Joseph Smith'S Polygamy

[noel00]

_{Didn't David pay for wife number 14 with foreskins}

_{"Wherefore David arose and went … and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife" Sam 18: 27. what does one do with 200 foreskins?}

[Hamba Tuhan]

_{what does one do with 200 foreskins?}

Well, if you're American, you use them to make women's cosmetics.

[blackstrap]

They were proof of death. We used to get 5 cents for each gopher tail we brought to the farmer as proof. No self respecting gopher would sit still for a tail removal. Similarly with a Phillistine.Foreskins would be much easier to transport than heads and be just as good as proof of death.

I'm not sure what the farmer did with all the gopher tails, same with the foreskins.

[Tacenda]

Oh I get it, BY wasn't really teaching false doctrine, it was kind of like a test to see if the saints were following the spirit. So it's not the prophets' fault when they teach false doctrine, it's the saints' fault for not recognizing when they're just testing us. And we wonder why there's a perception of infallibility of the prophets.

deleted Edited February 25, 2013 by Tacenda

[Tacenda]

Oh I get it, BY wasn't really teaching false doctrine, it was kind of like a test to see if the saints were following the spirit. So it's not the prophets' fault when they teach false doctrine, it's the saints' fault for not recognizing when they're just testing us. And we wonder why there's a perception of infallibility of the prophets.

deleted

[MormonMason]

Oh I get it, BY wasn't really teaching false doctrine, it was kind of like a test to see if the saints were following the spirit. So it's not the prophets' fault when they teach false doctrine, it's the saints' fault for not recognizing when they're just testing us. And we wonder why there's a perception of infallibility of the prophets.

Except for the fact that he actually did make statements to that and/or like effect several times. He left it up to the Saints. Here is one of several examples wherein President Young questioned himself and put it on the Saints:

But to return to my question to the Saints, "How are you going to know about the will and commands of heaven?" By the Spirit of revelation; that is the only way you can know. How do I know but what I am doing wrong? How do I know but what we will take a course for our utter ruin? I sometimes say to my brethren, "I have been your dictator for twenty-seven years-over a quarter of a century I have dictated this people; that ought to be some evidence that my course is onward and upward. But how do you know that I may not yet do wrong? How do you know but I will bring in false doctrine and teach the people lies that they may be damned?

(

Journal of Discourses

14:205)

President Young absolutely did not want the Saints to depend upon anything but the Spirit of the Lord. The preceding and remaining context of this passage from the Journal of Discourses deserves further reading, particularly as it relates to the reaction of the people to the Adam-God statements as related by a critic of the Church, who wrote in his Rocky Mountain Saints that "the mass of the Mormon people do not believe the Adam-deity" (T.B.H. Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints, p. 492). Let that give a little pause, if you think it through.

He also taught such as the following regarding Adam:

So I disagree with you, Mr. B., in the first point we have noticed, for you believe that God is without body and parts, while the Bible declares

He has a corporeal body; that in His likeness, precisely, He created Adam.

The priests of this age declare it is not so. The God Mr. B. believes in, is without body, parts, and passions. The God that his "brother Mormon" believes in, is described in the Bible as being a personage of tabernacle, having eyes to see, for he that made the eye shall he not see? Having ears to hear, for his ear are open to hear the prayers of the righteous. He has limbs that he can walk, for the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. He conversed with His children, as in the case of Moses at the fiery bush, and with Abraham on the plains of Mamre. He also ate and drank with Abraham and others.

That is the God the "Mormons" believe in

, but their very religious Christian brethren do not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is the God the Bible sets forth, as an organized corporeal being. In this one point, you can now clearly see wherein we disagree.

(

Journal of Discourses

1:238)

[Calm]

Well, if you're American, you use them to make women's cosmetics.

No wonder I don't like to wear makeup....

[Hamba Tuhan]

I rather suspect the sentiment may be shared by a fair few of the unwilling 'donors' as well ...

[Calm]

I rather suspect the sentiment may be shared by a fair few of the unwilling 'donors' as well ...

