Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 157 - Mormonism: The Good, The Bad, and The FLDS

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Mormonism. BIG topic today! Oh my HECK! We talk today about the history of Mormonism - a religion born in America. We'll go over the life of its founder Joseph Smith and investigate his claims of revelations. We'll look into the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We go over the church's polygamist past and also examine how polygamy continues in fundamentalist derivatives of Mormonism, such as the FLDS, lead by imprisoned pedophile, Warren Jeffs. We get interesting and controversial, today, on Timesuck. Donating $3000 this month to the nonprofit - Youth on Record. Helping at-risk youth graduate and build careers in the arts. To learn more or donate yourself, go to https://www.youthonrecord.org/ Happy Murder Tour Standup dates: (full calendar at http://dancummins.tv) September 19-21 Phoenix Copper Blues Live CLICK HERE for tix! *** LIVE ANT HILL KIDS TIMESUCK *** September 21st at Copper Blues Live CLICK HERE for tix September 26-28 Indianapolis Helium Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! October 9th West Palm Beach, FL The Improv Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! October 10-13 Tampa, FL Sidesplitter's Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! October 18 Detroit/Pontiac, MI The Crofoot Standup Special Taping CLICK HERE for tix! October 19 Minneapolis, MN 10,000 Laughs Comedy Festival CLICK HERE for tix! Listen to the best of my standup on Spotify! (for free!) https://spoti.fi/2Dyy41d Timesuck is brought to you by the following sponsors: Scared to Death! First two episodes come out on September 17th at Midnight. Subscribe!!!! Go to FelixGrayGlasses.com/timesuck 4 free shipping & 30 days of risk-free returns/ exchanges The Great Courses Plus!Get a full month FREE when you go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/TIMESUCK Watch the Suck on Youtube: https://youtu.be/R1K8qyI0L8k Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 5000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Mormonism, its history is practices, its missionaries on bicycles. Mormonism was one of the fastest growing religions in the world, and it was born right here in America. And it's a very American religion, partly in the sense that it has a lot of good people in it. And also, a much darker past than it would like to admit. We're going to talk a lot about its founder, Joseph Smith, who he was, and how he became the leader of a new religion in the early 19th century.

We're going to go over the church's history of polygamy, a practice band well over a century ago by the LDS, but something still currently practiced by way too many members of fundamentalist Mormon offshoots, such as the FLDS. What is the FLDS? Who is this leader, Warren Jeffs? Why is he in prison? Why is he such a flippin' creep? Why am I saying flippin'?

Oh, my heck! We'll talk about the FLDS as well, and I'll do my best to illustrate how modern mainstream Mormonism is very different from its black sheep, FLDS little brother. I'll try to be fair, but also not gonna take it easy on Mormonism, and today's Nimrod approved. You shouldn't talk about religion,

but I'm going to, anyways, theological addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald, and you theological addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck, you listening to Time Suck. You listening to Time Suck. You listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, mate, Sacks, you beautiful bastards. I'm Dan Cummins, the master's sucker, and you are listening to Time Suck.

My new horror cast where I try and scare the shit out of my wife, Lindsay, sorry about the language. Queen of the Suck every week with two tales of paranormal terror comes out tomorrow, Tuesday, September 17th at midnight. Two episodes drop tomorrow, then one every week after that, stick around to listen to the scared to death trailer at the end of today's suck to get a better feel for this show. And then love it, listen, rate, and subscribe.

Also September 19th is time sucks birthday, three years. The strange weekly shindig started off in 2016. Man, what a ride has been. Three years ago I was recording an episode about the lizard illuminati in my kitchen coffee table in Santa Monica a few months before moving to cordel and Idaho thinking that my stand up career could possibly wind down to a close now time so it has the suck dungeon a thriving patreon podcast called the secret suck and engaged online community most notably a large private cult of the curious Facebook group three full

time awesome employees not counting my wife and I, and it's sending all kinds of new people to my standup shows, which are now more fun than ever. So sincerely, thank you all so flippin' much for caring about this podcast. It has truly changed my life and changed me. Hail you, time sucker. We had about a thousand total downloads

in the first 30 days, last month we had two million total listens. And we're also giving to charity every month now, but doing that for a while did not see that come when I started this little thing off. We're donating $3,000 this month to the nonprofit youth on record. Thank you, space lizards. Youth on record helps Colorado youth discover how their voice and value can create a better world.

They're committed to ensuring that the youth they serve graduate from high school and are ready to enter the workforce, transition to college, enter advanced technical training and careers, their programs and power over a thousand teens and some of Denver's most vulnerable communities to make life choices that positively impact their future by teaching them to develop the coping tools, inspiration, and tenacity to succeed in today's world and to become leaders of tomorrow. and tenacity to succeed in today's world and to become leaders of tomorrow. To find out more, go to impulse youtharts.org, link in the episode description. Hope and tell you all was fun in Chicago. Had to record this on the 12th through the touring shows this week in Phoenix at Copper Blues live September 19th of the 21st live Ant-Hill

Kids suck podcast on the 21st and Nimrod wants you to be there. Luciferina will be pleased as well. Indianapolis, West Palm Beach, Tampa coming up right after that. Check out Dancomans.tv for the full 2019 tour schedule. Now let's talk about jackets real quick. Follows Dang near flippin' here. And if you just want to stay one of the ripped the suck, get the first time suck jacket. Get the time suck atomic, varsity jacket today, black and gun metal Heather, a 75, 25 cotton

poly blend, also a 250 percent and a hundred and fifty percent moon rock and atomic gold blend for strength, flash, magical powers. Where in this jacket is guaranteed to make you feel like you're in showbiz. You're on a showbiz varsity squad. No more sitting on the bench. No more getting blood splinters. No more, no more head wounds from falling asleep on the sidby as varsity squad. No more sitting on the bench. No more getting butt splinters. No more head wounds from falling asleep on the sideline in the fourth quarter. Get your curious self into game meets act with this beauty.

Hail Nimrod. And now let's get to sucking on today's topic. Forgive me, Maroni, but this must be done. Here we go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We go. Yeah, yeah, he reflected an awesome job with so much research as well, like really good job. Love and digging into theology.

Religion in general, fascinating to me in my entire life. However, there's a good reason. People say not to talk about politics or religion, if you don't wanna, you know, make stuff weirder. Tick people off, which I get. You know, you're a mess when people's spiritual or emotional core, people tend to be very passionate about both.

A lot of people are quick to distance themselves from those who they, you know, know for sure don't appreciate their political or religious views. They can't get over it. We've done other religious subjects, but they've been, you know, relatively fringy cults or hey groups masquerading as religion see the Westboro Baptist Church for that one, or you know, terrible things done a long time ago under the name of religion that, you know, now members of that religion agree was horrible. See, the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem Wist trials. The subject of Mormonism is different. It's now fairly mainstream, but still considered by many to be occult. It's in that awkward

teenage phase of a spiritual belief system, caught between the early years when the belief in anything other than the established religions of the day is considered cultish by most and being big enough to have, you know, no followers to push its way into being accepted as a full-fledged, not a cult at all, I promise belief system. I don't want to offend our Mormon listeners with this suck, Mormons or some of the finest people I've ever met, never met a religion with more family-minded people than Mormons and I'm not alone. According to a comprehensive 2012 Pew Research Report, 81% of Mormons say being a good parent is one of the most important things in life. Hailed Nimrod. And 73% say the same about having a successful marriage.

Hail Luciferina. By comparison, half of all US adults say being a good parent is one of the most important things in life, and only a third say having a successful marriage is of utmost importance. No religion in my experience is currently more family focused than Mormons. Love Mormon Salt Lake City has been my favorite market to perform stand-up comedy shows in for over 10 years. Love a lot of other cities, but I've always had the most fun in Salt Lake City. The crowds are fantastic. And I fear I may lose some of those fans with this suck.

Hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I've probably already offended some Mormon listeners, though, by referring to them as Mormons. Last year, in August of 2018, current LDS president, 95 year old Russell M. Nelson, insisted to quote,

Mormons and non-Mormons alike stick to the term, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And now you're not supposed to call it the Mormon Church, Mormons, Mormonism, or even the abbreviation LDS. That's too many words. I'm not gonna say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints every time I need to address this group of believers. Not in this talk. The Church has since recognized

that people do need more concise terminology to use on a regular basis. They have suggested that people use the name the restored church of Jesus Christ when they wanna shorten it up. And Russ, not gonna do that. Sorry, bro. To me, that title wreaks of self-righteous arrogant nonsense

coming out of the 95-year-old noodle of someone completely out of touch with the non-mormon world. To me, that's like asking you all to stop calling time suck, time suck. Instead I want you to call it the one and only true podcast, time suck superior to all other audio content. And not only that, not only do I want time suckers to call it that I want people who don't even listen to this show to refer to it by that same title. As you'll find out, the LDS church is found on the belief that the Bible needed some updating

that the original Bible had been corrupted, excuse me, that all of the other Christian churches were getting Christ message wrong. That's why Joseph Smith founded it in the first place, and that only Mormons have received all of Christianity's message. So again, Russ, not calling your church the restored church of Jesus Christ because that's incredibly insulting to the entire rest of Christianity. Sorry, you don't see it that way. If you're devout Mormon, I'm going to tell you right now that I suspect, again, you're not going to like a lot of what I have to say about the origins of your faith. So if you're in a real analytical, not church-approved look into your founding, the founding

of your churches and something you have a lot of interest in. Maybe, maybe stop now. More listeners have written in about wanting to help me on this topic than I've ever had right in before for any other topic by far. A lot of you have wanted to make sure I deliver this quote unquote correctly. Many Mormons have written in wanting me to not be unfairly harsh on the church, saying that there is a lot of anti-Mormon propaganda out there, and there is some. Many other former Mormons have written in saying that the church is a manipulative cult, don't believe anything members of the church tell you, don't go easy on it.

Well, in the name of prep time and the name of trying to stay as objective as possible, I've taken all the advice and a consideration, but I've reached out to no one. Trying to keep things in-house to be as fair as I can. Now, if you're Mormon, you're still listening. Thank you. Good for you. No again, I have a you. Good for you. No again, I have a lot of love for you. Also know that it would be intellectually dishonest for me to take a softer approach to this topic than, you know,

that I have on many others. I've gone so hard on many others. Also know I've tried to be very, you know, tried very hard to look at sources and to fact check claims by going to the Mormon Church's own website. In the name of, you know, making sure that it isn't just anti-Mormon propaganda. For sources, if you happen to check notes on the time suck app, you'll notice we didn't just turn to websites critical of the church.

We checked a fair amount of pro church websites as well. I will say LDS has the best website in the God game. Seriously, I'm jealous. It clearly costs six figures, if not seven, to build and develop Church of Jesus Christ.org. Super sick site. Slick. Poppy. Easy to navigate.

Great color scheme. Great font selection. Navigation is intuitive. It's one of the best organizational websites for a religion company, whatever that I've ever seen. Well done Mormons. Also a very hard working group. In addition to the official Church website, there's a ton of other websites, ran by various

pro-Mormon organizations. Working hard to get their version of their narrative out to the official church website, there's a ton of other websites ran by various pro-Morman organizations, working hard to get their version of their narrative out to the public. You can access so much of what Mormonism is about on the official church site, including the full text of the Mormon Bible, the book of Mormon, the doctrine and covenants, and the pearl of great price.

Those are the four canonical works of the LDS faith by the way. And the Mormon Bible is just the King James version of the Bible used by many of their Christian faith. It just includes footnotes and cross references to the other three canonical Mormon works, which I will describe more in a bit. And if you remember one of those faiths, you know, you might be saying, Hey, easy, Mormons are not Christian.

That is an ongoing debate that will likely never end. According to that 2012 Pew Research Report, I already mentioned, while nearly all Mormons considered themselves Christian, 97% Only about half, 51% of US adults say Mormonism is a Christian religion. After I lay out their history and beliefs, you can decide for yourself what you think. A lot of people do view Mormonism as a cult, a very offensive view to many Mormons, also a view shared by many non-Mormons. According to the same Pew Research Report, when asked to volunteer the one word that best describes Mormons, the most common response from Mormons surveyed was Christian, or Christ centered, 17%, an additional 5% volunteer Jesus.

The most commonly offered response by non-Mormons was cult. Only 51% of non-Mormons considered the LDS Church to be a religion, but is it really a cult? Well, it depends on which definition you believe in. One short definition of the difference between a religion and a cult is basically what I stated earlier. A religion is an old cult. A cult is a new religious movement. In this sense, yeah, Mormonism is still kind of culty, still pretty new, less than 200 years old. But to be fair, I'm sure when they first got going, a lot of people thought Christianity was a cult, same for Islam, same for Judaism and the Eastern and pagan religions as well. Now let's look at a more nuanced and thoughtful delineation between religions and cults.

Cult researcher and author John Jalalic, PhD, Professor Emerida, Emerites, excuse me, of Sociology at California State University, Chico, has spoken about the key distinctions, explicit and implicit between legitimate religions and cults. Here's what the well-studied Dr. Lollogh has to say. A church will likely give you time to decide whether you want to join the congregation. It won't expect you to be at every service and Bible study meeting right off the bat. Cults, on the other hand, tend to cajole and barrage potential followers until they fully

commit to joining. And part of this tactic is dismissing any questions that newcomers may have about the cults inner workings. If you find that your questions aren't being answered or that your questions are being turned back on you, it's probably not a legitimate group. That makes sense to me. Our religion should not be afraid of questions, shouldn't have anything to hide from new members, there should be eager to spread their spiritual joy to anyone who wants to be a part of it. Does the LDS answer questions or hide their inner workings? Well, the answer to that is also mixed. Some will passionately say, no, others will passionately say, yes, I will say what I thought about

joining the Mormon church, which I did when I was 18 years old. It felt very secretive to me at that time. My questions were not being answered. And I don't know. Sometimes they were not answered because the person I was talking to, the elder or the, you know, the head of, I can't remember the people I spoke to. But I spoke to the people who were running a couple of different churches and they didn't seem to either have answers or want to give them to me. Dr. Lalit also says, the legitimate religion is going to have you worshiping a higher source. You are not expected to worship the living being

in front of you, or the writings of some living being as you do in a cult, again, makes sense. Big difference between believing that we should live our lives according to the moral and spiritual guidelines laid out in a book written a long time ago, and difference between that and believing we should do what Steve over there sitting in the corner tells us to do. Which side does Mormonism fall on regarding this difference?

Kind of both. Kind of both, but actually a little bit more on the Steve side, more on that in a bit. Dr. Lollich also points out that Colts control rather than guides, she says a decent religion will say be kind to your neighbors. So when someone moves into your neighborhood, you might take them a cake, but nobody comes and checks on you to see if you've really taken them a cake. In other words, conventional religions don't constantly watch their followers to make sure that they're following their tenants exactly, but cults absolutely do. They want to control you.

Finally, she says that cults make it impossible to trust fellow members as opposed to being a place for members to feel comfortable not being judged. And after studying a fair amount of cults myself here on the suck, I would add something that I guess falls under Dr. Lollig's control aspect of cults. It seems to me that cults seek to isolate you from any non-members including family. They discourage relationships with those outside the cult unless the main point of that relationship is to indoctrinate a new member into the cult. Does Mormonism strongly discourage you from socializing outside of the church? Again, answers mixed. Some say yes, some say no. I'll say that the Mormon church goes far

above and beyond most religious groups to provide a full social schedule to its members so that they don't have to hang out with non-members if they don't want to. There's sports leagues, counseling services, private welfare system, young men and young women organizations, weekly meetings, singles organizations, on and on and on. In the young women organization, 12 and 13 year old girls meet in what is called the B-high class. 14 and 15 year old girls meet in the MIA-Made class. 16 and 17 year old girls meet in the Laurel class. Once young women are 18, they attend relief society with the adult women in the ward.

Similarly, in the young man organization, young men ages 12 and 13 attend the deacons quorum. age 14 and 15 attend the teachers quorum, age 16 and 17 attend the priest quorum. Once a young man is 18, he's typically ordained to be an elder and will attend the elders quorum. Few times a month,

no more than once a week on a weekday evening, all the youth in the ward meet for about an hour or hour and a half for what is called mutual. There are meetings adults can take every day of the week if they want to. There's a church approved dating sites. There's a expectation of devoting a year plus of your life to missionary work on and on and on and on. If you let it the Mormon church can be your whole life. So in that sense, a little bit cultish, but maybe not bad. I mean, if you look at it like an organization doing a good job of taking care of its members and providing members with a sense of community, with a sense of fraternity,

Mormons are just knocking out of the park. Also, many Christian churches do the same thing. Many of them just don't have the means and organization to carry out the extensive services the LDS has is able to offer to its members. Lastly, know that the equation between religion and cult, not a binary one. There's no hard line between the two.

It's more of a scale or a spectrum. I think personally, many major religions have a lot of cult-like aspects. You could argue that joining a Catholic convent to be a little culty, the convent is now your whole life. I mean, that's pretty culty. Some vows and some religious orders are to cut almost all contact with your family off. Pretty culty.

