Trouble In Milan

[ebeddoulos]

Duplicate Post

Edited May 18, 2011 by ebeddoulos

[Calm]

Huh..

http://lds.org/searc...lygamy〈=eng

Dishonest much?

Except he didn't do a search on lds.org, he did a search on josephsmith.net.

To all who are responding in this thread now, In case some people haven't noticed, this thread is in Social Hall now. If you have complaints about someone else's post, it would probably be best to start a thread dealing with it in the other forum. Save the mods some work.

[jskains]

Except he didn't do a search on lds.org, he did a search on josephsmith.net.

To all who are responding in this thread now, In case some people haven't noticed, this thread is in Social Hall now. If you have complaints about someone else's post, it would probably be best to start a thread dealing with it in the other forum. Save the mods some work.

Didn't you just complain?

And FYI, both lds.org and josephsmith.net are owned by the LDS Church..

JMS

[Nemesis]

Didn't you just complain?

And FYI, both lds.org and josephsmith.net are owned by the LDS Church..

JMS

Honestly I will never understand you. Read the board guidelines. I won't be giving you any more warning.

Social Hall and The Chat room

These two areas are only for friendly discussion. If you use them to argue, you will lose your privileges.

[Walden]

According to google, there are 427 instances of "polygamy" on the lds.org site (many of them will, of course, be duplicates):

http://www.google.co...lient=firefox-a

There are 38 results for the site josephsmith.net

The search engine on lds.org and other church sites is not very good in my experience, rather finicky, always use google myself.

My argument was that they should discuss it as openly as they do with Brigham Young's polygamy. The polygamy of Brigham Young is taught in Seminary and openly discussed in pretty much any discussion involving polygamy in the church.

Why not just do the same with Joseph Smith's polygamy? Teach it as part of the polygamy lessons whether it be in seminary, young mens/young womens programs, etc. just as you do with Brigham Young's polygamy.

I still have not seen anyone answer this simple question.

[bluebell]

I learned about JS's polygamy in seminary in the early and mid 90s. I have no idea if it was in the manual or if my teacher went commando with the topic, but we did learn it.

Also, the church does seem to treat BY and JS's polygamy in a similar way when it comes to lessons. The BY sunday school manual doesn't say a thing about his multiple wives, for example, even though it's very well known in the church that he had them and even though it does discuss marriage.

[Calm]

My argument was that they should discuss it as openly as they do with Brigham Young's polygamy. The polygamy of Brigham Young is taught in Seminary and openly discussed in pretty much any discussion involving polygamy in the church.

Why not just do the same with Joseph Smith's polygamy? Teach it as part of the polygamy lessons whether it be in seminary, young mens/young womens programs, etc. just as you do with Brigham Young's polygamy.

I still have not seen anyone answer this simple question.

I'm not sure why you responded to my post, if you felt I was suggesting that there was enough mention of plural marriage already, that is not a position I hold....though I think it best discussed in seminary or institute where one has more time than SS.

As a side note, I posted those searches you quote in your post only to demonstrate in contrast to c's post that searches on josephsmith.net as well as lds.org will come up with hits on plural marriage and polygamy, one just needs to use a decent search engine.

It is taught in the Institute manuals, btw, at least the same one that discusses BY's plural marriages (the Church History one).

CFR that BY's polygamy is mentioned in the seminary manuals. I don't remember it there.

If it is not and that is not what you are claiming (that BY's plural marriages are a part of the seminary curriculum instead of being a side topic brought up by a teacher at his or her own discretion), whether or not it is taught is dependent on the teachers and any teacher that teaches about BY's polygamy can certainly teach about JS's polygamy. When I taught the D&C to the 14/15 year olds in SS, I mentioned JS's plural marriages in relation to the 132nd section. No one told me this was inappropriate.

There is a significant problem for discussing it in that there is much, much less info about JS's plural marriages than BY's. Teachers have many less actual sources to work with and much more speculation so I can see why this might lead to a preference to spend more time on BY's plural marriages (especially since by that time plural marriage was part of the extended culture/community and not just limited to a few individuals), but if they are familiar at all with JS's marriages I don't see why they would feel uncomfortable mentioning them since they are spoken of in the scriptures already. I personally find the idea of how he was likely attempting to use sealings to link together as one the faithful to create an eternal celestial family to bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven quite inspiring and like I said, have discussed it whenever it has been appropriate with youth or anyone else interested.

OTOH, most casual plural marriage discussions in the Church (outside of these types of forums) that I have experienced have been focused on discussing one's genealogy, I've known many who were descendants of BY through his plural wives. OTOH, there are no known descendants of JS through plural marriages so if the conversation is about genealogy, this would be one reason why JS's polygamy is spoken of much less by members than BY.

Edited May 18, 2011 by calmoriah

[cinepro]

Huh..

http://lds.org/search?query=Polygamy〈=eng

Dishonest much?

If I may be sociable and clarify (for those who may not have read the entire thread), my initial post was in response to TSS's comment "I don't know how much more the Church can be open about polygamy" in post #11.

