A Scenario for our Male Apologists to Consider...

[_Yoda]

I'm completely happy allowing polygamy, polyandry, gay marriage, you name it. I'm not happy applying that to my eternal salvation as a Must Do. Joseph and Brigham can take their multiple wives to hell, because I'm not going to a CK that requires me to share.

+1000

This is my point.

How would a God who professes to love his children plan something that causes this much pain as an eternal condition?

Also, to KevinSim's point about "the alternative", in the eternal scheme of things, why are you so uncertain that the male-female ratio is bound to be uneven?

[_LDSToronto]

How would a God who professes to love his children plan something that causes this much pain as an eternal condition?

Interesting, Liz, because this says something to me that has nothing to do with marriage. I understand your feelings for your husband, but those feelings not withstanding, this is a commandment (in your hypothetical scenario).

Doesn't this say that you have limits on your faith in God? You are essentially telling your Creator that there are commandments you simply won't fulfill because the you have no faith that the reward is not worth the sacrifice?

H.

[_madeleine]

She made it clear from the outset that she didn't want to be in a polygamous marriage either in this life or the next, and she explicitly said that if polygamy ever did come back to the LDS Church, she wanted the option to have multiple husbands, not the other way around.

Emma Smith made the same observation regarding her philandering husband. He wrote up a "revelation":

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

So, just threaten your wife, and it's all good.

In Liz's scenario, the threat is for the husbands, which includes, no smashing heads. You just have to "abide this commandment". Suck it up wusses.

[_madeleine]

What alternative would that be?

For Latter-day Saints, just as it is for Protestants of all denominations, there are three actively attending women for every two actively attending men. That leaves a surplus of women. Now some of the women aren't going to have a great desire to marry, and some of them are going to be okay with marrying men that can't take them to the temple, either inside or outside the LDS Church. But I think even if you subtract those women out, you're still going to have a surplus.

So the alternative is monogamy for the lucky, and celibacy for the unlucky. I ask you again, are you okay with the alternative?

Perhaps it is a good indications that polygamy isn't a commandment from God, but one that came from Joe.

[_madeleine]

How would a God who professes to love his children plan something that causes this much pain as an eternal condition?

Interesting, Liz, because this says something to me that has nothing to do with marriage. I understand your feelings for your husband, but those feelings not withstanding, this is a commandment (in your hypothetical scenario).

Doesn't this say that you have limits on your faith in God? You are essentially telling your Creator that there are commandments you simply won't fulfill because the you have no faith that the reward is not worth the sacrifice?

H.

Perhaps it is an indication that one's faith is has been placed in a false prophet. Making up rules and saying "they come from God", doesn't make it so.

[_LDSToronto]

Interesting, Liz, because this says something to me that has nothing to do with marriage. I understand your feelings for your husband, but those feelings not withstanding, this is a commandment (in your hypothetical scenario).

Doesn't this say that you have limits on your faith in God? You are essentially telling your Creator that there are commandments you simply won't fulfill because the you have no faith that the reward is not worth the sacrifice?

H.

Perhaps it is an indication that one's faith is has been placed in a false prophet. Making up rules and saying "they come from God", doesn't make it so.

In Liz's scenario, I assume that the revelation came from God and was true.

But that's the tricky thing about faith - truth can never be verified. If a prophet tells you not to wear flip-flops, you kinda have to go on the assumption that the command really came from God.

In the end, my opinion of faith is rather low. People usually set a limit on faith that corresponds with their own set of morals.

H.

[_DarkHelmet]

This "brother husband" would also be sharing your wife's bed

Will I be allowed to watch?

[_Yoda]

She made it clear from the outset that she didn't want to be in a polygamous marriage either in this life or the next, and she explicitly said that if polygamy ever did come back to the LDS Church, she wanted the option to have multiple husbands, not the other way around.

Emma Smith made the same observation regarding her philandering husband. He wrote up a "revelation":

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

So, just threaten your wife, and it's all good.

In Liz's scenario, the threat is for the husbands, which includes, no smashing heads. You just have to "abide this commandment". Suck it up wusses.

Thanks, Madeline! Why is it only the brilliant women on this site who understand my OP?

[_Yoda]

How would a God who professes to love his children plan something that causes this much pain as an eternal condition?

Interesting, Liz, because this says something to me that has nothing to do with marriage. I understand your feelings for your husband, but those feelings not withstanding, this is a commandment (in your hypothetical scenario).

Ah, but if you are asking me to dismiss the feelings for my husband, then you do not understand them at all. My feelings for my husband is the entire basis for my OP. It is God who created love. That is why there is such dissonance as far as this particular commandment is concerned.

Doesn't this say that you have limits on your faith in God? You are essentially telling your Creator that there are commandments you simply won't fulfill because the you have no faith that the reward is not worth the sacrifice?

H.

No reward is worth that sacrifice.

Let's look at the reward that is supposedly promised. The reward is POWER.. Hmmmmm......now, who does a lust for power sound more like? Satan or Christ?

[_Lucifer]

Let's look at the reward that is supposedly promised. The reward is POWER.. Hmmmmm......now, who does a lust for power sound more like? Satan or Christ?

Oh, Oh, Oh! I know! Pick me! Pick ME!

\m/