Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness - Unless Thou Art A Mormon President

Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

The LDS historical department just published an 1886 polygamy revelation

President John Taylor (1808 - 1887).

The (non-existent) 'revelation' permitting polygamy.

What Is Mormonism? Mormonism, officially known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), is a religious movement founded in the United States in the early 19th century. It was established by Joseph Smith in 1830, following his claim to have received divine revelations and discovered golden plates inscribed with sacred writings—later translated and published as the Book of Mormon.

Smith taught that his revelations restored the “true church” of Jesus Christ, lost after the early Christian era. The movement quickly attracted followers but also faced intense opposition due to its unconventional teachings, authoritarian leadership, and later, the adoption of polygamy (plural marriage), which Smith and his successors practised and defended as divinely mandated.

After Smith was killed by a mob in 1844, leadership passed to Brigham Young, who led the majority of followers westward to Utah, then outside U.S. jurisdiction. There they established a theocratic society and practised polygamy openly until growing federal pressure and legal crackdowns forced the official renunciation of the practice in 1890 (and again in 1904).

Today, the LDS Church claims over 17 million members worldwide, promotes conservative family values, and continues to regard modern revelation as a core part of its theology—although it now distances itself from its polygamous past, which is preserved only in certain fundamentalist offshoots.

One of the Bible's Ten Commandments that all believers — including Mormons, who profess to be Christians — are expected to follow is the prohibition against bearing false witness: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). The Hebrew word translated as “neighbour”—רֵעֶךָ (rēa‘ekā)—has an ambiguous scope, but is widely interpreted as referring not only to fellow Israelites but more generally to others within one's community. Across both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, this commandment has been expanded into a broader ethical principle against dishonesty in human relationships. Indeed, several passages reinforce this expectation:

• Proverbs 6:16–19 includes “a lying tongue” and “a false witness that speaketh lies” among the seven things God hates.
• Psalm 101:7 declares, “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.”
• Leviticus 19:11 instructs, “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.”

Taken together, these form a clear moral framework throughout the Torah and Christian Bible emphasising truthfulness and personal integrity.

However, this moral imperative appears to have been selectively applied — if at all — by a past Mormon Church Presidency. The recent revelation that a long-denied handwritten document by the third president of the LDS Church, John Taylor (1808–1887), does in fact exist, raises troubling questions.

This document records what Taylor claimed was a divine revelation permitting plural marriage — a practice that later became the defining controversy within Mormonism. That controversy culminated in a split: traditionalists continued the practice of polygamy, while the mainstream LDS Church renounced it and condemned it as adulterous.

Religious Child Abuse News - Those Believing Absurdities Commit Atrocities - Chidren Starved and Tortured For Being 'Possessed By Satan'

Religious fanatics Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt. 30 Years in Jail for aggravated child abuse.

Photo: Washington County (Utah) Sheriff's Department

Religious fanatics Jodi Hildebrandt, left, and Ruby Franke, center, being arrested on child abuse charges on Aug. 30, 2023, in Ivins, Utah.

Washington County Attorney’s Office via AP

YouTuber Ruby Franke's child abuse case rooted in religious extremism | AP News

Only a few days ago I wrote an article explaining why people who believe absurdities can be persuaded to commit atrocities and now we have a spectacular example of the truth of that claim.

It comes in the form of an Associated Press story of how a fanatical Mormon and mother of six, Ruby Franke, who held the absurd belief that magic demons can take over and 'possess' people because her religion teaches that these demons exist, became convince that her twelve-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter were the Devil incarnate and inflicted physical punishment, including deliberate starvation, on them, "to teach them how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies".

Belief in a magical 'evil' Devil figure is of course fundamental to the Abrahamic superstitions, of which Mormonism is a recent manifestation, and is found in all forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their derivative superstitions. It was particularly strong during the Middle Ages when thousands of (mostly) women were burned alive in the belief that they were so possessed.

Ruby Franke and a business associate, Jodi Hildebrandt, have each been sentenced to 30 years in jail after pleading guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse after the 12-year-old boy managed to escape through a window from the room he was locked in and alerted a neighbour who called the police.

Franke is a well-known YouTuber who made her name lecturing gullible people who assumed her religious fanaticism gave her special insight into how to be a good parent. She and Hildebrandt, a fellow Mormon and mental health counsellor, were arrested after neighbours, the Clarksons, answered their door to find an emaciated boy with bruising and other injuries on their doorstep.