His comment seemed to convey a feeling that the Church was now being totally open and forward in acknowledging polygamy, with no attempts to hide it or whitewash it. I thought he was overstating the case, and the most obvious way to argue for such an overstatement would be to provide examples of Church publications where it might logical or expected for polygamy to be mentioned, but it isn't.

Obviously, the easy thing to do would be to cite articles from years past from the era when any discussion of polygamy was verboten and history and biographies were carefully parsed to exclude mention of it.

But since TSS's comment would most obviously apply to recent Church publications, I thought I would helpfully suggest a way in which the Church could be more "open" about polygamy. And the most obvious example I could think of is the website "JosephSmith.net" (which, as jskains helpfully pointed out, is an official Church website).

So what do we find at JosephSmith.net? An entire website devoted to the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Historic photographs! Historic documents! Dozens and dozens of pages discussing great events in the Prophet's life and the early days of the Church! Dozens of pages discussing the doctrines restored by Joseph! Even helpful answers to common questions people have about Joseph Smith, including:

How willing was Joseph Smith to forgive others?

Did all of those who met Joseph Smith believe his message?

How did Joseph Smith exemplify the love of the Savior?

What were Joseph Smith's feelings for his wife, Emma?

To be fair, these aren't in a FAQ, so the Church isn't claiming they're "frequently" asked questions. Maybe they could be in an LFAQ, or Less Frequently Asked Questions page. Or QWWWFA ("Questions We Wish Were Frequently Asked").

But I digress.

We have this website setup to share the life and mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, yet nowhere is there a single mention of polygamy or plural marriage. Not once. Nada. There is an entire section devoted to Joseph's relationship with Emma smith, but not a single acknowledgement of Joseph's restoration of the practice of polygamy.

So hopefully TheSometimeSaint now knows of at least one place where the Church could be more open about polygamy.

Make that two.

Sociably yours,

CP

Edited May 18, 2011 by cinepro

[Calm]

We have this website setup to share the life and mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, yet nowhere is there a single mention of polygamy or plural marriage. Not once. Nada. There is an entire section devoted to Joseph's relationship with Emma smith, but not a single acknowledgement of Joseph's restoration of the practice of polygamy.

Assuming this is true and all the hits that I got using google as a search engine that indicated that josephsmith.net had 38 results were duplicates of sites on the lds.org site and not specifically located on the josephsmith.net site.....

You have mentioned this IIRC multiple times before so it would seem to be a concern of yours. Have you sent in your feedback on this concern to the website designers yet? Since there is a link at the top of the main page of the site, it is exceedingly easy to do, probably easier than making that screenshot and posting it here even. There is even a specific category in the feedback reply for "additional content".

Edited May 18, 2011 by calmoriah

[Craig Paxton]

I’m very sympathetic to these YSA Milano members…but unfortunately this is a problem of the churches own making. If the church were more forthright in sharing this information with its membership it would inoculate its members against the cog dis that these Milan members are experiencing. Once a member discovers this information… independent of the church…the church is cast in the role of the deceiver for hiding or withholding this previously unknown information.

The church needs to understand that they no longer are in control of difficult information. The internet allows information to be available to everyone with a computer and the click of a mouse button. No longer can they keep their membership from learning about this and other difficult information.

The problem with the polyandry problem is that #1, it is true AND #2, it is hard to apologize for Joseph’s behavior and still maintain believe in his prophetic claims. If Joseph married women who were already married, engaged in intimate behavior (which I believe the record supports)…there is no way to make this OK.

There is little doubt that if Joseph was alive today…he would be excommunicated for his behavior rather than being apologized for and excused.

[cinepro]

Have you sent in your feedback on this concern to the website designers yet?

No, it's more fun for me to have them not mention it.

[bookofmormontruth]

I’m very sympathetic to these YSA Milano members…but unfortunately this is a problem of the churches own making. If the church were more forthright in sharing this information with its membership it would inoculate its members against the cog dis that these Milan members are experiencing. Once a member discovers this information… independent of the church…the church is cast in the role of the deceiver for hiding or withholding this previously unknown information.

The church needs to understand that they no longer are in control of difficult information. The internet allows information to be available to everyone with a computer and the click of a mouse button. No longer can they keep their membership from learning about this and other difficult information.

The problem with the polyandry problem is that #1, it is true AND #2, it is hard to apologize for Joseph’s behavior and still maintain believe in his prophetic claims. If Joseph married women who were already married, engaged in intimate behavior (which I believe the record supports)…there is no way to make this OK.

There is little doubt that if Joseph was alive today…he would be excommunicated for his behavior rather than being apologized for and excused.

The Lord's Church is more concerned with teaching the pure Doctrines of Salvation, not entertaining or speculating on falsehoods that stem from an unhealthy obsession of what Joseph Smith "supposedly" did behind closed doors.

Projections are revealing, but know now and again in the after-life that Joseph Smith is exalted in the Celestial Kingdom so there is absolutely no need for "apologies" or "excuses".