Do you even cult, bro? A lot of people cult. They just don't know it or want to admit it. Do I think Mormonism is a cult? Personally, not in the Scientology sense, certainly not in the Jim Jones or Branch Davidians or Order of the Solar Temple sense, but I do think it's for sure more cultish than most other Christian denominations currently. For example, Mormons believe that their

president is a living prophet of God and can add to their doctrines. Pretty culty that falls under the, let's listen to Steve. The closest Christian religious figure in terms of influence over their faithful and the rest of the Christian world is the Pope. The Pope can alter the meaning of Christian doctrine as far as interpretation. And many folks have done just that. Just last year, 2018, Pope Francis revised the Catholicism to teach that the death penalty is inadmissible and to say that the church works with determination for its abolition worldwide. And this goes directly against

the previous nearly 2,000 years of church doctrine. The Catholic church used to sense people to death all of the time. Hello, inquisitions, a lot of witches. you know, people who didn't blindly obey the church burned at the stake by the church. Their death sanctioned by God according to the church. However, not even the Pope claims to receive prophecies that allow the Pope to alter doctrine. Not change interpretation, but rewrite it, write in, write in some new,

you know, words from God. The Mormon president can do exactly that and does. Former LDS church president Harold B. Lee, who only led the church for a year and a half in 1972 and 1973 because he passed away shortly after taking over leadership. The leaders tend to be very old. Todd, the only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the president of the church. Who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the council of the 12 and sustained by the body of the church. Pretty cool. Also, a bummer that

Harold only got to speak for God for roughly 18 months, maybe. Maybe God didn't care for what he had to say. Perhaps the most famous example of a Mormon president changing church doctrine, because God told him to was the momentous assertion of divine revelation that happened in 1978 to president and prophet Spencer W. Kimball, who ended a century-long ban on black men and boys being ordained to the all-male priesthood and on women and girls entering Latter-day St. Temples.

This declaration is now part of church doctrine found in the doctrine and covenants. This revelation happened to occur after the Mormon church had faced increasing pressure from the NAACP throughout the 1970s to stop being super racist and sexist. During the late 60s and 70s, black athletes at some universities refused to compete against teams from church-owned Brigham Young University. A protest of the church had occurred in 1974 and responds to the exclusion of black scouts to become leaders in church-sponsored boy scout troops.

And then they get this, you know, seemingly pretty convenient revelation. So again, some cultish elements. Certain offsuits of the main branch of the LDS church, such as the F. LDS, the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for sure, full cults. Talk about that later. Now, let's get into the meat of the subject.

The actual beliefs in history. Today, we're gonna establish what Mormon beliefs are. There may be a big old timeline to march down that will take us to the origin story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the life and times of its founder, Joseph Smith. We'll talk about the church history of polygamy and its current stance since that, of course,

there is, that's the topic of interest, you know, when it comes to Mormonism. And we'll establish a difference between the LDS church and the F. LDS church. A lot of fascinating stuff to go over today. In an honor of a variety of Mormon friends I've known over the years, as you can tell, I've been using some replacement words,

replacement swears. Gonna try and do that for the majority of the episode. Gonna stick as much as I can until replacement swears, because no one in my experience uses more replacement swears than Mormons. Oh my flip! Don't be a jack wagon. I don't be a swear happy PETA.

Ha ha. And no matter what I uncovered the end of the day, I was in there when it comes to faith. If you want to believe in Scientology, Mormonism, 70 Adventism, be a Jehovah's Witnesses or Jehovah's Witness, you know, being a little alien cult like Heaven's Gate. All right, you can do that. And you can still be a great person. You know, and can prove you wrong.

I hope you understand that if you're not a believer in Mormonism, believe in an origin story that has no more archaeological evidence of being true than the island of Atlantis having wizard battles on it or the Lemurians living inside a Mount Chastah is a pill that's a little hard to swallow. I hope you get that. And finally, if you are the member of any other organized religion and you find yourself laughing at some of the absurdity I'm going to be pointing out today, I hope you don't think any less of Mormons for believing their beliefs.

And I hope you realize that if the critical thinking magnifying glass was turned on your beliefs, on your religious beliefs, a lot of the same jokes could be had. Right. I mean, I mean, if you had never heard of mainstream Christianity, ever, never heard of it at all suddenly a dude knocked on your door told you that an all powerful deity made this world in heaven and hell and then sent his literal son to earth only to have him killed so he could live forever in a sky city with streets of gold because the first lady, you know, fucked, excuse me, flipped everything up for humanity by letting a snake talk her into

eating the wrong apple. And if you didn't accept that as truth, you'd be sent down to a lake of fire where you, you know, had demons torment you for eternity, would you not think they were a complete and total wackadoodle? You know you would. If you can take a motion out of it, come on. Holy heck. Okay, now for real this time, let's flip and get into it.

You know, let's get into these Mormon beliefs, the summary of this religion before going in that timeline. Mormons are a religious group that embraced concept of Christianity, as well as revelations made by their founder, Joseph Smith. They primarily belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, has more than 15 million members worldwide.

There are a few other scattered denominations. The biggest, another Mormon denomination, the community of Christ, centered in Independence, Missouri. Has about a quarter of a million members. This faction split off from the LDS when there was a question of succession, regarding who should take over as leader of the church following the death of Joseph Smith. The Mormon religion officially founded in 1830 when the book of Mormon was first published. Today, the LDS churches, most prevalent in the United States, Latin America, Canada, Europe, the Philippines, Africa, and parts of Oshayana.

As I said earlier, Mormons consider themselves Christians, but many Christians do not consider them Christians. Mormons believe in the crucifixion, resurrection, and divinity of Jesus Christ, same as other Christian churches. Followers of Mormonism also claim that God sent more prophets after Jesus' death. This is different from most other Christian churches. Mormons also believe that the original Church of Jesus Christ has been restored in modern times through Mormonism, little bit of a theological middle finger to the rest of Christian time, but also not uncommon.

Most Christian denominations believe that, you know, they truly get it and none of the other denominations do and they're all wrong to some degree, which I've always found pretty annoying. As I stated earlier, Mormons embrace four different texts as Holy Canon, the Christian Bible, the Book of Mormon, the doctrine and covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The Bible, self-explanatory.

The Book of Mormon resembles the Bible in its length and complexity, and is division into books named for individual prophets. It came to Joseph in a vision of sorts that will explore in the timeline. It relates the history of a group of Hebrews who are sedu of migrated from Jerusalem to America about 600 BC led by a prophet Lehi. They multiplied and eventually split into two groups, one group to Laminites, forgot their beliefs, became heathens, where the ancestor of the American Indians, not sure how that happened. The other group, the Nephites, developed culturally and built great cities, but were eventually destroyed by the Lamanites, about 400 AD.

Before that occurred, however, Jesus appeared and taught to the Nephites. Too bad he didn't teach them how to better defend themselves. That would have come in handy. Don't it to crap? I mean, fatal sticks, are by the language. I mean, Jesus is omnipotent. So he knew they'd be destroyed.

It seems a little messed up. You know, Jimmy Kriggitz. Jesus revealed himself to the Nephites, taught him a bunch of stuff, showed Jimmy Kregits. Jesus revealed himself to Nephites, taught him a bunch of stuff, showed him the path to salvation, and then the Nephites ended up getting flipped and obliterated by the Laminites. That's not cool.

And the future Laminites don't even get to hear about salvation. For over a thousand years after that, because all the believers in the Americas are dead. What the flip? What about all those souls? My heck, JC! Seems like a pretty confusing plan. Seems less working in mysterious ways when it comes to the Lord and more, just not working like a pretty confusing plan. Seems less working in mysterious ways

when it comes to the Lord and more, just not working in an obviously good way. The Pearl of Great Price defined by the LDS as a selection of choice materials, touching many significant aspects of the faith and the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, these items were produced by Joseph Smith and were published in the church periodicals

of his day, so it's based on other visions he had. The doctrine of the covenant is a book of scripture containing some of these names, they altered over the years. So if you're like, wait a minute, you call it something slightly different before. Yeah, they have changed. So I think that's the current. The doctrine of the covenant, a book of scripture containing revelations from the Lord to the prophet Joseph Smith and to a few other Latter-day prophets. It's unique in scripture because it's not a translation of ancient documents.

And this is the book that church presidents now get to update with their own prophecies. Another interesting belief is that according to the LDS church, the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived, is located in Davies County, Missouri. I wonder if people in Davies County, Missouri, think that. I wonder if they know Davies County, Missouri, think that. I wonder if they know that more than that later. According to Joseph Smith's vision, all people will be resurrected and then the final judgment will be assigned

to one of three degrees of glory called the celestial terrestrial and celestial kingdoms. A small number of individuals who commit the unpardonable sin will not receive a kingdom of glory, but it will be banished to outer, but they will be banished to outer darkness with Satan, where they will become sons of perdition. So what is this unpardonable sin? Well, it's how they do it in Hollywood. Showbiz. It's having your heart monkey with body with a counter nine pales and having your pee we stomped and poked

with needles, where you play buck buck, how many hands up? It's laughing up sweet peanut butter, sweet peanut butter, like a dog that has been fed in a week and if that's wrong well then I don't want to be right. If it keeps the man out of heaven then I guess I'll just head down to hell, world of sweet monkey silos extra hot. On all the lick, can me your drink, on all the whip, I love to stink, to clap your pants, making peanut butter. Sorry about the language listeners, you know what I'm like? Oh my flip, that was freaking rough. Not cool, gosh dang.

Also, that was past suck subject Albert Fish if you're new listener and confused. And Albert Fish is a real, he's a real dirty rascal. And he's incorrect. What he just said is not the unpardonable sin, but I'm sure it's frowned upon severely in Mormonism. It allows Joseph Smith to explain. He says, all sins shall be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Ghost. For Jesus will save all except the sons of perdition.

What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him and no God, and then sin against him. After a man is sinned against the Holy Ghost, there is no repentance for him. He has got to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it. He has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and to deny the plan of salvation, with his eyes open to the truth of it. G-E-N-E-C-R-G-E-S! I might be a centipartition!

Doc Giannit! And next girlfriend talked to me to go into church and I did for a few weeks and then I didn't convert, so I was showing the word and I didn't receive it. Oh my heck! My soul's gonna rot! She killed me! Turf alt! Biggolos of Fina!

She wouldn't have shown me the way I could have just played dumb! And you know, man, am I gonna do that to you guys today? Am I gonna create so many more sons of traditions or daughter? Can you be daughter of precision? So flipping mad at myself right now and my ex-girlfriend. Talk about kingdoms. The Celestial Kingdom is the highest heaven. All children who die before the age of eight automatically inherit the celestial kingdom, and it's the permanent residents of God the Father and Jesus Christ. So strong sales point here. For anyone who either has young kids or lost young kids or lost a sibling when they were young,

it's a nice touch. The terrestrial kingdom, the middle of the three degrees of glory, it is said to be for people who didn't quite get the Mormon faith thing, and maybe were blinded by the craftiness of unscrupulous men. The celestial kingdom, the saloist of the three degrees of glory. This word is believed to have been made up by Joseph to describe the place in his vision of heaven where liars and sorcerers and adulterers and hormongers and who, so ever loves and makes a lie go. These folks have only to stay here for a thousand years else. That's pretty sweet. You know, then they get leveled up. Lucky flippers. I don't get leveled up out in the

Satan ring. I'll be getting my perdition, Heidi, nashed out by demons and out of realms. While a bunch of Mormon kiddlers and adulterers and sorcerers and bull hackers are getting leveled up. So jelly. Uh. Mormons don't recognize the Christian concept of the Trinity. God exists in three persons. Instead, they believe the father, son, and Holy Ghost are three separate gods. So in other words, unlike Christianity, which is a monotheistic religion,

Mormons are technically polytheistic. Now, do Mormons consider themselves polytheistic? In my experience, I would say hard-nought. I would say if I just said that to Mormons sitting across the table from me, they'd be like, well, it's not exactly. A lot of the Mormon signs I looked at,

the answers to them weren't like, no, that's not true. It was more of like, well, it's listen, it's complex. It's hard to, but no, let me explain. And then a lot of words that really don't explain. My experience, yeah, yeah, they would say no. To be really honest, I've studied Mormonism for years. I started reading the book of Mormon the summer after high school. In a lot of Mormons, I don't know how to say this, but I was standing very arrogant. They

don't seem to understand their own doctrines very well. I'm sure the same can be probably said for members of most, if not all major religions. According to the fact page on fairmormon.org, Latter-day Saints are not polytheists in any reasonable sense of the term that does not also exclude most other Christians who deny the modulus hearsay, or hearsay. Some Christians say Mormons are polytheists because they believe humans can become gods, is that an accurate characterization of LDS belief. Trying to reduce LDS thought to a simple term or slogan in this way distorts LDS belief, trying to reduce LDS thought to a simple term or slogan in this way distorts LDS doctrine. See?

I mean, that's just a very fancy and evasive way of saying, yep, yeah, we are, we are policies, but we don't like to, you know, be classified that way because it makes us, you know, seem culty to other Christians. Another way of answering that question could have been nope, but that didn't happen. Fair Mormon.org by the way, non-profit organization dedicated to providing well documented answers to criticisms of LDS doctrine belief in practice. The LDS church considers Joseph Smith who founded Mormonism a man who will meet in a minute a modern prophet.

Mormons are asked to follow a strict healthy lifestyle that doesn't allow them to consume alcohol, tobacco, coffee, or tea. Family life good deeds respect for authority and missionary work are important values in Mormonism. Mormon practice clothing rituals that include wearing special undergarments, that have religious significance known as the temple garment. The attire is worn by adult members who make sacred promises to God. These garments are sometimes referred to by outsiders as magic underwear.

Referring to the garments as magic undis, is considered by most Mormons to be very offensive, and according to them, it's similar to saying that Jewish people wear a magic hat. I wonder if anyone has ever worn the magic Mormon undies and the magic Jewish hat at the same time. Throw on a monk robe. Oh, man, while you're doing all that, you might just become a master of the universe. Oh, my heck. Temple garments are worn by those who have participated in a temple ordinance called an endowment

ceremony. The garments are worn under regular clothing. Most often in the place have underwear, a lot of rituals, a lot of rituals in the Mormon belief system. I did have a former Mormon writer and say that a lot of their rituals were based off of actual, my gosh, I shouldn't, does why why don't wing it off my notes My god, I've talked I did a two-parter on them. It's not a mousla. I'm sure it's the oh my god free Mason free Mason's man There's too many groups out there. Thank you Joe Yes, that they mod that the that Joseph Smith was a free Mason and modeled a lot of the the you know rituals after I

Didn't have time to check and see if that was true with all the other fact I was doing. But it does seem like they have a lot of elaborate rituals in their group. Anyway, so these garments are produced in men's women's versions in a variety of fabrics. The top is roughly the cut of a typical t-shirt. The bottoms are analogous to boxer shorts, reaching just above the knee. The protection afforded by the garment is symbolistic and serves as a reminder of certain promises to wear as made with God.

The garment is not considered to provide physical protection from harm despite outsiders claiming that Mormons believe their garments make them bulletproof. That's not true. Today the LDS Church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Although there are several Mormon settlements all over the world, the Church is run by a present-day prophet, serves as the president of the church for life once they're appointed.

The church is hierarchy, consists of the first presidency, which consists of said present, currently Russell M. Nelson. Two counselors at Heapoints, next is the quorum of the 12 apostles, followed by the first quorum of the 70, then the stake presidency, leadership for foreign areas or quote unquote stakes, then the ward bishopric, the local clergy types and lastly individual members. Children in the church typically baptized at eight years of age, a young man, 12 years of age of older can enter into the priesthood known as the erroneic, erroneic, there we go, erroneic priesthood.

Those over 18 can enter into the higher Melchizedek. The Melchizedek priesthood. I went to a meeting of the Aaronic priesthood in a Mormon church in Marcine Idaho in the summer of 1995. A guy asked me and the other young male attendees if I wanted to be as powerful as God. He explained that I would get my own planet

if I was a good Mormon and populated with souls that I would make with my celestial wife. So you'd be perpetually pregnant, it's kicking out souls, and I would be as an planet. If I was a good Mormon and populated with souls that I would make with my celestial wife, she would be perpetually pregnant, it's kicking out souls. And I would be as on Nippetin as God, he explained that God was once like me and like God I could become. And then I could rule over my own earth equivalent.

And yes, in Mormon is a man our taught that they get to become a God if they're a very good Mormon, which I'm surprised that a lot of Mormons that I've spoke to, they don't seem to want to talk about that. And they, and some will outright deny that. But I've also read a lot of things online and had my own personal experience at a Mormon church, where that was absolutely for certain, said to me as part of the doctor.

At the Mormon Church of General Conference in April 1844, Joseph Smith said, I'm going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. This is Joseph Smith's saying this. And take away the veil so that you may see, it is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty, the character of God, and to know that he was once a man like us.

Very strong selling point, right? As a man, you get to be God, best religious sales pitch ever, very ego serving. Okay, for now, we got to flip and get to the timeline. Oh my heck, let's get to a gosh dang, but first, a word from a sponsor. Time's like a Brought to you day by Felix Gray. The average American blast arrives with bright screens

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That's FelixGrayGlasses.com slash time stock. That's how they do it in Hollywood. And the link is in the episode description. Timeline in two seconds. Yeah, yeah, flipping. Y'all. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline.

I started at the beginning. We're just undefined, time-wise, according to the LES. Christian and Mormon scholars placed the origin of mankind at some point. Between 4.5 million years ago, and 6,000 years ago, many placed it closer to the 6,000 kind of mark, the Garden of Eden, where it all began, and where is the Garden of Eden? Joseph Smith, as we said, said it was a, you know, present day Missouri. After getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived in Adam on the Amon,

a historic site in Davies County, Missouri, about five miles south of Jamison, Missouri, tiny little town of about 130 people. And what a fall from Paradise. Not only against Missouri, but getting kicked out of Paradise, and then got to live in the human, his Hades, Bum, Flip, Missouri, oh my heck,

bummer, gosh dang. Also, interesting to know that not only does the LDS doctrine teach that Eden is located in present day Missouri, and also teaches that Adam and his descendants settled in present day Missouri, and expand that outward away from that. And this is where man first learn how to wear animal skins for clothes, use fire, everything.

