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Domain: utlm.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to utlm.org.
Comments · 14
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Re:Inevitably.."hearsay and other stuff not admissible in any court of law" Huh? Joseph Smith's "treasure hunting" activities were quite well documented, and in fact he DID stand trial and was convicted. From The Salt Lake City Messenger "The first part and conclusion of the alleged court record published by Bishop Tuttle is here reproduced, which indicates that young Joseph admitted to using his seer stone to search for lost property, buried coins, hidden treasures, and gold mines:
People of State of New York vs. Joseph Smith. Warrant issued upon oath of Peter G. Bridgman, who informed that one Joseph Smith of Bainbridge was a disorderly person and an imposter. Prisoner brought into court March 20 (1826). Prisoner examined. Says that he came from town of Palmyra, and had been at the house of Josiah Stowell in Bainbridge most of time since; had small part of time been employed in looking for mines, but the major part had been employed by said Stowell on his farm, and going to school; that he had a certain stone, which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold-mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowell several times, and informed him where he could find those treasures, and Mr. Stowell had been engaged in digging for them; that at Palmyra he pretended to tell, by looking at this stone, where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was, of various kinds; that he has occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account its injuring his health, especially his eyes--made them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with this business....
And thereupon the Court finds the defendant guilty. -
Re:Please explainI wonder how those who talk about "gagging" here would actually want copyright laws to work?
I would like them to work the way it says in the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". In other words, and excellent way for copyright to work is to temporarily restrict copying of new works, thus providing economic incentives for more new works to be published in the first place and enriching the public domain in the long run.
Bad ways for copyright laws to work include:- Making that "temporary" restriction so long that old works can be lost entirely, or even just so long that the marginal promotion of the original work is less valuable than the still-forbidden creation of new derivative works.
- Extending that restriction retroactively, which impedes rather than promotes the progress of new derivative works and the dissemination of the original but which (unless we invent time travel) gives no additional incentive to the original author's creation.
Or, as in the CHI cases, bad ways for copyright law to be used include:- Impeding the progress of history by making primary sources harder to come by.
- Restricting the flow of factual information (in the case of the original CHI lawsuit, the excerpts were part of a "How to Remove Your Name From the LDS Records" instructional page) which seems to qualify for all four factors of "fair use"
- Trying to apply economic incentives to the publication of a work whose authors have no interest in selling it and would happily keep it out of the public domain forever.
- Trying to create a chilling effect to restrict criticism of a work.
And finally, even those of us who see this as "gagging" don't necessarily see the solution to be "fix copyright law". Fair use, in particular, is a tricky thing to legislate in advance and a tricky thing for a court to decide. In some cases, such as this one in my opinion, a better fix isn't to have the law on our side, but to have the public on our side. Note that even the Mormons posting here are disappointed by their church's action; hopefully that kind of backlash can lead to these legal demands being withdrawn due to persuasion, without the need for litigation.
So if you want to report about some weird/dangerous,/ridiculous issues in this book, provide a write-up (your own words of what is in there: legal) and support it with facsimiles of excerpts of the original (small parts: legal).
What would be the problem with that?
In the case of religious censorship, you just need to check out the apologetics to see the problem. Paraphrases and commentaries get dismissed as "persecution" and "lies"; small facsimiles are accused of being "taken out of context". Sometimes you really need to give people all the information available before you can get past all the walls trying to obscure it. -
Re:Silly Lawyers...
I hope the Church's spiritual leadership is swift to address what was likely a foolish bureaucratic decision.
If they were "swift" to conclude that this decision was foolish, they would have come to that conclusion back in 1999.
Kudos on your theory, though. "This is wrong, so it must not be my church's real policy", even if it's not always correct, is still much more morally sound than "This is my church's real policy, so it must not be wrong". There's a third alternative which is both logically and morally sound, but it conflicts with a premise that you might find it hard to drop first. -
Re:I wonder how the Mormons will spin this...It would be nice if you knew half as much as you think you do, but you just don't. This is the last time I'm going to play, so pay close attention -- you can have the last word if you really want it.
1. You've provided no (as in zero) evidence that my religion was made up. Look over your posts very closely -- it's not there. Noticing that you've provided zero evidence is not a sign of ignorance -- it's a sign that I can read. If you want to think you're outside of the world of made up religions, feel free, but don't think you can begin to speak to my experience -- you don't even know where to start.
2. You seriously believe the old UL about the Church owning Coke (or Pepsi)? Lots of folks have, but it's not and never has been true. Check out Snopes for more about that. This would be the time for you to post evidence to back up your claim if you have any so it can be reviewed and assessed.
