Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

“Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be—but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition.”
― Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion

“But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.”
― Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

“Changing what we think is always a sticky process, especially when it comes to religion. When new information becomes available, we cringe under an orthodox mindset, particularly when we challenge ideas and beliefs that have been “set in stoneâ€� for decades. Thomas Kuhn coined the term paradigm shift to represent this often-painful transition to a new way of thinking in science. He argued that “normal scienceâ€� represented a consensus of thought among scientists when certain precepts were taken as truths during a given period. He believed that when new information emerges, old ideas clash with new ones, causing a crisis. Once the basic truths are challenged, the crisis ends in either revolution (where the information provides new understanding) or dismissal (where the information is rejected as unsound).
The information age that we live in today has likely surprised all of us as members of the LDS Church at one time or another as we encounter new ideas that revise or even contradict our previous understanding of various aspects of Church history and teachings. This experience is similar to that of the Copernican Revolution, which Kuhn uses as one of his primary examples to illustrate how a paradigm shift works. Using similar instruments and comparable celestial data as those before them, Copernicus and others revolutionized the heavens by describing the earth as orbiting the sun (heliocentric) rather than the sun as orbiting the earth (geocentric). Because the geocentric model was so ingrained in the popular (and scientific!) understanding, the new, heliocentric idea was almost impossible to grasp.
Paradigm shifts also occur in religion and particularly within Mormonism. One major difference between Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift and the changes that occur within Mormonism lies in the fact that Mormonism privileges personal revelation, which is something that cannot be institutionally implemented or decreed (unlike a scientific law). Regular members have varying degrees of religious experience, knowledge, and understanding dependent upon many factors (but, importantly, not “faithfulness� or “worthiness,� or so forth). When members are faced with new information, the experience of processing that information may occur only privately. As such, different members can have distinct experiences with and reactions to the new information they receive.
This short preface uses the example of seer stones to examine the idea of how new information enters into the lives of average Mormons. We have all seen or know of friends or family who experience a crisis of faith upon learning new information about the Church, its members, and our history. Perhaps there are those reading who have undergone this difficult and unsettling experience. Anyone who has felt overwhelmed at the continual emergence of new information understands the gravity of these massive paradigm shifts and the potentially significant impact they can have on our lives. By looking at just one example, this preface will provide a helpful way to think about new information and how to deal with it when it arrives.”
― Michael Hubbard MacKay, Joseph Smith's Seer Stones

“Believe in God our Eternal Father, He who is greatest of all, who stands ever ready to help us and who has the power to do so. Believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior and the Redeemer of mankind, the worker of miracles, the greatest who ever walked the earth, the intercessor with our Father. Believe in the power of the Holy Ghost to lead, to inspire, to comfort, to protect. Believe in the Prophet Joseph, as an instrument in the hands of the Almighty in ushering in this the dispensation of the fullness of times.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“We don’t ask any people to throw away any good they have got; we only ask them to come and get more. What if all the world should embrace this Gospel? They would then see eye to eye, and the blessings of God would be poured out upon the people, which is the desire of my whole soul.”
― Joseph Smith Jr.

“[May 29, 1843. Monday] This A.M. President Joseph told me that he felt as though I was not treating him exactly right and asked if I had used any familiarity with E[mma]. I told him by no means and explained to his satisfaction.

[June 23, 1843. Friday.] This A.M. President Joseph took me and conversed considerable concerning some delicate matters. Said [Emma] wanted to lay a snare for me. He told me last night of this and said he had felt troubled. He said [Emma] had treated him coldly and badly since I came . . . and he knew she was disposed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge himself she would too.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“Joseph told me to day that [William?] "Walker" had been speaking to him concerning my having taken M[argaret] away from A[aron] and intimated that I had done wrong. I told him to be quiet and say no more about it. He also told me Emma was considerably displeased with it but says he she will soon get over it. In the agony of mind which I have endured on this subject I said I was sorry I had done it, as which Joseph told me not to say so. I finally asked him if I had done wrong in what I had done. He answered no you have a right to get all you can.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“[October 19, 1843. Thursday.]...After we had got on the road he [Joseph] began to tell me that E[mma] was turned quite friendly and kind. She had been anointed and he also had been a[nointed] K[ing]. He said that it was her advice that I should keep M[argaret] at home and it was also his council. Says he just keep her at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“[August 15, 1844. Thursday.]...I replied to her [Emma] that there were many things which I was unwilling the world should know anything about and should not lend my hand to ruin the church. She then grew more angry and said I had neglected her and the business, and there was nothing that had President Smith's name to that should not be investigated. She said she had no secrets nor anything she was unwilling the whole world should know. I told her that there was some things which would be unwilling the public should know. She denied it. I said I knew things that she did not want the world to know. She said if I harbor'd any idea that she had ever done wrong it was false. I answered "what I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears I could believe." She said, if I said she had ever committed a crime I was a liar and I knew it. I replied Sister Emma I know I don't lie and you know better what I know I know and although I never have told it to any soul on earth nor never intend to yet it is still the truth and I shall not deny it.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“[June 22, 1844. Saturday.] Joseph whispered and told me either to put the records of the Kingdom into the hands o some faithful man and send them away, or burn them, or bury them. I concluded to bury them, which I did immediately on my return home.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“[May 1, 1842. Monday.] A.M. at the Temple. At 10 m[arried] J[oseph] to L[ucy] W[alker]. P.M. at President Josephs . . . I have seen 6 brass plates which were found in Adams county . . . President Joseph has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“[December 21, 1845. Sunday.]...Elder Kimball showed the right fashion for a leaf, spoke of Elder Richards being protected at Carthage Jail, having on the robe, while Joseph and Hyrum and Elder Taylor were shot to pieces, said the Twelve would have to leave shortly, for a charge of treason would be brought against them for swearing us to avenge the blood of the anointed ones, and some one would reveal it and we shall have to part some say between sundown and dark.”
― William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton

“As important and revolutionary as these things were, it was Joseph Smith's teachings on marriage that had a more visible and far-reaching effect on William Clayton's life than anything else he learned in Nauvoo. Two doctrines, “eternal marriage" and "plural marriage," went hand-in-hand, and Clayton learned of them during the last two years of his association with the prophet.

Why would the straitlaced, idealistic William Clayton, who was almost overly concerned with what people thought of him, seriously consider the practice of plural marriage when it so clearly violated all his earlier values as well as the morality and sensibilities of the society in which he lived? He had a good marriage with Ruth Moon, which had endured considerable adversity. He was also close to her family. By the time the doctrine of polygamy was presented to him Ruth had borne three children and on February 17, 1843, just two months before his second marriage, she presented him with his first son. It was no lack of love or compatibility that led him to take additional wives. The most compelling factor was his single-minded conviction that whatever Joseph Smith told him to do was right and that he must spare no pains to accomplish it. At the same time, it is clear that his affection for Sarah Crooks of Manchester was still there, and once he was convinced that the principle was true, it was only natural that he should think of her as a possible second wife.”
― James B. Allen, Trials of Discipleship: The Story of William Clayton, a Mormon Pioneer

“José Smith no es enemigo del género humano”
― The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Standard of Truth: 1815â€�1846