Missouri is the cradle of civilization according to LDS doctrine. And I gotta say, it just feels like the claim of a man who lived prior to the 20th century when the fields of archeology and anthropology were much less developed. Teaching that human life began in Missouri goes against all current scientific evidence regarding the origins of humankind, like all of it.

Current archeological efforts, pointing at humans first, figuring out how to transition from grunts into words and stand up right in Africa, specifically Ethiopia. And then early humans migrated through to the Middle East, up to Europe across to Asia, down into South Pacific, Australia, and then the Americas going over that barren straight land bridge. The Americas as far as all current evidence can tell, can tell us was the last place human settled. Not the first. Oh, my heck, flipping awkward. See, never be too specific when making prophecies. Good lesson here. If you're going to form a cult, learn from Nostradamus, keep it vague, be able to interpret it in

numerous ways, makes it harder to disprove. Then some around 600 BCE and his israelite named Lehigh, journeys with his family from the Middle East to the Americas. Also, this goes against everything we know about civilizations and their ability to travel long distances over water. But Lehigh is to send this divide into two tribes, and he fights in the Lamanites, named after two of Lehigh's sons. The Nephites initially, more prosperous and religious, but then will become corrupt over time, and uplocked in centuries of warfare with nomadic laminites. The laminites are who the Mormons consider or consider the ancestors of the American Indians who murdered the Nephite believers, not cool to be.

I wonder if Mormon scholars, when they hear American Indians claim that the European kicked them off of their land, think, actually, we were the original land. You killed us and we go back far enough. The book of Mormon states that around 33 CE after his crucifixion and resurrection, the Middle East, Jesus Christ then appeared in North America and preached to the Nephites.

Christ's appearance inaugurates a period of harmony with the Lamanites that would last 200 years. But eventually the tribes would fall into conflict again. In 385 CE, a Nephite prophet named Mormon. They've been writing the story of his people on the eve of a climactic battle with the Laminites. Mormon turns over the core of what would become known as the Book of Mormon, transcribed onto golden plates to his son, Moroni.

Mormon is mortally wounded in the battle, had a place called Kumara, and the Nephiites are nearly obliterated, but Moroni survives for another 36 years, adds material to the book of Mormon before sealing up the plates in 421. Made it all the way to upstate New York with those plates. It's a considerable distance back then. Good job, Maroni. Or, unfortunately, your name is one letter away from moron. That does not help the case for religious credibility. The Joseph would find magical plates because he was led to them by the angel of moron, I, Moroni. That's a, that's a tough one. Now let's fast forward to 19th century.

It's time to meet Joseph Smith right after I addressed some, well, some, some logic concerns that I have with Mormonism's origin story. In my opinion, the biggest difference between Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and then Mormonism is that with the big three major religions, worst case, somebody made up stories about real people or I guess really made up stories about real people, or I guess really worse, worse, about real places. You know, like while we don't know if all the miracles and prophecies claim

in the text of the big three or true, at least the miracles supposedly occurred in places where other people were there to write about at least some of the members of the religion, at least some of the people referenced. There's corroborating evidence. We don't know if Jesus for sure existed, but we know that Jerusalem existed. We know that the way the Bible talks about the time and place, you know, that these people supposedly lived in, it's

accurate. The groups of people said to live in biblical cities did live there. The rulers referenced in these books did in fact rule. Other people wrote about them. There's a lot of archaeological evidence that supports the existence of many of the Bible's characters and the Kharans characters and the Torah's characters, but it's very different with the history of Mormonism. This is one reason why my opinion religious scholars don't respect Mormonism and take it as seriously as other religions and never will. There is no evidence at all to support the existence of any of the people written about

in the book of Mormon and the Americas. None. Unless you count American Indians, but no American Indian tribe has anything in their traditions that supports what was written about supposedly them in the book of Mormon. Like the two, the belief systems don't line up. None of them think that they come from the Middle East because there is zero evidence to support that. There's no genetic evidence to support that American Indians came from people who know, people who were Middle Eastern or Hebrew. There's a host of other problems. Mormon scripture, sheep are mentioned as being raised in the Americas by the Geronites

between 2500 BC and 600 BC, but sheep did not show up in the Americas until Columbus's second voyage in 1493, same with domestic goats. They're also mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but they were not alive in the Americas. Prior to Europeans bringing them over at the end of the 15th century, we have this documented. Same story with cattle and pigs. Mormon apologists have argued that cattle is a term that's been used to describe a wide variety of domesticated animals. So Joseph must have meant some other creature when he said cattle. And sheep in the Book of Mormon means big horn sheep, right? Or llamas according to apologists, but modern llamas did not exist

anywhere in the area of what is now the United States, anywhere near the time that ancient Mormons supposedly lived in that area. Big horn sheep have never been domesticated. Apologists have argued that when swine are being discussed in the book of Mormon, the animal being referred to is actually little javalinas, little pecoraries. However, again, these animals didn't exist. When the Mormons existed, as far as the big pigs, and then the little Javolinas, they've never been domesticated. Barley and Wheat are also mentioned.

Those crops were not grown in North America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Horses are mentioned many times in Mormon texts. The book of Enoes, 121 says, and it came to pass the people of Nephi did tilt a land and raised all manner of grain and of fruit and flocks of herds and also many horses. Like I said, specifically horses. Horses for sure specifically did not exist. How is this all explained by the church? Honestly, not well. On a website called Book of Mormon

Central meant to be used as a study resource when reading the Book of Mormon. There's a general answer for why nothing that happened in the Book of Mormon is supported by archaeological records. They say it is not unusual for primary source documents to mention things, which archaeologists cannot prove. In fact, it is expected that authentic documents will give us new information about the past. And then a Mormon scholar and historian named Stephen D. Rick's cited as the author of that quote, and Stephen also says in another book, to accept only those elements of the book of Mormon or any other document for that matter that accord with what is already known is to refuse it, any primary evidentiary value, and to render

the book of Mormon or any other document superfluous. Okay. Well, using that logic, I could say that I wasn't kidding about Nimrod. He's real. You know what? He's real. There really is a giant space ass watch out there, the size of a galaxy with suns for eyes and the head of a chubacobre riding a black unicorn.

It demands you crush cocker spaniels to death to make blood sacrifices, proving your loyalty unto him. It's true. You just need to accept me talking about it as having primary evidentiary value. Stephen Ricks explanation, just a very academic sounding way of saying,

it's real because we say it's real. Please no more questions. I mean, there's just, yeah, again, steel and iron are also mentioned several times in the Book of Mormon. No evidence has been found in the Americas of iron being hard and to make steel and ancient times. The Book of Mormon describes more than one literate people inhabiting ancient America, the Nephite people described as possessing a language and writing. They were able to write, able to write on metal. The writing had roots in Hebrew in Egyptian.

You know, they say that the original text of the book of Mormon is written in this unknown language called reformed Egyptian. But there's, you know, there's other than the golden tablets that Josephus supposedly found, there's nothing else. And those tablets highly questionable to digs is it, but other than that, no other ancient Hebrew Egyptian writings have been found in the Americas. Nothing, there's nothing that's been found, nothing in a museum, not one flippant thing. And that's a little bit suspicious. What the people who wrote the Bible wrote in the Bible may not be true, but at least we know that people did write back then. It was written in the in the correct language for its historical place and period. So had to get that out there, I know it's

not fun to hear. If you're a believer, but it's the truth. I'm not going to hide from it. On December 23rd, 1805, Joseph Smith, technically Joseph Smith, Jr. is born in Sharon Vermont. That did happen. There are birth records. He's a fifth child and fourth son of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith senior. Joseph Smith junior came from what has been described as an unremarkable new England family. I would I would disagree with what we're about to learn about them. His grandfather, Azale Smith, lost most of his property in top field Massachusetts during the economic downturn of the 1780s and eventually moved to Vermont. Where Smith's father, Joseph senior initially established himself as a farmer turns out Joe senior not a good farmer.

More on that is a timeline continues. Joseph junior would have nine siblings overall, but only seven at any given time since two of the nine died soon after birth. Store of the Smith brothers and sisters pretty tragic. Lucy Max Smith would go on to bury seven of her ten total children while she was still living. Lucy Max came from a Connecticut family that disengaged from conventional congressionalism and leaned towards

Sikhirism when it came to their faith. Sikhirism, a movement that looked for a new revelation to restore true Christianity to its pure roots. Really weird. What are the odds that the son of a woman, part of a movement dedicated to awaiting for God to grant a new revelation, restoring the Christian Church, to whatever seekers thought it should be restored to, would raise a son who would grow up and then have that exact revelation. Huh. It's almost like he became a, you know, a prophet because he was raised to believe that

you could become a prophet. Sorry, sorry, my heck. Forgive my use of cold reason and obvious logic. Sorry to take a do-do, Joseph Pray. Although privately religious, the Smith family really attended church, Joseph's senior and his sons spent part of the warm weather months treasure hunting using various divination,

divination tools, including seer stones, that when viewed in the bottom of a hat, were said to convey a special sight from God to help you find buried treasure. Flipping what? A guy whose mother raised him to think God would speak to someone and give them instructions on how to restore the church's rightful glory. A guy whose father raised him to be a magical treasure hunter. Magical treasure hunter.

That guy would find magical treasure that God revealed to him to help him restore the church to its rightful glory. Shut the front door. Are you flipping Josh and me? It almost feels like parental environment contributed more to Joseph's revelations than the word of God. In 1811 after another failed crop harvest it was almost like spending a lot of time using sear stones to find magical treasure didn't help farming. The Smith family moved 11 on New Hampshire whether a financial situation improved a bit and the Smith children were finally able to

begin school. Then in 1812 a local typhoid epidemic swept through Lebanon killed upwards of 6,000 people. Typhoid epidemic swept through Lebanon, killed upwards of 6,000 people. Typhoid hit the Smiths children, although none died. Young Joseph did develop a leg infection. The doctors initially thought would require amputation, but a novel type of surgery saved the boys limb. He'd used crutches for the next three years and would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. And Lebanon, the Smith family continued to not farm well. In 1816, following the third straight year of crop failure, the Smith family continued to not farm well. In 1816, following the third straight year of crop failure, the Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York, a town of 4,000 situated near the planned route of the Erie Canal.

Palmyra lies within a very interesting area at that time, termed the burned over district. This is super important today's story. It was in the burned over district, called that because of its for it, excuse me, evangelical fervor of its residents. It was called the burned over district because spiritual fervor seemed to set the area on fire. In addition to Mormonism, coming out of the spiritual hotbed, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-day Adventists, and many other pretty radical departures, departures from traditional Christians beliefs popped up. A lot of those kind of fringy Christian denominations all came out of

the same little area at the same time as Mormonism. Love learning stuff like that, such cool history. And the story of Joseph Smith makes so much more sense to me now. His dad was a treasure hunter who believed in basically sorcery. Seer stones, by the way, literal stones used by treasure hunters to try and receive revelations from God to find very treasure, right? Using rocks to find very treasure makes about as much sense as sticking your pinky up a raccoon's butt in order to find a dragon. Sorry about the language, should have said bottom. But come on, I mean, it's so academic. Like it's off the charts. And this is Joseph's dad.

And Joseph himself would later do this. And his mom would become a future bigwig and early Mormon church doesn't go to church because she think churches are, you know, they're not Jesus in the right way. And God eventually is gonna have a new person lead people. And her family is living in a place in time, right? Where more new religions would spring up

than anywhere else in America before or since. Of course Joseph found Golden Tablet and started a new religion. He was raised by the right parents and grew up in the exact right place to do that. In 1820, Joseph Smith now 14 has become increasingly troubled by denominational differences among local Christians because there's all kinds of spirited debates about religion going on all around him. He remains unsure about which churches the right one to follow, as were many other people to time. So he prays for guidance. The answer would come one spring morning, Smith goes out of the woods near his home, and as he describes it, witnesses a pillar of light descending from heaven, followed by an image of God in Jesus,

who apparently proceed by Joseph as separate personages. They forgave him of his sins, and warned Smith that all denominations of Christianity, all of them, have strayed from the truth, and that he should not join any of them. Mother will be so happy! No one's hence need to go and stick now! Now when God has made mothers son, the chosen one,

we would even have to flip mother's neck! Little Ed Canterflax back, new listeners. It happens, it happens sometimes. Smith relayed this vision to a local minister and the man of the conventional church dismissed it as delusion, scorned the teenager. Mormonism could have ended there, but Smith continued to believe in the authenticity of his alleged moment in the woods with God in Jesus. This event known to Mormons as the first vision still does not dramatically change Smith's life, or Smith's life. He continues to work to farm and to seek out Illuminati pirate treasuries father. Smith will not give us followers the detailed description

of this vision until 1839 when the book of Mormon was published in 1830. Why wait another nine years? I gotta say the skeptic in me thinks that's how long it took for him to make it all up. On September 21st 1823, the young Joe Jr. fearing that he has fallen off the right path, praised for forgiveness for all his sins and follies again. Once again, he receives a vision. This time it's in his bedroom and the vision is of the angel Moron. I, Moron, Moron, I, one letter off.

Moron, I, the son of Mormon, speaks of a sacred book written on gold plates that just so happen to be buried in a nearby hillside. So weat, jackpot! Papa, throw away the pirate rock. We have an angel now, Charles with a treasure is according to Moroni, the book describes the people who used to inhabit America and the source from Wednesday, spring. He also said it contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel. The next day, September 22nd, guided by his vision, Smith locates the golden

book in a box buried in Hill, Camora, three miles from the Smith farm. However, he is told by Maroni that he cannot take the gold plates yet. Instead, he must return on September 22 for each of the next four years to be instructed on the mission God has in store for him. So yeah, seems reasonable. I mean, why let him quickly transcribe the plates and get a head start in saving souls when instead God can make him need to see wait for four years. Why instruct him to take the tablets to a group of open-minded religious scholars with connections to museum curators

who can maybe verify their historical authenticity or guard them until some respected archaeological see-login come along and give the whole thing a little bit more legitimacy. Mysterious ways. Oh, mysterious, super confusing ways. Smith was told by the creators of the universe not to touch the box, but he did anyway.

So he received the shock of God, literally an electric shock. It was thrown to the ground. Gotcha. Classic God move. God was a little God shock. You know, that's what God does. He shocks people. Don't follow instructions.

We all know that. November 19th, 1823, several weeks later, death hits the Smith family. Joseph's eldest brother, Alvin dies at the age of 25. This puts a greater financial strain on the family, but even worse for Joseph Jr., he loses a great ally and his older brother as far as someone who believes that he's had these visions. So he says, Alvin believed in Joseph, according to Joseph, and his visions from the beginning. And Joseph took Alvin's death very hard.

Alvin Smith was the second son born to Joseph, senior and Lucy, because their first child died prematurely, often was the oldest. In October of 1825, with multiple visions under his belt now, Joe Jr. and his father joined a treasure hunting expedition, 135 miles away in harmony, Pennsylvania. Their goal is to find the dream mind. And they don't, which is weird because the wizard rock told him exactly where it was. That's another thing that troubles me about the story. It's like he's able to find the tablets.

Why can't you find the dream mind? You know, it could be verified by their people. It's funny how, you know, he never found anything that could be verified by anybody else. Smith does find another kind of treasure. Lady treasure, hairless of Fina. He meets and falls in love with 21 year old Emma Hale while boarding at her father's house. The two constantly met secretly to friends house Over the winter months of 1825 Joe worked on perfecting his weird searstone techniques in March of 1826

The criminal complaint is sworn out against Smith for the fraudulent use of said searstones He admits to using them in the past but says he has now given up the practice for many Smith has seen as a whackadoodle Which I get on January 17th or 18th, 1827. Joseph Smith and Emma Hale alope and get married in South Bainbridge, New York. The marriage went against both the bride's mothers and fathers wishes. The angry parents did not like Smith's religious practices and the fact that he was a seer using treasure hunter. But you know, this is not exactly the job most parents hope for that are in their future

son-in-law. Emma was the seventh and ninth children of Isaac Hale in Elizabeth Lewis. She was born in Willenboro township later called a harmony, Sussquajana County, Pennsylvania. While Emma's brothers and sisters attended only the traditional grammar school growing up, Emma went on to do an extra year of schooling beyond that. So you know, she got like seven years of school, so she's extra smart. She has known in church history for being well-educated, comparatively. And was able to act as a scribe for Joseph when he was translating the plates because of it, because Joseph was not very literate. There is a ton of information on earlys, Emma's

early years, but she would go on to play a pivotal role in the early church. On September 22, 1827, after four years of past, Smith is finally allowed to dig those gold plates up, or at least that is what he would tell people. As he digs up the golden books, he's worn by Maroni not to let anyone else see them, which again makes a lot of sense. Why have witnesses to the greatest discovery of all time? Smith then shows his mother an unusual pair of spectacles he would use to read the divine golden pages with. This is, yeah, this story keeps getting better for flip-sake. The magic spectacles came complete with two precious stones,

where the eyepaces of normally be. Do you understand what I'm saying? He's wearing glasses with rocks, with magic rocks, I just want to be clear. These stones are called interpreters. Smith himself said the Lord provided him two stones and silver bows. He called the earm and the sermon and the human, excuse me. I told his mother all about what he was up to. He said, you know, he set stones where to help him

translate the books from the reformed Egyptian and written into English. And then before he could translate rumors of a golden Bible, he ended circulated in the neighborhood. And Joseph and Emma Smith were forced to flee the threat of potential thieves. The couple were financially assisted by local farmer named Martin Harris. As they set out for harmony, hiding the golden plates in a barrel of beans. Now, before we continue with the timeline,

there was a bit of information that really must be kept in mind or this next bit of narrative and then addressed. Gold is super flip and heavy. Several LDS historians and church manuals have repeated the story given by Lucy Max Smith, the mother of the Mormon prophet. In her account, she says that her son took the plates from their secret place and then quote, wrapping them in his linen froc place them under his arm and started for home. After traveling some distance, he came to a large windfall. And as he was jumping over a log, a man sprang up from behind it and gave him a heavy blow with the gun.

