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Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Hosea marrying a prostitute (apparently working, not retired), Israelites to steal Egyptian property (since iirc they say they will bring it back), Jesus saying something about hating mothers and father to follow him, commanding to commit genocide…

I have not read the site in full, but I have read the site. The main reason I haven't read it in full is I keep having to correct it and it just gets too frustrating for me. I don't see the point to read it in full when it is confusing, it doesn't cite sources (I sometimes spend hours tracking down sources), it wanders all over the place, it invents things (the quote from a book that I went to purchase is an example, though that was Historical Monogamy Doctrine). I get that you like it, so it somehow suits you. But copying and pasting it to me isn't going to help since my first inclination is to distrust it. My point is that we have pretty much the same contemporaneous evidence for Nauvoo polygamy for all that are involved. If others had died in Carthage, we would be having the same debate, but around them. The only reason why we accept that Brigham had Nauvoo polygamy is because of later testimonies and statements. So, saying that Joseph was adamant about polygamy while he is alive does not tell me that he wasn't practicing polygamy. Because everyone was doing that. Brigham was accused of polygamy and he wrote out an affidavit denying it. Joseph was a much more public person. So that is why he would have much more public statements. But it is only a difference in scale which doesn't do much for me since the scale makes sense when I look at how much more public he is. That's because no one accused him of teaching polygamy. That's actually an interesting thing because of all of the people (both pro-Joseph and anti-Joseph), in all later testimonies, no one ever said Brigham taught polygamy. It is almost always Joseph. So, the fact that Joseph sued and not Brigham fits perfectly with the story that Joseph was actually teaching and not Brigham. When Brigham was actually accused of something (Martha Brotherton), he wrote out an affidavit. The Nephi killing Laban is going to really go tangential, but MDD section 8 is just wrong. Its rationalization for why Nephi was ok to kill Laban isn't the rationalization that the Spirit gives to Nephi. The Spirit first constraints him (no rationalization at all), then says "Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands." and then says "Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief". The rationalization that MDD 8 writes out is nice and all but not what the Spirit actually said. That is something that you have to add to the story, not what is actually in the story.

As far as I can tell, that quote isn't a real quote. The earliest I've found is 2011 from mormonthink. Searching the entire journal of discourses doesn't find any match for even partial versions of the quote.

In the first thread in which I posted the Monogamy as Divine Design site (it was a recent month, as the site was released earlier this year) I remember you replying that you looked through it and pointed out a few of the sections that you didn't like and so didn't read it all the way through, which is, along with your more recent responses, what gave me the impression that you hadn't read it in full as you now say you have (unless you're thinking of Historical Monogamy Doctrine?) I would argue that going out of his way to canonize scripture explicitly against it, to sue accusers in court, to publish confessions from those guilty (John C Bennet & one of the victimized girls), etc is a lot more than simply being "publicly vocal" against polygamy. That is why I included that section. Joseph Smith didn't just excommunicate men practicing polygamy, he acted to sue one of the same men (lawyer Chauncey Higbee) for defamation for Chauncey having said that Joseph was teaching polygamy himself. Brigham Young certainly never did that. You might not think that to be a relevant enough point to mention, but I do, which is why I included it. You were talking about God, in your view, being inconsistent with His commandments, a view which I don't share myself. I consider MDD sections 7 & 8 to both be relevant to that same topic, which is why I copied them together side-by-side in my response, as they were responding to the same thing. You specifically said that God sometimes commands people to break previous commandments (a view which I do not share) and specifically used Nephi killing Laban as an example. Others have made that argument as well, which is apparently why Monogamy as Divine Design has a section addressing that very point, explaining why "Nephi killing Laban" is not an example of God telling someone to break the commandments at all. If you want to bring up a different scriptural example of God in your view commanding someone to break a commandment then I'm open to hearing it.

Got it. I don’t trust my reading comprehension at times these days, so asking questions that may seem trivial or nit picky even more than usual to others.

