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| | Author | Messages | |
stillhere21
Posts:70
 | | 10/15/2007 2:36 PM |
 Alert | | I have been reading up on this on the internet (I know, not the most reliable place) but thought maybe someone who is LDS could answer my question. Thanks! | | | |
| | JasonY
Posts:1973
| | 10/15/2007 3:43 PM |
Alert | | I'm not Mormon, but what would this have anything to do with LDS? | |
"Your village called.........they're missing their idiot" | |
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| | AuntieEm
Posts:159
| | 10/15/2007 5:04 PM |
Alert | | Because Joseph Smith founded the LDS church. | |
I'm walking 60 miles over three days in the Arizona Breast Cancer 3-Day because everyone deserves a lifetime! http://08.the3day.org/goto/emma | |
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| | qwerty
Posts:135
| | 10/15/2007 8:25 PM |
Alert | No idea if Joseph Smith was bipolar and because he lived so long ago how would anyone know and really be able to give a legitimate diagnosis.
AuntieEm - are you saying that people with bipolar disorder can't be founders of religion? I would think you should base your opinion on someone's teachings, not their speculated mental state. | | | |
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| | drummer72
Posts:3153
| | 10/15/2007 9:02 PM |
Alert | | Depends on what kind of day that person was having at the time of said"writings". | |
I'd rather live one day as a lion, than my whole life as a lamb. | |
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| | JasonY
Posts:1973
| | 10/16/2007 7:30 AM |
Alert | | Peyote? | |
"Your village called.........they're missing their idiot" | |
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|  | AuntieEm
Posts:159
| | 10/16/2007 12:14 PM |
Alert | Posted By qwerty on 10/15/2007 8:25 PM
No idea if Joseph Smith was bipolar and because he lived so long ago how would anyone know and really be able to give a legitimate diagnosis.
AuntieEm - are you saying that people with bipolar disorder can't be founders of religion? I would think you should base your opinion on someone's teachings, not their speculated mental state.
What are you talking about? JasonY asked a question as to why the original post had anything to do with LDS, and I responded. You need to take a chill pill.
And I do base my opinion on the LDS church by it's teachings, and not anything else. Thank you very much. | |
I'm walking 60 miles over three days in the Arizona Breast Cancer 3-Day because everyone deserves a lifetime! http://08.the3day.org/goto/emma | |
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| | qwerty
Posts:135
| | 10/16/2007 12:56 PM |
Alert | Posted By AuntieEm on 10/16/2007 12:14 PM Posted By qwerty on 10/15/2007 8:25 PM
No idea if Joseph Smith was bipolar and because he lived so long ago how would anyone know and really be able to give a legitimate diagnosis.
AuntieEm - are you saying that people with bipolar disorder can't be founders of religion? I would think you should base your opinion on someone's teachings, not their speculated mental state. What are you talking about? JasonY asked a question as to why the original post had anything to do with LDS, and I responded. You need to take a chill pill.
You're right. I shouldn't have assumed the intention of your post. My bad. | | | |
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| | stillhere21
Posts:70
| | 10/16/2007 1:55 PM |
Alert | | I have a relative who is bipolar. During one of his episodes, he had clear visions and was told in his visions that he was chosen to save the world. He tried to convince me that we needed to go at that moment (it was New Year's Eve) and save everybody. It was really scary. I just wondered if the same thing could have happened to Joseph Smith before there was a diagnosis. | | | |
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| | love@hm
Posts:476
| | 10/16/2007 4:07 PM |
Alert | Hallucinations are not associated with bipolar disorder, which is a form of depression. Are you certain you have your relative's diagnosis correct?
As for whether or not Joseph Smith has any disorder - no one could say at this point, if you don't believe he was a prophet just leave it be, if you do - then you have your reasons.
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| | love@hm
Posts:476
| | 10/16/2007 4:22 PM |
Alert | | Disregard - I did more research showing bipolar disorder can be accompanied by hallucinations. | | | |
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| | drummer72
Posts:3153
| | 10/17/2007 3:08 PM |
Alert | Posted By love@hm on 10/16/2007 4:22 PM
Disregard - I did more research showing bipolar disorder can be accompanied by hallucinations.
Hallucinations? Explains why the plates were there.
