Joseph's Failed Prophecies

hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast LDS discussions Edition I am your host for today John delin it's March 1st 2023 and today we are continuing our series on uh Joseph Smith's uh prophecies and Revelations today we're going to be covering Joseph Smith's failed Revelations this is part of the LDS discussion series which is uh based on the good work of our dear friend Mike at ldsdiscussions.com Mike has put together um I don't know 50 to 100 really good essays it's a wealth of information where Mike as a convert that is an adult convert to the Mormon Church who learned about the problematic truth claims of the church and the problematic history of the church after he converted and and married a Mormon woman and had children uh wanted to dispassionately and from a evidence-based in a fact based perspective uh just to analyze the Mormon church and his truth claims in history and so we are now on episode 37 of this series here on Mormon stories podcast and just as a reminder you can um either enjoy this series integrated into the weekly Mormon stories podcast and YouTube feed or you can find dedicated feeds for this series at uh under the LDS discussions brand either on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and we have a YouTube channel um on Mormon stories podcast YouTube channel we have a playlist where you can just watch all these um episodes in sequence and so that's uh what we're going to be doing today and uh we are super grateful to have with us Mike and Nemo in the studio mike uh why don't you say hi to our audience hey everybody good to be back for apparently number 37 so hopefully uh this one will be I think this will be a really fun one actually so this will be a good one for you to get a little bit of refresher uh from the first uh two Revelation episodes and hopefully connect the dots from the earlier episodes in a way that'll be a little more meaningful now that we've done so much of the the groundwork leading up to this so glad to be back yeah and you you make a good point we really really do emphasize in these series that they build on each other we're going to make constant references to past episodes and so uh please consider if this is the first time you've stumbled on stop go back to the very beginning watch episodes 1 through 36 and uh 37 will be at least a little more valuable and of course we have back with us in studio actually remote uh in our UK Studio Nemo what's up Nebo you know if you start this like today it'll take you a month to get through all of them so better get started yeah oh you're saying if you do One A Day yeah it's like over a month yeah so crack on and of course Nemo is the uh the main voice on the Nemo the Mormon uh YouTube channel that you should go subscribe to and check out and of course he's one of the leaders of the britvengers which is a group of UK uh podcasters and YouTubers so shout out much love to the Red Ventures anyway glad glad to have you Nemo yeah great to be here thank you all right so Mike uh I guess it's time to jump into today's episode should we go to the first slide yeah we can go the first one uh we we originally had planned uh last week's episode and and this this episode to be kind of one and the way I think we realize it's best to split it and so it works out well so our first episode was kind of about the patterns and the threads you see in Joseph Smith's Revelations and kind of what they could tell us about how Joseph Smith implemented Revelation and now this episode is going to look at Joseph Smith's Revelations and prophecies that that ultimately fail and so we wanted to start by just looking at what the Bible tells us about failed prophecies and so um as we mentioned last week we're not covering every single Revelation has problems but we want to look at some of the ones where we can really test the claims being made by Joseph Smith and so um as Nemo said if the first 36 episodes don't make it clear that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God um I would like to think that failed prophecies would be really hard to ignore and so this is from Deuteronomy 18 and it kind of discusses how we can know if it's a prophet of God or not and it says and if thou say in thine heart how shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken when a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously Thou shalt not be afraid of him so you got to keep these two verses in mind as we look at these these um different Revelations and prophecies from Joseph because it will allow us to know like is this someone who is a prophet of God that we should believe um which of course would lead us to continue potentially to believe um that Russell Nelson is a prophet today or is Joseph Smith speaking for himself and not for God and therefore there's no reason to think that say Russell Nelson say would be a prophet because if Joseph wasn't Russell Nelson surely is not a prophet so it's a really important topic and obviously it should be one because of the fact that we could test some of these claims being made by Joseph Smith um that even a believing member can listen to even if you ultimately want to choose to believe as Russell Nelson would say but you can acknowledge the fact that there are Revelations and prophecies made by Joseph Smith that we can test that ultimately are not going to come to pass there's at least two things that are kind of funny about that scripture for me what one is that um it's kind of stating the obvious it's like the state in the obvious Department it's it's basically saying if a prophet prophesies uh about something and it doesn't come true then he's not a prophet I'm thinking wow that's an important scripture that we need to have um but but the other thing is it it says that if the prophecies don't come true then you shall not be afraid of him and I I took a double take because I was expecting it to say something different but then it must be speaking about being afraid as a virtue like it you should you know you should be afraid of a prophet if he's a true Prophet but if he's not a true Prophet then there's no need to be afraid I I think that's what it's saying what do you how do you read it Nemo I read it as like you don't need to be afraid of him and it's just like ignore and move on don't don't listen to him don't pay my attention um which is interesting because it's you always look for I think there's a pattern here of caveats so there's always a caveat that will kind of save Joseph if because if someone looks at one of his prophecies and goes oh well he hasn't achieved it then there's got to be that get out clause where it can be like oh well but if that's the case then and I think what he's saying is Well then you don't need to be afraid of him or anything he may say or or anything he says because he's not a real Prophet so you can kind of just ignore him um which would be the best outcome for him rather than being actually taken to task over declare and being a false prophet if so we're that way inclined yeah interesting yeah well it feels like that Old Testament model of like you need to fear God you know what I mean and I just I'm not a big fan of that whole guilt shame fearing God kind of thing personally but it's interesting all right so Mike let's go to the next slide yeah and this is one that I think um we're gonna you if you've done the Deep dive into Mormonism you've heard about but effectively Joseph Smith is going to state that the second coming of the Lord will happen in 1891 and so in February of 1835 Joseph Smith is in Kirtland Ohio and he says the following or I guess this is from the minute book because um it's writing down what Joseph said in front of an audience and it says president Smith arose and stated the reason why this meeting was called it was this God had commanded it and it was made known to him by vision and by the Holy Spirit he then gave a relation of some of the circumstances attending us while they're journeying to Zion our trials sufferings Etc he said God had not designed all of this for nothing but he had it in remembrance yet and those who went to Zion with the determination to lay down their lives if necessary it was the will of God that they should be ordained to the ministry and go forth to prune The Vineyard for the last time or the coming of the Lord which was nigh even 56 years should wind up the scene and so 56 years later from 1835 would be 1891 which obviously as we know did not include the second coming and um from an apology standpoint they're going to say the Revelation wasn't actually a failure because there's this caveat that if Joseph Mission live this long um but this Revelation from minute book one makes no requirement of Joseph Smith Living until 1891. um that as you can see there's no mention of that um and furthermore and we're going to get into this in our final Revelation episode about patriarchal blessings there are a lot of patriarchal blessings um that make clear that Jesus would return during the lifetime of the early members um and that really shows that Joseph Smith was teaching the early church um that he was being told by God that we were literally in the latter days like the final years and so in this case Joseph Smith is saying that that the basically the second coming that happened in 1891 obviously that that just simply did not happen now Mike um Mike or Nemo some either of you may know this or may not I've always Associated that prophecy with the the first Manifesto when I get was it Wilford Woodruff basically you know basically made the statement that polygamy would cease even though it didn't cease that basically the Saints you know obviously the church was named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uh people have been waiting for Jesus's second coming for two Millennia but you know the the LDS church was a part of this millennialist tradition that the Jehovah's Witnesses also emerged from so this this idea of Jesus coming soon was absolutely a crucial part of the founding of our church and I always Associated kind of the 1890-1891 manifesto as sort of like no Joseph Joseph God implemented polygamy through Joseph and we're going to hold out until Jesus comes but then if Jesus doesn't come by the time Joseph Smith prophesied which was around 1890 1891 oh well maybe maybe Jesus isn't coming okay we're going to give up polygamy can either of you speak to whether or not that's a meaningful Association or whether that's just a a total coincidence about that timing it's it's an interesting Association certainly um I'm just trying to think whether because to to give up almost on waiting for God I wonder whether rather than that it was more uh to be a distraction from the fact that he hadn't turned up whereas they're like oh well we've got this major doctrinal shift and we can tie it in with you know around this time when people are waiting for things to happen because people that were alive when Joseph Smith made this prophecy would have been alive then they would have been old but they would have been alive um so you know you've got you've got those people that are going to be like well 1891 wasn't Jesus meant to come and they can spin it I'm sure in many ways is oh well it's the Fulfillment of something yeah okay interesting yeah I mean well I mean I think with the um kind of the polygamy manifestos those were really prompted by the fact that the government was on the door of the church basically ready to take their their property the you know the temple all that so I I tend to think it's more of a coincidence um just because of the fact that I don't think you know unless you want to really kind of give the um kind of the the church speak of saying that God had the government knocking on the door at that very time so that they could then give this right you know the manifesto at that time to line up with the date but I mean from a like a common sense standpoint I think it just happened to be that they had no other choice I mean the church was holding out as long as they could to keep polygamy because it's the new and Everlasting Covenant and so they waited until they really had no choice but to either remove it so the government would get off their back or risk losing all of their property um to the feds and so I don't think it had anything to do with that necessarily outside of just the fact that the timing lined up okay all right well if our viewers or listeners have any you know they almost always have information to add in the comments on YouTube so we welcome any additional feedback or input on that the only other thing I'll say is as someone with the training in Psychology it was always mind-blowing to me whether it's ruling Jeff's and Warren Jeffs prophesying the end of the world you know for 2002 when the Salt Lake City Olympics you know were going to be held or whether it's the multiple times within the Jehovah's Witness movement where an actual date was picked and it came and went and people remained Believers it's it's a really fascinating and important psychological Dynamic to note that oftentimes when a when a prophecy fails to happen if if the blame can be redirected at the members or if um if somehow the members can be convinced that God wanted the change oftentimes a failed prophecy reliably leads to an increase in faith by the members in instead of a decrease in faith and that's why the Jehovah's Witnesses have been able to survive and thrive after three four or five failed you know um end of the world predictions over the past 150 years check out my episodes with Lloyd Evans the Jehovah's Witness YouTuber if you want to learn more about that um I just I just had to mention that but anyway Joseph Smith had a failed prophecy about when Jesus was coming I think that's your point Mike yeah no and it's true and we're gonna actually near the end there's a great example of what you just said about how people who live during his time you know saw these Revelations fail and believed even more strongly and you see that today in in 2023 as well and when we talk about that period of time that the Mormon church was started you know the Seven Day Adventist the seventh day Adventists were basically formed on a false Revelation and I think they have more members in the church the Mormon church does worldwide so it just goes to show that like our our brains are hardwired sometimes when we believe something's going to happen and it doesn't to find some excuse for it and to double down so yeah that's absolutely a theme we're going to see really through these episodes on Revelation and and really through the uh the episodes that we're going to do towards the end about doubts and spiritual Witnesses and stuff where you know we are we're wired to believe even against evidence that's right in front of our face so it's an interesting and kind of depressing um part of our our human psyche yeah all right well let's go to the next slide which is the a prophecy about the fall and overthrow of the US government yeah and this one is really one when I remember reading this one as I started doing the Deep dive I'd never heard of it until then it's just it's one of those jaw-dropping ones for me so this is 1843 and Joseph Smith is going to make the following prophecy about the future of the US government if they did not Grant um the church uh basically reparations for the wrongs that were committed against the members and so he says and this is from the history of the church this is not like some third hand account that's you know found 100 years later something says I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punished the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years repeat in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted and there will not be so much as a pot shirt left for their wickedness and permitting the murder of men women and children and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of our citizens to go unpunished and so that I think speaks for itself and now there's gonna be a second prophecy that was printed in the millennial star which is a church-owned publication again it says not anti-mormon or anything like that and it says while discussing the petition to Congress I prophesied by virtue of the Holy priesthood vested in me and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that if Congress will not hear our petition and grant us protection they shall be broken up as a government and God shall damn them and there shall be nothing left of them not even a grease spot and these two Rebel these two prophecies by Joseph Smith the government did not provide any of the payments requested by Joseph Smith they did not give them protection as we obviously know From Nabu and all that and yet the government still stands almost 180 years later arguably the most powerful government in the world there is absolutely no way to reconcile the Prophecies of Joseph Smith here with the history and to conclude this was anything but a completely failed prophecy and the fact that Joseph Smith says in a few years there is no way out because I know in Apollo logic in my mind immediately thought the apologetic response will be that's still to come but Joseph Smith in a