The data does appear to separate which husbands are polygamous and non-polygamous. The dissertation does use it in some other areas, but when talking about the impact of father's age on infant mortality, it doesn't mention using it. It does say it controlled for wife order which would be an indication of polygamy. So I said "try" since it wasn't obvious if they actually did control for polygamy vs non-polygamy.

The working paper didn't try to control for migration or devoutness. It did try to control for urbanization, parental age, and certain time windows (early polygamy, early anti-polygamy laws, heavy anti-polygamy laws, post 1890). So the the one that had the odd child mortality rate is mostly just polygamous vs non-polygamous. The dissertation is the one that tried to control for devoutness (using baptism, endowment, and polygamy) and mentioned migration but didn't do anything about migration or callings. It would be interesting to try and control for fathers on missions and other absent fathers (it does talk about separate households for polygamy but no indication that it could control for that). I don't think this information is in the population database both used, though.

Brigham Young claiming his sermons were "as good as scripture" (JD 13:95, 264), things "copied and approved by me," he was referring specifically to sermons that were transcribed from shorthand by his secretaries, like George D. Watt, read back to him, corrected, and then officially published in Church publications like the Deseret News or Millennial Star. The Journal of Discourses was not that. He also acknowledged that he spoke as a man, gave personal opinions, and made mistakes. Hence in 1862, he famously said, "I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him." (JD 9:150) The 1873 "Paris, Idaho" Sermon was addressing a specific group of men who explicitly said, "I don't want but one wife, I will live my religion with one." Brigham Young in his 1869 School of the Prophets instruction "a man may embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart and not take the second wife, and be justified", the defining issue was whether a man rejected God's revelations in his heart, not whether he was physically capable of marrying multiple women. The quote starting with 'Few, if any, of the temple marriages have been made binding...' cited from historicalmonogamy.wixsite.com as Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses Vol. 16, p. 167 seems incorrect. Volume 16, page 167 of the Journal of Discourses, is the end of a sermon about tithing. Historically, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both entered sealings with older women and widows past childbearing age (Zina D. H. Young, Agnes Coolbrith). If the requirement were strictly young, fertile women for procreation, these older sealings would make no sense. They served to form eternal, family connections across the covenant structure. Brigham Young didn't 'wildly contradict' himself, you can harmonize his statements. In 1866, Brigham says be "polygamists at least in your faith" (Journal of Discourses Vol 11, p 269). In 1869, Brigham says "a man may embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart and not take the second wife, and be justified before the Lord" (Wilford Woodruff Journal, Sept 25, 1869). In 1873, he condemned men who actively rejected God's revelations or dodged priesthood callings out of selfish convenience or fear. It seems to align.

So how did they try to split it out? Sorry, may just be misreading, but it seems like they had to guess who was and wasn’t polygamous from the word “try”.

Did. Page 62:

Maybe due, at least in part, to what I speculated…. that more devout families accepted assignments or circumstances that were physically harder for what they saw as spiritual benefits where less devout families based their choices more on their own family’s physical needs first…or didn’t see a spiritual need to follow the LDS community leaders choices? Did they control for where they settled and what time of year they migrated, etc? Or where they migrated from? I wonder if those who fled Nauvoo and headed to Utah eventually had a higher mortality rate or those who came from overseas (how many did that early on?) Could the more devout families have had more fathers out on missions enough to make a difference? I may attempt to read the whole study later…but ain’t happening now

This is the crucial part, correct? So migration was possibly easier for those not invested in the Church at all or even those associated with the Church , but not as heavily is their speculation for the findings? I would love to know the when and how of the families’ migration and resettlement. If someone was able to choose the timing of migration, they may have been better supplied and traveling during better weather. Same thing with resettlement. Non church heavily invested families likely choose most convenient and productive spot for the family, while devoted families might have been sent to settle places for the overall benefit of the community.

Did or did not?

You've brought up how much you hate the 'all men are rapists' issue so much that there's just no way it's believable that you don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not seeing the dispassion from you at all. I'm seeing a lot of passion. Edit to add: I posted these two replies right after I read your replies to me so had no idea that you and Calm had already gone rounds on this topic, sorry as I wasn't trying to beat a dead horse.

