son of Ishmael wrote:Condoms have been around for hundreds of years. I believe the word was coined in the 1600s. A simple google search will prove my point
Really? You are actually going to suggest the Joseph Smith had and used condoms? That is completely absurd.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
son of Ishmael wrote:Condoms have been around for hundreds of years. I believe the word was coined in the 1600s. A simple google search will prove my point
Really? You are actually going to suggest the Joseph Smith had and used condoms? That is completely absurd.
Yes I am actually going to suggest that Joseph Smith had and used condoms. Why is that adsurd?
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. - The Dude
Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk - Tom Waits
son of Ishmael wrote:Yes I am actually going to suggest that Joseph Smith had and used condoms. Why is that adsurd?
And you can substantiate that claim (like all the rest of your claims so far) how exactly? I feel like I'm talking to Ed Decker's sock puppet.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
It is as substantiatble as the first vision, the Book of Mormon, or a dozen other Mormon precepts.
I posted my manual, oral, anal theory a couple of weeks back. Exu has confirmed the truthfulness of this theory to me. This I testify. Joseph Smith used birth control or moa. Exu said so... So say we all.
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.
Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality. ~Bill Hamblin
In response to the OP: I don't think that people tend to be "shocked by polygamy." My sense is that most people are introduced to Mormon polygamy in a bland and abstract sort of way. Either that, or they first learn about it thanks to those 20/20-type shows that put together segments on fundamentalist polygamists--but those aren't "actual members of the Church." And in Sunday School, discussions of polygamy tend to be watered down and/or whitewashed: you're merely told that it was practiced, or else you're given apologetic explanations: "There were too many single women who needed husbands." "These polygamous wives were mostly old spinsters and widows."
So it's understandable when people feel "shocked" when they learn about things like polyandry, Fanny Alger, Helen Mar Kimball, Emma's reaction to all of it, and so on.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
The issue is only partially "polygamy" in the abstract. Most Chapel Mormons know Brigham Young had lots of wives. What they don't know is that Joseph Smith had lots of wives, and what they really don't know is who those wives were and the circumstances of which they came about.
jskains wrote:What Joseph Smith may or may have not done has no baring on the truthfulness of the Church. I believe in the product itself, the LDS Church, not that Joseph Smith is some literal version of Christ Himself.
I am not sure why this straw-man come up so often, but no one expects Joseph to be perfect, but yes we do have some expectations. Also, why is it that I have to go to apologists to learn that nothing Joseph may or may not have done has any bearing on the truthfulness of the church. The church has always taught the exact opposite. How many presidents of the church have taught that it is either all false or all true. Everything depends on Joseph. If he made up the first vision or Book of Mormon there we cannot really expect his claims of revelation from God to be true. This is why it is important to see by his behaviors if he is someone who would make things up is important. Is he willing to lie.
Too many of you have such a black/white view of the world.
I would say it is the opposite of black and white thinking. Again it is a straw-man that we expect him to be perfect, and a terrible apologetic that will not help members who are questioning.
jskains wrote: The ridiculousness is the arrogance that anti-Mormons have, that they know everything, and that no other possibility exists.
Your minds are more closed than any other I know.
JMS
It's not a matter of whether "no other possibility exists." It's a matter of understanding the sum-total of the evidence and what it implies is the most likely.
If you'd like to hang your testimony on the possibility that Joseph Smith didn't have sex with his wives, that is certainly your prerogative.
Well said. Joseph having sex with some of his wives is accepted by most of the apologists I know.