelt with his people prior to his death, which occured when he was bitten by a snake that Eve had let into the house without telling him.
"Before he died, Adam constructed the altar, represented here by this pile of meaningless rubble. It was at this altar that Father Adam, now advanced in years and by this time just plain sick and tired of earning too little bread by too much sweat of his brow, also offered sacrifices, since they were easier to come by.
"Following Masonic rituals that he would later reveal to the Prophet Joseph, Adam would slay chickens and goats(which he stole from the neighborhood Gentiles). This he did in the upper room of a mudhut prototype of what was later to become the Nauvoo Temple--and then drink their blood here, out of sight of the local authorities.
"Also at this stone altar--Hey!! OK, that's it, punk! (Sound of stone from altar hitting skull of kid)
"I apologize for the interruption.
"It was also here at this stone altar that, according to the early Mormon polygamist Zelph the White Danite, Adam leaned on his staff and prophesied many events that were to come to pass in the present generation, including the destruction of the Mormon Church due to the HBO special, "Big Love" and Mitt Romney's failed bid to lie his way into the White House by claiming he was baptized against his will by Mormon missionaries desperate for numbers.
"To wrap things up (as the Prophet Joseph used to say when referring to his Egyptian mummies), it was at this very spot that Adam bestowed his final blessings on his descendants--before the venom from that snake that Eve let loose in their house took effect and paralyzed Adam's vocal cords, causing his children to cry out, "What is wanted?," whereupon Adam managed to get out his last words, "Adam, having been true and faithful, desires a glass of water from the pail," before collapsing and dying.
"Are there any questions? . . .
"No? (That figures. Mormons never question).
"Well, if there aren't any questions, does anyone have any answers?
"Yes? Too bad. They're all wrong.
"OK, then, everyone on the bus for Denny's."
| I am in MO on business today. I decided to visit Liberty Jail. Here is what I learned:
1. According to the tour, for no apparent reason the evil people of MO attacked the Mormons. The Mormon War, Hauns Mill were unprovoked attacks.
2. JS was falsely imprisoned for treason. But, he was gracious to his captors and the evil people who wanted to see him suffer. During his time in Liberty he produced amazing revelations.
3. Sidney Rigdon was a smooth talker, who talked his way out of jail early.
4. Mormons were persecuted because of their religious beliefs. When asked what beliefs, the response was the belief in the BofM.
5. Sister Missionaries are called upon to sing a hymn for the tour participants. Its a tug on the heart strings. Our guide should try out for American Idol. Talent wasted.
6. You get the feeling that the church is using the Hollywood game plan of sex appeal and special effects. Together they serve as a very effective focus deflector. Kind of like watching an episode of Bay Watch. Hard to remember the plot, but Pam Anderson is easy to remember. Both Girls were cute, talented and charismatic.
6. The Gold plates are on display at the Liberty Jail.
(If you look closer its not the real plates. Its a clever marketing trick to give credibility to the golden plates story.)
Peace Out!
| My family and I like to go to historic places and take tours. We especially love the old west, and thought it would be fun to see something we haven't seen before. So, for the first time, we mustered the courage to see Cove Fort.
For those of you that don't know Cove Fort was/is a fort commissioned by Brigham Young, and built by GBH's Grandfather. (I think his name was Ely.) It is located about an hour south of Provo, Utah, near the I-70 and I-15 intersection, near Beaver.
It appears that the fort was always well-appropriated, and that visitors had first class accomodations. What is NEVER mentioned in the tour is the fact that this man was a polygamous. The "photograph" of the husband and wife in the last room of the tour looked odd to me as the proportions were way off and the positioning seemed wierd. Now I believe that they were clipped and placed from other photos with the rest of the wives being omitted.
To hear of these two people, you would have thought they were super-human. It turns out there were more than 36 people employed at the fort. Hmmmmm....
| I spent a day in St. George last week, visiting an old school friend I hadn't seen since I was 17.
We had a great time. My 20 y.o. son and her 18 y.o. daughter got along great. She told her daughter how I had tried to keep her on the straight and narrow in high school, and had picked her up every morning before dawn for seminary. (I apologized and asked her not to hold it against me, as I was young and brainwashed).
While killing time waiting for X-men 3 to start, I got a wild hare up my butt to take the tour of Briggy's Winter(?) home.
