Thucydides – Truth

“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.” – Thucydides I made this picture with GIMP over the course of a couple days. I made the picture with the intent of putting a quote on it, but couldn’t decide what quote to use. After sitting around staring at the picture for a couple days, and scrolling through thousands of quotes on my phone, I found this one. I think it works alright. There are a few flaws that I’ve noticed and it doesn’t seem to entirely hold as a single piece, but I think it’s pretty good. Resolution: 2560×1440.

Suspicious Fellows

I’m helping my Mom edit my Grandfather’s journal from the early Sixties and he tells a story that made me kind of smile. “Around 10 PM 2 fellows drove their car right along our camp and made us suspicious they were going to make some kind of trouble, we thought we were going  to be robbed or kidnapped or most anything. Jack ran and got his pistol as did Warren. We tried to find out what they wanted but still don’t know. We told them it was a rather private group. They took a short walk and soon came back then left. To this day we still don’t know if we had a friendly visitors or just how near we were to being robbed and hijacked or what… P.S. starting next trip I will have a good strong billy club in our trailer just in case some more suspicious fellows come around.” 

 

I just love that phrase, suspicious fellows. It makes me want to write something about suspicious fellows. 

George R.R. Martin – Forgotten

I put this together with GIMP. I mixed a picture of some knights with a cool picture of some mountains and they came together in an almost True Detective-y feel (The title cards I mean) and then I went searching for a quote that fit and found this one. It’s always weird to make something that is by all appearances fan art when you’re not really a fan and this is no different. I just like the picture and I thought the quote fit. Image is 1920×1080.

Random Thought About Putin

I realized while I was falling asleep last night that Putin is a late 19th/early 20th century man stuck in the early 21st century. It explains everything if you expect him to think the way a Teddy Roosevelt type would. And yes, I do have trouble sleeping.  

Kudyard Kipling – “If any question why we died…”

Kipling wrote this quote towards the end of WWI, or maybe a little after, and it seems to be a reflection of his feelings about his son John dying in the war. Arguably, the quote is reference to British leaders claiming they were more prepared for the war than they were, but I think even the hawkish Kipling probably realized by the end the war had kind of been a waste. I found this quoted at the end of Adam Hochchild’s To End All Wars and it seemed fitting for so many wars that have been fought.

Image was put together with GIMP and is 2560×1440

The Ku Klux Klan in Oregon, 1921-2 (Part 2, The Birth of a Movement)

The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s began on Stone Mountain, Georgia on Thanksgiving night in 1915. Sixteen men, including Colonel Simmons, drove from nearby Atlanta to Stone Mountain to swear allegiance to the reborn Ku Klux Klan. Arnold Rice describes the ceremony this way, “the small group soon found itself gathered under a burning cross and before a hastily constructed rock altar upon which lay an American flag, an opened Bible, an unsheathed sword, and a canteen of water.”1 Colonel Simmons in his typical grandiose fashion described the ceremony differently, “And thus on the mountain top that night at the midnight hour, while men braved the surging blasts of wild wintry winds and endured a temperature far below freezing, bathed in the sacred glow of the fiery cross, the Invisible Empire was called from its slumber of half a century…”2 The Thanksgiving night ceremony may be the ceremonial rebirth of the Klan, but the legal rebirth of the Klan began in October 1915 when Simmons explained the reborn Klan and convinced thirty-four men to petition the state for an official charter. The charter came a week after the Thanksgiving ceremony of December 4, 1915.3 For the next five years Simmons lead a relatively disorganized, entirely Southern Klan.

