The Apostate Shelf

[_MsJack]

Not to be sexist, but I definitely noticed that women were more spiritual and obedient. If the church were true the argument for polygamy, that there will be more women in the celestial kingdom, makes sense.

That depends. Do little children who die before the age of accountability still get an automatic ticket to exaltation? And will they have to be sealed to a partner?

If so, there will probably be more men than women in the celestial kingdom, because the human sex ratio at birth isn't 1:1. It's approximately 105:101 boys:girls. But it's a strange fact of human reproduction that male babies are not as hardy as female babies and have higher neonatal mortality rates. Spread that out over the course of all of human civilization and you have quite a few more dead male babies than dead female babies, ergo more men in the celestial kingdom than women.

[_Some Schmo]

So, can anyone think of a single Mormon claim that makes more sense if the church is true?

Come on, Runtu. If the church isn't true, how the hell did I find my car keys this morning?

Explain that one, smart guy!

[_bcspace]

Joseph Smith bedded married women, unmarried women, and teens behind Emma's back? If you believe the church is true, you have to go through all kinds of stupid rationalizations ("where are the children?" "no cohabitation!") to make things even remotely justifiable. And even then the apologists don't seem too convinced themselves.

The cognitive dissonance in the above statement is astounding.

1) One has to assume that a 19th century horn dog with supposed sexual access to at least 30 plus women has no children.
2) Sex, even in the 19th century, is soooo much easier to get without going through the trouble of marriage.
3) The doctrine itself as it develops includes the notion that one can be married for time to one woman and for eternity to others (hence no cohabitation).
4) As Brian C Hales points out, there are several specific scriptural cases that forbid polyandrous relationships which is probably why you don't see any actual polyandrous relationships. Again, no cohabitation.

The overall straw man here is that the critics are replacing Joseph Smith's plural marriage as actual taught and practiced with Bennett's plural marriage as actually taught and practiced.

[_Runtu]

The overall straw man here is that the critics are replacing Joseph Smith's plural marriage as actual taught and practiced with Bennett's plural marriage as actually taught and practiced.

If you take the married women out of the equation, there's still the problem that he married and slept with women who were not Emma without the consent or the knowledge of Emma.

That is the issue. Your four points don't address any of that.

And besides, what exactly is there that I or anyone else would have to "put on the shelf" because the evidence is so compelling in favor of Joseph Smith? That he didn't sleep with all his wives behind Emma's back?

[_bcspace]

The cognitive dissonance in the above statement is astounding.

1) One has to assume that a 19th century horn dog with supposed sexual access to at least 30 plus women has no children.
2) Sex, even in the 19th century, is soooo much easier to get without going through the trouble of marriage.
3) The doctrine itself as it develops includes the notion that one can be married for time to one woman and for eternity to others (hence no cohabitation).
4) As Brian C Hales points out, there are several specific scriptural cases that forbid polyandrous relationships which is probably why you don't see any actual polyandrous relationships. Again, no cohabitation.

The overall straw man here is that the critics are replacing Joseph Smith's plural marriage as actual taught and practiced with Bennett's plural marriage as actually taught and practiced.

If you take the married women out of the equation, there's still the problem that he married and slept with women who were not Emma without the consent or the knowledge of Emma.

That is the issue. Your four points don't address any of that.

I think the larger problem is that you (mainly a general "you") allow for and encourage the added erroneous points. The rest that you have now admitted is the issue has very little conclusive evidence if at all and if true, doesn't seem to be catastrophic to the Church's truth claims.

[_Runtu]

I think the larger problem is that you (mainly a general "you") allow for and encourage the added erroneous points. The rest that you have now admitted is the issue has very little conclusive evidence if at all and if true, doesn't seem to be catastrophic to the Church's truth claims.

Here I obviously disagree with you.

Is there solid, conclusive evidence that Joseph Smith married and slept with other women without Emma's knowledge and consent? Absolutely, and the only way to deny it is to label the women and those who corroborate their stories as liars.

Whether you think Joseph Smith's deceptive and coercive practice of polygamy (I'm not sure I would even call it that) is "catastrophic" to the church's truth claims, it nonetheless shows clearly what kind of man Joseph Smith was. But, ultimately, it's the church's truth claims that fail on their own, so Joseph's character is simply confirmation that frauds are usually perpetrated by less-than-honorable people.

[_Darth J]

Joseph Smith bedded married women, unmarried women, and teens behind Emma's back? If you believe the church is true, you have to go through all kinds of stupid rationalizations ("where are the children?" "no cohabitation!") to make things even remotely justifiable. And even then the apologists don't seem too convinced themselves.