I get the feeling that you believe you are being rational and unbiased in this thread but from the outside looking in, I'm not seeing it. You seem to be as passionate as the rest of us are on the topic.

If you don’t want to be targeted for not being dispassionate, then stop holding yourself up as the example of dispassionate discourse while accusing others here of rage based judgment. Over the top labels and accusations do not demonstrate calm, dispassionate discourse. If you can use emotionally baggaged terms without being rage based, surely others can too. If you can call others biased without being raged based based, surely others can too. If you can use language that racist people use without being racist, then surely others can use language that those who respond in rage use without them being raged based based based as well.

Neither have I. I am also not so confident I am going to claim it for myself. Given how biases work, it is a type of blindness to judge ourselves as dispassionate, fair, etc. Our biases prevent us from seeing ourselves fairly as much as they mislead us about others. How would you know you are unbiased if you are? Serious question.

So why doesn't it refer to those sections? I would say it didn't refer to them because they don't exist. You quoted 56. The previous one about Utah polygamy is all the way back in 37 and guess what, it has no sources either about Utah polygamy divorce rates. I then kept going back and there are some that kind of mention Utah polygamy but most are focused on modern polygamy or other cultures. I don't find any source that indicates that Utah polygamy had worse of situations than monogamous relationships in Utah. But, that's ok, because I did go and find some. Here's 2 studies that use the Utah Population Database to examine mortality of infants, children, and adults. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?facet_department_t="Economics"&facet_format_medium_t="application%2Fpdf"&facet_setname_s="ir_etd"&id=1701242&rows=100&sort=sort_date_t+desc is a dissertation from 2019 and https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2026-044.pdf is a working paper from 2026. The dissertation was interesting because it looked at all ages. Page 45 has its hypothesis of adult mortality and points out that it couldn't prove or disprove the idea that polygamy made it worse for men or women. But it did show that if a man was more involved in the church (baptized, endowed, polygamous), his mortality went down. No sign that it affected women. Which is kind of contra what section 56 says. On page 72, it has the hypotheses if infant and child mortality. Two of them I found very interesting. The first one is that the older the father, the better off the infant/child was (discusses this more on page 74). I find it interesting because modern research has shown that the older the father is, the higher mortality of his kids are. But yet, somehow, in Utah polygamy, it was the opposite. And an older man also means he would already have more wives, so it might infer some relationship to polygamy (though the dissertation did try to split that out). The second one is that the more involved a husband or wife was in the church (baptism, endowed, polygamous), the higher the mortality rate. For instance (from page 71), if both parents are baptized and just one is endowed (so no polygamy yet), the infant mortality increased by 83% compared to non-baptized parents (aka non-Mormons). That is an odd result. And also kind of contra what section 56 says. The working paper focus solely on infant and child mortality. And it shows that polygamous relationships had higher infant mortality compared to monogamous relationships. But there is something funny in the data. If you look at Figure 2, it shows that a polygamous first wife has higher infant mortality than a monogamous wife, even in the first few births. Yet, men, on average, didn't enter polygamy till 11 years after first marriage (the dissertation talks about that). So, the first 2-3 infants for a polygamous first wife are in a monogamous relationship. There must either be some extreme outliers, something is coded wrong, or some other thing. And that makes me worry about both this study and the dissertation and any other study that might use the Utah Population Database. I, unfortunately, can't get access to the data (I have to be a real researcher) so I can't play around it with it.

