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A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Category: Joseph Smith

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Is This What Joseph Smith Really Looked Like?

Holly, July 21, 2022July 31, 2022

A daguerreotype has been found that may well be an image of Joseph Smith. Joseph was 38 years old when he died; I suppose the photo looks like someone about that age, if they’d had a hard life. The man in the photo doesn’t look all that charismatic or appealing…

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Joseph Smith as Peeping Tom

Faraday, December 12, 2018

by “Faraday” This essay hopes to solve a great mystery: the origins of the naked part of the endowment. The mystery Most people know that the signs and tokens of the temple come from Freemasons. And the Adam and Eve part comes from the book of Genesis. But where do…

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Sunday in Outer Blogness: Sucked into the vortex edition!

chanson, March 8, 2015March 16, 2015

Remember the fun we had last week with creative apologetics? Well, this week we learned that it’s only fun and games until someone actually tries to follow the footnotes and gets sucked into the vortex! It started on a fascinating note as Runtu provided an detailed and specific analysis of…

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Sunday in Outer Blogness: Losing control of the story edition!

chanson, November 9, 2014

If you’re a faithful Mormon, there are a lot of possible ways to rationalize the various sticky issues of the CoJCoL-dS. Take the problem of Joseph Smith “marrying” a bunch of teenagers and married women, and lying to his wife and everyone else about it — it can be explained…

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Knowing Emma and Joseph’s History: A Response to the Speculative Essay on Early Polygamy– Alison Udall

Alison, October 31, 2014

It was really enjoyable to work my way through this. This is the first response I’ve done with these new church essays since I had read enough to be able to notice things that I recognized were missing, or implications that were being made that felt incomplete or inaccurate. As…

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Joseph vs. The Gold: Help me script it!

profxm, March 13, 2013March 5, 2013

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08wRRff8x0k Ever since seeing this not so good version on youtube, I’ve been wondering what a good recreation of the Joseph Smith run with the plates might look like.  It’s all based on Lucy Smith’s account: “The plates were secreted about three miles from home… Joseph, on coming to them,…

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SOME THINGS I HAVE LEARNED BY BEING GAY AND MORMON

Robin Johnson, January 2, 2013

SOME THINGS THAT I HAVE LEARNED One thing that I have learned is: although Gay people are born gay; when gays have gone through the process of: first denial, then self-loathing and other steps, and finally acceptances; then Gay people are ready to move on to healthy relationships.  Another thing…

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Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration (review)

Alex Hansen, March 19, 2012

For kicks, I decided to pass the time during my lazy, uneventful day off by watching Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration, a church-sponsored film about the life of Joseph Smith. I found it on YouTube, split into five pieces, each with a description of the video containing a…

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My place in Mormon history

chanson, March 29, 2011October 1, 2011

A lot of people — upon leaving the CoJCoL-dS — are amazed to discover how fascinating LDS church history really is. It’s not just that the whitewashed history in Sunday School is incomplete and inaccurate. It’s that you’re force-fed this watery-porridge version of church history that inoculates many people from…

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Mormon Times says religion can be bad, but not theirs

profxm, December 25, 2010August 9, 2011

I couldn’t help but stop by MormonTimes.com for this headline, “Elizabeth Smart case shows best and worst of religion’s influence“. I thought since Brian David Mitchell is a splinter from Mormonism the writers at MormonTimes might suggest something really “out there,” like, maybe, Mormonism can, in fact, be bad for…

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Latest Comments:

  1. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  2. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  3. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  4. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

  5. LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binaries – Main Street Plaza on It’s Time to Vote for the 2024 Brodie Awards!!!April 14, 2025

    […] sincere acceptance is not a priority. Fortunately, this is what he exemplifies in his memoir, the Brodie-nominated Boughs of…

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