Talk:Mormonism

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Archives
Archive 1: Jan 2003 - Jun 2006 Archived coverup allegations Archive 2: Jun 2006 - Dec 2006 Archive 3: Jun 2006 - Dec 2006

External Links

I noticed that in the External links section, there are "Official" Mormon links, Unoffical but "Pro-Mormon" links and Neutral, but none that are critical. Any suggesttions for POLITE, yet appropriately critical external links? I'd like to stress that my definition of critical does not include bashing, hate or 'burn in hell' types, but more scholarly, perhaps focusing on scientific issues and non-doctrinal. Forgot to sign. Friedonc (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the citations are from biblical verse or the church website. This article is heavily biased and is in need of reliable 3rd party sources. Schnarr 09:15, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

We genearlly have kept external links here to a minimum; most, if not all of the current links should be deleted. Mormonism is a very broad topic and the article bloats over time. Mormonism is not doctrine specific, but rather groups with a similar origin, but have evolved into significantly different groups.

When going to specific church articles or Latter Day Saint movement related articles you will find applicable critical exterior links. --^StormRider 16:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I removed a lot of LDS specific material from the article today. The article is primarily to address the LDS movement in the broadest terms and then link to other church specific articles where doctrines can be more thoroughly investigated. --^StormRider 01:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Lot of vandals lately...

Has this page always been a popular target of vandals, or is this a recent phenomenon? Raekuul 13:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raekuul (talk • contribs)

It is generally a target of vandalism. There may be a recent uptick, but I don't think it has been a significant increase. Thanks for asking. --^StormRider 16:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Have the other religion pages been this heavily vandalized? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raekuul (talk • contribs) 01:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I work on religion articles in general and I find they all get vandalized pretty regularly. Sometimes it seems like LDS related articles get vandalized more often than others and then at other times it is the other way around. It seems to come in waves. Cheers --^StormRider 01:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Recent string of vandalism again. Is it appropriate to request semi-protection? -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I think a semi-protection act would be a good idea.... -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by W.Neelmore (talk • contribs) 22:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, I can't say I know what vandals you are referring to - but I can't help but notice that this article seems heavily censored. There are much more... less... attractive facts of Mormonism than are mentioned... 98.168.204.179 (talk) 06:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It does seem heavily censored. I was reading on another website about the Church of Latter Day Saints and their robust presence on Wikipedia adding things to certain articles and really keeping the criticisms to a minimum. Wikipediarules2221 03:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When I hear these types of comments I laugh out loud. Anyone with any degree of knowledge when reading the articles on Mormonism and comparing them to any other church's articles or any other religion will quickly realize that if anything, LDS topic related articles are far superior in criticism. There is not a single article, not one, that is written solely from the LDS perspective. If you can dream up the criticism, fringe or not, you will find it on Wikipedia. As long as it is published it will be in an article(s). Instead of making such a claim, please just spend some time reading the breadth of articles. Then compare it to another, say Catholic Church or Islam, take your pick. Then let's talk about what you find. That is an open invitation to anyone. I don't speak form ignorance, but from working on wide spectrum of religious topics. -06:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

LDS Church centric

This article is too focused on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and too doctrinally centered. There is no mention of the move of the Community of Christ and how they relate to Mormonism. There is also very little cultural coverage, which is more of what Mormonism is about. Most of the material in this article is covered in other Latter-day Saint articles. Bytebear (talk) 07:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints) and MOS:LDS the term Mormon or its derivatives such as Mormonism are only appropriate when referring to doctrines and practices that have a historical connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but not to other denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement. —Eustress ^talk 07:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Not very encyclopedic tone to this article...

This article is reading a bit too much like a Sunday School manual or missionary tract, rather than an encyclopedia article. I have made substantive revisions to the first paragraph after the lede, to bring it more in line with other articles such as golden plates, and Book of Mormon. Please assist in this if you can. Twunchy (talk) 01:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I would feel better if this article had a more un-biased approach to Mormonism and cited at least a little bit of the criticisms that are against it. I believe there is a strong argument that Mormonism is a cult so the least that you could do is mention it. Unless someone can state that Mormonism is without credible opposition I maintain that a faith system that claims that Lucifer is Jesus' "spiritual brother" and disbelief in the trinity doctrine is too far of to even try using Christianity and Judaism as its religious foundations. 207.47.244.196 (talk) 23:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This article could be used as a text book example of why Wikipedia cannot be considered a credible - or even decent - source of information. Biased editors seem to have dominated this article. What can we do to help make it better? --DoyleCB (talk) 20:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Whatever disagreements you have with the doctrines, that does not warrant criticism. Wikipedia is neutral, not anti anything. If you want to bash Mormons as a cult, go find some other website to hang out on. Bytebear (talk) 23:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

"See Also" section

Don't you find it a violation of WP:NPOV that the current links are all unfavorable aspects of Mormonism? Instead, this section should link to the most salient aspects of Mormonism, like history, religion main pages (LDS, RLDS, FLDS, etc.), and, of course, the criticism main article? They are currently Blacks and the Latter Day Saint movement, Criticism of Mormonism, God Loveth His Children (Homosexuality and Mormonism), List of articles about Mormonism, Polygamy within Mormonism, The Joseph Smith Papers. While these are all important aspects of Mormonism, they are all controversial and potentially negative.  EJNOGARB  01:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Within the article itself it links to the churches within the Latter Day Saint movement and other links to relevant articles. The See Also section is reserved for those articles that are not linked in the article already. If anything is already linked, they can be deleted. The pamphlet can probably be deleted since homosexuality is already linked in the article. --^StormRider 01:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I went back and confirmed that only the Prop 8 and same-sex marriage articles were linked, not the homosexuality article so left it in. --^StormRider 01:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I removed the pamphlet because it seems to just be about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and not Mormonism as a whole. Mike R (talk) 17:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

As Eustress notes in the LDS Church Centric section above, WP:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints) specifies Mormonism as a term referring specifically to the LDS Church. I think the main problem is that some contributors understand it to include other groups are writing with that idea in mind. Maybe the whole article should be cleaned up a bit to align with the naming convention. Dunno. -jtp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.190.194.20 (talk) 22:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I second what Storm Rider said, and also want to add that this article is about Mormonism as a whole, and that links about a specific denomination of Mormonism belong in the article on that denomination. That is why I object to History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being linked to from here. Notice we have a link to Blacks and the Latter Day Saint movement but not Blacks and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If there are other articles on major topics related to Mormonism as a whole, that aren't already linked elsewhere in this article, feel free to add them to the "See also" section. Mike R (talk) 17:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Article should be merged with Latter-day Saint Movement

I believe this article should be merged with latter-day Saint Movement as appropriate. Mormonism should either redirect to Latter-day Saint Movement OR to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and should not be a separate article. Many sections should actually be moved to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article or to any articles about fundamentalist Mormons. --Blue Tie (talk) 22:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If it will get rid of this galling name (despite what the article says without justification, it is still a pejorative for many Latter-Day Saints to be called a "Mormon" -- should I look for the Catholics under "Papists" and Baptists under "Bible Thumpers"?), I will support it. 138.162.128.55 (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. And although the two articles are currently overlapping, I see the Latter Day Saint movement article as primarily historical, and the Mormonism article as primarily cultural and specific to the LDS Church (see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Latter_Day_Saints)#The_term_Mormon_and_its_derivatives). I don't see either as being doctrinal in nature, but that should be left to each denomination page. Bytebear (talk) 21:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Notice that I said it should either redirect to the Latter-day Saint movement OR to the LDS Church. Do you disagree with it redirecting to the LDS Church article? --Blue Tie (talk) 01:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, because Mormonism is more about the culture, and the LDS Church article is about an organization. There is overlap, but Mormonism is more broad than the LDS Church, but not as broad as the Latter Day Saint movement. Bytebear (talk) 06:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Mormonism is different from both the LDS movement and from the LDS Church. It is somewhere intermediate in scope between the two. COGDEN 22:29, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyrighted image

