This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
False
“…Young taught a doctrine known as “Blood Atonement” where a person’s blood had to be shed to atone for their own sins as it was beyond the atonement of Jesus Christ.”
(CES Letter)
Never Taught This – Like the Adam-God theory, Blood-atonement is a hoax that Anti-Mormons fabricated to attack Mormons. They take quotes out of context and falsely portray what Mormons believed. Nobody believed in “blood atonement” killings and nobody did this.
Brigham Young was simply teaching that there were different levels of seriousness for sin, and this was important to understand as Mormon were at that time establishing a civilization on the wild frontier, the new state government of Utah. He envisioned a civilization that tolerated a variety of religious beliefs, and did not want to punish anyone for their beliefs: “Whoever lives to see the Kingdom of God fully established on upon the earth, will see a government that will protect every person his rights. If that government was now reigning upon the land of Joseph, you would see the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Shaker, The Hindu, The Mahometan, and every class of worshipers, most strictly protected in all their municipal rights and in the privilege of worshiping who, what, and when they pleased, not infringing upon the rights of others.” (Brigham Young)
Levels Of Sin
Typical Sins – Brigham Young talked about three levels of sin. First, he talked about the typical sins that we all commit due to the “weakness of human nature.” He said that when it comes to these sins it is “time to awake” before the judgement we will receive in the afterlife.
Sins That Require Punishment – After that, Brigham Young said “there are sins” that require retribution from God, and may not even be forgiven “in this world.” As an example, he mentioned the Israelites wandering in the wilderness until the rebellious among them God “destroyed them in the wilderness.” Brigham Young did not talk about killing anyone because of their beliefs or rebellions, but was comparing the Mormon settlers’ hardships with the wandering Israelites of old. They were natural consequences. His point was that civilizations are crushed by divine retribution for rebellion and he didn’t want that to happen to Utah.
Unpardonable Sin – Mormons believe that denying the Holy Ghost is a sin that the redemption of Jesus does not cover, because a person who commits this sin is too far gone to want to seek forgiveness. This is when a person receives a sure, undeniable witness of God and then still denies God. It is the only sin that is not forgiven, and it doesn’t matter whether that person is punished or not.
Punishment is not an issue when it comes to this level of sin. Brigham Young said these people may even beg for punishment if it would mean taking away their sin. But punishment would do no good because these are sins “which it can never remit.”
Besides the the unforgivable sin, there are sins that can be atoned through personal sacrifice (or divine retribution), and then thirdly, there are sins which no sacrifice could atone but require a person to “understand the doctrine of salvation” and be washed through the atonement. “There is not a hardship, there is not a disappointment, there is not a trial, there is not a hard time, that comes upon this people in this place, but that I am more thankful for than I am for full granaries. We have been hunting during the past twenty-six years, for a place where we could raise Saints, not merely wheat, and corn. Comparatively I care but little about the wheat and corn, though a little is very useful… I mention these things for the benefit of those here to-day, if any, who think that this is not a good country, and who do not really know whether they wish to stay, or whether we are right or wrong, or whether “Mormonism” is true or false. I would advise those persons to repent of their sins forthwith, and to try with all their might to get the spirit of their religion upon them, and if they cannot do that, to take their own course and go where their hearts desire, for doubtless there is some place where you would wish to go… You are losing the spirit of the Gospel, is there any cause for it? No, only that which there is in the world. You have the weakness of human nature to contend with, and you suffer that weakness to decoy you away from the truth, to the side of the adversary; but now it is time to awake, before the time of burning. Whether the time of burning will be this week, or the next, or next year, I do not know that I care; and I do not know that I would ask, if I was sure the Lord would tell me. But I tell you that which I do know, and that is sufficient. I do know that the trying day will soon come to you and to me; and ere long we will have to lay down these tabernacles and go into the spirit world. And I do know that as we lie down, so judgment will find us, and that is scriptural; “as the tree falls so it shall lie,” or, in other words, as death leaves us so judgment will find us. I will explain how judgment will be laid to the line. If we all live to the age of man the end thereof will soon be here, and that will burn enough, without anything else; and the present is a day of trial, enough for you and me. We have got to be rightly prepared to go into the spirit world, in order to become kings… Whether the world is going to be burned up within a year, or within a thousand years, does not matter a groat to you and me. We have the words of eternal life, we have the privilege of obtaining glory, immortality, and eternal lives, now will you obtain these blessings? Will you spend your lives to obtain a seat in the kingdom of God, or will you lie down and sleep, and go down to hell? I want all the people to say what they will do, and I know that God wishes all His servants, all His faithful sons and daughters, the men and the women that inhabit this city, to repent of their