SteelHead wrote:Does any one else think the phallic imagery of flaming swords is full of homoerotic tension. Is there something in Joseph Smith's closet?
Yeah, Joseph just f****d those 30-50 other women, including 8 or 10 or whatever other mens' wives, just to hide the fact that he was really gay. Uh-huh.
Seriously, Joseph Smith's heterosexual bona fides are amply demonstrated. I think the critical arguments are not well served insinuating otherwise.
I know gay Mormon men who married women and had children just to try and cure themselves of the evil gayness within. One of the biggest womanisers I knew of growing up ended up (very happily I might add) in a same sex coupling.
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
keithb wrote:I think that it's a funny OP, but I don't give Joseph this much credit. I think it's much more likely that he was simply that ignorant. The whole Book of Mormon smacks of a book from someone who has very little practical knowledge about the world. Everything from carrying bees in an enclosed ship to lopping off a guys head and putting on his clothes to problems with geographical distances and population growth rates are consistent with the idea that Joseph Smith was just trying to copy the Bible while sounding prophetic. I don't have to read more into things than that.
+1
What other explanation of the Book of Mormon do you need?
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Ultimate proof that Joseph was just dicking with the members to see how much he could get away with:
That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'; at another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy.' This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.' Dean C. Jessee (editor), The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, p. 507-509
And of course he (Joseph) being the mouthpiece of the lord, is the direct beneficiary of God's situational and transitional morality.
I am pretty sure the whole Nephi / Laban thing is so early in the Book of Mormon as a winnowing test to see who is gullible enough to continue. Can swallow that? Good, we can get them to swallow anything.
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