Eugenics in the Early Church

[mouse]

This was an interesting article a just found. Thomas Jefferson had similar feelings on the subject. This might very well be just one man opinion and nothing to do with the church.

George Q. Cannon was called to the Quorum of the Twelve in 1860. Three years earlier, in 1857, he was serving as the President of the California and Oregon missions, and from San Francisco he published The Western Standard, a Mormon newspaper. The August 7 issue contained an article he apparently wrote entitled “The Improvement of Our Species.” Here are some excerpts from that article (emphasis added):
“… Experience has long since taught mankind the necessity of observing certain natural laws in the propagation of animals, or the stock will degenerate and finally become extinct. But strange to say, in regard to the human animal, these laws, except in certain particulars, are more or less disregarded in these latter times. The inevitable consequence is, the race is degenerating, new diseases are introduced, while effeminacy and barrenness are on the increase: and worse than all, this evil condition of the body has its effects upon the mind…
Doubtless it is and ought to be the duty of legislators and conservators of our race, to introduce such regulations and laws, and enforce them, as are best calculated to develope [sic] our physical nature. A well formed, healthy, vigorous race should be the end sought. …The ancient Spartans acted upon this policy, and the happy result was the production of a nation of the noblest men and women the world ever saw. No diseased and effeminate person was permitted to marry and curse the world with a tainted offspring. The children of the entire republic belonged to the Government, which appointed competent persons to superintend their physical and mental training, and when the fit time arrived they married them as they saw fit, keeping constantly in view the improvement of the race. …A mal-formed man will have a mal-formed mind. A well developed intellectual brain will produce a philosophic mind.
…Notwithstanding these expedients, the moral sense of the people is being more and more blunted continually. This state of things must continue, until moralists and legislators find out that a true and effective reform must begin in the marriage bed. License to marry should not come from the priest but from the physician. It will be when the law forbids the unhealthy to beget children–when it compels every healthy man to marry–when a refusal to this will debar him from holding office-from voting-from sueing at courts of law-from making contracts-from following any learned profession-when it suffers no healthy girl to remain single after she beomes of proper age–when no whore shall be permitted to live–when illicit intercourse shall be punished with death, that we shall witness any improvement in the morals of the age. It is true, such a course would come in contact with the ridiculous sentimentality of the age, and heaven knows, if that could be overturned and rooted out it would be a substantial blessing. The question is not what will cross the notions of novelists, libertines and fools, but what will produce a superior race of men and consequently a purer state of society?
This is precisely what the Saints in the valleys of the mountains are endeavoring to accomplish. Joseph Smith had penetration enough to know, that so long as the bodies of men are weak, degenerate, and tainted with impurities inherited from their fathers for a thousand generations, it is impossible to accomplish with them any great moral improvement, or indoctrinate them with many divine truths. Therefore, being divinely aided, he introduced a system……He taught that none but healthy men should marry–that a man should know his wife for the purpose of procreation and for that only–that he should keep himself apart from her during the carrying and nursing periods–that it is lawful and right, God commanding, for a man to have more than one wife–that adultery should be punishable with death–that whoredom should not be tolerated under any consideration–and that by observing these roles and the general laws of health, their posterity would become healthy and vigorous…
This theory is reduced to practice in Utah Territory; and it is remarked by immigrants passing through Salt Lake City, that the proportion of children is unusually great, and they are uncommonly robust and healthy. Who cannot see that the mental vigor of those children will be in proportion to their physical perfection? And that a generation is rising in the American inteirior who will make their mark upon the history of their time? This is what the Gentiles with the priests at their head call “Mormon abomination,” and other hard names: but the question arises, Which is the better? The Mormon, or the Christian practice in relation to this matter? There is not a whore in Utah, neither is there a single female but what can find a husband and a home if she so desires: whereas in Christian cities harlots are numbered by the thousand. The genius of Christian monogamy is to encourage prostitution; because it forbids plural marriages, yet compels no man to marry, and thus debars thousands of females from gratifying the strongest instincts of their nature, which are comprehended in the sacred names of “wife” and “mother.”
…Human nature must be taken as it is. Legalize polygamy, abolish whoredom by the strong arm of the law, and punish adultery with death, and numberless evils both physical and moral would disappear from the land. Wives who are now sickly and wretched, and who are giving to the world children filled with evil passions fastened upon them by the inordinate indulgence of their begetters, would become healthy and strong, and their offspring would grow up free from many evils which now taint them. Then when the people have laid the foundation for a healthy generation, their efforts at moral and spiritual improvmenet may result in success. But as long as monogamy is the law, bastardy, whoredom, and degeneracy will exist; and also their concomitants, irreligion, intemperance, licentiousness and vice of every kind and degree.”

