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Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 10:46 am
by Palerider
slavereeno wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 9:55 am Some of this polygamy essay reads like a logic puzzle you may find on an exam.

Zina Jacobs was married to a man, she and the man had a child together, when that man was on a mission, she was married to the first prophet, after the first prophet died, she married the second prophet, after the judgement day who's wife will Zina Jacobs be?

a) The first man she married
b) The first prophet
c) the second prophet
d) none of thee above

No, no, NO!

This is a trick question posed by Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matthew:

3"The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, 24Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: 26Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27And last of all the woman died also. 28Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her."

And the answer is??? ;)

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 12:54 pm
by slavereeno
Polygamy Pg 18
so why are church authorities and apologists still quick to pull out the “you shouldn’t expect out leaders to be perfect” explanation?
"out" should be "our"

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 12:56 pm
by slavereeno
Palerider wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 10:46 am Matthew:

3"The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, 24Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: 26Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27And last of all the woman died also. 28Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her."

And the answer is??? ;)
Wait a minute... How come Jesus didn't just say something about sealings and eternal marriage in his answer? :o

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 1:41 pm
by slavereeno
polygamy Pg 24
This essay overtly and erroneously claims that polygamy provided more children than monogamy, but indireclyadmits the truth,
"indireclyadmits" should be "indirectly admits"

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 4:12 pm
by Hagoth
Here's a good one. I had misspelled Neil L. Andersen's name as Anderson, and GoogleDoc's spellchecker caught it. It's a pretty impressive checker. I have noticed in lecture classes that when the professor says the name of an obscure Mayan or Aztec god I just have to take a wild guess at it and Google always knows who it is.

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 11:54 pm
by Spicy McHaggis
Hagoth wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 4:12 pm Here's a good one. I had misspelled Neil L. Andersen's name as Anderson, and GoogleDoc's spellchecker caught it. It's a pretty impressive checker. I have noticed in lecture classes that when the professor says the name of an obscure Mayan or Aztec god I just have to take a wild guess at it and Google always knows who it is.
Google: the real prophet.

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 12:49 am
by Reuben
Hagoth, were those post-1890 plural marriages, including the ones in Chihuahua, authorized or sanctioned by church leaders? Or rather, at what level were they authorized?

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 12:55 am
by Reuben
From the polygamy essay:
Plural marriage was introduced among the early Saints incrementally, and participants were asked to keep their actions confidential.
What the hell? Don't they really mean "told to keep their actions secret or their lives were forfeit"? Besides the endowment, isn't there evidence of the oaths they had to take?

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 1:05 am
by Reuben
Nit on your comments:
Polygamy and polyandry must really be a high priority in God’s plan. One wonders how they were they so easily dismissed with a letter written by Wilford Woodruff to “whom it may concern?”
I think this would come across as disingenuous to a TBM. Mormons were prepared to lose everything to keep practicing polygamy. After all, they had been taught that it was essential to exaltation.

It just occurred to me that teachings in the 1800s were more consistent with God thinking polygamy was important enough to send an angel.

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 1:14 am
by Reuben
The authors of this official church essay, approved by the First Presidency, are looking you in the eye and with a straight face asking you to not only believe this story, but to embrace it as morally commendable. God really, really wanted Joseph Smith to have sex with a lot of girls and women by whatever means necessary. Personally, I find the institutional endorsement of this story very unsettling.
Same. The problem is that they can't repudiate or even distance themselves from the story without calling every one of Joseph's revelations into question. They want us to be certain that every one of them is from God, no picking and choosing. They're trying to set the boundary between good Mormons and bad Mormons so that the good ones have "strong testimonies" - including strong testimonies of them.

To do this, they have to endorse something morally reprehensible. Hmm... something about fruits...

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 4:35 pm
by Palerider
Reuben wrote: Thu May 10, 2018 12:49 am Hagoth, were those post-1890 plural marriages, including the ones in Chihuahua, authorized or sanctioned by church leaders? Or rather, at what level were they authorized?
I'm fairly certain there were numerous plural marriages approved by the church between 1890 and the second manifesto of 1904. I'll try to find the documentation. In the meantime ponder this quote.

"Apostle Abraham H. Cannon gave some instructions about polygamy that indicated one dimension of this question: "It is good to always tell the truth, but not always to tell the whole of what we know."48

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 4:54 pm
by Not Buying It
Reuben wrote: Thu May 10, 2018 1:14 am
The authors of this official church essay, approved by the First Presidency, are looking you in the eye and with a straight face asking you to not only believe this story, but to embrace it as morally commendable. God really, really wanted Joseph Smith to have sex with a lot of girls and women by whatever means necessary. Personally, I find the institutional endorsement of this story very unsettling.
Same. The problem is that they can't repudiate or even distance themselves from the story without calling every one of Joseph's revelations into question. They want us to be certain that every one of them is from God, no picking and choosing. They're trying to set the boundary between good Mormons and bad Mormons so that the good ones have "strong testimonies" - including strong testimonies of them.

To do this, they have to endorse something morally reprehensible. Hmm... something about fruits...
Yep. This is why I can never be a believer again - because I know I would have to accept morally reprehensible things to be one.

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 9:32 pm
by Palerider
Really interesting reading on polygamy and the amount of lying that accompanied it. Very well documented.


http://www.mormonismi.net/kirjoitukset/ ... suus.shtml

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Fri May 11, 2018 2:01 am
by moksha
slavereeno wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 12:56 pm Wait a minute... How come Jesus didn't just say something about sealings and eternal marriage in his answer? :o
Records before the restoration are incomplete or distorted. The answers in the Bible were simply waiting for the prophet of the Last Dispensation before the coming of Gozer.

Re: Why I love the essays

Posted: Fri May 11, 2018 9:50 am
by Hagoth
Reuben wrote: Thu May 10, 2018 1:05 am Nit on your comments:
Polygamy and polyandry must really be a high priority in God’s plan. One wonders how they were they so easily dismissed with a letter written by Wilford Woodruff to “whom it may concern?”
I think this would come across as disingenuous to a TBM. Mormons were prepared to lose everything to keep practicing polygamy. After all, they had been taught that it was essential to exaltation.
Maybe you can help me find a better way to put it into words, Reuben. It is the fact that polygamy was such a focal point of Mormon doctrine, and the very fact that people would have given whatever was asked of them to sustain it, that makes it so surprising that the leaders could simply write a non-revelatory letter to put an end to it, and that later prophets could disavow it as having never been doctrinal. All the more perplexing when the essay demands that God literally sent a celestial hitman to ensure that it got off to a solid start. Polygamy was Major Mormon Doctrine Numero Uno from the moment the saints landed in Salt Lake right up to the point Woodruff signed that document. It was the solution to the world's perversions that stemmed from monogamy. It was the theme of Mormonism.