wickedness, or we will cut them off. I could give you a logical reason for all the transgressions in this world, for all that are committed in this probationary state, and especially for those committed by men. There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, and if they had their eyes open to see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins; and the smoking incense would atone for their sins, whereas, if such is not the case, they will stick to them and remain upon them in the spirit world. I know, when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth, that you consider it is strong doctrine; but it is to save them, not to destroy them. Of all the children of Israel that started to pass through the wilderness, none inherited the land which had been promised, except Caleb and Joshua, and what was the reason? It was because of their rebellion and wickedness; and because the Lord had promised Abraham that he would save his seed. They had to travel to and fro to every point of the compass, and were wasted away, because God was determined to save their spirits. But they could not enter into His rest in the flesh, because of their transgressions, consequently He destroyed them in the wilderness. I do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore, I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course. I will say further; I have had men come to me and offer their lives to atone for their sins. It is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by men, yet men can commit sins which it can never remit. As it was in ancient days, so it is in our day; and though the principles are taught publicly from this stand, still the people do not understand them; yet the law is precisely the same. There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon an altar, as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or of turtle doves, cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of the man. That is the reason why men talk to you as they do from this stand; they understand the doctrine and throw out a few words about it. You have been taught that doctrine, but you do not understand it… I am going to ask you a good many things, and to begin with I will ask, what is your prayer? Do, you not ask for the righteous to increase, while the unrighteous shall decrease and dwindle away? Yes, that is the prayer of every person that prays at all. The Methodists pray for it, the Baptists pray for it, and the Church of England and all the reformers, the Shaking Quakers not excepted. And if the women belonging to this Church will turn Shaking Quakers, I think their sorrows will soon be at an end.”(Brigham Young)
He never suggested people should kill anyone. Just that people are cut off from God when they rebel, and nothing is enough for people who get to the point that they commit the unpardonable sin. The sin which “must be atoned for by the blood of the man” is not the unpardonable sin, but rebellion which results in divine retribution against a wicked society.
Surviving The Wild Frontier
Why is this all shocking? Jesus taught about the unpardonable sin. Brigham Young’s belief that there are sins which result in punishment from God is certainly a biblical concept. Retribution does no good for the unpardonable sin of denying the Holy Ghost. Two different kids of sin! Not the same.
As governor of the State, Brigham Young also needed to consider the ethics of punishment per civil justice. Doesn’t the United States punish people who violate the law? Isn’t this what governments do? If you are going to complain about Brigham Young bringing up retribution from God as a tool to quell “rebellion”, you must also complain about ever single civil punishment from the government for breaking laws.
It is so easy for us today to sit in judgement of these 19th century trailblazers, sitting in our cushy office chairs, our convenience stores and air conditioned homes, and to complain about Brigham Young’s intolerance. But I would like to see just one of these skeptics and Anti-Mormons make the trek across the open plains and build a civilization out of barren salt flats. How would they deal with the persecution and fear, with death waiting around every corner? I would like to see them build a state government and entire civilization from scratch, and try to keep the wide-spread communities of the pioneers united. I would love to see them do this while singing in hippy circles about equality and harmony. Brigham Young did not have time to parse his words so fragile Millenials of our day wouldn’t get offended that he spoke too harshly, that his language was a tad too violent.
Of course, our civilization today is so much more sophisticated and advanced than the Mormon pioneers’, but maybe, just maybe, Brigham Young’s stgrong language makes a little sense, even today. Maybe we should be less concerned about material comforts and more concerned about our spiritual welfare? Maybe we aren’t all that much better off than the ancient children of Israel, and maybe we should be concerned about the consequences of our transgressions? Maybe we shouldn’t think we are special snowflakes above all that.
We often become complacent and think that our actions don’t matter. Our civilization won’t crash if we as individuals fail, unlike the pioneers of old. But the principles of sin and righteousness haven’t changed. Naturla consequences still follow rebellion and wickedness, and they don’t only affect us, but those around us–our community, our families, and our loved ones. We often do not see how our actions affect them and we take it for granted, but they do. Instead of lying about what Brigham Young said two centuries ago about sin, we will be much happier if we take complete responsibility for our own actions and use the weight of these enormous consequences for good, to achieve great things. Above all, we must be peaceable people and seek understanding, avoiding violence and conflict.
