What lies did the Nauvoo Expositor print?

[_harmony]

The better question is whether god would expect you to. That is the fish slap to the face.

I have my own ideas of what God expects of me... and polygamy is definitely not on the list.

[_Buffalo]

The better question is whether god would expect you to. That is the fish slap to the face.

I heard a prominent apologist say that God must have a more "expansive" view of morality than we do. I guess I don't want to worship a God with looser morals than the ones He expects me to live by.

All the big cult leaders seem to have a different standard of morality than the lay membership. Joseph is no exception.

[_Fifth Columnist]

What happens when the Spirit tells people to commit genocide? Is it impossible?

Absolutely. Have you read the Old Testament? Genocide was necessary to keep God's people from following pagan gods (I wonder why God doesn't order genocide today since we still seem to have the same problem).

For a modern day example of the spirit ordering murder, consider the Lafferty brothers. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/5950 ... aunts.html

[_Fifth Columnist]

I heard a prominent apologist say that God must have a more "expansive" view of morality than we do. I guess I don't want to worship a God with looser morals than the ones He expects me to live by.

God's view of morality is very expansive when it comes to himself and his millenarian prophets. The rest of us, not so much. We are on the road to hell if we touch ourselves in the shower.

[_Runtu]

For a modern day example of the spirit ordering murder, consider the Lafferty brothers. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/5950 ... aunts.html

In a way, they were just following Nephi's example. It's better that Brenda and Erica should perish than a people dwindle in unbelief.

[_Fence Sitter]

You know when you believe someone is God's mouthpiece you will even drink the Kool-aid.

[_Runtu]

You know when you believe someone is God's mouthpiece you will even drink Kool-aid.

I heard an interview on the radio a couple of years ago with a woman who was a follower of Jim Jones but happened to be out of Guyana when the suicides occurred. She said something that I find telling and extremely chilling: "People always want to focus on the suicides, but they forget about the good things Reverend Jones did for his people."

[Anonymous]

Yes, they did agree to marry Joseph Smith because Joseph Smith, the voice of God, told them that God wanted them to do this and then the Spirit confirmed it. The last part is the real test. If God had not wanted them to do this, just like He wanted those young girls to marry or sleep with David Koresh and Wayne Bent, then the Spirit would not have confirmed it and they would not have felt such heavenly bliss.

So it is your position that the Saints who practiced polygamy were wrong to have trusted their experiences with God—the same God that drew them to Mormonism in the first place. After all, other victims of religious imposters have claimed similar confirmatory experiences.

Well, I guess that stands to reason if all religious experience is just delusion and "God" (if such an entity exists) never had anything to do with it. Myself, I'm not so sure.

[_Runtu]

So it is your position that the Saints who practiced polygamy were wrong to have trusted their experiences with God, the same experiences that drew them to Mormonism in the first place—after all, other victims of religious imposters have claimed similar confirmatory experiences.

Well, I guess that stands to reason if all religious experience is just delusion and "God" (if such an entity exists) never had anything to do with it. Myself, I'm not so sure.

Again, I wonder why you're shifting responsibility to the people who were coerced. I don't understand that. If they had spiritual confirmations, more power to them. That doesn't speak to Joseph's coercive and manipulative behavior.

[_Nevo]

Again, I wonder why you're shifting responsibility to the people who were coerced. I don't understand that. If they had spiritual confirmations, more power to them. That doesn't speak to Joseph's coercive and manipulative behavior.

And Joseph's coercive and manipulative behavior doesn't speak to why thousands of Latter-day Saints entered into plural marriages, often at great personal sacrifice.