Born in 1880, in Hapersfield, Alabama, Simmons saw the Klan as his, “it was MY creation—MY CHILD, if you please, My first born.”4 Simmons was the son of a country physician and heard glory stories of the Klan in his youth. He served in the Spanish-American War, but never advanced beyond the rank of Private. The title Colonel, an honorary one from the Woodmen of the World, did not reflect military achievement. After leaving the Army, Simmons worked for a period as a minister and salesman for fraternal orders.5 Arnold Rice describes Simmons eloquently, “Possessed of a spellbinding rhetoric, he talked like the old-time revivalist preacher he resembled. His pleasures, however, were anything but clerical—horse races, boxing matches, ‘social’ drinking.”6 Simmons may have preached Klan values, including prohibition, but he lived hypocritically. One example of Simmons motives can be seen in Simmons’ copyrighting the secret Klan instruction manual, the Kloran. Simmons told Klan members to keep the Kloran secret, but to avoid losing money on unofficial copies of the Kloran Simmons copyrighted it, forcing him to leave public copies in the Library of Congress. “In the coming years therefore, when candidates for initiation swore themselves to eternal secrecy, the object of their oath was available in the nation’s capital for any who might wish to examine it.”7 Simmons may have held the values he argued for, but he valued the profitability of his book over the secrecy of his secret organization.
The expansion of the Klan beyond a few thousand Southern members began with the partnership of Simmons and the Klan with the Southern Publicity Association. The Southern Publicity Association, headed by Mr. Edward Young Clarke and Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler, had previous success promoting the Anti-Saloon League and a variety of other organizations.8 “Clarke and Tyler completely reorganized the secret society’s finances and membership procurement procedures, floating large new loans and hiring hundreds of full-time recruiters.”9

Kleagles, as the recruiters were called, collected a ten dollar membership fee. The fee was divided among five people; four dollars went to the Kleagle, one dollar went to the State level recruiter (King Kleagle), fifty cents went to the state leader (Grand Goblin), two dollars and fifty cents went to Clarke (Imperial Kleagle), and the remaining two dollars went to the Imperial Wizard (Simmons).10 Between June 1920, when the contract was finalized, and October 1921, during a Congressional investigation of the Klan, the Klan grew from a few thousand members in the South to a 100,000 members spread across the country. Kleagles had a financial incentive to shape their presentation of the Klan’s message specifically to the values of those they sought to recruit.