Stoopid me, I was thinking we'd be treated to a normal tour, with interesting facts, look at the old furniture, yada yada. Nope, we got preached at, of course, about the restored gospel and all that crap.
He asked us all if we were mormons and we all said "no", then of course after the tour he had to tell us about eternal families and give us the opportunity to fill out those little cards so we could receive a free gift.
I declined, and he asked me how I felt about being with my family forever. I told him I was familiar with that concept. My friend's daughter spilled the beans that we were all former mormons. He looked at me like a child that had broken his favorite toy, and asked "What happened?".
Wow! I wasn't really prepared for that, so I simply told him that I had stepped back and took a good hard look at the church and didn't like what I saw. He asked for specifics, but I told him he really didn't want to go down that road with me. I said that we were really just interested in the historical information about the home, and he stated that the historical and spiritual couldn't be separated.
I just rolled my eyes and off we went to the movies, and a great visit afterwards.
If I hadn't promised to behave, I'll bet we could have gotten thrown out of there.
| Have any of you been to some of the church history sites or other little tourist traps the Mo's set up to milk their people of their minds and money? I made the mistake of going on a church history tour with my mother, sisters, and daughters. I won't ever do that again. I'd love to hear what some of you have been through when you've gone to LDS sites.
Church "History" Sites and the Moonie Mormon Missionaries
Cove Fort is just off the I-15 and I-70 interchange in central Utah. It's in a pretty little valley that is very cold and windswept and surrounded by lava strewn hills and juniper forests. During a snowstorm it is the best place to pee while waiting for the snowplows to come through. The Mormons have done it up like Santa's village at Knotts Berry Farm with all kinds of 'Authentic" reproductions of little houses and cabins and barns and such to replicate the thriving wealth of GBH's ancestors. The fort ittself is interesting and sturdy, made from thick walls of lava stone and sturdy heavy pine doors. It's just precious, in that sort of sickening sweetness that one gets from downing 9 cups of artifically sweetened, thick karob flavored fake hot chocolate.
Watch out though because as you drive up to the site and park in the nice wide parking stalls with the well lit walkways and brightly painted reproduction pioneer houses you'll see little shadows of chubby older men scurrying behind the corners of buildings, lurking and peeking, giving each other the eye to see who can waddle over to approach you first. It's almost a geezer race and you're the ribbon at the end of the track. The dominant or more agile one will get to you and the sad look or latently angry glare from the "loser" will fill you with a curious awe as he shuffles off to his post behind a building or back to his well appointed RV or double wide modular home on the premises.
The goal of these well meaning but desperately bored old farts is to take you to the gates of the fort, and with some carefully practiced lines, get your name, address, and phone number so "Some representatives" can call you. Even if you're just there to pee or other necessary business they want to get you on their list, sort of like army recruiters at a high school football game, desperate to fill the dwindling ranks and assured of a "Heavenly reward" for the bonus of getting your contact info.. Don't succumb, or better yet, give them Infymus's e-mail address. That would be too dang funny. Just do your business and get the hell out of there because if you stay, it's like an endless Amway convention and you've just been selected as "Sucker of the moment".
The fort is pretty cool and well appointed with the trappings and artifacts from all kinds of legendary pioneer acoutrements. The garden just outside the fort is so well attended by these competing old men that narry a weed pokes it's desperate head above ground before one of them comes and chops it with a sharp hoe. The same for any nay sayers of church doctrine or revisionist history so watch out when they come at you with their "hoes".
Speaking of Hoes, they have these sweet old ladies that have been placated over a lifetime with the expression one masters at the end of a really good bowell movement....ahhhhhhhh, that feels so warm and good. The sing songy voices are so anxious to tell you the fabulous tales of the generous and welcoming Hinkley family who opened their big wooden doors to all the weary travelers passing on their way south or to California. They have the well practiced gestures of an airline stewardess, guiding you through the little rooms and showing you the precious beds and kitchen implements, all the while bearing testimony to the truthfullness of the gospel because the chamber pot is the one GBH's grandmother used and it must be good, otherwise God would have seen to it that it would be lost from the site.
Don't forget how generous and loving they were to "Their Lamanite neighbors", supplying them with blankets, selling the kids for $70.00 or whatever they could get, or even better, blaming them for the MMM. Ohh the sweetness of it all will coat your tongue like cheap malted easter eggs and soon you'll be glad for the backwash of stomach bile to neutralize the sugary sappiness.
