Ask a Mormon, Part 4

[Red Key]

1. As a mormon, what do you think of Mitt Romney? I mean, are you "excited" for this, or do you not really care?

The other questions were answered so I will just give my opinion on this one. I consider myself a conservative. I do think Mitt Romney is the best GOP candidate this election, but not because he is Mormon. I think he is the best simply because he is not as bad a choice as the other candidates. He is still a poor choice IMO, but he is better than Obama and any of the other GOP candidates. Most of my reasons for wanting him to win have nothing to do with him being Mormon.

The only reason I would like him to win the presidency as a Mormon is to disprove those who say he will be a puppet of Mormon church leaders. Harry Reid (senate majority leader) is a Mormon too, but is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. I haven't heard anyone saying Reid is being controlled by Mormon church leaders, and it is ridiculous that some say Romney will.

 

[caketastydelish]

Yes indeed. Santorum has already bragged about he, unlike Kennedy, would make his Catholic faith an active part of his presidency.

It's good to see that Romney has not swooped down to that level.

 

[ParkCungHee]

2. How do you defend the "almost" undisputed fact that your prophet is a schizophrenic (his mom AND dad were both showing signs)?

I know this is a thread about Mormonism, and I shouldn't be responding to these question, but I have to say, why exactly is being a schizophrenic something that needs to be "defended" against?
What is inherently wrong about being a schizophrenic?
Why would it matter if Joseph Smith was a schizophrenic?
Does this attitude of yours have anything to do with the fact that your avatar is Adolf Hitler?

 

[Chazumi]

I know this is a thread about Mormonism, and I shouldn't be responding to these question, but I have to say, why exactly is being a schizophrenic something that needs to be "defended" against?
What is inherently wrong about being a schizophrenic?
Why would it matter if Joseph Smith was a schizophrenic?
Does this attitude of yours have anything to do with the fact that your avatar is Adolf Hitler?

My wife is a Mormon and I asked her what she thought about it but she isn't very knowledgeable about the church history. Joseph Smith was most likely Schizophrenic, he started exhibiting signs in his late teens about when that condition starts to manifest. If you read the 1911 edition encyclopedia Britannica about Mormons it says both his mother and father had psychotic problems as well. My uncle has schizophrenia and claims to talk to god all the time.

It is a very legitimate question as it can almost be interpreted as a crazy person claiming things and founding a religion around it. Ive asked a few Mormons the same question and most of them say that its not true, but most sources point to the fact that Joseph Smith did have some sort psychological disorder.

I guess a better rephrasing would be: do you believe 100% of the things Joseph smith claimed to have seen and heard from god, and have you ever taken into account his mental stability?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Again, other than his claims to talk to God, what evidence do you have that he was actually schizophrenic?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Definitely not Mormon here, but just claiming that you talked to God only proves you're schitzophrenic if you start out assuming the claim is wrong. Obviously followers of Mormonism assume Joseph Smith was telling the truth.

 

[caketastydelish]

Jesus Christ, among others "talked to God."

Logically then, all of them must have been "Schizophrenics."

 

[Chazumi]

Again, other than his claims to talk to God, what evidence do you have that he was actually schizophrenic?

I never claimed that without a doubt he was schizophrenic. I said based on multiple sources back in the day he was diagnosed by others with some psychotic tendencies. Also both his mother and his father were diagnosed with psychotic illnesses as well (I dont believe schizophrenia was identified at this time). But current day it is believed he was as schizophrenia manifests in your late teens. So multiple doctors of the day claiming he was "crazy" as it were, also the fact that both his parents were ill as well would be my "evidence", but again something that cannot be proved.

A lot of what he claimed could be the result of his schizophrenia if he were indeed schizophrenic. Similar to the thread awhile back "High on Mount Sinai" where they found the plant that makes you hallucinate religious things, which is where moses went and found the commandments, have you ever considered this could be a similar thing?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, your exact words were that it was an "almost undisputed fact". But other than appealing to vague sources, what evidence is there? What specific actions or tendencies can you point to? As I said, although I may not know a lot about the history of psychology I am pretty sure that diagnoses such as that were uncommon in his era.

 

[downtown]

Yeah, I am unware of any actual academic evidence to support that theory...and there have been major works on Smith undertaken by Columbia and Claremont McKenna in the past few years.

 

[Chazumi]

Here is page 1 of 7 from Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911 edition. The first few paragraphs tell of his physical/psychological state and his grandparents and parents. I can upload the rest if you'd like. You may have to save it and zoom in to read it, picture resizing is not cooperating with me right now xD

Spoiler :

 

[_random_]

I wasn't able to read it, but I'd generally distrust literature from 1911 to accurately discuss psychology or Mormonism.

 

[Chazumi]

I wasn't able to read it, but I'd generally distrust literature from 1911 to accurately discuss psychology or Mormonism.

Wow really? Would you trust it if it were on Wikipedia then?

Edit: Just thinking about this comment is blowing my mind! How are you going to make a statement like that on a thread like this. Its a religious thread so somewhere in there is the BoM and the bible, both written hundreds and thousands of years ago respectively, and you are going to say you distrust literature from 1911 because it talks about psychology and mormonism.

1911 is hardly the stone age, and to discount anything just because its old is crazy! Furthermore, Brittanica is like, the pinnacle and collective knowledge of scholars prior to the age of the internet, and you are going to discount what it says even when you didn't read it? To each his own but still..

Sorry for the OT, I was just blown away by that

 

[_random_]

Psychology was a young science in 1911 and mainstream opinion of the time was strongly biased against Mormonism, so forgive my skepticism. If nothing else, I would think there'd be some more recent literature on the subject. I'll concede that I may not be giving it enough credit, so I'll reserve any final judgement for later. The comparison with scripture is neither here nor there though.

 

[timtofly]

Psychology was a young science in 1911 and mainstream opinion of the time was strongly biased against Mormonism, so forgive my skepticism. If nothing else, I would think there'd be some more recent literature on the subject. I'll concede that I may not be giving it enough credit, so I'll reserve any final judgement for later. The comparison with scripture is neither here nor there though.

It seems the further one is removed from the present, the harder it is to prove anything. I am sure if you get enough people believing anything current, then the past is swept under the rug. Not because it was true or false, but because it is harder to defend/prove or disprove.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Psychology was a young science in 1911 and mainstream opinion of the time was strongly biased against Mormonism, so forgive my skepticism.

Actually, the young science of psychology in it's early days still had a good deal of criticism of how the 1911 edition handled psychology:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1413113?seq=1
So yeah. But someone wrote it once, somewhere, so that makes it a nearly undisputed fact!

Furthermore, Brittanica is like, the pinnacle and collective knowledge of scholars prior to the age of the internet,

Ha!

 

[Plotinus]

Again... why? It certainly wasn't legal to proselytize in ancient rome, but the Early Christians still did it.

Just to elucidate in the light of this and Eran's question regarding it, it was a bit more complicated than that. In the first century, the time of the apostles and the great missionary journeys of people like Paul, neither preaching nor practising Christianity was illegal. That age largely ended in the mid-60s when Nero persecuted Christians and (probably) Peter and Paul both died, but there's no evidence that Nero actually made Christianity illegal. The first definitive statements that Christianity was illegal come from the early second century, and it was certainly illegal from then until the early fourth century (it was decriminalised at different times in different places). However, there's also very little evidence of Christian proselytising within the Roman empire in the second and third centuries. We know of almost no great missionaries during the period when it was illegal. Gregory Thaumaturgos and (arguably) Gregory the Illuminator are the only ones that leap to mind.

There are much better examples of Christian proselytising in the face of the authorities than the early church, such as China for quite a lot of its history.

