omega0401

Thank you Carol. We're studying the Book of Mormon at church this whole year and this new program you told us about on BYU-TV will really add to our understanding.

Otterpop, the debate is not about multiple wives. You missed the point entirely. It's about Polyandry! If you knew what that meant, I don't think you would have written this post. Please look it up.

Elphaba, as you know the link you gave me is an article called, "Tale of Two Marriage Systems" by Samuel Katich. I’ve read the entire article. One part of it said, "In ALL cases, the women continued to live with their first husbands." That makes anyone wonder then if their marriage to Joseph really took place and if it did why they never had any kind of marital relationship at all. This didn't make sense until I read some more. To understand the concept of what was happening at that time, one has to understand the doctrine of eternal/celestial marriage. When you are married civilly you are married until death do you part. When you are sealed as husband and wife in the temple you are married for time and eternity. Without it you would not receive exaltation in the highest degree of heaven. When you read that these women were civilly married to their first husband and then also being sealed to Joseph, Katich's article neatly fell into place. These women were faithful to their first husband until death. When the women died they would have an eternal husband with Joseph because they were sealed to him, their first husband wanting nothing to do with being sealed to their wife. No infidelity took place at all with Joseph. They lived their first marriage as if their marriage (sealing) to Joseph had never taken place at all. So there were, indeed, two different systems of marriage taking place with these women. One marriage was for time only and another for eternity. In at least one situation, the first husband gave permission for this to happen. All the husbands most likely did. In another situation the husband was a non-member when Joseph apparently was sealed to his wife but the non-member later joined the church. He must have had a strong testimony born of the spirit under those circumstances. This was really interesting article and I'm glad you linked me to it. It seems that if Joseph was indeed sealed to these women but had no relationship with them until after death, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with that. Integrity and fidelity are totally present between all persons. Once again, "In ALL cases, the women continued to live with their first husbands." I understand the concept of eternal exaltation through a celestial marriage but others may not understand that yet. But this is not a problem for me. I agree with the article that you can’t really call this polyandry. It says, But none of this really matters. I still believe that if a person has a testimony of Joseph's first vision, his translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the church and priesthood, these events should not to make any difference in our testimony about Joseph or our religion. That's really what matters and all these other things aren't important.

Snow, please re-read the entire post that you just quoted me. I said I haven't read any of those books. I can not give you an answer about a book I admit I have not read. I simply do not accept you and Elphaba's belief that Joseph Smith practiced polyandry. You state it as though it is a fact and is it not a fact. But that won't stop anti-mormons from trying to use it against us. They would do better to teach what their own church believes instead of attacking other churches.

Thank you for the link. I will certainly read it but it will take a while to get back to you on this. Not that I am a slow reader but I have many demands on my time. But I will respond. I haven't yet read any further than this one post of yours that I am replying to so I haven't been keeping up. But I leave you with this question that I have asked already and no one has given me an answer to. There are accusations being made the Joseph Smith practices polyandry. I don't believe it. But, if it is true, where in our doctrine is it taught that polyandry should be practiced? If he practiced it, he would have taught it. What is your answer to that?

Hello Snow, we meet again. Polygamy is not a secret but polyandry is stretching it a lot! Historians aren’t always accurate and there can be a lot of interpretation errors on what little documents one might have in their possession even after 150 years later. For instance, isn’t Joseph Smith a common name? How do we know a certain document is even talking about the same Joseph Smith or if it's even the same woman who's already married? Or how do we even know the documents are not a fraud? It would not be the first time that’s happened. There is yet a lot of questions to be answered. Even experts have been known to make mistakes. I just thought of another example. Currently there is a photo circulating around the internet about a certain photo that is supposedly the photo of Joseph Smith. There is even an entire book being published about this photo. I very much doubt that it is him but just because there exists this photo doesn’t mean that it is true. You say it isn’t in dispute. I find that very hard to believe. I believe there is much more to it probably more than we currently know. To me, the jury is still out. What is your answer to my other question about polygamy being taught in the bible? Would you then discredit the bible as you do Joseph Smith?

Hard to tell what the missionary was thinking. Even if Mark Driscol is one of those preachers that likes to attack our church and spread lies about our doctrine, still it would be best if the missionary had not said anything. We try to present the gospel we believe in and not tear down other churches. I'm sorry your wife has such a low opinion of our church and family values. My view is totally the opposite. But we are all different.

Thank you Elphaba for this list. I have read none of them but I hope to read Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling. I will admit that I cannot accept the story that Joseph Smith was married to other woman who were already married, at least, not with his consent. About Todd Compton’s book, I would like to quote this, “Methodologically, Compton is inadequate in several areas, including relying extensively on speculation and generalization, both of which are often based on opinion or on a naturalistic view of the growth and development of Mormonism. At critical points conclusions and generalizations rest on dubious historical or theological premises and reasoning. In addition, I have examined numerous examples from the prologue, showing that Compton's analysis of historical texts relating to the theology of plural marriage is in error. Suspicion from this carries over into his analysis of the lives of the women about whom he writes. Has he made similar mistakes in analysis there?” Here is a link to more information: Maxwell Institute it is long article about Compton’s book but very interesting and worth reading. Joseph Smith has always been a person of integrity despite many efforts to slander him in his days as well as our own. After all, it is said that his name will be had for good and evil upon this earth. But let’s not believe everything that history writes. After all, mistakes in history are made many times over especially by enemies of our church. And historians can take the truth and add their own interpretation to things which could be wrong either by accident or on purpose. But let’s pretend for a minute that it is true and Joseph and others were practicing polyandry. Why wasn’t this as common knowledge then and now as polygamy is? It would be pretty hard to keep something like polyandry a secret. And I have never heard of Joseph being taken to trial over polyandry. Secondly, where in LDS doctrine does it even teach about polyandry? If that was indeed what Joseph was living, which I do not believe, he would have taught it. I ask anyone, where is that doctrine taught in our church? You will find polygamy being taught but not polyandry. A person’s testimony of the church should be based on doctrine, scriptures and prayer, not on questionable church history.

Maurice, it would be really helpful for you to give a user name and not just "you" in your post. I don't think anyone knows who you are referring to when you do that. If you want to answer a post then click the button that reads "quote" and it will put the user name belonging to that post inside of your new post and this way everyone knows who's post your are replying back to.

Surely you are not saying that the mind and will of the Lord is contained entirely in the bible? That He has no further information to give us therefore we need no further revelation? I wish it were that simple but it is not especially since so many people have so many different interpretation of the bible which is another reason the lord sends us his prophets. I'm sorry but I believe the Lord has much, much more to say than what is currently revealed in the bible and to send us His prophet to properly interpret the bible. I cannot put God's knowledge in a book and say that's it, you have it all. There is no more to give you. I cannot limit God in such a manner.

In Acts 21:10 we read, “And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.” His is also mentioned in Acts 11:28. I wished we had more information about this prophet of the Lord. But it does prove to show, unless we do not believe the bible, that prophets existed after Christ was crucified. How many prophets? We do not know but it is not important. One, I think, is sufficient to know they existed. But they are sent to teach and to instruct and to call us to repentance and to keep the young members of the Lord’s church from going astray which, if you read the bible, it seemed to happen often, so often in fact that after Christ's prophets and apostles were killed the church went into an apostasy. But...that's a whole other topic. In Amos 3:7 we read, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” He’s not going to reveal them to you or me. If you want to know those secrets you have to seek out His prophets. If I lived in Agabus' time, should I say I do not need you for I have my Savior with me? To say you do not need prophets, even for reasons I have mentioned above, sounds disrespectful to the Lord’s servants and you probably did not mean for it to sound disrespectful. We do not put prophets of the Lord on the same level as the Savior. Certainly not. Christ is our Savior in every meaning of the word and the greatest man to ever walk the earth. And He is the only man that can bring us unto God our Heavenly Father. He has also given us His prophets in the latter days to do the same things as was done in the past – to teach, instruct, bring us to repentance, and keep us on the straight and narrow path. Why should His children, living in these latter days, be treated any differently? I hope you will give this a lot of thought, fasting, scripture study, and prayer.

Elphaba, thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself. Being an Athiest, it's interesting that you say you love being here at a religious forum. I believe you that you have no nefarious motives for being here but I'm sure a lot of us would love to know why. I don't think you are searching for anything, including God, so it makes me wonder. Friendship perhaps or a social connection with others or to challenge other people's beliefs? I hope we keep getting to know you and to exchange different view points.

Evidence shows? Would you mind giving me the reputable source of information of Joseph Smith marring women that were, at the same time, married to other men? Only LDS sources for obvious reasons. If you are going to discredit Joseph Smith for teaching polygamy, are you also going to discredit the bible for teaching the same thing?

I've heard about the men on the moon story before and I haven't seen where this came from but I hope you realize that not everything Joseph Smith said was in the name of the Lord. He wasn't a prophet 24 hours a day only when he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost. The Lord did not take away Joseph own personal opinions about things when He called him to be His chosen mouth-piece upon the earth. So when I hear these stories I have to ask myself, did he speak this as his own opinion or in the name of the Lord? And you can pretty much tell when he was speaking in the name of the Lord. I hope that helps.

There is another way to look at it. You do realize that with so many religions teaching and believing so differently that they can't all be right. All will be wrong except the Lord's only true church. There is only one God and one faith as the bible teaches us not many faiths.

I, too, have not meet Mormons who behave the way you describe. But like any other church there are Christ-like members and not so Christ-like. I hope you will run into a Christ-like Mormon some day soon because they are out there and there are a lot of them. Not perfect by any means but certainly trying. I hope you won't judge the church on the impolite behavior of a few Mormons. Judge it on it's beliefs. Either Joseph Smith is a prophet or he isn't. He either translated a sacred text into the Book of Mormon as a second witness of Chirist or he didn't. Either Christ church had to be restored upon the earth because of an apostasy or it didn't. Either there is modern day revelation to a modern day prophet or there isn't. Those are the beliefs you should focus on and not on the members.

Glad you decided to join us. You'll find a lot of friendly people here willing to help answer questions and a fun place to just hang out.

Snow, I was respecting her opinion not that I agree with it. What would you think I should do? I can either respect her opinion or disrespect it. There is no inbetween. Should I disrespect people because they don't believe in what I believe? Should I disrespect a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, an atheist because they reject Christ and His teachings? I just don't think that's a Christ-like thing to do. I'm just curious because I'm trying to figure out where you are coming from with this.

Thank you Candy. What a great testimony you shared with us. And for what it's worth I think most of us feel we aren't capable when a calling comes. We all trust in the Lord that He is there to help us as well as our member friends. And then we grow closer to the spirit as we serve. And what a great feeling that is when we feel the spirit with us. And we learn and we grow and it wouldn't have happen if we didn't accept the calling. What I think it amounts to is, the Lord wants a willing heart. He doesn't want or expect us to be perfect in our calling. Just a willing heart to do our best and to trust in Him for guidance.

Thank you Pam for correcting me and my humble apologies to Otterpop. As you can tell by now, I don't always go to a person's home page to read their profile to find out such things. But...this is a good reason to or I'll embarrass myself yet again. Yikes.

First, you can respect a person for being honest about what he believes because the alternative is that he would not be honest and instead be a hypocrite and I would not respect hypocrites. Second, he is entitled to his own opinions and beliefs as you and I are. I can listen to others like Otterpop but it doesn't mean I have to agree that what they say is true. They respect what I believe and they, hopefully respect my beliefs.

Correct me if I’m wrong but in a nutshell, Otterpop left the church because of its teachings. I respect him for it. Everyone has their free agency to chose to accept the doctrine or not. People will continue to leave the Lord’s church because they don’t agree with what the Lord is teaching. They are on the road to apostasy. Hopefully, some of them will have a change of heart and realize that those teachings really did come for the Lord and repent and come back into the fold. But, what if the restored church is truly the Lord’s church that he restored himself through His prophet Joseph Smith? I hope that question will always be in the minds of those who apostatize. Then again, someone will ask me what if it is not true? And if that were the case and I left the church where would I go? I believe that all those other churches are man-made churches. Some of those people are very sincere in what they believe but they can’t all be right when they don’t agree on some or many points of doctrine. But my testimony is strong enough to know that this is the Lord’s church. I have that testimony spoken to me by the spirit. But here is another thought. There will be those like Otterpop who leave the church because of it’s teachings and will look for another church. And if they don’t find a church that believes in all the interpretations of the scriptures the way they do they will continue to look for another church. They will find it hard to find a church that believes exactly the way they do in all points of doctrine. Remember that scripture, “...toss to and froth with every wind of doctrine.” That is still happening even today. Some even start their own church after searching in vain. With my testimony of the restored gospel, I am very happy where I am at. I would never leave it. And those who do, we still care about them and hope, even pray, that they will return back some day.

And I am too. While other churches are arguing over whether they should or shouldn't marry homosexuals we have a prophet of God to guide us. The need for a prophet of God is so great in these last days. While other church members are arguing over this topic, the Lord's church remains, as always, true to all that He taught and commanded of us. The church moves forward on a straight and narrow course to eternal life, never deviating. The Lord has told us He will never allow a prophet to lead us astray. That gives me a lot of comfort, trust, and assurance. Pres. Monson is a wonderful, loving, and caring, prophet. His life has exemplified that. A church without a prophet of God is like a boat without a rudder whose members gets tossed in every direction not knowing for sure what to believe. It reminds me of one of our hymns.... We thank thee o God for a prophet to guide us in these latter-days.....

Congratulations! Your happy message was uplifting. You'll love the lessons the missionaries have for you and feel the spirit that is with them. And I can tell it's with you too right now. Keep remembering that feeling because it came from the Spirit. And I hope you'll stay in contact with all your friends here. I was born over there too, in Scotland but I'm living in California now. I returned to serve a mission in Northern England.