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I'd rather live one day as a lion, than my whole life as a lamb. | |
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| | JasonY
Posts:1973
| | 10/17/2007 3:46 PM |
Alert | | What's with all this plate talk? Is there some holy chinaware out there, waiting to be discovered? | |
"Your village called.........they're missing their idiot" | |
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| | Veritas
Posts:250
| | 10/17/2007 9:35 PM |
Alert | Posted By drummer72 on 10/17/2007 3:08 PM Posted By love@hm on 10/16/2007 4:22 PM
Disregard - I did more research showing bipolar disorder can be accompanied by hallucinations. Hallucinations? Explains why the plates were there.
I'll convert if someone can explain why the spectacles that God made for Joseph Smith, so that he could read the plates, made his eyes hurt. I can go to Wal Mart and get an optometrist to make glasses that don't hurt my eyes! Why worship a god who can't get my prescription correct? Also, why would putting rocks in your hat make for a better instrument for reading the golden plates? | | | |
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| | Copa Conscious
Posts:379
| | 10/18/2007 11:40 AM |
Alert | | Everyone knows that we all were all brought here by Xenu 75 million years ago. | | | |
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| | cg
Posts:6
| | 10/18/2007 9:27 PM |
Alert | Hi Stillhere21. First, I would like to commend you for your intelligence in seeking out answers from sources that would have credible answers. It is funny to me... if I wanted to know about the Catholic religion, I would not ask a Baptist. So, thanks for your honesty. As far as the bipolar thing, I don't know what the information you read is basing this off of, but I am not sure how you could determine that about someone who lived so long ago. I am not an expert on Joseph Smith, though my profession has lead me to study bipolar disorders and have a sister who is bipolar. From what I have studied about Joseph Smith, there is nothing in his character that would suggest this. There were not the mood swings, depressive episodes, etc.... If the only information they are basing this on is that he saw God, well then, I guess we have all been snowed and have followed bipolar prophets from the beginning of time...Moses saw a burning bush, Adam "walked with God", Noah had God telling him to build an ark, Samuel, at a very young age, heard God talk to him, oh, (and not to be sacreligious, and not to offend any religions, just speaking hypothetically) Mary had quite a story to tell, didn't she? We could go on and on. If this justifies Bipolar disorder, then the entire Christian faith has been based on visions of lunatics, right? But isn't this the way God has always worked? He has taken the small, the humble, the unassuming and made them great men and women. Even Christ himself was born of lowly circumstance, and in the jewish culture of the time, supposedly of sin.
The problem is, in my opinion, that we as a world no longer believe that God talks to his children. That to me, does not make God an unchangeable being.
It is kind of like Greek Mythology. If someone doesn't understand something, or it doesn't make sense to them, they begin to make things up to explain it.
Really what it boils down to is that if a religion is not of God, it will fail. If it is of God, we would all do well to seek it out and live it and it will endure the test of time, floursh and grow despite opposition. A long answer to your question, I know. My apologies. If you really want to know more about Joseph Smith, and this was not just a curiosity moment, let me know. Thanks for the opportunity to share. | | | |
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| | IrishCream
Posts:277
| | 10/18/2007 10:38 PM |
Alert | Ohhh, I love this stuff lol! Keep it coming!
There are many reaosns that any "particular" religion gets started. Any person with an ounce of sanity can see the Mormonism (along with quite a few other religions) was began by someone who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic!
Just saying.... | |
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
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| | cg
Posts:6
| | 10/19/2007 12:53 PM |
Alert | | Isn't it great we live in a free country and can worship who, where, or what we may? And isn't it great that as Christians we can learn to live as Christ did and love all men? I commend any religion that can bring their congregation to Christ and create true Christians in this world. Especially if they can do it on thier own merits, without disrespecting, degrading, or misinforming thier congregation on other religions to do so. More power to you!!! | | | |
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| | moinmoin
Posts:394
| | 10/20/2007 7:21 AM |
Alert | Non-Mormons have anxiously sought to explain away the existence and prosperity of Mormonism since its very beginnings, and various psychological explanations have been put forth as explanations when the usual “it’s a total joke/Joseph Smith was a charlatan/etc.” explanations collapse upon contact and familiarity with Mormons and Mormonism.
Mormon Church leader B. H. Roberts gave some insightful commentary in 1903 that has a bearing on the original question and comments on this thread:
“Ernest Renan, the French philosopher, when considering a similar hypothesis to account for the Lord Jesus Christ . . . [noted]:
‘It has never been given to the mere aberrations of the human mind to result in the establishment of permanent institutions that influence any considerable number of people.’