few years like this is I've got an apologistic response all right let's hear it yeah I know I know where you're going I know where you're going let's go let's hear it the government is not the Constitutional governing body of the United States of America the government is the current sitting people in those positions like Secretary of State like President like Etc that's weak sauce that's weeks those people when they're gone that government's been overthrown you know what I'm saying that's like that's like a British interpretation of the word government right because yeah like if Tony Blair gets voted out if Tony Blair gets voted out they they call it a new government when a new prime minister gets voted in right yeah like so um Rishi sunak the current prime minister UK will say this government and he's very much talking to the duration is which he is prime minister and the cabinet that he has assembled and all the ministers around him so you want to push that perspective out there that would be that would be from a British reading of it that would be the get out clause would be like well the moment that that four-year term is over then so in in that sense if you were to look at it that way it's an eminently achievable prophecy it's not really a prophecy it's just saying the government will change in a few years and you're like oh cool all right but not by any Act of God just by the fact that there's term limits yeah yeah I mean by that logic you could make a prophecy and say I prophesy in the name of the Lord that my tree outside is going to lose its leaves and create new leaves next year like that's that's the the apologetic I usually hear is people will say the government was overthrown during the Civil War and my response is like no it wasn't like it's it I've heard that so many times where they'll say Joseph Smith was right the Civil War happened the government was thrown into complete chaos but again read what Joseph Smith wrote like that that apologetic is so bad that you want to laugh at it except people really do believe that that's an answer and so that's where I really thought you were going but uh like I said well that is just as bad to even to even make that claim when the government the same government before the Civil War was the one that beat the Confederacy and remained is just so terrible apologetically apologetics if we read the Revelation not not not be so much as a punctured left and there shall be nothing left of them not even a grease spot that's pretty definitive right it's very yeah that's why Nemos would work because you can't say there's nothing left not even a grease spot Joseph Smith is not thinking in British political terms anyways as we as we know from The Book of Mormon it's very much American exceptionalism and I don't mean that as a shot against America I mean I mean it is a shot that the Book of Mormon is clearly written by someone who loves and believes that America is the chosen land and so Joseph Smith is clearly referring to the basically the structure of the US government and maybe we'll get into this in our later episodes but remember that around this time Joseph Smith is starting the Council of 50 he's voted king of the world they believe that they're creating a structure of like a Theocratic government that's going to replace the US government this just shows that Joseph Smith at this point is kind of getting um a little bit too big for you know he's getting a little bit too uh too confident in himself and I think that you can now see that he's just I mean he's just making stuff up that is very testable in 2023 and yes in every possible way here Joseph Smith shows that he's not speaking for God or God as I mentioned in the last episode is so powerless that can't that God can actually fulfill his his prophecies To His prophets which we talked about last episode because the god of Mormonism is one of the most powerless characters you're going to see in religion because of all of the um different um promises that are made especially as we're going to talk about even today and the fact that they never happen yeah so then you have to say well are these are the people that claim to be for god making it up which is what I would obviously go with or is God so powerless that he's going to tell people he's gonna do stuff and then just kind of you know duck off to the side when when it doesn't happen so if you come across someone who makes the kind of apologetic argument that I just tried to make then you can very swiftly accuse him of presentism which is the which is normal apologist apologetics 101 is to accuse someone of presentism but actually that sort of apologetic would be by definition presentism because you would be judging Joseph Smith's statement by my modern understanding of the term government and my foreign understanding to him of the term government so oh yeah I mean so yeah yeah so Mike anymore I was going to offer a different slightly different uh apologetic and that's sort of a more Progressive or liberal Mormon apologetic that you know I well it's even based in the in the you'll find these quotes by like Brigham Young or others where it's like well it's if you know you have to say thus saith the Lord if you're a prophet you have to say thus saith the Lord or it's just an opinion or you've got some quote from Brigham Young or others saying you know a a prophecy only counts as a prophecy when the prophet is speaking as such but when he's speaking as a man it's not a prophecy um and then another and another another derivative of that is well okay maybe Joseph Smith said it but it was never canonized it was never incorporated into the Doctrine and Covenants and uh you know and this is kind of how the church is currently seeming to um you know seeming to characterize how we can know what a true prophecy is or true Doctrine you know like the proclamation on the family it's not it hasn't been voted on by the first presidency and the Quorum of the twelve all the members voted on it and then it's added to the Canon and so I guess that they've over time put up these kind of barriers to say that profits are still allowed to speak as men sometimes they're speaking as men sometimes they're speaking as prophets we can't always know um when they're speaking as which unless the first presidency the Quorum of The Twelve the full membership all vote on it and it's added to the scriptures and then then you can then it qualifies as prophecy such that then you can decide whether or not it's a failed um prophecy now do you guys have a response to that yeah I mean then it doesn't matter if he says I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel or that I prophesied by virtue of the Holy priest invested in me and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the lord it wasn't canonized my bro my bad okay so so two things one is here Nemo just answered your first one Joseph Smith here he's not just being like I'm saying I'm saying that's the name of Jesus Christ he's like I'm saying this with the power of the priesthood in the name of the god of Israel man like he's going full out so that's number one he absolutely is is without any question saying I am saying this as the one person who can speak for God this this is happening that's part one in part two is a very simple fact if you want to make these uh the the more Progressive I would actually argue apologetic because it's not Progressive it's it's trying to cover up a problem which is to say that when these things don't come to pass it's simply because it wasn't canonized then why should any person watch a minute of General Conference because everything those people say is just the opinion of men until the church votes on it so as far as I'm concerned I don't care what Russell Nelson says until it's canonized because until then it's just the mind of a 97 year old man who's been wrong about a lot of things throughout his lifetime and made up a lot of stories which we do need to do an episode on so my point is if if we can't take their word as the word of God until it's voted on by the church then I'm not going to listen to a word they say until it's voted on because it's completely pointless until then anyways it's like it's like reading the rough draft of the script which which is going to change anyway so what's the point so I guess my apology my response is because you're right those are very common apologetics is if you're going to apply that logic that we can't really take it as a prophecy until it's voted on and canonized then you have to apply it to 2023 and say that every word out of the mouths of you know Russell Nelson down Oaks is meaningless until it's voted on so why should we bother giving them any attention yeah Nemo anything you want to add no amen that is the way it works if that is the line of thinking that you want to go down yep it's just because pick a lane and stay in it and so if you want to say that it has to be canonized that's fine but every word Russell Nelson says you know in April General Conference means nothing until it's voted on but if you also want to say follow the prophet and listen to what he says in April then you can't say don't listen to what Joseph Smith said in 1843 because we didn't vote on it when we all know that Joseph Smith is leaving no room that that is not coming at least from his perspective it's coming directly from God through him as a prophecy to the world which clearly fails yeah okay the other thing is it you know I I there's this I don't know if the right words tautology but there's this Paradox of it's not scripture unless it's added to the Doctrine and Covenants but they're not going to add a failed prophecy to the Doctrine and Covenants and so I that that would be my own answer to my own you know canonizing is a problem because we've already shown in past episodes that if there's something added to the Canon that then fails to become a accurate prophecy there it's not Beyond them to either change it or remove it yeah and so the even even the canonization standard is not a reliable one within a Mormon context right Mike well yeah and and the rest of this episode we've got a bunch of Revelations from the DNC that are that are canonized that fail so I mean even then it does it's not like they're it's not like in the DNC they've kind of scrubbed away anything that didn't happen they just they're a revelation that Joseph Smith made that were recorded early on um that were published because they believed it was going to happen and then obviously it does not happen yeah but to your point you can make change like Joseph Smith makes a lot of changes to try to retrofit his history as we talked about with the the priesthood restoration is a huge one um but in this case uh he makes these prophecies that fail but I think even back then the church realizes if we scrub them out it's a pretty strong admission that the guy we Revere is the second best figure to Jesus Christ was no more reliable than anyone else on the street and I think that is where you start to see um the conundrum they put themselves in by recording some of these and I think that is a big reason why the modern day Church doesn't canonize their scriptures because they all know that they're going to be wrong at least in part on these things and so they don't want to set themselves Russell Nelson does not want to canonize something about the um you know LGBT stuff that he claimed was Revelation because he had to change it three and a half years later we will get to that in our next episode but the fact is the church has reversed multiple Revelations and we're going to get to those in our next episode within three to four years of making them so they cannot in 2023 that they they they're in a bind and they know it yeah yeah it's a lot more difficult in the internet age to make a prophecy because you're going to be held to it in ways that 100 or 200 years ago you weren't you just weren't held to it all right let's go to the next slide which is a really important one the Everlasting Covenant of the United order yeah and this is uh kind of funny just because we always think of the ever you know new and Everlasting Covenant being for polygamy but this is before polygamy so this is um DNC 104 and it says uh verily I say unto you my friends I give unto you Council and a commandment concerning all the properties which belong to the order which I commanded to be organized and established to be a United order and an everlasting order for the benefit of my church and for the Salvation of men until I come so this is you know Jesus basically saying I've created this Everlasting order that you're all going to give your property to and it's going to be there until I come as a way to basically benefit the church and um as we all know the United order failed miserably and it has not been practiced since Kirtland uh which is you know obviously problematic not just because here we have you know Jesus saying it's Everlasting but because God promised very grave punishments if the church did not follow this Everlasting commandment so this is also from the same Revelation it says therefore inasmuch as some of my servants have not kept this commandment but have broken the Covenant through Covenant covetousness and with feigned words I have cursed them with a very sore and Grievous curse for I the Lord have decreed in my heart that inasmuch as any man belonging to the order shall be found to transgressor or in other words shall break the Covenant which with with which ye are bound he shall be cursed in this in his life and shall be trodden down by whom I will can I just say I'm sick of the Doctrine and Covenants God cursing and condemning people it just I hate it I hate that I don't want a kid throwing a tantrum yeah honestly I don't want to be disrespectful but it is it's very much just like if you don't do what I say I'm gonna like just throw all my toys at the prom and get angry at you and mad at you and smite you down and like what would be the equivalent of a of a living parent cursing their child like I'm just trying to imagine like my Clara my third daughter it's like if you don't do what I say I'm gonna hurt you like isn't that child abuse like why does the god of the Doctrine and Covenants in the Old Testament get away with what in any mortal context would be a you know abuse right especially he's meant to be the example of a father what yeah yeah I mean it's it's yeah it's one of the things that you start to think about when you think about like when you hear in general conference they'll say oh my goodness um God loves us so much and he knows everything we need to have a happy life and he's giving us everything we you know just think of the happiness letter right but then you think about what the god of Mormonism really does you know the god of Mormonism as Russell Nelson said just a few years ago you're gonna have empty chairs in heaven if you don't do exactly what the church but that claims to be for God tells you to and to your point John we talked about this a little bit in our last episode but you know the reason that the Doctrine and Covenants God is so um angry and threatening is because it works you know if Joseph Smith says you know hey um Martin Harris I'd really love for you to mortgage your property uh so we can fund This Book of Mormon publishing Martin Harris is like yeah I'm gonna pass because my wife's really not happy with this but when Joseph Smith comes back to him and says you're going to mortgage your property you're going to stop coveting your own property which is also weird and if you don't do it I'm going to make your life hell then Martin Harris immediately mortgages a farm and Joe Smith learns early on that by giving Revelations that get very pointed uh threats and um you know basically kind of detailing how bad it's going to be if you don't do it people are much more willing to go with it it's the same thing you know as much as we hate to say it if you ask your kid um to clean the table after dinner they'll do it but then sometimes they'll forget but if they think you're going to get they're going to get beaten if they if they don't they're going to clean that table every time and so it it's it's an abusive father relationship from heavenly father when you talk about the God of Mormonism but it's coming from Joseph Smith so it's effective I mean let's just be honest abuse is effective which is why people are afraid to leave it my people are you know it's it's a really horrible way to phrase it but well it's effective and that's why and what's extra complicated is the in Mormonism the god of the Doctrine and Covenants is Jesus Christ you're supposed to be the Prince of Peace we've we've we've mentioned that before but but I guess I don't want to stray from the main point of of today's episode which is the United order was kind of like Mormon communism in Kirtland and you know why did it fail it failed for the same reason it you know kind of failed in Russia and kind of failed in China and kind of failed in Cuba like humans humans don't always have motivation it's hard for an economic system to be efficient um you know sometimes as flawed as capitalism is I think one of the lessons history has shown us is that that some sort of Communism it's just rough for that to work in the real world so far we haven't really figured that out yet so that's why it fails but the other problem that I have that is a it's a technique associated with cult leaders is this idea of blame reversal because it's bad enough that God is this abusive punishing uh you know God who literally is cursing his children for living out their nature because it's clearly human nature for some reason to not be able to support a United ordered or communist system but then it's this it's this horrible practice of blame reversal where you know a prophet makes a a failed or a bad prophecy well whose fault is it it's certainly not God's fault and it's certainly not the prophet's fault so now we're just going to curse uh the followers and blame it on them and and it's important that we recognize that as something called blame reversal which is a tool of Colts and high demand religions to to wield undue influence on the members Nemo what do you think about that I I agree uh and I also want to go to Joseph Smith's use of the word Everlasting it reminds me of that Meme I think it's from The Princess Bride yeah it's like you keep using that word I don't think it means what you think it means he keeps using that word Everlasting and it it doesn't mean what he think it it means it doesn't do what he says it will do um I have a feeling that the law of consecration as it is in the temple is a remnant of this way of being amongst the the members of the church and it's just never disappeared and so your your covenanting to live a law that was part of a failed prophecy it was part of a failed system of being that the church just doesn't practice anymore yep it's just funny because we talked about this Revelation is still canonized and it's got very clear threats for people who don't follow the the the the United order and yet we're not following the United order in the church today so it makes you wonder like do they believe the DNC because if they do then they are going to have a horrible afterlife uh because they're not following an Everlasting Covenant and it's just it just shows how when you take the church's Revelations and prophecies and doctrines at face value they don't work we don't even you know it's either talk about cafeteria Mormonism this is an area where the church has it as canonized Doctrine and they do not practice it and yet no one talks about that it's it's an interesting as Nemo said this is what part of everlasting are we not understanding here but isn't it we know oh go ahead anymore I was gonna say we know that like we pick and choose with even the the kind of parts of scripture that we say we follow like the word of wisdom people don't follow the word wisdom the way it's written people what they think following the word wisdom means is Don't drink don't smoke don't drink tea or coffee that's it what the word wisdom does actually specify is that you should eat meat sparingly and um beer is okay because apparently right right yeah so as written we don't we don't pay attention to it so it's not leap to then say well people will just ignore entire sections of the doctrine covenants that contain prophecies and Commandments because those just aren't emphasized in uh Mormon teachings but yeah but your your guys's point is important like we've already shown that that the Mormon church has been willing to remove or change scripture and prophecy if it becomes problematic later well here's an instance where they left in the failed prophecy and somehow everybody's asleep at the wheel like you would think that that at some point just like with the outrageousness of DNC 132 and the the polygamy and The Virgins and the and the cursing of Emma and the threatening of Emma to be destroyed you would think that a church would wake up and say I'm not I'm not paying one more dollar of tithing I'm not attending one more week of church until that effing Revelation is removed from from our Canon because it's clearly abusive and and wrong no but just people ignore it and and it's the same thing with with with this prophecy about you know both this prophecy of United order and the next one about the New Jerusalem and in Zion and and Independence Missouri it's like no everyone's asleep at the wheel and nobody cares and why and by the way why didn't the church remove this section like it did the other sections it's it's sometimes mind-boggling what members of a religion will let a church kind of get away with I wonder whether they leave it in to allow themselves room to reinstate it later should they wait that's what it is and that I was just gonna say like the one the one funny thing about this one is you get the same apologetic response on this um Revelation as you do DNC 132 because they'll say it's not where the people today are not ready for it but it's still a commandment and once the church is ready for it we're going to go back to it so that is absolutely the United States government aren't ready to allow polygamy that's what they mean the people they mean that for polygamy yeah but for this one they say the members aren't ready to basically consecrate all of their property to the church but one day we're going to get to that point when they are and then it's going to be basically re-implemented even literally failed once I'm sorry as an outsider if they've seen their members lately I don't think there are the one of the large factions of the church I do not think they are going to essentially sign up for communism anytime soon no it's it's an amazing yeah it it I I don't want to get into that stuff but yeah you're right Nemo it's like if you actually especially if you go online and you look at what members talk about online they are not going if you were to tell the members if you were to phrase what the United order is within Mormonism to them they would scream at you for being a dirty commie and then if you said it was the Mormon Church you'd be like oh well you're just you're not doing it you're twisting it it's like no no that's what it is that's why I'm surprised Benson yeah ripped this out Benson was the real push against communism like he had a real being about communism so I'm surprised he didn't look at this scripture and almost declare it heretical and get rid of it well yeah it's like polygamy isn't polygamy it's plural marriage and United order is in communism it's United order I I'm assuming they would say well you know it's special it's special pleading right it's like well what they do is horrible but when we do it it's from God if God is Jesus if God and Jesus do it it's okay by definition right yeah I mean that's that's what it comes down to and you know well you know God didn't tell Russia to implement a communistic system but God did tell Joseph Smith that we're ready to do it here I I mean it doesn't work but that that is the response you often get when you point out the kind of inconsistencies and trying to you know for example um you'll see the very same people that spend a lot of time online talking about groomers in America and then you point out how Joseph Smith um did uh the basically kept Lucy Walker living in his house sent off her her father after her mother died um and then after she was living with them for a couple months proposed to her as a 50 a 16 year old girl they'll say well that's not grooming because that's from God and you're just like but that's exactly what you're claiming these other people are doing and and so it really like I said earlier pick a lane and stay in it if you want to call something communism well then you have to fit this into that equation you know what I mean you can't just jump around because yeah yours is different because it's I'm gonna tell you right now yours is not different yeah all right well let's go to the next one which I for me is a really really big one um you know if one of the things that I remember growing up very distinctly as a Mormon is memorizing the 13 articles of faith and having that little Banner that I hung on my door as a child and each time I memorized one of the Articles of faith I would put the little you know the little circle token to represent that I memorized it and I'm sure you all can recite this with me one of the Articles of faith is we believe in the literal Gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the ten tribes that Zion the New Jerusalem will be built upon this the American continent sorry Nemo that Christ will reign personally upon the Earth and the Earth will be renewed and will receive its paradicical Glory there's a you know Joseph made really important predictions about Independence Missouri and the New Jerusalem so let's go to that now yeah I mean you just before we read it you say sorry Nemo but as a as a to add that kind of outside of America perspective that was an article of faith I often kind of rolled my eyes at that was a part of church doctrine that even as a fully in believing member I was kind of like yeah all right okay fine um but it'll probably be all the Brits that'll go there right because the Americans won't get the message um but yeah no but from an international perspective that was always one that made me go a bit like okay right that's a bit far but all right sure but for Mormons the articles of Faith are pretty Central to what we would say is Doctrine right oh absolutely yeah absolutely it was it was important like I knew it was true as a Mormon I was like well that is what will happen but just because it was so american-centric yeah of course of course and it's and it's been 150 years um since it's kind of failed all right so take take us through this Mike yeah and so this is I think to John's point this is probably one of his most well-known kind of failed prophecies and so he's gonna claim any Revelation that a temple would be built in Zion Missouri uh in this generation which makes it clear that it would have happened long ago and so this are this is four verses from DNC 84 and I'm going to let Nemo read them all right perfect yay the word of the Lord concerning his church established in the last days for the restoration of his people as he has spoken by the mouth of His prophets and for the Gathering of his Saints to stand upon Mount Zion which shall be the city of New Jerusalem which shall be built beginning at the temple lot which is appointed by the finger of the Lord in the western boundaries of the state of Missouri and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith Junior and others with whom the Lord was well pleased verily this is the word of the Lord that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the Gathering of the Saints beginning at this place even the place of the temple which temples shall be reared in this generation for verily this generation shall not all pass away until a house shall be built unto the Lord and a cloud shall rest upon it which Cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord which shall fill the house yeah I mean like this is for verily this generation shall not all pass away it's like yeah you can't you just you know the apologetic is that the generation can mean a lot of things you know translation translation skin skin this is Thursday yeah yeah this is as clear as day that Joseph Smith is like some of you will be alive when this Temple is built and it does not happen and this is a canonized Revelation uh that's still in the church today and everyone can read it and go oh that's weird that didn't happen and to John's point they don't focus on it because if you do once you start to think about it you're gonna have a lot of issues and internally to try to sort out but there's no way around this this is a failed prophecy go ahead and read go ahead and and read your final couple sentences Mike oh I pretty much just did it Joseph says just the fact that he said the generation shall not all pass away until and house shall be built unto the Lord 100 that's a failed prophecy yeah yeah basically what was supposed to happen was that you know we were getting kicked out of Ohio and Kirtland he sent a bunch of people to Missouri and we were all supposed to as Mormons moved to Missouri moved Independence Missouri build a temple there and then Jesus would come I mean that was it and we were the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instead you know Governor Boggs and whoever else ended up issuing an Exterminating order we got our rear ends handed to us we we considered going to war with the people of Missouri until we realized that wasn't going to end up well for us and at the end of the day Joseph Smith and the remaining Saints after a massive apostasy kind of go slouching slouching into Illinois to rebuild and uh not only did not only did this prophecy not happen in 2023 we don't even own the temple lot some other Church owns the plot of land where the temple is supposed to be built because if you read this scripture it it gets so specific as to actually mention the actual lots and we all know through historical records what that lot is and some other Church owns it and so so what we saw is we went to Missouri I'm sorry we all all the saints went to Illinois Joseph built up a new city there he actually built the temple there but then he ends up getting killed and the Saints get driven from Illinois and we have to set up again in Utah and over time I remember growing up um hearing the reinterpretation that Zion dwells within us now before yeah we all knew what Zion was Zion was Independence Missouri where we're all supposed to gather but that got reinterpreted in modern Mormonism that that Zion dwells within us and we're supposed to build the stakes of Zion wherever we live instead of move and congregate to Independence is that is that what you remember Nemo yeah although you still get those Mormons saying that oh well when the prophet starts Gathering people uh you know that's when we might then get the temple locked back and then we might start building a temple and they've kind of like retrofitted the significance of it to like some sort of Future Part of the Gathering of Israel um when Joseph Smith very much had it in mind for a specific time and this isn't the last time that prophets will then go on to use the word generation uh so loosely that it yeah I don't know I did a video on ye are the chosen generation a royal priesthood etc etc that verse from Peter um and Prophets generation after generation keep telling young people that they are a chosen generation so that one and the reason I bring that up is because one of the Apologetics that comes with that is people then saying well generation doesn't mean you know the traditional genetic meaning of a generation the traditional anthropological meaning of a generation it means those of the latter days it's like well okay fine I guess maybe but I don't see how you would apply that apologetic to this because you made it very clear that it's about people dying of this generation yeah yeah anything you want to add Mike no I mean it's just like you said it's one of those things where um there will be probably a day when when the Mormon Church buys that that lot I'm sure and when they do they'll they're going to reframe it as a fulfillment of Prophecy when you can read it for yourself and realize that this is 100 a failed prophecy that Joseph Smith and I've talked about this in previous episodes when Joseph Smith is in control of the situation he can make prophecies fulfill themselves because he's in control of it and in this case he probably thought he was in control and that's why he probably made that Revelation because he thinks we're in Missouri we have the ability to um have this lot and build there so he makes this Revelation and then all of a sudden he loses control because the church gets kicked out of Missouri and it just shows that either God again can't give Joseph Smith correct prophecy or God is too powerless to stop a group of people in Missouri and neither one of them is good and ultimately when you see it happen over and over again it's pretty clear that whoever is claiming to speak for God and continually getting it wrong is not speaking for God I mean it's just no way around it because and then by the the scriptures on a mission you then shouldn't be afraid of him you know yeah you shouldn't be afraid of that profit because they've got it wrong yeah and so what you want to do there is just add all these up aggregate them as we're doing and say well that should mean that you just don't really need to listen and as for the powerlessness of God it's just wild it's absolutely wild that the the only argument you can make there now is well agency God's not going to interfere with agency it's like okay so God's not going to interfere with agency to allow a prophecy to be fulfilled yeah what's the point in the prophecy then because if you can prophesy something God can tell you that will happen and then someone else's agency gets in the way how does that work yeah and that's the thing like into your point you get into this argument of like um arguing that you have to leave agency right and so Joseph Smith will go to a teenage girl and say you've been commanded by God to marry me and then we're gonna we're gonna be told by the