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Your question was somewhat vague. Except there was a law against polygamy. It was legislated, signed into law, and later ruled constitutional. Social norms are uneven as far as whether they reflect "right" and "wrong." Broadly they do, but I think there are a lot of exceptions. I think we need to address the situation as it existed, rather than through some hypothetical. The interactions between Federal actors and the Church and its members were, after all, based on the law. A summary from Grok (in response to "The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862), the Edmunds Act (1882) and the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) were passed for what purpose(s)?") : As a produce of its time, I can understand why this law was passed. I don't have a solid sense of how much of the anti-Mormon sentiment at the time arose from matters other than polygamy, but I think most of the animus arose from that. This would have been proper. The Supremacy Clause and all that. I think this was more problematic, as it was directed more at the institution and less at the individuals participating in polygamy. And these measures were As a Latter-day Saint, I view the federal anti-polygamy statutes (the Morrill Act of 1862, the Edmunds Act of 1882, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887) as lawfully enacted and upheld as constitutional by the courts of their day. Whether the same results would obtain under contemporary free-exercise doctrine is an open question (there were a lot of rumors about the Mormons back then, and distances and communication limitations and whatnot created a pretty nasty rumor mill back east), but evaluating historical legislation solely by present standards risks the presentism fallacy. I have substantial reservations about the extent to which these laws sought not merely to prohibit plural marriage but to punish or dismantle the institutional Church itself. At the same time, the practice of polygamy was genuinely and deeply repugnant to the broader American society of the nineteenth century. To the degree the laws were motivated by religious animus rather than neutral public-policy concerns, their legitimacy is, in my view, diminished. Nevertheless, a functioning society cannot rest on individual “only if I agree” compliance with the law. Absent truly extreme circumstances, citizens are generally obligated to obey the law of the land. I therefore distinguish between de jure and de facto assessments. As a matter of law, the statutes were valid enactments, though certain enforcement mechanisms—test oaths, wholesale disenfranchisement, and related disabilities—were themselves wrongful. As a matter of fact, many of the measures taken under these laws were unduly punitive and harsh. See, for example, this information (compiled by my dad about my great-great grandfather, Alexander F. Macdonald) : Clearly, Alexander was not threatened although he was treated cruelly by his 7th Regiment captors. Thomas Ackley, another military officer recorded in his journal how Alexander Macdonald, sleeping in the guard house hall, exhausted after the long march from Provo, was nearly murdered by an imprisoned soldier. Walking into the room with his ball and chain, “One of these fellows let his iron ball drop, . . . intending for it to strike the Mormon in the head, and would have killed him had it not been that he threw up his arm to save himself, but broke his arm.” (The diarist later identifies the injured man as Alexander Macdonald who was denied medical treatment for his broken arm.) Ackley later expressed amusement at observing Macdonald and other prisoners working “. . . with large sacks of sand tied to them, others with large logs of wood strapped to their backs for punishment. . . . .” Later Alexander was confined to small adobe room, barely large enough for him to stand, and with only a small pile of straw as bathroom facilities. A frantic Elizabeth tried to visit him and bring him bedding and food, but she was turned away. One of the officers had Macdonald brought to his quarters at night to secretly teach him the doctrines of Mormonism. Alexander later told his wife that the young captain believed the teachings but feared that joining the church would jeopardize his military career. Eventually the Army was embarrassed into releasing A.F. Macdonald and he returned to his wife and sons in Springville. Hard to characterize this form of enforcement of the law as "right." Contemporary accounts, such as the above account (arbitrary arrest, prolonged imprisonment under armed guard, physical abuse resulting in a broken arm, and degrading confinement), illustrate excesses that rendered substantial portions of the enforcement morally wrong. Thanks, -Smac

I'm pretty sure that analogy creeps into one of the many heresies. As far as I can tell, there is no good analogy for the Trinity. Every attempt has a little heresy in them. In that analogy, there is a little of Subordinationism. The star is what generates the light and heat. So the Son and the Holy Spirit are subordinate to the Father instead of equal with the Father. There is a little of Modalism. There is only one star and each part of the Trinity is a different "mode" of the star (the star itself, the light, the heat). And there is a little of Partialism. Each part of the Trinity is only a partial part of the whole.