I just read up on the subject (http://voices.yahoo.com/human-foreskins-big-business-cosmetics-201840.html). Remarkable what they can do these days in medicine.

[Alan]

As to the Book of Mormon, only the practices of David and Solomon were stated to be abomination. Nowhere are Abraham, Jacob, Moses, or others condemned; just David and Solomon. According to the Bible, God gave David all of his wives but Bathsheba and would have given him twice as many if he had but asked rather than doing the abominations he did in committing adultery and then conspiracy to murder. Solomon married a whole bunch of women that the Lord had forbidden to Israel.

Supposing this is right, I wonder if Jacob's condemnation of the Nephites could have been that they were taking non-Israelite wives from amongst the Asiatic population. Just thinking out loud.

[MormonMason]

Supposing this is right, I wonder if Jacob's condemnation of the Nephites could have been that they were taking non-Israelite wives from amongst the Asiatic population. Just thinking out loud.

I am certain that what I stated is correct. The only people condemned were David, Solomon, and the people of the Nephites for disobeying a direct commandment given to Lehi for him and his general posterity. Neither Abraham, Jacob, nor Moses were condemned. The passage in the Bible concerning David being given his wives by God exists and I have read it in the Hebrew. It says what I stated that it said. As to taking of non-Israelite wives, that may be a possibility. It certainly would fit in with what Solomon did as to marrying all kinds of wives of other nations forbidden to Israel. Of that we cannot be sure, however. Perhaps if we had the Book of Lehi we might have had more of that sort of information.

[MormonMason]

No wonder I don't like to wear makeup....

Certain essential oils and other compounds used in the manufacturing process for lipstick and other cosmetics come from rendering plants. Most do not know that rendering plants are the receiving end for road kill that is cleaned up off streets and left over by-products of slaughterhouses. Imagine! Processed road kill on peoples' lips! How's that for gross...

[thesometimesaint]

Ever eat Jello?

[MormonMason]

Ever eat Jello?

Depends upon the kind. Some varieties are based upon fruit pectin whereas others are based upon pork fat. Practicing Muslims don't eat Jello for that reason. they have to be certain that it does not contain pork fat before they can eat it.

[Saints Alive]

Depends upon the kind. Some varieties are based upon fruit pectin whereas others are based upon pork fat. Practicing Muslims don't eat Jello for that reason. they have to be certain that it does not contain pork fat before they can eat it.

I believe certain companies make kosher jello from beef fat, seaweed, and fish bones.

[Maidservant]

Eve, in her perfect form, did not bear children. The current process that we are familiar with was instituted through the fall of mankind, and is not the perfect celestial pathway.

I love the way you think and express yourself.

However, I must sincerely, deeply disagree with you here, and say that the way we have babies now IS the gift--not the loss.

If there is any eternity where my childbearing days are over, then I will have entered hell, not heaven. If by some measure I am met by Peter at the gates and he says, "Hey, you don't get to have babies any more, or you don't have to, here you go, here's the celestial kingdom." I'll wonder why I did anything on earth for the purpose of arriving at that place and I'll say, "Let me find another earth, then, I can't stay here."

I do not think it is the whole story to say that Adam and Eve started in a perfect condition. Innocence and "complete or whole (exaltation)" are two different things.

I think we just need to awaken to what we already have. We already have the gift.

I already have the beginning of my posterity, in my six children and thereby the children they will have. It is already my "celestial kingdom". I know that my mothers (and fathers) far back into the history of the earth continue to mother and father me from the other side of the veil. And as soon as I have restored to me my body by my heavenly Father and Savior and or figure out how to live forever, by myself (endless telemorase, ha ha), then I will . . . have another baby.

We already have our celestial gift, all of it. We just have to come awake to it. That is our struggle.

However, I think you are right that the barren priesthood woman and the handmaiden is a significant symbolism, and no doubt you have more understanding than I do on it. But just in real time, if I am ever a god, the first thing I will wave my magic wand for is to get pregnant again. THAT is my perfect form .