church that they still have the agency to say no but we all know that in that Revelation or Commandment that Joseph Smith is giving this teenage girl he's saying if you don't accept this the gates will be closed forever that's what he said to Lucy Walker or they'll say this is your chance to get exaltation for you and your family and so then you have to say well is it really free agency when there are threats contained within it or is it then kind of I would frame it more as like spiritual extortion and in this case to what Nemo is saying you know if you're going to say well God can't interfere in the free agency of say the the mob in Missouri by stopping them it's really hard to reconcile that with the same God that is doing all of these miracles in the Bible and the Book of Mormon and that's that's where you start to see some issues where it's like how come um the version of God portrayed in the scriptures is so powerful and able to do anything and then when you look at the prophets of Mormonism they can't even get up there and tell you who heavenly mother is they can't even stop um like like we just talked about a temple um from being stopped it's just one of those things like it's just to me you have to be consistent and I'm hammering that because when you look at apologetics they're just jumping all over the place you just can't do that if you want to be intellectually honest yeah you have to you just have to address it and deal with it whether or not you stay in the church that's your choice that you can't keep saying totally totally and I love the slide that you shared kind of uh um on the side for those who are just listening there's a slide that has uh from David O McKay to Russell M Nelson think of it like a Brady Bunch nine squares three by three and it basically you know is a photo that says you are super special you are the chosen generation and what it's alluding to is you know when I was growing up in the church in the 80s going to Seminary you know I was taught that you know I was the Saturday's Warrior and what that was meant was this Saturday is the it's the evening of the Saturday if the existence of mankind were a week and Jesus was coming on Sunday we were all taught that you know it's Saturday night you know we whatever whatever the youth are at the time we are the chosen generation we are Saturday's Warriors we are we are here save for the last days um and uh but but it didn't take much to to realize that my parents were taught that they were the chosen generation to usher in the coming of Christ and their parents were and their parents were I remember my Seminary teacher Lawrence Layton telling us that he got a revelation that Jesus would come within before he died well guess what he's died and and then of course I noticed that subsequent Generations were also all told that they were part of the chosen generation up until the current generation being told that they're the ones that are going to usher in the second coming and it makes this kind of Latter-day second coming of Jesus almost like this hamster wheel where like the carrots in front of you and you're running to try and eat the carrot like you're a hamster but the wheels just constantly spinning and Recycling and that's kind of what this whole millennialistic Saturday's Warrior New Jerusalem kind of Doctrine has turned into from my perspective Nemo you're you're a few Generations younger than me or at least one full generation were you taught that you were kind of Saturday's Warrior generation I didn't know that's what Saturday's Warrior meant everyone keeps going on about Saturday's Warrior and I feel like it's this Utah cultural reference that never made it my neck of the woods I always thought it was just a terrible Church film but apparently it's more than that um we I was absolutely taught I was a chosen generation though absolutely drunk that up and um and then my nephew who's you know 13 years younger than me taught the same thing and then I'm sure that you know his nephew will be taught the same thing or it just keeps going yeah yeah all right well that's a really important one and uh you know basically the New Jerusalem Doctrine and the and that Jesus is coming any day now Doctrine has been largely shelved I will add I'm pretty sure that with a hundred billion dollars plus several hundred billion dollars the church could make some offer to the temple lot folks and buy that plot of land but I don't think the church in 2023 wants the Saints focusing on this prophecy and relocating to Missouri and so it's we're in this weird spot where the church could actually acquire the land and build the temple but the last thing it wants is all the members actually waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled because when it doesn't they're all gonna a lot of them are gonna look at each other and say you know who who's who's steering this ship right Mike yeah no 100 actually I was going to point out there is somebody um who went to a recent um like Fireside kind of thing and one of the leaders and I I don't know if they actually say who it was because I think they're trying not to out who it was that reported um that leader was actually telling him that the the top leaders of the church have been visiting Missouri like multiple times a month for uh recently and they were saying that to this Fireside as a way to tell people like you better get your crap in order because the second coming is is right around the corner and I don't believe for a second that Russell Nelson is taking jet a bunch of jet trips over to Missouri but there is always going to be this like urban legend in the air that they're gonna say the churches is totally getting ready to go to Missouri so you better get your house in order and it's happening this was uh like a few weeks ago so in 2023 there are these rumors coming from this Fireside that one of the I don't know if it's a stake president or hire uh basically said yeah the the Brethren are visiting Missouri like multiple times a month so it is kind of funny to your point John because I don't think they want people to to focus on that because as we've talked about if they go and they buy this temple line and then all of a sudden 20 years goes by and nothing happens it's gonna be like yeah they really do not speak for God so it's almost easier just to leave it out there and I think it's the um Church of Christ that owns it right they still own It or The Community of Christ Church of Christ and the LDS church they each own parts of the area yeah so they've all got buildings operating there but um Community of Christ I believe owns the largest portion okay okay well I I misspoke the other the other rumor the other iteration of a rumor I heard recently is that it's now known that Nelson Russell and Nelson is the prophet that's going to usher in you know Jesus Christ's return and this is the type of whisper campaign that gets shared amongst um Orthodox Mormons but also the youth to kind of make them feel a sense of urgency to be righteous to be obedient to go on missions to pay their tithing because Jesus is almost here and I just recently heard the rumor that Russell and Nelson he's the one that's going to usher in but but they've literally said that about every Prophet ever so yeah I mean that's that's what it comes down to is every single Prophet is like the one that we Revere and so of course they're going to be the one that's chosen and uh you know yeah we will have plenty to say about Russell Nelson in the next episodes but yeah I I don't see him as being a guy that's going to be ushering in anything well let's go to the next slide which is Joseph Smith prophecy that Zion will not fall yeah and so we're going to have a few slides on this because this is one of those you know I joined as we talked about as a you know after high school so I didn't go through Seminary and so I didn't have a huge grasp on church history and I don't think that a lot of members did back then anyways but I didn't understand kind of the implications of the whole Zions camp and so this is uh tying into what we've already talked about um in some of our earlier Revelations but basically Joseph Smith is going to claim a revelation that Zion will not fall and so this is from DNC 97 it says and the nations of Earth shall honor her and shall say surely Zion is the city of our God and Shirley Zion cannot fall neither be moved out of her place for God is there and the Hand of the Lord is there and he hath sworn by the power of His might to be her salvation in her high tower therefore verily thus saith the Lord let Zion Rejoice for this is Zion the pure in heart therefore let Zion Rejoice while all the wicked shall mourn for behold and lo a Vengeance cometh speedily upon the ungodly as the Whirlwind and who shall Escape it the Lord Scourge shall pass over by night and by day and the report thereof shall Vex all people yea it shall not be stayed until the Lord come and so you know here we have Joseph Smith saying Zion's going nowhere God's going to protect it and the members are going to leave Missouri soon after and as we're going to talk about in in the coming Revelations because it's going to be the members of the church that are blamed for it but this right here is Joseph Smith saying God's protecting this place it's not going to fall because at the time of course there's this growing fear that they're going to get kicked out of Missouri and you know as we're going to show in the next few slides they're going to get kicked out and so this is going to be a failed prophecy okay and so tell me if I'm remembering this right and we're going to talk about it basically the church is founded in New York in 1830 but there's a lot of that treasure digging jealousy folk magic residue which means that Joseph kind of is not going to be able to escape his his folk magic treasure digging past so ultimately the church is relocated to Kirtland Ohio a Temple's built there but obviously you know Joseph kind of does the scorched Earth thing every five or six years wherever he starts something it ends up blowing up there's the Kirtland Bank Scandal but Joseph was um I guess he did have some foresight enough to send people down to Missouri saying Missouri is going to be where it all happens and of course the Kirtland Bank Scandal and other things cause another apostasy spoil Kirtland and so all the members are anticipating that that Independence Missouri is going to be the place where the church is going to be established and so this scripture you just read is Joseph Smith basically throwing the gauntlet down saying Independence Missouri is the place but then the state of Missouri ends up being annoyed by Mormons hating Mormons issuing an Exterminating order against the Mormons and Missouri becomes very inhospitable so that's the point where Joseph's either gotta like throw down and say it's going to happen in Missouri or run away with this tail between his legs and the scripture you just read is basically Joseph kind of throwing down the gauntlet right Mike yeah I mean this is just a pretty clear way of Joseph Smith saying God's going to protect this place it's the ungodly are going to be you know be taken care of and yet right I mean pretty soon after this um they're driven now and so it just shows again that either Joseph Smith is just kind of you know rattling the saber to try to keep the people happy and not speaking for God or again God can't protect the church in ways that God promises Joseph Smith he's going to protect the church and so it's a trend you're going to see in these Revelations because I'm not saying that this should be easy for God's just to strike down people but is God powerful or is God completely unable to do anything and I just I feel like people will hear this episode and think I'm trying to mock God I'm saying the god of the Mormon Church makes promises that the god of the Mormon church is apparently unable to keep and you have to reconcile that one way the other so yeah this is Joseph Smith effectively throwing down the gauntlet saying Zion is not falling so tell tell us really quickly before we go to this next slide what is Zion's camp all right yeah and so basically it's after the church is forced from Missouri um this puzzles Joseph Smith and this is from the book Saints it says Joseph did not understand why God had let the Saints suffer and lose the promised land which makes sense given the revelation we just read and so this leads Joseph Smith to write DNC 101 and I'm reading this from the Saints book because it kind of gives a like almost like a story feel to to this whole event and so I think it's it's good to understand how the church presents it today along with the Revelation and so um it says this is about DNC 101 it says while the Revelation urged peaceful negotiations with the people of Independence the Lord also indicated that Zion could be reclaimed by power the Revelation calls for 500 men to go to Missouri but the force was only a small fraction of the 500 the Lord had called for even though the force did not match the Revelation They carried on to Missouri okay so let me just make sure understand so Joseph issues a revelation or God through Joseph issues of Revelation saying 500 men are going to go down to Missouri and liberate and liberate Independence and that's what Zion's Camp was and was supposed to be am I right yeah yeah so basically Joseph Smith claims that God says it won't fall it falls so then Joseph Smith gets this Revelation that says we could take it by Power by force meaning military like military force right yeah yeah basically by physical Force so we're gonna get in the Revelation called for 500 men to be assembled to go down to Independence to just take the land back and but he wasn't able he wasn't able to even muster up 500 people at the time no he only got a fra I think it was like I could be wrong I think it's like 150 or 200 but it's it's a a small fraction compared to what the Revelation calls for and it was a ragtag group as I it's been a long time since I've read this but it was kind of this ragtag group that goes down and and thinks that they're going to be fighting a war and based on like Book of Mormon teachings about like how God protected the the Stripling Warriors or the whoever God's people they're thinking somehow God's going to intervene in some miracle and this ragtag band of a few hundred scruffs are somehow gonna defeat the the standing militias of the state of Missouri and as I understand it it reached the point of like almost conflict where like we're lined up on one side and they're lined up on the other and there's this Moment of Truth where like it's either charge or no charge and as I understand it Joseph kind of backs down is that right yeah yeah so that that's exactly it so um if you go back to the slides so DNC DNC 101 basically says you're you could take it by power and so they they go on this what they call Zion's Camp some call it Zion's March and they go down to Missouri and they take all these people um and and they go and like you said they don't have a lot of resources and so um this is DNC 103 which comes obviously soon after it says the Redemption of Zion must needs come by power the Lord declared let no man be afraid to lay down his life for my sake and so here we've got DNC 101 calling for this Army of men to be created DNC 103 is like we're taking this by power do not be afraid I got you I'm God and so they get to to Missouri and Joseph Smith realizes that they do not have the numbers and so he's trying to make negotiations which fail and so Joseph Smith realizes that they're screwed they're either all going to die because they you know they're outnumbered and Joseph Smith must know on some level God ain't protecting them and so the camp fails to retake Zion and God then changes his mind about retaking the land by power uh in DNC 105 which said that members need to be endowed before they could take the land back and this is like you know there's a movie called The Wedding Singer and there's this part where she's talking to the guy that she just broke off you know left at the altar and he says that's information that information might have been useful to me yesterday um why are you going to take a couple hundred people down through a very grueling March just to tell them when they get there um you know what God changed his mind we're not going to take it by power you need to be endowed with power first and so it just really shows that Joseph Smith he knows he's powerless and as I've said before when Joseph Smith is not in control of the situation his Revelations are horrible well in this case he's not in control of what's going to happen in Missouri so he's able to make these Revelations to get people to go but then when he gets there he's like yeah I we're screwed yeah so they just so the members are mad because they've given up so much to make this really horrible journey and Joseph's just like oh you know what you need to get your endowment first and then you're going to have the power and it's just it's absurd and a lot of times a lot of times you know uh Progressive or apologetic Mormons want to say there's no similarity between like David koresh or Jim Jones and