My 13 year-old son explains the reason for polygamy

[_Buffalo]

If you lived in Nazi germany, would you lie about hiding jewish families in your home? Would you feel like it wouuld be wrong to lie then?

I'd lie.

Lying about my sex life if I were a serial adulterer wouldn't seem quite so noble, though. It would seem, oh what's the word? Self-serving.

[_stemelbow]

To help us understand you, please give us some examples of what someone would have to do in order for you to call that person a 'liar'.

Hey Chap, when I read your posts, for the most part, i find them thoughtful and helpful. For some reason in this thread you seem to be intentionally obtuse here. I mean no offense and I imagine you can take such candor on my end, so I put straight forward for you. I am the one saying its useless to call someone a liar. You ask me to tell you what it would take for me to call someone a liar. Are you paying attention?

Or, if you do not use that word at all in your normal speech (which I take leave to doubt), please tell us what word you do use to describe people who you believe to have been deliberately and persistently untruthful on important matters.

People. Who has not lied on "important matters"?

[_lostindc]

Has there ever been an apologetic response to the lying regarding polygamy?

[_stemelbow]

So lying, according to you, is ok as long as the reason is good? The things you people will say to defend your LDS leaders are shocking...So, "lying for the lord" is acceptable to you? Maybe you should tell us what "purposes" are acceptable to lie about....

Schreech, you have missed my point and as a result you are asking me things from left field, as they say. I fear my point has gone unheeded for some odd reason by not just schreech but my many who've posted in this thread. Too bad.

[_schreech]

If you lived in Nazi germany, would you lie about hiding jewish families in your home? Would you feel like it wouuld be wrong to lie then?

I would happily lie...I don't believe in sin so no problem for me...i was actually responding to "As it is any of his lies could have been for purposes you simply aren't privy too." - who's life did Joe's lies save? Which of Joe's lies are justifiable and what "purposes" are we not privy to?

[_Some Schmo]

Whose determining that? Its all too subjective and the appeal to the term liar in reference to someone only seems to be emoting to me.

Dude, you're lying.

You know what a liar is and you know how people use it, but it's inconvenient for the point you'd like to believe is valid, so you're lying about you're interpretation of the word liar. Does that make you a liar? Well, you've done this sort of thing several times before, so yes, I'm tempted to call you a liar. Lucky for you, you can hide in the defensive shell you’ve created for the purposes of this thread and tell yourself you’re not a liar, but that just reinforces the idea that you are a liar because that’s a lie.

[_schreech]

Schreech, you have missed my point and as a result you are asking me things from left field, as they say. I fear my point has gone unheeded for some odd reason by not just schreech but my many who've posted in this thread. Too bad.

Ummm...you said "As it is any of his lies could have been for purposes you simply aren't privy too." to justify the lies joe told...what is the point we are missing? or are you now seeing how silly it is to try to justify his dishonesty just because you want to believe he is a prophet?

[_stemelbow]

All of the above. Frequency of. Shamelessness of. Depth of. Etc. I read in the Gospel Principles manual that even leaving out information counts as lying, and is a sin. So what happens when you constantly lie in public about your polygamous marriages, and act very offended at the allegation?

Well I don't know what happens, but that's not my point at all. I'm just curious what constitutes the label liar in your mind. I fear you would consider me a liar too, seeing your subjective determinants. Oh well. It doens't seem to helpful because based on your subjective determinants anyone can be considered a liar it seems. If one lies a lot (what constittues a lot exactly, I mean I could lie a lot. I've lied at least 100 times in my life), if one doesn't feel shame for lying (I admit I feel no shame for half of my lies), if one lies in depth (I admit sometimes my lies have great depth, in terms of quality and cleverness) and I've left out tons of information when I rehearse events. Not only am I a liar, then, but I'd have a hard time thinking not one soul who lives is not a liar, under such conditions.

[_Molok]

If you lived in Nazi germany, would you lie about hiding jewish families in your home? Would you feel like it wouuld be wrong to lie then?

I'd lie.

Lying about my sex life if I were a serial adulterer wouldn't seem quite so noble, though. It would seem, oh what's the word? Self-serving.

I'm sure Joseph wept tears of untold grief, and thought of nothing but Emma while he was nailing those women.

[_Chap]

To help us understand you, please give us some examples of what someone would have to do in order for you to call that person a 'liar'.

Hey Chap, when I read your posts, for the most part, i find them thoughtful and helpful. For some reason in this thread you seem to be intentionally obtuse here. I mean no offense and I imagine you can take such candor on my end, so I put straight forward for you. I am the one saying its useless to call someone a liar. You ask me to tell you what it would take for me to call someone a liar. Are you paying attention?

Or, if you do not use that word at all in your normal speech (which I take leave to doubt), please tell us what word you do use to describe people who you believe to have been deliberately and persistently untruthful on important matters.

People. Who has not lied on "important matters"?

I see. You never use the word 'liar' at all. That makes you a pretty unusual example amongst native English speakers. And you do that because, to refer to your other post, you find it "doesn't really help to "categorize people with a negative label". I wonder how far you will take that?

If I habitually take things from people that do not belong to me without their consent and by deception in order to make money, I suppose you just call me a 'person', not a thief?

If I habitually have sexual intercourse with unwilling women by using coercion to make them submit to me, I suppose you just call me a 'person', not a rapist?

You see, if you are not consistent about this 'no negative terms' stuff, some people might suspect you only abandoned the use of the word 'liar' because you wanted to stop it being applied to Joseph Smith.