3. You show no sign of understanding where the idea that there is a problem drinking Coke (or Pepsi) came from, what form it took, or any of that. The truth is, my whole life it's never been a problem whether I did or didn't drink it. I've had Mormons who have had a problem with it, but the Church never has. The standard always has been "hot drinks are not for the body or belly" with "hot drinks" referring to coffee and tea. There has been lots of speculation about the reasons behind that, which some have taken to be the caffeine in both drinks, from which they have projected it to other drinks with caffeine in them. However, drinking colas has never been on par with drinking coffee or tea, and that absence of prohibition was in no way connected with the Church's non-ownership of any beverage company. For more clarity, this was a First Presidency statement from 1972:"With reference to cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken a position on this matter, but the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against the use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs under circumstances that would result in acquiring the habit. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided." (Priesthood Bulletin, Feb. 1972, p. 4.)
.4. If you want to be an anti-Mormon without sounding like an idiot, I think you might want to look into the work of Jerald and Sandra Tanner. They haven't got a good thing to say about the Church, but they generally get their facts straight, and that's head and shoulders better than you've done.
Now, I've discussed Mormon doctrine, Mormon culture, and even anti-Mormon writers, illustrating my points with evidence, while all you've discussed is anti-Mormon urban legends with no evidence. You can point fingers at my supposed ignorance as much as you want -- it won't change the facts.
And, with that, I'm done chatting with you. If the other guy I responded to is reading this, I'm sorry that I attacked his intelligence. That was uncalled for. What he said wasn't nearly as stupid nor as arrogant as what you've had to say here. -
Re:Anti-religion
There's a website for that too:
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/nameremovallet ter.htm -
Re:"Maybe not?"
Mormons have not always been shy about violence:
Mountain Meadows Massacre
Thier early history was very violent. They were not always the victims as they claimed. -
Re:So...
Maybe it was not ever an official doctrine, but Brigham Young and several other early church presidents definitely taught it. These presidents receive doctrine from god and will not lead the church astray, that is the story right? I recommend reading this chapter from The Changing World of Mormonism, written by the Tanners
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Re:Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon has been shown to be unreliable as a archeological text by Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Claims to archeological validity were dealt with here by the Smithsonian Institute.
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Re:Golden Tablets of SCO
Of course these tablets somehow "disappeared" before anyone but a few devotees actually had a chance to verify their existence.
I found this letter from Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College (now Columbia University) to be quite interesting. More here. -
Re:Golden Tablets of SCO
Of course these tablets somehow "disappeared" before anyone but a few devotees actually had a chance to verify their existence.
I found this letter from Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College (now Columbia University) to be quite interesting. More here. -
Re:In short, yes (mostly)
I guess there always has to be opposition in all things. It's important to remember standing AGAINST something is not the same as standing FOR something.
Here's some opposition for you:
teleport.com/~packham/
exmormon.org
Infidels
LDS4U: Beat the missionaries at their own game.
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
But don't fret. Joseph Smith himself loved persecution:
"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)
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Operation FootbulletThere's a running joke among anti-$cientology folk called "Operation Footbullet". It pokes fun at Scientology's tendency to generate bad publicity whenever they try and silence their critics. They're "shooting themselves in the foot," so to speak.
The Mormon Church -- er, I mean, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"* -- once pulled a similar feat when they sued to get Jerald and Sandra Tanner (two of their most prominent critics) to remove several pages of copyrighted material. The material was from the General Handbook of Instruction, a book of procedures and policies used by LDS bishops, and it described how to get one's name removed from the records of the Church.
So the Mormon Church sued, the Tanners took down the material after a protracted legal battle, replacing it with a link and later with a summary of the material. Meanwhile, hits to their website tripled, and it became very popular in "anti-Mormon" circles for everyone to have their own electronic copy of the General Handbook of Instruction. The Tanners have a summary of the whole legal battle, for anyone interested. I think it's relevant to the discussion because they discovered that linking to the copyrighted material -- as
* Lately, "The Church" has been strangely obsessed with media outlets using its "proper name."
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Operation FootbulletThere's a running joke among anti-$cientology folk called "Operation Footbullet". It pokes fun at Scientology's tendency to generate bad publicity whenever they try and silence their critics. They're "shooting themselves in the foot," so to speak.
The Mormon Church -- er, I mean, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"* -- once pulled a similar feat when they sued to get Jerald and Sandra Tanner (two of their most prominent critics) to remove several pages of copyrighted material. The material was from the General Handbook of Instruction, a book of procedures and policies used by LDS bishops, and it described how to get one's name removed from the records of the Church.
So the Mormon Church sued, the Tanners took down the material after a protracted legal battle, replacing it with a link and later with a summary of the material. Meanwhile, hits to their website tripled, and it became very popular in "anti-Mormon" circles for everyone to have their own electronic copy of the General Handbook of Instruction. The Tanners have a summary of the whole legal battle, for anyone interested. I think it's relevant to the discussion because they discovered that linking to the copyrighted material -- as
* Lately, "The Church" has been strangely obsessed with media outlets using its "proper name."
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I wonder...
If the mormons are going to block sites that detail their religious cerimonies and truth about their history like:
http://members.aol.com/VeilW orker/endowment.index.html
http://www.irr.org/mit/default.html
or even:
http://www.utlm.org/
now that would be filtering...
;)