CES Letter Logical Fallacies
| Falsehood | The Blood-atonement doctrine, that “a person’s blood had to be shed to atone for their own sins as it was beyond the atonement of Jesus Christ” was never doctrine. Brigham Young was speaking of a rebellious behavior which results in natural consequences and the denial of the Holy Ghost which is not helped by retributions–two totally separate things. CES Letter incorrectly claims Brigham Young’s doctrine “was later declared false by future prophets and apostles.” |
| Poisoning The Well | Denouncing something is not an admission of guilt. |
| Repetition | CES Letter repeats this argument on p. 42. CES Letter repeats several times their slogan (slightly reworded in different ways): “Yesterday’s doctrine is today’s false doctrine. Yesterday’s prophet is today’s heretic.” |
| Strawman Fallacy | CES Letter omits portions of the sermon which clarify that the unpardonable sin is a separate issue from contrition through sacrifice. CES Letter says a person’s blood had to be spilled when their sins were “beyond the atonement of Jesus Christ.” Brigham Young never taught this. He said, the only time sins required the “blood of the man” were when they couldn’t be remitted through burnt offering on the ancient Israelite altar. He never said they wouldn’t be covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ. Brigham Young did say there was an unpardonable sin, but he never said that the unpardonable sin required the blood of the man. CES Letter is mixing two separate issues. CES Letter claims: “The Church now confirms in its May 2014 essay that Blood Atonement was taught by the prophet Brigham Young.” But all the church confirms in that essay is: “leaders taught that some sins were so serious that the perpetrator’s blood would have to be shed in order to receive forgiveness.” This is different than how CES Letter characterizes what was taught. |
Changeable Truth – CES Letter sarcastically says:
“Yesterday’s doctrine is today’s false doctrine and yesterday’s prophet is today’s heretic.”
(CES Letter)
They repeat this slogan several times reworded slightly differently. It is important to remember this is not so much an attack on modern prophets as it is an attack on our methodology for truth. The question is how do we gain our testimonies and how do we decide what is true?
CES Letter builds a phony narrative about the Mormon methodology. Why, if gospel doctrine were eternal and unchanging, would we be “atoning” people with their own blood? Well, it is easy to take historic quotes and events totally out of context. It is the same reason why some people tear down statues of George Washington for being a slave owner and despise Abraham Lincoln for being a racist. If you get past the rhetoric, George Washington brought freedom, and these “blood atonement” killings didn’t happen. The Mormon body-count from blood-atonement is zero, while the body-count from Anti-Mormons is thousands.
Followers of Satan do not believe truth is constant. The only thing constant to them is their ideology of compulsion and universal salvation. Everything else is a narrative that can shift at any moment as needed to propagate the ideology. In following their contradiction strategy, they seek to prove that truth is changeable by holding Mormons to an unrealistic rigid standard. Ever single prophetic statement in history must line up perfectly, or else truth must be changeable. If one day Joseph Smith told people about “the Lord” visiting him in the First Vision, and then the next day he talked about the Lord and God the Father, then that is different, and that means it’s a contradiction and truth changed.
The same applies here. If anyone can possibly misconstrue something to sound different than what other church leaders have said, then Anti-Mormons will use that to reaffirm their belief in relative truth.
Victimization Culture – This slogan “yesterday’s prophet is today’s heretic” reinforces the victimization culture among Anti-Mormons and ex-Mormons, where everything bad in life is the fault of Mormons and the LDS church. If Mormons don’t agree with their shifting truth, the narrative that changes as needed to propagate the Socialist ideology, then that means Mormons are branding them “heretics,” holding some kind of Dark Age inquisition like the witch-burners of old. Suddenly, disagreement with anything an Anti-Mormon says is an act of aggression and intolerance.
This is where we get today’s popular cultural appeal to accept degeneracy and apostasy, relative truth, in the name of “tolerance” and “equality.” It is really just intolerance of Mormon beliefs. This argument is dangerous because not only does it make Mormons automatically intolerant if they don’t agree with everything a skeptic says, it makes them dangerous and liable to “blood atone” people. All those nice Mormons riding around on bikes handing out Books of Mormon? Watch out!
