Credibility & Persuasion- Folklore, Urban Legend, and Conspiracy Theories- FLDS

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Colorado Mountain College *

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3250

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Philosophy

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Dec 6, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by PrivateEchidna8062

1. Describe your conspiracy or legend in detail. Share the fundamentals as well as whatever you find most interesting. What hard evidence exists to support both sides of the event? The FLDS Church has been led by a succession of men regarded as prophets, who are believed to have been called by God to lead. They were initially called The Fundamentalists. The first leader of the FLDS Church was John Y. Barlow, who led the community of Short Creek until his death on December 29, 1949. This movement emerged in 1952 when its founding members were excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they refused to abandon the practice of plural marriage. FLDS members are persuaded to live in tight-knit, secluded communities and isolated from the outside world, primarily in parts of Hildale, UT, and Colorado City, AZ. This number of members has declined rapidly to approximately 10,000 after their prophet, Warren Jeff, was sentenced to prison in 2011. Common beliefs in the FLDS community are to achieve heaven's highest level of glory. Each man must marry at least three wives on earth. If you reach the highest level, you can make spirit children, worlds, galaxies, and universes, and you’ll be God. This is called the Celestial Law. The FLDS uses the motto “keep sweet” to encourage members, specifically women and children, to be obedient and submissive to the authority of the church leadership, including the prophet and other senior leaders. Warren Jeff is the prophet starting in 2002, taking over for his father, Rulon Jeffs, who died at 92. The prophet is the only person who can receive revelation from God. He is also the only person able to perform marriage and can punish followers. When Warren took over, the group became more private, the women were married as young as 12, and children's schooling became less academically demanding. The FLDS describes “Lost Boys” as delinquents. Young boys were thrown out to make more girls available as wives for older men in the congregation. Teen rebellion is unacceptable in the FLDS. Parents know that if FLDS leaders discover negative information regarding children in their households, the father may face charges for lack of parental supervision. The prophet owns the children and women; if the husband loses his priesthood, he is in danger of losing his house, wife, and children. When FLDS women conduct sex acts on one another in preparation for a sexual encounter with a man in the leadership, this is known as the Law of Sarah. The FLDS Church presently upholds a doctrine that prohibits women from having intercourse with males who have not been designated as seed bearers, including their husbands. These men have a "worthy bloodline chosen by the Priesthood to impregnate" women. The husband's job is to hold their wife's hands as the seed bearer spreads his seed.

As punishment, Jeffs would take wives from his male members and transfer them to another. This was called the law of placing/placement marriage. Women would remarry following the death or divorce of a husband or when a male left the church for significant reasons, but these reassignments were performed at Jeff's discretion. Wives are supposed to do two things: obey their husbands and have babies. Women cannot cut their hair short or wear makeup or pants; dresses must cover the knees. Women were expected to dress and act modestly or wear red. They are taught not to cut their hair as it needs to be long enough to wash Jesus’s feet in the second coming or their husband’s feet in heaven. Wives rarely oppose husband reassignment because they do not want to risk losing their salvation and entering heaven. Children in the communities were not allowed to go to public schools. FLDS members were not allowed to vote because Warren Jeffs was the president of the United States. The women and children must be sealed to an obedient man who can take them to heaven. Boys clearly understand the rules and penalties. These restrictions include no contact with females, conversing, dating, or kissing. There is no music. There will be no sports. No TV. There will be no movies. There will be no video games. There is no Internet. There will be no late-night hours. Their lives consist solely of religious school and jobs. Warren banned dogs, toys, television, newspapers, the Internet, birthday and Christmas celebrations, festivals, parades, camping, and fishing to prove their faithfulness to the prophet. According to a sermon recording of Warren Jeffs, "The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth." In another sermon, he preached, "The people grew so evil, the men started to marry the men, and the women married the women. This is the worst evil act you can do, next to murder. It is like murder. Whenever people commit that sin, the Lord destroys them." Members are expected to have strong faith and belief in the teachings of their leaders. For many years, FLDS followers relied on a strategy known as "bleeding the beast." Because many of the wives were not legally married to their husbands but had a substantial number of children with little to no income, the women qualified for substantial welfare payments. The more children and wives had, the more government assistance his family received. December 13, 2017, Lyle Jeffs was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for his role in food stamp fraud and escaping house arrest.

 Please submit a list of your sources. These do not need to be academic. https://www.mrm.org/flds https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/fundamentalist-church-jesus- christ-latter-day-saints https://www.npr.org/2005/05/03/4629320/warren-jeffs-and-the-flds http://flds101.blogspot.com/2008/05/flds-life-101-reassignment-of-families.html Keep Sweet on Netflix http://flds101.blogspot.com/2008/05/flds-beliefs-101-role-of-women.html https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2691902&itype=CMSID https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/polygamist-sect-limits-sex-to-seed- bearers-according-to-leader-s-estranged-wife-charlene-jeffs-a6675151.html https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2451362&itype=CMSID&fullpage=1 2. What role did source credibility play in propagating your conspiracy or legend ( Ch 8 )? What factors made the source believable? What were the strengths of the message that made it effective? Source credibility played a significant role in the spread of the FLDS. FLDS leaders, particularly Warren Jeffs, portrayed themselves as God's representatives having direct access to God. The credibility of Jeffs was reinforced among members as they believed that he received revelations from God. FLDS communities tended to be isolated and closed off. This seclusion made it nearly impossible for members to obtain information from outside sources and other perspectives. As a result, they were more reliant on the information given by FLDS leaders, which increased their sense of credibility in the eyes of the members. FLDS leaders used fear, deceit, and threats of excommunication to instill devotion throughout their members. This kept members from encountering contradictory information. The message of the FLDS is that Leaders are considered prophets who receive direct revelations from God. They believed that plural marriage is a commandment from God and is necessary for achieving the highest levels in the afterlife. 3. Examine the psychological processes that contribute to the emergence and propagation of your chosen theory. Consider the following aspects:

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