askandanswer

of course, i am certain your comment about @MormonGator was completely in jest, and that the only reason for not stating so was it was so blatantly obvious, it didn't feel like it needed to be said.
i think there could be widespread agreement he is one of the kindest people on this forum, and no doubt an equal gem to his ward.

That's silly.  This is the internet.  You don't even KNOW who these people are.  Half of them could be bigger heathens than me.  

Now, take a step back.  First, remember I'm not a Mormon.  I'm an investigator, same as you.
Second, put on a pair of Mormon shoes and think about it.  It doesn't matter if you're right.  It doesn't matter if they're wrong.  It doesn't matter if every person on this forum is a jackwagon.  The only thing that matters is YOU and your relationship with Christ, right?
So why would they react this way?  Think about it from their perspective, right or wrong.  You asked questions that have been tossed in their face most of their lives.  They've fought these accusations numerous times.  Do you think it might be hard to NOT think the things they said?  People come on here regularly, I'd imagine, and act innocently then attack their religion.  Read through some of the things I posted in my thread.  I basically called them all nuts.  I'm amazed they didn't boot me.  
What you do from here is your own business.  Don't come on this forum if it distracts your learning.  Use the online missionaries for asking questions.  They're awesome.  But I would ask you to have a little compassion, even if others aren't showing you the same.  It can't be easy for them, just as this isn't easy for you.  I KNOW it isn't.  I'm right there with you.  It must be even harder with a spouse that is against this working for you.  
Read.  Ponder.  Pray.  Find a missionary you can talk to that the spirit speaks to you through.  That is the only thing that has kept me investigating thus far.  Whatever you decide to do, if you investigate seriously and ask Christ for guidance, your faith will be stronger.

Thank you, I will read them, I do take this very seriously.

I was talking to a missionary who said polygamy shook her faith horribly when she first started her mission.  I didn't ask details, but I assume it was something an anti hit her with.  She worked through it.  I'm often surprised what people in the church don't know about their own history.  Maybe it's just because I've been researching so much.  
That said, why would it be something regularly talked or spoken about?  I mean, it's certainly not hidden, but I don't know why it would be taught unless just to prepare people for the accusations.  It has nothing to do with the plan for salvation.  It has nothing to do current church doctrine.  
Additionally, why read the 1937 version of The Book of Mormon?   Assuming @Blossom76 accepts modern prophets, it would make sense to read the most current version.  I would put forth that if her husband has a sincere desire to try this, he try it correctly.

I think it's as @Blossom76 said - many church members here more commonly associate the practice of polygamy with Brigham Young rather than Joseph Smith. But yes, you are correct in suggesting that we here in Australia are indeed a peculiar people.

I think it's as @Blossom76 said - many church members here more commonly associate the practice of polygamy with Brigham Young rather than Joseph Smith. But yes, you are correct in suggesting that we here in Australia are indeed a peculiar people.

I think it's as @Blossom76 said - many church members here more commonly associate the practice of polygamy with Brigham Young rather than Joseph Smith. But yes, you are correct in suggesting that we here in Australia are indeed a peculiar people.

Certainly the church's practice of polygamous marriage is well known by the members of the wards that I have lived in in Australia. On the other hand, I think many members would be surprised, but uncaring, to learn that Joseph Smith had polygamous marriages. The state of Australia where @Blossom76 comes from is widely considered to be more conservative than where most of the population live, in Victoria and New South Wales.  

Thank you, and just to be clear, I have no issue with polygamy being part of the history of the LDS church.  I do however have an issue with an LDS movie just 'not including' any of Joseph's other wives in a movie that covers the timeline of his life, it is deceptive and I can understand how the women in my ward don't know Joseph Smith was a polygamist (they were quite upset by the idea too I might add).  They don't have to explain polygamy in the movie, but at least ONE of Joseph's other wives should have been included in that movie, they were a part of his life after all.
This movie and others like it are the movies that missionaries ask investigators to watch, these are the movies women in my ward show their children.  Yes the church is open about polygamy IF you ask, IF you go looking for it.  If you don't, you can live your whole life and never know. I'm just not comfortable with that.
I don't think it's right, and had you seen the looks on the faces of the women at my ward I'm sure you would agree with me.  And these were life long members too, they looked at me like I was the devil himself.  I felt awful. At Church we (just the women in Relief Society) were discussing the political push for same sex marriage in Australia and one of the women brought up the fact that it would open the door for other 'disgusting' marriage practices like polygamy, I just stood up for Joseph Smith and said 'how can you think its disgusting when the prophet himself lived plural marriage' didn't go down well at all.

I like you.  
Still, they are legitimate questions.  I had them myself, yet moved past them.  
I think this problem is made worse through advanced studying without the benefit of the Holy Spirit.  

