Would you be OK with Joseph Smith being the instructor for your 17 year old daughter's Laurels class?
Not for a minute. Nor would I trust him with a fourteen year old Mia maid. :-)
In addition, I was always taught that for men, one's priesthood was based on their worthiness, and for women and men, the ability of the HG to manifest in one's life was also dependent on their worthiness. In other words, if one was not worthy (behavior in inappropriate ways, breaking commandments, lying, cheating, stealing, etc. etc. etc.), they would not have the HG to attend them, and in the case of men, their priesthood would become useless.
And here we have Joseph Smith, who was clearly lying, cheating, sleeping around with girls, single women, married women, destroying the reputation of women who would not accept his advances and men who called him out, and yet everyone believes he was receiving revelation upon revelation.
It is just astounding. Truly. ~dancer~
Well believing Mormons have to conclude that God really did tell Joseph to practice polygamy, marry other men's wives, had an angel threaten him if he did not take so and so for a wife. He also had to lie about it because it would have meant his destruction as well as the Church's at the time (well it did lead in part to his destruction and almost the Church's) so it was ok to do this. This is the only way one can reconcile this to be ok with it. This was all of God. And as Charity says, thus his marriage activity is none of our business.
truth dancer wrote:And here we have Joseph Smith, who was clearly lying, cheating, sleeping around with girls, single women, married women, destroying the reputation of women who would not accept his advances and men who called him out, and yet everyone believes he was receiving revelation upon revelation.
That's what happens when members don't have their own personal relationship with God. They believe whatever they're told by men whose agenda they aren't privy to, and they have no discernment to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff.
truth dancer wrote:And here we have Joseph Smith, who was clearly lying, cheating, sleeping around with girls, single women, married women, destroying the reputation of women who would not accept his advances and men who called him out, and yet everyone believes he was receiving revelation upon revelation.
That's what happens when members don't have their own personal relationship with God. They believe whatever they're told by men whose agenda they aren't privy to, and they have no discernment to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff.
What do you do when there's a hell of a lot of chaff and very little wheat?