Sounds like three separate gods who happen to work for the same company. They are unified only in their business goals. In orthodox Trinitarianism, the analogy would have the entire radio station as a single, indivisible entity, but it simultaneously exists as the Source (Father), the Expression (Son), and the Broadcast Transmission (Holy Spirit). God is one undivided essence (one “What”) in three Persons (three “Whos”). It may have been Tertullian who gave us this analogy trying to explain the Trinity, in the sense of monotheism. The sun is a singular cosmic entity that has three distinct expressions: • The Father is the Star itself: The hidden source of all the energy, existing out in space. • The Son is the Light/Ray: The visible expression of the star that travels to earth and can be seen directly. • The Holy Spirit is the Heat: The invisible power of the sun that warms the earth and gives life to things. Why it works: You cannot have the sun without its light or its heat—they are not three separate suns, nor is the sun just “pretending” to be hot sometimes and bright other times. They are co-eternal and inseparable, yet distinct.

Hi Teddy. I have been getting better at remembering that I need to "copy" every post I try to make, because lately, if I press "send" before doing that, I sometimes lose the whole thing. But I still forget occasionally. I do not know if I will have a chance to rewrite my reply to you that I made on Saturday. It took at least an hour. Except for my acknowledgement of your first paragraph and the idea about the sons of perdition "get[ting] what they wish for", it is doubtful that you would have approved very much. So anyway, I appreciate your own comprehensive reply to my comments earlier. I'll see you around. Edited to add...I forgot again...this one posted. I wish I could that other one back.

It is a type of work. I am not talking about who actually works the hardest. I am talking about the stereotypes the Bible and Book of Mormon both perpetuate and they make hunters the lazy and idle ones. Also the mass death of beavers caused massive ecological damage throughout North America. The species inhabited a vital niche and mass depopulation caused a cascade failure for many species with effects we are still dealing with to this day.

That is just sloppy grammar. Plus it makes no sense. You have to know “they are virgins”. What does that even mean? Also not very classy with the “cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else”. First God is calling the woman a thing, an “it”. I mean, I am all for people being called by preferred pronouns but calling a woman a thing should only be done if she requests that herself. Not cool God. Also it (the woman) is his possession. Gross. And people try to claim that patriarchal polygamy isn’t misogynistic. This God guy sure does hate women.

If you are grateful no matter what happens is that even gratitude anymore?

They tortured their child until their child said they loved their parent and the parent called it love and mercy.

If I were to guess, I would call it the family of Ahman; otherwise, Alma 37:11.

Interesting ideas. The following will be entirely my opinion, so take it with as many grains of salt as needed: I agree with your depiction of us as radio receivers which need to be “tuned in” to the right station in order to be on the “wavelength” to perceive communication from the Divine. Attributing specific corresponding roles to the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Light of Christ seems like an unnecessary intellectual complication to me, but maybe it's helpful to some. Ime interaction with the Divine happens in the heart rather than in the intellect. I'm also not so sure about there being a “law of witnesses”. Maybe a “pattern of witnesses”, but I wouldn't use that as a litmus test. Let me elaborate: When we take a “checklist” approach to interaction with the Divine, we are in our intellect. And ime the Divine really isn't interested in communicating with our intellect; the Divine is characterized by Love and communicates with our heart when we show up “tuned into” the wavelength of perfect love (aka the Pure Love of Christ, aka unconditional love). This is where us-as-radio-receivers “tuning into” the wavelength of the Divine comes into play. Love in this context is a STATE OF BEING rather than simply a thought or an intention, but intention and deliberately-chosen thoughts can help us align to - "tune in" to - that state. We do not know the voice of God with the intellect; we can only FEEL the voice of God, and it feels like Love... yes, with a capital “L”. The kingdom of heaven is within, and within is where we can be aware of the Presence of the Divine, right now, in this moment, no "having-a-special-experience" required. It's a choice; a listening from a place of stillness; a surrender of all attachment to outcome; and a letting go of all the barriers we have in place which obscure our awareness of Love's presence. In my opinion.

I think the Lord defines virgin in a non-sexual context: 61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

And what is the name of the whole family? Interesting.