Joseph Smith that somehow you know koresh and Jim Jones and and Keith Ranieri and you know their their evil awful bad prophets because look you know their their civilizations their followings ended in Mass death or mass suicide but the truth is Zion's Camp very well could have ended in a bloodbath with the Mormons being fully exterminated and you know on the one hand yay Joseph Smith didn't lead his people into a massacre on the other hand he almost did and so I guess I'm glad that he didn't lead them into a massacre but it's all the only difference in my mind between David koresh and Jim Jones and Joseph Smith is that in some sense Joseph Smith turned tail and kind of backed out and I guess I don't know whether to respect him for that or to not respect him for kind of wimping out I'm glad he wimped out but does that make him even less of a respectable Prophet I don't know but this clearly is one of the instances I would say Illinois you know the ending of the church in Illinois would be another instance that could have literally been disastrous you know a massacre right yeah I mean we could talk about the way the church tries to paint it now um I'm just looking at the church's website where they talk about Zion's camp and they say this Expedition known today as Zion's Camp was initially called the camp of Israel it was formed after Joseph Smith received a revelation in February 1834 commanding him to call it the strength of the Lord's House to redeem Zion from its enemies the Revelation instructed church leaders to recruit at least 100 preferably 500 men to travel to Missouri um and then he goes on to say although they saw it uh many saw it as a military um operation Joseph Smith and other church leaders saw it as a purely defensive campaign which feels to me a little bit like retconing history and they now try and paint it as oh they went just to guide the saints that were still there out um and then there's the story of the fishing River flooding and that saves them from being overrun and all sort of stuff so so I think the way that it's now phrased or looked at is that they've changed the narrative about why they went and they've changed the narrative about why they left again which was that Miracles saved them from being overrun I think the quote is you'll see hell in the morning from 400 men or something like that but then the river floods and they all run away again yeah yeah and I just have to say read the account I don't know if it was a no man knows my history or rough Stone Rolling but when you read the account of Zion's camp and especially you read the slide we're going to show next which is the blame reversal that happens it's one of the most sickening abusive sad moments in all of early Mormon history so let's go ahead and go to that slide Mike yeah and so this is dnc105 so what I'm as I mentioned before you know you've got three Revelations that are basically leading up to so the first one says Zion is not going to fall the second one says well Zion fell but we could take it by power the next one is Zion we're going to take my power and then when it fails this is the revelation we get which is DNC 105 and Nemo do you want to read one through seven for us absolutely that's fine verily I say unto you who have assembled yourselves together that you may learn my will concerning the Redemption of mine Afflicted people behold I say unto you were it not for the transgression of my people speaking concerning the church and not individuals they might have been redeemed even now but behold they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I require at their hands but are full of all manner of evil and do not impart of their substance as becometh Saints to the poor and Afflicted among them that hasn't aged well and are not United according to the union required by the law of the Celestial Kingdom and Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the Celestial Kingdom otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself and my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience if it must needs be by the things which they can which they cover all right I'm wondering if it's meant to be suffer but possibly I speak not concerning those who are appointed to lead my people who are the first Elders of my church for they are not all under this condemnation which isn't that terribly convenient oh my God Mike is audibly gasping Mike what's going on Mike well I mean like I said I didn't know this stuff until after I had done the Deep dive because I really didn't learn this in in church and just to read Joseph Smith actually tell the members that it failed because they were evil and then have God put in a verse to say oh the people that led you into this debacle they're not to blame it's so transparently yeah bad and it's not just that it's no one will understand how much sacrifice these people made to support the early LDS church whether it's in New York or Kirtland or or Missouri or Illinois or the Pioneers that that ended up settling Utah like these are people that that were were humble faithful people who put their trust in Joseph Smith at gr and Brigham Young at great significant personal sacrifice the type of sacrifice that probably none of us will ever ever come to know and so to see that level of sacrifice rewarded or punished with kind of the shaming condemnation it's the type of thing that would make me want to do a John Larson like expletive-filled rant because it's so it's so outrageous right it's yeah it's awful it's terrible and then you've got Joseph Smith failing them and not giving them convenient Revelation that for example boiling water might be a good idea so they don't all get cholera later on right because then while he's berating them they're all then going to get very very sick um from something that you know God could have helped him out with yeah I just it it is just absolutely absurd and you know these these people listen to Joseph Smith because he claimed through the voice of God that they are going to take this by power if they go down there and if they're faithful you want to tell me these people are evil and Unfaithful that just took I think it's 800 miles between Kirtland and Independence an 800 mile walk you're gonna tell me they're Unfaithful absolutely ghoulish stuff for Joseph Smith to then turn it around and say you have manners of evil in you and then to say oh by the way the people that lead you me God wants you to know that I'm pretty freaking awesome and this is very similar to the um for those who've seen the South Park episode on the origins of the Book of Mormon uh when Martin Harris loses the 116 pages and and I realize South Park is parroting it but Joseph Smith is like Martin I've gotten Revelation from God he is really angry with you but he's going to let us keep doing keep you know translating the book and Martin's like wow if God's angry at you then it must be true and it just reminds me of this idea of like Joseph Smith is telling these people how how awful they are and so these people are upset because Joseph Smith told them God said they protect them and retake Zion I mean it fails and these people like Joseph you are full of crap you told us this was going to happen we walked 800 miles and then you got to walk back and it didn't happen and Joseph's like you guys are upset because you're evil Unfaithful people it's just this is like you said this is the area when you when you do want to do an expletive fill ramp because one Joseph Smith here is just not a good person if you're going to to throw the blame on the people who went through such a horrible Journey For Something you literally made up and then two the fact is that this tactic Works to keep to settle people down because now they feel like if they complain that God is going to strike them down when God clearly couldn't do it to save um to save Zion I just it yeah this is one of those areas where just like um again to quote the South Park episode it's like you know all of this and you still believe it because when you read this you can see without any question that again either Joseph Smith is making it up or God has no power and if God has no power you got nothing to fear anyway so but it is it is an amazing skill that Joseph Smith has to be able to threaten people with consequences enacted by a God who failed to enact those consequences on their behalf which is what you've just alluded to God wasn't powerful enough to help them overtake Zion but yet they have managed to be convinced by Joseph Smith that God is powerful enough to punish them and do the things to them which he couldn't do to those and help them take Zion so it's an amazing way that Joseph Mr Smith or any cult leader in in that respect you know those that act that way are able to navigate those Waters between a God who isn't able to fulfill the promises they give the people but using that same God as a way to keep those people in line yeah 100 it's just it this is one of those ones that is it's angering because you read it and you can just see the manipulation Joseph Smith is using not only to get these people to shut up about the fact that they're upset that Joseph's Revelation failed but to even in doing that continue to elevate himself up even higher to say oh yeah it failed but it's because of you guys I was awesome you guys have evil in you it's it's just you know to John's Point earlier it just feels so abusive like if you did that to your family uh they would want nothing to do with you because you'd be a horrible person and yet in today's Church they talk about him as like the second greatest person of Jesus and you're like no he had a lot of of elements of his character that are absolutely fraudulent and and manipulative and abusive and we're seeing them all right here yeah and when you look at like a modern Apostle like down a chokes the number two in the church make a statement like we neither seek nor offer apologies you look at something like Zion's camp and you say well clearly that's that was his inspiration he's just doing what Joseph Smith did this would have been a perfect opportunity for Joseph and or God to say whoops sorry we made a mistake it's our bad not yours maybe we need to re recalibrate and retune our prophecies but this one's on us guys sorry that's not what Mormon God does that's not what Mormon Jesus does that's not what what the founding Mormon prophet does he just redirects the blame to the people so so I guess down a jokes comes by it honestly but there is one shining glorious gift that Zion's Camp has given us all and that is Zelf the white lamanite why don't you tell us about that Mike yeah this is one if you've done deep dives into Mormonism you're going to come across because this is um this this actually solves a lot or kind of cements a lot of problems for Mormonism and you know as a long story short we'll read the account that John Taylor gives in the church run times and Seasons so people can't say this is some sort of anti-mormon diatribe but Joseph Smith they're on this this long journey remember we're talking about it's like 800 miles right you're walking from Ohio to Missouri and they're talking through this right because what else are you going to do when you're doing this long journey and they come across this pile of bones and people like oh wow look at their bones and I think there's an arrowhead in it that Brigham Young keeps and Joseph Smith of course because he can't help himself it's like oh yeah God told me that this is Zelf the white lamanite and so um we'll read what John Taylor said but yeah this this is we'll talk about the implications after because this to me is a lot of more problematic than kind of like the the way that both critics approach it kind of laughing at it and then of course Believers kind of say this is just Joseph speaking as a man but it it shows that Joseph Smith is willing to just throw around um two members that he speaks for God about the most minute things which again is in stark contrast to the leaders today can I read can I read one this time Mike yeah why don't you read it so I was giving your throat a break because I know you're you're nothing or something yeah feel free okay I'll do it all right so here we go this is John Taylor third prophet of the Mormon Church in the times and Seasons 1846. quote on the top of the mound were Stones which presented the appearance of three altars having been erected one above the other according to Ancient Order and human bones were strewn over the surface of the ground the Brethren procured a shovel and hoe and removing the Earth to the depth of about one foot discovered skeleton of a man almost entire and between his ribs was a lamaniteish arrow which evidently produced his death I've never heard that adjective laminitish but there we have it um Elder Brigham Young retained the arrow and the Brethren carried some pieces of the skeleton to Clay County the contemplation of the scenery before us produce particular Sensations in our bosoms and the visions of the past being opened to my understandings by the spirit of the Almighty I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white lamanite a large thick set man and a man of God he was a warrior and Chieftain under the great prophet omendegus who was known from the hill Kimora or Eastern Sea to the Rocky Mountains his name was Zelf the curse was taken from him and I'm assuming that's the curse of dark skin the curse was taken from him or at least in part one of his thigh bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling while in battle years before his death he was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs during the last great struggle of the lamanites and Nephites now I'm hearing audible gasps what's going on Mike and Nemo why why are you guys gasping I just I want to make a point first of all the thing that upsets me the most is the implication that someone threw a stone from a sling hard enough to snap a man's thigh bone that takes some serious strength or a serious sized Stone I would imagine um but I would like to say that I'm very grateful to Joseph Smith for this because without this what else would we call Sam Shelley and tana yeah what else would we call them that's a that's a reference to the Zelf on the Shelf YouTube channel that is uh much beloved and I'm taking full credit for actually naming that uh YouTube channel back when they were in my support group at Utah State University they're like what should we name our YouTube channel and I'm taking full credit for that one but they've done all the great work since then anyway um all right and what what else I mean there's obviously the the desecration of a sacred Indian burial mound yes maybe that would be presentism you know we can't really really expect 19th century Frontier men to respect Indian burial mountains I don't know but what you do see is he's firmly putting geographical locations on Book of Mormon events and that's that's the thing I don't know if you stole your offender there Mike but that is no this does is yeah it absolutely rules out rules out the hemispheric model that began after the time that BH Roberts started to bring meaning one life for our non-mormons what do you mean by him so there's there's two models of Book of Mormon geography because no one's actually been able to settle the places of the Book of Mormon onto real existent sort of extant places within the United States for the most part so in Joseph Smith's time there was a belief in a localized version of The Book of Mormon places so the hill Kimora was actually the hill Kimora up in Upstate New York that's where that big battle took place all these sorts of things then when BH Robert came about in the early 1900s uh there started to be problems and concerns with this model um because there was very little archaeological evidence at the time and they've since has been more there's still a dearth of archaeological evidence so apologists and the church in general has moved towards what they call a hemispheric model meaning that the events of the Book of Mormon took place across the entire of the sort of Western Hemisphere from South and Central America up into North America and in doing that they took out footnotes from LDS scriptures that named the bodies of water in the scriptures as things like Lake Ontario and um under sort of Great Lakes area so they really pulled away from that in the early 1900s as a brief summary wait are you what what about the mesoamerica model how we've moved to that over time because that's the only area as part of the hemispheric model that forms part of bringing it out into the broader Western Hemisphere or or even in North America or the crazy interpretation that there's two Hill kimoras that that Moroni buried the plates somewhere in Central America yeah because how else could he have walked in the distances and armies and then the in you know the lack of again of archaeological evidence there's also the two kimura's Theory which is all kind of silly but Mike what point do you want to drive home about all of this just keeping up that slide one more time real quick yeah absolutely just because there's there's a few parts here so one you know they're saying um he was known