Sometimes as a missionary for my church I find myself having to teach people some and simple truths.
Joseph Smith was the first hippie. That is a scientific fact. He was a true prophet and he started a counterculture to the status quo of his day and age. He built an intentional community of like-minded individuals where they could practice their alternative lifestyles as they saw fit. They were hippies.
Mormons were the first hippies.
Under the Prophet's direction, they established a new community where the Prophet told us how to live and how to treat each other. It was beautiful. True, the Prophet did establish a new order of marriage, where he could marry many women, but like all true and great men, he found the current trend of one man to one wife to be limiting and not very with the changing times.
He did it. And then his predeccesors moved outside of the United States in order to practice their alternative lifestyle. They formed communities outside the mainstream America and built a system where people truly loved each other.
I am a 5th generation Mormon. I come from this line of counter-culture revolutionaries. And I am so proud of my hippie fore-fathers.
Pray for me,
- Elder Gandy
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Hello Thought I would comment on this as I ran across your blog.
ReplyDeleteFirst I'm going to say, you will probably start getting a lot of weird comments, mostly due to the fact that your blog showed up on Reddit.com and could generate a lot of traffic. As most of the mention of Mormons on Reddit.com is negative (mostly due to Prop 8) you should be warned.
OK my Name is Jeff and I'm an ex-Mormon. I'm going to make a comment because I find the whole topic of "Mormons are the first Hippies" very funny since I once thought as you do. I mostly find this funny because Hippies are about freedoms. Free love, freedom from government, freedom from normalcy, freedom from war, free to experiment. If one Joesph Smith didn't teach was freedoms to do whatever you want. He taught very strict laws that followers to follow to get into heaven.And even though the Mormons were "Peculiar" they were not Hippies.
Hi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI'm so, so, so sorry to hear about you leaving the church - but it's ok, because somewhere out there, Jesus loves you (although I don't know if it's ok for me to).
"I mostly find this funny because Hippies are about freedoms"
Yes and no. Yes, they are about freedoms, No they are more than that - they are about fighting the power, man!!! And that's exactly what Joesph Smith did; he fought the law, and he won, well, he had to die for it, but he won, in the end.
"He taught very strict laws that followers to follow to get into heaven"
Don't the hippies teach strict laws, too? Like, it's a law to love freedom. You have to love freedom if you're a hippie!! That's a law! If you don't, you're just like the man.
You see, Jimmy, Joeseph new that he could be free within the law, his own laws that he made up. He was free to love and love other people, and he did, why? because he was a revolutionary - a true hippie - died in the tied died wool, through and through.
Thanks for stopping by!! May god bless you with showers of ice cream :-)
Pray for me,
Elder Gandy
Don't worry about me leaving the church as I've never been happier in my life. Life in the church (although there were good times) brought mostly overwhelming feeling of guilt and misery for not being able to live up to impossible standards and when I did nothing wrong. It doesn't help that I started questioning the validity and truthfulness of the LDS church. I quickly found out that there was no evidence to support the claims of Joesph smith.
ReplyDeleteAs for your statement that Hippies were about fighting the man, well yes the were. But they were more about stopping the War, about about fighting control of a big brother type government that they felt was leading humanity into darkness. And they were all about as much drugs and sexual encounters they could get.
Don't think I would classify Joesph Smith as fighting the "Man" and he most certainly didn't die for that. He went to jail for burning down the Novuoo Expositor and the printing press and he was killed (and tarred and feathered) because of his Savings and Loan scandal were a good majority of the members lost their life savings. Half the membership of the church at the time left because of it. Of the men that tarred and feathered him, most were affected by the savings and loans scandal.
And no Hippies didn't teach strict laws. You could be who and what you wanted as a hippie. It's the most of them held to the same ideals.
I find the statement funny "Mormons are the original hippies" because I've been both a Mormon and a person that chooses to live free (although I would call it being a hippy it was similar). It was because of the many laws and rules of the LDS church that pushed me in that direction for a while. The two are polar opposites.
Case in Point. Hippies believed that people were free to love and be with who they want, However the LDS church encouraged it's members to funnel 22 million dollars into the Prop 8 campaign in California. That is not a Hippie organization.
