Joseph Smith and Presentism: Another Lame Defense Argument

[_harmony]

Queen Victoria's influence was not felt anywhere near 1835, years before her reign, or in 1843 for that matter. As a general matter, before Victorian times, sexual immorality was quite commonplace.

P, Victoria took the throne in 1837, so 1835 is hardly "years before her reign". Hyperbole won't help you on this forum.

You might want to document your claim that sexual immorality was commonplace in America in the early 1800's. And you might want to define what you mean by sexual immorality. I don't want to tear apart your argument until you're a little clearer on what you're saying.

One can see it in the lives of the founding fathers of this country, and explains to some extent the struggle many early members of the church had with changing their lives.

So you're saying the founding fathers indulged in sexual immorality as a normal part of their day, and this has something to do with Joseph, who was not a founding father, was not a member of the landed elite, was not in any way comparable with that group? And you're further saying that American society was okay with that?

I'm assuming you can support this with documentation? Because I'd love to see you establish that the social mores of the day were such that society routinely turned a blind eye to the sexual peccadillos of ordinary men (even supposing they accepted such social suicide in the landed elite, which point has yet to be established).

The jury is not out on revelations from God. You accept them or you don't. You don't. God commands you. Satan commends you.

Plutarch

No, P. The jury is definitely out on what passes for Joseph's revelation that eventually was forced on the Saints as Sec 132. Produce the witnesses for it, please. You can't, because there were none. Joseph wrote it, whole cloth, with no heavenly presence, no angels, no messengers, no resurrected beings present. And it tore the church apart, because so many of the heirarchy knew what it was, and called him on it.

[_Runtu]

Actually, we can see 19th century society's disapproval in the actions of Joseph Smith himself. If there were no social condemnation of marrying teenaged girls behind your wife's back while exchanging said girl for her family's exaltation, he would not have practiced it secretly and publicly denied it. The Nauvoo Expositor episode shows that Joseph was willing to destroy the press rather than have his sexual practices revealed. In fact, the secrecy suggests that Joseph himself was not confident in the rightness of his behavior. Those who are commanded of God usually don't worry so much about public reaction, do they?

And the ultimate refuge of Plutarch's argument is "God said so." Sorry, that won't cut it.

[_Vici]

Whether or not evoking the fallacy of presentism is warranted in the case of Joseph Smith is certainly a question worth considering. However, I don't believe Bachman's arguments are even relevant, for they fail to overlay the appropriate context on the issue.

An accurate understanding of Mormon claims would lead one to conclude that it is not 19th century mores that must be considered, but rather those of ancient Israel. Was the taking of multiple wives, and even marrying women barely beyond puberty considered acceptable in the time of the Israelite patriarchs, and throughout the ancient Near East? It was indeed. And this is the paradigm of Joseph Smith's "restoration," is it not? In any event, it is the paradigm within which Smith and his followers rationalized their own acceptance of the "principle."

That would be true, Vici, except that Joseph did not restore the ancient practice of polygamy as recorded in the Old Testament. Nowhere did the ancients legally take other men's wives. There was a section of ancient law devoted to plural marriage rules, and Joseph circumvented them repeatedly. Secrecy? Never. Lying about it? Never. Other men's wives? Never.

Joseph's brand of plural marriage was renegade from the start (which is one more reason to believe that it was not God-breathed, but came out of Joseph's uncontrolled libido).

I guess you just skipped over the instances in the Old Testament where men's wives were taken from them and given to others?

[_Runtu]

Whether or not evoking the fallacy of presentism is warranted in the case of Joseph Smith is certainly a question worth considering. However, I don't believe Bachman's arguments are even relevant, for they fail to overlay the appropriate context on the issue.

An accurate understanding of Mormon claims would lead one to conclude that it is not 19th century mores that must be considered, but rather those of ancient Israel. Was the taking of multiple wives, and even marrying women barely beyond puberty considered acceptable in the time of the Israelite patriarchs, and throughout the ancient Near East? It was indeed. And this is the paradigm of Joseph Smith's "restoration," is it not? In any event, it is the paradigm within which Smith and his followers rationalized their own acceptance of the "principle."

That would be true, Vici, except that Joseph did not restore the ancient practice of polygamy as recorded in the Old Testament. Nowhere did the ancients legally take other men's wives. There was a section of ancient law devoted to plural marriage rules, and Joseph circumvented them repeatedly. Secrecy? Never. Lying about it? Never. Other men's wives? Never.

Joseph's brand of plural marriage was renegade from the start (which is one more reason to believe that it was not God-breathed, but came out of Joseph's uncontrolled libido).

I guess you just skipped over the instances in the Old Testament where men's wives were taken from them and given to others?

And this relates to Joseph's polyandry in what way? We're not talking about God taking someone's wives away and giving them to Joseph. No, we're talking about Joseph's sending faithful men on missions and then, when they were safely away, approaching the wives with his "angel and a flaming sword story." I missed the part in the Old Testament or anywhere else where God commanded anyone to do something like that.

[_Tal Bachman]

Plutarch, not sure why you find this topic so baffling - no one else seems to. Perhaps it is the adopted instinct to try to remain a believing Mormon. This can do strange things to us. Let me try one more time to clarify this for you.

My comments are an attempt to answer one particular question: "Are modern critics of Joseph Smith's sexual conduct guilty of 'presentism'?" Many of your comments, however, attempt to respond to a very different question, namely, "By what moral standard, if any, should Joseph Smith's sexual conduct be criticized, either in 1843 or now?".

You see, Plutarch - the answer to the second question doesn't have anything necessarily to do with the answer to the first one, and yet you keep confusing them up, which very much appears to be a derailment attempt. Hence your revealing sentence:

"I have no doubt that polygamy was generally repugnant to Christians of the 19th Century. But why? Is there some basis for this repugnancy?"

That might be a good question, but of course, it is not the question being discussed here, is it? So again, why not start a thread devoted to it? (By the way, it is worth noting, if you did not notice, that the first half of your sentence reveals that you and I agree on the answer to the question informing this particular discussion).

[_Ray A]

P, Victoria took the throne in 1837, so 1835 is hardly "years before her reign". Hyperbole won't help you on this forum.

You might want to document your claim that sexual immorality was commonplace in America in the early 1800's. And you might want to define what you mean by sexual immorality. I don't want to tear apart your argument until you're a little clearer on what you're saying.

The myths on this thread started by Bachman made it useless from the start.

Women and sex

Prostitution in the Victorian era was usually seen as a woman "losing her way" in terms of her soul becoming unclean by violating one of the rules that has been enunciated so far. Preachers often argued that prostitution could happen to any woman who violated the wishes of her husband. The logic here was that men who found out that their wife had been unclean in some way would kick their wives out of the house. In fact, being unclean was considered a generally acceptable reason for a man to divorce his wife. Then the wife would end up on the streets selling herself. This view continued into the 20th century. However, in more or less the same way as masters would sleep with their slaves, whom they considered unequal, it was considered acceptable for a man to sleep with a prostitute, especially in the western United States. It was a vicious cycle. Women could not have sex with other men without being considered unclean. However, men didn't have this restriction. In fact, it was often considered natural that a man might need the body of another woman. Because women had no rights, this behavior could not be punished through divorce. Thus, women simply had to accept this behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era

If you really want me to get into this I'll go into the sex life of Thomas Jefferson. Then, I might not want to invest the time.

[_Tal Bachman]

Ray

Just to be clear - are you saying that Joseph Smith's non-Mormon contemporaries approved of such sexual conduct as he practiced, and that it was pretty much de rigeur? Yes or no?

By the way, the rumours of Jefferson's affair with his slave were a total embarrassment to him. That is precisely why they were first circulated by his political opponents. Alexander Hamilton's affair was just the same - adultery was considered a vice, which is why Hamilton secretly paid the extortion money to his seducer and her husband.

Ray A, I'm not sure how to get this across to you, but you finding examples of people departing from sexual mores, is not evidence that those mores did not exist (I think I'm showing remarkable restraint here lol). To make your point, you need to find examples of sexual behaviour akin to Joseph Smith's, in his era, which were widely held to be acceptable.

Good luck.

T.

[_Who Knows]

This is yet another example of TBM's trying to put Joseph Smith (or the church) on the same plane as your regular Joe Schmo. (the blacks and the priesthood issue comes to mind as well)

God forbid we should expect more from people supposedly conversing with God on a regular basis.

[_Ray A]

[color=blue]Ray

Just to be clear - are you saying that Joseph Smith's non-Mormon contemporaries approved of such sexual conduct as he practiced, and that it was pretty much de rigeur? Yes or no?

Of course it was not de rigeur. And of course his non-Mormon contemporaries did not approve. Did any Mormon apologist ever suggest that? Joseph himself realised that this practice could lead to his death. HE did not believe it was acceptable to non-Mormon society, NOR Mormon society. He was doing what he felt he was commanded by God to do., which was totally contrary to accepted mores on polygamy.

Ray A, I'm not sure how to get this across to you, but you finding examples of people departing from sexual mores, is not evidence that those mores did not exist (I think I'm showing remarkable restraint here lol). To make your point, you need to find examples of sexual behaviour akin to Joseph Smith's, in his era, which were widely held to be acceptable.

Good luck.

No I don't need to find examples, because the practice in the sense of him taking other men's wives was totally unacceptable to society. Again, he fully realised this, and so do apologists, which is why it was denied until all the facts came out. As for mores, I've given examples above, and in an earlier post, that 19th century mores in regard to the age of consent and prostitution were worse (contrary to what you said in your OP) than they are today! Women were treated like chattels, they had no rights. They were "pieces of meat", and could be kicked out of the house for infidelity while it was acceptable for men to visit prostitutes. Mores have changed, but you are judging Joseph Smith's era by modern standards. Let me quote your OP:

The truth is that the modern mind is FAR more forgiving of all sorts of sexual behaviour than was the mind of frontier America

Hardly.

[_Ray A]

In case anyone here is trying to draw a parallel with Ted Haggard and Joseph Smith, there is NO comparison. Read Haggard's confession and admissions of guilt in my thread about that. Haggard knew that what he was doing was TOTALLY wrong. While Joseph Smith realised that polygamy was contrary to accepted mores, he DID NOT feel that what he was doing was wrong, because he felt God commanded him to instigate polygamy. How many times did he say that the Saints could not stand "anything contrary to their traditions"? Polygamy has been practised across the world since Old Testament times, and anyone who does a check on the sources will see that although it was never practised by the majority, it has always been with us, in every age and period of the world. In fact the Sultan of Brunei to this very day practises it, and he doesn't write confessionals or admit guilt.