The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

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I Have Questions
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by I Have Questions »

malkie wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 7:39 am
Were there not also cases in which Joseph gained financially? If I recall correctly at least one of his younger brides had a respectable inheritance that then became his.

For a poor man this could have been an additional attraction.

David Koresh
Koresh was a member and later a leader of the Branch Davidians, a movement originally led by Benjamin Roden, based at the Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas. There, Koresh competed for dominance with another leader, Benjamin Roden's son George, until Koresh and his followers took over Mount Carmel in 1987. In the early 1990s, he became subject to allegations about polygamy and child sexual abuse by former Branch Davidian associates.

Further allegations related to the Branch Davidians' stockpiling of weapons led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and later the FBI to launch a raid on the group's Mount Carmel compound in February 1993. During the 51-day siege and violence that ensued, Koresh was wounded by ATF forces and later died of a gunshot wound in unclear circumstances as the compound was destroyed in a fire.
A modern Joseph Smith. The strong parallels are unmistakable.
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
Philo Sofee
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by Philo Sofee »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 12:20 am
Philo Sofee wrote:
Mon Jul 21, 2025 11:38 pm
Do you honestly like to pretend being so thick MG? Seriously?
Hi Philo, hope things are well with you. Rural Idaho, right? Deep stuff, right?

Regards,
MG
I'm doing great. Hope all is well with you too.
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Moksha
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by Moksha »

What God hath joined in Heaven, it takes a pretty complex personality to undue. Maybe equal parts narcissism, covetness, alphamaleism, and perversity. I'm fairly certain that no angel with a drawn flaming sword was involved. What would an angel desire with hounddogism?

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Marcus
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by Marcus »

Maybe it wasn't an angel with a sword but rather a snake in the grass...


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malkie
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by malkie »

Moksha wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 1:20 pm
What God hath joined in Heaven, it takes a pretty complex personality to undue. Maybe equal parts narcissism, covetness, alphamaleism, and perversity. I'm fairly certain that no angel with a drawn flaming sword was involved. What would an angel desire with hounddogism?

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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by MG 2.0 »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 12:24 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 12:20 am

Hi Philo, hope things are well with you. Rural Idaho, right? Deep stuff, right?

Regards,
MG
I'm doing great. Hope all is well with you too.
I still picture you at the FAIR Conferences running around with your video camera taking 'reality shots' of the famous folks within LDS apologetics. That was a hoot. :)

Regards,
MG
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Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by Everybody Wang Chung »

Marcus wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 1:55 pm
Maybe it wasn't an angel with a sword but rather a snake in the grass...


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:lol: :lol: This would have made the temple film so much more enjoyable.
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MG 2.0
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by MG 2.0 »

huckelberry wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 4:43 am
MG likes to point out that critics focus upon sexual desire as the primary motivation for polygamy. There could be other things involved. Yes there likely was but MG does not explain because some other factors are not that comfortable so it is easier to wave arms and act smugly knowledgeable.

I think it is likely Joseph wanted to gather people around him connected deeply to himself. There was a net of marriages centered upon himself. There was a group of people willing to transgress social and personal principals to follow and accept Joseph. A core of people deeply committed by promise and sexual intercourse to Joseph's authority. He created a core of people who stayed together around himself.

The secret of LDS strength today is polygamy in the past.

Talking about how attractive ladies are judged in photos years later when they were older and lived years on the frontier is irrelevant and embarrassingly short sighted.
On the whole physical appearance was not the principal selection criterion. If that's the case, one might question why there are so many critics that like to make a big deal out of Joseph simply being a womanizer (based purely on physical characteristics or age) ...and that this was his primary motivation/drive to take another plural wife. I'm not sure the evidence can be shown to prove this.

Regards,
MG
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by Marcus »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 10:01 pm
On the whole physical appearance was not the principal selection criterion. If that was the case, one might question why there are so many critics that like to make a big deal out of Joseph simply being a womanizer (based purely on physical characteristics or age) ...and that this was his primary motivation/drive to take another plural wife. I'm not sure the evidence can be shown to prove this...
And we are back to the mental gymnast's misogynistic and sexist opinions. He tells us that because the women were "less than comely," how is it possible that Smith was a "womanizer"?

Of course, he is the one who has defined "less than comely" as older and or pregnant in his previous posts, here he expands on that by saying it depends on "physical characteristics or age." Then he notes that "physical appearance" was apparently not "the principal selection criterion" for Smith, but of course that is based on his assumption that women should be valued only for their youth, looks, and body, and on the fact that Smith married some women who were older than his youngest wife of 14.

The problem with this trolling approach is that this was Smith's problem, not the women's problem. He couldn't be faithful to his wife. What the women he married looked like or their ages is irrelevant.

Smith cheated on his wife, tried to blame it on his god, had affairs with the household help, including two sisters he and his wife were adopting, threatened woman and their families with supernatural catastrophe if he didn't get his way, married 14 and 16 year olds when he was in his late 30's, lied to his wife repeatedly, and in general acted without character or integrity, and was a complete ass to his wife.

Our trolling mentalgymnast would like to focus on the idea that because some women were older and in his opinion "less than comely," Smith's behavior, his treatment of his wife, and his treatment of young girls and women should be excused. I disagree. Smith's actions were inexcusable.
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Re: The Trolley Problem--Nemo the Mormon is back

Post by MG 2.0 »

Marcus wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 10:59 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Tue Jul 22, 2025 10:01 pm
On the whole physical appearance was not the principal selection criterion. If that was the case, one might question why there are so many critics that like to make a big deal out of Joseph simply being a womanizer (based purely on physical characteristics or age) ...and that this was his primary motivation/drive to take another plural wife. I'm not sure the evidence can be shown to prove this...
And we are back to the mental gymnast's misogynistic and sexist opinions. He tells us that because the women were "less than comely," how is it possible that Smith was a "womanizer"?

Of course, he is the one who has defined "less than comely" as older and or pregnant in his previous posts, here he expands on that by saying it depends on "physical characteristics or age." Then he notes that "physical appearance" was apparently not "the principal selection criterion" for Smith, but of course that is based on his assumption that women should be valued only for their youth, looks, and body, and on the fact that Smith married some women who were older than his youngest wife of 14.

The problem with this trolling approach is that this was Smith's problem, not the women's problem. He couldn't be faithful to his wife. What the women he married looked like or their ages is irrelevant.

Smith cheated on his wife, tried to blame it on his god, had affairs with the household help, including two sisters he and his wife were adopting, threatened woman and their families with supernatural catastrophe if he didn't get his way, married 14 and 16 year olds when he was in his late 30's, lied to his wife repeatedly, and in general acted without character or integrity, and was a complete ass to his wife.

Our trolling mentalgymnast would like to focus on the idea that because some women were older and in his opinion "less than comely," Smith's behavior, his treatment of his wife, and his treatment of young girls and women should be excused. I disagree. Smith's actions were inexcusable.
Thanks for quoting my whole post this time rather than chopping it up. The first sentence again:
On the whole physical appearance was not the principal selection criterion.
And then the rest of the post...

Your interpretive analysis is that. Just your opinion.I don't happen to agree with it. I think I nailed it. All your other accusatory language is just that...and nothing more. Empty rhetoric.

Coming right behind me again. Trolling along in the waters looking for MG. You found me again! And You. Just.Can't. Leave. Me. Alone.

I find that interesting and at the same time, a little weird. Stalking maybe? Compulsive?

Regards,
MG
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