[log]

I am not sure why, but this song came to mind.

[mouse]

I am not sure why, but this song came to mind.

This song just made my year. Thank you for that. :ymhug:

[davedan]

Eugenics is absolutely wrong and Slavery is absolutely wrong, but we see that slave owners practiced eugenics and we see the athletic benifits among many African American's today. Blacks didnt come from Africa with the same kind of ability.

Terrible to say but now may have reverse eugenics with more and more low-income housing. The situation being both a poor nature and nurture situation.

Beware of the NWO/Georgia Guidestones eugenics. If they allow us to pick our babies traits, we will breed our offspring into breeds of humans by genetic subtraction and breed ourselves into perpetual slavery and domestication, and like the dog never again strong enough to stand up against the strength of the wolf.

[hyloglyph]

Did G Q Cannon really write that horseshit?

[Matthew.B]

Wow... Why am I feeling more and more that the Utah period, under Brigham Young, was the time period where the most light was lost from among the Saints, and we're still trying to recover?

This stuff is evil. It totally disregards the power of the Savior in healing imperfections, both physical and spiritual, and relies entirely on the arm of the flesh. Evil, evil, evil. And it had strong ties with early Mormon culture, apparently. Sad...

[lemuel]

It's mostly just confirmation bias. The brethren felt a huge need to justify polygamy, and so they saw polygamy as a cure to all of the world's ills--a cure to prostitution, a cure to the male libido, improvement of the genetic stock...but it does remind me of this ditty from Dr. Strangelove:

Dr. Strangelove: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy...heh, heh...at the bottom of ah...some of our deeper mineshafts. Radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided.

Muffley: How long would you have to stay down there?

Dr. Strangelove: Well let's see now ah...cobalt thorium G....Radioactive halflife of uh,...I would think that uh... possibly uh... one hundred years.

Muffley: You mean, people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?

Dr. Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Führer! Nuclear reactors could, heh...I'm sorry, Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country, but I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.

Muffley: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down.

Dr. Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years.

Muffley: But look here doctor, wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living?

Dr. Strangelove: No, sir...excuse me...When they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! [involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and forces it down with his other hand]Ahhh!

Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Russian Ambassador: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

[mouse]

Among my list of improbable but looming fears is the idea that someday the churches genealogical archive is going to be high jacked and or taken over by the nwo elites as a source of data mining who has worthy genetics and more importantly who doesn't. A part of me even wonders if our government help fund the nuke proof geological data center in the utah mountains as an underhanded gift to the church for their research contributions. This is of course entirely speculation but for a church that seems to use its money with extreme prudence, multiple 18 ton nuke proof doors encapsulating a boared catacomb seems a little strange. I can't put my finger on it, but the church genealogy program has always rubbed me the wrong way. Why so much money into a program that is so incomplete and full of human error. If it will all work out in the end, than it will all work out in the end. We call come from god, that's all that matters. Put that catacomb on eBay and use the money to build a hospital.

[lemuel]

Among my list of improbable but looming fears is the idea that someday the churches genealogical archive is going to be high jacked and or taken over by the nwo elites as a source of data mining who has worthy genetics and more importantly who doesn't.

The nwo can barely pave roads or get checks to veterans. I'm not worried about the nwo's data mining capabilities.

[mouse]

Among my list of improbable but looming fears is the idea that someday the churches genealogical archive is going to be high jacked and or taken over by the nwo elites as a source of data mining who has worthy genetics and more importantly who doesn't.

The nwo can barely pave roads or get checks to veterans. I'm not worried about the nwo's data mining capabilities.

I believe you are referring to the US government. (and most governments for that matter) The New World Order is much different than that. Sadly they are a highly intelligent, systematic, and methodical group.

[davedan]

Yep, Beware not to confuse the US Gov with the NWO. The bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency of the US gov is purposeful and part of their cover. (Read Protocols of Zion)

The NWO does things like puts on the Masters Golf Tournament every year. It's a seamless event. There is not a weed on the entire golf course.

The NWO also constructed the doomsday seed vault in Svalbard, Norway.

There are not perfect, but they get stuff done and kill people who stand in the way.

[mouse]

Yep, Beware not to confuse the US Gov with the NWO. The bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency of the US gov is purposeful and part of their cover. (Read Protocols of Zion)

The NWO does things like puts on the Masters Golf Tournament every year. It's a seamless event. There is not a weed on the entire golf course.

The NWO also constructed the doomsday seed vault in Svalbard, Norway.

There are not perfect, but they get stuff done and kill people who stand in the way.

Excellent points, and well said. :ymapplause: