Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

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Hagoth
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Hagoth » Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:49 am

acmeist wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:46 am
I was disappointed to read that people said the dialogue and cultural aspects were jarring.
I said the same thing to my wife, who converted to the church around the time of the Lafferty murders. It didn't strike her as unrealistic as it did me. She says members of the church really did talk and act more like that back then, and was probably much more aware of it than I would have been because she was a newcomer. Mormons were a more "peculiar people" back then in the absence of all of the broadcast and social media that integrates us with outside culture today.
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Linked
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Linked » Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:20 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 7:14 am
When a church tells you not to watch/read something, that's like a spotlight pointing out exactly what you should watch/read, because their telling you there it truth there that they have not been able to process yet.
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Red Ryder
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Red Ryder » Sat Apr 30, 2022 1:46 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 7:14 am
Church spokespeople, FAIR, and others are already doing damage control and trying to discourage people from watching it. When a church tells you not to watch/read something, that's like a spotlight pointing out exactly what you should watch/read, because their telling you there it truth there that they have not been able to process yet.
Hagoth, do you have any links or references to the church discouraging people from watching?

We just finished the second episode. The dialogue takes getting used to but the story is starting to open up. A bit slow with some intricate parallels to early Mormonism with Joseph and Brigham developing. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of NCIS or Law and Order but it’s turning out to be more like Mind Hunters. If that makes sense.

Fun fact. My parents were once (early 2000’s) in the same ward as Richard Stowe, who was the Highland Stake president who excommunicated Ron Lafferty. My dad always told the story as if President Stowe had listened to the Holy Ghost and didn’t go home the night of the murders. When in fact, Ron just got lost trying to find Stowes house and they drove out to Reno instead.
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Hagoth
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Hagoth » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:03 am

Red Ryder wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 1:46 am
Hagoth, do you have any links or references to the church discouraging people from watching?
I don't, because they all come from sources that my wife has read to me while I was trying to avoid spoilers (it's been a long time since I read the book). She feels the need to intensely research what docudramas get right and what they get wrong. I don't, so she fills me in.

It's not that the church is forbidding people watching it, more like character assassination of Krakauer. He's a hack, he's a novelist, not a historian, he didn't do his homework, he's making up his own version of history, he has an axe to grind with the church and UtBoH is a vehicle for packaging his foregone conclusions, he's dragging our sacred truths through the mud. It all smells a lot like standard apologetics. This series makes Mormons look weird. We're not weird, damn it! We're the opposite of weird. Everybody else is weird!

Their main tack seems to be that this has nothing to do with Mormonism. We excommunicated those guys, so how dare you think they have anything to do with us. Basically, why waste your time wallowing in a mire of ugly lies when you could be going to the temple or baking a cake?

Here's what's on the official newsroom page: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.o ... -of-heaven

I have only skimmed it. They are obviously uncomfortable enough that they have a lot to say about it. See Linked's awesome Stephen King quote above.
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by blazerb » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:23 am

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:03 am
It's not that the church is forbidding people watching it, more like character assassination of Krakauer. He's a hack, he's a novelist, not a historian, he didn't do his homework, he's making up his own version of history, he has an axe to grind with the church and UtBoH is a vehicle for packaging his foregone conclusions, he's dragging our sacred truths through the mud. It all smells a lot like standard apologetics. This series makes Mormons look weird. We're not weird, damn it! We're the opposite of weird. Everybody else is weird!
Just in case someone missed this over on Reddit:
UTBOH.jpg
UTBOH.jpg (114.16 KiB) Viewed 3033 times
The hypocrisy is stunning.

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Hagoth
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Hagoth » Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:19 pm

blazerb wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:23 am


Just in case someone missed this over on Reddit:

[Willy Wonka Meme]

The hypocrisy is stunning.
That is a solid gold medal meme.
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by wtfluff » Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:26 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:03 am
...
Here's what's on the official newsroom page: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.o ... -of-heaven
...
Wow. I tried to read through that. The logical fallacies and misdirection in the first blurb made me "Run Away!!!" I perused the rest, but I'd rather dedicate my reading time to something useful.

The fact that LD$-Inc. had 3 different "scholars" dedicate that much time and energy to the book is quite good evidence that everyone should read it.
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Hagoth
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Hagoth » Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:08 pm

wtfluff wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:26 pm
The fact that LD$-Inc. had 3 different "scholars" dedicate that much time and energy to the book is quite good evidence that everyone should read it.
Absolutely! Kind of like the CES letter. If they care that much about it, it must really be close to the jugular.

ETA: sorry, in light of the topic and the temple penalties, I realize that was not the most sensitive way to phrase it. I should have stuck with close to the nerve.
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by wtfluff » Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:23 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:08 pm
wtfluff wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:26 pm
The fact that LD$-Inc. had 3 different "scholars" dedicate that much time and energy to the book is quite good evidence that everyone should read it.
Absolutely! Kind of like the CES letter. If they care that much about it, it must really be close to the jugular.

ETA: sorry, in light of the topic and the temple penalties, I realize that was not the most sensitive way to phrase it. I should have stuck with close to the nerve.
Actually, the phrase is quite fitting (related to the Polygamy Palace.)

In the context of Under the Banner of Heaven, it is quite sensitive as you state.
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by moksha » Thu May 05, 2022 9:25 pm

We watched the first two episodes and I thought, "What a very Mormon show". I can see why the apologetic LDS boards are so condemning of this movie and eager to set their voodoo pins in the show's director and actors. They want things sanitized, rather than see what happened.

The LDS Church today wants people to know that its murderous excesses have decreased in every century since its founding. For those of us living in the Jell-O belt, that is comforting.
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1smartdodog
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by 1smartdodog » Fri May 06, 2022 11:33 am

Think I will pass. TV today is overrun with Dark and depressing shows. Not my kind of entertainment


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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by sunstoned » Mon May 09, 2022 9:31 pm

Episode three, which dropped this last week has a pretty descriptive, and from my prospective and accurate temple seen in it. There is a discussion about the washing and anointing that takes place. From outsiders looking in, is probably very strange.

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blazerb
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by blazerb » Tue May 10, 2022 8:15 am

I just watched episode 3. Was the execution of the penalty a little different from what was actually done? It has been a long time, and I only went through a handful of times pre-1990 so I am not sure. I thought I remembered something a little different.

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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by DPRoberts » Tue May 10, 2022 4:32 pm

blazerb wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 8:15 am
I just watched episode 3. Was the execution of the penalty a little different from what was actually done? It has been a long time, and I only went through a handful of times pre-1990 so I am not sure. I thought I remembered something a little different.
I think you are right about execution of the penalty. I remember a more explicit pantomime gesture than what they showed. So perhaps that was a deferential gesture to the church, since what they showed was sufficient for the purpose of the story without revealing the sacred depictions of violence exactly.
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Just This Guy » Thu May 12, 2022 9:18 am

I watched Episode 1 last night. DW has read the book and is a true crime buff, even if she isn't as into church history. So far, she isn't getting into the detective and the whole interrogation thing since they were not in the original book. But she can see why they would create that character to make it more accessible to a never-mo.

Episode 2 is on the plan for tonight.
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Not Buying It
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Not Buying It » Fri May 13, 2022 5:13 am

wtfluff wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:26 pm
Hagoth wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:03 am
...
Here's what's on the official newsroom page: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.o ... -of-heaven
...
Wow. I tried to read through that. The logical fallacies and misdirection in the first blurb made me "Run Away!!!" I perused the rest, but I'd rather dedicate my reading time to something useful.

The fact that LD$-Inc. had 3 different "scholars" dedicate that much time and energy to the book is quite good evidence that everyone should read it.
Well, there's all kinds of spin in that article. Joseph Smith helped them out by often saying one thing in public they can use to defend him, but doing quite another in private, which were the things Krakauer was really talking about.

I take issue with something Robert Millet (I won't give him the satisfaction of inserting the "L." in the middle) said:
Thus plural marriage was a religious principle, not just a social experiment or a sexual aberration; this is the only valid and reasonable explanation as to why the practice was maintained in spite of decades of opposition and persecution.
It is most certainly not the "only valid and reasonable explanation". Here's an even more "valid and reasonable explanation": some powerful religious leaders found a justification for having sex with lots of women. They liked having sex with lots of women. They kept having sex with lots of women for as long as they could until it was no longer feasible, then they had to give it up. They didn't "maintain" it because it was a "religious principle" - they maintained it because the urge to procreate is powerful, procreation is pleasurable, and they found a way to do it all over the place with lots of women that could be made to appear moral inside their religious framework. The religion was the justification, but not the cause - it was the means, not the end. I say a much more "valid and reasonable" explanation is that they liked getting sex with lots of women and held onto the practice as long as they could until the government made it too costly for them. If it were truly a "religious principle", they wouldn't have stopped it due to mere pesky government interference, disincorporation of the Church and confiscation of Church property, they would have held fast to their "religious principle" (as, indeed, some splinter groups did). The fact they gave it up makes the "religious principle" argument considerably less valid and reasonable than Millet makes it sound.