The Ku Klux Klan came to Oregon in the 1920’s the same way it spread to most of the country. A Kleagle, armed with membership forms and an ideology, convinced Oregonians to pay ten dollars to join the Invisible Empire. Oregon in the 1920’s lacked a wide racial and cultural diversity; Ninety percent of the population was Protestant, with Catholics accounting for only eight percent, and eighty-five percent of the population was white, native born. There were decreasing numbers of Asians and 2,000 African-Americans.11 “Neither Know-Nothingism nor the A.P.A. (older nativist movements), however, played as important and lasting a role in Oregon history as the Ku Klux Klan. But to them must go much of the credit for laying the groundwork of organized nativism.”12 There seems to be historical consensus that the values of the Ku Klux Klan did not represent a radical view in 1920’s Oregon. In the summer of 1921, the Klan sent three Kleagles to Oregon. Luther I. Powell established the Medford Klan, recruiting from local fraternal organizations. Powell convinced some to join the Klan to work to stop bootleggers in the county. C.N. Jones applied Powell’s techniques, with some success, in Eugene and Salem. “In the state’s largest metropolis, Portland, Brad Calloway… distributed patriotic literature to police, firefighters, and fraternal groups…”13 Kleagles in Oregon took advantage of the existing prejudice against Catholics to argue that the moral integrity of the state was in danger and joining the Klan was the most productive counter-measure to moral degradation. “Since many of the causes of this moral degeneration were attributed to Orientals, other aliens, and Roman Catholics, emphasis was placed on “Americanizing” the aliens and stopping Oriental immigration.”14 The Oregon Klan grew relatively quickly, Klan leaders claimed 14,000 members state-wide in the spring of 1922. Of those 14,000 members, 9,000 belonged to the Portland Klan.
The Klan in Portland elected Fred. L. Gifford as exalted cyclops, or leader, at its inaugural meeting. “By 1922 Gifford had won Atlanta’s endorsement as Oregon grand dragon(leader of all Oregon) and imperial representative in the Pacific states.”15 Portland soon became the center of the Klan in Oregon and the Pacific Coast. Portland had 258,000 residents in 1921. Kenneth Jackson describes Portland eloquently in The Ku Klux Klan in the City, “Old as west coast cities go, Portland was a conservative and prim scion of the Maine city from which it took its name.”16 Brad Calloway disclosed his recruitment intentions to local newspapers, drawing the ire of Atlanta. Luther Powell quickly replaced Calloway as Kleagle in Portland. Powell quietly recruited support through the late summer and early fall of 1921. Oregon Governor Ben Olcott told the New York World in September 1921 that there was no Klan influence in Oregon. In October 1921 Powell organized the first official Klan meeting in Portland. The Portland Klan elected Fred Gifford as leader. The first public appearance of the Klan in Portland came on 22 December 1921. Six thousand peopled crowded into the municipal auditorium to hear “The Truth About the Ku Klux Klan.”17 The public introduction of the Klan to Portland brought new importance and influence to the Klan. Fred Gifford quickly became a prominent name in local political discussions and news coverage.
The most important man in the Oregon Klan, Fred Gifford, set the course of Portland’s Klan toward political influence, fraternity, and charity instead of violence and vigilantism. Kenneth Jackson describes Fred Gifford as, “of iron-grey hair and average build, Gifford was a native Minnesotan who had spent thirty of his forty years in Portland, mostly as a telegraph operator… and as a business agent… The father of four was working as a field superintendent… when Powell tapped him as first exalted cyclops of Klan No. 1.”18 Gifford planned for the Klan to have extensive influence in Oregon politics. The Portland Klan, like every other, held the regular ideology of the Klan, but unlike some, expressed the ideology in the political sphere instead of as masked vigilantes. This does not mean that the Portland Klan did nothing outside of the political sphere. Gifford directed or oversaw a number of non-political Klan activities. These include the creation of a ‘100% Directory’ so Klan members knew which businesses to support. Gifford approved the antithesis of the directory, a boycott of the Meir and Frank Jewish department store. Klan lectures regularly attracted audiences exceeding 5000 people. The Klan participated in charity work, according to Kenneth Jackson, “fifty thousand dollars was pledged to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s Children’s Farm Home, baskets of food were distributed individually to the needy, and a Klan Kommunity Kit was organized.”19 The Klan also regularly appeared in full regalia to make donations to local churches. David Horowitz describes the most visible sign of the Klan in Portland, “fiery crosses frequently were burned on such nearby hillsides as Mt. Tabor and Mt. Scott.”20 Despite the magnitude of some of these endeavors, none them match the importance to politics in the eyes of Gifford and the Portland Klan.
Fred Gifford may have had political ambitions for the Portland Klan from the beginning, but it took Klan violence in Medford for the state and Governor to begin to take the Klan seriously. In May 1922, just before the Republican primary, six Klan members abducted three Medford citizens and drove them out-of-town. David Horowitz paints the picture beautifully, “Accusing an African-American, a Hispanic Indian, and white piano merchant of moral offenses against the community, six Jackson County knights staged three separate abductions, which resulted in ‘necktie hangings,’ terrorist acts that avoided death… by permitting the victim’s feet to skim the ground.”21 A few days later, Republican Governor Ben Olcott issued an anti-Klan statement. The Governor’s statement brought increased political attention to the Klan, who had previously supported candidates, but garnered limited press attention of their political activities. Gifford could now focus his and the Klan’s attention on the political sphere. Gifford identified three primary political ambitions for his Klan in Portland. First, opposition of aliens and Catholics in politics; second, opposition of alien land ownership; third, compulsory public education.22 Fred Gifford and the Portland Klan managed to wield significant political influence in the 1922 election. Passing a compulsory education bill and electing a Klan friendly Democratic governor in an overwhelmingly Republican state.

 

The Ku Klux Klan in Oregon, 1921-2 (Part 1, Introduction)

Author’s note: I wrote this paper about two years ago for a history seminar I took at OSU. I think the paper stands on its own and I think it’s an interesting topic. Either way, there’s not a ton of easily accessible information about the Klan in Oregon online so I figured I’d add this. I’m sure there are a few errors still in there, but it’s been edited to the point of being readable.

