Joseph Smith and Presentism: Another Lame Defense Argument

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_Runtu
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Presentism

Post by _Runtu »

Sheesh, as if the people in the 1840s found Joseph's behavior any less repellent. Duhhhhh
_Nortinski
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Post by _Nortinski »

Polygamy Porter wrote:
Nortinski wrote:Tal Bachman, you're my hero. (Please read that last line like Ferris Bueller's best friend, what's-his-face.)

On an unrelated note, "You're So High" came on the radio at work the other day and my boss, one of the few Mormons in my office, said loudly, "I love this song" and started singing along.

*sigh*

I had no choice. I had to do it. I said, "Yeah? That's Tal Bachman. He's a friend of sorts. Check out my podcast to listen to an interview a friend and I did with Tal a little while back."

She said, "It's online? What's the URL?"

I smiled and said, slowly, "the church is not true dot com". Tal's an Ex-Mormon."

Heh heh...I'm a bastard. ;-)

Nort


Oh sweet Jebus! Mike, when you popped his bubble, what did it sound like when all of the air came out? Was it a bang, a slow hissy leak, or like an unrestrained balloon let go to buzz around the room to finally fall to the floor in a shrinking lifeless lump?

I just love it when opportunities like that come up! I pray for 'em ya know :)



Eh, it wasn't as good as I would've liked. My boss is a chick and she had no clue that Tal was a Mormon so it wasn't as good as it could have been.

Nort
The truth is a lot easier to see when you stop assuming you already have it. - Me
_Brackite
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Post by _Brackite »

Hi Tal Bachman,

You wrote:

More to the point - EVEN IF it was "normal" for a 39 year old man to marry a 14 year old girl in 1843, which it absolutely was not, as any source on marital stats of the time will confirm for you (why not do some research yourself?), the more relevant point is that it was considered completely disgusting for, as I said, an already married "minister of the gospel" to lie to his wife and start secretly "marrying"/having sex with a bunch of other females, many of whom were ALREADY MARRIED to, and living with, their legal husbands, and end up nailing a bunch of the teenagers in his congregations.


I want to make just a minor correction here; Joseph Smith was 37 years old when he got married to 14 year-old Helen Mar Kimball, however it is still pretty disgusting. Joseph Smith of course was already a married man. The most disgusting Plural marriage of Joseph Smith in my opinion was that of himself to Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs. Joseph Smith married Zina when she was a newly wed, 15 years younger than Joseph Smith was, and she was about six months pregnant with her newly and legally husband’s baby Henry Jacobs. Then after Joseph Smith got killed, Zina ended up getting married to Brigham Young, who was 19 years older than she was. This is what really got me to start to lose my testimony of Joseph Smith and BY as holy Prophets of God. Anyway Tal, I do very much agree with the main Point of your Thread here. Have a good-day!
_Tal Bachman
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Post by _Tal Bachman »

Thanks for the correction, Brackite.

Talk to you soon,

Tal
_Jason Bourne
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Post by _Jason Bourne »

Tal Bachman wrote:Hey Jason

I think what you're missing here is that apologists make that exact claim by unavoidable implication every single time they accuse people of "presentism", who regard Smith's sexual behaviour as abominable (this comes up all the time). Without that necessary implication, that is, they obviously would not even issue a charge of presentism in the first place.

Have you read my original piece? Why not take a minute and go do that? I posted a link to it on my post above. Go ahead...I'll wait (fingers tapping, humming...).

Hi again

More to the point - EVEN IF it was "normal" for a 39 year old (edit: 37 year old) man to marry a 14 year old girl in 1843, which it absolutely was not, as any source on marital stats of the time will confirm for you (why not do some research yourself?), the more relevant point is that it was considered completely disgusting for, as I said, an already married "minister of the gospel" to lie to his wife and start secretly "marrying"/having sex with a bunch of other females, many of whom were ALREADY MARRIED to, and living with, their legal husbands, and end up nailing a bunch of the teenagers in his congregations. You do realize that Smith's plural "marriages" were totally illegal, and as well, totally against the-then policy and commandments of Smith's own church, don't you? I mean, you literally have to be either insane or totally ignorant to think that that behaviour was considered anything other than totally abhorrent to almost all Americans in 1844. Why do you think he almost got castrated at the Johnson farm house? Why else do you think he would have lied about it to everyone? Why do you think John Bennett's book made such a splash?

The truth is, Jason, there is no way around the fact that Joseph Smith's non-Mormon contemporaries, like Brigham Young's non-Mormon contemporaries, thought their behaviour was totally disgusting. Or have you never heard of that little political organization called the Republican Party? It's better known now as the original anti-slavery party. Guess what was the other half of its original pair of raisons d'etre? The abolition of that "relic of barbarism", Mormon POLYGAMY. "Presentism"....what a joke. How ignorant!

Come on, bro. Open your eyes.