The worldmapper image (source) has a CC-BY-NC-ND license (see copyright info). We may want to ask for specific permission that the image be licensed without the "non-commercial" restriction, which is incompatible with Wikipedia's current image policies. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 22:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, the image caption shouldn't have an external link. That data should be on the image's page, and the image itself should be pushed to Wikimedia Commons, if copyright permits. I have added the image to Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2009_December_17. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 22:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This map strikes me as a bit of gimmicky, but in any event, wouldn't it be more appropriate in the LDS Church article? I don't suppose the map has been corrected to include fundamentalists, has it? Not that they would notably increase the size of the U.S. and Mexico, but if it's used, it ought to be accurate. Maybe a better first image for this article might be, for example, a picture of Brigham Young. COGDEN 23:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

According to the source, "also included are over 90 schismatic bodies". I agree that it feels gimmicky, but it is insightful nonetheless, and the article is lacking images. I also agree that the first image should be more of an icon (like Brigham Young, the angel Moroni, or a Book of Mormon) rather than a visual representation of data. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 01:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Their general licence seems to be akin to CC-BY-3.0, which I use for my own images uploaded to Commons, and only requires attribution. Their "non-commercial" stipulation seems to be directed to commercial exploitation on a large scale, and I don't think is intended to apply to us. What worries me, however, is "also included are over 90 schismatic bodies", and if this is the case, we cannot claim this image fully represent what is claimed for it, since we have no way of knowing criteria for inclusion of these bodies. So I'd suggest that, interesting though the image is, and probably usable, it may incorrectly represent the true position, and we should not support that. Rodhullandemu 01:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

First image

I just want to suggest we brainstorm on possibilities for a first picture for this article. Ideally, it would be something characterizing all of Mormonism, but would not also characterize the Latter Day Saint movement as a whole. Here are some of my thoughts:

• Brigham Young
• a temple--probably one of the early ones like the Nauvoo Temple or Saint George Temple that performed polygamous marriages.
• the angel Moroni (suggested by B Fizz) --although that's not specifically related to Mormonism.

Well he is the son of Mormon, after all. =] ...but what do you think? ~BFizz

• a drawing of Mormon pioneers crossing the plains

Any other suggestions? COGDEN 02:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

First Vision (I like the stained glass image, but probably copyrighted), First edition of the Book of Mormon, SL Temple or stylized clipart of the temple. Bytebear (talk) 05:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The stained glass image isn't copyrighted anymore. It was created in 1919 in the U.S., and therefore its copyright has expired. But my preference would be something that uniquely characterizes Mormonism and sets it apart from churches such as the Community of Christ. The Salt Lake temple might work, although it is so closely associated with the LDS Church that it might undermine the fact that other churches claim ownership of the term "Mormonism" as well. The pre-SLC temples might be better in that regard, particularly since polygamous marriages were conducted in them prior to the Manifesto. COGDEN 09:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Though the CoC rejects the term Mormonism, the most symbolic historical items to Mormonism—like the Book of Mormon, the Kirtland temple, or Joseph Smith—are inevitably connected to it. Any of COgdens listed suggestions would be quite appropriate, in my opinion. What about an image of the Moroni statue on top of the Salt Lake temple (or other temples, like this one: File:Engel_Moroni_Bern_Tempel.JPG). Would that be too particular to the LDS Church? ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 10:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

What about a picture of the Brigham Young Statue (the one where his arm is stretched forward) framed with the Salt Lake Temple in the background? That way, you have three Mormon icons at the same time (including the Moroni statue). I've seen good photos framed that way, but they are all copyrighted, and I hate to use the fair use justification unless it is absolutely necessary. I also think that there are some really good, iconic Mormon pioneer images, like maybe C.C.A. Christensen's painting of the Mormon wagon trains crossing the Mississippi River with the Nauvoo Temple in the background, whose copyright has expired long ago. COGDEN 19:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

What about the original angel for the Nauvoo temple. or the temple with that angel. [[1]]. I also like this picture oc the Christus, on Temple Square [2] Bytebear (talk) 07:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent flurry of edits

I reverted a flurry of edits, mostly by the new enthusiastic editor User:Entropy's 1 and invited him/her to come here to discuss the efforts. The material, while well intentioned, is strongly LDS pov and covers material held in many other articles. Best wishes for a future collaboration! WBardwin (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I am Entropy's 1, and have been the one responsible for cleaning up some of what I see as a negative balance towards the Mormonism topic. The origin of Mormonism, which includes several different faiths, offshoots, and a cultural aspect deserves to be treated with more respect. Even though I may be new, I would like to figure out what constitutes neutral? I have many problems with this article's accuracy and have placed peer reviewed articles, references to State Monuments in Illinois and State of Missouri web pages, and they have all been erased. Is it the intention of the editors to only supply or allow negativity at the cost of historical accuracy and completeness? I do not believe that a majority feel this way. The following are a few objections that I have written in my talk page to (WBardwin) attempting to determine the specific reasons for his sweeping reversal of all of my edits.