Introduction

The Ku Klux Klan elected Oregon’s governor and passed anti-Catholic legislation in 1922. In 1915 Colonel William Simmons, the title of Colonel being an honorary one, of Atlanta, Georgia formally re-founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Less than two weeks later, the iconic film The Birth of a Nation showed for the first time in Atlanta. The film, considered a technical masterpiece, redrew the image of the Klan for millions of Americans. The Klan, in the film, represent saviors against evil Northern carpetbaggers and immoral, ignorant freed slaves. The film completed the revision of Reconstruction history in the American mind. Simmons patterned his Klan on the fraternal organizations he represented professionally in the past. Combining his knowledge of the Klan, born in Mississippi Simmons listened to tales of a heroic Klan growing up, with his knowledge of fraternal orders, Simmons hoped to create a new fraternal order. Simmons lacked the skills to help his Klan grow, the organization floundered with a few thousand members in the deep South until 1920. In 1920 Simmons hired an Atlanta publicity agency to spread Klan membership. The partnership succeeded in creating an explosion in Klan membership reaching a peak of one to two million members in the next three to five years. The propaganda arm of the Klan, as the advertising agency was officially titled, expanded the Klan in many areas that were not traditional Klan breeding grounds.

The state of Oregon became associated with a powerful Ku Klux Klan in the national mind in 1922. The 1922 Gubernatorial election, including a toughly fought Republican primary, and the Oregon School Bill, the anti-Catholic mandatory public education initiative, brought the role of the Klan in Oregon politics to a national stage.

The political nature of Oregon’s Klan is revealed in newspaper coverage of the Klan. Most coverage is political in nature and the remaining coverage consists of donations to churches and acts of charity. The political nature of Oregon’s Klan presumably affected who joined the Klan in Oregon. This paper focuses on the political nature of the Klan in Portland, which represents nearly 50% of Klan members in Oregon. How did that potentially affect who joined the Klan and why they joined? These two questions have been debated by historians since John Moffatt Mecklin published The Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind in 1924. Mecklin argues that a cultural predisposition combined with the boredom of rural life led Oregonians to join the Klan (John Moffatt Mecklin, 43-45). Mecklin believed, erroneously, that the Klan was predominantly rural. In 1967 Kenneth Jackson argued that the Klan had an urban focus, refuting Mecklin. Jackson argues in The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930 that the urban Klan dominated rural Klaverns. Jackson suggests urban Klansmen joined the Klan as a means to stem the tide of change in the urban environment.

The authors of Invisible Empire in the West, edited by Shawn Lay, argue that Klan recruits represented average citizens and the reasons for joining the Klan generally depended on local conditions instead of a being a battle between the rural and urban mindsets as Mecklin and Jackson argue. This paper includes a brief introduction of contextual information relating to the growth of the Klan nationally, in Oregon, and in Portland specifically. The following analysis of the political coverage of the role of the Klan in Oregon politics in The Morning Oregonian hopes to examine the public actions of the Klan to infer the mindset and nature of who might join the Klan in Portland. Newspaper coverage shows the Klan’s ideology to be uncontroversial and politically acceptable. It appears that the generally positive and political nature of Portland’s Klan led the membership to be primarily those interested in fraternal orders and conventional political action.