I will read your the link when I get a chance. But let me get one thing clear. I do not think every think Joseph Smith did was ok. And in regards to plural marriage I believe it was wrong, that it was man made, that it was what brought about Joseph's death. I believe polygamy and polyandry are and were disgusting and I believe the way Smith went about his plural marriage activity horrendous. I make no cultural excuses for him there. I believe he regretted it and as William Marks claimed was all set to abandon it. To late though and Brigham seized controll to quickly and Marks and others were not able to put a stop to it.

So, when I argue that we must judge Smith based on the times in which he lived I do not make that pleading for plural marriage at all. I do however think it must be considered in other aspects of the man's career.

Jason
_Jason Bourne
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Post by _Jason Bourne »

Brackite wrote:Hi Tal Bachman,

You wrote:

More to the point - EVEN IF it was "normal" for a 39 year old man to marry a 14 year old girl in 1843, which it absolutely was not, as any source on marital stats of the time will confirm for you (why not do some research yourself?), the more relevant point is that it was considered completely disgusting for, as I said, an already married "minister of the gospel" to lie to his wife and start secretly "marrying"/having sex with a bunch of other females, many of whom were ALREADY MARRIED to, and living with, their legal husbands, and end up nailing a bunch of the teenagers in his congregations.


I want to make just a minor correction here; Joseph Smith was 37 years old when he got married to 14 year-old Helen Mar Kimball, however it is still pretty disgusting. Joseph Smith of course was already a married man. The most disgusting Plural marriage of Joseph Smith in my opinion was that of himself to Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs. Joseph Smith married Zina when she was a newly wed, 15 years younger than Joseph Smith was, and she was about six months pregnant with her newly and legally husband’s baby Henry Jacobs. Then after Joseph Smith got killed, Zina ended up getting married to Brigham Young, who was 19 years older than she was. This is what really got me to start to lose my testimony of Joseph Smith and BY as holy Prophets of God. Anyway Tal, I do very much agree with the main Point of your Thread here. Have a good-day!


This story is one of the saddest tales of the pural marriage saga.

Jason
_Tal Bachman
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Post by _Tal Bachman »

Jason

Something else I think you might be missing here: no one - no one - is arguing that we should not judge Joseph Smith according to "the standards of his day". No one. I have never heard anyone argue this, nor do I know of one single criticism of Joseph Smith made by any of his modern critics that would even qualify for this ridiculous charge, for the simple reason that so many of Joseph Smith's own contemporaries made the same criticisms of him while he was alive, and often, did so with even more fervour. If this is true, then you have gotten yourself concerned over yet another nothing of an apologetic argument.

Take treasure-hunting, for example, since I believe you mentioned it in a previous post. Smith's treasure-hunting, for modern skeptics, isn't relevant to them because "treasure-hunting sounds so weird to modern ears", which is one straw man version put out there by church defenders, and which you seem to have accepted uncritically. It is, rather, relevant because treasure-hunting, in those times, was one method employed by confidence men (and the fact that neither Joseph, nor his brothers, nor his father, ever did recover any treasure supposedly seen by Joseph in his magical stone, is all the evidence you should need to conclude that it is very unlikely that Smith really believed he was locating buried treasures in his rock). That is, his treasure-hunting, precisely IN its context not out of it, constitutes powerful evidence that Joseph Smith was an untrustworthy person. Church defenders then have exactly backwards - it is THEY who judge Joseph Smith by modern standards, standards by which "treasure-hunting" sounds as innocuous as searching for lost coins on the beach with a metal detector, when in fact, it was a 19th century equivalent of a con man crying in a parking lot, telling someone he was just robbed, and that he just needs a hundred bucks to get the bus back to Idaho. As such, in its context, it is therefore as indicative of its practitioner's untrustworthy character as would modern scams be of their practitioners' untrustworthy character

And that is why, my friend, that some of Smith's contemporaries pressed charges against him for "disorderly conduct". Do you see? Modern skeptics ARE "judging Joseph Smith by the standards of his time", and it is his DEFENDERS who don't. They almost inevitably (if perhaps unconsciously) remove his actions from their contexts. That is one reason why apologetic arguments are often so pathetic - they require the isolation of a single act or fact from all other facts surrounding it. It is just like if you, as a defense attorney, kept saying, "just because a man holds a gun in his hand, doesn't mean he's a murderer", while ignoring the fact that your client was not just "holding a gun" (or "looking for treasure"), but was actually "holding a gun" immediately after it had been fired at a man who fell dead as a result, and that there is videotape of him pulling the trigger and the man falling dead, and that there is a documented motive for the murder. In light of all that, your glib assertion will sound completely pathetic and be completely inadequate - just like, I suggest, attempted thought-terminating-cliches like charges of "presentism" do. You know?
_rcrocket

Post by _rcrocket »

Tal:

You bore us all here.

Come back when you have something new and interesting to say.

P
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

Plutarch wrote:Tal:

You bore us all here.

Come back when you have something new and interesting to say.

P


At least he contributes something, P. Gives his opinion. Shows his logic model. Maybe you should show him where he's wrong. You know... actually contribute to the discussion. Unless that's an insurmountable task for you?
_rcrocket

Post by _rcrocket »

I don't think the woman of mere anecdotal substance has a leg upon which to stand.
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