Orson Hyde on aiming for Power

 Orson Hyde at General Conference 1853 (JD Vol. 1: 22) The Man to Lead God's People ... (Audio version here):

... But, says one, "If this be correct, it is giving to one man almighty power. It is giving to one man supreme power to rule." Admit it. What are we all aiming for? Are we not aiming for supreme power? Are we not aiming to obtain the promise that has been made to all believers? What is it? "He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." Are we not all seeking for this, that we may overcome, that we may inherit all things? For says Paul, "Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Well, then, if all things are ours, we should be very insensible to our best interests if we did not seek diligently for that which Heaven promises as a legacy to the faithful. It is our right, then. Do we not all expect to be armed with almighty power? Is there a Latter-day Saint under the sound of my voice, whose heart is fired with celestial light, but that seeks to be in possession of supreme power (I had like to have said) both in heaven and on earth? It is said, we are "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." Does Jesus Christ possess all power in heaven and on earth? He said, when he rose from the dead, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Are we heirs of God, and joint heirs with that illustrious character? He has so declared! If we are, do we not, in common with him, possess the power that is in heaven and on earth!  If one individual, then, is a little ahead of us in obtaining this power, let us not be envious, for it will be our time by and by. We ought to be the more thankful, and glorify God that He has armed one individual with this power, and opened a way that we may follow him, and obtain the same power. Instead of it being a cause of envy, it ought to be, on the contrary, a matter to call forth our warmest thanksgivings and praise to God, that He has brought back that power again to the earth in our day, by which we may be led step by step to the point we hope to attain.

Orson Hyde Confirms Father and Son "[resemble] each other exactly in features and stature."

 According to this site, “Orson Hyde wrote a treatise on the faith, doctrine, and history of the Church which he then translated and published in German. Hyde’s work was titled Ein Ruf aus der Wuste, which was the first time an account of the First Vision was published in a foreign language.” In his description of Joseph Smith First Vision, in 1842 Orson Hyde clarifies and integrates the 1832 and 1838 First Vision versions thus:

At this sacred moment, the natural world around him was excluded from his view, so that he would be open to the presentation of heavenly and spiritual things. Two glorious heavenly personages stood before him, resembling each other exactly in features and stature. They told him that his prayer had been answered and that the Lord had decided to grant him a special blessing. He was also told that he should not join any of the religious sects or denominations, because all of them erred in doctrine and none were recognized by God as his church and kingdom. …

The 1832 First Vision emphasizes Jesus only as Lord and Joseph Smith receives a forgiveness of sins. We see no contradiction with the 1838 account based on Hyde saying “They told him that his prayer had been answered and that the Lord had decided to grant him a special blessing.” This could be the blessing of a forgiveness of sins. Then Hyde says, “He [Christ] also told …” In Hyde’s version we then see what Joseph Smith may have meant by the 1832 account that only mentions Jesus, which is that because Jesus and God the Father “[resemble] each other exactly in features and stature” (as Hyde puts it). it is understandable that Joseph Smith would only mention Christ in the 1832 version, as seeing Christ was in his mind the same as seeing the Father, which is corroborated in John 14:8-9 (NKJV):

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 

In other words, the Father and Son were nearly “identical twins” as a duplicate genome basically, which I discuss in my blog series here. 

The New Covenant of the Priesthood and Plural Marriage as the Means to the End of Raising Up a Righteous Seed (Peoplehood) and Generating Zion as a Circle of Friends

In my blog series here, I discuss gene-culture coevolution and argue that certain personalities and character traits were selected for during the 1800s when plural marriage (i.e. polygamy was practiced among Mormons). Thus there was a type of funneling process where difficult, disagreeable, and unfriendly types chose (and choose today) not to be part of the LDS fold; and so over time there was a filtering in of mostly happy, strong, agreeable and civilized type people into Mormonism, so that the early LDS polygamists unintentionally selectively bred a kind of quasi-ethnicity as a cultural identity that became known as the "Mormons."

