QUOTE: “What is the cause of all this waste of life and treasure? To tell it in a plain, truthful way, one portion of the country wish to raise their negroes or black slaves and the other portion wish to free them, and, apparently, to almost worship them. Well, raise and worship them, who cares? I should never fight one moment about it, for the cause of human improvement is not in the least advanced by the dreadful war which now convulses our unhappy country. Ham will continue to be the servant of servants, as the Lord has decreed, until the curse is removed. Will the present struggle free the slave? No; but they are now wasting away the black race by thousands. Many of the blacks are treated worse than we treat our dumb brutes; and men will be called to judgment for the way they have treated the negro, and they will receive the condemnation of a guilty conscience, by the just Judge whose attributes are justice and truth. Treat the slaves kindly and let them live, for Ham must be the servant of servants until the curse is removed. Can you destroy the decrees of the Almighty? You cannot. Yet our Christian brethren think that they are going to overthrow the sentence of the Almighty upon the seed of Ham. They cannot do that, though they may kill them by thousands and tens of thousands.” –Brigham Young, 6 October 1863, Journal of Discourses, vol. 10 p. 250. [source]
COMMENTARY: Can someone explain why Brigham Young could have gotten this prophecy so wrong? Was he lying when he said he knew what God had decreed? Was God just kidding about the decree? Did God remove the curse of Ham in the 1860’s, and if so why was the priesthood ban still in effect until 1978? When people claim to be prophets and claim to speak for God, I think when they get their prophecies wrong, we should probably start doubting other things they say as well. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
