The Apostate Shelf

[_Analytics]

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.

According to a very recent podcast by the Mormon Interpreter, Joseph likely had sex with two other polyandrous wives as well.

In any case, it's funny that bcspace thinks critics have the burden of proof on this one. When two people get married, one is safe in presuming that they consummate the marriage. The remarkable claim that requires evidence is the claim that somebody gets married but doesn't consummate it.

And that is especially true when it isn't a real marriage, but rather is a secret one behind your real wife's back.

[_bcspace]

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

Sylvia Lyon already considered herself divorced, therefore it's not a polyandrous case. Olive Frost also doesn't belong in that category.

[_Bob Loblaw]

According to a very recent podcast by the Mormon Interpreter, Joseph likely had sex with two other polyandrous wives as well.

Was this that roundtable discussion? I got bored and didn't watch the whole thing. Could you summarize so I don't have to watch it?

In any case, it's funny that bcspace thinks critics have the burden of proof on this one. When two people get married, one is safe in presuming that they consummate the marriage. The remarkable claim that requires evidence is the claim that somebody gets married but doesn't consummate it.

And that is especially true when it isn't a real marriage, but rather is a secret one behind your real wife's back.

Precisely. None of Joseph Smith's actions make any sense if these weren't sexual relationships, as marriages usually are. If there's no sex, there's no need to hide the relationships from Emma, no reason to swear the wives to secrecy and trash the reputations of those who spoke up, no reason to hide the relationships from the public, no need to repeat the ceremonies of marrying the Partridge sisters. It only makes sense if these were marriages of the usual sort (if you can call sleeping with women behind your wife's back the "usual sort" of marriage).

[_Bob Loblaw]

Sylvia Lyon already considered herself divorced, therefore it's not a polyandrous case. Olive Frost also doesn't belong in that category.

Brian Hales is the one who considers Sylvia divorced. There's nothing in the historical record to suggest that she believed that.

[Guest]

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.

I fail to see where you address the OP in providing evidence that only makes sense if the church is true. Your post is just your usual trolling and dishonesty. One does not need to live together in order to have sex, and sex does not usually result in pregnancy, especially if one uses birth control or abortions which Joseph was accused of. You already know this, so this just makes you a liar.

[Guest]

People need to ignore the liar and troll Bcspace. He is purposely trying to derail the thread. He knows he cannot answered thre OP. Lets get it back on track or start a new thread about Joseph's sexual escapades.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I fail to see where you address the OP in providing evidence that only makes sense if the church is true. Your post is just your usual trolling and dishonesty. One does not need to live together in order to have sex, and sex does not usually result in pregnancy, especially if one uses birth control or abortions which Joseph was accused of. You already know this, so this just makes you a lair.

I'm learning that dishonesty is stock-in-trade for a lot of apologists. It's pretty screwed up that people are willing to engage in deception to defend "truth."

[Guest]

But this post got me thinking: Is there a shelf we apostates have to put stuff on because it makes less sense if the church isn't true? Can anyone think of a Mormon claim that is more reasonable if the church is true?
...
So, can anyone think of a single Mormon claim that makes more sense if the church is true?

My own experience in leaving the faith was not a quantum shift from belief to disbelief. It was more gradual. In the process, some of the things I had placed on the LDS-faithful shelf were taken off and set in their rightful historical context. Also, scientific facts about evolution, the impossibility of a global flood, the accuracy of the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon all found themselves eventually settling into their rightful places when examined in the light of history and the evidence.

If anything had to be placed on what we may call an apostate shelf for a while as I made the transition, it would be the intangible spiritual experiences I had less instead of a historical fact. I can only speak for my own experience, but these include some of the more powerful spiritual experiences I had that served as the foundation of my testimony. Experiences that weren't as easy to explain or dismiss just because it was clear Joseph Smith had lied to Emma or the Book of Mormon might not be a true account of a real people living about 2000 years ago.

I don't think I have that shelf anymore. But I know I did for a time.

So maybe it's a categorical difference that we should be examining, rather than asking about what historical or objectively examinable evidence comes down in favor of Joseph Smith? For me, the shelf had to deal more with the subjective reasons I believed rather than the objective evidence. And as a Mormon, those subjective experiences carried a lot of weight so they weren't easy to dismiss out of hand.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Sylvia Lyon already considered herself divorced, therefore it's not a polyandrous case.

This is untrue. Sylvia continued to cohabit with Windsor Lyon after he was excommunicated in November 1842 (and until he was rebaptized in Feb. 1846). There is no evidence that Sylvia considered herself "divorced" from Windsor.

[_Darth J]

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?

Your original statement implies that Joseph Smith didn't have sex with any of his unlawful concubines: "at least 30 plus women." Now you're equivocating to just his unlawful concubines who were in fact married to other men. Sylvia Sessions Lyon believed that her daughter Josephine was fathered by Joseph Smith. She would only have drawn that conclusion if they had had sexual intercourse. Sylvia Sessions Lyon was in fact marred at the time she had sex with Joseph Smith. No decree of divorce ever issued, there as no such thing as ceasing cohabitation being the equivalent of divorce, and she later went back to her legal husband without participating in a new marriage ceremony. That is 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.

Except that it is supported by the evidence of Sylvia Session Lyon, that Joseph Smith was purporting, in secret, to be married to women who were validly married to other men, and that the word "polyandry" means having a female having more than one husband or mate at the same time.

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.

I see. In the LDS Church today, men are officially and openly sealed to living women who are legally married to other, living men. Thanks for sharing.

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.

I take it, then, that you will not be favoring us with anything from anywhere indicating that cohabitation is an element of either polyandry or adultery.

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.

Nope.

Will Durant
The Story of Civilization, Vol. I: Our Oriental Heritage (Simon & Schuster, 1963)
page 31-32

"The notion that a man's wife is the nearest person in the world to him is a relatively modern notion, and one which is restricted to a comparatively small part of the human race."

So slight is the relationship between father and children in primitive society that in a great number of tribes the sexes live apart. In Australia and British New Guinea, in Africa and Micronesia, in Assam and Burma, among the Aleuts, Eskimos and Samoyeds, and here and there over the earth, tribes may still be found in which there is no visible family life; the men live apart from the women, and visit them only now and then; even the meals are taken separately.

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.

The fact is that you consistently have to rely on fatuous, ad hoc BS to explain your religion to rational people.