How do Mormon's justify Smith's wives stories??

[Eliza10]

Will you please show us the info you have on these pope,I think they say
they had about 3 bad pope but if you know of more please let us

Since Bill expressed an interest, I looked up on that Pope mentioned by Strawberry Jam. It must
refer to Pope Alexander VI who some say was the worst Pope, other say his errors were typical
of a man of his time, the Rennasance (that being no excuse).

There is proof that some of his errors were exaggerated for their salicious content, both in his time
and now, (for example the works of Victor Hugo, who also wrote the story Les Miserables) but
nonetheless he was so ill-famed that “in the middle of the nineteenth century …[it was written]… that
Alexander VI was the only Pope who had never found an apologist.”

Later some did defend him, but his reputation as a pope remains the worst of the worst; he was a
Borgia, and the Borgia Popes are thought to be the worst Popes ever.

Its very intersting that the second illigitimate son Pope Alexander VI became the grandfather of
St. Francis Borgia - whose feast day is my birthday - “whose virtues went a great way towards
atoning for the vices of his kin.”

Thats interesting, isn’t it? Brings to mind a famous offspring of David and Bathsheeba.

For Bill and anyone else intersted,
here are some links on Pope Alexander VI:
newadvent.org/cathen/06213a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/14138/Alexander-VI

This quote from New Advent is exactly what I was trying to explain to Strawberry Jam:

"An imperfect setting… does not affect the intrinsic
worth of the jewel*, nor does the golden coin
lose its value when it passes through impure hands.*
*In so far as the priest is a public officer of a holy Church, a blameless life is expected *
*from him, both because he is by his office the model of virtue to whom [people] look *
*up, and because his life, when virtuous, inspires in onlookers respect for the society *
*of which he is an ornament. But *the treasures of the Church,
**her Divine character, **
**her holiness, **
**Divine Revelation, **
**the grace of God, **
spiritual authority,
*it is well known, are not dependent on the moral character of *
the agents and officers of the Church. The foremost of her priest
*cannot **diminish by an iota the intrinsic value of the spiritual treasures *
confided to him."

In summary, a blameless life is expected of a Priest, a Pope, a Cardinal or Bishop. Do they all live up
to that calling? No! The beauty is that many do. But however imperfect they are, they do no affect the
worth of the jewel - that of their office.

 

[Eliza10]

Of course it’s powerful, that’s what grooming is about. Making the victim buy into the whole thing.

I didn’t know thats what grooming meant but clearly that is what this is and I am really, really surprised “Why me” doesn’t see it. The exchanges between Smith and his victim-wives turn my stomach. Such blatant manipulation. I feel sorry for the victims.

And that they choose to live their lives in denial, holding on to Joseph’s story that this was God’s will, and that their submission to Smith’s will makes them extra-special in God’s eyes is not in the least bit surprising. There is nothing new under the sun!

 

[Eliza10]

And? Many people live happily in their sin. IMO, this only underlines the responsibility that JS is going to answer for at judgment day. Leading an innocent child to accept an adulterous lifestyle as “normal”. Followed by people like you defending it.

Yes, “why me”, be careful what you defend! You will have to answer for it someday! Smith’s polygamy is a sick and wrong thing to defend!

You are right, Rebecca, many people live happily in their sin. For example, when people are involved in extra-marital affairs they are happy and convince themselves that what they are doing is the mystical “higher good”. Like Smith, they endeavor to keep their adultery private from unenlightened society, who just wouldn’t understand these higher, spiritual, “celestial” things.

 

[Eliza10]

The Law of Moses
Deut. 21:15 provides rules governing Israelites who have plural wives. Further instructions are also given in Exodus 21:10. Why did God not ban plural marriage through Moses if it is always an immoral act?

en.fairmormon.org/Polygamy_not_Biblical

I don’t drink beer. But you can buy me a diet pepsi.

Beer is SO much better for you than Diet Pepsi. You would be honoring your body, a temple of God, far more with a beer than a diet Pepsi. However, if you were an alcohiolic, forgo the beer. Drink water.

 

[zaffiroborant]

The Law of Moses
Deut. 21:15 provides rules governing Israelites who have plural wives. Further instructions are also given in Exodus 21:10. Why did God not ban plural marriage through Moses if it is always an immoral act?

en.fairmormon.org/Polygamy_not_Biblical

I don’t drink beer. But you can buy me a diet pepsi.

Well then there is nothing immoral about slavery either, since rules were provided for those who had slaves. So do you think slavery is moral and has been commanded by God at various times?

 

[Eliza10]

From your post:
“The nauvoo city council closed down the newspaper by force. In fact the printing press was destroyed.”

I asked, why did they do that?

