? 4 DCP: Will there be changes to the lesson manuals?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Well then you're either stupid, in denial, or a liar. Shocker!

Historical truths? What, like the year Joe was born? Yeah, I suppose there might be a couple.

Well then you're either stupid, in denial, or a liar. Shocker!

LOL... As if you do.

Stirring the pot again, are you? You sure that satan isn't your redeemer?

Not as unfortunate as hearing the truth, burying your head in the sand, and claiming the air is great down there.

So we can all hope that the committee contains some honest people now? Maybe there's hope for the church after all.

Well then you're either stupid, in denial, or a liar. Shocker!

Better get your juliann... er, I mean... your molo fixed. Maybe get yourself fixed too. I'd like to see Mormons stop reproducing, for the good of all mankind.

I just can't understand why high-quality posters aren't flocking here in droves!

[_Daniel Peterson]

One of my pet peeves is when believers act as if there really is NOTHING in church history or teachings that could POSSIBLY justify a loss of faith. Excuse me, there is. There is plenty. Perhaps you have found a way to retain belief in the face of things like Joseph Smith' polyandry, the Book of Abraham, false teachings of past prophets - but if a believer can't even bring themselves to admit that there IS troubling information in church history that - at least - makes the loss of faith not incomprehensible, then I tend to think they're playing games, either with themselves or with us.

Perhaps you missed my statement that "there are some problem areas in Church history"?

I don't see how, though, since you quoted it.

[_Tarski]

1833, a law was passed in Illinois against the practice of bigamy(more than one spouse).

Smith and some of his inner circle were practicing polygamy and polyandry in Nauvoo.

They weren't legal marriages. He and his inner circle weren't bigamists. If indeed the unions were more than "spiritual", they would have been guilty of adultery, not bigamy.

Surely you can put up a better argument than that.

Or not.

Surely you can put up a better argument than that.
I don't know if you are married but try to imagine that you caught you husband engaging in what he then explained was only a spiritual marriage. I hope to high heaven you wouldn't fall for that.

Furthermore, I would bet my bottom dollar that Joseph Smith had sexual relations with his plural wive (just as did Brigham Young who learn it all from Joseph). The are good arguments to this effect in print but I wonder why anyone would doubt it.
Then either we are left with bigamy or adultry. You choose.

[_Polygamy Porter]

Daniel,

Do you believe Smith had sex with some of his extra wives ?

Or were these unions just "spiritual sealings"?

[_beastie]

Daniel,

No, I did not miss you saying there are "problem" areas.

But I also did not miss these statements:

"The ugly meaty truths"? There are some problem areas in Church history, but none, in my judgment, that are particularly damaging to the Church's truth claims.

To say there is nothing damaging to the church's truth claims is just another way of saying that there is nothing there that could justify a loss of faith.

Sure, there may be "problems", but nothing that merits losing faith. None of these "problems" have anything to do with the church's truth claims.

and this:

I don't think the Church's history is especially "unsavory." Quite the contrary, actually.

Joseph Smith marrying other men's wives is not unsavory? "God" telling Emma if she doesn't buck up and accept all of this that she will be damned isn't unsavory? All the threats and violent rhetoric that occurred around the time of MMM aren't "unsavory"?

Just what would be "unsavory"?

[_Polygamy Porter]

beastie,

Dan is a man, you are a woman.

For most Mormon men, the polygamist history of their theology does not bother them. Placing women below them is the norm, it's called the Priesthood.

Besides that, for folks like Dan, they believe they will be up to their neck in it in the afterlife.

[_beastie]

I do realize that the idea of polygamy, in and of itself, often does not offend men who grew up in the LDS church. That's why I focused, instead, on the fact that Joseph Smith married other men's wives. Even if a man is content to believe in polygamy, and content to believe God is willing to damn women who refuse to go along with it, would that same man be happy to believe that another man could take and marry one of HIS own wives?

[_Polygamy Porter]

I do realize that the idea of polygamy, in and of itself, often does not offend men who grew up in the LDS church.

Pretty telling of the religion isn't it? Sadly, investigators never realize this until after they have been sucked into the cult.

That's why I focused, instead, on the fact that Joseph Smith married other men's wives. Even if a man is content to believe in polygamy, and content to believe God is willing to damn women who refuse to go along with it, would that same man be happy to believe that another man could take and marry one of HIS own wives?

Joseph Fielding Smith said that in the CK, women with a bad husband(non believing/member) will be GIVEN to another husband.

I am afraid the response you will get from defenders, like Jersey Girl, is that those were not marriages and just fun little spiritual sealings.

However, I wonder why these are referred to as "plural marriages" and "polygamy" if indeed they were not valid marriages and just fun little spiritual sealings.

* crickets still chirping on that one, Jgirl *

[_Tarski]

I do realize that the idea of polygamy, in and of itself, often does not offend men who grew up in the LDS church. That's why I focused, instead, on the fact that Joseph Smith married other men's wives. Even if a man is content to believe in polygamy, and content to believe God is willing to damn women who refuse to go along with it, would that same man be happy to believe that another man could take and marry one of HIS own wives?

Could Joseph Smith have been a kind of playboy that used his special persona as a religious giant as an angle?
It wouldn't be the first time that the "I'm so spiritual" angle was used to get women.
When Joseph Smith talks or writes about himself, he sounds like an egomaniac to me. Being an egomaniac and thinking that one deserves lots of women seem to go hand in hand.

[_beastie]

The problem is that some of these women's husbands WERE active, faithful believers.

BY also said that a woman was justified leaving her husband if a man with a higher authority in the church wanted her - you think Mormon men would be ok with that, as well?

Modern Mormonism, in theory at least, is more egalitarian (for the males) than it was in its early days. Church leaders now-a-days insist that the lowliest church janitor has just a good of a chance making it into the CK as the church prophet does. But my impression of the early church was that these higher callings really meant something significant, and placed the men with the higher callings on a distinctly higher rung than mere faithful peons.