Because I haven't seen evidence of dispassionate analysis. Calling the accused "rapists" is not dispassionate. Calling me a rape apologist for advocating for impartial and evidence-based evaluation of the topic is not dispassionate. Ignoring seemingly exculpatory evidence, or reframing it with no real basis for doing so, is not dispassionate. Calling all men "potential rapists" is not dispassionate. I'm about played out with your hectoring, Calm. You've made it clear what you think of me. Let's return to the topic of the thread, which at present includes the Cornell matter. Thanks, -Smac

They are men. You are a man. And yet I have no affinity with them. To the contrary, I find their behavior disgusting and depraved and evil. I'm just not sure it was rape. I have no "blood is thicker than water" sentiment or comradery because I share their biological sex. And what "way" is that? I think prejudice is bad, and we as Latter-day Saints ought to avoid it. I am disappointed, but no longer surprised, that you harbor this ugly sentiment. I would also disagree with ugly categorical prejudices against women if they were presented and/or endorsed/ratified here. If someone were to take, say, the number of female teachers caught in recent years having sexual relations with minor students and from them extrapolate that "All women are potential pedophiles," I would reject that on the same grounds as I have rejected the ugliness presented on this board. I think I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Objecting to prejudicial statements against men does not impair my ability to care about the welfare of women. In fact, I have that welfare in mind when I challenge folks like you on it. I think your ugly sentiment, and concepts similar to it, are doing real damage to the fabric of society. As a husband and father and brother, I am concerned about the welfare of women. And children, for that matter. This despite the fact that I am neither a woman nor a child. What a weird thing for you to say, Calm. There has not been "something similar." There's been an inversion of presumption of innocence. There has been a rush to judgment. There has been a mob mentality. Thanks, -Smac

And this is one reason why I think you are biased in this area. Because you insist on reading my posts over and over again as one sided, only addressing half of the behaviour when I go out of my way to state I am talking about both men and women being raped, being aggressors, etc. and use general terms. I see you do this with others, but since I know how I write things the best, my memory is strongest here. PS: there are other posters I have criticized in this way and seen criticized by others in other ways in the past. You are currently the only one that focuses on this so very much rather than just ignoring. I figure this is because being unbiased or nonracist, etc does matter a great deal to you and it’s not an automatic refusal to see it in yourself (not calling you racist here, just mean others do and it matters to you). This is a good thing, not a bad thing. So I spend more time responding to your responses than the flippant ones. You may not be intentionally asking for feedback, but it reads that way to me because of the time you spend on this and how you phrase it.

Or you might look at it as me only going to,dismissal when it happened over and over again….so I came to it after years of giving you the benefit of the doubt. And again this only applies to some topics.

But does that sentence apply to Jane Doe (who, by her own 2024 account, consented to the sexual contact that night)? Or does it only apply to the "potential rapists" portion of society? Is Jane Doe on this message board listening to the Law of Chastity or WoW discussion? No. Are the accused frag guys? Also no. Again: “Another example of why choosing not to drink, not to do recreational drugs, and not engage in premarital sex is wise.” Does this apply to lessons drawn from Jane Doe's behavior? Or just from the "potential rapists?" I'm not. To that portion I would apply the Brethren's counsel against prejudice. We are living in strange times. Categorical denigrations about "all Black men" or "all gay men" or "all Muslim men" would seemingly never cross your lips, but somehow you are okay with an even broader, and less justified, categorical denunciation that "all men are potential rapists?" That's weird to see coming from observant Latter-day Saints, whom I think should know better. Weird, but no longer surprising. Pres. Nelson: "Today, I call upon our members everywhere to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice. I plead with you to promote respect for all of God’s children.” “The Creator of us all calls on each of us to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children.” “Charity is the antidote to contention. Charity is the spiritual gift that helps us to cast off the natural man, who is selfish, defensive, prideful, and jealous. Charity is the principal characteristic of a true follower of Jesus Christ. Charity defines a peacemaker. … As charity becomes part of our nature, we will lose the impulse to demean others. We will stop judging others. We will have charity for those from all walks of life. Charity towards all men is essential to our progress.” Not really feeling a lot of respect coming out of your "all men are potential rapists" thing. Copious amounts of "demean," though. Okay. Thanks, -Smac

Yep….another emotional response. You don’t expect a fair hearing is being defensive. For good reason, but not dispassionate. And you are only in the dog house so to speak on some things, not everything btw.

That’s not the only thing that matters or the most important thing.