In the book Joseph smith's Quorum of the Anointed, in the forward Todd Compton basically confirms what I think which is that the priesthood is in part connected to plural marriage which we see with Abraham 2:11, as Compton writes on pages 4-6 (emphasis added):

Foreword by Todd Compton 

This is an important book, documenting a key chapter in Latter-day Saint history that few Mormons know about. The Quorum of Anointed (also known as the Holy Order) was the secret, elite group which founding prophet Joseph Smith organized and to which he revealed for the first time the ordinances of washing and anointing, the endowment, and the “fullness of the priesthood”—the foundation of modern LDS temple ritual. …

… Joseph Smith undoubtedly stood at the center of things; around him revolved a number of social circles, many of them secret, that only occasionally intersected. There was the extremely secret inner circle of those who had been introduced to, and were beginning to practice, plural marriage; there was the Council of Fifty, the sub rosa political kingdom of the church, which would privately crown Joseph Smith king of the theocratic kingdom of God. … the women’s Relief Society, led by Emma Smith, who was generally an opponent of polygamy and did not know of many of her husband’s plural marriages; and her counselors, Elizabeth Whitney, the mother of one of Joseph’s wives, and Sarah Cleveland, herself a wife of Joseph. Finally, there was the circle documented in this book, the Holy Order, the Quorum of the Anointed, sometimes simply called the priesthood, intersecting with all these groups. …

… The editors of this volume suggest that the Quorum of the Anointed [again, “sometimes simply called the priesthood”], to which Joseph Smith introduced the LDS temple rites, was closely connected to his introduction of plural marriage to his most trusted disciples. The Quorum of the Anointed facilitated the teaching of secrecy; and Joseph’s polygamy, which could have had disastrous legal implications and caused adverse publicity if it became public knowledge, was one of the main reasons secrecy was needed. In addition, sometimes the reward of entering the quorum gave Mormons motivation for accepting polygamy.

Thus the priesthood was connected to plural marriage as the keys to raise up a righteous seed, seed meaning a Peoplehood (a Mormon People), just as Abraham's seed raised up the Israelites; and Jesus’ supernatural seed was implanted in multiple Brides/Christians who receive his divine sperma/DNA as pneuma (pronounced nooma). Thus, just as Jesus supernaturally seeded multiple brides (Christians), breeding a Christian People (i.e. the Jesus People), the priesthood is the Order of the Son of God (see D&C 107:3) as it is the order of seeding a People (see Abraham 2:11) which is ultimately a Circle of Friends: “... I [Christ] say unto you, my friends, for from henceforth I shall call you friends ..” (D&C 84:77; compare John 15:15). So after Christ repeatedly refers to LDS Christians as his friends in scripture, we then read about the greeting ritual of the LDS School of the Prophets in D&C 88 (emphasis added):

3 Wherefore, I [Christ] now send upon you another Comforter, even upon you my friends, that it may abide in your hearts, even the Holy Spirit of promise; ...

62 And again, verily I say unto you, my friends, I leave these sayings …

117 Therefore, verily I say unto you, my friends, call your solemn assembly, …

127 And again, the order of the house prepared for the presidency of the school of the prophets, established for their instruction in all things that are expedient for them, even for all the officers of the church, or in other words, those who are called to the ministry in the church, beginning at the high priests, even down to the deacons—

128 And this shall be the order of the house of the presidency of the school:

130 And when he cometh into the house of God, for he should be first in the house—behold, this is beautiful, that he may be an example—

131 Let him offer himself in prayer upon his knees before God, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant.

132 And when any shall come in after him, let the teacher arise, and, with uplifted hands to heaven, yea, even directly, salute his brother or brethren with these words:

133 Art thou a brother or brethren? I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love, to walk in all the commandments of God blameless, in thanksgiving, forever and ever. Amen. 

In The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith's Unfinished Reformation, author Don Bradley argues that Joseph Smith was seeking to build a society of genuine friends bonded in friendship. One way to do this was through marriages between families through plural marriages where everyone is interconnected as sons in law and fathers in law and mothers in law and daughters in law, etc.; as a circle of friends seeking to build Zion by producing a righteous seed (a quasi-ethnic encultured Mormon People). This is why Don Bradley has recently argued as of 2023 (see this Ward Radio podcast episode  starting at the 15 minute mark), that new research reveals Joseph’s motivations for plural marriage had more to do with generating a circle of friends bonded together through celestial sealings: as in many cases he was plurally married to women who were already months into a pregnancy and about to give birth to another man's child, and in that culture in the 1800s pregnant women did not have sex; and thus those particular polyandrous plural marriages would have most likely been sexless marriage sealings for eternity only. So obviously there was a different motive for such sealings which Bradley discusses.

