Up for mo'pologizing: 1835 edition of D&C 101:4

[_The Nehor]

The obvious counter to this would be for the Church to crack down on this 'rebelliousness'. Of course what you said could also also apply to those who do not believe in God as they "wish, pick and chose what they will or will not obey". Thousands justify whatever behavior they wish. You seem to want religion to check behavior while on this board I've heard you protest that you don't need religion to be moral. Aren't you in this same danger?

You missed the point. Let me try again.

NON-believers don't use God as an excuse. Only believers do. Seems believers use the "God said" excuse even when it is contrary to their doctrine or teaching.

If a non-believer abuses a child, there are consequences and no one thinks it is OK. There is no "God said" excuse.

If a believer abuses a child, and claims GOD TOLD THEM TO, they somehow think it is OK.

Or, if a guy flies a plane into a building most folks think it is a horrible thing.

However, if a guy flies a plane into a building and says God told him to do so, he (and fellow believers) somehow think it is all well and good.

The "God said" excuse gets a lot of mileage.

~dancer~

Yes, but God is hardly alone in this. Replace God with 'the cause demands' or 'the future demands' or 'for the good of the people' and you have the same level of justification. Everyone these days seems to be innocent in their own eyes with a ready justification for why they did what they did. Adulterers always have a good reason, murderers always have a good reason, embezzlers always have a good reason. Their reasons uniformly suck to everyone else but there you go. I have ways I justify many of my faults and I suspect you have the same problem. Why should what the justification is matter to you?

Joseph never murdered anyone.

He was also not an embezzler or an adulterer so it should be obvious that I was speaking in a general sense. Or we can go with the scary Danite answer:

YOU MEAN HE NEVER KILLED ANYONE THAT WE KNOW OF?!?!?!!?!? (cue scary music)

[_beastie]

Joseph never murdered anyone.

He didn't directly kill anyone, but he did tell people "in the name of the Lord" to buy and live on land that was dangerous due to malaria. I'm sure some them died.

[_The Nehor]

Joseph never murdered anyone.

He didn't directly kill anyone, but he did tell people "in the name of the Lord" to buy and live on land that was dangerous due to malaria. I'm sure some them died.

You're sure because you have evidence or because you want to believe that?

[_Joey]

It's also of course possible that all his marriages at the time were of the eternal and not time variety and that he in fact only had one wife.

Can you elaborate on this explanation? Are you suggesting that he was not married to Emma eternally and only to his other wives?

Since, as Smith recorded in his own journal (as recorded in the HOC), he did not receive the revelation on eternal marriage until June of 1843, how was he allowed to practice any other form of marriage other than what was contained in contained in the 1835 D&C's?

Is there any reason to assume that Smith was not being honest about when he cliamed he received the revelation contained in D&C 132 in 1843? Why does the LDS church now try and convince its members that it was received prior to the date that Smith said he received it?

Finally, if he had other wives at the command of god, why did he feel the need to lie about it to his members as opposed to just telling them and the public that it was the command of god?

Kind of a tangled web, eh?

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Joseph never murdered anyone.

He didn't directly kill anyone, but he did tell people "in the name of the Lord" to buy and live on land that was dangerous due to malaria. I'm sure some them died.

I believe it was John Taylor who said that one or two of the mob who stormed Carthage Jail later died of wounds inflicted by Joseph Smith's gun. I don't consider this "murder" since it was, in my opinion, justifiable.

[_The Nehor]

It's also of course possible that all his marriages at the time were of the eternal and not time variety and that he in fact only had one wife.

Can you elaborate on this explanation? Are you suggesting that he was not married to Emma eternally and only to his other wives?

Since, as Smith recorded in his own journal (as recorded in the HOC), he did not receive the revelation on eternal marriage until June of 1843, how was he allowed to practice any other form of marriage other than what was contained in contained in the 1835 D&C's?

Is there any reason to assume that Smith was not being honest about when he cliamed he received the revelation contained in D&C 132 in 1843? Why does the LDS church now try and convince its members that it was received prior to the date that Smith said he received it?

Finally, if he had other wives at the command of god, why did he feel the need to lie about it to his members as opposed to just telling them and the public that it was the command of god?

Kind of a tangled web, eh?

Because as Joseph said, any time he taught anything that violated the traditions held close to the hearts of the Saints they would go bonkers. They still do. Many went nuts over the Manifesto, the 1978 Revelation, and all new doctrines and practices. The stuff coming down the pipe will soon upset the Church again and lead to a rash of defections.

[_The Nehor]

Joseph never murdered anyone.

He didn't directly kill anyone, but he did tell people "in the name of the Lord" to buy and live on land that was dangerous due to malaria. I'm sure some them died.

