excuse me?
pretty much every post you made in response to evidence presented.
Yes it is a higher law to not have divorce, but Davids big sins where not directly connected to his having more than one wife. If he had only one wife the same events could have taken place (though the story but which David convicted himself would have been a tad different). Neither Abraham nor Israel’s wives had such major problems as to suggest that the practice could not have been approved by God.
i have to disagree on both abraham (whose firstborn son was exiled and cursed ) and israel (incest, one son sold into slavery by the others, etc.) Take out bathsheba and david still has a “jerry springer” family with incest and violent rebellion. just because a prophet doesn’t write scripture stating that polygamy in this case is bad doesn’t mean god approved. i see no biblical evidence for anything other than tolerance for it. even then i find it significant that the plethora of family troubles resulting from it are there.
All sorts of people had family troubles Jacob and Esau. If we assume that family troubles are a result of plural marriage than a great many most of the OT guys had more than one wife including Adam and Moses. After all having one kid killing another or having your brother help the people to worship a false God can’t be good.
true BUT many of the most disturbing family problems that abraham, israel and david had were the direct result of polygamy. nowhere do we see god commanding polygamy nor do we see him blessing them as a direct result of the polygamy. all we see is the heartache and strife it caused. ishmael and haggar, rachel and leah who then drug in the “handmaids”, rueben, amnon and tamar, absalon, joseph and his brothers
There where some problems, but there where also many blessings. We have neither a direct command nor a forbidding of the practice in regards to these people.
what blessings are directly attributable to the polygamy? as to absence of specific forbidding of the practice…i think it’s the slothful servant who must be commanded in all things.
I’ve seen this kind of defense of polygyny from many LDS on many different boards. I find this defense combined with the LDS prophet in interviews saying “we have nothing to do with polygamy” to be nothing short of deception. The LDS says we’re just like you we don’t do polygyny but they fail to mention that unlike the rest of western civilization they believe it is moral.
it is very immoral just like killing children. Unless God commands it.
True but it is a rebellious servant who rejects a command he has received.what blessings are directly attributable to the polygamy? as to absence of specific forbidding of the practice…i think it’s the slothful servant who must be commanded in all things.
and nowhere have you shown god commanding it in the bible. if you want to look at “modern scripture” as the LDS define it then the BoM specifically prohibits it. the D&C also prohibited it and proclaimed that it wasn’t practiced by LDS (which was a lie) until well after the fact when this was pulled to make room for section 132 which became “retroactive” and states it’s permissible and beneficial for everyone who complies with that section. i don’t see it directly COMMANDED there though.
It was not lust based. Are you unable to understand what Jacob taught on the subject?
With so many wives, do they still get divorce? i thought all they had to do is go out and get another wife.
if you are referring to the one ambiguous sentence in the BoM, then yes i understand what revisionists now claim it to have meant. (despite there being no evidence of that being the original teaching) so let’s examine that. how many children were produced by joseph smith’s polygamous “marriages”? he was sleeping around NOT “raising up a righteous seed”. there was no need for this anyway. despite the persistent faith promoting rumors and “congregational doctrine” found in most gospel doctrine classes, the census reports show the same, balanced male to female ratios within the early mormon communities as everywhere else. studies of these LDs polygamous relationships show that polygamous women at that time had fewer children that monogamous women. the net effect? actually lower population growth per capita. an influx of immigrants allowed this to be compensated for but in the end we still see no command to practice polygamy nor any direct benefits. we DO see multiple prohibitions against it and many harmful effects. i would remind you of jesus words regarding “raising up seed”. he told the pharisees that God could raise up abrahams seed from the stones. sarah had isaac miraculously, even more miraculously mary had jesus. if the lord only wanted “fruitful multiplication” then every man could have one wife and every wife could have all the children the lord chose to bless her with. polygamy has never been necessary for population growth. in fact from a strictly scientific point of view polyandry would far more likely to produce results there.
Such hypocracy…
If all women were like me, there wouldn’t even be such a word in the English (or any other ) language… because, as stated b4, there is no way in — I am going to share a man with another woman… (knowingly)…
let’s look at it then: