What lies did the Nauvoo Expositor print?

[_Runtu]

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.

Obviously not, as I mentioned before. I have no doubt that most of the people who entered into plural marriages sincerely believed they were doing the right thing. But, again, that does not speak to Joseph's coercive and manipulative behavior.

Would you even try to justify this behavior in anyone other than Joseph Smith?

[_EAllusion]

I think it's overreaching anyway to presume that all of Joseph's wives had spiritual confirmatory experiences in the way modern LDS tend to conceptualize them. Unless you consider rejecting Joseph, getting ill shortly after, concluding that God must be punishing you for rejecting Joseph, and entering into a relationship with him to be a spiritual experience.

after all, other victims of religious imposters have claimed similar confirmatory experiences.

I think the sort of arguments you are employing in this thread preclude you from calling them victims of religious impostors. Or to be more precise:

Lots of new religious movements spring up and die down. Only a small handful make it past the first leader. Fewer still transcend the second generation of leaders into a lasting movement. It seems only the lucky few that make it into a stable movement that can go on for generations afford us the chance to retroactively write a blank moral check to the original leader. So L. Ron Hubbard probably will be immune from charges of abusive behavior, but David Koresh probably won't be.

[_Fence Sitter]

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.

Certainly it does. What do you believe led hundreds of people to drink cyanide and give it to children in the Jim Jones cult?

[_Runtu]

Lots of new religious movements spring up and die down. Only a small handful make it past the first leader. Fewer still transcend the second generation of leaders into a lasting movement. It seems only the lucky few that make it into a stable movement that can go on for generations afford us the chance to retroactively write a blank moral check to the original leader. So L. Ron Hubbard probably will be immune from charges of abusive behavior, but David Koresh probably won't be.

I'm saving this in my archive of quotes. Perfectly said.

[_Nevo]

Would you even try to justify [coercive and manipulative] behavior in anyone other than Joseph Smith?

I might, if I was willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt; if I believed they sincerely had everyone's best interests at heart.

I don't say that Joseph was right to threaten. But I do think it is understandable under the circumstances, and frankly I'm willing to give him a pass on this. I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes, facing the pressures he faced.

[_Buffalo]

Would you even try to justify [coercive and manipulative] behavior in anyone other than Joseph Smith?

I might, if I was willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt; if I believed they sincerely had everyone's best interests at heart.

I don't say that Joseph was right to threaten. But I do think it is understandable under the circumstances, and frankly I'm willing to give him a pass on this. I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes, facing the pressures he faced.

What pressures, other than the pressures of his over-active vas deferens?

[_Fence Sitter]

I might, if I was willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt, if I believed they sincerely had everyone's best interests at heart.

I don't say that Joseph was right to threaten. But I do think it is understandable under the circumstances, and frankly I'm willing to give him a pass on this. I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes, facing the pressures he faced.

Having read many of your well reasoned posts, seeing you respond without anger over and over again to constant barrages against what you believe and watching you acknowledge different points of views as you do, I think you would have made a different decision than Joseph Smith. I am not sure you will take it that way but this is meant as a compliment.

[_Runtu]

I might, if I was willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt; if I believed they sincerely had everyone's best interests at heart.

I don't say that Joseph was right to threaten. But I do think it is understandable under the circumstances, and frankly I'm willing to give him a pass on this. I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes, facing the pressures he faced.

I gave Joseph the benefit of the doubt for many years. It was horrible to realize just what I had done in justifying his behavior.

Would I lie to my wife about marrying and sleeping with other women? No.

Would I ruin the reputations of women who rejected my advances? No.

Would I send men on missions and then approach their wives? No.

Would I tell a family their exaltation depended on their giving their teenaged daughter to me as a secret plural wife? No.

Would I marry and sleep with my foster daughters (again, without my wife's knowledge)? No.

Not even if an angel came with a drawn sword.

[_Kishkumen]

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.

Nevo, I hope you are not suggesting that I believe that all religious experience is nothing but a delusion and that I know for a fact that there is no God, all of which make me perfectly willing to come down in decisive judgment against anyone who would have followed or does follow Joseph Smith. Is that what you are saying?

Because I believe I have been fairly clear about the fact that there is something that must be struggled with here. Obviously, if it is all so easy, then there is nothing at all to trouble ourselves over except how to persuade you that you have been taken for a colossal fool and would better spend your time on worthy enterprises. What I have said, however, is that care needs to be taken in how you argue Smith's case, because that has real implications for LDS people in the here and now.

I believe that the position you lay out is a dangerous one, since it implicitly allows for the possibility that an LDS leader can involve his people in atrocities with the only check being an external one like, say, the intervention of the federal government of the United States. Now, I don't think you will find this a useful argument as it appears that Romney and Huntsman too are entertaining presidential hopes. Americans want to be reassured that something more than the promptings of the Holy Spirit as communicated to a Mormon prophet or president stand between them and utter annihilation in a nuclear holocaust.

So, little do you realize that I actually have the best interests of the LDS Church and its people at heart. Some apologists seem to think that an unpleasant argument must mean that I am a hateful bigot who believes in nothing and wants to destroy the LDS Church. That is obviously nothing but a bunch of hysterical poppycock peddled by men who want to protect their important place and privileges in the LDS world. I hope you will be able to see beyond their histrionics and engage in a worthwhile discussion.

[_Nevo]

Lots of new religious movements spring up and die down. Only a small handful make it past the first leader. Fewer still transcend the second generation of leaders into a lasting movement. It seems only the lucky few that make it into a stable movement that can go on for generations afford us the chance to retroactively write a blank moral check to the original leader. So L. Ron Hubbard probably will be immune from charges of abusive behavior, but David Koresh probably won't be.

I don't say we should write a blank moral check for the founders of major religious traditions. I don't say Joseph Smith was right in everything he said and did. No religious founder is above criticism.

But I do think that when a religious movement gains millions of adherents all over the world, giving meaning and purpose to the lives of people far removed in time and place from the faith's culture of origin, that perhaps—perhaps—there is something there. Perhaps those founders perceived some truths, enjoyed a measure of inspiration, and weren't wholly misguided.