Joseph turned around and knocked him down, then ran at the top of his speed. She went on to say her son was attacked twice more, and since there's no record of Smith rendering his assans unconsciousering in capacity We must assume he outran them for at least a portion of the distance necessary to reach to Smith home reportedly three miles away. He also did all of this with that limp from childhood leg surgery. While carrying a huge slab of gold on his arms, how big and heavy were these tablets? Contemporary of Smith gave varying dimensions for the plates

as well as a wide range of estimated weights. Some say the plates weight as much as 60 pounds, while others like Joseph Smith's father said the plates weight as light as little as 30 pounds. Smith claimed the record he received from the angel was six inches wide, eight inches long, not quite so thick as common tin. He also said the volume was something near six inches in thickness at part, a part of which was sealed. Given those dimensions, we could conclude that the plates were one sixth of a cubic foot. Since gold weighs 1,204 pounds per cubic foot, we can argue with LDS Apostle John, we

can agree, excuse me, we can agree with LDS Apostle John Whitstone who said, if the gold were pure, the plates would weigh 200 pounds, which would be heavy, a heavy weight for a man to carry, even though he were of the athletic type of Joseph Smith. 200 pounds. Jumping over logs, running at top speed, that's more than a heavy weight for a man to carry even though he were of the athletic type of Joseph Smith. 200 pounds jumping over logs running at top speed. That's more than a heavy weight for a man to carry. It would be truly miraculous for someone to not just carry that weight, but run with it for three miles. Barry Sanders and his prime could not have done that. The world's strongest man could not do that. Remember his mother said the Joseph held these plates under his arm.

No one could do that for one mile, let alone three. You don't believe me? Go to the lumber yard, go to Home Depot or Lowe's, any big hardware store. Grab a 60 pound bag of concrete, cement mix. Put in your arm and try running with it. Better yet, try holding one under each arm and running with that. Bring in two canvas bags. Put a 60 pound bag of cement in each one, see how running works out for you or at the gym, grab 200 pound dumbbells and just take off running. There's, there

is no flipping way. You would make it even 200 yards without dropping those bad boys or seriously injuring yourself. Let alone fight people off. Those several illustrations of the plates to pick what looks like a virtual compress set of metal sheets, Mormon apologists often insist that the handmade gold plates would not lay perfectly flat, thus allowing for air gaps between the leaves, making them much lighter. This argument ignores the fact that gold, while an extremely dense metal, is also soft. The very weight of the plates themselves would eliminate air gaps, thus making the plates a virtual block of gold. Realizing that the story is told is quite impossible, many Mormons resort to assuming that God

gave Smith supernatural, you know, miraculous strength to carry the plates, even though he never said that. But you know what, fine, you can't argue with magic. You win. In December of 1827, Emma's father allows the couple to stay in a small house on his property. Their Joseph begins the task of translating the strange writing of the ancient golden book using his steer, sear stone interpretation device and dictating the results to Emma

Emma described what she saw as she worked at her father as her father's cry. She said I frequently wrote day after day often sitting at the table close by him him sitting with his face buried in his hat with a stone in it dictating hour after hour with nothing between us now now what? There's no gold plates. Now there's a hat with a stone in it, dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. Now, what? There's no gold plates, and now there's a hat involved. A magic hat. It worked like this.

Smith would place a rock, you know, one of the seer stones in a hat, and then a piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that, you know, parchment appeared writing. One character at a time, and under it was the interpretation in English. Since such description show how Smith didn't need to look at the plates at all, one can only wonder, why did he have to risk his safety to find them in the first place?

So where were the plates while he was doing this? Who knows? It's very likely that no one ever saw the plates in the traditional way of seeing things. Like no one held them or touched them. Maybe not even Joseph, right? According to you know, like because he ran with him, right? But I mean, this story, it's so confusing. Mormon historian Marvin Hill concedes that the evidence is extremely contradictory in this area.

There's a possibility that witnesses saw the plates in visions and in visions only. As in they, you know, they all used sear stones tossed into a magic hat to see the plate the minus. So all the people, there's, you know, all these early witnesses is what the church cheats of saw these plates, but it may be that instead of seeing them like looking at like, hey, there's a gold plate across the room. It was a very different thing of put, look into this hat full of rocks and see them there. See the vision of them. In a revelation recorded in doctrine andrine and Covenant 172, all of her Caldary, David Whitmer and Martin Harris were told that it was by faith,

they would obtain a view of the plates. Eight Mormon insisted that they too, quote unquote, saw the plates, but again, the evidence suggests they saw them with quote unquote spiritual eyes or envisions. Smith also asserted that John the Baptist appeared to him while he was translating the golden plates, and instructed him to restore the church by preaching the true gospel fact. Whatever, fine. He can show up now.

On April of 1828, Martin Harris, who has followed Joseph Smith to harmony, takes up work on the book, writing down Smith's dictations. This guy is an important part of the origin. He's the original helper to Joseph Smith to transcribe some of these books. It's his wife and also this guy of Martin Harris. Over the next two months, Martin and Joseph produced 116 pages of text, the translation of the book of Lehigh. But then Harris randomly decides to take the book back to Palmyra to show it to his doubting wife, Lucy Harris, who doesn't buy what he's doing. Even spend a lot of time outside the house, he's worried that Joseph, a tricker husband because her husband had a reputation to believe in wild and crazy tales.

Check this stuff out. A biographer would later write that Harris' imagination was excitable and fecund, you know, aka fertile. For example, Harris once perceived a sputtering candle to be the work of the devil, and then this is really good. And Aquane's once said that Harris claimed to have seen Jesus in the shape of a deer and then walked and talked with the Jesus deer for two or three miles. Shut the front door!

What? This guy walked and talked with the Jesus deer. For a couple miles? Ah, that seems like he's a real solid critical thinker. This guy seems super stable, not prone to, you know, see what he wants to see. Good old burned over district, so many fun thoughts floating around.

I'm surprised JR Token didn't write the Lord of the Rings there. I feel like I keep sounding like an A-hole, but I wish this origin story was so much better. I truly do. I've met so many wonderful Mormons. They have consistently my experience showing themselves to be amazing people, family oriented, fit, hard work and smart, well educated, active, cool,

flipping folks. I don't wanna, you know, drop a pile of do-hicky on their beliefs. I don't, but, yeah, I come on. The story is what it is. I'm open to people having visions. I'm open to worlds beyond this. When I really truly am, but I talk in Jesus' dear, treasure hunt and stones.

I cannot take this so seriously. It sounds like the Ramlins of lunatics. If Jesus wanted to talk to Martin Harris, why in the flip would he need to possess a deer? He's all powerful, right? I mean, possessing a deer feels like the trick of a bottom-shelf sorcerer, like some Necromancer who'd figured out a project his own consciousness back into the earth from death itself, impressive, but he's not quite strong enough to appear as like a cool hologram or take over human beings. You got to pop into a deer. He didn't pay attention in some

class in sorcery school. Maybe it's a deer on a good day too. Maybe like other days he can only get into like a groundhog or squirrel. Anyway, there's a lot of stories like this in Martin's history. Later on when Harris departed from New York with Latter-day Saints, the local paper wrote several families numbered about 50 souls took up their line of march from this town last week for the promised land among whom was Martin Harris, one of the original believers in the Book of Mormon. Mr. Harris was among the early settlers of this town and has ever born the character of an honorable and upright man in the blighjim and benevolent neighbor.

He had secured to himself by honest industry a respectable fortune. And he has left a large circle of acquaintances and friends to pity his delusion. Yikes. Pity his delusion, not a good write up. And this is written in a place used to a lot of people who had a lot of new religious ideas. Now back to the issue of Harris's wife wanting to see what the heck Martin was up to.

She wanted to see those supposed gold words. Joseph Smith reluctantly agreed to part with the new scripture. You know, makes sense, you know, why did you just, you know, why not risk getting lost? It's only God's new prophecy. Harris takes the only copy, the only copy of the 116 pages of God talk and then flipping loses him. Yep. June 15, 1828. Just days after Martin had left, Joseph's wife Emma Smith gave birth to a child, a couple would name Alvin and fortune Alvin Smith died the same day. Emma almost died as well. This would be a sort of terrible pattern of only five of Emma's 11 children living beyond infancy. I not wish that

sorrow at anyone. Adding to Joseph sorrow, weeks had passed with no word from Martin Harris about the original 1616 pages. Smith decided to leave Emma still recovering from her difficult pregnancy. In the care of her parents and travel to Palmyra, he quickly finds out, you know, Harris's lost the work gone forever and no one ever knows what happened to it. Maybe, maybe Martin's doggated. Lucy Max Smith recalled her son crying out when he learned the pages were gone, saying, it is I who have tempted the wrath of God. I should have been satisfied with the first answer, which I received from the Lord. The record say the Smith begged God for forgiveness, but instead of forgiveness, an angel appeared and took away his golden plates as punishment.

Dang it! What a heckin' bummer! The magic gold tablets that would have, you know, really gone a long way towards proving that Joseph was not just making this malarkey up, we're taking from him. How unfortunate. Smith also would say that his magic seer stones, they're, you know, also, you know, taken away. Freak, man.

He's awesome golden tablets in his wizard stones, all gone. Wouldn't be until September 22nd, 1828, the Smith would get the gold plates back. Luckily, he gets his stairstone, spectacles back, and his magic hat as well. Jeepers, creepers. Man, JC really put it all Smith to the proverbial ringer, holy heck.

Needless to say, Martin's not allowed to hold the divine manuscript again. Oh, Martin's put out in the super fricking naughty pants timeout corner list. On April 5th, 1829, a young schoolteacher, distant relative of Joseph's name Oliver Cowdery, arrives in harmony, becomes a scribe for Smith as he resumes translation of the gold plates, old Marty is out, the two men to inscribe the plates much faster than before, but was the book of Lehigh the same as the initial lost 116 pages? Nope.

According to Smith, he did not translate or re-translate the material that heroes had lost because he said that if he did, evil men would alter the manuscripts in an effort to discredit him, because that doesn't make any sense. Smith said that instead he'd been divinely ordered to replace the lost material with Nephys account of these same events. Or Smith wasn't happy with the first draft. Maybe he wanted a chance to kind of rewrite it. Maybe losing those papers was, you know, it's kind of a planned thing. In the midst of the second translation on May 15, 1829, Catery and Smith take a break to hang out in the woods and pray. They are visited by

none other than John the Baptist. Here comes Johnny. And John confers the eronic priesthood. All of the known as the Levitical priesthood upon them. John the Baptist also tells the two young men that the male chis- a chis- a deck priesthood, the greater of the two priesthoods will be also be restored. And then when it is restored, it will give them power to lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. So many flipping priesthood, so many wizard levels, which I was a wizard. An anticipation of the organization of the Church of Christ, John the Baptist announces to the young men that Smith will be the first elder of the church, Caldery the Second.

The two men then baptize each other in the Susquehanna River in June of 1829 Smith, who has now completed the translation at Peter Wittner's Farm, Wittmer's Farm in Fayette, New York receives a copyright for the Book of Mormon. Eleven witnesses will later sign statements saying that they have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated But again, did they see him or did they have visions? A lot of different tales about how the plates were seen floating out there by June of 1829 the book of Mormon Manuscript and the articles of the Church of Jesus or of Christ

compiled by Olive Caldery had identified ecclesiastical roles to preach baptized and minister the Lord's supper These documents identified the specific offices of elder priest priest, and teacher, and outline their respective duties getting organized now. Also in June 1829, Joseph Smith receives a revelation that Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer should seek out 12 men who be the Lord's disciples, and would declare my gospel, both unto Gentile and to Jew.

For the next years, Cowdery's and Whitmer's minds are on a constant stretch to find who these 12 were, they periodically sought the Lord by fasting and prayer to know. On top of being an apostle in August of 1829, Smith locates a publisher for the Book of Mormon in Palmyra and typesetting begins. The 5,000 copy initial print run is financed by a $3,000 mortgage on Marty Harris' farm. So, at least Marty could do after that last so whoopsie when he flipped and lost the word

of God on March 26, 18 and lost the word of God. On March 26, 1830, the Book of Mormon is published. The first printed copies are available in Palm Ira in New York, each copy is selling for about 25 and man, I bet if you had one of those, that is worth some money. Brigham Young practicing Methodist who has moved to the area near Palm Ira with his wife, reads the Book of Mormon shortly after publication and is baptized as a Mormon two years later. As conversion would turn out to be a very important one in regards to the survival of the Mormon faith.

On April 6, 1830, the first organized meeting of the LDS is held at the Whitmer Farm in Fayette Township, New York, with about 50 people in attendance, Smith and Catery are ordained elders. Smith will become known as a prophet. That very week, the first officially appointed missionary, Samuel Harrison Smith, the prophet's brother, departs to preach the gospel in Upper New York and Vermont.

By the end of the year, at least 16 men were sent to spread the message that God had spoken to a prophet and revealed the Book of Mormon. Things were looking pretty darn good. But then in June of 1830, Smith is arrested and charged with being a disorderly person for his preaching. Oh, Cheath and cracker son of a bishop! Why couldn't they leave him to flip alone? Looking at numerous sources about Smith, we found that he seems to have been arrested quite a few times in his short life. There are claims of Smith being arrested 30 to 42 or in a

few sources more than 42 times. This particular time Smith is acquitted. Now there's actually an entire Wikipedia page dedicated specifically to Joseph Smith and the criminal justice system. And it cites 53 different sources. Many of them from Mormon authors, some of them from actual church doctrine. In September of 1830, the first Mormon missionaries are called to preach to what Mormons called the Lamanites, also known as the American Indians. Relations were not good with the tribes.

And the few missionaries were able to do very little with this preaching. Gosh darn laminites still want to come to the knee fight side of things. That's classic laminite. If that's an example of laminites being laminites, I don't know what it is. In October of 1830, the missionaries taken the Book of Mormon's message to the Indians in Ohio and Missouri have stopped in Curland, Ohio. They're a popular Baptist minister named Sidney Rigden decides to join the LDS and bring his 100-member congregation with him big win for the early Mormons.

In December of 1830, Joseph's first revelation on gathering is given. In his revaluation, he commands the church to up and move to Ohio. Also around this time, Sidney Rigden is called to be a scribe in Joseph Smith's plan revision of the Bible. In February of 1831, Joseph and Emma Smith reached Kirlend, while other church members would join them in the spring. For the next six years, Smith will be based there and will announce some 65 different revelations most pertaining to church structure and organization.

God is talking to him a lot now. In June of 1831, after missionaries reached Missouri and settled in independence, Smith leads a group of Mormons from Curlin, west to independence, which according to the story, God has revealed will be a gathering place for warments in the site of a new Jerusalem. And that Jerusalem, a new Jerusalem. On July 20th, 1831, the site for the city of Zion,

the new Jerusalem, and Independence, Missouri, is revealed to Joseph the prophet in a revelation. In August of 1831, early Mormons lay the cornerstone for a temple and within a year, more than 800 more church members have moved to the area. In the first days of November 1831, a conference of church elders decides to print 10,000 copies of what was to be called the Book of Commandments. A compilation of revelations received by the Prophet Joseph Smith, these revelations are still considered sacred texts within the LDS faith and have since been incorporated into the doctrine and covenants. Things are looking good for Joe. Now, he has a growing group of

people believing God has speaking through him. He's come a long way since not being able to find buried treasure with his dad with his magic rocks. Then things take a turn for the worse. On March 24, 1832, some growing local anti-mormon sentiments that have been accumulating come to a head, Joseph is sitting up late with his 11-month-old adopted son, also named Joseph, who had the measles. When about a dozen men breaking into the house, hauled the prof from the house, strip his clothes from him, and pour hot tar all over his body and feather him tarred and feathered what the flip

smith saw others from the mob pulling sigma rigging from his house because sigma is on uh... sitting was unconscious joseph supposed he was dead beginning to plead for his own life the mobs broke a violent nitric acid against his mouth trying to poison him and the process they broke a tooth causing joseph to have a slight whistle the rest of his life one man and supposedly said that is the way the Holy Ghost falls on folks and jumped on Joseph, ripping off his remaining clothes, scratching his fingers into Joseph's skin.

Joseph pulled the tar from his mouth so he could breathe. Two men rushed out of the house to help Joseph and each assuming the other was from the mob started to attack each other. It's flippin' pandemonium. When the mob finally fled, Joseph turned to return to the house when Emma saw him. She thought the tar was blood and fainted. Joseph spent the night with his friends who ripped, pulled and ripped off pieces of tar and skin. Man, bummer that Marona or John the Baptist or someone didn't give him a heads up about the tar and feathering on March 29, 1832. Joseph's adopted

son Joseph Murdoch Smith dies from a cold caught when he pulled when he was pulled from Joseph's arms during the mobbing, that's not cool. The family grieved, but there was more profit self to be done. A majority of the prophecies and revelations that Joseph Smith would receive recorded in the Doctrine Covenants December of 1832. One of Smith's prophecies includes a prediction about the Civil War. Almost three decades before it occurred, and I gotta say this one is pretty impressive. From what I can tell, the most accurate prediction he made.