You won't get out of there in less than 45 minutes if you succumb to the gates. They keep you in those little claustrophobic rooms while they witness to you till you relent out of desperation to escape. Give them anything, a name, an address, whatever or they will surround you like toothless pirhannas, gumming you to death.
I made the mistake of going with my mom, sisters, and daughters on a church history tour. Forget the passive agressive 101 fiasco of navigation and resentment. That's another dissertation but Good Gawd, site after site is an excersize in redundancy and bullshit that can hardly be imagined. Nauvoo is absolutely beautiful and the restoration is so commendable, but crikey, don't get stuck in one of those buildings!! They corner you and close the doors from room to room and continue to bear witness till you will do anything to escape. I found myself having multiple Morgasms (faking pleasure and approval) over and over just so I could get through these little pieces of "History".
I'm not sure what codswallop is but I hear Brits and Aussies use it all the time. It flows like sewage on a rainy day and you get it all over your shoes, it creeps up your pantleg and pretty soon you can feel it gooeing between your knees. Slogging through it from house to house you soon feel like Tim Robbins in "Shawshank Redemption". That moment you get out of the town limits is just like when he leaves the sewer and breathes fresh air. You gasp and gulp and spread your arms in a greatful gesture of freedom.
At the printing office in Palmyra one gilded and naive old lady stated that the "Not YET LDS" printer of the Book of Mormon died shortly after the first printing, but that since he'd "Served his purpose here on earth", that God took him for his heavenly reward. I was fairly incensed because I doubt his non-mormon family felt that his sole purpose on this earth was to print the codswallop that was the BOM. While he may not have been paid well, it was his JOB and from what I understand, printers print stuff in exchange for money, even bullshit fantasy like the BOM. I suggested to this sweet schitzforbrains matron that I highly doubted that this man's family felt that "His usefullness" was over nor that his purposes on earth had been well served by printing the BOM. Of course mom and the entourage were upset at me for ruffling the pretty surface and I had to walk away, steamed and incensed and indignant. The rest of the trip went accordingly.
I took some fabulous photos of Nauvoo with the leaves turning and sun setting over the Mississippi, the light glowing on the temple and the valley below fading into darkness. Palmyra and the surrounding area are equally lovely and I could spend weeks there going up and down the little country roads, enjoying the flavor of New England towns and history that the west just can't hold a candle to. Pretty is different than authentic though and every single site is a contrived, trumped, overdone, absolute fabricated version of the real life there or true history of the church and the people and the times.
Like going to Santa's village at christmas, it's fun to see the efforts of the crafty folk who decorate and create the illusion, but don't forget that it's all fantasy. Don't make jokes about "Governor Boggs" when someone knocks on the door at the Liberty Jail, or ask about any authenticity to the first vision in Palmyra, or ask where the wars were fought in the surrounding forests. The sweet old geezers and "hoes" are ill prepared to deal with controversy and really are just the little costumed elves helping to carry out the fantasy. It's not their fault that Santa is exploiting them or that he gets to sit around getting all fat and lardy while they toil away fabricating the playthings that are the doctrine of the LDS faith.
Like any museum or art gallery, the goal is to sell you stuff. They take all credit cards, cash, and travellers checks at the gift shops with authentic resin statues of JS or the other characters in the fantastic legends. You can get little aprons and clothes and nightgowns so you can look just like Emma or the other wives and concubines. You can get cast iron pots and pretend to slave away over the dishes displayed in the recipe books from the times. You can get an authentic Mormon Brick for free, well not really because you have to pay with the price of your ears swelling from a nasty puss oozing infection of Mormon bullshit first. The brick is about the size and consistancy of the rest of the crap they spew and passing it hurts like heck, but eventually the sphincter relaxes and you get back to normal.
If you go, try the Fall season. The sites really get all decked out and Nauvoo celebrates Halloween in a big way with a big pumpkin carving festival and parade and trick or treating, live bands, and a few impotent "Christians" decrying the foulness of the doctrine and JS. Nauvoo is so pretty and the whole place is fun to look at. There's a big statue of Joseph Smith in front of one of the gift shops but don't try to sit on his lap. To say he'd get a big woody would be a misnomer. He's larger than life and ready to "Frig" anything that comes his way.
| Went on vacation a few weeks back to visit some TBM family members in SLC. We went to "This is the place Heritage Park" to spend the day. It was FREE DAY so there were a lot of people there and activities for the young ones.
