My Response To Jeremy Runnels Part 1 Hales And Google

[Calm]

Homosexual orientation is at 2% and is viewed as normal.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Address the frickin' sources cited therein then.

 

Don't be lazy.

 

Do your own work.

You got trolled. It is so easy to claim a  source is biased than to actually address what is being talking about from the source. Tonie is not serious.

[USU78]

Homosexual orientation is at 2% and is viewed as normal.

 

1.6% . . . but who's quibbling . . .

[USU78]

You got trolled. It is so easy to claim a  source is biased than to actually address what is being talking about from the source. Tonie is not serious.

 

I thought I'd explore if said trollikin would ignore [because she doesn't understand?] "sources cited therein."  She did, because she doesn't.

 

The data are the data.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I thought I'd explore if said trollikin would ignore [because she doesn't understand?] "sources cited therein."  She did, because she doesn't.

 

The data are the data.

Preaching to the choir here.

[tonie]

Homosexual orientation is at 2% and is viewed as normal.

Unless you are saying USU78 accepts homosexuality or homosexual orientation as normal and acceptable, your statement does not provide any insight. Now USU78 could come out and say homosexuality is normal and acceptable. I doubt he ever would. Despite USU78 feelings homosexual orientation, claiming or asserting homosexuality is normal at 2% and therefore marriage of 14 - 15 years olds to 34 - 38 year old men is normal does not work.

But since we are on the subject how "normal" was it for 34 - 38 year old men to marry 14 - 17 year old females? And this bring up another issue with Keller's work, unless I missed it, he only compares female "cohorts". Meaning, LDS female age of first marriage during the 1830 - 1840 to non-LDS female age at first marriage, did Keller compare both age of the female cohorts to ages of the groom?

[USU78]

Unless you are saying USU78 accepts homosexuality or homosexual orientation as normal and acceptable, your statement does not provide any insight. Now USU78 could come out and say homosexuality is normal and acceptable. I doubt he ever would. Despite USU78 feelings homosexual orientation, claiming or asserting homosexuality is normal at 2% and therefore marriage of 14 - 15 years olds to 34 - 38 year old men is normal does not work. But since we are on the subject how "normal" was it for 34 - 38 year old men to marry 14 - 17 year old females? And this bring up another issue with Keller's work, unless I missed it, he only compares female "cohorts". Meaning, LDS female age of first marriage during the 1830 - 1840 to non-LDS female age at first marriage, did Keller compare both age of the female cohorts to ages of the groom?

 

Silly troll:  I'm not making the "homosexuality is normal" argument.

[tonie]

Silly troll:

Ok, I am troll for recognizing that a source is biased. And let see, I am a troll for pointing weaknesses in the Keller's premise.

I'm not making the "homosexuality is normal" argument.

Your attitude toward homosexuals and homosexuality is well documented, which is why I expressed my doubt that you ever would claim homosexuality or homosexual orientation is normal.

[cinepro]

By the way, most people today don't realize that a 14-year-old "girl" was considered by many in the 19th century to be of marriageable age, and many scholars speculate that Mary the Mother of Jesus was merely 14 when betrothed to Joseph.  At one time this was considered entirely normal.  Presentism is a barrier to historical understanding.

So you're saying if a 37-year-old man wanted to be sealed in marriage to a 14-year-old girl in your hometown, your only objection would be based on your current cultural values? Would you stand in their defense and argue that peoples' objections were only based on their conditioning from the culture, and that there is nothing inherently wrong with such an arrangement?

Edited August 27, 2014 by cinepro

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Ok, I am troll for recognizing that a source is biased. And let see, I am a troll for pointing weaknesses in the Keller's premise.

 

Try this, can you demonstrate bias in the premise being discussed? You see, all you have done is just assert that there is a bias and then rejected what was discussed. Do you see how week your argument actually is? If not then I cannot help you and neither can anyone else.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

So you're saying if a 37-year-old man wanted to be sealed in marriage to a 14-year-old girl in your hometown, your only objection would be based on your current cultural values? Would you stand in their defense and argue that peoples' objections were only based on their conditioning from the culture, and that there is nothing inherently wrong with such an arrangement?

Correct, that is why people only have an issue now is because it is not culturally acceptable. But it was back then.

[Robert F. Smith]

Will you provide the reference?

When? 2500 BCE?; 1 BCE?; 1066 CE?; 1492 CE?; 1835 CE?

It is not relevant that "at one time" age 14 was acceptable, If during the 1830's - 1844 marriage to a 14 year old to someone nearly twice their age wasn't viewed as "entirely normal".

For those who don't read history it always seems that today's standards applied in historical times.  That is what is meant by "presentism," which is a major enemy of good historiography and adequate historical understanding.

