Raising up Seed... (sigh)

[_moksha]

This is what happens when you raise up too much seed:


Just say no to polygamy
any questions?

[_KimberlyAnn]

This is what happens when you raise up too much seed:

The right to "bear" arms, LOL!

Yes, I just said no to polygamy and D&C 132. Then I said no to the Book of Abraham. Then I said no to sexism and historical whitewashing. Then I said no to Joseph Smith. Then I said no to the Book of Mormon. Then I said no to Mormonism! Just say NO to Mormonism!

KA

[_Blixa]

I don't think I ever said, "no." It was more like "You've got to be kidding."

[_asbestosman]

First, the birth rate actually went down during polygamy.

That's an interesting point. I remember reading a study on that while at BYU (that the fecundity of polygamists was lower than for monogamists). It seems counterintuitive to me, but apparently that's what happened.

So, God couldn't have the mothers of these great families just have twins?

Ouch! Twins almost killed my mother, and that was with late 20th century medicine. Twins would be much harder back in the 19th century although I suppose God could make it work what with Him being powerful and all.

Why not help out the less righteous to be more righteous? "He" certainly has done that before... (think Paul, for one examle).

I don't think that's quite how things happened with Paul. Paul was a dedicated Pharisee before his conversion although he was zealous for the wrong cause. God just helped guide him in the right path. After all, why didn't God make Judas more righteous or maybe Pilate or even Pharoh?

How about giving the children born into the less fabulous familes an extra blessing or two so they become more righteous?

Actually that sounds rather like how Abraham was. And yet somehow it seems that parents do have great influence on the quality of lives that children lead with unrighteous parents making life more difficult.

The infant mortality rate was quite high... why not lower it? This would be nothing for the God of the universe.

As would curing world hunger, removing disease, and ending war. It appears that God wants us to do as much of it on our own as possible.

[_beastie]

I remember when I finally felt like I figured out what polygamy was all about for early LDS. I had been misled for so many years with the "widows and orphans" and the "more women then men" and then the "more righteous women then men" lines that it took several readings of Mormon Polygamy, and then Compton's book, to have the light bulb go off.

The early LDS church was not egalitarian in the way the modern LDS church is, (in theory). You know, today Mormons believe that the lowliest janitor, as long as he's righteous, is in as good of shape in terms of future exaltation as the prophet of the church, but that is not what early LDS believed. For early LDS, high callings really meant something - the prophets are apstles were the MOST elect, the ones on the "fast track" to exaltation. Hitching your star to one of those wagons would vastly improve your chances of exaltation. That's why BY said:

The second way in which and his priesthood, I have not revealed, except to a few persons in this Church, and a few have received it from Joseph the prophet as well as myself. This other path a woman may take if she can get a chance. <do it in strict accordance with the order of heaven,> If she <a woman> can find a man holding the keys of the preisthood [sic] and <holding with> higher in power and authority than her husband <holds>, and he is disposed to take her he can do so, otherwise she has got to remain where she is. This is the second way in which a woman can leave her husband to whome she has been sealed to for time and all eternity. In either of these ways of seperation [sic], you can discover, there is no need for a bill of divorcement.

To recapitulate. First If a man forfiets [sic] his covenants with a wife, or wives, becoming unfaithful to his God, <and> his preisthood [sic], that wife or wives are free from him without <bill of> a divorcement. Second. If a woman claimes [sic] protection at the hands of a man, possessing more power in the priesthood and higher keys, if he is disposed to <and has obtained the consent of her husband> rescue her <and has obtained the consent of her husband to make he> from and to make her his wife he can do so without a bill of divorcement by <first asking the> the free consent of her husband. Then a peice of blank paper will answer just as good a purpose for a bill of divorcement as the bills the sisters get from me. If after she had left her husband, and is sealed to another, she shall again cohabit with him it is illicit intercourse, and extremely sinfull.

http://www.xmission.com/~country/by/100861.htm

Note: the words that I italicized above were struck out in the original, but I didn't see a strike out option. Go to the link to see a clearer version.

So a wife could dump her husband - even if he were faithful - if a man with a higher calling wanted her as a wife. (note the stern warning not to have sex with the abandoned husband once the wife has left him for a man with a higher calling... )

This is why so many women wanted to be sealed to Joseph Smith and BY and other church leaders, despite the fact that they already had so many wives there was almost zero chance he could function as anything like a husband and father. They'd been taught that this act would help push them along the eternal fast track.

And even having more wives and more children in THIS life was, at times, taught to be a way to get on that same eternal FAST track.

So it's like Darwinism gone wild - the alpha males were ensured to get more, more, more, more and MORE!!!

[_asbestosman]

If there ever were a time when God needed to "raise seed" wouldn't it have been at the beginning? There was a huge, empty earth to fill with people, yet God made one man and one woman and declared it "good".

Or maybe Adam lived longer so there was no need.

Or maybe there was more than one Adam as some reading of Moses may lead one to believe:

And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many.

[_asbestosman]

I'm going to have to remember these.

While you're at it, you could ask why God wouldn't raise the fecundity of females so they don't hit menopause ever.

He could also decrease the period of gestation.

[_Blixa]

Thanks beastie---it throws light on why so many were jostling to get in on John D. Lee and the abandonded him once he was ex'd. At least its as much a part of the story as any personal charisma he may have had, or the sexual prowess he claimed.

[_asbestosman]

The young men were left without partners.

That's a good point and a good reason for most guys to oppose polygamy. It increases competition to the point where no women in her right mind would ever consider the mediocre ones like me who have never been a GA, let alone a biship, EQ pres, or even a Zone Leader.

Then again, perhaps that'd be better for society.

[_asbestosman]

How can polygamy be an abomination through the Book of Mormon and then suddenly become restored as a necessary ordinance, highest principle, required for exaltation?

I heard something about the "restitution/restoration of all things" (originally comes from Acts 3:21, but see D&C 86:10). The idea is that God had to restore some old principles in this time. I'm not sure I buy it though as I never heard of circumcision nor burnt offerings becoming mandatory again.