As we waited for the TBM family to arrive my wife went to the rest room. She came out pissed off because some TBM nutter approached her in the bathroom saying " Hi, are you here to learn more about our church and its history? I would be happy to answer any question you may have." My wife looked at her strangely and said "No thank" you and walked away.
She came out and told me what happend and wanted to know why the lady would think she was not LDS. That is when the veil was parted for me even more and I looked around and realized the maddness we where in the middle of.
As I looked around what I saw was hundreds of LDS women dressed EXACTLY ALIKE. While the colors they wore varied the uniform was the same. What I saw were women everywhere wearing a plain pull over shirt and a pair of Capri style pants. They often had children with them, wore no to little makeup and their hair was a simple cut with little styling. All the women and teenage girls wore this uniform and they did not even realize it.
I then told my wife that she stood out like a sore thumb. She was thin, had a colorful floral print blouse with, very nice slacks, designer sunglasses and salon style hair and color. She looked like a BUTTERFLY among a bunch of moths. So as we looked around we just started laughing to see more and more woman wearing the LDS uniform.
As our TBM family started to arrive, lo and behold here came the females in the family wearing, plain color shirt, capri pants, no make up and surrounded by kids dressed the same. We could not keep this find to ourselves. We pulled aside 2 of our nephews 18 and 21yo (non TBM's college kids) and pointed it out to them. As they peered around they too started to laugh and said " We have lived here our entire lives and never even noticed it"...LOL So for the rest of the day we kept snickering at all those uniforms.
So we had a good laugh at how a TBM could single out my wife in the toilet and teach her about the church....Because she obviously was not a member...LOL We both have been members our entire lives but totally left the cult a few years back. It feels good they no longer see us as one of them.
Now here is a real kicker. My wife's entire family have lived in Utah most of their lives and the inlaws lived there their entire lives. But 95% of them have never visited "This is the Place Heritage Park" The church museum or SLC cemetary where the prophets are buried. They did not go until their APOSTATE relatives drug them there to learn some of their own history.
It was nice being a tourist instead of one of the worker bee's.
| I had been to Nauvoo and Carthage before, pre mission and young in my naivety to not notice all the sanitized tidbits of the early church history that are so glaring to me today more than 10 years later.
Making my way to the small visitor center adjacent to the tissue box laden restored Carthage jailhouse one of the plaques had on it the standard and most common version of Joseph's supposed first vision with the two personages, etc. Even on my mission I didn't know about the earlier and different versions of the first vision.
In the visitor center watching/stomaching the video they showed before the tour of the jailhouse I now understand why TBM's hold Joseph Smith to an almost deified state. The video was very biased to all the 'positive' things about Joseph's life. This is understandable in that propaganda is supposed to remain in line with and reinforce the common slanted view that every church member is taught about Joseph from the early days of Primary or from the very first missionary discussion.
The video shows a crude representation of the BoM translation where Joseph is 'translating' while reading the gold plates like one would read a book, the common view of the translation process. As I was sitting there I wondered what people's reaction would be if they showed in the video Joe stuffing his head into a hat to translate.
Also, of course the only wife mentioned in the movie and basically anywhere in the church's standard sanitized literature is poor old Emma.
I understand that any organization would want to shed all the positive light it could on any figure associated with that organization and minimize or outright omit anything that goes against the grain, especially if that figure is the founder. So in that way I can understand the sanitized history the church puts out, however it is being very disingenuous in the long run especially when people can so easily obtain all the history, the 'good' and the 'bad' with a few clicks of the mouse.
This is the main reason I started to become suspect to the church how it operates. If there is nothing in the church's history to hide as Hinckley said then why didn't I hear of these alternate and some would say "anti" versions of history until a few years AFTER my mission? All that time in church and seminary growing up then on my mission and I didn't hear anything about them. What is there to hide? Why not be forthcoming with all info so members aren't blindsided?
In this day and age I think it does the church more harm than good to keep parading sanitized church history like people would have no way of being informed otherwise. TBM's take everything hook line and sinker because they are told to stay away from "anti" while everyday rational people don't buy it. Now that I see the church from an 'outsider's view' I can see it for what it is....of course Satan's minions are clouding my judgement and working hard against me...right? ;-)
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