I finally got some answers. These women help the stake president with correspondences. This stake has been using this calling for a while as well. The previous stake president (who was released before I moved into the stake) also had these callings with women. I don't know what type of correspondences but it sounded like the women help write the letters. Kind of also sounded like they help with Christmas cards and other holiday cards. And Tools was recently updated and it indicates that these 2 callings are "Custom Callings".

In that case, the suffering of unsaved souls would also include Latter-day Saints who were not faithful in keeping their covenants or did not participate in all the temple ordinances.

Thank you 3DOP. You've explained it well.

Psalm 34:8 has always stood out to me. It says, "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." It is obviously poetic language, but the word "taste" stands out to me, because it is an experiential word. You can't explain the taste of a particular food to another person who has never experienced taste at all. They need to "taste" for themselves to know and understand. I included a note in my Gospel Library app attached to Psalm 34:8, with a quote from a Jewish commentary that I have that says: "'Taste', a significant word. More effective than theorizing about God’s goodness is the test of experience. Only by encountering it in one’s life can it be really known." (The Soncino Books of the Bible, The Psalms, 2nd Edition, p.100). There are similar verses elsewhere, like 1 Peter 2:3, "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.", and in the Book of Mormon, in Mormon 1:15, "And I, being fifteen years of age and being somewhat of a sober mind, therefore I was visited of the Lord, and tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus." Experience is required.

Thank you for posting this. I totally believe you. Someone wiser than me said: "Don't pray for outcomes. Pray for understanding." My limited experience as been that THAT is a much more productive approach than praying for the outcome I want. I've been surprised by how quickly the relevant insight shows up. Maybe insights have been showing up all along but in my default mode I am blind to them.

The still, small voice is the voice of our conscience by virtue of the Light of Christ. An analogy would be in order: (The Father is the Owner of the Radio Station; The Savior is the Chief Executive Officer and The Holy Ghost is the Radio Announcer who speaks to us via the Light of Christ which fills the Universe. We are the Radio Receivers.) The messages that we receive can be directly from the Holy Ghost or He may convey the message from the Savior or the message can originate from The Father. And, yes, we have to be in tune in order to receive the message. The MIND in terms of enlightenment and our HEART in terms of peace, will bear witness unto us that something is true. As the slide says, "There must always be at least two witnessed. Doubt / Uncertainty is a 'stupor of thought.' External witnesses are valuable when it comes to the bearing of testimony.

We are changed, we become while we learn. Would we be as likely to change if it was instantaneous? Seems unlikely, at least not in the same way. There is also the value we put on things we have struggled for…not in terms of wealth and possession, but meaning.

Interesting question. I'm sure you have a guess as to what the assumption is.

Pertaining to things I'd like to see in the life to come--I would like to fully develop my intelligence to be more like my Heavenly Parents: I would like to have the power to "translate" through time: forward and backward; dilate or compress (in order to make a moment into a century or make a century into a moment so that I could index to certain events.) I would like to "transcend" through space so that I could visit the least kingdom, as well as the greatest one. I would like the power to "transfigure" myself so that I could be an intelligence, or a spirit or a human soul or a perfected 'spiritual body.'

That would be nice to learn things instantaneously. But I get the idea that we need to learn things by experience, or otherwise why would we be having this mortal experience on earth? Or at least that's my basis for thinking that way. I mean, why couldn't we just have all the knowledge of this life and the experiences downloaded into our brains, the same as in the movie The Matrix when Neo "learned" jiu jitsu through a brain hookup? Experience has to be part of it, because even the Savior had to learn things in a similar way: "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8), and "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." (Hebrews 2:17–18) There seems to be some big reason we need to go through the experience rather than just receiving head knowledge.

I don't read fiction much, and I feel like I miss out on a lot because of that, even though I really enjoy sci-fi and fantasy movies. I had to ask my wife about the book because she reads fiction a lot, especially Orson Scott Card. Hopefully my "Wayback Machine" idea in the afterlife won't have the same consequences .

You didn't really answer my question. Or maybe I should have clarified to included that if there was no law against polygamy and the social norm was only marriage between one man and one woman, do you think it was wrong or right for the federal government to go after the LDS polygamist marriages and put any leader practicing or teaching polygamy into jail?

This goes along so well with part of a book I am reading, Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them, in fact the current spot I am in. Currently, it talks about the difference between obedience and fealty. That obedience can help us have good morals and be authentic, but fealty has us pretending.