You have to be joking. 9/11 was planned and carried out by Islamic terrorists who were acting on one of the main tenets of their ‘faith’, namely, “Kill the infidel.”

Maybe you need to brush up on the actual, instead of perceived beliefs of the religion of Islam. The Jihad, which is practiced by Sunni Muslims, is simply the struggle to please God. It is mostly an inward struggle, which I imagine most religions acknowlege in different forms. The majority of Sunni’s believe that a violent Jihad is only acceptable in times of self defense or to combat injustice.

It is not suprising that you know so little of Muslims because we live in a fact hating Christian society. Just so you know, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans are the only reason that we have the science and math that we have today. After the fall of Rome the Christians tried, and would have succeeded in destroying all available knowledge of these subjects if they could have.

I think that the massacre accusation is like saying that the 9/11 tragedy is the Muslum religion. We all know that isn’t true. It wasn’t the muslims that sanctioned the awful 9.11 day.

You have to be joking. 9/11 was planned and carried out by Islamic terrorists who were acting on one of the main tenets of their ‘faith’, namely, “Kill the infidel.”

Yes, very true, Meryl. I vaguely recall reading or hearing on NPR that they (the LDS) removed those from the Holocaust from the list that they had posthumously baptized, but only at the request of a national Jewish organization.

Wait-that deserves a fact check. Ahh, here we are. So, they did, but then they didn’t, and now they won’t again. I like the last quote the best.

Ryan: Yes, I wrote this post. What I did not do was link it from a national magazine, thereby giving my post a national forum, which is what amatter was complaining about.

The fact that Newsweek overlooked the massacre is significant, as the massacre was a significant event in the early days of the Mormons.

As for Amatter, yes, the issue does deserve attention. The Newsweek piece mentioned the persecution of Mormons, without mentioning that the Mormons slaughtered 127 innocent men, women, and children. It is a part of their history, as some just stated, just as the Crusades are part of the Catholic Church’s history.

Pretending that it didn’t happen doesn’t make it go away. Neither does glossing over or ignoring it when writing about the history of the Mormon church.

On the other hand, my experience with the Mormon church has been that Mormons tend to not give a shit what others think of their actions.

Witness the posthumous baptism of Holocaust victims.

But that’s a topic for another post.

The really disgusting thing is how the residents came back and picked the bodies clean of every piece of clothing, even under things, took the children back and then attempted to extort money from the orphans remaining family and the Federal government to recoup their money.

Even the protestant Christians of today can say of the Crusades and the Inquisition: “Yes. Those are disturbing times in the history of our faith. Thank God we know better now.” Why can’t the current LDS prophet do the same?

I challenge “clothesguy” to read a history of his faith written by someone not of his faith. It is true that the Mormons were treated wrongly by the citizens of Missouri (“a small, local sample of panicked adherents” as “amatter” says) and even by the governor himself. They were also wrongly treated by citizens of other states but for some reason Missouri is the one most mentioned. (Hmmm, are we having a reversal here? Should I tell the Mormons to get over what happened in Missouri and that was a long time ago and that current Missourians aren’t that way at all, so why do you have to keep bringing it up? Think about it.)

I would agree that most LDS are peace-loving, but I would say that is a recent development. It has only been in the last twenty years that the calling of those Protestant Ministers as friends of Satan because they take a salary from their church (which, btw, Bishops are allowed to do, too) has been removed from the Temple. In the past, the LDS thought themselves above the Federal law in the counterfeiting of money, practicing polygyny (polgamy is not the correct word as it refers to more than one husband or wife and women aren’t allowed and never have been allowed to have more than one husband for eternity; polygyny is one man and multiple wives), and rackteering. Today, I would say that because of what they felt to be a federal government encroachment, they are Republican in their economic and moral politics, but are libertarian in their personal politics: if I’m not hurting you, why do you care what I do or believe?

I have learned much from living in this state. You won’t find a more consistently polite, helpful, hard-working, dedicated to their faith group, but I find their pleas of “please forget about it because it isn’t relevant” a bit absurd and obtuse. I won’t stay here because I want my children to grow-up with a diversity of culture, ethnic groups, socio-econmic status, and thought.

Btw, Meryl, I am going to trackback your post. I find it engaging and thoughtful.

(Haha! 3rd time is the charm.)

I didn’t give this post national attention. They did. If you don’t like it, feel free to gripe to them.