 

Put yourself in the context of the early 19th century, when high school and middle school did not exist, and in which many did not go to elementary school at all.  Children were an integral part of the family economy (hence lots of children for rural people), and childhood was very short.  Even into the early 20th century, country girls had learned all that was needed to know about how to cook, sew, take care of babies, etc., by the time they reached puberty, skills nearly unknown now among young women.

 

Playtime was unknown to teens, and many boys (who were not farmhands) were apprenticed out to learn a trade.  Only at the end of the apprenticeship could a boy even consider courting a girl for marriage.  The older age of the man proposing was not at all unusual, even in novels from the period.  In some parts of this country, such rural patterns continued well into the 20th century:  Cf. film bio "Coal Miner's Daughter," about the very young marriage of Loretta Lynn (married at age 15 in Kentucky).  Her husband was 6 years older than her, he had recently returned from U. S. Army service, and he obtained her father's permission.  She was a virgin and the marriage was typical of the times in the South.

 

Stephen Robertson, "Age of Consent Laws," in Children and Youth in History, Item #230, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230  ,

 

12 yrs for girls in 16th century in England and Germany (Shakespeare’s Juliet was 13)

 

[Mike Males, Teenage Sex and Pregnancy: Modern Myths, Unsexy Realities, 40, “These early laws specified that a girl consenting to sex had to be at least 10 to 12 years old in most states, with a few specifying ages as old as 14 or 16. In Delaware, the age of consent was seven, . . .”]

 

11 yrs in 1791 France (Code Napoleon)

13 yrs in 1863 France

 

10 yrs in India in 1860 (British law assumed that the “wogs” matured early)

12 yrs in India in 1891        “      ”

 

13 yrs in 1875 England

16 yrs in 1885 England & Wales

16 yrs in 1920 in some American states

 

Sinikka Elliott, Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers, 14-15, “By the late 1800s, the average age of consent in the United States was 14. Across the nation, however the age of consent was raised slowly, unevenly, and with great reluctance.”

 

See also  “Age of Consent in European & American History,” Discover the Truth, Sept 9, 2013, online at http://discover-the-truth.com/2013/09/09/age-of-consent-in-european-american-history/ , citing and quoting many sources.

[cinepro]

Interesting post.

That being the case, can you make the argument that God cares how old LDS teenagers are before they start attending dances or dating? Or are those policies entirely culturally based?

[Calm]

Meaning, LDS female age of first marriage during the 1830 - 1840 to non-LDS female age at first marriage, did Keller compare both age of the female cohorts to ages of the groom?

If you mean age gap, yes, I believe he did.

[MormonFreeThinker]

As in Fairmormon is a obviously biased source? Or should I address that you, citing Keller, are trying to pass 5% or less occurrence as "normal"?

 

You didn't like part 2?

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/64108-my-response-to-jeremy-runnells-part-2-plagiarism-accusations-and-spiritual-experiences/

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Homosexual orientation is at 2% and is viewed as normal.

Now I get why you are saying this. It was lost on me but not now. Yes, applying Tonie's logic it is not normal. I mean shoot, after only all 5% of the population doing something is not normal.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[Scott Lloyd]

Interesting post.

That being the case, can you make the argument that God cares how old LDS teenagers are before they start attending dances or dating? Or are those policies entirely culturally based?

Is it unreasonable to believe or expect that inspired direction from God to prophets might from time to time be occasioned by changing cultural and social patterns in society or the Church?

Edited August 27, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[omni]

Since when have cultural norms had any effect on what is considered moral within the Church? If that were the case, then fornicating would now be considered perfectly kosher.

[Scott Lloyd]

Since when have cultural norms had any effect on what is considered moral within the Church? If that were the case, then fornicating would now be considered perfectly kosher.

Your question is a non-sequitur.

 

Who here has said cultural norms affect what is considered moral within the Church?

Edited August 28, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Wiki Wonka]

Jeremy wrote, "What a ridiculous claim.Google is a search engine. It is simply a tool. It is not a source. It is not a destination. It is not a conclusion.Google is the taxi; not the location. It's the phone; not the conversation.This is like saying, "The library is not a synonym for seeking." The library is just a tool or gathering place of books, papers, works, and sources.FairMormon is now perpetuating the general perception and reputation that the Church and its apologists do not want its members to be balanced researchers or to look up information about the Church and its history on Google."

 

I believe that this is a response to this quote by Steven Harper: "Googling is not a synonym for seeking." (Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith's First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (2012), 11–12), which is posted on the CES Letter response main page.