In other words . . . [mental illness] never crystallize[s] into rational religious institutions. [It] never crystallize[s] into great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men . . .
[The] following is [prominent psychiatry textbook author Charles L. Dana’s] definition of paranoia, a disease closely allied to that to which Mr. Riley (and modern critics) assumes Joseph Smith was subject:
‘. . . With some the symatized idea takes a religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take a devotional turn and the patient become an ascetic. It is not, however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religions and novel social ideas are paranoics . . . The characteristic of the paranoic is that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to receive. I do not class successful prophets and organizers like Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as paranoics. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak, and lack persistence in purpose or powers of execution’ ” [Charles Loomis Dana, "Textbook of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry," 6th ed., 1902, pp. 649-650].
(B. H. Roberts, “Defense of the Faith and the Saints,” [Provo: Maasai, 2002], pp. 26-27).
One need only objectively consider Mormonism’s organization, history, prosperity, results, and the quality and caliber of the people it has and continues to attract as converts to dispose of the various attempts to explain it away. Contact and familiarity with Mormon colleagues, neighbors, family members, and acquaintances remains the best answer to critics’ caricatures and perceptions of Mormons.
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| | Veritas
Posts:250
| | 10/20/2007 7:44 AM |
Alert | Posted By moinmoin on 10/20/2007 7:21 AM
Non-Mormons have anxiously sought to explain away the existence and prosperity of Mormonism since its very beginnings, and various psychological explanations have been put forth as explanations when the usual “it’s a total joke/Joseph Smith was a charlatan/etc.” explanations collapse upon contact and familiarity with Mormons and Mormonism.
One need only objectively consider Mormonism’s organization, history, prosperity, results, and the quality and caliber of the people it has and continues to attract as converts to dispose of the various attempts to explain it away. Contact and familiarity with Mormon colleagues, neighbors, family members, and acquaintances remains the best answer to critics’ caricatures and perceptions of Mormons.
So never mind the fact that there is not one piece of archaeological evidence for the story that the Book of Mormon promotes? Nothing.
You're telling me that I should judge the belief system because it has survived? because its people are nice? That is preposterous! A belief system must be judged on the character of its central figure(s) and the teachings of the same. What I am I to think of the more than 3,000 changes to the text of the Book of Mormon? Why is there a continuous need for god to get the revelation correct by having the council correct, edit, omit, add things to the BOM?
Posted By moinmoin on 10/20/2007 7:21 AM
Mormon Church leader B. H. Roberts gave some insightful commentary in 1903 that has a bearing on the original question and comments on this thread:
“Ernest Renan, the French philosopher, when considering a similar hypothesis to account for the Lord Jesus Christ . . . [noted]:
‘It has never been given to the mere aberrations of the human mind to result in the establishment of permanent institutions that influence any considerable number of people.’
In other words . . . [mental illness] never crystallize[s] into rational religious institutions. [It] never crystallize[s] into great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men . . .
[The] following is [prominent psychiatry textbook author Charles L. Dana’s] definition of paranoia, a disease closely allied to that to which Mr. Riley (and modern critics) assumes Joseph Smith was subject:
‘. . . With some the symatized idea takes a religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take a devotional turn and the patient become an ascetic. It is not, however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religions and novel social ideas are paranoics . . . The characteristic of the paranoic is that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to receive. I do not class successful prophets and organizers like Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as paranoics. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak, and lack persistence in purpose or powers of execution’ ” [Charles Loomis Dana, "Textbook of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry," 6th ed., 1902, pp. 649-650].
(B. H. Roberts, “Defense of the Faith and the Saints,” [Provo: Maasai, 2002], pp. 26-27).
So because insane people are not creative enough to make up a belief system, this makes all religion rational and therefore unassailable? Perhaps if someone OUTSIDE of Mormonism had made the connection that Roberts attempts to make, it could be taken seriously. EVERY belief system, or lack thereof, is OPEN to questioning. It is entirely unsound logic to claim immunity from investigation for any reason, much less the movement has survived and has lots of nice people in it.
With regard to insanity, it seems that some very "insane" people like Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot have had a great deal of lasting influence on humanity with their systems of government. NOT that I'm comparing them to Mormonism or any religion, but that as a case study in how the evil, and perhaps "insane" do indeed have the "creative" mental powers and "persistence in execution" to change human history. | | | |
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