It's listed in doctrine and covenants, 87, one through eight. Here is the most important part. One, verily thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls. And the time will come that the war will be poured out upon all nations beginning at this

place. For behold, the Southern state shall be divided against the Northern states and the Southern states will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called. And they shall also call upon other nations in order to defend themselves against other nations. And then war shall be poured out upon all nations. Not bad. I got not bad. Not bad.

Pretty good prophecy. However, he made a lot of other predictions and most did not come to pass. You know, he also predicted Jesus will return within 56 years and, you know, he didn't. 1833, worth begins on a grand Mormon temple in Kirtland. It will take three years to complete. Measure 55 by 65 feet, soaring 110

feet high. Still there. Those look super cool. Just outside of Cleveland, on the National Historic Register. Also in 1833, something else happened that we will talk about right after this sponsor. Fame, money, ego, showbiz. These things can make athletes feel superhuman. What happens when those in professional sports reveal the darker side of their humanity, like O.J. Simpson? What happens when the juice goes way too loose? Nothing good if you listen to that suck. Every week, the podcast networks, new podcasts, sports criminals, explore some of the most

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And some of these crimes are just unimaginably tragic. Like when professional wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and seven year old son before committing suicide. The stories are crazy. And I know that you time suckers enjoy a crazy tale. Sports criminals, athletes, you thought you knew crimes you will not forget. Listen and subscribe to sports criminals for free on Spotify. And anywhere else you listen to podcasts, or visit podcast.com slash sports criminals to listen right now. Now back to 1833.

When the first collection of 27 year old Joseph Smith revelations are prepared for publication as a book of commandments. On July 20th, 1833, the Missouri Mormons began to suffer violence at the hands of other locals. On this day, they're printing press on which the book of commandments is being printed is destroyed. Other Christians don't like with their preaching. They're starting to be considered occult. In September of 1833, a key figure for the future of the church, Brigham Young, now a widower, arrives with his two

young children in Kirlend. Later in November of 1833, mob violence drives those Mormons and Jackson County, Missouri, out of Jackson County across the Missouri River to Clay County. The pages of the book of commandments are rescued from the muddy streets and bound creating the first published collection of Smith revelations. On May 5, 1834, Joseph Smith leaves Kirtland, Ohio from Missouri as leader of Zion's camp to bring relief to Saints expelled from Jackson County. Despite the confrontations and controversial nature of their movement from locals, the church continues to grow.

In February 1835, Joseph Smith and the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, oh, Marty, select 12 men to serve as apostles in the church. Although the title Apostle had earlier been given to some individuals who played a important role in the early church, including Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, the 12 apostles had defined in the 1829 revelation were not called until 1835. On February 14th and 15th, 1835, the quorum of the 12 apostles organized in Curtinoe Highell. As this meeting smith directed Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris to choose 12 men from the

churches of apostles to go to all nations, Kindreds, tongues, and people. They become known as a traveling high council. Also in 1835, 138 of Smith's revelations are published in a book called Doctrine and Covenants. In August of that year, the Doctrine and Covenants is accepted as a standard work of the Church. Joseph is crushing it. He has started a growing religion movement, a religious movement where he's a leader and he's not quite 30, included among these are 65 revelations published in the book of commandments plus seven lectures on faith, prepared by Joseph Smith, which are not described as revelations for a due with very little education.

He was very prolific, putting out words. More pushback came in 1836, the Missouri Mormons forced to leave Clay County for the remote Caldwell and Davies counties in the northern part of the state. On March 27, 1836, and I never looked up the pronunciation I realized of Davies. It's D-A-V-I-E-S-S. That extra S makes me question my pronunciation. So no, that I know that I might not be getting that one completely correct. March 27, 1836, 1,000 worshipers began a week of temple dedication, ceremonies, and curlino-hyle. Witnesses report rushing winds, a pillar of fire in the presence of angels.

Too bad video did not exist. If it would have existed yet and they could have filmed it, we'd have gone a long ways towards legitimizing all of this. On April 3rd, during the dedication of critical visionary experience occurs when in which the prophet and all of her Caldary who have retired behind a veil, is separated and elevated pulpit from the rest of the temple, see a personage, a personage, personage, I like that word. They believe as Jesus, accepting the temple as a place where he will manifest himself to his people.

In addition, they see the Old Testament prophets Moses, Elijah, and Elias, who commit into LDS hands the keys of the Gathering of Israel. And the new dispension of the fullness of times. Again, what have been nice to have video? In the very 1836, the Mormon Church is their first crack at banking. Smith forms the Curlin Safety Society Bank. What soon after a national economic panic began in March of 1837, this leads to the banks collapse. Accusations of financial and sexual impropriety

arise after this. Uh oh, financial and sexual impropriety, sounds colty. Despite the scandal, loss of many early members, new members replace those who have left and the church continues to grow. With a lot of that happening to do with the idea of missionary work, on July 19, 1837, Heber C. Kimball and six others arrive in Liverpool, England.

On the church's first mission outside of the US and Canada, on January 12, 1838, Smith escapes growing tensions with locals in Curlin heads from Missouri, arriving there with his family in March. Many of the Ohio Mormons follow and soon there are thousands of church members in the settlement of far west and Caldwell County. Smith makes a plan for a new temple, ex-communicate several old friends and current adversaries, including Caldary, who had turned against him, accusing him of adultery. Uh oh, uh oh, getting accused of adultery, X communicating people who accused him. Yeah, it doesn't not a good look. Peace with neighboring non-mormons is proving elusive. They're new neighbors, even less excited to see

the Mormons than their last neighbors and Missouri governor. Ilburn W. Boggs is getting sick of them. On April 26, 1838, the name of the church was established by a revelation as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By July 4, 1838, becoming clear that the violence is coming. While given a patriotic oration, Rigden promises that Mormons will have to defend themselves in warrants of a war of extermination with hostile neighbors. On August 6, non- Mormons will have to defend themselves and warns of a war of extermination with hostile neighbors. On August 6, non-Mormons attempt to prevent church members from voting, leading to bloody melee. This kick-off will become known as the Mormon War of 1838, leads to an unknown number of

injuries and deaths, and the charged aftermath of the violence, violence, Missouri governor, excuse me, I'll burn bogs, orders, all Mormons to either be driven from the state or to be wiped out. Stuff's getting ugly. And on October 27th, 1838, governor Boggs is a issue, or excuse me, I guess that's when he officially issues this extermination order now against the Mormons. Three days later, on October 30th, served up by the governor's decree, an anti-Mormon mob of about 240 men, massacre church members under a flag of truce at Jacob

Hans Mill and Caldwell County, Missouri. Many of the saints gathered in the blacksmith's shop where the mob's guns were stuck to the cracks and logs and fired and fired until most of the building were dead. A few escaped across the river into the hills. In the end, between 17 and 19 LDS members were killed, including unarmed children, while 15 others were injured in the unexpected raid, opposition to the Mormons, Rages on. In December, Smith is arrested, charged with treason and sentenced to death. Joseph's life is only spared when the officer ordered, or ordered, to carry out the execution,

refuses to execute him because he felt it was cold, blooded, and murder. Smith instead will spend the next five months in prison with other members of his congregation in Liberty jail, Liberty, Clay County, Missouri. Led by Brigham Young in 1839, the Missouri Mormons reached safety in Illinois, where they are welcomed by a much more sympathetic populace. In April of 1839, while being moved from one trial location to another, Smith is permitted to escape and makes his way to Illinois also. Between May 9th and 10th, 1839, Joseph Smith moves to Navu, Illinois. There he buys land for a new settlement on the banks of the Mississippi River about 200 miles from St. Louis. On November 29th, 1839, Smith travels to Washington to meet President Martin Van Buren. He demands compensation for Mormon losses and Missouri.

Van Buren expresses sympathy, but says he can do nothing. Speak to the size of Joseph Smith's growing congregation is able to get a sit down with the President. The church continues to spread and grow. Even back then, the Mormon church pretty good at spreading the word. Brigham Young and his fellow members of the 12 land in Liverpool, England on April 6, 1840, the 10th anniversary of the church. Eight days later, they began a series of meetings in the nearby town of Preston, in which they resolved to publish a monthly periodical to be called the Latter-day Saints

Millennial Stahl. Millennial Stahl, excuse me, and May of 1840, the first issue of the Millennial Stahl is published, and the Millennial Stahl would be the longest-running Latter-day Saints periodical, published continuously for 130 years until discontinued in 1970 when there was an overhaul of all LDS magazines. It was inaugurated by the 12 apostles at the beginning of their great mission to England. Again, on August 15th, 1840, Joseph Smith publicly announces one of the more controversial

and interging revelations, their doctrine of the baptism for the dead. It is done because according to Smithging revelations, their doctrine of the baptism for the dead. It is done because according to Smith's revelations, unbaptized folks cannot get into the gates of heaven. So how do Mormons baptize the dead? Mormons believe people who have died can be baptized by proxy thus allowing them the opportunity to become Mormons after their death.

Mormons believe that their church has missionaries in the spirit world who are busy spreading the Mormon gospel to dead people who have not yet received it. Should any of these dead people want to convert to Mormonism, they are required to abide by all of its rules, one of which is water baptism. Hence the need for proxies to receive the corporal waters of baptism. So you have somebody like in a special Mormon ceremony, pretend to be you essentially and get baptized on your behalf and then your baptized, you know, in whatever spirit world you're living in. I just, I wonder if a son of tradition like myself qualifies for being baptized in death.

I hope so. So, you know, some people, most of your members of other religions, if you look around at a bunch of websites, get real worked up about, you know, being baptized after death. A lot of stuff out there like, please stop baptizing our dead. Doesn't bother me at all. I give all Mormons full permission to baptize me after death. A lot of stuff out there like, please stop baptizing our dead. Doesn't bother me at all. I give all Mormons full permission to baptize me in death. Baptize my family as well. I want to cover all my bases.

Nimrod wills you to baptize my spirits. Come on, he worked it out with Maroni, we're all good. In December of 1840, the Mormons receive a city charter for Navu, establishing the expansive home rule in local militia. After the first mayor is excommunicated, Smith becomes both mayor and military leader. Anyone who gets in his way, he excommunicates. Navu quickly grows and within four years is nearly the size of Chicago at the time.

The population bolstered by an influx of Mormon converts now coming in from Europe. This is nuts. Flip it impressive. The play story is bananas. But I am very impressed with how quickly they're building a religion. They have a vision. They're working hard towards that vision. Very successful. This isn't some rinky dink, waco compound.

Ah, they're building their own city. Only around 2400 people, but still, the time very impressive. Today, only about 1200 people in that town. The town has one private school and ironically, not Mormon, it's Catholic. Oh, Catholics. Mormons built it up and the Catholics swiped in and took it. private school and ironically, not Mormon, Catholic. Ha! Oh, Catholics. Mormons built it up and the Catholics swiped in and took it.

Maron I must be so peved. On March 17th, 1842, the female relief society is organized in Navu. 20 women gather in a large assembly room above Joseph Smith's red brick store. It at humble beginnings is a simple sewing group meant to make shirts for construction workers working on the temple but it would grow into its own priesthood.

At this founding meeting, Joseph Smith proposed the women elect a president who would then choose two counselors, Emma Smith, elected president by unanimous vote, makes sense. She's the, she's the profits wife. You don't vote for her, you're going to be excommunicated. She chose Sarah M. Cleveland and Elizabeth and Whitney as counselors. After the selection, Joseph Smith had, it reads, Revelation, he had received for Emma Smith in 1830 that had declared her an elect lady. Emma had a responsibility Joseph taught to expound the scriptures to all and teach the female part of the community, and that not she alone, but others

may attend the same blessings. These guys know how to form a community. I have to think spending his formative years in the burned over district of New York, watching so many other religions get going, had to have helped him. On July 12th, 1843, Smith announced his revelations about two new practices. First, he continues with the idea that the dead can be baptized, and now this practice is disclosed as part of three different revelations. Second, and the one that people love the most, he decides, oh, Mormons are now pro-Poligamy.

Plural marriage, hell, there's a phoenix, here we go. Ha, ha, ha, yeah! Not-Polygamy. Plural marriage. Hail, there's a fina. Here we go. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Not only was polygamy permissible, but in certain cases mandatory. To be fair, polygamy was practiced by many different characters in the Old Testament of the Bible. But that practice had been discontinued for over 2,000 years.

Of the second pronouncement, in particular, caused great division amongst Mormons, with Brigham Young, even stating he would rather die than follow it. And Joseph Smith initially, he'd come around later, Joseph Smith's wife Emma expressing opposition. Yeah, I bet. I don't like this. This revelation now section 132 in the LDS doctrine and covenants express expressly directs Emma Smith specifically to accept

plural marriage. How convenient? Here I'm saying, Smith Joseph has a vision from God that his wife specifically needs to let her husband swing his wing around town. It could, that could not be more culty. Like super duper code red, ring the alarm, get the bells going, culty.. Whenever dude says that God told him that he needs to put his not so clean wean anymore, you know, in other wives' holes, Colt, Colt, Colt, Colt, Colt, Colt. God's alleged personal commandment to Emma goes like this. And I command my handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment,

she shall be destroyed, say it's Lord, friend of Lord thy God, and we'll destroy her if she abide not in my law. I do find it weird by the way also. Why is God still speaking in King James kind of language? Like this isn't happening back when the King James Bible was being written. Is that just how God's talk?

Thou hast, hast thou thy God. Like people didn't talk that way. In the mid 19th century, which also just is like, come on, that alone makes me not buy any of this as revelations from God. But that's just how, I mean, because in order to accept that I have to believe that that's just how God always talks.

Like, you know, that this God can talk in English, but he doesn't update his, uh, his lingo. Doesn't matter how we talk down here now. I am thy God's thou hast, Charles, listen to thou stow me, be unto thou me cleave us unto thou me heck for heck for sure thou hast. Okay. Although the doctor would now be public announced for nearly a decade, rumors quickly spread increasing anti-Morning sentiment. Joseph Smith by with it, by the decade, rumors quickly spread, increasing anti-Marman sentiment. Joseph Smith, by the way, rumors secretly do have between 25 and possibly almost 50 wives during his life. When young would later come around to embrace the doctor,

and he himself would take 20 wives and father 57 children. That was fun about Joseph. I'm sure Emma loved that. I'm sure her parents thought, oh man, you know, we thought there was something off about Joe when Emma got married to him and, whoa, ding ding ding, we were

right. In 1844, almost 40 year old Joseph Smith has a pretty strange year. Smith decides that the clairs intentions are run for president of the United States. He also announces an assurment that those who obey God's commands can become God themselves. And he orders the destruction of an opposition newspaper, the novel expositor. So seems like he's gone full coat leader now. The ensuing outcry of his aggressively weird behavior leads to criminal charges of treason and conspiracy. After starting to flee, Smith changed his mind

and surrender to state authorities. This is not good. This will not work out well for him. In February 1844, Smith and his brother, Hiram Smith have been jailed on charges of treason and conspiracy because that is exactly what they're doing. They've gone pretty cuckoo. Then on June 27th, 1844, both Smith and his brother here in Smith get murdered in jail by an anti-Mormon mob and carves the Jelenoi.

This didn't happen a lot. Religious leaders weren't murdered by mobs. This speaks to how much these guys are riling people up, like they were hated. While awaiting a trial, and armed mob of about 200 men stormed the facility their faces painted black with wet gunpowder here and we killed first you shot in the face as you fell here and shout it. I'm a dead man. Joseph after emptying the pistol with which he tried to defend himself.

Joseph was then shot several times while trying to escape from a second story window and fell from the window as he died and listen to that shooting as you know trying to shoot others who are trying to escape from a second story window and fell from the window as he died. And listen to that. Shooting as he, you know, trying to shoot others who were trying to kill him. I mean, ah, not to be in a hole again, but that's not what Jesus would have done. Right? Jesus was a pacifist. He allowed himself to die, not doing the same thing here at all. No one would be convicted of the crime like that. Joseph and here and become martyrs of the Mormon faith and their faith continues to grow.

Do I think they deserve to be murdered? No. But am I surprised they were murdered? Oh, flip no. I mean, you start taking extra wives and telling people they can be gods and baptizing other people's dead relatives and commanding your followers to destroy opposition. Yeah. And angry mob is going to form. You doing that at 1840s, Missouri? Yes, of course, it's pee people off my heck flip. A struggle for the leadership of the Mormon movement would now follow in which the saints were

divided over whether to follow a the council of the 12, be the surviving members of the Smith's family, see the remaining members of the first presidency or d a variety of other potential leaders such as James L James J. Strang or Lyman White over the next few years the church would fragment out into so many different pieces. Actually, prior to 1844, nine sub-denomination of Joseph Church had already split off. The pure Christ, several different groups,

calling themselves the Church of Christ. Oh, the pure Church of Christ, sorry, I said that one. One called the Church of Jesus Christ the bride, the Lamb's wife. Most of these groups taught that Joseph Smith was not a prophet. Most of them were formed, you know, is people, excommunicated or people that, you know, became discussed with his behavior, and they, but they still like other aspects of Mormonism, and they just formed their own little group based around Joseph being a false prophet. Between Joseph deaths, Joseph deaths, and now over 70 different groups formed out of the

original Mormon church. Almost all of them now defunct. Most of the ones still around have less than a thousand members. The largest remaining group that I mentioned earlier is the community of Christ, with roughly 250,000 members, had quartered in Independence, Missouri. Those are the descendants or the followers, I guess, of the people who, you know, the follow Joseph's son, also named Joseph after Joseph died. I guess of the people who, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,orum of the Twelve Apostles as the leaders of the Church. Between December of 1845, February of 1846, more than 5,000 Latter-day Saints received sacred ordinances in Navu, which is the finalization of a covenant between the ordinance recipient

and God. On February 4th, 1846, facing further harassment, thousands of Mormons, but not all, leave Navu on a great march west. They would form Utah. Some of them follow James J. Strang, Settling, Michigan, but others follow Rigg into the east and other Settling and other parts of the Midwest. Bring them young, head of the quorum of the 12 Apostles. The main church leadership body directs the Exodus.