 

The response seems to assume that Harper said something more like "The search engine Google is not a synonym for seeking" rather than "Googling..." That's the only way that this response makes any sense. Everyone knows that Google is a search engine, and a tool for locating information. However, that isn't what Harper was talking about. When he says that "Googling is not a synonym for seeking" (Using "Google" as a verb rather than a noun), he is saying that a "seeker" who limits the bulk of their research to Google searches is not seriously "seeking" all of the available information. So all of this response about Google being "just a tool" like a library is a non sequitur - the conclusion has no relevance to the statement it is allegedly responding to. The author pretty much proves that when he says "The library is not a synonym for seeking" - he didn't understand the meaning of Harper's statement.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Wiki Wonka

[omni]

Your question is a non-sequitur.

 

Who here has said cultural norms affect what is considered moral within the Church?

The FairMormon link posted earlier in the thread made the claim that the ages of Joseph's wives were proportional to the ages of first-time brides of the period. The author is seeking to normalize his behavior and therefore distance it from what would today be considered immoral.

[sonova perdition]

You wrote,"'A scholar is "a person who has studied a subject for a long time and knows a lot about it.'"

 

The actual definition from the dictionary you chose is,"

1:  a person who attends a school or studies under a teacher :  pupil

 

2a :  a person who has done advanced study in a special field

 

b :  a learned person"

 

Neither of which Runnels nor Hales satisfies, in spite of the Utah anaesthesiologists protestations to the contrary.

 

Further you denigrate woman at the expense of history, to wit:

 

"Here’s what Helen Mar Kimball confided to a close friend in Nauvoo about her marriage to Joseph Smith: I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.– Mormon Polygamy: A History by LDS historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, p.53

 

Van Wagoner was a untrained histrian but he was close enough to the Mormon hierarchy to get the statements he needed to write the book. He died an acknowledged and important player in the then burgeoning discussion of the early history of the Church. If you want more quotes about Joseph Smith's double dealing with women take a look at the sworn testimony of Sarah Pratt and Smith's attempts to marry her while Orson was out on a mission. They are virtually identical to his "rap" to Mar Kimball.

 

Finally you state that Hales work is accepted by most histporians of polygamy. Odd, I can't find one, except for an apologist, willing to even discuss his work seriously. Most consider him for what he is, a fraud and charlatan, trying to clear Joseph Smith's name without addressing the issue of the ~33 wives, their testimonies, sworn or otherwise, that we know about or can verify.

[Wiki Wonka]

The FairMormon link posted earlier in the thread made the claim that the ages of Joseph's wives were proportional to the ages of first-time brides of the period. The author is seeking to normalize his behavior and therefore distance it from what would today be considered immoral.

 

As a point of interest, a few of Joseph's "polyandrous" sealings were to wives of men who were married to them at a young age.

 

Esther Dutcher: Married her husband Albert at age 15. 

Mary Elizabeth Rollins: Married her non-Mormon husband Adam at age 16.

Presendia L. Huntington: Married her husband Norman at age 16.

Patty Bartlett: Married her husband David at age 17.

Lucinda Pendleton: Married her husband William Morgan at age 18.

[Calm]

"Here’s what Helen Mar Kimball confided to a close friend in Nauvoo about her marriage to Joseph Smith"

Except he was wrong.

The quote is from Catherine Lewis who claims she overheard Helen speaking with her mother.

"Lewis says she lived at the Kimball home in Nauvoo for twelve weeks in 1845. During her stay, she says " was treated respectfully by all the inmates. Mrs. K. treated me as a sister" (see Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons [Lynn, MA: n.p, 1848], 7). While living at the Kimball home, Lewis says she overheard the following:

"I heard her say to her mother, 'I will never be sealed to my Father (meaning as a wife) and I would never have been sealed (married) to Joseph, had I known it was any thing more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it. I say again, I will never be sealed to my Father; no, I will sooner be damned and go to hell, if I must. Neither will I be sealed to Brigham Young.'" (Narrative, 19)

Lewis prefaces this recollection by noting that "the Twelve took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives," providing the context of Helen's complaint."

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/61672-nancy-rigdon/?p=1209294872

"Further you denigrate woman at the expense of history, to wit"

So much better to ignore what the women say for themselves as you are doing to Helen. I prefer to let Helen speak for herself myself.

Edited August 28, 2014 by calmoriah

[MormonFreeThinker]

Van Wagoner was a untrained histrian 

Red Herring, I am just saying Jeremy has biases too, one example is that Jeremy quoted a late anti-mormon forgery. 

 

 

If you want more quotes about Joseph Smith's double dealing with women take a look at the sworn testimony of Sarah Pratt and Smith's attempts to marry her while Orson was out on a mission. They are virtually identical to his "rap" to Mar Kimball.

 

That is your religious belief, what is the evidence for you accusation? Late anti-mormon sources? 

 

 

Finally you state that Hales work is accepted by most histporians of polygamy.

 

I simply said they don't have serious issues with Hales, they may just disagree on some interpretations.