Wow, “why me” doens’t seem to get it, but this is from his own post:
I told him [Sidney] that if they wanted peace they could have it on the following conditions, That Joseph Smith would acknowledge publicly that he had taught and practised the doctrine of plurality of wives, that he brought a revelation supporting the doctrine, and that he should own the whole system (revelation and all) to be from Hell.13]
7 June 1844
the first (and only) edition of the Nauvoo Expositor was published. It detailed Joseph’s practice of plural marriage, and charged him with various crimes, labeling him a “blood thirsty and murderous…demon…in human shape” and “a sycophant* [see below], whose attempt for power find no parallel in history… one of the blackest and basest scoundrels that has appeared upon the stage of human existence since the days of Nero, and Caligula.”[14]
Destruction of Expositor

So you see the people of townspeople were highly offended by Smith’s “plural wives” scheme. It must have been shocking to see even fathers approving their own daughters and husbands approving their own wives to bed with Smith, and to see the “plural wives” proudly considering themselves to be pleasing God in theier adultery. :hypno:

These people wanted to defend their society from the Smiths’s religion of Satan.

For these people to see thirty-four women succomb to this in a brief time, it have to have been alarming. This was truly was demonic and the townspeople were righteously offended. They called evil what it was: evil. Thats a lot more than what can be said for people today - we tend to call evil good in our society today. But those were better times.

That term, “plural wives” there is something very whitewashed about that term. Smith’s other name is “celestial wife”. He was one evilly smart man and I agree with “Why me”'s quote - Smith was a scoundrel, a demon with a human shape.

I am wondering about the “murderous” label. I am sure “why me” and other Mormons would consider it a false label. But that would be their emotions speaking, imo. I personally wondered, when I read the stories of Smith’s wives, why so very many of the parents of lovely young teen girls lost both their parents to illness so soon after Smith laid eyes on the young things. Not all of the girls, because some of them had a parent who was smitten with Smith’s charisma and poweful leadership, and believed his story about God’s astonishing revelation concerning their daughter.

Which reminds me, isn’t it very strange that God never spoke to the girls directly first about this - it always had to be Smith pressuring them that God said this.

---

• definition of a sycophant:

***noun ***
a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite.
more:
syc·o·phantcache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (sĭk’ə-fənt, sī’kə-) cache.lexico.com/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif

n. A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.

to show a fig …: sūkon, fig + phainein, to show;

Word Origin & History:

sycophant
1537 (in L. form sycophanta), “informer, talebearer, slanderer,” from L. sycophanta, from Gk. sykophantes, originally “one who shows the fig,” from sykon “fig” + phanein “to show.” “Showing the fig” was a vulgar gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, itself symbolic of a …] (sykon also meant “vulva”).

 

[Eliza10]

Well then there is nothing immoral about slavery either, since rules were provided for those who had slaves. So do you think slavery is moral and has been commanded by God at various times?

Good question for “Why me”.

And I would add that ther are legion of false prophets who use the Bible to defend all kinds of things. Joseph Smith has plenty of company. And “Why me”, when you defend Smith, you are in this company.

 

[aquabatix]

The Law of Moses
Deut. 21:15 provides rules governing Israelites who have plural wives. Further instructions are also given in Exodus 21:10. Why did God not ban plural marriage through Moses if it is always an immoral act?

en.fairmormon.org/Polygamy_not_Biblical

I don’t drink beer. But you can buy me a diet pepsi.

These rules in the OT are no longer applicable because Jesus gave the command himself of how we are to act in the Gospels:

    Mat 19:7   They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"

Mat 19:8 	He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

Mat 19:9 	And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery."

There is no more divorce (except in certain situations (we call that an annulment)) and plurality of wives is not how it is supposed to be either.

Besides:
Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

 

[Eliza10]

I wanted to make a comment on this, posted in “why me”'s post:

That Joseph Smith would acknowledge publicly that he had taught and practised the doctrine of plurality of wives,

This is part of what the angry crowd was demanding from Joseph Smith.

Whenever in the Bible do we see God telling one of his prophets to keep secret from people a doctrine He wanted taught? At this point Smith, while having already amassed many wives from the town’s eligible and ineligable women, had at the same time made public statements that he did not support polygamy.

Which is plain lying, just as the polygamy is plain adultery. Something God’s prophets have never done in the past.

 

[PaulDupre]

The Law of Moses
Deut. 21:15 provides rules governing Israelites who have plural wives. Further instructions are also given in Exodus 21:10.

Yes, and Joseph Smith broke those rules. Did you know that?

Joseph married two sets of sisters. This was specifically called an abomination in the OT.

Joseph married a mother and her daughter. Also an abomination.

Joseph slept with women who were already lawfully married to other men while their husbands were still alive. They call that adultery, another abomination.

There is absolutely no way that Joseph’s practice of polygamy and wife-swapping could ever be reckoned as allowed or commanded by God. To do so, we would have to throw out the entire bible (which the Mormons would probably be glad to do).

 

[zaffiroborant]

Yes, and Joseph Smith broke those rules. Did you know that?

Joseph married two sets of sisters. This was specifically called an abomination in the OT.

Joseph married a mother and her daughter. Also an abomination.

Joseph slept with women who were already lawfully married to other men while their husbands were still alive. They call that adultery, another abomination.

There is absolutely no way that Joseph’s practice of polygamy and wife-swapping could ever be reckoned as allowed or commanded by God. To do so, we would have to throw out the entire bible (which the Mormons would probably be glad to do).

Weren’t those also against the rules in the D&C? The sister thing makes me think of Hugh Hefner.

 

[PaulDupre]

And yet, while Joseph Smith was sleeping with other mens’ wives, coercing young girls into his bed and claiming that God told him to do it, he was calling the Nicene Creed an abomination.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

• Isaiah 5:20

:tsktsk:

 

[zaffiroborant]

Well then there is nothing immoral about slavery either, since rules were provided for those who had slaves. So do you think slavery is moral and has been commanded by God at various times?

Still waiting…

So what about slavery? There were rules governing it, is it sanctioned yeah even commanded by God?

 

[RebeccaJ]

Weren’t those also against the rules in the D&C? The sister thing makes me think of Hugh Hefner.

Creepy creepers.

 

[Eliza10]

Yes, and Joseph Smith broke those rules. Did you know that?

Joseph married two sets of sisters. This was specifically called an abomination in the OT.

Joseph married a mother and her daughter. Also an abomination.

Joseph slept with women who were already lawfully married to other men while their husbands were still alive. They call that adultery, another abomination.

There is absolutely no way that Joseph’s practice of polygamy and wife-swapping could ever be reckoned as allowed or commanded by God. To do so, we would have to throw out the entire bible (which the Mormons would probably be glad to do).

Wow. It is disgusting when you see it written out. You think it must be LIES about Smith - Smith couldn’t have been THAT bad. But its not lies. Its fact.

And yet, while Joseph Smith was sleeping with other mens’ wives, coercing young girls into his bed and claiming that God told him to do it, he was calling the Nicene Creed an abomination.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” - Isaiah 5:20

Woe to those, says Isaiah, and who seems to be talking directly to Smith! Smith called evil good. And he said that God said it! He called what is bitter to be sweet, as is evidenced in his conversations to pursade the girls to marry him. He truly brainwashed them.

I wonder if “why me” gets it now?

No wonder the townspeople said:
if they wanted peace they could have it on the following conditions, That Joseph Smith would acknowledge publicly that he had taught and practised the doctrine of plurality of wives, that he brought a revelation supporting the doctrine, and that he should own the whole system (revelation and all) to be from Hell.

And Smith died at the hands of this angry mob. It is wrong to kill even the blackest of scoundrels, but you have to think God will have more mercy on the killers who feared for their town future - and their daughters and wives - and who killed in a passion of anger, than He will for Joseph, who was so knowingly calculating. Or at least according to what really offends God.

What makes people really angry is the Mormon teaching that Smith died a “martyr”. He was a grossly immoral man who did not sin alone but convincingly persuaded others to sin and convinced them God wanted them to! Therefore he incited many people to righteous anger - and the anger got out of hand and somebody killed him - while Smith himself was shooting back to defend himself. Thats no martyr!

But he has been so romanticized by the Mormon Church. I guess they have to try really, really hard - and with systematic regularity - to brainwash people into thinking he was a good prophet, when the evidence so overwhelmingly is against it.

It reminds me of something a college administrator told me once in an informal group of students. He said that all institutions originally exist for a particular purpose. But they all evlove into institutions whose prime purpose is to perpetuate itself.

In this light, you could say the purpose of systematic and constant glamorizing and white-washing of Smith is that it would be hard for the institution of Mormonism to exist without heroizing Smith.

And there is much good in what has evolved into the present Mormon Chruch, which has removed a lot of Smith’s “revelations from God” that propogate things like racisim and adultery, and does a wonderful job of supporting families when it is hard to find that these days. Smith has become a giant myth that holds these people together, and he is a cherished myth becasue he is their identity. Thats why you get such vehement denial of obvious truth.

 

[StrawberryJam]

:ehh: Yes, I wonder why?

Because they did even worse than that.

 

[ParkerD]

Eliza10,
So in your mind, the House of Israel should only have three tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh and Benjamin), there should be no such thing as Jews since Jacob should have married Rachel first (and only her) because he was lied to and thought he was marrying Rachel, Jacob and Abraham were sinning horribly and should be condemned forever, and the Bible shouldn’t exist past Genesis since everything thereafter ties back to the situations of Abraham and Jacob or to the House of Israel as having twelve tribes rather than three?

Whose tribe do you think David and Christ should have descended from in your altered view of how things ought to be versus how God has acted in carrying out His work on earth?

 

[Eliza10]

Eliza10,
So in your mind, the House of Israel should only have three tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh and Benjamin), there should be no such thing as Jews since Jacob should have married Rachel first (and only her) because he was lied to and thought he was marrying Rachel, Jacob and Abraham were sinning horribly and should be condemned forever, and the Bible shouldn’t exist past Genesis since everything thereafter ties back to the situations of Abraham and Jacob or to the House of Israel as having twelve tribes rather than three?

Whose tribe do you think David and Christ should have descended from in your altered view of how things ought to be versus how God has acted in carrying out His work on earth?

Wow, where did you get all this? This isn’t anything I think. Do you have me confused with another poster??