But I will also say this - while the miniseries gets much right about Mormonism, by far and away the vast majority of Church members are non-violent. The hypothesis that violence in Church history breeds violence in modern Church members is specious and unsupportable. That a weirdo family used violence in Church history as a justification for a horrific murder does not establish that the violence in Church history leads to violence in modern Mormonism - the Laffertys were an anomaly, not a typical end product of Mormon history.
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by blazerb » Fri May 13, 2022 8:08 am

Not Buying It wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 5:13 am
But I will also say this - while the miniseries gets much right about Mormonism, by far and away the vast majority of Church members are non-violent. The hypothesis that violence in Church history breeds violence in modern Church members is specious and unsupportable. That a weirdo family used violence in Church history as a justification for a horrific murder does not establish that the violence in Church history leads to violence in modern Mormonism - the Laffertys were an anomaly, not a typical end product of Mormon history.
First off, everything you said about polygamy is awesome. I have a different take on Krakauer's thesis regarding the violence. I agree that almost all members are non-violent. I interpreted the thesis to be that persons on the edge of sanity and violence could be pushed over by some of the violent teachings of the church. This would still leave most members as rational and law-abiding citizens.

In the Lafferty's, I see a perfect storm of tragedy. They were raised in an abusive home. There was likely a family history of mental illness. Last but not least, they delved into the historical doctrines that justified violence not to mention the main stream violent teachings such as Nephi's killing of Laban. Most members are able to distinguish between the real world and scriptural nonsense, though they would never call it that. Some don't and commit murder or arson or other acts.

I will add that I know that correlation and causation are different. Were the Lafferty's violent because of the religious teachings, or were they drawn to the teachings because of a propensity to violence? I don't know that there is a way to answer that for an individual case. Does anyone know of studies that can distinguish between violence caused by religion and people drawn to religion because they want to be violent?

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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by alas » Fri May 13, 2022 8:30 am

blazerb wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 8:08 am
I will add that I know that correlation and causation are different. Were the Lafferty's violent because of the religious teachings, or were they drawn to the teachings because of a propensity to violence? I don't know that there is a way to answer that for an individual case. Does anyone know of studies that can distinguish between violence caused by religion and people drawn to religion because they want to be violent?
That is like the question of porn. Fact: child molesters and rapists frequently use porn, more often than the general population. The anti porn people claim that rapists and child molesters start out with porn and the porn introduces the temptation and causes it to grow. Porn cause violence to real people. But the *offenders* say they use porn first while trying to fight the urge, but the porn loses its effectiveness and they mover to more violent porn trying to satisfy the urge. Porn prevents or at least delays violence to real people.

I think it is that the people prone to violence go looking for justification in the church history. They want an excuse and then blame the history.

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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by Not Buying It » Fri May 13, 2022 9:43 am

blazerb wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 8:08 am
Not Buying It wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 5:13 am
But I will also say this - while the miniseries gets much right about Mormonism, by far and away the vast majority of Church members are non-violent. The hypothesis that violence in Church history breeds violence in modern Church members is specious and unsupportable. That a weirdo family used violence in Church history as a justification for a horrific murder does not establish that the violence in Church history leads to violence in modern Mormonism - the Laffertys were an anomaly, not a typical end product of Mormon history.
First off, everything you said about polygamy is awesome. I have a different take on Krakauer's thesis regarding the violence. I agree that almost all members are non-violent. I interpreted the thesis to be that persons on the edge of sanity and violence could be pushed over by some of the violent teachings of the church. This would still leave most members as rational and law-abiding citizens.

In the Lafferty's, I see a perfect storm of tragedy. They were raised in an abusive home. There was likely a family history of mental illness. Last but not least, they delved into the historical doctrines that justified violence not to mention the main stream violent teachings such as Nephi's killing of Laban. Most members are able to distinguish between the real world and scriptural nonsense, though they would never call it that. Some don't and commit murder or arson or other acts.

I will add that I know that correlation and causation are different. Were the Lafferty's violent because of the religious teachings, or were they drawn to the teachings because of a propensity to violence? I don't know that there is a way to answer that for an individual case. Does anyone know of studies that can distinguish between violence caused by religion and people drawn to religion because they want to be violent?
I may have overstated what Krakauer and the mini-series is saying - you may be right, maybe the message isn't so much that the violence in Mormon history inherently breeds violence in its followers, maybe the message is that for those prone to violence for whatever reason, they get a little nudge in that direction. It may be possible that without the religious justification, they would never have been violent. Or it is possible they would have just found another justification - who knows? It may be as alas said: "...people prone to violence go looking for justification in the church history. They want an excuse and then blame the history."
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph

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blazerb
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Re: Under the Banner of Heaven TV show

Post by blazerb » Fri May 13, 2022 9:48 am

Not Buying It wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 9:43 am
I may have overstated what Krakauer and the mini-series is saying - you may be right, maybe the message isn't so much that the violence in Mormon history inherently breeds violence in its followers, maybe the message is that for those prone to violence for whatever reason, they get a little nudge in that direction. It may be possible that without the religious justification, they would never have been violent. Or it is possible they would have just found another justification - who knows? It may be as alas said: "...people prone to violence go looking for justification in the church history. They want an excuse and then blame the history."
I agree. I am sure that happens.

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