Mormons should be more worried about going to Hell than Atheists

[MG 2.0]

He likes to play his game by casting doubt on whether or not Joseph Smith had sex with any of his plural wives…

I never said that.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

One assumes the people like Hales who defend the practice of plural marriage to single and married women by people in Church Leadership would be happy to support the practice if it were to be reinstated. I’m sure Brian would be fine with Uchtdorf being sealed to Laura Hales, and that MG2.0 would not quibble should Oaks decide he wants to be sealed to Mrs MG2.0. I mean the practice was honourable, right? So what would be the problem? What about their teenage daughters being given to a General Authority? Still okay?

Imagine that MG2.0’s Stake President comes round one evening with two requirements:
1. That he allow his wife to be sealed to Dieter Uchtdorf
2. That he allow his, say, 15 year old daughter, to be married to Gerald Causse

Would MG2.0 give willingly because he knows there’s nothing untoward with these suggestions? Of course not (I assume), but he’s fine when it’s someone else’s wife and daughter. I hope MG2.0 continues to defend the Church, he does far more damage to it than a critic ever could.

At the very least, I think I would struggle with it as much as Joseph apparently did. And others. I’d probably have to actually have an angel with a drawn sword appear to me. But if that didn’t happen, it would be REALLY difficult. Not quite as simple as you make it out to be.

I would have to know, as a matter of fact, that deity was behind it. Knowing me as well as I do……I’d be somewhat skeptical. Hopefully I’d get/experience something equivalent to the angel.

It would be tough.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

That’s what these “nuanced” thinkers do; they larp that they’re “thinking outside the box” and then they just fall in line.

It’s not as straightforward and easy as you make it out to be. Faith is hard. Especially in this secular world. Those of us that take the time and effort to increase faith are not ‘silver platter’ members of the church. We don’t expect, and this is from personal experience, to have everything our way or given to us without some real work and sacrifice.

There’s a LOT of ambiguity in this world. A LOT of gray. Anyone who comes to the conclusion that all is black and white/either or, is fatally mistaken in my opinion.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

+10!!!!

Yes, Morley’s response is still probably the best response possible. There’s never going to be a straight answer given, and the “assignments” given to deflect are ludicrous. But, it does show clearly how impossibly difficult it must be to be an all-in Mormon who is obligated to somehow defend this stuff. Some of the defenses are so embarrassing they would cause anyone to blush.

I think you have to have a predisposition to blush easily.

Personally, I have had to go back and revisit different issues multiple times before gaining a fuller understanding.

Polygamy/polyandry is one of those. And I still have questions. I’d guess that the Hales haven’t worked through all of their questions/concerns either.

Regards,
MG

[doubtingthomas]

So yes, she and Brigham had sexual relations and apparently got along pretty well.

She says that she couldn’t ever remember a time when she didn’t know Brigham Young.

Regards,
MG

Sir, are you aware Clarissa Caroline Decker was just 15 or 16 when she married 42 year old Brigham Young?

And my straight answer is that we can only go with what history gives us.

According to your team "sexuality [between Joseph and Helen Mar] is a possibility. " Did Joseph Smith have sex with 14 year old girls?

While sexuality is a possibility ... interpretation is that the ceremony prevented her from associating with her friends

https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural ... r-kimball/

[Lem]

Yes, Morley’s response is still probably the best response possible. There’s never going to be a straight answer given, and the “assignments” given to deflect are ludicrous. But, it does show clearly how impossibly difficult it must be to be an all-in Mormon who is obligated to somehow defend this stuff. Some of the defenses are so embarrassing they would cause anyone to blush.

I think you have to have a predisposition to blush easily.

yuck. You've suggested some pretty gross things in this thread to try to justify the bad behavior of the originator of the church you were born into. It seems you didn't realize that until people pointed them out, at which time you retracted or tried to change their meaning. That doesn't sound like someone who's thought this through too well. If ethics and morals constantly must be mangled so you can support your church, it's not an ethical or moral church. So yes, Morley's statement still wraps it up perfectly:

That’s what happens when God is taken out of the picture by nonbelievers.

No, it's what happens when your arguments suck.

God is still very much in the picture, as far as I'm concerned. She's just not the type of God who would do the kinds of things you suggest she'd do.
.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think you have to have a predisposition to blush easily.

yuck. You've suggested some pretty gross things in this thread to try to justify the bad behavior of the originator of the church you were born into. It seems you didn't realize that until people pointed them out, at which time you retracted or tried to change their meaning. That doesn't sound like someone who's thought this through too well. If ethics and morals constantly must be mangled so you can support your church, it's not an ethical or moral church.

Good gawd, MG has really outed himself as a POS. “Blushing easily” is his moronic statement in context of old men raping young girls and justifying it because ‘thems the rules’. There’s a saying in Brazil describing someone who openly and shamelessly lies or acts in a deceptive way - cara de pau or wood face - where they deliberately lie and deceive to advance their agenda. How is it that Mormon men have become wood faces? Well, we see it on display here, where a long tradition beginning with Joseph Smith of lying to deceive and conceal unethical and immoral behaviors has gotten into the very moral fiber of its adherents. There’s another saying, in English this time, that describes someone who craps up everything they touch - turd bird. I’ll just leave it to the reader to decide if there’s a turd bird here or not.

