Fiannan

Winnie, what state made you wait until you were 21? If anything some states have raised the minimum age of marriage from ages like 12 or 14 to 16. The norm was for people to get married younger in the 50s and before. Do you really think Disney would produce a film nowadays with the heroine being 16 and seeking marriage? How about the film Sleeping Beauty in which the princess Aurora is to be married at 16? In 1959 nobody gave that a passing thought. And Shanstress70, who is to say an 18 year old is too young to marry -- and marry anyone she pleases? Yes, I tend to agree that 14 or 16 is kinda young but in the past it worked out just fine. One wonders what the rate of STD infections would be if people tended to marry in their late teens or early 20s again. What has the new ethic of sleeping around for sexual gratification until your late 20s or so done for pathogenic spread?

There's a Michael jackson joke there but I will refrain myself. Let's say my daughters were teenagers -- and one was 18 and wanted to marry a 45 year old man. If that was her choice, and the man intended to raise a family then so what? That's not much more an age difference than Tom Cruise and his new wife (44 and 27)-- and not too many people got grossed out when Capt. Jack Sparrow (Mr. Depp age 43) and the leading lady (keira knightley age 21)in "Pirates..." kissed on the ship. Shanstress70, let's pose a question, I am not sure your age but let's pretend you were single and Sean Connery was single. Would you go on a date with him if he asked?

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politica...ence-chief.html The new Democrat intelligence chief in the US House of Representatives.

From what I can see the age of sexual consent in England is 16. Not sure about marriage. In the USA there are some states that allow a "woman" at 12 to get married with parental permission -- although I believe only a few are at 12 or at 14 with most being 16 for females. I have a relative who got pregnant at 14 and got married to the man. They have now been married for 30 years and have three beautiful children. WinnieG I know of no country where one must wait until 21 (or had to wait until 21) for either marriage or sexual consent. The one legal grey area is when the legal age of consent is at, let's say, 16 but the marriage age is at 14. Generally courts in the USA have assumed that if a man is legally married to someone under the age of legal consent then he has assumed responsibility for her and that is aceptable. Note, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is generallyh assumed to have been 14 when she was pregnant with Jesus and Mohammed married a 9 year old girl (but did not have relations with her until she reached puberty).

How old are the women he is marrying and what is the legal marriage age in British Columbia? From what I can see the age of consent in BC is 14 (not sure what the legal marriage age is) but, ironically, it seems the polygamists want the age of consent RAISED to 16: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...s_name=&no_ads=

Sounds like the answer to the modern-day problem many career women face today in regards to whether to have kids or a career. Polygamy would actually be more fitted to the information age than the agrarian model. Also, 20 wives and 80 children -- since Canada has a birthrate shortage his group should be welcomed.

I know that the Book of Ester is one of those books that is not to be regarded as scripture and was only included in the Bible as history -- and even then the men responsible for putting the Bible together debated on including it or not. However, my wife was toying with the idea of the name of Ester for a daughter (too Utah for my tastes so I vetoed the idea right off) but I thought for a moment about the entire Ester thing. Let's see, the King of Persia orders his #1 wife, Vashti, to appear before the royal court and parade naked in front of all the nobels at a big wine and feast party. She refuses and the king is so ticked off he decides to hold a big screening for a new wife by getting hundreds of young women to compete for the spot of queen. Ester conceiles being Jewish (since Persians of that day were blond, red headed or light brown haired then that's another bit of evidence for what Jews looked like) and the king picks her as one of the finalists. She gets bathed and treated to the old-style perfume and spoiling thing that took place in the harems of those days. Then she spends the night with the king (uh, do you think they played Risk all night or talked about politics?). She wins the contest, probably does some neat nude appearances for the court (making up for Vashti's refusal) and winds up #1 in the harem of wives. Of course, she then uses her position to save her people from being ethnically cleansed from the region. Sorry, anytime I hear the name Ester I think about these aspects of the book -- therefore that name went out the door when we were discussing baby names. I do realize the historic significance of the event and the book (even though God is not mentioned in the book) but shouldn't her artistic representations be more in line with Mata Hari, in context as well as clothing, or lack of?

Just think, when the USA started worshipping at the alter of "optional parenthood" that's when immigration jumped through the roof.Is this God's way of replacing ungrateful and hedonistic civilizations?

I don't know, maybe people are finally waking up to the fact that when you have godless governments in the western world in virtual partnership with an amoral media and corporate environment then believers need to focus less on attacking each other and put their energy in more productive areas.

I wish I could see this movie now, but I will have to wait until I am back in the USA -- since it is subtitled I have to wait as most European countries use non-English subtitles for movies. http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/a...cal_medium.html http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=e...ment&id=4821953 Idaho state? Does anyone know if Professor Hansen is LDS?

Too teletubbies for me: http://www.dailyfreegames.com/games/shooti...lling-game.html

Totally okay, no need to apologize -- it's all in the spirit of lively debate.

Since Joseph Smith used the name I think this is more semantics than anything else -- kinda like the girl I knew in high school who was an RLDS member and if you said she was LDS she would categorically deny it.

Pushka, my reply... Is the cleric in Solalia a terrorist? Is the president of Iran a terrorist? Are the courts in Pakistan and Indonesia that sentence Christians to long jail terms for daring to be Christian terrorists? No, they are absolutely not terrorists by any definition. However, that doesn't mean they are all that nice. I do admire that Muslims stand up for their religion and also tend to be more family centered than so called Christians in the west -- I have posted topics on that many times here. I have known many Muslims who are very nice people and I have no trouble with these people. I am also almost done reading the Koran -- to be honest if Euro Christians and liberal American Christians were half as devout to their religion as Muslims are then there would be less "Christians" filling up bars and pubs and more filling up places of worship on Sunday -- there would be less "Christians" using NHS services for birth prevention and abortion and more babies being born in maternity wards.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014307.php Wow!

Seems that would kill someone quick if you made them drink any liquified metal. I do know that when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem around 71AD Arabs would slice Jews escaping open as many would melt gold into small balls and swallow them so nobody would take it from them when they escaped the boundaries of the city. At least that is what I have read.

Some do, some don't. They just make the distinction between their branches and the mainstream LDS Church headquartered in Salt Lake.

While I have not read anything about cannibalism being featured in Mel Gibson's new movie I have head it is extremely violent in regards to the scenes of human sacrifice. I guess this probes the question of how many LDS people plan on seeing his movie due to the interest LDS generally have for Meso-American culture.

I know this is not the best way to source evidence but I knew this guy who was one of those people I could swear was afflicted with Asperger who could quote Church leaders almost verbatum. He was not the kind of person to get into an argument with on scripture, history or Church policy since he could outdo you no matter what. The reason I bring him up is that we had discussions on Church issues including polygamy and he quoted some Church leader (apostle, prophet, I don't know) who stated for the record that polygamy would come back in the future when there were more children falling victim to infantacide (in the 19th. and early 20th. Centures that term generally meant abortion but also extended to preventative measures against pregnancy -- considering how the IUD, RU-486 and many birth control pills work that allow for fertilization but prevent implantation I think this would qualify) than being born the Lord would re-instate polygamy for the Church. Rosewould states, and I respond: Don't you think that modern culture is promoting homosexuality as just another form of sexual expression? The field is ripe if young people are raised in an environment that relativizes having children. We aren't much better off than Russia. My only hope is that Russia can mobilize nationalism to get its birthrate up -- you can't do that in the USA or you might get wrongly branded a racist and the governing elite just feel that the answer to low birthrates is to bring people from countries that still have babies here to replace the "economic units" who fail to reproduce. The only religeous text from the Abrahamic religions that regulates the number of women a man can be married to is the Koran which limits a man to 4 wives. A friend of mine just returned from Bhutan (which is a Buhdist country) and the law there says a man can only have two wives, but he noted that many men have four and the law doesn't care. My friend is from Africa and he noted that it's kinda funny that once you get out of Europe polygamy is accepted overall. That's like when the Catholic Church used to say Protestants were not Christian, or when fundamentalists say LDS people are not Christian. Polygamist sects that accept the standard LDS scriptures and the line of prophets up until Wilfrod Woodruf are indeed LDS, they are just breakoffs that do not recognize the authority of the Church leaders who operate out of Temple Square. I would note too that there are many regular LDS men who are sealed to more than one wife so in a spiritual sense they are polygamist. That is a positive attitude. :) In a spiritual sense you are right but in this world (at least from a geopolitical standpoint) these low birthrates in the west are extremely dangerous for the future. I would rather see single women go into sperm banks and have babies if they reach their mid 30s and are not married (if they are from the educated classes of people) than to just go extinct. That's the trendy thing in England -- hopefully they are using sperm from Scandinavia. From a sociological point of view I think children need a fatehr and a mother and I have seen no evidence whatsoever that children raised with a father and two mothers is any way disadvantgaged. So polygamy to me is a better option for countries like Russia, western Europe and even the USA than educated and healthy women wanting children not to be able to have them.

Actually, some courts have banned LDS people from paying tithing if they owe their creditors. Also, in part member families often a wife or husband who is not a member will prohibit the member spouse from paying tithing. That person can still get a recommend. One thing that has troubled me is the gross or net payment thing. I know in Europe taxes are so high that members only pay on what they actually get after taxes generally. I think it's up to the member in these situations.

Europe's (Christian) future?: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=53234

"Being gay is faddish in today’s Russia" -- Pravda http://english.pravda.ru/society/sex/85760-0/ I doubt the stats that this guy are offering qre quite that dismal but it should be noted that even in the days of Brigham Young Church leaders stressed that monogamy was a losing proposition for women since males tend to be less into marriage and family than females. Every western Christian nation is on a steep population decline (if you don't count immigrants). Even some LDS have bought into careerism, family limitation and the like. Isn't it odd that even in the harshest days of WW2 Russian and German women had a much higher birthrate than they do today? Isn't it odd that in the days of eeking out a living and having to worry about polio, cholera and all kinds of nasty diseases the US birthrate was way higher than Utah's birthrate is today? Maybe this is why I don't believe there should be laws against polygamists -- I have utmost respect for a man and women who come togather and try to raise kids in righteous homes while you might get 20 kids in a family of one man and three wives. If society started acdepting polygamy as okay, and LDS people continued to try to copy the world, one wonders the irony if some of the polygamist LDS people actually reached the point of outnumbering the general Church.

Shanstress70, I was adressing the post from sharyll -- the woman in her early 40s who wants to become pregnant before it's too late (statistically it probably is anyway).

Maybe, but to deny a woman the chance to bear children in her lifetime is something that may just warrent a "mistake". Remember, easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Actually, Islam is the only one of the Abrahamic religions that limits the number of wives a man can have (that being 4). Judaism does not nor does Christianity. Leading rabbinical leaders in Europe suspended (not ended, suspended) polygamy a few hundred years ago in order to not get persecuted by Christians. Sephardic Jews in Arab lands still practice polygamy. Roman Pagan society was one in which a man could only have one "legal" wife whose children were in line for property inheritance -- but it was pretty much expected that he would have mistresses as well as slave girls in relationships. Christianity rejected Biblical family patterns and adopted Roman attitudes on marriage long after the ministry of Jesus, although the slave girl thing was kinda forgotten.