Their winter departure is rough, not the best time to travel in 1840s. But in four months, the Mormons make it more than 300 miles and set up temporary quarters along the Missouri River where divides Iowa and Nebraska. That's where they weighed out the hardest months at the winter of 1846, 47 before continuing westward. On April 30, 1846, the Navu temple is completed and dedicated. During the days and nights of the following 10 months, great numbers of Latter-day Saints go through the temple to receive endowments, a substantial number of polygamist marriages are solemnized in its ceiling rooms. Almost a year later on April 9th, 1847, the Mormon pioneer company led by Brigham Young

leave their winter quarters in Western Iowa, head west. Young has been plagued by self-doubt, but a February vision he has of Smith renews his confidence. On July 24th, 1847, a Mormon advanced party, including young, reaches the valley of the great salt lake. And Brigham, who will be made church president later in the year, confirms that this is where Mormons will settle.

He made a point to note that it was beyond the boundaries of the United States. His followers promptly mark off an acre that was reserved for a temple and then begin laying out city streets and setting up irrigation system. And they did plan a great city. It's all like city. Well put together city. Two days after Christmas in 1847, a church conference in Canesville, Iowa

sustains President Brigham Young, elder, Heber, sea Kimball, and elder Willard Richards as the first presidency, all these titles, sorry if it's confusing, but that's just, they're constantly getting new titles or giving them for themselves. On March 10th, 1848, the US Congress approves the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which sees much of the Mexico's Western territory, including Utah, to the United States,

bummer, they kind of like to be outside, begin in 1848. Thousands of Mormons make the trek to the Great Salt Lake Valley, and the first months they suffer terribly, but then they begin to create a kingdom in the tops of the mountains. Young men stand groups of Mormons to settle in various other parts of the Inter-Mountain West. Between May and June of 1848, they suffer some trouble. Crickets in the Salt Lake Valley devastate Mormon crops, but then the fields are saved the last minute from complete destruction by flocks of seagulls who consume the crickets, now known as the miracle of the goals, and the seagull is now the state bird of Utah. On October 6, 1849, the perpetual immigrating fund is established to assist poor saints in gathering in Utah to help more people join man community. No one

takes care of their own like the Mormons, Hail Moroni. In 1849, a provisional state of desert is organized, but it is not approved by the U.S. Congress instead as a part of the compromise of 1850. Deseret is renamed Utah and made a US territory. In 1850, Brigham Young is appointed governor of the Utah territory. This worried many people that Utah was headed towards a religiously centered to Tolitarian state. And I do think if Brigham had his way,

that's exactly what would have happened. Beginning in 1850, international missionary work expands. Mormon elders practice as far as British India, China, South Africa, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Italy, and Chile. They don't mess around. On June 15th, 1850, Deseret News is first published. Deseret is Utah's oldest continuously published daily newspaper and has the largest Sunday circulation in the state and the second largest daily circulation behind the Salt Lake Tribune. In May of 1851, the Book of Mormon is published in Danish, becoming the first non-English edition

by 1852, some 20,000 Mormons now live in the Great Salt Lake area. On August 29th, 1852, the practice of plural marriage is officially announced as a church practice, though many members have been already practicing plural marriage as we know since the 1840s. Anyone not taking extra wives is now asked, do you even cult, bro? Why there's big deal? Why you not want to wrestle extra wife plus for God?

If Chico Tilo had the hard god dick instead of the soft limp or shame cock, would take so many brides for God in Russia. I mean, I mean, Russia's best Mormon. Sorry, new listener. I'm really sorry about the language. Whoo! I was salty. That

was an old character, Chiquitilo. He just forces way into this suck and I did not like it! The doctrine of polygamy is made public outside the church, reiterating the public suspicions and leading to widespread condemnation from non-mormons, not a good PR move. The stigma of this decision remains today. April 6, 1853, the Mormon to rejected the leadership of Brigham Young, never accepted the idea that Plegamy was revealed a revealed doctrine held a conference in Wisconsin to found the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lengthy title recently renamed to the Church of Christ a few decades ago. This

organization, you know, brought together many of the saints who believed that the Church should be led by members of the Smith family. 1855, Mormon missionaries, the Salvation settlement, and what would become Las Vegas, Nevada. Settlements also established in San Bernardino, California, and in the Wind River area of Wyoming. May 5th, 1855, the endowment house is dedicated in Salt Lake City as a temporary place for the saints to receive temple ordinances. Things are about to get crazy in Utah on age 57, 1858. U.S. President James Buchanan reacting to reports that Brigham Young is ruling Utah as a personal theocracy declares the territory in open rebellion and sends 2,500 soldiers

from west west from Kansas. Many call this the Mormon war, right? It's another Mormon war. We'll offer no on resistance. Theons do harass the military supply trains. Not good. Then on September 11, 1857, a Mormon militia led by John Lee acting in tandem with the group of American Indians attacks a wagon train of sellers from Arkansas. They slaughter 120 men, women, and children.

And what becomes known is the mountain meadows massacre. Only 17 children under the age of eight are spared. Young's possible role in authorizing this atrocity will be hotly debated. But the evidence suggests that at the very least he covered up the truth of the crimes that were committed. Still in 1858, after a new non-Mormon governor is allowed to take control in Utah and federal troops march unopposed through Salt Lake City, Buchanan declares the Mormon war

over, and issues of blanket amnesty. But the continuing practice of plural marriage will prevent Utah's admission to the union as a state for the next four decades. In 1862, the Morrill Anti-Bigomy Act criminalizes plural marriage in US territories, but President Abraham Lincoln declines to enforce it. The church continues to grow. By 1866, the LDS church has almost 60,000 members being able to become a god and have extra wives got to be a good recruiting tool for new male members.

Assault Lake Tabernacle was completed on October 6, 1867. The first conference in the new Tabernacle was then held in Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Today, it is home to America's best known choral group, formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, now known as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple known as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Beginning in 1868, Mormon laborers assist with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. The recent resurgent of the women's groups also start to make real dense and Mormon society.

On February 10th, 1870, Latter-day Saint-Women, formerly ladies cooperative retrenchment society promote reforms in eating, housekeeping, habits of dress. 1871, as anti-piligomy activity increases Brigham Young is charged with the crime, though not convicted. On October 16th, 1875, Brigham Young, Academy, the four runner to Brigham Young University, is founded in Provo, Utah. Also, in 1875, John D. Lee becomes the only individual brought to trial for the mountain Meadows Massacre, but the proceeding ends with the hung jury, got off lucky, and 1876 Lee is retried, convicted of murder. Gosh dang, not lucky. On March 23rd, 1877, Lee is flipping executed. On April 6th, 1877, the St. George Temple is dedicated. It's the church's third temple temple the first in Utah a few months later on August 29th 1877

Brigham Young dies the cause of death believed to have been Para para tenitis there we go Which is a fancy name for what is commonly known as pussy overdose too many wives am I right guys? Anyone no, yes, okay, I'm sorry. Sorry about the flipping language. I'll lash myself out to the show. That wasn't cold for. No, Paranitis is an inflammation of the membrane lining the abdominal wall and covering the abdominal organs. It was likely to result of a rupture of pendix. 50,000 people attend the viewing. 49,000 people were as widows, kids, and in loss. You see what I did there? Hell! Sorry, not sorry. The church will be leaderless for a few years. Even with the deaths of both the first leaders

by 1878, the church ladder to say in said almost 110,000 members, October 10th, 1880, John Taylor, a member of the quorum of the 12 apostles is officially sustained as president of the church. He has revelations too. On July 17th, 1882, the relief society opened in the Deseret Hospital,

the first church hospital in Salt Lake City, also in 1882, the Edmunds Act declares polygamy a felony and disenfranchises all who practice it. By 1893, more than 1,000 Mormons would be convicted of unlawful cohabitation. As a response from the United States, the Mormons for the Mormon still practicing polygamy, on February 19th, 1877, the Edmunds Tucker Act disincorporates the Mormon Church, dissolves the perpetual immigrating fund company, abolishes female suffrage in Utah territory, and threatens to confiscate most of the church's property over $50,000.

The Supreme Court subsequently upholds this law, ouch, ouchy, stings. Mormons are outraged by continued attacks on their right for their winnices to have multiple godly vagina homes. Then on July 25th 1887, John Taylor dies from congestive heart failure and Kaysville, Utah territory for two years, the church would again be without a president on April 7th, 1889. Wilford Woodruff, he's named president of the church. October 6th, 1890, president Wilford issues the manifesto that accepts by general conference Terminating the practice of plural marriage in the church. How convenient? How convenient after getting this so much legal trouble three years earlier now

God's like, hey Know the whole plural marriage thing? JK JK hello, well you guys you guys fell for that it. That was a joke revelation. That was a kid in a round revelation on April 6, 1893. Oh, wait, sorry. Ah, great. So many things. This act is never described actually as revelation, which fundamentalists who now break away from the main church find to be the perfectly loophole, keep dipping their dunks and a variety of rifles. On April 6, 1893, President Woodruff dedicates a Salt Lake Temple.

It's the largest Mormon temple in the world. In the summer of 1893, the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir and Church leaders participate in the world's fair in Chicago, Illinois, luckily not murdered by former SUCK subject, H.H. Holmes. November 13, 1894, an important group known as the Genealogical Society of Utah is incorporated. Church historian, frankly, DeRitchert's president, the genealogical society of Utah is the largest genealogy organization in the world, includes familysearch.org. Why is the Mormon church so interested in genealogy? Well, baptism of the dead. Gotta find them. Gotta find more dead people to baptize. By 1894, the church of the Latter-day Saints

has over 200,000 members. On June 9th, 1895 in Canada, the Cardsten Alberta stake organizes the first stake outside the US. And a stake, by the way, I keep mentioning, is an administrative unit composed of multiple congregations. January 4th, 1896 Utah is granted a statehood, right? They had to get rid of that polygamy thing

in order to get statehood. Nine months later, President Wilford Woodruff dies in San Francisco, September 2nd, 1898, after a failed bladder surgery, Woodruff son in law, Lorenzo Snow becomes president of the church and on September 13th, 1898, as is the custom the new president begins to have revelations. President Lorenzo Snow receives a revelation in St. George, prompting him to empathize

thizing. Something to Mormons are well known for today. The LDS church only teaches at tithing is 10%. Excuse me, the LDS church teaches that tithing is 10% of one's annual income. There we go. We're lying heavily on church records and countries that require far more disclosure than the US. Reuters estimates that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints brings in some $7 billion annually in ties. Also the church owns about $35 billion worth of temples and meeting houses around the world.

A lot of real estate. A lot of farms, ranches, shopping mills, shopping malls, other commercial ventures worth billions more. On October 10th, 1901, President Snow would die at the age of 87 of pneumonia. Seven days later, Joseph F. Smith becomes the sixth president of the church, Joseph was the son of Hiram Smith, the prophet's brother. In 1904, with continuing pressure from the U.S. government, the church threatens polygamous with excommunication.

They got knock it off, guys. Got to stop it. Uh, on April 27th, 1915, the first presidency announces the beginning of a practice known as home evening, encouraging families to gather together weekly to study the gospel. November 19th, 1918, President Joseph Smith dies of pneumonia from a resulting from pleuracy in Salt Lake City due to the widespread influenza pandemic of 1918, 1920, a grave side service is held rather than a public funeral. November 23rd at 1918, heber J. Grant becomes seventh president of the church.

November 27th, 1919, the first temple outside of the Connell US is dedicated in Hawaii, less than four years later to get going to Canada. 1929, the Morbin Tabernacle Choir starts a weekly network radio broadcast on NBC. The program still airs today, April of 1936 to combat the depression. The church security security program is founded becomes the church welfare program. 1947 membership reaches a million. 53 of federal raid on the short Creek polygamist community creates mass sympathy for practitioners of plural marriage.

And the LDS church stops cooperating with these prosecutions. Still dealing with this polygamy situation. Starting on September 11, 1955, the first temple in Europe is dedicated in Switzerland. Lesson three years later, New Zealand gets a temple. The 1966 Brazil gets a stake. 1970, another president is, you know, is named Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. becomes president of the church. March 15th, 1970, we get a stake in Japan, first taken Asia. Days later, the Transvall South Africa State

is established, first one in Africa. 1972, Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. dies. Five days later, Harold B. Lee becomes the 11th president of the church. Spencer W. Kimball becomes 12th president in 1973. Two revelations added to the pearl of great price in April on April 3rd, 1976, the vision of the Celestial Kingdom, given in 1836 the original Prophet Joseph Smith, that for some reason never appeared in print before. It's odd. The vision of the redemption of the dead,

given in 1918 to President Joseph F. Smith, then a very major change to the church happens on June 8th, 1978. The priesthood restriction ends. The first presidency announced that all worthy males without regard to race can now hold the priesthood. We mentioned this before, prior to this, this was pretty shady. The LDS church taught that black individuals

pre-existent spirits were not as virtuous as white, pre-existent spirits. To this day, the Mormon church is an exceptionally white religion. Oh my heck! Teeny bit racist. Maybe should have been addressed like long before 1978. Mormons believe black people to have the curse and mark of cane.

Basically for decades, the Mormons talked mad bull crap about how black people were living representations of the devil, not a good flip and look. Yikes. Fundamentalist off she would still preach just today on April 3, 191, the threefold mission of the church as oriented by President Spencer W. Kimball outlines a three major elements of the mission of the church. The first to proclaim the gospel. Second, perfect the Saints and the third to redeem the dead. On September 1st, 1991, new additions of the Book of Mormon, Dr. and Covenant's Pearl-A-Great Price, or published in English, 1997, church membership

balloons to 10 million. And in 2000, 100 million copies of the Book of Mormon's published. Also in 2000, the Boston Massachusetts Temple is dedicated, meeting a goal announced in 1998 to have a hundred operating temples by the end of 2000. In 2001, Gordon B. Hankley, 15th President of the Church, is announced. February 8th, 2002, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, sings at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In 2004, it's declared that Mexico is the first country outside the US to reach

a million members of the Mormon Church. In 2005, the church commemorates the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 2008, Thomas S. Monson. Monson, excuse me, becomes 16th President. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, the Mormon Church would continue its incredible growth. In 2012, President Thomas S. Monscer announces a change in the age of eligibility for missionary service, 18 years for dudes,

19 years for ladies. The LDS church strongly encourages, but does not require missionary service, by the way, for young men and women. Men typically go on a two year mission, 18 months for women, and in my experience, they seem to be forced to wear cheap suits and ride bikes while wearing those suits no matter how hot it is because God wants them to look

like silly A-holes. Oh my heck! Sorry, that was some of the language. I think. Can I say A-holes? It's kind of confusing. On January 14, 2018, Russell M. Nelson ordained, set apart on January or excuse me, as he churches 17th president, he's currently serving, and whoo, my heck, we are all caught up. Let's get the, let's get the gosh darn flip out of this flip and timeline and learn some new stuff. Good job, soldier. You've made it back.

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are experts in their fields. For a limited time only, meat sacks get a full month of unlimited access to the great courses plus for free. My heck, that's a good deal. To get this special offer, you need to sign up to my special URL, the great courses plus dot com slash time suck. That's the great courses plus dot com slash time suck. Do not miss out. Sign up for the great courses plus today link in the episode description more Mormonism right now Because now you know more or less the history of the LDS. I have zero doubt. I will get emails Some Mormons who think that a lot of what I said was extremely offensive and categorically incorrect

And then I'll get emails from non- Mormons who think that I wasn't harsh enough about various aspects of church history Digging into the history of the LDS is very tricky because there are so many pro LDS websites out there, very good websites that seem nearly singularly devoted to teaching a sanitized version of Mormon history. What's that saying? History is written by the winners and the Mormons are winning right now. Mormonism is the fastest growing faith group in the American, American history. According to a US news and according to US news and world report, which reports that

if present trends continue, there will be 265 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide by 2018. And they're really good at adapting to the present time and sweeping past mistakes under the rug. But I don't think they have more moral problems than any other religions. Not now. Are they sexist? Yes.

So is Islam. So is Christianity. Show is Judaism. All Western religions are patriarchal. Are they pretty homophobic? Yep. But so again, or the other Western religions for the most part.

Do they believe in some things that make absolutely no sense to me? Yeah. Big time. Big time. But still to people from every other different faith in the world. While I think that the Mormon Church has been super culting the past, I don't think the mainstream church

is that culty now, maybe a little cult light. I absolutely think that Joseph Smith was a cult leader. No different from like a David Kresh, but I also think long after his death, his cult was able to transform into a religion. Most of the Mormons, I know, pretty casual with it, just like most Christians, et cetera. And those people, I don't think are culty at all.