[bluebell]

The church needs to understand that they no longer are in control of difficult information. The internet allows information to be available to everyone with a computer and the click of a mouse button. No longer can they keep their membership from learning about this and other difficult information.

I'm pretty sure the Church, with it's internet presence, is very aware of this.

Given that, i don't know that it can be successfully argued that the church doesn't talk about these issues in an attempt to 'hide' the information.

If Joseph married women who were already married, engaged in intimate behavior (which I believe the record supports)…there is no way to make this OK.

What records are those?

[cinepro]

No worries, I wasn't being serious. Just seeing if he could actually say something "good".

Ask and ye shall receive.

[Duncan]

The problem with "official" history is that history can change and not everyone agrees with the findings. So I don't know how the Church would even navigate this issue other then what they are doing now by saying we don't practice it anymore and you shouldn't either.

[bookofmormontruth]

Ask and ye shall receive.

ROFL "roadshows"? Good stuff!

[Craig Paxton]

Given that, i don't know that it can be successfully argued that the church doesn't talk about these issues in an attempt to 'hide' the information.

Really? Purhaps you should check in with those YSA in Milan and ask them if they feel that the information has been Hiden from them.

What records are those?

Have you ever read 'In Sacred Loneliness' or Emma Smith: Mormon Enigma'?

[Craig Paxton]

The Lord's Church is more concerned with teaching the pure Doctrines of Salvation, not entertaining or speculating on falsehoods that stem from an unhealthy obsession of what Joseph Smith "supposedly" did behind closed doors.

Are you seriously suggesting that Joseph Smith DIDN'T engage in polyandry or have relations with his wives? We are not talking in falsehoods here but confirmed reality. To quote one of his wives..."I thought you knew brother Joseph better than that..." The real question you should be asking is what is the church going to do with this reality now that it is just a click away.

My suggestion would be to throw open the doors and let the fresh air in...deal with it in an honest manner so that future young members of the church arn't blindsided with difficult foundational claims or with the difficult realities surrounding Joseph Smith's life and claims.

It is only through an honest open discussion of these difficult issues that the church can innoculate its young members and have a hope to keep them INSIDE the church. Because trying to make believe that this information isn't out there or not available to church membership just won't work any longer...trust me the cat is out of the bag.

[bookofmormontruth]

Are you seriously suggesting that Joseph Smith DIDN'T engage in polyandry or have relations with his wives? We are not talking in falsehoods here but confirmed reality. To quote one of his wives..."I thought you knew brother Joseph better than that..." The real question you should be asking is what is the church going to do with this reality now that it is just a click away.

My suggestion would be to throw open the doors and let the fresh air in...deal with it in an honest manner so that future young members of the church arn't blindsided with difficult foundational claims or with the difficult realities surrounding Joseph Smith's life and claims.

It is only through an honest open discussion of these difficult issues that the church can innoculate its young members and have a hope to keep them INSIDE the church. Because trying to make believe that this information isn't out there or not available to church membership just won't work any longer...trust me the cat is out of the bag.

Just because you believe in a falsehood, doesn't mean you have to propagate it. Unless, you want to refute the DNA evidence?

If the best you can do is your two mentioned books and a random quote to prove "intimate behavior" then I would definitely consider doing some serious soul reflection and answer why this really is an issue with you.

[Calm]

There is little doubt that if Joseph was alive today…he would be excommunicated for his behavior rather than being apologized for and excused.

Assuming he was alive today (and that the Church is what it claims to be and he was what he claimed to be), he wouldn't have been commanded by God to live plural marriage, so wouldn't have to be excommunicated.

Edited May 19, 2011 by calmoriah

[Calm]

No, it's more fun for me to have them not mention it.

At least you're honest that it's not really a concern for you, that you do this for entertainment.

[Calm]

I predict this thread will be closed since there continue to be posters that refuse to respect the Social Hall rules.

[mfbukowski]

Having been in the epistemology business, let me just tell you that certainty about what happened privately between two people 150 years ago, especially when those events are highly charged and supposedly "prove" or "disprove" a religion with 14 million members is just plain impossible.

The only evidence which could "prove" the events is DNA- not what someone said years later, especially when those allegations or quotes are colored by conflict between two or three opposed groups- the Anti-Mormons vs the Mormons vs the RLDS vs every other Mormon splinter group, all of whom think themselves not only right but infallible.

There isn't a single person, including those who supposedly have "testified" or who have been "quoted" who do not have an axe to grind in this discussion.

There is no physical evidence. Period. End of story. Believe whom you wish. "What actually happened" whatever that means is unknowable.

Edited May 19, 2011 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

I predict this thread will be closed since there continue to be posters that refuse to respect the Social Hall rules.

Huh?

How did it get into the social hall? Mea maxima culpa!

Edited May 19, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

Huh?

How did it get into the social hall? Mea maxima culpa!

I suspect the mods moved it because the OPer was asking for personal help.