If we then consider the motivations for temple rituals like baptism for the dead which was ultimately about bonding the dead to the living as eternal friends and brothers/sisters in the celestial realm; just as Joseph saw in vision his deceased brother Alvin in heaven. So sealings of deceased fathers to sons, deceased siblings to siblings, generated a great Chain of Belonging.

Ex-Mormon Jonathan Streeter argues for the "Truth" of Mormonism by Seeing Religion as an Evolutionary Living Framework of Action, Ideals, Tradition and Heritage

 In the "TOTAS: Religion as an Evolutionary Living FAITH w/ Troy Leavitt" on YouTube, Jonathan Streeter and Troy Leavitt, basically discuss gene-culture coevolution at 25 minutes. They also discuss how studies show that religion does make most people healthier and happier in general.

At 35-38 minutes, host Jonathan Streeter comes to the same conclusions that I have, which is that from the perspective of gene-culture coevolution, it doesn't even matter if the ideas of a religion are objectively true or not; from a lifeward perspective, it is about ideas having evolutionarily and cultural usefulness in generating greater social cohesion and the unifying of the family and the tribe; so that the ideas are replicated into future generations and make the individual organism and the tribe more fit and reproductively successful and powerful. 

So after starting this blog series it was validating to see somebody else who spent over 10 years out of the LDS Church in the exmormon world, to then upon further scientific investigation and rational inquiry, came to realize that there is another way of assessing and valuing Mormonism: through the perspective of it being a cultural phenomenon as an evolutionary successful form of ideas aiding in the health and flourishing of the Mormon People. Once one opens their eyes to this evolutionary fitness view, it moves one further away from anti-Mormonism and more towards a respect of their Mormon heritage.

They then discuss the importance of religious ideas and how they have the ability to reproduce the species successfully. They point out that, in my own words, from the perspective of Life what is actually true is that which lives and grows. So that from an evolutionary perspective the only "truth" is that which evolves the newest forms successfully. Otherwise there is nothing, no form, to call truth to begin with. So from this perspective, Mormonism is true as an adaptable form of ideas because it is a proven theological system for reproducing the species. 

At 45 minutes, Jonathan Streeter then has an epiphany, realizing that when he became an exmormon and felt that he was "escaping the prison of Mormonism" at 39 years old, he had not fully realized that he was looking at Mormonism only through an individualist and empirical perspective and not a bio-cultural perspective and how religion empowers cohesion in a family and tribal culture. Very similar to Jonathan, my leaving of the LDS Church around age 25, I had the same perspective as him and it took me also a decade or more to fully realize what I do now.

Venerating your Ancestors 

At 47 minutes, Jonathan Streeter talks as if he had been reading my mind the last few years. As he also talks about the importance of respecting your Mormon Heritage and basically if you have a veneration for your ancestors you're less likely to leave one set of belief propositions for another set, because you are more deeply rooted in the religion due to your ancestral respect. Furthermore, he argues that that the Cultural Heritage is a substrate of a moral foundation which provides the means toward growing an ethical culture. 

His guest agrees and says at 50 minutes that a good example of a group of an "ex-" group opposing tradition is the Chinese revolution trying to overturn their cultural heritage and ethical foundations and it ending in disaster. As he was saying this I thought about how most of exmormon culture has degenerated into self-worship, mean-spirited insult fests, and offering no better worldview alternative except nihilism and wokeism. 

They then give the analogy of Chesterton's fence. Streeter then, at about 53 minutes, argues that the demand for moral perfection from the founders of a religion is ultimately misguided, and what is more important is the ethical norms and cultural guidelines of the overall religion; as it produces nicer and happier people. Because if you base your criteria of judgment of Mormonism on the perfection or imperfection of the founders of that religion, and you find all these "skeletons in their closet," and then you leave Mormonism (or Catholicism or whatever), you will then likely try to find another worldview or cultural system of ideas to live by; but then you are likely going to find similar "skeletons in the closet" of the people who formed those new ideas and philosophical systems. Therefore it is better to evaluate Mormonism on its cultural value and ethical guidelines and norms for producing better and nicer civilized people and functional families. In other words, the founders of the LDS Religion and its current leaders don't need to be morally perfect to find great value Mormonism; just like we can criticize the American Founding Fathers but still realize that America is great and we respect our American Heritage and don't intend to renounce our American citizenship just because this or that Founding Father was morally imperfect or the current political leadership is less than ideal.