[Questing Beast]

I have never before read/heard a woman state that she wants to have babies "this way" forever, worlds without end. Inconceivable. Perhaps you mean the process, but severed from the mess and pain? I hope so. I have imagined the "home world" being started by my soul-mate, by her swallowing a spark that is all that remains of the former world (universe), and having the entire new world emerge not only from her loins, but every pore of her body. Meanwhile what am I doing? Well, you know, WE are doing "it". That's what can't end with this life, or I might as well "shut down" now....

[Maidservant]

As I believe, in my opinion or understanding only, when Joseph Smith and heavenly Father presented polgamy and polyandry to early church members, it became a question that required one to rely directly on one's own revelation from heavenly Father; NOT by automatically following Joseph Smith. They would have followed him for a lot of things just by loving him, his charisma, and just general spiritual feeling. But when presented with something so starkly, hm, word . . . wrong? repulsive? . . . one is automatically (as I think) disattached from Joseph Smith. NO that can't be right. NO we won't just follow. One HAS to take that to God. So God created an entire people who were prophets and knew how to talk to Him without going through Joseph Smith; especially the women. And this people of prophets were especially needed to be created because the next trial was the exodus; so that had to be taken by people who were sure, not followers. Not to mention that that is just the kind of people God wants.

I once drove through a snow blizzard that was impossible to see through, it caught us by surprise in a pass. I couldn't turn around. I couldn't stop, because that would be dangerous too (fall off cliff, cause a crash from someone behind me), I couldn't see in front of me. It is very interesting to be placed in that position. I became very calm and I said to God, whether we live or die is just you. I can't see and I can't change this situation. So I kept driving and I'm still living today. My point is not that polygamy is like not seeing but that polygamy, being asked to live polgamy is a situation that simply cannot be replicated or understood from the outside. I can't replicate "driving through snowstorm blind" nor would I want to replicate just to prove to myself that I trust God. But it did happen and I did trust when that was my choice.

Again, God created an unreplicatable experience for those people who were asked that, from Joseph Smith to any. We are supposed to do WHAT? So you don't just follow. You find out for yourself. God couldn't just ask, "Do you trust me?" or do a run of the mill trial like getting sick and trusting God through the flu (which was a common lot of man). He put them waaaay outside their knowing zone. I've talked about trust but I don't think that was the issue; it was communication. It's actually creating the condition that actually gets you a direct line to being able to hearing God. You finally know that you CAN HEAR.

It's like training in martial arts and believing you can win the tournament. And then there's actually being the karate kid and your knee is broken and you have to draw on what you learned somewhere and actually use it in a miraculous way. You can't REPLICATE that kind of experience. You get thrown out of what you thought was reality, so you make a choice outside of what you thought reality was . . . and you find yourself still alive.

I know I'm being clear as mud. But I think this was a karate kid tournament KICK moment (can't remember what that kick was called) for those people. It wasn't a moment for us. It was a moment for them and their preparation.

Having said that, I do not subscribe to Victorian/Greco-Roman moralism automatically. I don't think the number of one's partners is what makes you moral or immoral. There may be other moral issues related to how best to go forward with multiple partners, but the basic morality based on the body count is not one of them (as I understand). So every time I hear people having a problem with polgamy at all anywhere, any time . . . how did we as a people over the age of time decide this was a negative, to even USE it as cannon fodder against Joseph Smith or anyone else? This says something about us as human beings as a whole, not as Joseph Smith in particular. You know those optical illusions that get switched inside out and you see different things even though it's the same lines and drawing? This is it. We are all on the outside looking in at Joseph Smith/BY/God trying to justify or not justify, for better or worse, something outside of what we think reality should be formulated.

But what if it's the other way around? What if "we're" on the blind inside and God/Joseph Smith is on the "outside" in a larger reality that is challenging us to justify why we as human beings have created the reality that we have (monogamy)? How dare we, even?

It's not hard to imagine why Jacob in the Book of Mormon said what he did, because of who he was talking to (or as may have been the case, I nor you could not possibly know), but really were the people he was talking to even ready for a discussion of this kind at all? That the men who were choosing wives were soaked in selfishness and could not be taught in that spiritual condition about any other thing. The only way those men could make a right choice to leave selfishness and go into integrity and love was to stop choosing extra wives and concubines and love the wife of their youth. They were choosing wives as a sign of wealth.

Now, I am not saying we cannot examine Joseph Smith and his choices. We should. But I hope I have at least provided some other directions thinking can go with this.

I was sealed to one husband in my youth. I expect to have another husband in this lifetime, God willing. Which one should I leave? Which one should I miss for eternity? Which one should I choose? Should I take my second husband and bind my heart to his and take a journey into the love of God with him and then just leave him at death's doorstep and say, oops, sealed to this other guy, sorry? Or should I get rid of my first husband with whom I do not have an emotional affinity but with whom I share children? Should I do that to my children, break up their parents? Should I stop parenting with this man, which I think we do that much well together?

When I asked God this question, distraught, I then first learned about Joseph Smith's polyandry (hadn't heard before then, so I was in my 30s). And I was comforted, relieved.

Who do I want to lose?

The answer is no one. We don't want to lose anyone!

We don't want to lose father, mother, brother, sister, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, neighbors. We marry people, we baptize people, we have tons of kids, we seal people, we do geneology to find people, we have a universal heaven where you don't even have to be part of our church, we make anything that works so we don't have to lose anyone!

There are issues, sure.

Overall, positive. Overall, from God. Overall, even if not from God, you can't blame Joseph Smith for believing so grandly.

And certainly Brigham Young was a different kind of man, different kind of charisma.

. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . and for the record

. . . Adam is God.

[Maidservant]

I have never before read/heard a woman state that she wants to have babies "this way" forever, worlds without end. Inconceivable. Perhaps you mean the process, but severed from the mess and pain? I hope so. I have imagined the "home world" being started by my soul-mate, by her swallowing a spark that is all that remains of the former world (universe), and having the entire new world emerge not only from her loins, but every pore of her body. Meanwhile what am I doing? Well, you know, WE are doing "it". That's what can't end with this life, or I might as well "shut down" now....

Obviously, anything that can be done to make the process successful every time and without danger would be good. I hope we are going that direction already, medically or holistically. As you know, I believe heaven is here and we are creating it, so I think all the things we are learning are part of that progress. The birth process (barring complications) is holy and amazing and athletic. I don't even need the pain part to stop, although I wouldn't mind if it did. But it's not the pain. Why climb a mountain to see the view if you're not going to sweat and have a hard time breathing and get your muscles overworked? Pain is not all bad, 100 percent of the time. Ask Olympic athletes if they would want to run in heaven and if they want it easy and the pain gone.

Yes, I always want to physically have babies . . . without the bad things that can happen. But physical, yes. That makes them mine, too, with the genetic stuff going on. I create their bodies. And holding a tiny newborn after? One of the most holy moments possible? How can it be holy without the pain or at least the exertion? (I do take drugs, ha ha!) How can this moment after birth with a brand new spirit (child! wo!) in a brand new body--be a telestial version? To me, it's not. To me we've flipped everything inside out and become blind. Why would I trade this in for a milktoast version . . . although I do like the image you present as well . . .pores of her body, hmmm . . .

But having bodies and doing bodily things IS the sacred, IS the celestial. Without bodies . . . not so much. ( . . . Who told you that you were naked? . . .)

Who do I want to be my last child? The answer is . . . I do not want a last child. I always want . . . one more.

We say that the work a mother does to bring a child into the world mirrors the atonement (or the blood, spirit, water version of it), and isn't that wonderful. But as I see it . . . it's the other way around.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Maidservant

[Questing Beast]

...

There are issues, sure.

Overall, positive. Overall, from God. Overall, even if not from God, you can't blame Joseph Smith for believing so grandly.

And certainly Brigham Young was a different kind of man, different kind of charisma.

. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . and for the record

. . . Adam is God.

I don't know if you said that last bit to get a reaction or what, but Adam is definitely not "God", anymore than I am, than you are. So it's like saying something superfluous.