You do not need to have..  You are discussing things with your husband which is good.  Your husband is against the church which is typical.
If I were your husband (which I am not) and I was trying to show you that your interest was wrong/bad... I would be on the internet reading all the Anti Mormon stuff I could find... and then I would be spoon feeding it to you.
It means that your setup is unfortunate.
So just remember even if you are not willingly looking into any anti-mormon stuff does not mean that your Husband is not.  And if you regurgitate such here it, is a legitimate question for you, but founded in anti-materials that many of us very familiar with.
As for deception... that is a common theme but just remember that all these "hidden secrets" are by an large have been preserved and made available by the efforts of the LDS church.  Thus if the LDS church is indeed trying to "hide" things it is staggeringly incompetent about it

I’m not sure whether some of the links offered already mention this; but the BoM went through several editions in Smith’s lifetime.  Some of these editions included corrections/revisions made by committee and then loosely approved by Smith (e.g. Kirtland 1837); and others were the result of an intensive review Smith himself undertook (the Nauvoo edition of—I may be off on this, but I think 1844 or so).  Meanwhile, some of Smith’s associates were sent to do missionary work in England in the early 1840s, and they (based on a general instruction Smith mailed from the US, where he was still living) published an edition at Liverpool around 1840 based on the 1837 Kirtland edition.  When the Mormons were driven out of Nauvoo, the center of Mormon printing shifted to Britain for more-or-less the rest of the century; and thus through inertia future LDS editions of the Book of Mormon were based on the Liverpool edition (and thus, indirectly, the Kirtland 1837 edition) which lacked the edits Smith made to the Nauvoo edition.  This persisted until 1980, when that year’s edition made a conscious effort to “bring back” most of Smith’s corrections.  
This is a roundabout way of saying that we use the text that we use because Joseph Smith himself later decided, in many cases, that the 1830 translation could be improved upon.  We tend to assume that whatever “translation” Smith got through his interpreters was a word-for word text; and that he wrote the words exactly as he saw them.  I think it’s very possible that in many cases his “translation” was more a situation of ideas being conveyed to Smith and that he was given a certain degree of latitude to try to express those ideas in his own language, which was to some degree limited by his life experience (a farm boy in Protestant upstate New York, for example, may not have understood what a pregnant (pun intended) term Catholics consider “mother of God” to be; especially if he hadn’t studied Catholicism or met any Catholics).  
At any rate, as any student of Bible translations know, there often isn’t one “best” translation of a particular passage—one translation may preserve clearer imagery, another emphasizes preservation of syntax and linguistic/poetic forms from the root language, one may render ancient idioms literally while another looks for modern-English equivalents that convey the same meaning.  The “ideal” translation may change depending on what point you’re making and who your audience is; thus, the English BoM text is better considered as a “divine best-fit” or “lowest common denominator” text rather than the “One True Translation To Rule Them All” text—if Joseph Smith (or some other inspired, authoritative individual) wants to introduce a textual variant that in some ways works better than his 1830 rendition, there’s no absolute prohibition on his doing so.
When we cite Joseph Smith’s statement about the Book of Mormon as the “most correct book”, we need to note his context.  Smith didn’t utter this sentence as a boast about editorial pedantry, literary quality, or even factual comprehensiveness (I have always suspected that there’s a LOT of stuff Nephi makes it a point to omit).  Rather, Smith was speaking in the context of the Book of Mormon as a book that, specifically, would draw people nearer to God.  I’m always appreciative of attempts for greater accuracy; but I don’t really think the 1980 or 1844 or 1837 editions are any more effective at drawing me nearer to God than the 1830 edition was.

I was raised very catholic, I'm used to being persecuted for my faith, I would never treat anyone the way I have been treated for asking questions about the catholic church.  It's unacceptable and there is no excuse for it.  I am sincerely wanting to know if the Book of Mormon is true, I am devoting a lot of my time to studying this faith, as is my husband, who is quite happy being Catholic but is studying the LDS faith and reading the Book of Mormon for me, being a supportive husband.   I do not - nor does anyone - deserve to be treated with such disrespect for asking a question.  

Everyone, let's get off @Blossom76's case.  She's been with us for a while, has proven herself as an honest investigator, and a very fine person.  Yes, those of us on the forum have heard anti-folks play troll / wolf-in-sheep's clothing with this very question 99 times.  But Blossom is NOT such a person.  Let us not turn away the 1 honest seeker just because we've seen 99 trolls.

I am going to LDS church most Sundays (the missionaries teach me there) and I am reading the Book of Mormon, Gospel Principles, D&C and The Pearl of Great Price. I also am on lds.org a lot and have also checked out fairmormon on some questions too.
My husband and I have been reading the Book of Mormon together - him from his kick land edition and me from my LDS given edition - that is why we discovered the differences - because they are there
 

By the way, for serious scholars, we have the life's work of a guy named Royal Skousen, PhD in linguistics, who began a landmark work in 1988 - Compiling every single change to every single printing in existence.
http://criticaltext.byustudies.byu.edu/about
It's quite a remarkable website, with hours and hours of material, again, for the serious scholar.

Here we have the Apostle Thomas calling the Son of God, God.  Is this a problem?  Did Thomas not know that Jesus was the Son of God?
Then see verse 31 at the end of the chapter:
So which is he, God or the Son of God?  How about both?  Is it OK for the Bible to mix the terms?

The both of you have gone way beyond the social media standard for nerdness and has penetrated the world of autists.

Mister. You just need to quit it! Knock that foolish controlling and petty stuff off before she smacks your nose with a rolled up newspaper and tells you to go marry a duck. 

Speaking of activities with no discernible purpose—how’s that fountain pen thing working out for you two?

I guess a lot of it comes down to what @zil said earlier - so much seems to depend on how certain we are of where the instruction came from.

I didn't want to come right out and say it.

1 Cortinthians 8: 5  For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)
6  But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
 
Doctrine and Covenants 136:37  Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and he abode in my law; as Isaac also and Jacob did none other things than that which they were commanded; and because they did none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods. (gods - small g)

If he ever contradicts the rest of us - choose his side.

Moroni 10: 
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
(emphasis mine).
We do NOT want you to trust anything we said because we said it.  Rather, we want you to ask God if this true and go off the answer He tells you.