Robert Oppenheimer, 1945

“Julius Robert Oppenheimer[note 1] (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967)[1] was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Enrico Fermi,[2][3] he is often called the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons.[4] The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico; Oppenheimer remarked later that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer

Image is 2560×1440, wallpaper size

Incoherent Rambling #1

 They’re tearing down the house across the street that burned down a few months ago. They just started this morning and I think the whole house is pretty much already gone at 2. All that’s left is the foundation and a chimney. It’s kind of weird to see that level of destruction. It’s not something that you normally see so up close, but it’s also kind of awe inspiring how much power we as humans hold over our environment. I think that we as humans have as part of dualistic nature an exceeding confidence in our power and capabilities, but at the same time we don’t fully comprehend the destructive influence we actually have. It’s like the global warming debate or the extinction of species. One the hand we fully believe we have the power to overcome these problems, most people seem to believe in the ability to fix any of the issues that are contributing to global warming, but at the same time it seems as though we can’t fully comprehend how responsible humans are, via our destructive power, for causing the problem in the first place. I believe that our confidence is unearned and our destructive power demands more self-awareness from us, if that wasn’t obvious. It seems clear that we have a lot of power to destroy things, millions of lives have been lost to genocide, ecological destruction is rampant, and species are dying. We’re clearly good a destroying things. Our ability to fix things is also apparent, we clearly can fix small problems; sanitation, medicine, etcetera are all impressive and improvements upon nature for ourselves. I don’t see where humans have been able to ever solve global problems though, we don’t have the ability, so to think that we can solve crises that are truly global shows undue hubris. I suppose my opinion isn’t the most popular and it’s easy to dismiss as simply pessimistic, but I believe humans should follow one simple rule. Our brains have separated us from the rest of nature, it’s fair for us to believe we’re separate. We don’t hunt limited amounts of game anymore, we’ve domesticated cows, pigs, and chickens. We don’t scavenge for nuts and berries anymore, we’ve domesticated wheat, corn, apples, bananas, etcetera. Let’s admit we’ve separated ourselves and leave nature alone. Do our best to not extract resources from it, do our best not to interfere in the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Let nature be. To my mind, the perfect human society is completely separated from nature. We live in domes, or the effective equivalent of the dome, and we let nature be, it’ll fix itself. It’ll be slow and it may not fix itself in the way we’d like, cute animals may suffer extinction, but eventually nature will find a new balance. It’s our job to let that balance be. I realize this idea isn’t particularly popular. People of every side believe humans have the power or the right over nature. Environmentalists believe that can save species and ecosystems, hunters believe they should hunt, etcetera. That’s the primary undue hubris in the Western mind, the second being that we have some right or ability to influence the non-Western world. We call the implementation of the second imperialism. Imperialism isn’t as popular as it once was, but it’s still essentially floating, influencing our culture and politics. The first, let’s call it anthropocentrism, hasn’t yet faced widespread critique, but I believe that it eventually will be reviled and rejected just as imperialism is today.

Warranted Skepticism

For years Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have called the Mormon Church a cult. Cult is a relative term, of course, but the problem for the Mormon church is that there are some very culty Mormons. The polygamists, the so-called Fundamentalist Mormons. Polygamy is something the mainstream Mormon church renounced in 1890, then again in 1904 because once is never enough. The Fundamentalists believe that polygamy is an important doctrine that’s essential to get into heaven; just as all Mormons did in the second half of the 19th century. I want to take a moment here and remind people that the word fundamentalist has lost all of its power. The Fundamentals, a series of 90 essays published in 12 volumes between 1910-5, are the source of the word fundamentalist. It means something along the lines of ‘back to basic or fundamental tenets of faith,’ not merely stringent, weird, or strong belief. The Fundamentals criticized things like higher criticism, the academic textual analysis of the Bible, and spiritualism, socialism, and evolutionism, arguing for a back to basics approach to Christian believe. To tie this tangent back in, they also included an essay that was critical of Mormonism. Fundamentalist may not be the best word, but the only other option that seems to be available is to call them by their ‘clan names,’ essentially who was the first leader of their specific sect. That doesn’t work well either, so I’m going to go with Fundamentalist, with intentional capitalization, now that I’ve given my objections to the word. Fundamentalists continue to practice polygamy and they believe that the mainstream Mormon church is in Apostasy.