Do you realize how many children could have been vaccinated in the world, how many hungry people could have been feed and how much comfort could have been brought to those without comfort.
22 million could have done a lot of good in the world and it didn't. It went to take away the right of people. People that have fought long and hard against organizations like the LDS church that seek to destroy anything it doesn't agree with or understand. The persecuted of past became the persecutors of now.
So yes I find your statement of "Mormons to be the first hippies" to be a hysterically inaccurate statement.
Jeff
As for your statement that Hippies were about fighting the man, well yes the were"
ReplyDeleteThank you for seeing it my way, Jeff. It's true that Mormons were the original and first hippies, not the ones in San Fran.
"And no Hippies didn't teach strict laws. You could be who and what you wanted as a hippie. It's the most of them held to the same ideals."
Wait, wait, wait - how could they be free who they wanted to be and yet they were all the same? They were like the hippie borg - you will be assimilated - (have you ever seen star trek? I love that show). If they were so free, why did they all dress, talk, act, and speak the same way?
"Hippies believed that people were free to love and be with who they want
Jeff!! This is exactly what our Prophet teaches!! Be free to love who he wants, and that's why god made polygamy - free love!! With whom you want!!
How could it be anymore true that that? That's the truest truth of trumanity.
"The persecuted of past became the persecutors of now."
I agree with you on this one. The Hippies of today are awfully intolerant and persecutaroty. They tell you what to believe in schools and how we have to save the earth - man, whatever happened to freedom.
You make some great points, Jeff - may god bless you with abundant chewing gum and ctr rings.
Pray for me,
Elder Gandy
How sad that Jeff has left the Lord's true church. He obviously left to sin. Why on earth would anybody want to leave otherwise?
ReplyDeleteAll the church wants from us is free labour, unquestioning obedience and 10% of our gross income. What is wromg with that? After all, after the tax man has had his share we still have around 40% left to feed our families and pay the bills. Just look at all the blessings we get in return. Well, actually, I cannot think of any at the moment but there must be some otherwise why would so many people be members?
The story about the martyrdom of poor Joseph the prophet really made me feel the spirit. The prophet Joseph had done so much good in ridding Nauvoo of that evil printing press yet even while he was in jail he was still an instrument in the Lord's hands as he was given a gun and shot three people before both himself and Hyrum died in the gunfight. Joesph and Hyrum of course died as martyrs and I myself am old enough to remember how we used to swear vengeance in the temple on those who took their innocent blood (why did they ever change that part of the ceremony?). By contrast, look at the people Joseph shot. Two of them died according to the Lord's will and the one who Heavenly Father wanted to keep alive so that he had the chance to repent was only wounded. What a loving heavenly father to allow that evil man to live in spite of his sins. What greater sin can a commit than to kill the Lord's prophet and the patriarch?
Let us also remember that the prophet Joseph only destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor out of love. Joseph really hated having to marry more than 30 women, some of who were as young as 14, and only did so because he was commanded by an angel with a flaming sword (yes swords were around a lot in the book of Mormon and angels carried them) and Joseph was such a considerate husband that he did not want his first wife, Emma, to find out about it becuase he knew she would find it just as hard as he did, so he simply did not tell her about all his plural marriages. Obviously, he could not risk Emma finding out about all her sister wives so he did what any loving husband would do and destroyed the press.Joseph must have been commanded by the Lord to start the gunfight because the Lord wanted the other evil people dead and knew that Joseph and hyrum should seal their testimonies by dying martyr's deaths.
HAHAHAHA. This is the funniest shit I have read in a while. Mormons are coo coo. Crazy. MORMONS ARE NOT FUCKING HIPPIES. the word "hippie" was coined to describe one of the groups of people involved in a counter-culture anti-establishment movement in the 1960s. The word was invented to describe those people, not mormons, sorry. Oh and church is an establishment that exerts power over others. The simple fact remains though that who are a delusional person who supports the theories of a crazy man and also that the word hippie describes a subculture group in the 60's, not mormons. As much as you would enjoy fantasizing about mormons being the real true hippies, you are incorrect.
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