The cognitive dissonance in the above statement is astounding.

1) One has to assume that a 19th century horn dog with supposed sexual access to at least 30 plus women has no children.

So what you're saying is that when the Utah LDS Church obtained all those affidavits and testimony from Joseph Smith's former unlawful concubines saying they had sex with him, the Church was lying.

2) Sex, even in the 19th century, is soooo much easier to get without going through the trouble of marriage.

Except that you're denying that these were real marriages---they didn't cohabitate, remember? Oh, except for the Partridge sisters. I guess it doesn't count as cohabitation if you're secretly marrying the live-in help behind your real wife's back, though.

3) The doctrine itself as it develops includes the notion that one can be married for time to one woman and for eternity to others (hence no cohabitation).

This would be a great time to copy and paste the part of D&C 132 that says that.

4) As Brian C Hales points out, there are several specific scriptural cases that forbid polyandrous relationships which is probably why you don't see any actual polyandrous relationships. Again, no cohabitation.

What you do, bcspace, is provide any authoritative source from anywhere that says cohabitation is part of the definition of polyandry, or that cohabitation is an element of adultery. Knock yourself out.

Maybe you could start by actually reading a book about this sometime, where you will learn that in some societies, it was taken for granted that a married husband and wife didn't even live in the same house.

The overall straw man here is that the critics are replacing Joseph Smith's plural marriage as actual taught and practiced with Bennett's plural marriage as actually taught and practiced.

No, the overall irrefutable fact is that Joseph Smith consistently violated the terms and conditions of D&C 132. Under Mormonism's own terms, the way Joseph Smith practiced plural "marriage" was contrary to what the Mormon god supposedly commanded.

[_bcspace]

1) One has to assume that a 19th century horn dog with supposed sexual access to at least 30 plus women has no children.

So what you're saying is that when the Utah LDS Church obtained all those affidavits and testimony from Joseph Smith's former unlawful concubines saying they had sex with him, the Church was lying.

Nope. But were any of them in a polyandrous relationship?

2) Sex, even in the 19th century, is soooo much easier to get without going through the trouble of marriage.

Except that you're denying that these were real marriages---they didn't cohabitate, remember?

It's a HUGE problem of honesty and rational thought for the critics to go around knowing that all they have to do say "polyandry" to conjure in the mind of unknowing the image a type of relationship that isn't supported by the evidence.

3) The doctrine itself as it develops includes the notion that one can be married for time to one woman and for eternity to others (hence no cohabitation).

This would be a great time to copy and paste the part of D&C 132 that says that.

This would be a great time to remind oneself that the doctrine hasn't changed and that this can still happen officially and openly today in the Church.

4) As Brian C Hales points out, there are several specific scriptural cases that forbid polyandrous relationships which is probably why you don't see any actual polyandrous relationships. Again, no cohabitation.

What you do, bcspace, is provide any authoritative source from anywhere that says cohabitation is part of the definition of polyandry, or that cohabitation is an element of adultery. Knock yourself out.

Stop being coy. Everyone knows you know what image is conjured up in the others minds when polyandry is mentioned. That's why this criticism qualifies as yellow journalism.

Maybe you could start by actually reading a book about this sometime, where you will learn that in some societies, it was taken for granted that a married husband and wife didn't even live in the same house.

But they would cohabitate from time to time.

That fact remains that this criticism requires a pretty large paradigm shift away from the reality pointed to by the evidence. You guys would do better to claim that Bennett was the prophet of the Church.

[_Bob Loblaw]

It's a HUGE problem of honesty and rational thought for the critics to go around knowing that all they have to do say "polyandry" to conjure in the mind of unknowing the image a type of relationship that isn't supported by the evidence.

The evidence suggests that Joseph Smith likely had a sexual relationship with Sylvia Lyon; otherwise, she would not have said that her daughter Josephine, of all her children, was Joseph Smith's daughter. Now, if you want to argue that Sylvia slept with Joseph while she and her husband were separated, fair enough, but the only evidence for that is a family oral tradition. Either way, she continued to be married to Windsor Lyon and had children by him. I don't know that I'd call this polyandry, but it's pretty clear that at least Sylvia Lyon thought she could have been pregnant by Joseph, and I doubt she believed in a virgin birth.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Sorry for engaging in bcspace's derail of this thread. If bcspace had anything to say that makes more sense if the church is true, he probably would have said it--as it is he's just trying to change the subject.

And thus we see the weakness of the apologetic position.