We are planning a discussion with our TBM friend regarding the polygamy essays. What are some good questions/points regarding polygamy that I can bring up? I'm looking for things that will get them thinking without seeming too accusing.

I'd start out asking them what the D&C lays out as the ground rules for practicing plural marriage (single virgins, consent of the first wife, sealing in the covenant) and then explain how Joseph Smith violated all of those rules.

And I'd ask the question I once asked myself: If we were talking about anyone other than Joseph Smith, would we excuse any of this?

Try a discussion about the modern Joseph Smith/sumbag Warren Jeffs.

Here's one I haven't heard in a while: the ration of male/female on Earth is approx. 49%/51%, so if the restored gospel rolled forth planet-wide how could polygamy be possible?

Oh, that's right, God looked at the laws of the United States and changed his mind back in 1890.

Another question: Where is the D&C commandment stopping it? God went to a lot of trouble dictating D&C 132, so why only a "manifesto"? Why did only the Utah church have a manifesto?

And as runtu asked, why did Joseph Smith break every tenant of D&C 132? As well as Brigham Young, et al?

This is something I never understood, the world is pretty much half and half, there is no need for polygamy to exist. Look at what happens in modern day polygamist communities, they end up kicking the young men out because they are seen as a threat. Polygamy isn't about need, it's about perverting men wanting to get some and get some more.

If that's the case then God really, really, REALLY hates women!

How can one love and serve a deity who despises them so?

The church's essay cites Todd Compton's book "In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith" as a resource. The intro to it is on-line at

http://signaturebooks.com/2010/11/excerpt-in-sacred-loneliness/

I'd encourage your friend to read that---ALL of it. Particularly the sections "Ages of Joseph Smith's Wives" and "Sexuality in Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages."

This is the "money quote":

"In the group of Smith’s well-documented wives, eleven (33 percent) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him. Nine wives (27 percent) were twenty-one to thirty years old. Eight wives (24 percent) were in Smith’s own peer group, ages thirty-one to forty. In the group aged forty-one to fifty, there is a substantial drop off: two wives, or 6 percent, and three (9 percent) in the group fifty-one to sixty.

The teenage representation is the largest, though the twenty-year and thirty-year groups are comparable, which contradicts the Mormon folk wisdom that sees the beginnings of polygamy as an attempt to care for older, unattached women. These data suggest that sexual attraction was an important part of the motivation for Smith’s polygamy. In fact, the command to multiply and replenish the earth was part of the polygamy theology, so non-sexual marriage was generally not in the polygamous program, as Smith taught it."

I'd ask why the BOM explicity states it's an abomination. Then they might say the bible prophets were commanded to practice it, to which you can say they were in fact not commanded, that the wives requested it so they could have kids.

The age of some of JS wives (Helen Mar Kimball)

And in relation to that, why do Mormons have to be 19 before that get go through the endowment?

Go immediately to the other POST board, see from BITE ME
"Annotated Nauvoo Polygamy Essay"
Just Fabulous!!!

Here are some that come to mind - some are repeats of responses above and I could go much further, but this is all I have time for:

1. What was the purpose of JS's marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833, when the sealing power was not restored until 1836?

2. Why did Emma and Oliver Cowdery categorize the relationship between JS and Fanny Alger as an "affair"? Why did the Far West High Council refer to JS's conduct as being involved in "girl business"?

3. Why would God clearly state in the [most correct] BoM (Jacob 2:27-30) that polygamy was forbidden with only one stated exception to "raise up seed" - something that JS clearly did not do as he had few (if any) children?

4. Why would God state in the 1835 D&C 101 that polygamy was a "crime"? Why would God repeal the 1835 D&C 101 with D&C 132 in a 180-degree reversal, only to abandon the practice again in 1890?

5. Why did JS denounce and deny the practice of polygamy publicly on multiple occasions while practicing it in private?

6. Why would God ask JS to break Illinois state law (against AoF #12) in his practice of polygamy?

7. If JS did not have sex with 14 year old Helen Mar Kimball and it was an "eternity-only" relationship, then why did she mention that her father sacrificed his only "ewe lamb" and her mother's "heartstrings" were pulled? Why so much grief over an eternity-only relationship?

8. If JS did not have sex with other living men's wives (polyandry), then why was Heber C. Kimball (JS's close associate) so distraught by JS asking to marry his wife Vilate?

9. Why was Emma 13th in line to be sealed to JS behind his polygamous/polyandrous marriages?

10. Why did Joseph keep his polygamous relationships secret from Emma until he was finally caught in a few cases?

11. Do the circumstances look suspicious when you consider that JS married girls who were living in his home in the role of a foster daughter or as servants? (see: Alger, Partridge sisters, Lawrence sisters, Walker, Holmes).

12. Do the circumstances look suspicious when you consider that JS married some other men's wives when those men were on missions or otherwise out-of-town?

13. Are you bothered by the behavior of Warren Jeffs? What specifically is the difference between the behavior of JS and Warren Jeffs?

... etc ...

And finally - why would God create so much contradiction and leave so many unanswered questions, yet expect us to somehow live in faith in order to obtain full salvation?

Exodus look here https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/sections-132-138/section-132-marriage-an-eternal-covenant?lang=eng Section 132 wasn't placed in the D&C until 1876. Also check out ex Bishop Bakers info about this subject http://witforjesus.org/downloads/english/mp3/cd-leeb/cd-leeb-handouts.pdf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2014 07:47PM by scmormon.

Correct... the 1835 D&C 101 was anti-polygamy and in effect until 1876 when it was replaced with D&C 132. That was my point #4... maybe it wasn't clear, but that's what I meant.

So JS practiced polygamy while this was scripture and while publicly denouncing it and denying the practice.

Just updated the post with something to really look at.

Thank you all for your responses. This discussion will have about 12 TBMs. Hopefully we break some shelves.

poster roadkilldelight posted a summary of the Polygamy in Navuoo essay. It's very good.

http://roadkilldelight.com/NOM/ANPE.pdf

So the essay’s conclusion is that, regardless of what went on in Kirtland and Nauvoo, God will sort it out
in the end anyway. The question I ask is, why then did Joseph Smith have to do all of this stuff? Why all
of these secret acts and deceits? Why secretly marry these women and girls behind Emma’s back? Why
marry women who already had worthy and devoted husbands? Why did he destroy the Nauvoo Expositor
press, which this essay verifies was actually telling the truth about him, and which resulted in his arrest
and murder? Why any of these shenanigans if God is just going to sort things out in the end anyway?

Despite all of this the church does not give us any satisfying answers. Again we are left with a multiple
choice question. Should we forgive Joseph Smith and later prophets because they were imperfect men
and a products of their times (as previous essays claim) or should we accept the apologetic of this essay
and admire Joseph for sacrificing himself, his wife, his morals and the lives of many other people as a test
to prove his devotion to God? It has to be one or the other. Actually, there is a third option but we won’t
go there.

In what (non-mormon) scripture is the Principle clearly addressed?

Where do the hebrew prophets preach that plygism is a principal prerequisite to passing muster with Yahweh any way?

We've all heard that Jesus was secretly Warren Jeffs and all that davinci code crap. I wanna see chapter and verse if you please.

>..."after Church President Wilford Woodruff issued an
inspired statement known as the Manifesto in 1890

What the fook is an inspired statement? I can only guess it's somewhere below a prophecy but with more gravitas than a 2 1/2 minute talk.

Betcha nomos who read that will never grasp the mormyspeak.

How about "Bill, if you had to choose one of your friends' wife to be your plural wife, who would you choose?"

Or, "Susan, which other man at church besides your husband Bill would you like to be sealed to?"

This one is my favorite.

These are all "in universe" questions, but sometimes it can be useful to speak to Mormons in their own language.

Are all "supernatural" beings from God? Are we to unquestioningly obey them if we see one? Can supernatural beings lie and deceive? I know mormons pledge to sustain their general authorities, are you also required to obey unknown beings that haven't been sustained in general conference?

One of the TBM arguments is that God ordered it like in the Old Testament and they don't know why. Ask them to cite where in the O.T. that God commanded it. (He didn't.)

The angel with the flaming sword should be discussed. Why didn't JS try to shake his hand so he would know he was a real angel. Why would he need a sword? If JS had declined, do you think someone would have found him in his bed with his head lopped off?

JS also practiced polygamy BEFORE he got the so called threat from god's fake angel. He had many wives BEFORE he was commanded to practice it. Bring that up for sure.

"If JS had declined, do you think someone would have found him in his bed with his head lopped off?" - talk about a fantasy of mine!

AND gasping for breath.

1) Many Mormons try to insist Joseph Smith did NOT have sex with these women. If that is the case then he did NOT obey the Lord in the purpose of having polygamy as revealed in the only canonized revelation on the subject (D&C 132) which was "to raise up seed." This was also the only exception given by the lord in the BoM as to the purpose of having polygamy.

2) Why do we know next to nothing about the polygamous wives of the early church leaders? We NEVER hear anything about Joseph Smith wives. We only hear about Emma. Church publications only list the first wife of church leaders.

3) If the purpose was to raise up seed, then

4) Why does the church allow the perpetuation of the myth that the reason polygamy was started was to "help out all the widows" whose husbands died "due to persecution?" There were probably only a couple dozen married men, at the most, who died due to mob violence. There were THOUSANDS of women who entered plural marriage and most of them were young never married women (many teenagers). In fact, plural marriage CREATED far more widows than widows were married into polygamy because most plural wives were much younger than their husbands. When these husbands died, these women became widows (often at a very young age) and would have to be married off to another man.

5) The church claims the reason polygamy was ended was because they were obeying the law (13 articles of faith). However, polygamy was NEVER legal in ANY of the states or territories they were in.

6) Why did men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young have to have so many wives? 30 to 50 each?

7) If the purpose was to raise seed then why was there a shortage of women to men? Census records and anecdotal evidence shows that there were more men than women and that there was a struggle for some young men to find wives. In fact, that a reason so many girls were married off young. The men had to keep going younger as the older ones were getting married off.

8) If the church doesn't keep secrets why was plural marriage kept secret from the 1830's to the 1850's?

9) Why did only the high leaders in the church get the most wives?

10) why did missionaries not tell converts in Europe, including the single women, about polygamy UNTIL they arrived in Utah?

Why did Pres. Hinckley lie on national TV to Larry King when he said polygamy started out west?

I'm the third generation product of polygamists. The damage that the practice inflicts upon their descendants far outlasts the fleshy pleasures of their wifery. I hope great grandpa enjoyed banging the Pope sisters, because I had hell to pay as the son of an inbred hillbilly pew buffer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 05:37PM by donbagley.

Along the similar lines of reasoning madalice gave...

Why didn't an angel either with or without a sword ever appear to any of the women?

Why did JS ask God to marry other mens wives in D&C 132?
First, God didn't command JS to live polygamy, JS asked about concubines, wives, adulter, etc, and instantly God commanded him to live polygamy.

Later on in the seciton God tells JS to ask him anything he wants and he'll ordain it for him and stand behind it.

THe next verses shows God ordaining polyandry!

We can conclude that JS asked God if he could marry other men's wives and God gave the green light on that.

Again, God didn't command it, as many TBM's believe. JS asked and the magic genie God gave it to him.