Spiritual witnesses and plural marriage

[_ludwigm]

But then, most members don't know that Emma is supposed to have poisoned Joseph's coffee in an attempt to kill him..

"Winston Churchill quotes" wrote:

“Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea.
Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.”

[_Bazooka]

So what do we do with this spiritual experience?
Let's consider the girl's situation, her mother died, and her father is sent on a mission. The man who promised to take her and her siblings in "as my own children" is repeatedly asking her to accept plural marriage and this apparently goes on for months. Then Joseph Smith gives her a day to decide saying that if she declines the "gate will be closed forever against you." Could it be possible that the spiritual experience was triggered by the extreme pressure placed on her?

If we were talking about Warren Jeffs instead of Joseph Smith, how then would we view her spiritual experience? How much weight and consideration would we give it? Would we even entertain the possibility that her experience was of divine origin?

Were this happening today, the man in question would be excommunicated from the Church and probably prosecuted.

[_Stormy Waters]

Then why do you present it as a comparison when it's apples and oranges?

What I was trying to demonstrate in the OP is that when spiritual experiences don't meet our expectations we reject them with little or no consideration. I choose an example that was repulsive to ensure that it would meet with universal disapproval. We don't consider the possibility that her experiences were of divine origin and we reject them out of hand. So how do we explain it?
To a somewhat lesser degree this applies to the example of Lucy Walker. Due to the circumstances it is not compelling evidence to appeal to her spiritual experience. To believe that her experience was divine means believing that an all knowing, transcendent God really did want a 36 year old man to "propose" to a 16 year old girl whom he had taken in as an adoptive daughter and than to continue badgering her for months until finally using his prophetic authority to give her a time limit.
Mormons seem to disregard plenty of spiritual experiences, so why they think outsiders should take this one at face value that occurred under these circumstances perplexes me.

[_Yoda]

Helen Mar Kimball said of the experience: “I will never be sealed to my Father, (meaning as a wife) and would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph, had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. I say again, I will never be sealed to my Father; no, will sooner be damned and go to hell, if I must. Neither will I be sealed to Brigham Young.”

I would suggest this is quite negative.

I would suggest that it's more likely to have been made up as Compton suspects it is.

CFR

[_Darth J]

The critics usually omit the spiritual witnesses that the women received. But these experiences were strong and quite convincing.

Why Me, please explain why I can't justify the belief in any claim about anything made by anyone by attaching the incantation that, "I claim to have had an unverifiable subjective experience that I interpret to confirm to what I already believed."

One other tidbit that seems to be forgotten with the critics: none of these women ever spoke a negative word against him. And that is quite amazing.

Oh, well since you most certainly are not arguing from silence, Why Me, that must mean you have a basis of comparison. How common was it in early 19th-century America for the adulterous paramours of a religious leader to speak out against him while they were still members of the religion he started, Why Me?

And you're clearly not begging the question, either, so what about women like those mentioned in the OP, Why Me? Is her failure to speak a negative word against the person who used religion to manipulate her evidence that nothing was wrong with it? Or do you accept her alleged spiritual witness just like you uncritically accept any claim at all about Mormonism as long as you perceive it to be faith-promoting?

How about Ann Eliza Young, Why Me? Does she count as speaking a negative word against Mormon polygamy?

[_Equality]

[
How about Ann Eliza Young, Why Me? Does she count as speaking a negative word against Mormon polygamy?

Or Sarah Pratt. Or Jane Law. Or Nancy Rigdon. Why me's argument essentially is this: selecting out any women who spoke negatively, and including in our representative sample only those women for whom we have no reports of negative comments about Joseph Smith, none of those women said negative things about Joseph Smith. It's akin to someone taking all the other colors out of a bag of M&Ms, leaving only the green ones, and then arguing that there is no such thing as a brown or orange M&M.

[_Darth J]

[
How about Ann Eliza Young, Why Me? Does she count as speaking a negative word against Mormon polygamy?

Or Sarah Pratt. Or Jane Law. Or Nancy Rigdon. Why me's argument essentially is this: selecting out any women who spoke negatively, and including in our representative sample only those women for whom we have no reports of negative comments about Joseph Smith, none of those women said negative things about Joseph Smith. It's akin to someone taking all the other colors out of a bag of M&Ms, leaving only the green ones, and then arguing that there is no such thing as a brown or orange M&M.

A lot of the people who "invested" their money with Charles Ponzi defended him. That must be evidence that his financial dealings were legitimate.

[_bcspace]

I would suggest that it's more likely to have been made up as Compton suspects it is.

CFR

Page 195. Compton notes the source is an anti-Mormon work and says the extreme language is suspect.

[_Joe Geisner]

Liz,

Not sure if accuracy matters, but ... I thought you might like to have more information.

Todd writes about Catherine Lewis on pages 501-502. He writes that Catherine's "extremism of this language is suspect, [but has] close parallels" with Helens own writing [should] cause the historian to "consider" this account. Todd also concludes that Catherine's account about Helen saying she will not marry her father, Heber, "is not credible." Todd ends this analysis by sugestion Catherine's account should be "regarded with caution, as secondary to Helen's own writings."

I agree that Helen's writings should be primarily considered, but what Todd does not mention is that Catherine's account is written shortly after the events. Helen's accounts of this time period are decades later. Todd does admit that much of Catherine's Nauvoo account is provably accurate from other sources.

Most historians who have written about this time period have also found Catherine's account believable. Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery, and Georeg D. Smith are a few examples.