Joseph Smith Was A Conman

Posted on 08. Nov, 2009 by Cameron in religion

I wonder how many Mormons know Joseph Smith was put on trial for being a conman a few years before he founded the church?

The story goes like this:

“For several years preceding the appearance of his book, he was about the country in the character of a glass-looker: pretending, by means of a certain stone, or glass, which he put in a hat, to be able to discover lost goods, hidden treasures, mines of gold and silver, &c. Although he constantly failed in his pretensions, still he had his dupes who put implicit confidence in all his words. In this town, a wealthy farmer, named Josiah Stowell, together with others, spent large sums of money in digging for hidden money, which this Smith pretended he could see, and told them where to dig; but they never found their treasure.

“At length the public, becoming wearied with the base imposition which he was palming upon the credulity of the ignorant, for the purpose of sponging his living from their earnings, had him arrested as a disorderly person, tried and condemned before a court of Justice. But, considering his youth, (he being then a minor,) and thinking he might reform his conduct, he was designedly allowed to escape. This was four or five years ago. From this time he absented himself from this place, returning only privately, and holding clandestine intercourse with his credulous dupes, for two or three years.”

The above account is taken from the first published telling of events, written by Abram W. Benton and published in the Evangelical Magazine & Gospel Advocate in 1831, about 5 years after the events occurred (via Omninerd).

The LDS apologists I’ve read online (including the author of the article on Omninerd) tend to try to brush it off by saying “well back then money digging wasn’t unusual”, missing the point that he wasn’t tried for “money digging” per se, he was tried (as far as we can tell from the surviving records) for being a conman, that is, he kept pretending he actually could locate buried treasure using his supernatural powers when, in fact, as far as the records show, he was totally unsuccessful in finding any treasure.

It speaks about the man’s character. And this trial happened 6 years after Smith claims that he had been visited by Jesus. I’d like to ask Mormons to engage their critical mind and ask themselves: is a conman who was going around the country trying to scam money out of gullible people the kind of person that you would put your trust in today? If someone who was a known conman turned up today and told you that he’d been visited by an angel or Jesus, would you believe him?

Mercy Ministries Has Closed It’s Doors!

Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Mercy Ministries

Huge news! Sarah Mac, who I interviewed on episode #352, emailed me tonight to let me know that Mercy Ministries has shut down all Australian operations!

She writes:

Hi Cameron,

I was looking back the other day and realised that it has been already a year since we did the interview.

I got some very good news today, Mercy Minitries Australia has shut down completely. Their statement is on their website.

I have been talking to some of the other girls since it has come out and we are all very relieved.

As I understand it ALL organisations have pulled out their support in the last few months, including Hillsong Church and Gloria Jeans.

This is such a great victory for all of us that were hurt and abused by Mercy, hopefully other countries will follow. (we can only live in hope).

many thanks
Sarah Mac

I’m very proud of the small role this show played in closing Mercy down. If you missed those episodes, you can find them here.

It just goes to show you folks – we CAN make a difference.

The Golden Rule and Geeks Who Care

Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in geeks who care, religion

I just watched this recent TED video of religious historian and author Karen Armstrong talking about the importance of the Golden Rule and how we need to re-engineer a world based on compassion. It’s excellent and I highly recommend it.

Speaking of compassion, I’m re-launching my charity “Geeks Who Care” in Brisbane this month and I’m hoping some people will join us for the first Brisbane catch-up. The idea of GWC (which I tried to get off the ground just before I left Melbourne in 2008) is that geeks have a special skill-set that I think can be used to improve people’s lives in ways that mere mortals cannot. We know how to make the interwebs work, how to promote things via social networking, how to build websites, make podcasts, refurb PCs, build mesh networks, etc. I want to see geeks doing more when they get together than just nerding out about new tech. We need to be giving back to the society that let’s us be geeks in the first place. So, anyway, details of the Brisbane meeting are here (yes it’s a Facebook page) and if anyone wants to gets stuff started in other cities, go for your life. Let’s share idea and learnings as we go.

They Aren’t Paedophiles – They Just Like Having Sex With Boys

Posted on 03. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in Catholicism

The Vatican was kind enough this week to give yet another excuse to SHUT THEM DOWN PERMANENTLY.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, made a statement assuring the UN human rights council that Catholic priests involved in having sex with young boys aren’t really engaged in paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Ohhh that’s okay then…. you stupid fucking asshole.

Apparently Archibishop Clueless made this statement after an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Keith Porteous Wood, accused it of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Archbishop Clueless also accused other churches of having an equally bad track record of child abuse, something that Irwin Zalkin refuted when I interviewed him earlier this year.

Clueless went on to say that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. As The Daily Irrelevant noted:

Only???

And that’s your defense of what happened? Really?

The USA has easily the largest percentage of their population incarcerated or on probation of all countries in the world.
There are 1 in 32 people in the US either behind bars or on Probation, and that’s for ALL convictions combined.

That’s less than 3%. And the vatican has the fucking nerve to say it’s “only” 5%.

Folks, I ask again – when are we going to shut the Catholic Church down? It’s a disgrace. At the very least, in Australia, we should be having a Royal Commission into the levels child abuse perpetrated by the Catholic clergy in Australia over the last 70 years, like the one they recently concluded in Ireland.

When I interviewed Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites a few months ago, he suggested that if we had a Royal Commission into Catholic child abuse in this country we would discover TENS OF THOUSANDS of victims.

Let’s do something about it. If we don’t, history will judge us as a bunch of spineless, assholes with no integrity.

Oh sure, everyone seems more than happy to throw the book at Polanksi, but go after the Catholic Church? Oh no, we couldn’t do that.

(link to the story via The Daily Irrelevant – thanks Russell)