The problem with polygamy is the same thing as genocide in the OT, it is asking individuals to turn off their consciences long enough to "pray about it", because "the prophet" commanded them to, to get their own answer. The immorality of the practices referred to is the automatic caveat. To be told by some "prophet" to "go and get your own answer from the Lord" is obscene logic, IMHO. Because "God" does not train up a seeking person to recognize the DANGER! signposts, then strip them away. Your drive in a snowstorm is a non sequitur as applied to JS and BY, et al. the "people of prophets especially the women" who entered into "the practice". Because you did nothing wrong to enter into that snowstorm. It caught you out. What you are insinuating is that JS and BY caught the Saints out. If "God" was doing the catching through them that is just perverse, IMHO. So I do not hold any faith in any oracles anymore. I had little enough from a child on, but I tried to develop faith in oracles/authorities. It doesn't work for me. I don't think it is supposed to....

[Questing Beast]

... I believe heaven is here and we are creating it, so I think all the things we are learning are part of that progress.

I don't see this actual world/universe, as perishable as it is ("all things, heavens and earths, shall pass away, but there will be a new heaven and a new earth"), as "heaven". But I do see it as training ground for making our immortal "home world" into heaven. Heaven is Joy, and that increases forever. So there is no end to the "project" of building heaven.

...

We say that the work a mother does to bring a child into the world mirrors the atonement (or the blood, spirit, water version of it), and isn't that wonderful. But as I see it . . . it's the other way around.

Now that's a thought: the atonement as mirror to childbirth. I will probably think about that some more. But I don't get into the visceral mortality of "being there" (here) as a mirror of the immortal world, the "home world" we awoke to when "God" "birthed" us. At some point in space-time we had our first awareness of "self", immortal, perfect, imperishable, possessing the full range of senses (which this world mimics poorly), and utterly devoid of anything like original sin, yet possessing the seeds of opposition, which the BoM calls weaknesses, which God gave to us. Each person is a unique blend of beginning strengths and weaknesses in their perfection. Then we went on from there, and here we are. Isn't it grand? Death is nothing, less than nothing, but I do fear pain, and that's my weaknesses talking....

[Maidservant]

I don't know if you said that last bit to get a reaction or what, but Adam is definitely not "God", anymore than I am, than you are. So it's like saying something superfluous.

It's like saying there is more than one way to think about it and whenever someone says the opposite, I am not in any consensus with it. But I agree in terms of communication style in my post, it was useless.

it is asking individuals to turn off their consciences long enough to "pray about it",

could be

because "the prophet" commanded them to, to get their own answer . . . obscene logic,

I didn't say that. I didn't say anything about the prophet asking them to do that. It's meant to be something you think in your own mind, otherwise there is no point to everything else I said, the scenario already doesn't work. Your criticisms that you point out are helpful to me, but I didn't say this and this is not a piece of my "logic" at all.

Because "God" does not train up a seeking person to recognize the DANGER! signposts, then strip them away.

True. And if that's how you are seeing the situation, then I can see why you'd say that.

If "God" was doing the catching through them that is just perverse, IMHO.

Again, if that's how you see the situation, I agree. And as far as I'm concerned you misused my example, but that's okay, I know I wasn't getting my point across. Where you say "catch", I might say "teach". It's not a catch, it's a creating. You don't have to agree, but I hope you didn't misunderstand from my point of view. In any case, I would take what the original people said about their own experience, before my own musings. What I have to say is just my own answer when I asked God and pondered about it. Since then I don't about it much except for this forum, because I don't think about past and future much. Was "wax on, wax off" from Mr. Miyagi a "catch" or a "teaching"? According to the way some people shape things like that, we would have to call it a lie, because the "wax on, wax off" had nothing to with cleaning, but Mr. Miyagi didn't explain. He just said, "Do it" and in course of time by experience, the student learned by being in position exactly what these things meant, in a way he could never have learned just by being told. And this is more than just a metaphor--I actually experience teaching from God like this, leading me from experience to experience, wax on, wax off. I don't get my lessons from sitting in Sunday School.