They're just, they're religious. But like all religions, Mormonism has extremists. And the most extreme of the bunch are the FLDS. Oh boy, the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and forget Flip and forget Heck, potty language trigger alert. The leaders of this church are dangerous fucking assholes. The FLDS has some seriously disturbing problems

and they're not associated by the way with the LDS. Let's look at the main details and major differences between the two, between the mainstream LDS and the very wacky doodle FLDS and briefly meet their leader, Warren Jess, as well as some brave survivors who manage to escape from what can only be called a cult. Do you even cult, bro? Fuck yeah, you do. If you're FLDS.

Although we know now that the S LDS or the LDS, excuse me, church has a long history of polygamy, we also know it has been officially called off for over 125 years. However, a comparatively small number of fundamentalists still practice plural marriage. Hello sister wives, which is a horrible term by the way. Makes us sound like you're fucking not one but numerous siblings. If you have more than one wife and your wives call themselves sisters and they dress

like they just left in 1850s wagon train and you think you're gonna be God and that you're gonna impregnate these sister wives not just in this life but in the next where they will make spirit babies for a new earth. Well you might be FDL FLDS. Just kidding. You for sure are FLDS. Steph Cox, you're scurvy everybody. Apparently he's trying to branch out from, so you, uh, from some of you might be killer jokes, working on some new material, uh, stick to true crime, Steph, get back to the chuckle slot. Get out of here. The F LDS, which by the way, that acronym never rolls off the tongue smoothly for me.

Not sanctioned anyway by the LDS, according to the official LDS website, there's no such thing as a fundamentalist Mormon. No members of the LDS can enter into polygamy now without being excommunicated. Polygamous groups in Utah, other parts of the American West elsewhere have nothing to do with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now, due to the secretive nature of the FLDS, the exact number of its members is unknown, but the number is estimated to be between 6,000 and 10,000 Wacadidals. These members primarily reside in Hilldale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, which are essentially the same town. Only a state line divides them.

And this is very intentional. In the past, as we've learned in previous sucks, one way to avoid law enforcement is to cross state lines. Unless the feds get involved, it makes it harder to make arrests. And why would they need to bounce back and forth across state lines to hide from the law? Mostly polygamy. Also underage brides, AKA child molestation, rape. Hilldale was founded by the FLDS called at the time the council of friends in 1913. Colorado City founded the same year by the same group originally both called both short Creek and the short

Creek community. The current population of Colorado City just under 5,000 and the current population of Hilldale is around 3,000. And current population of Hildale is around 3,000. And if you'll recall, from a few moments ago, the current number of FLDS members is between 6,000, and most then live in either Hildale, Hildale or Colorado City. So pretty clear that these are company towns and the company is the FLDS. And there is story after story after story of young men being excommunicated by the FLDS and essentially kicked the fuck out of their hometown because no one there will help them or hire them or rent to them, stories of police harassing them,

etc. Stories of girls who don't agree to be essentially sex trafficked creepy old men also being excommunicated or trapped in homes and held hostage. You know, again, or again, or kicked out into a world where they had no, no one and have no job skills. These towns are fucking horrible. They're two of the worst towns in America. And that is why I like to take a hammer to the dicks of every elder bishop and whatever

of other fucking stupid titles their leaders have that these polygamous give themselves. Flip in, fuck them. Besides polygamy, there's some other differences between LDS and the FLDS leadership, while the LDS is current leader, Russell M. Nelson is the pillar of his community, the FLDS leader Warren Jess is serving a life sentence in prison. Well, almost. He's eligible for parole eventually, but almost going to be in prison for life for sexually assaulting minors among other things.

Jeff's married both to 12 year old and a 15 year old girl amongst other crimes. I'm sure there's plenty of other things we don't know about. He had a child with the 15 year old caught on tape engaged in sexual acts with the 12 year old. For these crimes, he's serving, yeah, again, a lot of time in prison where I hope someone is, you know, violently raping him and making him eat their shit. Showbiz! At least 11 other FLDS men faced similar charges

despite the serious nature of Jeff's crimes and despite his physical confinement to a prison in Texas. Many of his followers remained devoted to him. Why? Because he's a cult leader. He was brainwashed him. While in prison, check this out. Jeff's wrote a book called Jesus Christ Message to All Nations. In this book he claims, you know, Jesus,

you know, he's giving these messages directly and you know, and Jesus is telling people to continue, you know, having child brides and even like more crazy stuff. The balls on this pedophile, I wonder if Jesus told GFs to get his dick wet with underage pussy, right before. Go forth and get die, we ain't wet. With the sacrament of 12-year-old vagina.

So say it's a Lord. Doesn't sound like Jesus. More on that in Jehovah's and just a bit here. Racism is another big difference between the LDS and their bastard cousins and the FLDS. Mormons have their history of racist beliefs. Lot of religions too, as we already know. The FLDS still blatantly is racist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has added the FLDS still blatantly is racist. The Southern poverty law center has added the FLDS to their list of hate groups. And yes, I know the SPLC is having their own problems right now. And they get a little loose with who they call a hate group. This one's warranted. The FLDS is against interracial marriage officially. In 1995, in an FLDS priesthood class, the teacher said the following, he came, uh, referring to Kane was cursed with a black skin. And he is the father of the Negro people. He used, he is used by the devil as a mortal man to do great evils.

If you young people were to marry a Negro, you cannot be a priesthood person, even if you repented, you could not stay in this work. Now it's said not in 1895, but in 1995, oh my fucking heck. There's more differences. When it comes to the LGBT folks, neither the LDS or the FLDS are great, both are against acting on natural homosexual impulses, but the FLDS takes their lack of understanding the world around them to a whole other extreme. According to multiple sources, Warren Jeff said the following, the people grew so evil,

the men started to marry the men and the women married the women this is the worst evil act you can do next to murder it is like murder whenever people commit that sin the Lord destroys them. No, they don't. Lord doesn't destroy me. Have you been to West Hollywood Hollywood? Those guys are fucking buff having a great time. Very alive.

A dude who leads them now said this, and again, the balls for a kid fucker to call out adults engaging in consensual sexual acts as being sinful is unbelievable. While many religious groups condemn homosexuality most not compared to murder, LDS members who experience same-sex attraction can remain in good standing with the church if they do not act on those desires, still fucked. This attitude frequently forces LGBTQ LDS members to choose between their identity and their community. But again, it's not as bad as comparing gay marriage to literal murder. To go along with racism and homophobia, the FLDS is still very sexist. It practices a thing called placement marriage,

which the LDS does not. Placement marriage is exactly what it sounds like. It's modern day arranged marriage. And sometimes, you know, men's forced marriages or forced marriages with children involved, you know, child brides. The practice dates back to the 1940s, at least. And these marriages are decided by the priesthood council, aka the circle of curves, Because when we get into the priesthood council, seen as a prerequisite for salvation, the arrangements are usually accepted. These poor girls are told they will be a, like a son of tradition,

you will be without God forever, unless you marry this creepy old fuck. These marriages can be between teenage girls and much, much older men. We'll learn about some of that in a bit here. People who never met each other before, often involves men who are already married. How do you know you're for sure in a cult when your religious beliefs include young girls being pushed into arranged marriages with old dudes?

And historic, the main motivation for co-leaders has seemed to be to be able to openly fuck numerous young women. Is God leading dudes into forming cults or is hard dick leading dudes into forming cults or worst case this god Have the hardest dick of all and these co-leaders are just following on God's plan and God's plan is mostly about getting some young Puss. I hope that's not the case. I hope a pervian maniac isn't controlling the universe Members of the LDS are not arranged into marriages They are free to choose their own spouses, but are expected to participate in supervised group dates and have relationships within the faith and delay sex until after marriage.

There are some other crazy rules. They're at an FLDS world. Kid toys are banned. So random. So is the consumption of corn for some reason? I don't know. Maybe they're just really into smooth cornless peanut, but but uh, showbiz. Uh, some other major differences are in the Mormon dress code.

LDS members are expected to dress conservatively, avoiding tattoos, dyed hair, revealing clothing, guidelines for missionaries are more extensive, but do allow for significant individual style choices. There's an official dress code for employees of the LDS church, which is recently loosened up. Women were previously restricted to skirts and dresses, now can wear pantsuits, ho ho, and dress slacks if they choose. Members of the LDS church have a far more restricted dress code. Women and girls have to wear prairie dresses,

and if we're bitten to cut their hair, can't wear makeup, can't wear the colors red or black, can't show any part of their bodies, including their ankles. Don't want to get the men folk all rolled up with those sexy ankles. I get it. Man, just thinking about Luciferin as hot bony ankles makes my clean wings so flip and hard. This dress code has remained more or less the same since 1950s.

You might be surprised to learn that there is any differences with the LFLDS and LDS where the FLDS is less restrictive, but there is, while the LDS church members are not permitted to consume tea alcohol, coffee, FLDS members have no restrictions. This might be because the FLDS split off from mainstream Mormon faith before these prohibitions were put into place, or maybe it's just like that because it's probably easier to get, you know, your child bride, I'll, I'll riled up for some molestation if you give her alcohol and soda pop. Fucking hate the FLDS.

It's leaders. Feel sorry for the rest. Another problem FLDS members are dealing with is the effects of inbreeding. Have you seen a picture of their leader Warren Jeffs? He for sure looks inbred, not kidding. He doesn't look right. Like he looks human-ish Looks like such a fucking weirdo

Due to a limited FLDS genetic pool some of the children of the organization actually have an auto Somal recessive Metabolic disorder called a fumarase deficiency the condition colloquially known as polygamist downs causes and celephalopathy Whoo and cephalopathy there we go and cephalopathy severe intellectual disability unusual facial features look at chefs Brain malformation and epileptic seizures this condition which until 1990 had appeared only in 13 people ever worldwide Has now appeared in 20 members at least of the

FLDS community. Flip and H.E. double fucking hockey sticks. Keepers creepers. Another major difference between LDS and the FLDS is blood atonement. Blood atonement is the idea that certain sins are so serious, they can only be at tone for when the sinner's blood is spilled. Now, this originated with Brigham Young within the mainstream church, but the process has been discontinued, you know, sins young thought were deserving of blood atonement included

the mixing of the races, yikes, leaving the faith, theft, murder, fornication, and adultery. He thought that blood atonement should be done willingly, but if that wasn't the case, then a person should be held down and have their blood forced to be spilled, but with care and compassion. And again, the LDS disavowed this concept long ago, but Warren Jeff's leader of the FLDS has repeatedly alluded to this doctrine in his sermons. Another difference between the main church and their weird splinter group is that while LDS Mormons vote and US election, FLDS do not vote. Why? Because they're taught that Warren Jeff's, their current leader, is effectively the president of the United States.

As a result, why participate in some bogus election? Now, I wonder what they think about that now that he's in prison, right? Like I wonder if Warren occasionally tells the prison guards to let him out because he's just pardoned himself. Like, how far do they take this? Obviously the biggest difference between LDS and FLDS is the multi-wife thing. Let's get back to a polygamy. Let's meet some survivors.

Most of Warren Jeff's revelations as leader of the FLDS have been about polygamy. Of course they have. Here's a few of his revelations, things he has said, supposedly under these things God has told him to say, if a man espoused a virgin and desire to espouse another, then he is justified. He cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him, but he cannot commit adultery with that that belongs unto him and to no one else. If he have 10 virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery for they belong to him and they are given unto him. Therefore he is justified. If one or either of the 10 virgins after she is a spouse, she'll be with another man. She has committed adultery and she'll be destroyed

for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth according to my commandment. Whoa, flipping yikes. Dude, get to put their wings all over the place but women get destroyed if they sleep with more than one man. Loose a fiend and not a fan. And yeah, God's still talking like a old time he did.

Still weird. I mean, polygamy, always come from the same place. Fragile men's egos, fragile horny men's egos, the FLDS really into polygamy. There, there was an FLDS rule that says not only should you have multiple wives, but that it's actually a prerequisite for getting to the highest level of heaven. This rule was given by Warren Jeff's daddy, Rulon, Rulon Jeff's big time purf. Former church president, father to Warren Jeff's had around 75 wives. He was 92, uh, one point and one of his wives was 17. Yuck is fuck, but wait, it gets worse.

In 2015, Jeff's who has been behind bars since late 2006 and won't be eligible for parole until 2038 when he'll be 82, change sex laws again from prison had another revelation from God. Now, he says, marital sex is illegal. Yeah, it gets weirder. Right? According to a child custody petition filed in 2015 by Charlene Jeff, one of Warren Jeff's strange wives, under a new doctrine.

F LDS men are no longer permitted to have children with their multiple wives. That privilege now belongs to people called seed bearers. Right. It says, it is the husband's responsibility to hold the hands of their wives while the seed bearer spreads his seed in layman terms. The husband is required to sit in the room while the chosen seed bearer or a couple of them rape his wife or wives according to testimonial documents filed by Charlie man cult cult cults and if you're thinking why is he carrying prison?

Well, he's he's due to get out in a 2038 and he said in this revelation that when he gets out, he gets to be one of the seed bears, right? He's going to be horny and he's going to be ready to rumble. Sunday Sunday Sunday, 2038, it's the FLDS summer slam in one corner hundreds of mostly underage confused brainwash and probably scared young FLDS ladies. And in the other corner, hundreds of mostly underage, confused brainwash and probably scared young FLDS ladies! And in the other corner, we have a big bottle of Niagara and some 82 year old Warren Jeff's hard dick! Who gets covered in Jerry Atreco?

Everyone! Get your tickets now with the FLDS box office. It is all so flippin' crazy! Luckily some women have escaped from this cult. Here are just a few of their stories. Let's begin with one of Warren Jeff's former wives. I guess technically, it's trained wives. Lynette Warner.

Lynette Warner married Warren Jeff at 18. Her life became a series of traumas. She was secreted away to one of... Actually, she is a former wife, excuse me, not just separate and former. She was secreted away to one house of hiding after another. At age 26, when Jeff was finally jailed, putting solitary confinement in a trailer held hostage her own brother

Nailie in the window shut But she unscrewed and removed the trailer window ran barefoot until she reached the house So a man who had recently left the church her story has a happy ending She was ultimately taken in by Kristen Decker a woman who herself fled the FLDS and now helps other women in similar positions Through the sound choices coalition. Yay sound choices coalition. It's a 501c3 nonprofit organization that is dedicated to raising awareness and working

to end the damaging practices associated with polygamist cultures. You can donate to them if you wish. The next lady to escape was also connected to the Jeff's family. Rulon Jeff's 19th wife Rebecca Musser, who married Jeff when she was 19 and he was 85 gross. Escape just a church attempted to force her to remarry after Rulan died. She took a massive risk, put her own life in her hands, sneaking by armed guards at night. That's when you know your church is for sure, call it when fucking armed guards help

keep your members in. After escaping Musser has played an important role as a liaison between the FLDS community and the world at large. She is testified against Warren Jeffs, help law enforcement speak to victims after a raid on FLDS in 2008, Hail Rebecca. She also founded another nonprofit called Claim Red, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing dignity, hope and healing to the victims of human trafficking. Perhaps most famously she wore red one of those colors outlawed forbidden by the FLDS

for women to wear when she testified against Jeff's fuck yeah. Luciferina loves your strong ass. More insight into the cult of statistic morons comes from another escapee named Brenda Nicholson. If this is heaven and give me hell said Brenda about life in the FLDS in an interview with a media outlet called radar. She explained that because she wasn't from an elite family, her husband had only been one wife, which ultimately helped her escape.

Brenda struggled with whether she should leave, her children were the deciding factor, she worried about what the church exposed him to, describing a horrific scene of neighbors burying cats up to their necks, what? Before running them over with lawn-owers? What the, what the flip and shit? Mother! I want to join the FDOS. They get me mother.

No idea why that was done to the cats, that's just what she said. When Brenda realized that church was making moves to take away her children, she knew it was time to escape. She and her husband packed a van with blankets in her children in the middle of the night. Thankfully, they now live happily on the outside and have burned all of their FLDS books except one to remind them of adorable teachings. Even more insight comes from another brave escapee,

Alyssa Bisline. They treated us as slaves is how the fifth generation FLDS member Alyssa Bisline described her relationship with her stepfather's family to teen vogue. We lived in their basement and they worked us to death, she said. Bissline's father was kicked out of the church, her mother remarried to Jim Jessup, a higher ranking member of the cult. And that's another thing this cult is famous for is when like a higher ranking member

wants your wife, you get excommunicated, she gets forced to marry him. Bissline and her family reclassified his ex members placed in a vermin infested house that held 22 people. Luckily, around the same time, Biss line's father started sending back pay child support, which her mother contrary to church rules kept. She eventually bought phones and a laptop, basic connections to the outside world. The FLDS did not want them to have, of course, not cults cut off connection to the outside world. The very first thing we did was get on the internet and search FLDS escapees.

Alyssa told Teen Vogue. We started watching videos and we were amazed. People were leaving having a good life. Everyone for generations has been brainwashed to think life outside is horrible. Because it's so bad in the FLDS to imagine life outside is even worse was traumatizing. With the help of a lawyer,

Alyssa and her family were able to escape in the middle of the night, she and her mother had a 15 minute window to collect her brothers and get out. They spent the first three months of freedom watching movies, a well-earned catch-up on modern pop culture and a daily life outside the church. So many stories.