from the hill Kimora or Eastern Sea so they're putting the hill Kimora on the eastern part of the us which makes sense because the hilkamora is in New York so that right there is cementing that the hill Kimora in New York where the gold plates were is the one that Joseph Smith taught through the the voice of God was the hill Kimora with the big battles so there's no two Hill kimuras as you just mentioned they're cementing it millions of people died yes where millions of people died with with zero archaeological evidence um and then they're talking about how it's a white lamanite with the curse was taken from him so they're cementing the fact that the curse is skin actual human skin so the apologetic that skin doesn't mean skin falls apart because Joseph Smith is telling this to the other people that it's through the spirit of Revelation they're saying was taken from him that's why he's a white lamanite so you have as Nemo pointed out they're saying that these these events these battles happened in America which the church today is trying to get away from that the hilcamore is in New York which the church is trying to get away from because archaeological evidence tells you that absolutely did not happen and Joseph Smith here Joseph Smith here is cementing that dark skin is a sign of the curse or the curse however you want to phrase it but it is literal skin and these are all being done in the name of God in this Revelation and as we know I'm not calling this a failed Revelation I'm just saying that this is a revelation that gives us a ton of insight into a lot of other problematic areas of Mormonism that the church wants to say are not what we can read with our own eyes because Joseph Smith is making clear through the voice of God um exactly what what the Book of Mormon means and what we all take it to mean because it's at face value yeah for me it it really it it actually is really important evidence to the credibility of Joseph Smith and it's a testament to his creative mind that he just would see stuff and then free associate and whatever came into his mind he would just he would just state it as if it were Doctrine in scripture I mean unless you believe that God is super racist and turns people's skin dark when they're Wicked or back to White when they're righteous unless you believe that you know this Book of Mormon narrative happened where millions of people killed each other but there's no DNA or linguistic or archaeological evidence to support it you know unless you believe a lot of racist or insulting or scientifically uh completely unbearable unverifiable things you really have no option but to look at this this one account as just one example of many of just silly frivolous creative kind of almost a fan fiction prophecies and Revelations that Joseph Smith was inclined to just kind of throw out there um rooted in his folk magic days and so once you go there then it kind of contained Joseph Smith as a credible Prophet because then that fully explains the Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is basically just the the Zelf the White lamanite story times a thousand right and that's that that's what explains the Book of Mormon probably better than anything else it's Joseph's fanciful creative um storytelling mind you know run amok in the Book of Mormon with the with two to three years to prepare plan and execute the book and and it's all I think this story is is instructive about kind of what the most likely explanation for the Book of Mormon is it's basically Zelf times a thousand right yeah I mean he's cementing he's cementing all of the things that we know about the Book of Mormon we talk about the curse of dark skin that it happened in America the hill Kimora with the big battle was in New York where the plates were buried he's cementing this in the voice of God and so when the church tells you today oh you know there's probably a second Hill Kimora in the fair Mormon will say oh you know the early people were confused because they were kind of just just making this a bad assumption that that's what he'll come over but hilcamore is actually out you know somewhere else and you read this and you're like no no not at all Joseph Smith is 100 cementing this there's no way around it and as we've talked about in so many episodes it's like you try to create one apologetic but then you look at something like this it just compounds the problem not just there but geography um but the the skin all of it that's why this is so important not to make fun of zelph the white lamanite because it is kind of a silly story but the fact that Joseph Smith and the voice of God is cementing so many of the problems that the church wants to get away from and just to lay down a little bit of uh sort of certainty on this matter as well as Joseph Fielding Smith in the third volume of Dr of Salvation makes it very clear that all the contemporaries of Joseph Smith believed the hill Kimora to be in Upstate New York that to be the scene of the final battle between the new fights and the lamanites um so it's not just this that does that yeah adoptions of Salvation volume three and Joseph Smith was a prophet Mormon prophet and the son of a Mormon prophet Joseph F Smith and the grandson of Hiram Smith Joseph's brother the other thing I'll just add is you talked to Richard Bushman just recently you know you read Richard bushman's explanation of the Book of Mormon and even Patrick Mason or Richard Bushman will basically say the Book of Mormon sounds a lot like 19th century you know full Christianity Protestant Christianity you know you basically you see 19th century Protestant Upstate you know you know New England Christianity also at the Book of Mormon which shows that it's kind of just a relic of its time and for me we we can't move on past the Zelda White lamanite story without noting that it also invokes the mound builder myth yeah you know where would Joseph Smith get the idea of a white lamanite why wouldn't it just all lamanites would be dark dark-skinned as as they would have encountered while it's because Joseph Smith was subjected to the mound builder myth which was that there was a there was a previously existent um white version of Native Americans that were killed off by the quote Savages who were dark and that's just Joseph pulling into um you know his quote prophecies uh you know folk folk wisdom of the day and we've got entire episode or two about the mound builder myth and on Mormon stories we've had John Hammer and others on to talk about that um that's we can even we can even identify the the prevalent theories of the time that Joseph Smith draws upon and they're showing up here as well yeah and to those who want to just blame Brigham Young for the curse of Cain this is just another example that Joseph Smith very much had that Doctrine as well yeah yep all right well let's go on to the unfortunate death of David W Patton yeah this one is one that obviously is not gonna rank high on people's lists but on April 17th 1838 Joseph Smith gives a revelation to David W Patton that he would serve a mission in the next spring and so this is DNC 114. verily thus saith the Lord it is wisdom in my servant David W Patton that he settle up all his business as soon as he possibly can and make a disposition of his merchandise that he may perform a mission unto me next spring in company with others even 12 including himself to testify of my name and bear Glad Tidings unto the world and um unfortunately David W Patton dies in October of 1838 and never goes on the mission that God basically reveals to Joseph he's going to go on and so you know it's one of those things where it might not be a big one it's just you know it's one of those things where it's like well you're giving a revelation to somebody they're going on on a mission the next spring and they're gonna die in the fall it's it's kind of problematic again I'm surprised that wasn't removed from the doctrine of covenants at some point I am too yeah like I say the really tragic thing about that just really quickly that um where it says as soon as you possibly can people will just blame him for not doing it quickly enough and therefore he died and didn't get to go on a mission that's how people will square that Circle which is just tragic it is yeah and that's true I mean like I said this isn't the biggest one but it is clearly an example of where there's a revelation that doesn't happen and so it is a failed Revelation even if it's not it's important to say you know the temple lot in Zion or Zion's camp but it's certainly worth noting yeah all right well let's not belabor that one let's go to the next one which I was going to mention if it wasn't on here this is the failed treasure seeking mission to Salem Massachusetts right you want to give us that background Mike well this is just one the church needs money and basically they go to um Salem and Joseph Smith basically to to go back to his treasure digging days believes that there is treasure that they can find so it turns into a treasure basically this is a treasure hunting Mission and so Joseph Smith records a revelation from God that basically tells them yeah there's treasure here and you're gonna get it and um so this is DNC 111 it says I the Lord your God am not displeased with you with your coming this journey notwithstanding your Follies I have much treasure in the city for you for the benefit of Zion in many people in this city whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion through your instrumentality therefore it is expedient that you should form acquaintance with the men in the city as you shall be led and as it shall be given you and it shall come to pass in due time that I will give this city into your hands that you shall have power over it in so much that they shall not discover your secret parts and it's wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours concern concern not yourself about your debts for I will give you power to pay them and obviously they don't find any treasure in Salem uh the city was never put in their hands this prophecy completely fails the trip to Salem was a failure and it's funny because the apologeticists they'll say well I think they they converted a few people while they were in Salem to the church they'll say that's the treasures conversions it's like no no God is telling Joseph Smith there is gold and silver and it's going to cover all their debts it absolutely fails this is another failed Revelation that's coming from Joseph Smith in the voice of God don't let people don't let people at the moment with the current SEC situation see this because they'll use it as you say look see God told Joseph Smith to hide his money once He'll Do It Again yeah it's just it's it this is one of those I always find it weird when God gets involved in the financial affairs of the church yes particularly considering the strong biblical teachings there are towards hoarding wealth and having too much money and that sort of thing and going out without personal script and that sort of thing um I always find it difficult when God gets so involved in essentially what looked like to the rest of us money making schemes I don't know what your thoughts are on that yeah no this is like if you if you took the word if you took kind of the the voice of God out and just replaced it with like a random uh Guardian spirit this would read like a a Joseph Smith treasure digging run this is a treasure digging mission that Joseph Smith is putting in the voice of God and just like his treasure digging missions with the same rock and a hat they fail because Joseph Smith can't see anything and so the fact is he claims to see gold and silver through the voice of God and it fails and it's exact like this is when we talked earlier about how treasure taking kind of works its way through the church it this is a good example because this is a treasure digging Mission through the voice of God it fails I don't it really is that simple one of the things I'm confused about if you if you think about Jesus who should be the model for everything what happened when he had a fish and some loaves of bread and there were a bunch of people around him you know that that needed to eat like it wasn't like hey all of you go on an expedition and in this place over there after this big long journey dig a big hole go to the basement and you're gonna find some stuff Jesus was able to just multiply the allegedly the fishes and the Loaves and everyone ate why why is God not able to replicate that power with Joseph Smith and just somehow whatever bank whatever's in his bank account it just triples why why do they have to go on some hair brained treasure seeking Expedition call it prophecy and then and then Keystone Cops the prophecy doesn't even come true it it doesn't make sense just like Jesus was able to perform Miracles why why can't Jesus Jesus help Joseph Smith perform Miracles but fair fair has an answer right Mike yeah I mean this is just you know so you know so what Fair Mormon does is this reminds me a lot of the current apology actually regarding the SEC Report with enzyme Peak but fair Mormon's like basically saying it wasn't God's idea so it wasn't a failed Revelation so they say the trip was apparently made on their own initiative and was not commanded by the Lord Joseph did not prophesy that they would find money in Salem but instead made the trip because he became convinced that the story that the treasure existed might be true upon failing to locate the money they spent their time preaching to the people in Salem and so what they're saying is God never tells Joseph Smith they'd find money in Salem um and then what I told you earlier their spin is well they did convert some people and that's the real treasure but this is completely an attempt to distract from the very fact that while God might not have sent Joseph to Salem God absolutely positively says and and I'm going to read it and it's wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours so to say that he never prophesied they'd find money is absolute BS and fair Mormon knows it unless they've never read the DNC which I find hard to believe so this is very similar to how apologists in the church itself are misrepresenting the SEC report today about enzyme Peak because they're trying to reform reframe the story in a way that doesn't actually match what they're talking about and the fact that they do this with a straight face it boggles my mind because this is very clearly God saying Natalie you know not only is God saying you're going to find money but he's basically telling him we're going to fool the city into giving up giving all their money to you which you know to your point earlier it's like you know I just I can't imagine Jesus being like okay um you guys are hungry so what we're going to do is we're going to go to this next city but don't tell them while we're there because we're going to trick them into giving you all their food it's just it's it's crazy it really is I've pulled out my scriptures because um I want to refute Fair there they say the Lord is pleased with the journey because he says he's not displeased so you know the Lord is okay with the journey and he also says that he will reveal where it is his will Universe 7 verse 8 he says that the place where it is my will that you should carry for the main shall be signalized unto you by the peace and power of my spirit that shall flow unto you so clearly when he's there God's Gonna direct where he ought to be so I don't get how you can say this isn't a god-ordained in a god-given journey that Joseph is undertaking yeah it yeah you know because I think they cling to that first verse where it says I the Lord God am not displeased with your coming this journey so I think they're saying that because he's saying that God is not God is saying I'm not mad that you came here but I didn't send you here and so that's why Fair Mormon's just going to defer that but that's not look at it no it's not and it's also I mean fair I'm just gonna say it straight but I know people don't like when you use the word life Fair Mormon is lying here when they say that Joseph is not prophesying that they're going to find money because it's right there that saying you're going to get the wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours unless Fairmount Fair wants to say gold and silver is not money which we all know is just crap so I mean Fair Mormon here is just absolutely I mean they're being as dishonest as they can be um and like they know how to be yeah there's dishonest as they know how to be and um as the church would use they're using carefully worded denials to try to avoid um stating what's like literally written in in the voice of God so this just shows you to me how apologetics will and and this is very similar to how the church today is in their SEC report response they're like basically saying like did the church uh break the law and they just don't really answer it because they did and and so if you read the the church's response to the SEC letter uh report and then you actually read the SEC report you're like oh my goodness the church is absolutely just making crap up in the most lawyerly way possible it's the