Brian C Hales on a thoughtful faith podcast

[_psychedelicately]

Brian: “For those who think that Joseph Smith practiced sexual polyandry, I would invite them to produce some evidence to support it and to deal with his teachings that declared such behavior to be adultery.” This is known as the idealist fallacy. People say one thing and do another all the time. “I believe 11 of them were “eternity only” sealings – just for the next life.” Where is your evidence that Joseph Smith treated polyandrous marriages different than other plural marriages? You are the one with the thesis that needs defending.

Brian: “So many people have promoted their assumptions in place of documented history.” That’s you. You take a principle of eternity-only marriage and apply it according to your bias and assumptions about Joseph Smith’s character. You have no documentation that Joseph Smith treated polyandrous marriages differently than other plural marriages. You are building an argument from silence, which is easy to do since there was a reluctance to talk about sexual behavior of any kind among Mormons and their contemporaries.

[_Mayan Elephant]

brian middle initial hales is ridiculous. all these guys are. we don't really need another guy trying to spin the facts into a nice conclusion. the facts are, joseph married those women. the facts are, married people have sexual intercourse, and probably a lot of other things that go along with intercourse. the fact is, a man doesn't have to marry a woman to be nice to her. the church, with its resources, did not need polygamy so the rich hierarchy could marry a widow to care for her. the church could have taken care of widows without having the beards marry the women. polygamy was for getting married, which includes sex, and a patriarchal abusive mechanism for power and abuse.

this brian q hales guy is trying to spin out some stupid reason to say that joseph smith didn't have sex with his wife, otherwise she would have been in the court. hey brian, go pound your book into sand.

if joseph smith was such a nice guy that would marry a 14 year old and not screw her, then he would have been a nice enough guy to not create this unmanageable system of abuse and adultery in the first place. he wasn't nice. hales is a tool.

[_dblagent007]

I think this is worth repeating here:
Dan Vogel commented on Facebook:
"While I find Brian Hale’s works well-researched, I don’t find them well-reasoned. He likes to accuse Palmer of overstating his case, but he constantly quibbles, minimizes, and understates the evidence. Levi Lewis’s statement about Martin Harris’s statement about Joseph Smith’s attempt to seduce Eliza Winters no doubt relates what Harris at least believed. Both Harris and Winters had occasion to deny Lewis’s well-known account, but never did. Hales didn’t mention that Winters’ lost her 1833 suit against Harris. Lewis’ statement was first published in the Susquehanna Register in May 1834, not in Howe’s book. Hales misinterprets Lewis’ reference to Joseph Smith not showing the plates, which has nothing to do with the subsequent testimonies of the witnesses but rather with the testimony of the Harmony witnesses that Smith had promised them a view of the plates (see espe...cially the statement of Nathaniel Lewis). Hales should balance the Book of Mormon’s making adultery a sin next to murder with Joseph Smith’s 1842 statement to Nancy Rigdon that whatever God commands to do is right no matter what it is, even if it seems abominable to us. Hales speculates that in his 1880 interview with Winters, Mather asked about Lewis’ statement but didn’t publish her denial. Given the fact that she lost her suit against Harris in 1833, it doesn’t seem likely that she would take him on again, especially in print. More important is Harris’s silence since he had every reason to protect Joseph Smith’s reputation. Despite Hales’ eagerness, this single sentence is not so easily dismissed.