Rational justification for Polygamy?

[_Yoda]

No offense intended, Liz. I love you for trying so hard. I will keep my big mouth shut on this one.

No prob, GP.

I love you, too!

[_Paul Osborne]

Liz,

I'm simply saying that God loves the sisters that are given him from his parents to wed with equal fervor and total love. Our Heavenly Father has an eternal increase of both children and wives.

Our Father lives in many universes and is able to converse with each of his children and his wives at what would seem to be the same time, but it’s not time, it's the workings within an eternal now, the kind of life that a God lives.

A God and Goddess are equal in power. Their love and kingdom is forever and they are totally united in every respect within the universe they live and all things under them, and all things over them.

I believe that those of us now living who choose to deny polygamy simply don't understand the infinite nature of marriage while they live in this mortal frame. I don't fault them. It's perfectly understandable because it's a hard doctrine for many to grasp. We simply can't really understand how the Gods live because it is exaltation and there is no way we can penetrate that.

(oooh, i said the word penetrate)



Paul O

[_Yoda]

A God and Goddess are equal in power. Their love and kingdom is forever and they are totally united in every respect within the universe they live and all things under them, and all things over them.

Then it should really go both ways. Women should also be able to have more than one husband. Women have just as much capacity to completely love more than one person in a romantic, or marital sense, as men do. Frankly, I think there is even more capacity, based on what we go through for our children during childbirth.

[_Daniel Peterson]

If that is the case, then you believe God is objectifying women. He has an abundance of wives....like he has an abundance of children.

Do you believe that he objectifies his children?

Sorry for being unclear. I was referring to the "restoration of all things". Will, Gaz, and other apologists on this site have referred to the fact that Joseph Smith had to restore polygamy as part of the "restoration of all things".

I'm familiar with the notion, and think that there may be some truth in it. However, I don't place a great deal of weight on it.

I don't know why God commanded plural marriage. I'm content to believe that he did. Why do I believe that he did? Because I accept the prophethood of Joseph Smith. And of Brigham Young. And of John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff. And, for that matter, of Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant, polygamists all.

However, I see two completely different entities working here. I have heard it stated (sorry, I don't have references), that the Christ fulfilled all lower laws (primarily relating to the Law of Moses). Christ's coming ushered in a higher law.

I've never seen things that way. The law of Moses, as I understand it, represented a descent from a previous higher law, and Christ taught a return to that higher law.

Paul made the assessment that the restoration of polygamy was made on the same basis as the restoration of the law of sacrifice. But the law of sacrifice was fulfilled by Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, so this makes no sense to me.

Joseph Smith, it has been said, believed that animal sacrifice would be restored to the earth, at least briefly, as part of the comprehensive restoration of all things. Chris Smith, of all people, has gathered some of the evidence in a web-accessible way:

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2 ... d-pre.html

Would a God who REALLY loved his daughters initiate something that would once again break their hearts?

No. But I don't think plural marriage necessarily entails the breaking of hearts.

Finally, I don't pretend to be able to offer a rational defense of polygamy. If I could generate all of the rules and commandments from my own thinking and my own reasonably benevolent character, though, I wouldn't really have much need for God's input. When, as seems inevitable unless he's flatly redundant, he commands something that I wouldn't have come up with unaided, I may sometimes have to respond just as Adam is said to have answered, when he was asked why he offered sacrifices: "I know not, save the Lord hath commanded." To have faith in God is to trust him. That's what the word faith means.

[_harmony]

Harmony, for you polygamy is wrong, and all the reasons you have given are perfectly rational ones. DP, Paul, Nehor, etc for you polygamy was right, for utterly stupid and unfounded reason, but if they make you happy then I am happy for you.

Thank you, GP. It is rare to find someone who actually understands me.

Ten years ago, I found out for the first time that Joseph Smith bedded Fanny Alger years prior to receiving the necessary keys. (I am a convert and I am well aware that I was a naïve believer). My world tilted sideways. The pain I went through was both physical and emotional for months. I shredded the boards (Trixie and others will attest to the fights I'd get in). I was literally rocked off my axis. I still get tears in my eyes when I remember the pain of those months. After attempting to find some sort of sense in all of the nonsense (numerous books, family journals, pouring my heart out to those who love me but had no better clue than I did about any of it), I received one of my most treasured inspirations: the answer to my question was a simple, "no". A quiet "no". But a "no" that surrounded me with the love only a father can have for his daughter, a familiar love that I had felt all of my life from the time I had discovered who God was. "No, harmony." The answer to the other question was equally tranquil: "yes".

Because of those answers (and a few other almost as traumatic incidences with local priesthood and Relief Society leaders), I found a way to accommodate both: I vowed that I would never again follow a man, but I would find a way to maintain my membership in good standing. I would again never trust a man to give it to me straight, to not patronize me, to behave honorably. It's taken me 10 years to figure out how to balance my personal relationship with God with my relationship with the church. I have found a way to make it work for me. I don't recommend it to anyone else, because it is a constant struggle, but mostly I don't recommend it because it is only my way, not anyone else's way.

I am well aware that many here from both sides think I am a fool, and that has to be alright, because no one here has any part of my relationship with God. And I don't share that. Dan and Crock and the others can ridicule me, patronize me, call for my head on a platter... and that has to be alright, because I can't abide any other way of maintaining my membership, and I have to maintain my membership in order to keep my family on an even keel. I read the things those men say about me and to me, that I'm stupid or delusional or foolish or misled or just downright wrong... and that's alright. It has to be alright, because the answers I was given are right, for me. I don't claim to be right for anyone else, but they are right for me.

The answer, for me, is always "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second.

[_Paul Osborne]

Then it should really go both ways. Women should also be able to have more than one husband. Women have just as much capacity to completely love more than one person in a romantic, or marital sense, as men do. Frankly, I think there is even more capacity, based on what we go through for our children during childbirth.

No, it shouldn't go both ways. Men and women are different and receive fulfillment in different ways both in mortality and in immortality. A women is totally fulfilled in one man in the eternities as she fills the measure of her creation. A man is fulfilled in many women as he fills the measure of his creation. The differences in the sexes is very distinct.

I'll agree that a mortal women can be romantically involved with more than one man. But exalted women are totally committed to their one soul mate, husband, and in this they are totally fulfilled in the realms of exaltation.

Paul O

[_Yoda]

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, Paul. I appreciate your honesty, and your philosophy.

What I have been trying to grasp...going with the idea that things are obviously different in an eternal setting than they are here is this:

As Gods and Goddesses, we will have infinitely more power to create worlds, to create life, to organize, etc. than we do here. We will not have the limitations of only being able to create life through sex. There will be many ways for us to organize matter. This is revealed to us in both Genesis of the Old Testament, and Moses of the Pearl of Great Price.

I understand that we will have an infinite amount of love..and that some may even choose to extend that love in a plural marriage situation. However, I question this practice as a requirement.

Why would my heart be so at peace with the concept of a monogamous relationship with my husband throughout eternity when we attend the temple together, perform sealings together, and look at each other in the forever mirrors, if it is wrong? Am I not feeling the spirit in the Lord's temple?

Will my husband be stunted from obtaining his "full potential" because he refuses to take another wife? Why?

[_Yoda]

liz3564 wrote:
If that is the case, then you believe God is objectifying women. He has an abundance of wives....like he has an abundance of children.

Do you believe that he objectifies his children?

Poor word choice on my part. No, I don't.

However, I do tire of hearing the comparison of the love between a husband and wife being compared to the love a parent has for a child. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

Thank you, Dan, for taking the time to address my questions. I honestly do appreciate it. You have given me some things to think about.

I may email you privately regarding some other thoughts.

Thank you again.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Ten years ago, I found out for the first time that Joseph Smith bedded Fanny Alger years prior to receiving the necessary keys. (I am a convert and I am well aware that I was a naïve believer). My world tilted sideways. The pain I went through was both physical and emotional for months. I shredded the boards (Trixie and others will attest to the fights I'd get in). I was literally rocked off my axis. I still get tears in my eyes when I remember the pain of those months.

Harmony, for the record -- I thought of writing you personally, and maybe should have, but here it is -- I don't for a moment minimize the genuine pain that you went through. I can well understand it.

But that doesn't mean that I have to agree with your resolution, which I think is mistaken and unfortunate.

I found a way to accommodate both: I vowed that I would never again follow a man, but I would find a way to maintain my membership in good standing. I would again never trust a man to give it to me straight, to not patronize me, to behave honorably.

I find that unutterably sad.

I am well aware that many here from both sides think I am a fool, and that has to be all right, because no one here has any part of my relationship with God. And I don't share that. Dan and Crock and the others can ridicule me, patronize me, call for my head on a platter...

I've never mocked your pain, and I've never called for your head on a platter.

I simply think that you're wrong, and I object to your tendency to make enormously broad statements on the basis of little or no historical knowledge, etc.

I read the things those men say about me and to me, that I'm stupid or delusional or foolish or misled or just downright wrong... and that's all right.

I don't believe that you're stupid or delusional.

I suspect that, if you and I could talk to one another, away from the audience here, you would find me more understanding than you imagine. And it's even possible, if you wanted some further help with some of the issues that cause you pain, that I could offer some.

[_Paul Osborne]

Harmony,

Your personal relationship with God is the most important thing in all the universe. Everything else hangs on it. It will all work out. The most important thing you can ever learn is that God loves you. Hold on to that doctrine!

I don't condemn you.

Paul O