Here's just two more. 15 years old Susan Ray Schmidt married to a flip and fuckhead, named for land, LeBaron. He had a first child before he turned 16, lived in poverty and violence. LeBaron was involved in a fucking blood feud because these people lived like it's 1860 with his brother, which allegedly resulted in more than two dozen deaths over a decade. Apparently they just make up their own laws. And this giant FLDS compound pretending to be two border towns.

Having had enough violence and fear for the safety and future for children, Schmidt escaped with all five of her kids in 1976, now speaks out about polygamy and his dangers around the country. Last story, folks is on the escape of Irene Spencer. She was the mother of 14 children. Her husband had a total of 58 escaped after 24 years,

but it took a lot to get there. Her husband also, Verlana LeBaron, the blood-fued guy. When asked why I took her so long to flee, she told a journalist, I stayed because of fear. Fear that I'd be damned, fear I'd be known as a traitor to my group, fear of the unknown. I'd only had a ninth grade education. I could not go into a foreign environment

and make it on my own. I feared going on welfare, believing I'd implicate my husband. I feared the wicked outsiders. After all, we were God's chosen few. I was 40 years old before I even got a driver's license. So flipping sad with these women were taught to think about the world so much suffering, just with some shitty dudes could fuck who they wanted to.

The stories are heartbreaking. And now that we've looked into the world of the FLDS from the ladies perspective, let's look a bit deeper into their leader, Warren Jeffs, walking pro-lapt Anus, known as the Prophet of the FLDS, born December 3rd, 1955 in Sacramento, Jeffs grew up in the fundamentalist church of the Jesus Christ of Letter-day Saints community. As we already mentioned, his father, Rulon had all the wives, as many as 50 to 75 dozens of children during his lifetime. Warren was born more than two months prematurely in his survival led to him being seen as a golden child.

He grew up outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, and for more than 20 years served as the principal of all to academy in FLDS private school that existed in that area. There are still little pligumist sex around Salt Lake City. They try to stay quiet because, you know, they don't want to be shut down. Warren was known into school for being a stickler the S private school that existed in that area, there are still little pligumus sex around Salt Lake City. They try to stay quiet because, you know, they don't want to be shut down. Warren was known into school for being a stickler for the rules and for discipline.

And I'm guessing for trying to look up the skirts, twins. And yes, not all of the FLDS live or have lived in Hilldale, Utah or Colorado city, Arizona. Outside of his job responsibilities, Jeff was active in the church. When Rulon became the new FLDS prophet in 86, he changed the structure of the FLDS, eliminating its counsel, placing himself as the only leader, cult, cult. In the late 90s, Rulon's hell started to decline and warned position himself as a successor, took over as his father spokesperson after Rulon's self-reduced serious stroke. In 2002, Jeff's took the reins of the FLDS when Rulan died, became the group's new profit,

gave him control over its property, as well as its followers. Early in his tenure, Jeffs decided to marry some of his father's wives, also sought out a place for another FLDS community in West Texas. West Texas, Jeffs established a yearning for Zion Ranch, more like yearning for so many young women's vagina's ranch. More like yearning for so many young women's vagina's ranch. He showed himself to be ruthless and controlling excommunicating 21 men, of course, in 2004 for quote unquote disobedience. I'm guessing it's because he wanted to take their ladies, even for the faithful Jewel, Jeff's ruled over nearly every aspect of their lives from the clothes

they wore to whom they should marry to what toys their kids could play with no television, no internet, no contact with the outside world. Jeff's first gain notoriety in 2006, when the FBI placed him on his 10 most wanted list for arranging marriages between his followers and underage girls. Although his 2007 conviction for accessory to rape was overturned, a 2008 raid on the FDL's FLDS compound in Texas resulted in evidence of the assault of underage girls resulting in a 2011 sense of life and Prismate for the FLDS leader, but again, he'll be able to get out in 2038 Some of the most damning evidence came from Jeff's own records

He had a habit of having his wives right down all of his activities He kept journals made audio tapes and there's a tape of an assault on a 12-year-old girl played during his trial excerpts from his records were read aloud stuff like if the world knew what I was doing they would hang me from the highest tree to bed that didn't happen. Servant is his own attorney. Jeff's amount of the weak defense. He rambled in court reading the length of the book of Mormon used most of the half hour

allotted for his closing arguments to standing before the jury in awkward silence. It was revealed during the proceedings that he had more than 70 legal marriages, as many as a third of which were with underage girls. He is currently serving as scents in powerlidge prison, your Palestine, Texas, far from a model prison. He's gone on hunger strikes, even attempted suicide. Doesn't feel very profit like to make you hate him even more in 2015. Two of Warren Jeff's children, daughter Becky and son Roy, came out to CNN's Lisa Ling, accusing their father of molesting them when they were younger. Becky said of her father, he realized he had so much power.

What should I do with all this power? I can do anything I want. And he did. And it went the wrong way. Wow. What a tale. The LDS interesting history. Good people overall, highly questionable origin the F LDS fucking trash

To recap today There are somewhere near 14 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ the latter day saints worldwide with more church members living outside than inside the US now The community of Christ also has about you know quarter of a million members in Also has about a quarter of a million members. In addition, a variety of Mormon fundamentalist groups continue to practice polygamy. They estimate the total number of all Mormon fundamentalists in various little sex is between 30 and 60,000. That's terrible.

How scary is that? Warren Jeff is the head of only one polygamous offshoot. We don't know how many others there are. We won't know until Morgan get arrested because they hide. I can keep talking about this forever. I know it's already been a long man. I think we've gone over more than enough info to get a much better understanding of what Mormonism is about for the uninformed. I know I learned a heck ton of flipping info. Before I go to takeaways, let me just say again, I know there's a lot of nice Mormons out there. And while the religion has a bit of a shady past and some shady aspects today, other more other religions do as well.

While I think they for sure started off as a cult, I also think that the mainstream church is no longer cult like and pretty mainstream religion now. Do they still weird me out? Yeah. But again, so do a lot of non-mormon people. I love you, Mormon suckers. If you do bounce out of here, don't forget to baptize me when I'm dead and gone. Time now for a flip and top five takeaways.

Oh my heck. Time suck, top five takeaways. Number one, all of this started when one 19th century teenager had a religious vision or didn't. Joseph Smith was a son of a woman who wanted someone to be told by God to change the Christian church, the son of a father who used a seer stone as a treasure hunter raised in an extremely wacky noodle household group and a place

to burn over district where religious fervor led many to suddenly have visions. It's like he was destined to create a new religion, but maybe by circumstance and not by God. Number two, gold is flipping heavy. There's no way, there's no way. This Smith, you know, threw 200 pounds of magic golden tablet gold under his arm and ran for three miles, unless God helped. And too bad that Jesus dear wasn't around to help him carry that load. Number three, Smith didn't even need the golden tablet, so why did he give him the first place? He used a magic hat and some seer stones, and then God apparently made parchment appear with words on it.

What? The flip. He used a magic hat and some sear stones and then God apparently made parchment appear with words on it what the flip Love a lot of mornings. Don't care for this origin story. Oh my god If this story was turned into a movie, there's no way it's getting more than 10% approval on rotten tomatoes poor writing Number four the FLDS not a good look From child brides to violence to complete sexual insanity others jail jailed leader, the brainwashing of their victims. It's sad to know cults like this are still active in America. And number five, new info.

The Catholic Church has obviously poorly handled many past instances of sexual abuse at the hands of its priests. They've tried to cover it up. This is documented. Well, many now fear the same thing has been going on within the Mormon church. And that massive child sexual abuse cases may come to light in the coming years. And that the Mormon church may have covered them up. Just this year, vice reported that the Mormon church has been accused of using a sexual assault victim's hotline to protect the church from lawsuits. Abuse victims call in, operators tell them not to contact authorities so that the church can handle things in house. Since 1995 the Mormon church, as it's commonly called, has operated 24 hour hotline for bishops, other leaders to call in if they hear reports of abuse. And according to vice, church officials insist the hotline is used

to advise bishops about local abuse reporting laws, but through a recent lawsuit and other documents obtained by the outlet, vice has reported that the hotline is really used to snuff out complaints and keep lawsuits from happening, make them go away. Last year, the church settled the lawsuit, raised by six families connected to a Mormon congregation in West Virginia according to vice, at least three of the families said their children were molested by Michael Jensen,

son of a prominent local Mormon family, and that the church knew he was a predator but didn't report into police. The lawsuit has since been settled for an undisclosed sum. The church has officially denied coverups, but our new scandals on the horizon, not just for the F LDS, but for the LDS as well. Now this huge, huge topic has been sucked, man. Whoo! That was the biggest one yet. I might have to do a little one next time,

get myself a break. I think it's some real fun emails this week, such a long suck, and we barely examine the tip of the theological iceberg that is Mormonism. Thank you to the time sucked teams. Thanks to Queen of the Suck Lindsey Cummins, high priest of the Suck Harmony Vella Camp, Reverend Dr. Joe Horsecock Johnson-Paisley,

thanks to Biddle Lixter, did another round of beta testing and the big problem fixed. Oh man, I hope it's out and, you know, very soon, hopefully in a couple of days, if there was no unexpected glitch coming, thanks also to Axis Apparel, Scripp Keeper Zach Flanneryery. Next week we got a murder mystery. The most famous one since the black doll, you the case of Janon, Janon, the case of Janon. You

didn't have heard of it. John Bonet Ramsey. Young beauty queen, John Bonet Ramsey born on August 6, 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of affluent parents, Patsy and John. John Bonet only six years old when she was murdered in her Boulder, Colorado home, December 26, 1996. Her murder still unsolved, became one of the decades most famous police investigations, still seeing her face on tablets at the grocery store to this day. In 2008, new DNA technology helped absolve the Ramsey family from any wrongdoing in her murder or did it. Many still want more testing to be taking place. We're going to look into this crime of suspects and the media's ongoing fascination next week, time now for Time Sucker and stick around for that scared to death trailer at the end of

this suck. First update is from Time Sucker and Spaces or Cody Platner with a spooky story update just in time for the launch of Scared of Death. Cody writes, Dear Master Sucker, this is my first time leaving a message and with the upcoming release of Scared of Death I felt this was a good time. I'll try to make this short but I'm going to share a first-hand experience of growing up in a haunted house. Being the youngest of five in the house I got the room, which was at the top of the stairs. I slept where you can see the top of the stairs and being in an old house, everything creaked.

One night, I was almost asleep and I heard the stairs creak. I looked to see who it was and it wasn't family, but a woman. Completely white, long white hair, long white night gown, she was headed down the stairs. Being about eight or nine at the time, I threw blankets over night gown, she was headed down the stairs. Being about eight or nine at the time, I threw blankets over my head, tried not to make a sound. I never told anyone about what I'd witnessed. But then about a year later,

my dad started to remodel the upstairs because, you know, old house. So that pushed me out of my room by myself. My oldest brother got a room by himself. He was an artist, related to become a tattoo artist. One day, I'm looking through his drawings and come across a picture of the exact woman.

I'd seen the top of the stairs, I asked him about it, and he told me he sees her every night around 2 a.m. headed downstairs. Ah! That's when I finally confessed to seeing her myself. Still creeps me out thinking about that house. Luckily, we moved when I was 12,

but I've got so many stories. Sorry for a long message, but I thought you might enjoy it. Hit me up if you want more stories from flying heads to Ouija boards to my sister being grabbed to the point of bruising your loyal lizard Cody. Wow, flipping yikes, heck a scary.

Seriously man, that is scary. Man, you find your brother's drawing like that and having your brother tell you that he was seeing it too when you didn't talk to anybody, and even more happened. Feel like your story could be a scare to death story. I got chills, my friend, gave me some chills. Glad you're no longer there. Very interesting message coming in now

from Time Sucker, Jacob W. Jacob writes, master of mush mouth, I know it's terrible and gross, but I wanted to explain mine and possibly Albert Fish's peanut butter eating. Since a young age, I've always enjoyed stinkier, filthy things. I hated taking showers as I actually enjoyed my body odor and dirt between my toes.

Over time, this became something I tried to hide and enjoy by myself until mom forced me to take a bath. Dirt became taboo because she knew I avoided wash and so often. Maybe Albert had a similar situation. Finally one day in medical school or finally, sorry, finally one day in middle school, I was feeling impulsive and anxious while walking to the bus stop. Couldn't help myself when I saw a dog turned and I popped, and I popped a small piece into my mouth. I don't want to ramble on, this became a new fix and it's grown into a fetish. I now have a wife and family and have to hide my fetish. We meet again for 10 years and she knows nothing about this.

I'm a normal guy in all of her aspects, but for some reason I enjoy the secrecy, stigma, and stink of feces in my mouth. If you've made it this far, I just wanna say I fucking got you, you verbal swindler. I just figured it was high time someone yanked your chain since you sometimes lead us astray for fun. Keep on sucking, Dan, love you.

Love you, too, man. And the first time I read that, you for sure got me. I kept thinking, don't judge. Don't kink shame. He's not hurting anyone. Well, maybe he's hurting himself, but I'm not a doctor.

Nice lie, my friend. Peanut, but but a show miss. I think you just got a bunch of other suckers as well. Sure, you had some people gagging, listen to that. Another message made me laugh so hard. Sending for meat, sack, and spaces are Greg Stosich. Greg writes, Dan, you smooth mother sucker, you got me good.

I was listening to the most recent time sick in my car when I got to the point where you were about to tell me how to fuck a squirrel. Ha, ha, ha. I had just arrived at my destination. Snake River, Cardio Vascular, and Pulmonary Testing Center. Yes, I tuned for my dough. Stop the podcast.

See, look at a good place to stop. Text to my wife to let her know where I was, headed back inside or headed inside, excuse me, as I was talking to the receptionist. My wife texted me. And for some reason, this caused my phone to resume playing time suck. I was on a pretty quick, but it full volume in a medical office reception room, something along the lines of proceeded to widen the anus, came out of my pocket. I've been a big fan of your comedy since crazy with the Capitol F and a listener of Time

Sucks and Flat Earth fuckery. Oh, man, thank you. Finally, became a space, this month, and I have been meaning to write you several times. This seemed like the kind of thing that would bring a smile to that sucking face of yours. Oh boy, sure did. I had to tell you, thanks for doing all that you do. I'm sure this won't be the last time you hear from me. Your loyal space lizard, Greg Stosich, holy shit, Greg.

Oh, frickin' heck. I shared that story with Joe, Lindsey, Harmony, and Zach, and we all laughed so hard. I can picture exactly how awkward that must have been and it's delicious. Finally, last update of Time Sucker writes, what's crackin' lackin' master sucker Dan? Your podcast has been basically taken over my life since June when I went on a Tinder date with my current boyfriend.

I made a joke about him being the next Ted Bundy and we spent forever that night talking about our fast nation with serial killers and dark knowledge. He then told me about your podcast and I've been hooked ever since. So thank you for sparking our relationship I've been trying to catch up on your episodes so I can talk to him about them

And I'm currently on the Hatfield and McCoy episode I should also mention that I just got my tonsils out last week and I'm very much still on pain medication Now I know you were confused trying to explain it But just try imagine listing that already confusing suck highest shit Listing that episode gave me actual flashbacks to high school calculus, not knowing what the fuck was going on. Anyways, I probably won't make it into the next time sucker updates,

but I thought you would get a good laugh out of my confused high ass. Well, Brianna E, you did make it and I did laugh. I bet that was confusing as heck. Keep letting time suck take over your life. And I love that your boyfriend shared it with you. The couples, it sucks together, stays together. pack. Keep letting time suck take over your life and I love that your boyfriend shared it with you. The couples, it sucks together stays together.

Thank you everyone for listening to this massive suck and I'll talk to you next week here on Time Suck. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Have a great week. Let me know if you if you talked to any deer finding a very treasure with a steershtone Keep on flaring a second and check out the scared to death trader and then listen when this comes out tomorrow you guys

Who gets covered in Jerry Atrecha? Everyone! I've always loved a scary story. He and his kids see a black shape moving from room to room to room. Oh my god. And I really love sharing a terrifying tale with someone else. Stephen yelled at his kids to get in the car. Get the fuck out of there! Runs to the car himself as they drive away Matthew yells from the backseat daddy

The basement monster is standing in the upstairs window when Steven looks back sure enough He sees the black form of a man standing in the window watching the moon. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god I think it's here. What true horror fan doesn't like getting some goosebumps as he walks He screams it's the devil's, it's the devil's blood! It's the devil's blood! What the fuck? Covered in blood, walking down the streets in the middle of the night like that.

You feel so alive, you're scared, you're adrenaline. You're feeling that maybe someone or something is watching. Another psychic told Helen about Shirley, a woman who had tried to give herself an abortion in the 70s in that house. It was supposedly Shirley's baby that Helen had once seen hanging in a tree in front of the home.

Each week on Scared of Death, I share two tales of claim to be true, personal accounts of terror, hold from old books, new books, creepy corners of the web, and I tell those tales in a darkened studio surrounded by objects that he called across the street from a cemetery, telling them to my wife Lindsay, knowing that if I can scare her, I can scare you. What would mean that this killer had been hiding in the attic for over six months?

Just wait. Sometimes I think I'm gonna end up scared myself a little more than my wife. And Steven's dad grabs her arm. Oh my god, the guy in the flannel shirt. What you're doing? Uhhh. He was pretty me out.

God dang it, now I have goosebumps. So please, join us each week. New episodes drop Tuesdays at midnight, or Tales of Demonic Possession. Holtergeist, Shadow People, Alien Abduction, Scriptids, and more. Tales that I hope leave you feeling scared to death. No one can-

Oh, Jesus Christ!