God asking his people to practice polygamy (if one accepts that he is the one who did the asking) without letting them know a full purpose (or maybe he did?), is not a catch. It has a purpose of one sort or another. I have said that I think the purpose was for them to come to him directly. If God didn't ask it, then there's no purpose, unless as human beings we would like to invent other interesting things to do, which polygamy can be one of them if we want to.

So I do not hold any faith in any oracles anymore. I had little enough from a child on, but I tried to develop faith in oracles/authorities. It doesn't work for me. I don't think it is supposed to....

Yep. Which is oddly what I just meant with everything I said.

[canard78]

Brigham Young himself warned the Saints to get the Spirit so that they would know whether or not he was teaching the truth on any given subject. He kept hinting around about "what if" he would teach the people lies so they might be damned, and the people not know it without the Spirit. Oddly enough, each time he made some comment like that he also shortly afterward made an Adam-God comment. Coincidence?

You're joking aren't you? Please tell me the little wink was you joking?

Brigham did indeed say he really hoped people got their own witness... But there's a bit that's left out usually when it's quoted (bolded) which suggests it's also about him wanting people to know, so he could have more influence on them from then on (and not an instruction to pray about every statement):

BRIGHAM YOUNG, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 12, 1862

I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inqure for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourse 9:150)

I love the quote, but the idea that he'd set doctrinal traps is a little unpleasant. Maybe that's one style of mental gymnastics to get ones head around some of the frankly ridiculous things he said. I think BY was a great pioneer leader, and fit for purpose of setting up as a Western commune leader... But his theology seems scatter-gun. And it seems to be under his leadership (not Joseph's) that both polygamy and non-black priesthood got fully established as institutional.

I can see why most of the 1830s founders found it difficult to stomach what mormonism became in Utah and, as a result, denounced it. While my practice is in the output of that 19thC Utah church, I'm glad it doesn't look very much like it. Having said that, maybe all just fit for purpose. I like living in England. I'm glad it's not still Victorian England.

[thesometimesaint]

I believe certain companies make kosher jello from beef fat, seaweed, and fish bones.

From Wiki: Gelatin is a mixture of peptides and proteins produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the skin, boiled crushed horn, hoof and bones, connective tissues, organs and some intestines of animals such as domesticated cattle, chicken, pigs, and horses.

[Questing Beast]

So I do not hold any faith in any oracles anymore. I had little enough from a child on, but I tried to develop faith in oracles/authorities. It doesn't work for me. I don't think it is supposed to....

Yep. Which is oddly what I just meant with everything I said.

Oddly indeed. I feel like we just talked past each other. The limitations of this medium of "exchange" is probably most of the fault.

"His people" is an assertion as well. We are ALL "his people", no exceptions, ever, anywhere. That makes the Old Testament and all subsequent Abrahamic religions that view themselves as "the chosen" false paradigms when viewing themselves vis-a-vis the rest of the world. "God" never separated out a "chosen people". Just as soon as a self-IDing people focused on their "prophet", they got the message all messed up: they thought that God was telling them they were his special treasure and that he hated everyone around them who did not believe the "prophet", and that he was going to destroy them (cleanse the earth of them), etc. Worse yet, they had some crazy "prophet" tell them to go into the lands of their neighbors and slay everyone and all their animals, no exceptions, no mercy, no questioning. They failed to do this impossible thing. In fact they married the people they spared. Limited attempts were made to be obedient to the crazy man's commands "from God", but they always turned out badly (e.g. Saul). It was impossible to please God in this genocide. And later blame for their wickedness was focused back on their failure to obey. Today we have the residue of such thinking inculcated into Mormonism, and fundamentalist Christianity and Islam still believe that God commanded genocide, and will do so again, IS doing so again through the Islamists.

Allowing that I am still not getting exactly where you are coming from, I think it is a perverse God that would bring a people together, give their prophet patriarchal marriage and tell them to pray about it and get their own testimony, and then show them by doing so that individual prayer and testimony is the way to go, when the thing they prayed about was wrong!?..