Just a short post today (funny how even when I say that I end up pushing 1500 words)… I found it incredibly odd that in the account of Joseph Smith's martyrdom PBS chose not to include a detail that they could have exploited to great effect to forward their framing of the man as a power-hungry con artist: at the time of his martyrdom he was in possession of a handgun. Of course it is highly illegal to have smuggled a pistol into the jail where he was being held when he was shot, so this could have been good incriminating evidence not only to frame JS as fundamentally unethical, but also to frame the church leadership (who never mention this detail in the official account either) as secretive, exploitative, and cult-like. On the other hand, however, they do miss a great opportunity to understand the man via analysis of his last act in mortality. They DO correctly state, and surprisingly word-for-word from the official account, that JS died exclaiming "O Lord, my God" falli...
Candid evaluation of assumptions as well as musings on consequences of political, religious, moral, scientific, linguistic and literary truths and pretensions thereto. Dissecting representations, critiquing arguments, discussing liberty, equality, justice, faith, values, facts, and the principles and institutions that make them all possible.