JLHPROF Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 57 minutes ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said: How could anyone think that one man can be a good father to 145 children. It is simply not possible, in any age. Wow. What a bad example Heavenly Father must be setting...
ttribe Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 2 minutes ago, JLHPROF said: Wow. What a bad example Heavenly Father must be setting... You understand the problem with your argument, right?
Guest Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said: Wow. What a bad example Heavenly Father must be setting... You know me, you know I am some disgruntled member or an anti-Mormon, so please don't make light of what I am trying to say. I "am" the biological son of a bigamist, who ended up without a father, my mother and her three children made homeless when he chose his illegal family over ours. I am sure from scripture that God has required polygamy, but those who practice it are not God the Father, the "Father to the fatherless" as was I in my early years of life. Since we are "men", flawed and grouping in the darkness of ego and disbelief, let's at least admit that polygamy is at best a "minefield" in which every misstep can leave the innocent lamed or dead. 3
thesometimesaint Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 Don't know about just men, but a woman can have lots of children. From Wiki. SEE Vassilyev and his first wife hold the record for the most children a couple has parented. She gave birth to a total of 69 children – sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets – between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 births.
JLHPROF Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 1 hour ago, ttribe said: You understand the problem with your argument, right? Oh, of course. I was being a bit silly. But I do think we may need to look at whether a polygamist father can be a good father with a more open mind. Any difference between Fathering and Mothering has become quite blurry over the past century or two. 27 minutes ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said: You know me, you know I am some disgruntled member or an anti-Mormon, so please don't make light of what I am trying to say. I "am" the biological son of a bigamist, who ended up without a father, my mother and her three children made homeless when he chose his illegal family over ours. I am sure from scripture that God has required polygamy, but those who practice it are not God the Father, the "Father to the fatherless" as was I in my early years of life. Since we are "men", flawed and grouping in the darkness of ego and disbelief, let's at least admit that polygamy is at best a "minefield" in which every misstep can leave the innocent lamed or dead. I have never said polygamy was anything other than a massive challenge for those the Lord called to live it. That it can cause pain and heartache when lived poorly would appear to be self evident. But living any of God's laws badly will have similar results. Just ask the Crusaders, Inquisitionists or Westboro Baptists. Even claiming to follow Christ and doing so badly causes pain. Doesn't make the related principles flawed.
Guest Posted July 25, 2017 Posted July 25, 2017 47 minutes ago, JLHPROF said: I have never said polygamy was anything other than a massive challenge for those the Lord called to live it. That it can cause pain and heartache when lived poorly would appear to be self evident. But living any of God's laws badly will have similar results. Just ask the Crusaders, Inquisitionists or Westboro Baptists. Even claiming to follow Christ and doing so badly causes pain. Doesn't make the related principles flawed. Fair enough, but your reply compared husbands, with wives and children, with the word "WoW" (I assume that was not a reference to the Word of Wisdom), and then compared men to a perfectly righteous "God and Father". Sorry, but that is a poor comparison as an argument. It is clear that God has commanded in ancient times, that others live this principle. But I am convinced that is why all of their many bad examples were also included, as a "warning". I am man enough to know my limitations, had and "Angel with a flaming sword" told me do so or die, I would have said, let me go to heaven and run me through. 2
DemonsAway Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 On 7/23/2017 at 4:17 PM, Glenn101 said: CFR... I see others have answered and I would've brought up the Manifesto as well. The problem with the Wilford Woodruff part that was mentioned is that it comes well after the Manifesto and to me looks more like tying up loose-ends. If it were revelation, then the revelation should've come before the Manifesto.
DemonsAway Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 On 7/23/2017 at 4:28 PM, CV75 said: I think that in a big way, societies are the ones playing catch-up in that they are typically moving further away from Zion as a whole. Any societal more reflects the group’s acceptance of both secular (economic and political) and religious or spiritual values, and LDS believe that only in a Zion society these influences enjoy an inspired equilibrium (the Lord looks at the whole picture). So a society may be further ahead in secular sense but not in a spiritual sense. It can be argued in the case of plural marriage, an advanced appreciation of revealed religion was lacking in the society at large. Or that the Church was not responding to the civil rights movement in the USA per se but to the pressure for global expansion of the restored Gospel into those areas of the world with black African populations (the Lord’s timing in lifting the ban, whatever its origin). With regards to the religious experience of gay members, the Church simply places a higher value on the spiritual than the political or scientific ramifications of her moral code. I think God guides His people according to the circumstances of their times, since He knew all along, and still knows, that it would not be a proper probation for His children if he overrode their faith and agency by ensuring that Zion remained uncompetitively ahead both temporally and spiritually in every age of the earth’s existence. Instead, Zion is established within a larger societal setting and often ignored until the adversary feels threatened. So I think if you look at the scriptural details, there is evidence that sometimes He acknowledged the ingrained practice of slavery in His commandments and laws and condemned inter[racial/ethnic/religious] marriage for His people, and at other times He condemned the former and acknowledged the latter -- whatever is expedient for the preservation of the covenants among His people at the time, which is the highest priority. The covenants can be kept regardless of the social pressures that may distract one from doing so, and those to whom the covenants are not extended are under no condemnation. Society being the ones moving away is mainly the part where I think you have an argument, but still has issues when it appears that the church isn't standing their ground or their catering to social pressure. One could argue that's what they've done with polygamy and even blacks and the Priesthood. The “Time period” argument is hard for me to accept. To say slavery or polygamy was okay in this time period but not this time period, like God caters to what man believes in relation to the time period. Whatever God's position is I have to think it only logical to make sure mankind lives by this law from the beginning. I would think he would know how bad it looks when it appears as though he's changing his mind on certain issues. While I'm happy to see any religion become more accepting of other people I do think it weakens their position when they do. To say blacks couldn't hold the priesthood but now they can, well I would have to ask why it wasn't always this way? This is where I think any religion that claims to speak for God is always going to have problems.
DemonsAway Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 On 7/23/2017 at 11:01 PM, Bernard Gui said: Everyone is too busy doing their home teaching. How do you know that God was OK with slavery? I don't know that he was okay with slavery, but I don't claim that I or anyone else speaks for God either. The most I can do is reason it out the best I can. I do think you could definitely say there's a biblical argument that he was okay with slavery, at least from a religious standpoint. But at the heart of what I was getting at is why would God change his mind on something as in blacks and the priesthood? Seems strange that God would one day just say we'll treat them as equal members now and that wouldn't have been the way it was from the beginning.
thesometimesaint Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 I'm just happy that God chooses to talk to me every now and then. 1
CV75 Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 4 hours ago, DemonsAway said: Society being the ones moving away is mainly the part where I think you have an argument, but still has issues when it appears that the church isn't standing their ground or their catering to social pressure. One could argue that's what they've done with polygamy and even blacks and the Priesthood. The “Time period” argument is hard for me to accept. To say slavery or polygamy was okay in this time period but not this time period, like God caters to what man believes in relation to the time period. Whatever God's position is I have to think it only logical to make sure mankind lives by this law from the beginning. I would think he would know how bad it looks when it appears as though he's changing his mind on certain issues. While I'm happy to see any religion become more accepting of other people I do think it weakens their position when they do. To say blacks couldn't hold the priesthood but now they can, well I would have to ask why it wasn't always this way? This is where I think any religion that claims to speak for God is always going to have problems. Things are not always as they appear, but they do always appear to the beholder. The Church is standing her ground in her role as the stone cut out of the mountain without hands rolling forth and filling the whole earth. Growth and progress are at once standing one's ground while expanding its borders. I think God “winks” at certain social mores at certain times and under certain conditions of ignorance (Acts 17:30) while introducing line upon line and precept upon precept throughout the ages. He knows what he lives by, and what He wants us to eventually live by, and so has appointed a day for His expectations to be revealed and kept (verse 31). If some have discovered these truths on their own (Facsimile 2, Figure 11) and keep them in the right spirit, so much the advantage they have in the world to come (D&C 130:19) if they can control their pride. I don’t think lifting the ban was a function of becoming more accepting of other people but a function of fulfilling the Great Commission as the practical application of what “all nations” means became clearer and achievable between 34 A.D. to 1978 A.D. The Church has always taught the divine legacy and inheritance of all the peoples of the earth, and this has not changed. The question, “Why wasn’t it always this way [no ban]?” presumes that the kingdom of God always must look the same in every dispensation, when it hasn’t.
USU78 Posted July 26, 2017 Posted July 26, 2017 It's interesting to put the lifting of the ban in its historical context ... and I'm not talking about a parochial analysis of US internal politics. I'm talking about the freeing of an entire continent from centuries of domination (including by the Arabs, because the European powers to a great extent supplanted the Arab ones in dominating Africans). Have a gander at the timeline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonisation_of_Africa Notice that most of the countries achieved independence between 1960 and 1977. The lifting occurred the following year. 2
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