- Doc

[MG 2.0]

So yes, she and Brigham had sexual relations and apparently got along pretty well.

She says that she couldn’t ever remember a time when she didn’t know Brigham Young.

Regards,
MG

Sir, are you aware Clarissa Caroline Decker was just 15 or 16 when she married 42 year old Brigham Young?

And my straight answer is that we can only go with what history gives us.

According to your team "sexuality [between Joseph and Helen Mar] is a possibility. " Did Joseph Smith have sex with 14 year old girls?

While sexuality is a possibility ... interpretation is that the ceremony prevented her from associating with her friends

https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural ... r-kimball/

Supporting that the union was never consummated is the fact that Helen Mar Kimball was not called to testify in the Temple Lot trial. In 1892, the RLDS Church led by Joseph Smith, III sued the Church of Christ (Hedrickites), disputing its claim to own the temple lot in Independence, Missouri, that Edward Partridge, acting for the church, had purchased in 1831 and which his widow, Lydia, had sold in 1848 to finance her family’s trek west.
7
The Hedrickites held physical possession, but the RLDS Church took the official position that, since it was the true successor of the church originally founded by Joseph Smith, it owned the property outright.
8

Although the Utah LDS Church was not a party to the suit, it provided support to the Hedrickites. The issue was parsed this way: If the Hedrickites could prove that plural marriage was part of the original church, then the RLDS Church was obviously not the true successor since it failed to practice such a key doctrine. Ironically, the Hedrickites were staunchly opposed to plural marriage and seemed to have pursued polygamy as a line of inquiry only for strategic purposes.
9

Nine of Joseph Smith’s plural wives were living in 1892, but only three were called: Emily Partridge (resident of Salt Lake City), Malissa Lott (who lived thirty miles south in Lehi), and Lucy Walker (who lived eighty-two miles north in Logan). All three of these women affirmed that sexual relations were part of their plural marriages to the Prophet.
10

If Helen Mar had been sexually involved with the Prophet in their plural marriage, her exclusion from the depositions is difficult to explain. Helen lived in Salt Lake City (closer than Malissa Lott and much closer than Lucy Walker) and had written two books defending plural marriage. Her first, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith, Editor of the Lamoni Iowa “Herald,” (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882) was a direct response to the claims of the RLDS Church, the plaintiffs in the Temple Lot lawsuit. Her second book, Why We Practice Plural Marriage (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884), echoed many of the same arguments. Helen’s diary journal for March 1892 documents that she was aware of the visit of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) contingent, but there is no indication that they or LDS Church leaders approached her to testify.
11

That she would have been an excellent witness to discuss and defend the fact that Joseph Smith taught and practiced plural marriage is undeniable. But if she could not testify to a full plural marriage with sexual relations, her deposition would not have been useful to the Temple Lot attorneys.

Skeptics may argue that Helen or church leaders would have been reticent to admit that Helen was fourteen years old when she was sealed to Joseph Smith. However, in the 1840s, a fourteen-year-old bride was eyebrow-raising, not scandalous, and both Helen and church authorities were highly motivated to disprove the RLDS claims.

And in response to your first question, yes. How old was she when she bore her first child?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

yuck. You've suggested some pretty gross things in this thread to try to justify the bad behavior of the originator of the church you were born into. It seems you didn't realize that until people pointed them out, at which time you retracted or tried to change their meaning. That doesn't sound like someone who's thought this through too well. If ethics and morals constantly must be mangled so you can support your church, it's not an ethical or moral church.

Good gawd, MG has really outed himself as a POS. “Blushing easily” is his moronic statement in context of old men raping young girls and justifying it because ‘thems the rules’. There’s a saying in Brazil describing someone who openly and shamelessly lies or acts in a deceptive way - cara de pau or wood face - where they deliberately lie and deceive to advance their agenda. How is it that Mormon men have become wood faces? Well, we see it on display here, where a long tradition beginning with Joseph Smith of lying to deceive and conceal unethical and immoral behaviors has gotten into the very moral fiber of its adherents. There’s another saying, in English this time, that describes someone who craps up everything they touch - turd bird. I’ll just leave it to the reader to decide if there’s a turd bird here or not.

- Doc

If you have me on ignore then you haven’t been reading my posts contextually. You are relying on the chopping up of posts by an antagonist. And then you’re mixing in your own predisposition to throw darts at anything that impacts your chosen worldview.

Unfortunately you won’t read/see this post so you will go on saying what you say with a lack of understanding and comprehension. But even if you were to read things contextually I’m concerned that you would still fail on that point.

Regards,
MG

[doubtingthomas]

And in response to your first question, yes. How old was she when she bore her first child?

Regards,
MG

I don't know, but there is nothing that prevented Brigham Young from having sex with 15 year old Clarissa Caroline Decker. According to your team fairlatterdaysaints,"Consummation [with a 14 year old] would not have been inappropriate, since this was a marriage. " According to your must go website, "While sexuality is a possibility." https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural ... r-kimball/

Did you know the average age of the onset of puberty in girls was 16.6 years in 1860?