This narrative introduces a false dichotomy between continuing revelation and eternal rigid truth. How is truth supposed to be eternal when we have all these new prophets saying different things than ancient prophets? Why do we need modern prophets if truth is eternal? Satan’s followers believe church policy is the same thing as doctrine, and that doctrine is therefore always changing. But the reality is policy is different than doctrine, and while doctrine is unchanging, policy is always changing to fit with modern circumstances. We don’t drink wine in modern times because drinking is a much more dangerous vice than it was in ancient times, for example.
Big Lie Tactic – CES Letter used three Big Lies in previous arguments regarding the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and polygamy–lies which compounded in more lies with further arguments down the road. With so many lies and resultant lies, it is easy for them to use the same kind of faulty logic here to slip in another lie.
They follow the same modus operandi, of taking a snippet of text wildly out of context and trying to show a contradiction with other church teachings. They use this to imply that the church promoted violence and murder. People fall for this illusion because it is the easier path. It takes work to read an entire sermon and try to understand its 19th century language and complex message, the three types of sin being talked about.
As a believing Mormon being attacked, it is easier to just give in and “admit” Brigham Young taught this false doctrine. Many Mormons already do! It is shocking how many scholars and faithful Mormon apologists allow the false narrative to continue. Oh, well, maybe Brigham Yound used extreme language to try to scare Anti-Mormons away and maybe a few Mormons took it too far. It isn’t a big deal if Brigham Young did teach it, after all, because everybody is human and sometimes we say things that are just wrong–even prophets. They were extreme circumstances, after all, and they were doing what they had to to survive. But the problem is this concession gives the Big Lie legitimacy and allows further lies to fester. Suddenly, all the other lies about the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and polygamy become legitimate too because they were built on CES Letter‘s same modus operandi. Suddenly, we can’t trust anything a prophet says.
You could take this easy path or taken the other path which is the lengthy task of answering every single nit-picked question that Anti-Mormons throw at you. Often, the answer cannot be known because it is lost history. We don’t know for sure what Brigham Young meant. There aren’t any recordings. Either make the easy assumption or be forced to back up every detail of your beliefs from attack. That is your choice.
The author of CES Letter apparently made the easy decision, and that is why they expect members of the church to answer every single little challenge instead of discovering the truth for themselves. They want easy beliefs. Of course, they do not say what it is they belief in so we can’t return challenges in kind to their faith. They never say “instead of this we believe in this.” I think this is why Anti-Mormons typically don’t bring up the real reasons why they left the church when they ask their “questions.” They want to snipe from a safe position where they don’t have to talk about their own beliefs.
What actually obliterates a person’s testimony of the gospel? Is it the groundbreaking discovery about Brigham Young’s sermons–which actually have been talked about for hundreds of years? No, I think there is a lot that leads up to a lost testimony. Of course it is difficult to open up and discuss these painful experiences, but I wish Anti-Mormons would talk about it instead of making up these justifications for what they have decided.
| See also: | CES Letter Contradiction Strategy |
Contradiction Strategy – The human mind is trained to find patterns and dissimilarities. It is easy–lazy really–to cherry-pick a short phrase from a random sermon, and dress up the narrative around it. This is the same argument that Leftists use against the bible. “The bible teaches people to own slaves!”
When it comes to history, there is so much we don’t know and will never know. All we have are some transcriptions that supposedly came from a transcriber who wrote down short-hand something Brigham Young said. We don’t even know for sure if this is exactly what Brigham Young said. If there is vague evidence for something but we mostly don’t know what really happened because it is ancient history, Anti-Mormons will jump to lazy conclusions, whatever narrative is hyped up in the media and dressed up in emotional language.
It is easy to manipulate Satan’s followers when it comes to history because they rely only on what they can see and put no true faith in anything.
This propaganda technique is especially insidious as it defines Mormons in a constrained and unfair frame, and it rallies non-Mormons or anybody who was sitting on the fence in solidarity against Mormons and their beliefs.
Use Opponent As Authority Tactic – This is a popular tactic that Anti-Mormons use. They use Mormonism’s own authorities to discredit the faith, such as an alleged Mormon scholar. CES Letter claims that the “Church now confirms” blood atonement was taught. What makes this argument powerful is:
- Deceptively discredits the vast libraries of study on Book of Abraham by LDS professionals.
- Gives more focus to a phony frame that attacks the Mormon church.
- Divides the ranks of the church.
- Establishes a frame that demands a clear, modern explanation in the Book of Abraham for every religious issue in existence, and that it be exactly corroborated by every other Mormon source.
Complete answers to CES Letter questions about Mormons: