NOM

deacon blues wrote: ↑Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:03 am Another twist to this. I was reading a speech Joseph gave on 3/10/1844. He (my paraphrasing) says he was praying to be delivered from his enemies, and almost immediately Gov. Reynolds, Governor of Missouri in 1844, committed suicide. Smith implies from this, to his audience, that God strikes down Joseph's/the Churches enemies. This is weird and/or threatening. I think it is both.

I'll see your weird and threatening and raise you a dis-compassionate.

As I ponderize the "destroyed scenario" I wonder why didn't Joseph's god just say, "I'll take away the plates and give somebody else the assignment" instead of saying "You shall be destroyed?" Joseph's heavy handed god is a lot like the Old Testament God who strikes people dead for steadying an ark, and I have a hard time understanding that god with my naive, humanist-influenced 21st century viewpoint. Could a 21st century Jesus be more reasonable than a 19th century Jesus, or a 10th century B.C. Jehovah?

I once told an evangelical friend that I didn't pay much credence to the Old Testament, except poetic parts like Isaiah. He didn't say anything but his wife became indignant.