same thing here they know what they're saying isn't honest but they're hoping that people reading it I.E church members won't look at DNC 111 after this and go what are you talking about it says right there that they're going to get gold and silver right yeah it's just such a bad deflection the only other thing I'll note is that it's a common apologetic to say all right the prophecy didn't come true but good things came about anyway this happened with Zion's Camp as well you'll read um Church uh leaders you know after Joseph Smith die sort of addressing um member concern the design Camp prophecy didn't come true and what they'll often say is many of the people that became Future Leaders of the church were participants in Zion's camp and so even though the prophecy didn't fail it was still of the Lord because subsequent you know prophets and apostles um you know came out of the failed science camp and that's just a Dodge because it you know you could say that Hitler and I hate to violate Godwin's law by invoking Hitler but you can and Nemo is as a as a as a German germanophile you may or may not like this analogy but you know you often hear something like well Hitler built the Audubon or Hitler built the Volkswagen bug you would never say that to then say well good things came from the Holocaust or from World War II and similarly it's just a logical fallacy to say well it doesn't matter that the Zion's Camp prophecy didn't come true or that the you know that that the the silly failed attempt to um you know to find treasure in Salem uh you know didn't come true but good things came from it it's it's just a Dodge you know well yeah because that whole Zion's Captain he's like Oh you mean to tell me that members of the in-group and the very loyal ones who went all that way with Joseph Smith then got rewarded with church callings yeah I'm shocked right of course they were rewarded yep for their faithfulness it's the exact same thing with polygamy there's a podcast that they did and they talk about it where they actually say um polygamy produced a righteous seed that's that's the phrasing right and they'll say if you look at the church leadership today they almost all come from polygmy and to Nemo's part it's like yeah because they were the people that are related and descended from the inner circle of Mormonism and the churches is that what's the phrase that the church callings are 90 nepotism and 10 something else so uh 90 relation 10 Revelation yeah that's what it is so so basically the church you know everyone knows that the people that get high up in the church have deep connections to early members because that's how the church is designed um structurally to to review the whole video on it you should go check it out what's it called what's it called Nemo it's uh it's nepotism amongst Mormon church leaders yeah yeah so go watch that because you'll understand that to Nemo's point you know when they say oh a lot of great leaders came out of it well of course they did because they were the early inside group they were Joseph Smith's Inner Circle so of course they were rewarded and their descendants are rewarded because of their name and so yeah there's no surprise there all right well we'll we'll have Maven maven's already including those in the show notes let's go ahead and jump to the next one which is the failed attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright yeah and this is one that got a lot more kind of steam because it was located um in the Joseph Smith's paper project and so um this is similar to the Salem Revelation because Joseph Smith is looking for ways to raise money and he receives this Revelation that he can um sell the copyright for the Book of Mormon in Canada and this was like I said pretty unknown uh they knew of the Revelation but they didn't like have like proof of it but it was finally confirmed in the Joseph Smith's paper project um originally it was known because David Whitmer had referenced it as a failed prophecy and so um this is part of the actual Revelation and um Nemo or John do you want to read that I'll say that Nemo it pleases me that Oliver cowdery Joseph Knight Hiram page and Josiah Stahl shall do my work in this thing yay even in securing the copyright and they shall do it with an eye single to my glory that it may be the means of bringing Souls unto me salvation through mine only begotten behold I am God I have spoken it and it is expedient in me wherefore I say unto you that you shall go to Kingston seeking me continually through mine only begotten and if you do this you shall have my spirit to go with you and ye shall have an addition of all things which is expedient in me amen and I grant unto my servant a privilege that he may sell a copyright through you speaking after the manner of men for the four provinces if the people hard and not their hearts against the enticings of my spirit and my word for behold it's lieth in themselves to their condemnation and their salvation that's tricky to read with no punctuation yeah well that's all yeah that's funny too because you read that and that's how the original Book of Mormon would have read when everyone you know talks about how great it reads it's like that's not how it you read when it was first dictated by Joseph but yeah and so this Revelation is Joseph Smith um this is again God being very concerned with money which as we talked about is kind of odd how specific some of these Revelations are about money but this is Joseph Smith creating himself and out which is to say this is going to succeed if the people in Canada basically believe that it's you know real and so the church will then as Nemo kind of highlighted as he was reading um use that loophole to say that it wasn't a failed prophecy because the people in Canada hardened their hearts against it and so it's interesting um to kind of see how that little loophole and that's something you see from um self-proclaimed profits you know throughout the ages which is to say this will happen as long as everybody basically gets on board with it it reminds me when I used to give priesthood blessings and I learned this from other Mormons I was given you know I was taught that if you bless a sick person or even a dying person using the the Mormon priesthood using the sacred uh consecrated oil that you could heal the sick or even raise the dead but you know you only had to do that a couple times to realize you were about as uh you're about as effective as their as modern medicine maybe a little bit less effective than their their usage of modern medicine in other words the no effect right um even the placebo effect would would really work and so um but what but what you could always do is you could say you know pursuant to your righteousness or if it's God's will then you'll be healed and so it's always it's always questionable to claim power if uh in conjunction with that claim power there's always an out the other thing I just want to mention about this weird selling the Book of Mormon copyright thing is what in the heck can you imagine like the Bible being written in 50 A.D or whatever 50 BC or eight eight what is it A.D what is the new term for um yeah see like can you imagine like hey you know hey Peter James and John hey Matthew Mark and Luke we're kind of short on money let's go to Nero or let's go to Caesar and let's sell them the copyright and then they own the intellectual property for like God's sacred scripture on the earth like what are these random Canadian people what's gonna happen if they own the copyright to the Book of Mormon are they gonna like like get a sequel into French for stuff yeah but are they gonna like write a sequel are they gonna like like what are they gonna do with it turn it into a franchise like why would God ever direct His Holy scripture to be to have the copyright be sold of it that to God's Holy Scripture word like I guess the church is glad now it never sold the copyright but it's just absurd that God would tell Joseph to sell the ownership of the you know to sell the copyright to his whole own Holy Scripture Mike am I am I confused there no I mean this is just it just is another area where you could show that Joseph Smith was always desperate for money and he was always using God to basically find a way to kind of you know justify whatever they're doing and in this case to your point like selling the copyright makes no sense especially if you believe God is powerful and it just again shows that the god of Mormonism has no power because even something as simple as getting a little bit of extra money God can't come up with a better way outside of sending them to Canada to try to sell the copyright to basically give away the authority of his word to Canada it makes no sense and it just shows especially these early like this one like Nemo said the way it reads it's just it's just as a mess yeah and the only thing more silly than the fact that God is telling his one true Prophet to sell the rights to His Holy scripture is that the prophecy doesn't come true yeah right that's the only other Canadians weren't faithful enough yeah it's the whole David A Bednar thing do you have faith not to be healed that's what we're that's where we're at now with Mormon here to not obtain the copyright basically but it's again yeah it's that whole is is God really powerful if he's essentially having to say I will take Zion back by force if they will submit to my will I will sell the copyright in Canada if they're faithful enough to have it it's like just go ahead and do something stop relying on people yeah get out and do it you know and not to be that person I mean I guess I am going to be that person but you know you read the Bible and God is like I'm displeased with my people I'm gonna flood the whole continent and just destroy and kill innocent children and women and animals and all that and then in Mormonism they need like a couple thousand dollars and God's like I got nothing guys you know it's just it doesn't and I'm not I'm I'm being facetious firstborn of all yeah of all of Egypt to get his children out of Egypt but he he won't perform a minor miracle to get them some cash yeah it's just it's so transparent when you actually like try to compare like how the how God is portrayed in the Bible versus how God actually um operates within the Mormon church so when I say God I mean the god of Mormonism and it's just it's one of those things where you read it like from an ALICE outside perspective and I know this because I've talked to a few people who are not Mormon I try to tell them this they laugh at it because they're like yeah he's making it up like there's no there's no way around it because not only is this stuff not coming to pass but when you read it you can see that all of the things that he's trying to desire or try to get done benefit Joseph Smith and those are pretty good signs that it's someone not speaking for God yeah if I can make a linking point there for a second about how we talk about how it's Jesus is the god of Doctrine and Covenants and so Jesus is also god of the Old Testament according to Mormonism then what you've got is a very good comparison for we'll look at all the things he used to do in the Old Testament to get his way and now he just stamps his feet and threatens curses but doesn't actually get involved and do the things that he needs to do to make Joseph Smith successful so it's it's like you're comparing the same deity to their own standards and you found that in in the Old Testament they were perfectly willing to get involved in Smite people he was willing to stop the moon in the sky to give people more time to win a battle right he was willing to part the Red Sea he was willing to kill children he's willing to do all sorts of things flood the entire Earth and then you've got Joseph Smith needs of cash this same deity won't step in yeah yeah suspect so let's look at how fair Mormon I'm so tired of I mean honestly in 2023 I think Fair Mormon it's safe to say has become irrelevant so on the one hand I'm glad Mike you're going to help us put together kind of a record of how dumb and uh unimpressive and uh dishonest Fair Mormon is on the other hand I I almost I've told you this before they're almost not worth the oxygen in the breath and the time of of responding to their dumbness but let's do it anyway yeah I mean Fair Mormon is just the responses just don't work and we've covered that in all of these topics I've tried to use fair or the churches essays but yeah I just this one is what I want to point out because this this ties into something we talked about earlier so it works out well but this is from Fair Mormons response to the failed Revelation about selling the copyright and they say Hiram page who is one of the individuals sent to Canada laid out the event in a letter in 1848. Paige wrote that the Revelation Joseph Smith received conditioned success upon whether those individuals in Canada capable of buying the Book of Mormon copyright would have their hearts softened when unable to sell the copyright these four men returned to Palmyra Hiram Page stated he for the first time understood how some Revelations given to people were not necessarily for the direct benefit in fact Hiram page believed that the Revelation was actually fulfilled and so this is what we're talking about early in the episode that people who are literally in the middle of these failed Revelations can end up believing even stronger because of the fact that they're they're basically looking for reasons to make it work even when they watch it fail yeah yep okay Nemo anything you want to say about Fair Mormon silliness no I think their appeal to someone's opinion on the matter over what God actually said should tell you everything you need to know yeah yeah and I think one of the one I did a lot a lot of people have contributed to this but one of the things I'm most proud of in the modern internet age from 2004 to present is how so many people have have kind of stood up to the silliness of fair Mormon and Daniel Peterson and Lewis Midgley and uh John Lynch and and uh um Scott Gordon and all the others and just shown how silly Fair Mormon is and I'm proud that they've become Irrelevant in 2023 and I don't say that in a mean-spirited way um I I think these were people who were trying to do good just trying to support a church in some ways they're victims of a broken system but they're they're ad hominem their mean-spiritedness their viciousness uh and they're just simply bad horrible illogical specious arguments were an embarrassment to Mormons and more Mormonism everywhere and so I'm glad in 2023 they're pretty much gone and they're real well you know who they don't embarrass though they don't embarrass Stanley jokes because if you haven't watched my episode that I did with John when I sent down the jokes uh a letter full of questions about what could be done about dishonesty amongst church leaders he sent me a fair moment article in return that's the tldr of that episode but you should check it out no I mean the church still very much values Fair Mormon even if the rest of us see through it they do and that you know I we don't need to belabor this but Daniel C Peterson has a book called he's got a book called offenders for a word how anti-mormons play word games to attack the Latter-Day Saints it is just like you could read the man that brought you horse equals tape here yes it's to be fair Daniel C Peterson doesn't point to your taper and in the back yeah absolutely his name is Daniel yeah I mean Daniel C Peterson is not fair Mormon but just the fact that he's sitting there writing a book about how people play word games to attack the church when all he does is Twist words in the most ridiculous ways and and there you know there's a reason why you don't see someone like Daniel C Peterson go out and do like a public debate with say someone like Dan Vogel or John Hamer because they cannot what they put out there on Fair Mormon does not withstand any basic scrutiny and they know it and so they they stay in their bubble and they just hope they can keep people in the church who are willing to listen to them for as long as they can but yeah it's yeah we'll have an episode on apologetics uh down the road which we'll kind of go through that in more detail well rest in peace Fair Mormon um all right well we're down to our last uh failed prophecy pestilence hail famine and earthquake will sweep the wicked away take it away yeah and so this kind of um is from a letter in 1833 to n.e Seton could be sex and I think it was hard to like read uh who was written to but this is another prophet see that he's giving in the authority of Jesus Christ um that pestilence hail famine and earthquake earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation off the face of the land and so I don't know if you were Nemo want to read kind of the part of the letter where he's giving this revelation a prophecy I can take that on and now I am prepared to say by the authority of Jesus Christ that not many years shall pass away before the United States shall present such a scene of Bloodshed as is not parallel as is not a parallel in the history of our nation pestilence hail famine and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of the land and Oak to open and prepare the way for the return of the Lost tribes of Israel from the North country the people of the Lord those who have complied with the requirements of the New Covenant have already commenced gathering together to Zion which is in the state of Missouri therefore I declare unto you the warning which the Lord has commanded to declare unto this generation remembering that the eyes of my maker are upon me and that to him I am accountable for every word I say wishing nothing worse to my fellow men than their Eternal salvation therefore fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment is come repent ye repent ye and embrace the Everlasting Covenant and flee to Zion before the overflowing Scourge overtake you for there are those now living upon the Earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these things which I have spoken fulfilled all right make sense of that for us Mike what did what did Nemo just read us so this is a prophecy Joseph Smith is giving that within this generation um basically all of the wicked will be swept off the Earth um that there's gonna be people that are basically going to live to see the second coming and that it's going to happen um from pestilence hail famine and earthquake it it just didn't happen I mean like this is just did not happen and Joseph Smith says he the saying it with the authority of Jesus Christ um that it's going to happen within the generation and none of it happens and so apologists will say the Civil War fulfills this but the Civil War is not a natural disaster of of hail famine and earthquake and pestilence it also um does not lead to the second coming in this generation this is just another area where it just it didn't happen like you you can't read this let's go to the night let's go to the let's go to the next slide yeah that's fine so that's how fair Mormon's going to explain it and so this is um what the first part they say there are two aspects to this to the prophecy one destructive destruction of the wicked um these events were certainly seen by the 19th century Saints is fulfilled they saw the Civil War as the culmination of prophecies against Wicked people in a wicked nation and as we mentioned the prophecy they're referring to is mentioning the Bloodshed via pestilence hail famine and earthquake that will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of the land which is not war it's just not and you know as we talked about like with Dana c Peterson in the word games this is how apologists change words in order to make a failed prophecy seem plausible but it doesn't match what Joseph is saying um the natural disasters that Joseph prophesies are to happen in his generation this generation so it can't be pushed aside to a future event like you know today or you know even in the 1900s um and then Fair Mormon continues they say those now living are to flee to Zion to avoid the scourge I.E the destruction which certainly bypassed the Saints in Utah during the Civil War the preparation for the return of the ten tribes and then it says the critics wish to say that Joseph prophesied the return of the ten tribes but he did not he prophesied that those living would see those things necessary to prepare the way for the return of the tribes the prophecy also noted that this Gathering was already beginning as those who embraced the Covenant gathered to Zion and fair here is pretending that Zion is Utah so it misses the battles of the Civil War but we all know that Joseph Smith is clear that Zion is in Missouri so this shows how the fair Mormon is just basically trying to tell you that Zion has a completely different meaning when Joseph gives us Revelation a whole different geographical location and therefore it matches and it just doesn't like this is just really really poor apologetics where they're just throwing everything against the wall and they're hoping you're dumb enough not to read what Joseph Smith actually wrote and think for yourself yeah yeah it doesn't matter if the explanation is any good there just has to be one yeah exactly yeah well that's a whole host of failed prophecies that uh that we've listed today and again there may be others that people could point to but I think we've given a pretty solid list yeah I'm like we're not going to cover every single one and I also want to point out that I was trying very hard to only use Revelations where we have Joseph Smith or a contemporaneous account where Joseph is saying he's saying it through the voice of God or what the authority of Jesus Christ because there are other Revelations that are claimed like people have said that Joseph uh claimed that the Kirtland safety Society Bank was going to be the biggest bank in the in the country or something like that but I didn't include that because we don't have an instance where we have a real good contemporarist account saying it so we're trying I was trying to pick ones that I think are are even apologists couldn't say you're just you're cherry picking like you know third hand accounts or something and so these are very solid Revelations that Joseph Smith is making and they fail and as we talked about in the Bible one failed Revelation and you do not speak for God and yet we have a whole bunch of them here so I guess we're not to fear Joseph Smith is is what the the Bible is leading us to think and that's good because I don't want to fear anybody uh you know in a Godly sense um I think I think a flip of this episode would be interesting kind of as a gauntlet or as a challenge I would love to see faithful Mormons apologetic Mormons come up with an episode on the fulfilled Prophecies of Joseph Smith and I guess the only criteria that I would want to put forward is it's got to be a prophecy that like you know people wouldn't have expected that that wouldn't have naturally come true anyway that didn't have any Scripture editing or changing along the way or or wasn't like we talked about last episode back dated and we've already addressed the Civil War quote prophecy in a previous episode as as not as not being really an example of anything prophetical is that right Mike yeah I mean and that's the thing like um I've read lists before where they talk about that and they'll have the Civil War or they'll say Joseph will be spoken of for good or evil we talked about how that was written after that it already happened um or you know wars and rumors of wars all of these different things but yeah earthquakes you know that like stuff that you could prophesy you know for any given time from any you know given area of the world um so yeah I would love to see it because I've read some of those lists before when you read it or like that's for a lot of times it'll be a prophecy about something and they'll just apply some you know kind of like we talked about with covid where they'll say oh the next um general conference is going to be unlike any other and then covet happens and they're like that was Russell Nelson prophesying of covet it's like no he was just talking about the 200th anniversary of the first vision and so if you don't redefine Revelation and you you make it specific you're not going to find much and and so Joseph Smith's track record in my opinion is no better than literally anyone else who makes predictions um you know about stuff they they can't possibly know yeah and we all know that that the doctrine of covenants itself declares Joseph Smith a prophet Seer Revelator and uh a translator and so you have to kind of ask yourself we kind of showed through all you know his all our episodes on translation that he pretty much failed every single attempt he made at translation Book of Mormon book of Abraham you know book of Moses uh the New Testament you know revisions of the of the Bible and the Kinder Egg plates it's like fail fail fail fail not a translator and his prophecies and Revelations are not coming true and then seirship you know whatever that means uh so Nemo any final words you want to share before we give Mike the concluding slide um just that I think it's really important that you take this on board those that are watching along with the other attributes that Joseph Smith claimed to have I think that is really important um and it's also very important for you if I managed to go and read these scriptures yourselves we put them on the screen but read it yourself have a look check it all out have a look at what Fair said you know don't take our word for it necessarily go do your own research and I think you'll come to the same conclusion or I would hope that that we've done our research well enough that you'll you'll see that it's solid and if any of you want to uh tell us we're wrong please go into the comments on YouTube or on Facebook and tell us the prophecies you're aware of or tell us where we got something wrong because if we've made any any mistakes in this series unlike uh download jokes or the church we're willing to apologize and admit it and correct it so Mike why don't you take us through the following the the final slide yeah in the final slide you know it's just kind of the last this episode in our last episode just covering Joseph's Revelations and it's just the point which we just said we couldn't cover every single one of them um but just hopefully the patterns from last week or our last episode on Revelation and then from today on the failed Revelations you know it gives you a clear way to look at you know not just why they were written but like the context that Joseph was writing them in and the needs that were being served by them um and just to note that you know Joseph was using revelations in a lot of different ways um whether it was to get out of a tough situation to re-establish credibility um to adjust to newer theologies or as we mentioned to get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do which we talked about today was Zion's camp and so as we discussed you know in our first episode on on kind of back dating Revelation it's striking that Joseph's Revelations cannot seem to predict the future and in the few instances where he tries to do so whether it's building a temple in Missouri or taking Zion by power he fails and um you know the thing is we're told one failed Revelation makes you a false prophet and Joseph Smith gives us a bunch of them throughout his you know fairly short time as is the leader of the Mormon church and you know it's just you know as we've talked about in these episodes if you view them the same way you would view any other religious leader you would look at it and go yeah that person absolutely is not a prophet because they keep getting it wrong over and over again and you have to be willing to apply consistent um kind of logical um applications of these these instances to to Mormonism and you cannot rely on special pleading to say well yeah David Crush was clearly making it up but Joseph Smith has it right because we have a lot of records as Nemo said don't don't trust what we're saying you know you could read um the page on on ldsdiscussions.com there's links to Fair Mormons responses links to the church's response you can read their response and see if they make sense and um I just say I think you get to a point where it's like as we've said in previous episodes if you had a watch and the watch was wrong four times five times would you keep using that Watcher would you say yeah this watch clearly does not what do what it's supposed to and with Joseph Smith it's the same thing if he can't get it right then does he speak for God and if he doesn't speak for God what what really is he providing to to anyone all right the problem is a broken watch is right twice a day and so you get the slight incidences where someone will say something slightly profound or a profit will say something that someone finds slightly helpful and they'll just cling to that and I think that's how people do stay involved even in in while confronting a lot of these problems historical and current yeah 100 yeah well the truth is most people stay Mormon or religious because of community ties because of family ties because it makes them feel happier makes them feel like their life has purpose or meaning or they've had emotional experiences that they've interpreted to mean that the church is true and ultimately it's because they feel like the church works for them and so it makes sense that that in spite of the evidence people retain their faith it's because you know Humanity hasn't figured out a better way to make people happy in a way that would make people want to let go of their faith and uh and follow something better so on and in some sense it's Humanity's job to figure out how to bring people meaning and joy and fulfillment and community and resolutions about the afterlife or it doesn't matter what the evidence shows people are gonna people are going to stick with what's working so uh all right so that concludes uh episode 37 of the LDS discussion series uh Mike we can't thank you enough for uh all your amazing work uh you're a legend and we're grateful for you um and uh thank you well yeah thanks everyone who's stuck with the series and I think our next episode is going to be a lot of fun because it's gonna really take us from um Joseph Smith to the present day so we're gonna look at John Taylor's Revelation on polygamy we're gonna look at a couple of Russell Nelson's Revelations um since he's become prophet and kind of see if we can get a better understanding of what a profit is and where they're pulling um inspiration or Revelation from and I think that next week's episode will be a little bit of a turn from looking at the like the very founding of the church to giving us more of a modern perspective so I'm actually looking forward to kind of moving into the modern day on this stuff excellent thanks Mike in Nemo it's always great to have you we're uh we celebrate you who you are and your channel Nemo the Mormon and we hope everyone will subscribe to Mormon stories podcast on YouTube and on Facebook for the algorithms and and to help us grow and we also hope people will follow Nemo the Mormon Channel And subscribe and donate to you yeah thank you very much it's always a pleasure to be here all right all right everyone and uh and please if you value this content with LDS discussions we we uh we want to pay Nemo for his support and uh just recently we we were able to twist Mike's arm and convince him to let us give him some honorariums for his amazing work so if you value this content if you want to see it continue if you want to show Mike your appreciation uh please give us uh please consider donating to Mormon stories podcast you go to mormonstories.org click on the Donate button become a monthly donor and we'll not only finish out the series on LDS discussions but we'll figure out how to Parlay Mike and Nemo's Brilliance into possible future series or future episodes as well how does that sound emo oh yeah I've got some ideas yeah are you up for more Mike I mean maybe even not with Nemo but maybe for something yeah because Nemo's a bit of a pain right he's a bit of a he is yeah ever since I met him he's been nothing nothing but trouble you guys should see the the messages he sends uh when we're not recording they are some of the most uh rude slanderous you just you have no idea how British people work until you have to talk to them behind the scenes Nemo you're a scoundrel I had no idea you were a scoundrel Nemo uh I just I have to deal with ungrateful Colonials all day so yeah yeah I've gotta no I get it Nemo has been awesome and he's been just so much fun to get to know and you know um I've said it before but you know one of the reasons that Nemo is so nice to work with is that he doesn't he takes an approach that I like to take which is you know the fact that we're trying to deal with this as gentle as we can and we're not trying to just like firebomb the crap out of everything and so I I always appreciate that because I think it it's hard enough to learn this stuff as it is and so to have uh Outlets that are more gentle with you I think is helpful just because like I said we've all been there where you find the stuff out and it sucks and so if you can have people that can kind of maybe guide you through it a little bit uh less emotionally it can help I know we don't always succeed there but yeah anyways I take I retract my criticisms of Nemo he's actually very fun to work with he's he's a fan of my cold British heart is what he said exactly I do I love it all right well thanks gentlemen we also want to thank Maven for all her work behind the scenes of making all this possible Gerardo for the thumbnails and Julia for the shorts and Brooklyn for the video editing there's a whole team of a production team here at Mormon stories along with our board of directors Clint Martin and Carrie Whitbeck a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes to keep this organization alive and to allow us to keep doing what we do so thanks to everyone who supports this please support us if you can and we love you guys be good to each other be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon stories and on LDS discussions take care everybody