I believe it was John Taylor who said that one or two of the mob who stormed Carthage Jail later died of wounds inflicted by Joseph Smith's gun. I don't consider this "murder" since it was, in my opinion, justifiable.

He said that but by my understanding of the history that came from reports he read and in truth no one died. Still, I would have fired the gun myself either way.

[_truth dancer]

Yes, but God is hardly alone in this. Replace God with 'the cause demands' or 'the future demands' or 'for the good of the people' and you have the same level of justification. Everyone these days seems to be innocent in their own eyes with a ready justification for why they did what they did. Adulterers always have a good reason, murderers always have a good reason, embezzlers always have a good reason. Their reasons uniformly suck to everyone else but there you go. I have ways I justify many of my faults and I suspect you have the same problem. Why should what the justification is matter to you?

Because believers seem to accept anything if someone claims, "God said."

My point is, the "God said" excuse is an easy and common one for believers to use.

For example, of the four polygamous leaders recently in the news who all raped girls, seems God told each of them to abuse these girls.

It is just weird how well this excuse goes over with believers.

~dancer~

[_RockHeaded]

This is what I don't understand. I've had many Utah Mormons state the Joseph Smith lied, and he lied for God. For some reason they say it is okay to lie if you are doing it for God. So basically it is okay to lie if you are doing it for God otherwise you are breaking a commandment given to us by God. I don't understand any of this, but for the record I am going to make this clear again, I DO NOT believe Joseph Smith was a polygamist. DNA is proving that he had no children from these supposed marriages.

Have you read the evidence RH? In Sacred Loneliness for example? I think it is difficult to deny Joseph Smith had multiple women. (I think they were more like concubines than wives, still...).

And it makes no difference if he had children from his other relationships.

If you think about it, he had at least 33 additional women, which means he wasn't sleeping with any of them very frequently. He was still in a relationship with Emma, (Joseph Smith was hiding his relationships from her), so had to be discrete. And, he was involved in all sorts of work, traveling here and there, escaping from the bad guys, etc. etc. The chance that he impregnated other women seems pretty slim, in my opinion.

As I've said before, yes I've read In Sacred Loneliness, I know Todd Compton via email. We talked for a few months after he released the book. No I do not find his book believeable. I realize that he did a lot of research but he never ONCE really took counter claims seriously. He went into his research with a bias. The difference between what Compton did when doing his research into this matter and what I did was this, I was willing to give up my beliefs in order to find the truth. Compton went into his research knowing without a doubt that Joseph was a polygamist, which is what most people believe because the Utah Church has made that the history. But what I still find odd is you and everyone else still find these people believeable even though they contradict each other and themselves with their stories. Joseph Smith never once contradicted himself, not once. Yet he is the one that is the liar. When someone contradicts themselves in court their testimony is no good. That of course is why the whores brought into the court room by the Utah Church were not taken seriously by the judge.

It's sort of humorous finding out that is makes no difference if he didn't have children with these supposed wives after I'd been told for so long that he had. See this is what confuses me, I could give all the evidence I have for this on this message board and it wouldn't make a difference. That is why I don't bother. We used to have some great conversations on this on ZLMB and I posted a lot of evidence there were others that posted a lot of evidence proving that these stories these wives gave weren't true. When I was asked on ZLMB when they prove through DNA that Joseph had these wives would I accept it, I said 'if' they can yes but I said 'they wont because he didn't so I am not worried.' Now that they are proving that he didn't have children with these wives it doesn't matter. Yes the DNA evidence does matter because Joseph Smith was not sterile so the chances of him having sex with all his woman (as the whore Eliza Snow eluded) and not having children by them is extremely small.

[_The Nehor]

Yes, but God is hardly alone in this. Replace God with 'the cause demands' or 'the future demands' or 'for the good of the people' and you have the same level of justification. Everyone these days seems to be innocent in their own eyes with a ready justification for why they did what they did. Adulterers always have a good reason, murderers always have a good reason, embezzlers always have a good reason. Their reasons uniformly suck to everyone else but there you go. I have ways I justify many of my faults and I suspect you have the same problem. Why should what the justification is matter to you?

Because believers seem to accept anything if someone claims, "God said."

My point is, the "God said" excuse is an easy and common one for believers to use.

For example, of the four polygamous leaders recently in the news who all raped girls, seems God told each of them to abuse these girls.

It is just weird how well this excuse goes over with believers.

~dancer~

Yes, what's worse is that we've been told since the beginning that that belief and willingness to go along, absent a personal witness from the Holy Ghost, is useless and those who follow it cannot be exalted. I don't blame the Prophets when the people just won't listen.