The
Mountain Meadow Massacre by Brigham Young, LDS prophet and namesake of BYU, LDS University.
WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS
When I was a young lady of 15 I attended an LDS Summer Camp in the Uintas. On this occasion, our camp leader took us to a clearing in the mountains and told us that this was the place where the Mountain Meadow Massacre had occurred. She warned us not to believe any stories that we heard about the Mountain Meadow Massacre from outsiders or enemies of the church and that now she would reveal to us the real story of what happened.
According to the camp leader, a middle aged woman who should have known better, the "real story" was that a group of pioneers were warned by scouts that a party of "savages" were on their way to their camp. Because the war party out numbered the men with rifles and because these Indians were especially known for their savagry, it was decided that all adults would kill their youngest children immediately so that they would not fall into the hands of the vile savages. Then each man, woman and child of the age of reason, took a loaded gun into their hands, they forrmed a circle, and upon the signal shot the person next to them. The reason was to avoid capture and torture by the Indians.
This of course a huge fabrication, but it is exemplary of the many types of the pernicious fabrications and outright vicious falsehoods which Mormons typically peddle.
When someone is a member of a group such as this, how important is this to us in our overall picture of them? Does being Mormon, for example, in anyway discredit an otherwise decent person such as Senator Orrin Hatch, Sen. Mitch Romney or entertainer Glenn Beck?
To me it greatly increases my ability to take them serious especially when they say things like, "Question Everything." I don't see Glenn Beck really questioning his religion at all.