Apostasy is a rather complex concept for Mormons, but, suffice to say, the Fundamentalists believe that the modern Mormon church is wrong on a number of theological issues and that they’ve bent to the will of public opinion. Polygamy wasn’t a particularly popular doctrine to non-Mormons, so in 1890 the Federal government essentially coerced Mormon leaders to abandon polygamy in order for Utah to become a state. Fun fact, the Republicans in 1860 ran on stopping the twin relics of barbarism – slavery and polygamy. According to the Fundamentalists, the Mormon Church has bent to the will of the public on more than polygamy, they also adjusted their doctrine concerning Adam and God due to public criticism.

According the Bible, I assume we all know, Adam was the first man. That’s probably the simplest statement I’m going to make for a couple of paragraphs, the rest of this is a combination of crazy, interesting, and stupidly complex. Fundamentalists accept something that is often called the Adam-God Doctrine, or Theory. Simply put, Brigham Young, the second Mormon prophet and president, taught that Adam was God. There’s a variety of ways to approach explaining this, but they primarily breakdown into three forms; apologetic, or defensive of the church, critical, or offensive towards the church, or historical, generally neutral. A neutral approach, I feel, is sufficient for me to explore my fascination. It began in April 1852 when Brigham Young said, “Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and Sinner! When our Father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians and non-professing must hear it, and will know it sooner or later.”

The problem with quotes is that they turn into debates about context and semantics when the meaning is disputed. They don’t prove much of anything, unless the meaning is accepted by everyone involved. The intricate balance between criticism and neutral appraisal of facts is perhaps clearest when fasts demand interpretation. To balance my interpretation of this quote, and the others that will follow, I consulted with sources that were definitely meant to be apologetic along with the historical analyses I prefer. I’m approaching the task of describing this within the context of apologetics because the implications of Brigham Young teaching this proves to be difficult to square with the modern Mormon church, though it’s not impossible of course.

In a Dialogue article titled ‘The Adam-God Doctrine,’ David John Buerger offers historical context and evidence to support the claim that Brigham Young taught Adam was God. The most compelling evidence comes when considering the contemporary reactions. Samuel H. Rogers wrote, after hearing Young talk, “President Brigham Young said that our spirits were begotten before that Adam came to the Earth, and that Adam helped to make the Earth, that he had a Celestial boddy when he came to the Earth, and that he brought his wife or one of his wives with him, and that Eave was allso a Celestial being, that they eat of the fruit of the ground untill they begat children from the Earth, he said that Adam was the only God that we would have, and that Christ was not begotten of the Holy Ghost, but of the Father Adam . . . ” Before we go any further let’s pause for a moment and explain what we’re talking about. Adam is Adam from the Old Testament, according to Mormons, at least Brigham Young, but probably also Joseph Smith, Adam, like many of the Old Testament Patriarchs, was a polygamist. A Celestial Body means that Adam was originally born on another planet were he reached a state of exaltation, essentially perfection, before working with Jesus, also known as Jehovah, to create the earth. Even modern Mormons will admit that they believe that Adam is Michael, the archangel from the book of Revelations, and he helped create the Earth. A being that reaches a state of exaltation is essentially a God, so yeah, Mormons are polytheists, but they only worship one God, so they’re technically monolatrists. The debate comes when Brigham Young is said to have taught that Elohim, God for modern Mormons, was Adam’s father, or our GrandGod. For modern Mormons the trinity consists of Jehovah, Elohim, and the Holy Spirit; Jesus, God, and the mind or essence of God, as three distinct beings with one defined will. So, rather than accepting the powerful concept of three being one, Mormons take away the spirit-inducing awe thinking about three things being one brings and substitute a more 19th century empirical explanation for the trinity. It’s all confusing, I know, but it is so weird you can’t look away.

Is Adam a God? This doesn’t seem to particularly be in dispute, if he’s not now he certainly will be, according to Mormons. Is he the God of our world is the more pertinent question. Young taught the doctrine that Adam was God on multiple occasions after first introducing the doctrine in 1852, saying, on one occasion, “he is the framer of the body, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he. He is Father Adam; Michael; the Ancient of days.” It seems clear that Young did teach that Adam was God. Joseph Lee Robinson wrote, after hearing one of Young’s sermons, “attended a very interesting conference, for at this meeting President Brigham Young said thus…that Adam was God, our Eternal Father.” The doctrine did not find popular appeal, even among Mormons. Parley P. Pratt, a leading Mormon theologian, of sorts, vociferously argued against the doctrine. The doctrine never received the vocal support of many leading Mormons of the time, including all the leaders that would follow Young as prophets.

