Mormonism's Greatest Downfall.

[_dblagent007]

I am of the opinion that when Martin Harris "lost" the 116 pages of translated Book of Mormon text, he merely hid it from Smith, hoping he would respond by offering a second translation of the same text. In so doing, he would be able to pull up the original, compare it with the second, and confirm with his wife whether or not Joseph Smith was really a prophet. If the two translations match, Smith is clearly a prophet. If not, then he is clearly a fraud. Smith responded the way one might expect a fraud to respond. He knew that if he translated the same text twice, then there is a chance the original version might surface to make his claims falsifiable. So he played it safe and came up with a "revelation" that said God wanted to punish him for letting Harris take the papers with him. His punishment? He wouldn't be allowed to translate that text again.

Kevin, do you have any evidence to support this view. As I recall, the evidence seems to suggest that Lucy Harris destroyed the 116 pages with the hope that Martin would stop associating with Joseph Smith.

[_Inconceivable]

Mormonism’s Greatest Downfall … Is polygamy.

… if every Mormon learned the truth about Smith and polygamy – just polygamy, ... the church would fold within a decade.

And yet Mormonism appears to be proceeding forward unhindered by the supposed impediment of its past (and, admittedly, probable future) embrace of plural marriage.

I think the principles and doctrines at the root of plural marriage are undoubtedly the “acid test” for many people. It is what separated the “sheep from the goats”

Unhindered?

Ask your wife (if you have one) what she really thinks of the possibility of you demonstrating your most sacred intimatacies with someone who, historically, will be as beautiful and younger as she used to be.

Ask any unmarried Mormon woman if she is at peace not being a first wife? Ask your daughters.

Ask your wife how she would feel about you dating young women on Thursday nights?

Ask her how she feels about giving your daughter to a hairy old man in his fifties. A man who regularly has sex with over 40 women. A man that will die soon and leave her an insignificant #41 used wife, broke and with fatherless children. Ask her how she feels about losing her elligibility as an eternal first wife to a younger man in this life.

How will your daughter feel about being passed around at the age of 22 to the next old hairy man that is about to die?

Ask your daughter how she feels about spending her wedding night with this experienced filthy old hairy man. Ask her how she can relate to the entire chapter of Jacob 2.

Being a wife to a Mormon was like death - a sentence to hell for this life.

After you bear testimony of these filthy old men as revelating founders of your religeon, ask them how much more they have come to respect you.

This is what is meant by calling good evil and evil good. This is why I have little respect for guys like you, Will.

[_KimberlyAnn]

What I find disturbing is that some Mormon men not only believe in the future practice of polygamy, they look forward to it imagining to whom they will lay claim in the afterlife.

A few years ago, back when I posted on RfM, I participated in one of the many Temple Name Shout-Out threads. Shortly thereafter, I got an email from an LDS male claiming that women were unable to be Sons of Perdition and that he would, if he were able, have me in the afterlife as a polygamous wife. He seemed to think knowing my new name gave him an advantage in that department, lol! He sent me a few more emails attempting to persuade me to go back to church because he could sense, somehow, that I wasn't truly an apostate. He finally gave up.

I'm sure my emailer was kidding about making me his eventual polygamous wife, but his core excitement at the thought of having many wives for himself isn't entirely uncommon among Mormon males.

How glad I am that I no longer worry over such ridiculous matters!

KA

[_Kishkumen]

Having just read 'Escape', by Carolyn Jessop, I am struck by how the FLDS is, in many ways, like LDSism on crack. So many of the same qualities, but in a more virulent form. So, I am inclined to agree with Ray A. Polygamy was the worst mistake Joseph Smith ever made. A good bit of it came out of his raging libido, and it is to be regretted. Having said that, I must admit that I wouldn't be here without it. Now apologists have a reason to regret it too.

[_Dr. Shades]

As beastie pointed out several years ago nothing mattered more to the Mormon god than Joseph Smith taking more women for himself. NOTHING.

Let's take a closer look: God didn't send an angel with a drawn sword to threaten Joseph's life unless he commanded the Saints, and the world, to boil their water before drinking it. God didn't send an angel with a drawn sword to threaten Joseph's life unless he commanded the Saints, and the world, to wash their hands before performing surgical operations. God likewise didn't send an angel with a drawn sword to command Joseph to make sure that the Adam-God doctrine wasn't taught. He likewise didn't send an angel with a drawn sword to command Joseph to teach that all races and both sexes are equal. And so it goes.

The one and only time God sent an angel with a drawn sword to threaten Joseph's life just so happens to be the one situation wherein Joseph stood to gain sexual access to lots and lots of different women.

Convenient, no?

[_Ray A]

I thought Will would see it as a sort of "Abrahamic test", God asking you to run a knife through your son, and really believing the "command" came from God. It's sort of like the "angel" appearing with a drawn sword, only this time there was no ram caught in the thicket. This was no "test", it was the real McCoy. "I will have your wife, because she was mine from eternity."

The $64,000 question is: Where did Abraham really get this idea from? If it even happened.

Those who spoke out against "spiritual wifery" stand out a mile:

Sidney Rigdon:

It is a fact so well known that the Twelve and their adherents have endeavored to carry on this spiritual wife business … and have gone to the most shameful and desperate lengths to keep from the public. First, insulting innocent females, and when they resented the insult, these monsters in human shape would assail their characters by lying, and perjuries, with a multitude of desperate men to help them effect the ruin of those whom they insulted, and all this to enable them to keep these corrupt practices from the world.

Sidney, for one, saw right through this charade. The real test of our mettle isn't, perhaps, whether we will accept polygamy, but whether we will reject it. Beware of "prophets" who ask you to do things against your conscience, and can convince you that it's "God's will".

[_Ray A]

Some posters on MAD weren't aware of this, so I'm reposting it for the education of other MAD lurkers who may have missed it:

Was Mormon Plural Marriage a requirement for Exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom?

[_beastie]

As beastie pointed out several years ago nothing mattered more to the Mormon god than Joseph Smith taking more women for himself. NOTHING.

Exactly.

So, if believers like Will are correct and part of the utility of polygamy is separating the sheep from the goat, what God really wants is human beings who are willing to believe that God cared more about Joseph Smith having more wives than anything else.

One could also argue that Joseph Smith' behavior with women makes him look exactly like the many other fanatical, charismatic leaders of unusual religions who seem to always end up accessing more females. So God wants believers who are willing to overlook the obvious fact that this behavior makes Joseph Smith look like any other cult leader.

Why is it important to God to have those sort of believers?

[_Inconceivable]

What I find disturbing is that some Mormon men not only believe in the future practice of polygamy, they look forward to it imagining to whom they will lay claim in the afterlife.KA

Or even in this life, My point exactly, KA

What a God awful legacy these polygamists left to their children!

[_EAllusion]

I don't think it is the biggest issue, but polygamy does present some serious problems. Notably, the shifting justifications, some retained in doctrine, others not, coupled with the disinformation spread about those who resisted strongly points to someone making up revealed religion on the fly to justify something much more ordinary and common across many new religious cults led by a charismatic male.