Just thinking about this comment is blowing my mind! How are you going to make a statement like that on a thread like this. Its a religious thread so somewhere in there is the BoM and the bible, both written hundreds and thousands of years ago respectively, and you are going to say you distrust literature from 1911 because it talks about psychology and mormonism.

Just on this, it's true that 1911 is not exactly the stone age, but I would also be mistrustful of encyclopaedia entries on religious topics from that period, because there was still tremendous religious bias even in such writings at that time. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia first appeared in 1907, and it still contains a vast amount of useful historical information, but it's utterly unreliable on anything concerning the respective claims of the Catholic and Protestant churches. (Material on patristics from Victorian Anglican sources is exactly the same, but biased in the opposite direction.) It's quite clear that the article you cite is written at least in part to discredit Joseph Smith - saying that someone was "suffering from bad heredity", for example, is not a neutral and objective statement even if it has a factual basis. Plus, of course, the article seems to take for granted the views of heredity that prevailed at the time, which are very outdated.

 

[Chazumi]

Just on this, it's true that 1911 is not exactly the stone age, but I would also be mistrustful of encyclopaedia entries on religious topics from that period, because there was still tremendous religious bias even in such writings at that time. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia first appeared in 1907, and it still contains a vast amount of useful historical information, but it's utterly unreliable on anything concerning the respective claims of the Catholic and Protestant churches. (Material on patristics from Victorian Anglican sources is exactly the same, but biased in the opposite direction.) It's quite clear that the article you cite is written at least in part to discredit Joseph Smith - saying that someone was "suffering from bad heredity", for example, is not a neutral and objective statement even if it has a factual basis. Plus, of course, the article seems to take for granted the views of heredity that prevailed at the time, which are very outdated.

I agree with about everything here, and I did take the entry with a grain of salt. I would still argue that the seizures and falling fits (followed or preceeded by) visions would elude to some sort of psychological disorder. Seer's stones to find buried treasure and such was somewhat common from what I understand from that time period, so basically it seems his family was somewhat out of the norm back then and even by todays standards. I would argue that an article written 80 years after the fact as opposed to 180 years after the fact would at some points be more accurate. I would also argue that even though the article takes a negative view and approach towards mormons from the writers/editors point of view, it could also be very possible that today's articles dont mention anything like this because of a positive/biased view in favor of mormons.

I would not be suprised that articles in mainstream circulation today, including wikipedia and other outlets are written by, or very closely controlled by a mormon or a pro-mormon organization that would not put in potentially harming facts; whereas earlier in the 19th century they would not hesitate to put in damning evidence (which may or may not be true, again).

I've really got nothing against mormons as a whole, although I do a lot of individuals that irk me with their zealotry (I grew up in Utah for 20 years), and I think that in general they have a pretty sound religious base and values. I am just trying to make a point that I believe that Joseph Smith was a bit of a nutjob (and a murderer and arsonist), but regardless he did start something that eventually became positive.

 

[downtown]

I would not be suprised that articles in mainstream circulation today, including wikipedia and other outlets are written by, or very closely controlled by a mormon or a pro-mormon organization that would not put in potentially harming facts; whereas earlier in the 19th century they would not hesitate to put in damning evidence (which may or may not be true, again).

I'd find that pretty hard to believe, given that Mormons make up maybe 3% of the population, and in places with lots of publishing houses or academic research centers, faaaaarr less.

 

[GhostWriter16]

QUESTION: As far as I know, you don't have to be Mormon in this life to get to the celestial kingdom, correct? What benefits exactly go to Mormons in the afterlife, when compared to someone else.

If a Mormon leaves the faith, is this in itself considered a serious sin?

Unless I'm mistaken, God was once a human like us according to Mormons, correct? If so, how do we know everything he does is perfect?

And an individual question: Were you born Mormon, or did you convert? If you converted, why? If you were born into it, have you ever doubted it? (Not talking about a passing doubt, talking about a time when you seriously considered whether your faith was true.)