I will also add one more to these objections. Joseph Smith, a man inseparably linked the Mormonism's cultural and religious part in American history, did not simply die as is stated in the article, he was murdered in an Illinois Jail at the age of 38! I believe that this is an important fact to include in the discussion to provide a clear accurate understanding of Mormonism. By only including the negative, which I believe this article is full of, there is a distortion borne of an imbalance of information. Weather you support the movement or not, understanding it more fully should be the goal here. My goal here is to promote accuracy and balance of the information. The following are some other things I object to in the article Mormonism:

(To WBardwin)...Thank you for your responses. I know that some members of the LDS Church shot and killed some of the mob. As far as a resistance force I am aware of no LDS Church order, ever to engage in war or war-like activities against their persecutors in Missouri. Even the Mormon Battalion was ordered not to fire a shot. So my problem with the Missouri violence reference is that 1. according to the "Mormonism" article the Mormons were the cause of the trouble by their "divisive" ways - to me this is a very negative spin. A positive spin would reference some of those unpopular political views such as abolitionism, etc. A neutral view may be to simply state that some groups of Missourians had a problem with the Mormons and organized Mob violence, accurate, but this way not assigning blame to the victims of this truly American Holocaust. 2. The degree of violence is not accurately implied or stated. A few individuals resisted against instructions from their leaders. On the other hand an overwhelming force of Missourians empowered with State Authority to slaughter a people they did not like. Instead, there is an obvious bias to the negative implying that their was an equal level of violence to those Missourians who initiated violence after asking Mormons to lay down their arms to promote peace by county and state level officials. Next I will state three distortions I see to the Doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 1st early name of the church was not the "Church of Christ" but the "Church of Jesus Christ." I looked it up to be sure. Am I wrong? 2nd Joseph Smith would never have been comfortable with calling the fledgling organization "his" church. I have many references to this effect, including Smith's own words. This is a second doctrinal misrepresentation. 3rd the obvious omission of what Smith claimed started it all: the First Vision. It can be documented that he claimed such a thing by his mother's diary, by his own writings, and by local newspapers. Why is this so fiercely omitted from the references or Mormonism? Together such things constitute a negative distortion of the truth, an obvious imbalance to the article. Let me ask you this. It may be more popular for detractors of the LDS faith and other splinters included in the Mormonism topic to have their way with the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but is it an accurate representation of what actually happened? Does Catholicism take such weighted opinion from its detractors? Or Islam? Because I have read that they do not have to tolerate this sort of bias. (Entropy’s 1) (Entropy's 1) Entropy's 1 (talk) 00:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Entropy's 1 (talk • contribs) [Entropy's 1]Entropy's 1 (talk) 09:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Umm, the members of the Church weren't doing themselves any favors in Missouri, you know. They were a known abolitionist group that was also making deals with the local Native Americans. Even if that was all they were doing, in a slave state that close to the frontier it was a dangerous political gamble on par with Joseph Smith's later order to destroy a certain press in Nauvoo - hindsight says it should not have been done how it was. Just because information is negative about the subject doesn't mean it violates Neutral Point of View. Raekuul, bringer of Tropes (He does it without notability) 17:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I want to welcome you, Entropy's 1. In response to your comments above, I don't think that "negativity" vs. "positivity" is the way to look at it: the goal is neutrality under the WP:NPOV policy, which includes proportionality under the WP:UNDUE section. We have to present the facts neutrally, covering all the issues generally covered in the mainstream literature, giving each topic the same prominence as they exist in the respected mainstream literature. For example, we would cover the subject in roughly the proportion and tone that could be found in such neutral overviews of Mormonism as might be found in the works of Jan Shipps or Harold Bloom, who are widely respected by both Mormons and non-Mormons. If something about Mormonism or Joseph Smith might be deemed "negative" by some readers, that doesn't really matter in itself. It can be "negative" and still neutral, or "positive" and still neutral. What matters is the prominence that theories and explanations are given in the mainstream literature. As to the other issues, here are my thoughts:

