Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Loaded and prejudicial language

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A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage" A work by author: George D. Smith Loaded and prejudicial language

Presentism

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Loaded and prejudicial language

[A]n otherworldly being Smith called 'the Lord' defends polygamy….
Nauvoo Polygamy, p. 48.

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The author's hostile bias to the truth claims of the LDS Church often lead him to use loaded, prejudicial, or necessarily negative language when discussing events or people. These choices both reveal his bias, and serve to prejudice the incautious reader against Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints. More accurate, neutral language would create quite a different impression.

The following are some examples of the use of loaded and prejudicial language as a way to lead the reader to a predetermined conclusion regarding Joseph Smith:

Implications that Joseph needed constant companionship with women

The author claims that Joseph had a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman." (p. x) and refers to Joseph's "quest for female companionship." (p. xii) Joseph's marriage to Emma is never mentioned without also mentioning that he "eloped." (p. xiv, p. 12)

Association of Joseph with magical practices

Joseph is claimed to have "mastered the use of magic stones" during the translation of the Book of Mormon." (p. 7) The process of obtaining the plates becomes a "ritualized five-year search" and that takes place "[e]ach year at the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates." (p. 12) The author relies upon D. Michael Quinn's magical assessments when he notes that "September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"(p. 12n29) The author even repeats Quinn's misquote by claiming that Oliver Cowdery said Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger." In reality, Oliver said "some kind messenger." (p. 13) The removal of Oliver Cowdery's quote from context makes this quote sound more "magical" when he said that Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth." (p. 13)

Emphasizing "treasure seeking" in Joseph's early life

The author states that Joseph and Emma were "bound by treasure magic" (p. 22) The author ties Joseph, treasure seeking and women together when he claims that the "treasure seeker" was "someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken." (p. 23)

Association of the United Order with Communism

In an attempt to create a tie-in between the United Order and Communism, the book makes sure that we note that "[a]cross the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848." (p. 11)

Implications that Joseph was racist

The author portrays Joseph as racist when "W.W. Phelps reported on the prophet's instructions in all their antebellum racism..." (p. 14) and that "[s]kin color was important in other LDS scriptures as well" in reference to the priesthood ban. (p. 14n34)

Bizarre portrayals

In one of his more amusing portrayals, the author actually states that "an otherworldly being Smith called 'the Lord' defends polygamy…." (p. 48) One would think that this mysterious being called "the Lord" had never been heard from before!

Endnotes

None

Further reading

A FAIR Analysis of Critical Works

• American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows— (Index of claims)
• An Insider's View of Mormon Origins — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
• Ashamed of Joseph: Mormon Foundations Crumble
• Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism/Inside Today's Mormonism — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Behind the Mask of Mormonism
• Specific works/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
• Specific works/By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus
• Counterfeit Gospel of Mormonism
• Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 1
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 2
• Decker's Complete Handbook on Mormonism
• Early Mormonism and the Magic World View — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Specific works/Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Mormonism
• Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History
• From Captain Kidd's Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism
• In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith — (Index of Claims)
• Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon
• Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record
• Is the Mormon My Brother?
• Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
• Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon (2nd edition)—(Index of claims)
• Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined
• The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) — (Index of claims)
• Leaving the Saints
• Letters to a Mormon Elder
• Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church — (Index of claims)
• Mormon America: The Power and the Promise — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Mirage: Seeing Through the Illusion of Mainstream Mormonism
• Mormonism 101—Index of claims
• Mormonism (Kurt Van Gorden)
• Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? — (Index of claims)
• The Mysteries of Godliness—A History of Mormon Temple Worship
• Nauvoo Polygamy — (Index of claims—Use of sources—Prejudicial language—Presentism—Mind reading—Censorship—Romance—Assumptions—Magick)
• New Approaches to the Book of Mormon
• New Mormon Challenge
• No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith — (Index of claims)
• One Nation Under Gods — (Index of claims—Use of Sources—Prejudicial language—Absurd claims—Presentism—Mind reading—Rewording—Omissions—Sarcasm)
• The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844
• Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example — (Index of claims)
• Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess
• The Changing World of Mormonism — (Index of claims)
• Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
• Under the Banner of Heaven — (Index of claims)
• Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture