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The Erotic Apologist wrote:

Q. Why was there no increase, say in your case?

What are the chances that Joseph Smith was sterile due to an STD?

Minimal. Emma got pregnant with David Hyrum Smith around February, 1844.

grindael wrote:Minimal. Emma got pregnant with David Hyrum Smith around February, 1844.

Didn't know that. Thanks!

The Erotic Apologist wrote:

grindael wrote:Minimal. Emma got pregnant with David Hyrum Smith around February, 1844.

Didn't know that. Thanks!

Yeah, some apologists like Laura Hales claim that Joseph would not have had sex with Eliza Snow because she was an "old maid". But she was the exact same age as Emma. That Smith was still having sex with Emma in 1844 kind of destroys that silly argument.

grindael wrote: You would have to show that Sylvia could not tell the difference between reality and the supernatural if you want to entertain your scenario. Can you do that?

1. Book of Mormon witnesses didn't know how to tell the difference. I don't think Sylvia was a rational thinker, she married Joseph Smith
2. False memory is another possibility. perhaps she had a false memory of having sex with Joseph? How can we rule that out?
3. I still don't see how we can rule out that Sylvia meant "spiritual" or "adopted" daughter. Perhaps it was a lifelong secret because it was too religiously sacred for her? Perhaps "biological" and "spiritual" made no difference to her?

Let me quote MormonThink "To these people that believed in 'second sight', saying they saw something with their natural eyes or in this 'second sight' made no difference to them. To them it was real either way so they would often for simplicity sake say they saw something and leave it at that, which gives the impression that they saw something with their natural eyes as they would see anything else, yet they may have only saw it as a 'second sight' experience. "

DoubtingThomas wrote:3. I still don't see how we can rule out that Sylvia meant "spiritual" or "adopted" daughter. Perhaps it was a secret because it was too sacred to her?

Sylvia stated on her death bed (to Josephine) that she wanted to tell her a secret that no one else knew. We know this was not that Josephine was Joseph's spiritual daughter because there is record of Sylvia already being open about that.

Here is what Josephine wrote about this conversation with her mother:
“Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith”.

But, Sylvia's other daughter (Phebe) wrote that her mother "had spoken often of her 'special sealing' to the Prophet Joseph Smith".

So the "secret" was not that Josephine was Joseph's spiritual daughter, it was that Sylvia believed Josephine was Joseph's physical daughter ("an entire secret" that had been kept from Josephine "and from all others").

Here's a link to Phebe's statement and writings:
http://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/wp-c ... hapter.pdf

The Erotic Apologist wrote:

Q. Why was there no increase, say in your case?

What are the chances that Joseph Smith was sterile due to an STD?

Didn't he have a son through Emma born a few months after his death?

(Edit: Someone beat me to it.)

DoubtingThomas wrote:

grindael wrote: You would have to show that Sylvia could not tell the difference between reality and the supernatural if you want to entertain your scenario. Can you do that?

1. Book of Mormon witnesses didn't know how to tell the difference. I don't think Sylvia was a rational thinker, she married Joseph Smith
2. False memory is another possibility. perhaps she had a false memory of having sex with Joseph? How can we rule that out?
3. I still don't see how we can rule out that Sylvia meant "spiritual" or "adopted" daughter. Perhaps it was a lifelong secret because it was too religiously sacred for her? Perhaps "biological" and "spiritual" made no difference to her?

Those are all plausible explanations, I guess. I'm by no means an historian, but my understanding is that when attempting to determine or reconstruct what happened in the past, you go by probability. You take the pieces of evidence and try to figure out what was most likely to have happened, or at least rank the possible explanations by probability.

If a woman were to claim that a particular man was a father of her kid, only to be shown that it was someone else after a paternity test, there may be plenty of possible explanations for why she wrongly claimed that man was the father. I think the two most likely explanations are that she sex with someone else (and only that other person) and was lying about it or she had sex with multiple partners around the time of conception. (Yes, there are other explanations, but those are the two most likely.) To decide between those two possibilities, you would then look at other things, like the circumstances surrounding the relationships, the possible motivations and incentives at the time the statement was made, etc.

So sure, false memory are spiritual sex w/spiritual offspring are possible explanations, but they're among the least likely ones. Much more likely is that she had sex with both and, for whatever reason, assumed or concluded Joseph Smith was the dad. She also could have been lying, but you'd have to come up with believable reason (remember probabilities) for why she would lie under those circumstances so many years after the fact.

DoubtingThomas wrote:

grindael wrote: You would have to show that Sylvia could not tell the difference between reality and the supernatural if you want to entertain your scenario. Can you do that?

1. Book of Mormon witnesses didn't know how to tell the difference. I don't think Sylvia was a rational thinker, she married Joseph Smith
2. False memory is another possibility. perhaps she had a false memory of having sex with Joseph? How can we rule that out?
3. I still don't see how we can rule out that Sylvia meant "spiritual" or "adopted" daughter. Perhaps it was a lifelong secret because it was too religiously sacred for her? Perhaps "biological" and "spiritual" made no difference to her?

Let me quote MormonThink "To these people that believed in 'second sight', saying they saw something with their natural eyes or in this 'second sight' made no difference to them. To them it was real either way so they would often for simplicity sake say they saw something and leave it at that, which gives the impression that they saw something with their natural eyes as they would see anything else, yet they may have only saw it as a 'second sight' experience. "

1. Apples and oranges. Where is there any evidence that Sylvia ever claimed to see an angel? Claimed to see anything supernaturally? So again, the burden is on you to show that Sylvia could not tell if she had sex with Smith or not.

2. On what basis can you rule it in? Maybe she was a body double alien. Maybe Josephine herself just made it up. Maybe Josephine was an alien who just wants to screw with Mormons. No, the burden is on you, who is throwing out any scenario you can think of to try and prove she didn't say what her daughter (and all the other evidence) claimed she actually said.

3. Because there is absolutely no evidence that she meant that but there is overwhelming evidence that she did not. Again, you are interjecting scenarios that you have ZERO evidence for, therefore you must offer proof that this is the likely interpretation of the evidence. Brian Hales believes this and Dan thoroughly rebutted all of his claims. Please address the actual evidence and why your scenario is more likely something you haven't done.

As for the MormonThink quote, there is absolutely no evidence that Sylvia ever claimed to see visions. She may have believed they were possible, but where is your evidence that she ever saw one and was prone to not know what was real and what was supernatural? You are simply making up scenarios that YOU HAVE TO SHOW EVIDENCE FOR. You can't, so this line of argument is simply ad hoc speculation because for some reason, you don't want to believe what ALL the evidence clearly shows.

grindael wrote:2. False memory is another possibility. perhaps she had a false memory of having sex with Joseph? How can we rule that out?

2. On what basis can you rule it in? Maybe she was a body double alien. Maybe Josephine herself just made it up. Maybe Josephine was an alien who just wants to screw with Mormons. No, the burden is on you, who is throwing out any scenario you can think of to try and prove she didn't say what her daughter (and all the other evidence) claimed she actually said.

I am not sure what aliens have anything to do with false memory. False memory is common. I don't have to prove anything because I am only asking you "how can we rule that out?"

A false memory is a memory which is a distortion of an actual experience, or a confabulation of an imagined one...A memory of your mother throwing a glass of milk on your father when in fact it was your father who threw the milk is a false memory based upon an actual experience.

http://www.skepdic.com/falsememory.html

Here is a more extreme example of false memory
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... an-monkeys

grindael wrote: 3. Because there is absolutely no evidence that she meant that but there is overwhelming evidence that she did not. Again, you are interjecting scenarios that you have ZERO evidence for, therefore you must offer proof that this is the likely interpretation of the evidence. Brian Hales believes this and Dan thoroughly rebutted all of his claims. Please address the actual evidence and why your scenario is more likely something you haven't done.

Please show me the overwhelming evidence that Joseph Smith had sex with his polyandrous wives? I can point to a lot of evidence that he had sex with his polygamous wives, but I can't do the same with his polyandrous wives. The only reason I am not convinced is because I haven't seen enough evidence. Again, I don't have to prove anything, I think the burden of proof falls on you.

I didn't read carefully