Jason Bourne wrote:Joseph Smith unfortunately did many things that were repugnant to many of his neighbors who lived in his own time. Polygamy was certainly one of those. Culturally it was abhorrent to the world in which he lived.
You mistake my position as condoning polygamy. I do not. I also do not pretend to know exactly
why the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to engage in polygamy. He has his reasons.
And by the way, your foolish arguments about polygamy do not deserve even responses. If this is what you need to make you feel good about it have at it. But it is pretty clear you are not the authority on Joseph Smith that you pretend to be.
You have not a clue about with whom you are dealing.
However, when one has to decide whether they trust the person that says God is appearing to them and speaking to them well them his mistakes, egregious errors and even intentional things the person claiming supernatural communication does then they have absolute bearing on the decision.
I am not sure what your point is here, but I will say this:
I have read voraciously about Joseph Smith from the time I was old enough to read. I have read every book, every pamphlet, every news article, and every publication I could get my hands on. To this day, I read everything new that comes from the press. Joseph Smith made mistakes, and he had human failures, but he was a sincere, honorable man.
You know who says this? The very few that claim God speaks to them. Maybe the prophets are not being honest about this.
I believe you will find, upon further research, that there have been much more than "a very few" that have claimed supernatural direction.
Joseph Smith used his power and position and applied duress that would come from his position and power to persuade women to enter into plural marriage, yes dude, MARRIAGE, with him.
You cannot demonstrate this. It is your opinion. I assure you that I have studied more about this than you have, and I do not come to the same conclusion.
And yes, many of these marriages were consummated.
Again, I do not deny this. It has no bearing on whether he was what he claimed to be.
And yes he did lie about it, to the public but even more seriously, to his wife Emma. He hid many of these marriages from here and even did a mock wedding when she gave her permission for him to marry the Partridge girls when she did not know he had already married them.
You really want to bring Emily Partridge into this? Do you even understand this story? Joseph Smith mentioned it to her, asking if she wished the matter ended. Answering in the affirmative, Joseph Smith
left her alone. Later, Emily said this:
[In] those few months I received a testimony of the words that Joseph would have said to me and their nature before they were told me and being convinced of them I received them readily.
Tell me Simon, why are you so ok with what Joseph Smith did with polygamy but would never accept a man like Wayne Bent and his polygamy in the name of God.
I do not claim to know every reason for God's commandments. I accept that Joseph Smith was a mortal man and made many mistakes, as do we all. He was, nonetheless, a prophet of God.