The doctrine, it seems, even before Young died was placed on the back burner. Young stopped emphasizing the doctrine in sermons, and other leaders demurred from offering opinions on the subject. The doctrine attracted widespread criticism from Protestant preachers, adding fuel to the anti-Mormon fire ignited by polygamy. “In October 1897, for example, Mormon elders began proselyting in Fresno, California. They authored a favorable introductory article on the Church which was published in the Fresno paper. A local minister, C. A. Munn, proceeded to publish several articles of his own, in part quoting Brigham Young’s April 1852 sermon. Although the elders tried to meet Munn’s challenge, they failed..” The response of Church leaders to Munn’s criticism is telling, “Adam ‘is not the God to whom we pray, nor did Brigham Young undertake to convey such an idea. We worship the being who placed Adam in the garden of Eden.” The first line of defense appears to be an outright denial that Young ever taught the doctrine. Young having died in 1877, the doctrine seems to have been completely abandoned and, to some extent, covered up. Though later, “Prest. Jos F. Smith then said that… Prest. Brigham Young when he delivered that sermon only expressed his own views and that they were not corobirated [sic] by the word of the Lord in the Standard works of the Church[.]” It appears the Church approached refuting the doctrine in a number of ways.

The apologetic responses seem, according to The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research(FAIR), a Mormon apologetic organization, to break down into six responses; one primary response and five explanations, beyond outright denial. I’m going to focus on the primary response because I feel that’s most important. The primary response breaks down as ‘it has been rejected since Young died and never gained widespread popularity, so it clearly was never doctrine.’ I admit this is probably true, it was never fully accepted as doctrine, but it raises some questions about having faith in the leaders of the Church if a prophet could be so wrong. That’s my primary point. When you’re young and Mormon you sing ‘Follow the Prophet,’ but if you did that here you would be clearly wrong. Wrong to a naturalist like me, wrong to Protestants and Catholics, and, most importantly, wrong to Mormons. I’ve documented in previous posts how Correlation has encouraged members of the church to be even more prone to have faith in leaders. To trust and follow the Prophets. The combination of increased faith in leaders and clear examples of leaders being wrong, such as Brigham Young teaching Adam-God, worries me most about the Mormon Church.

The Adam-God doctrine is important for me because it raises a question that I think every member, believers in anything really, need to ask. Is the authority I’m trusting, we all trust some authority, wrong? I think on the surface we will all admit that it’s a possibility, at least I hope we can all agree with that statement. Of course, it’s hard to determine if an authority is wrong because we wouldn’t need to trust an authority if we were in a position to judge if they were wrong. Approaching life with vigilant skepticism offers the best protection. We can’t be purely skeptical of everything, that leads to solipsism, but we need to question constantly and never invest trust in any one person or movement. Believe if you think you can trust a leader or an organization, I don’t have problem with belief, but just remember they can be wrong. The stringency of some believers is were I have problem. Why? Is always a legitimate question. Why do you want me to do that? That’s a fair question and offering no explanation is an absurd response to my mind. Vigilant skepticism is about judging, as rationally as possible, the explanations authorities offer us. There are tools to judge sources, facts, and explanations. Mental tools that I think are important for all of us to possess. Consider these: http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/lectures/03.html

Endnote: I avoided using a number of other sources I read while researching this to keep it to a reasonable length and I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible without horribly distorting anything. The Dialogue article I used as my primary source for this piece is available for free online and is an easy enough read, though it is about forty pages. I avoided getting into a lengthy debate about Apostasy, for those that understand what I’m talking about, because it’s not a useful point to encourage doubt, in my opinion.