• The academic consensus is that the Missouri violence was attributed to both Mormons and non-Mormons. Initially, Mormons were passive and simply "turned the other cheek" when the Missourians carried out unprovoked raids ("unprovoked" in the sense that there was no overt initial act of violence by Mormons, leaving aside any political provocation which apparently the Missourians thought justified their initial violence). After they were attacked three times, however, a revelation by Smith had authorized them (D&C 98) on the fourth attack to destroy their enemies (and, for that matter, their descendants to the third and fourth generations). They took that revelation at face value. Thus, there were several Mormon offensive military actions or provocations, such as Zion's Camp, several actions by the Danites, Rigdon's July 4th Oration, and the "Daviess Expedition" in which the Mormon militia plundered non-Mormon homes and properties. Though the Missourians clearly started the violence, by the end it was a simple escalation on both sides leading to all-out war. It's no different than how most wars get started.
• Circa 1830, the name of the church was the Church of Christ (see that article). The term "Church of Jesus Christ" was used informally several years later along with several other terms like "Church of the Latter Day Saints" and "Church of God". Finally, after the financial scandal in Ohio, Smith changed the name to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints".
• We can't say that Smith's church was "God's church", or "Jesus' church", because that would not be neutral. I think reference to "Smith's church" simply means the church that he founded.
• As to the First Vision, I'm not sure what the exact issue is with regard to this article, but for whatever reason, there is no contemporary reference to Smith discussing the vision with others. That's not to say that he didn't, just that if he did, there is no evidence other than his own statement years later. The first arguable reference in any document to the First Vision is from 1830. The reference in Lucy Mack Smith's biography wasn't actually written by Mrs. Smith, but by her collaborator in 1853 based on Joseph Smith's 1838 account, and is not present in the original manuscript written by Mrs. Smith. But this is all covered in the First Vision article, and doesn't need to be re-hashed here. All we need here is a brief overview, perhaps, of how the vision is significant to Mormonism.

COGDEN 23:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

For identification purposes, User:Entropy's 1 appears to also edit as IP 71.221.130.243, particularly on Dec 2009 entries. See the User talk page for an ongoing discussion. WBardwin (talk) 05:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Mormon" defined?

Recent edits to the intro have asserted the LDS viewpoint that the term "Mormon" is only correctly applied to that church, and not to other "Brighamite" churches. When it comes to a slang-like term such as "Mormon", I find it hard to say that it really has a hard-and-fast definition. That's why I rewrote the intro to say "the term is applied" rather than "the term applies", to suggest the iffy-ness and colloquial-ness of it without asserting that "this is the exact, correct, and immutable definition". ...comments? ~BFizz 07:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Introductory sentence

The first sentence of the article reads as follows: "Mormonism comprises the religious, institutional, and cultural elements of the Latter Day Saint movement, founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the 1830s and 1840s, when God the Father and Jesus Christ called Smith to be a prophet."

I don't want to get into some sort of argument about the merits of the faith, but that reads to me as decidedly non-NPOV. The portion describing the 'when' of Smith's calling as being initiated by God reads as declarative, without any sort of mitigating statement of possibility. To be honest, I don't really understand why the date describing the Church's founding needs a theological claim appended to it at all - I think it makes far more sense to simply omit everything after "1840s." However, I'm not opposed to having the intro include the concept of Smith's founding the Church being a calling of the Lord - but I do think it needs to be written as belief, not as a dated fact, something in keeping with other articles on religion.

I'd like somebody to defend the current wording, as opposed to simply omitting everything after "1840s" - or, if the info about Smith's calling MUST remain in the intro, justifying the current form over something along the lines of the following:

"Mormonism comprises the religious, institutional, and cultural elements of the Latter Day Saint movement, founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. Mormons believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ called Smith to become a prophet and found the church in the 1830s and 1840s."

I'm not going to edit this right now, but I think it would be reasonable to make some sort of change in the near future. I'm happy to do so if no arguments to the contrary are raised in the next few days. 76.173.253.120 (talk) 09:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)