LeSellers

How else could one see it? Again, within the limits Moroni established about errors. Lehi

Still has nothing to do with defining whether we need God to establish "morality". Lehi

Yes, within the parameters Moroni laid out: if there are mistakes, they are the mistakes of men. It matters a great deal. Either it is what it claims to be or Joseph Smith either lied or was deceived. Either one makes the Church he Restored false, its Priesthood void, and its promises and covenants useless. Lehi

That has nothing to do with "morality". Lehi

No, it is not. Your topic question is, "Does Morality Require a God?" I haven't found it. Please point us there. Lehi

Then you disagree with Walter E. Williams and Thomas Sowell. They both recognize that had their ancestors not been sold by Muslims to Dutch traders*, and brought to what would become USA, they could not have become anything like what they are. One of them (Williams, I believe) said that, while slavery wasn't great for his ancestors, it was still a step up from their abysmal state in Africa, and that he, whichever it was, blessed the ship that brought them here. * If they had gone east, rather than west, those same people would have been lucky to survive the trip. The boys were castrated without anesthesia or any antiseptic, the girls raped and their children killed. Life was far better for USA-bound slaves than for those going from Muslim to Muslim. This is not to justify slavery in USA or anywhere else. It's just a comparison that many, especially here, ignore completely. I agree that slavery isn't good, but to say that it never had any positive effects on the enslaved misses the history of slavery and poverty and of despair. Lehi

I beg to differ. I wrote this (and others have posted similar thoughts): How do you know what is moral? Atheists cannot know that anything is moral. You may imagine you do, but you do not. Why not murder if the only thing that matters is your personal survival? Why not steal if the only thing that matters is your personal comfort? Why not rape if the only thing that matters is propagating your DNA? The only thing that matters to an atheist is this life. Honor, courtesy, honesty, unless they advance one's personal life/comfort/progeny, they are of no value at all. You can claim you wouldn't want to harm anyone, but why not? What about another person makes not harming him to enrich yourself valuable to you? You can choose to be moral, but why? How is acting morally "better", because it may very well be that your "morality" is not objectively better than anyone else's. Lehi

What you want is immaterial. We're going to get either Trump or Hitliary. I'm not a big fan of choosing the lesser of two evils, but if we choose neither, it is essentially the same as choosing the greater of two evils. Lehi

Businesses often support both sides, or the side that is more likely to win, in politics. Just as Trump has said, he hopes to buy influence, or, at least, to keep out of their dog house. No, I am not supporting or defending Trump. People, however, need to know more than what's on TV. Lehi

In most languages I know of, including English, "sons" is not sexually exclusive, and includes all children, including daughters. Lehi

So, your mind made up, you dismiss any counterpoint with a mere, "well my morality is higher than yours (or God's)"? That you refuse to discuss any conclusion that does not align with yours is highly indicative. Of what, seems abundantly clear. Lehi

She knew he was a prophet of God. She said so again and again until her dying day. She believed him to be all that he ever claimed. Plural Marriage was definitely a challenge to her (because it was not from her culture, not because it was wrong). You seem to be engaging in Brodie-esque mind reading to determine what she thought, and what were "her senses". Have you read the most useful biography of Emma (Emma Hale Smith: Mormon Enigma)? It's authors, each of whom changed her mind a bit about Sister Smith, agree, she didn't like it, but she knew it was of God. One, a LDS, the other RLDS, disagreed about a lot, but, in the end, they did see eye-to-eye on this. Lehi

I can. She received a direct commandment from God, and rejected it. Lehi

"Our morality" has nothing to do with true morality. Morality serves the purpose of advancing the human situation. but as long as anyone looks at "the human situation" as though this life alone is it, he will miss important insights into how God sees morality. You (and @Godless) seem hung up on, e.g., the Amorites, so let's explore the situation. It goes back at least 400 years, and, as best I can tell, more than a millennium. Noah's ark landed on Ararat, and his descendants set out to all points of the compass. But his son, Shem and his family and followers went only as far as what we know as Israel, or, better, the Land of Jerusalem. He founded a city he called "Peace", "Salem" in what would become Hebrew. (Later, the prefix "Jeru-" made it "the City of Peace".) His name (or perhaps his son's, but the chronology doesn't work well if so) or name-title was "Melchizedek", "King of Righteousness"; and, coupled with the name of his city, he was the prince or king of peace. (Obviously an anti-type of Jesus Christ). He lived 800+ years after the flood of Noah, and it was to him that Abraham paid tithes on the spoils of the war he undertook to rescue his nephew Lot from the kings of those people who would become the Amorites, Hittites, etc. The next chapter of Genesis ends with God's making the covenant of a promised land to Abraham for his descendants. But it would not yet be, because, in the words of God: These people, the Amorites, had been part of the original, post-Noachin, covenant, offspring of Noah and Shem. But, even in Abram's day, they were evil, and they had broken the covenant, but not so fully that they were ripe, ready to be swept off the land. It would take at least 400 years for them to reach that point, and when they did, the new covenant people, under Joshua and later, Saul, would fulfill the curse of a people who live in a promised land but fail to keep that covenant: they would be annihilated. It was not caprice, it was not immorality that caused God, through Saul and Samuel, to destroy them. It was their having broken the covenant. The covenant would have allowed them "to prosper in the land", but there is a curse attached, too, and it was "to be swept off the land". They chose, they paid. That's what contracts are all about. What is true of the Amorites was also true of the Hittites and all the other peoples of the area: keep the covenant, gain the blessing; break it, pay the price. You also seem to be aghast that God would slay the Egyptians' first born. Again, we must study the history of the enslavement of the Israelites, which I assume you know. After Joseph saved the Egyptians, there arose a Pharaoh who knew him not. And, fearing an uprising (not basis for the phobia), they forced them to build cities of brick. The chronology is not clear, either it was for four generations (as in the prophecy above), or for four hundred years. Either way, the Israelites were long in slavery, and when God commanded them to release the slaves, Pharaoh refused again and again, until God slew the children of the Egyptians. Had Pharaoh given them their freedom earlier, there would ahve been no cause for killing the first-born. So, in effect, it was their choice. You also charge God with condoning and even commanding slavery. The only slavery you are likely familiar with is chattel slavery, but this was not the slavery the Israelites practiced under the Law of Moses. Slavery under the Law was not for life (unless the slave himself chose to remain with his master), but ended after, at most, seven years. Further, the conditions of Israelite slavery were far different from chattel slavery: the slaves were treated well, and the point of Israelite slavery was to take someone who'd broken the Law into a household where the Law was revered: it was an on-the-job training program in worship. Your charges are spurious: God is quintessentially moral. His application of His own laws is predictable, and it serves a purpose beyond this world. Lehi

Emma believed it. She didn't like it. She tried to foist it off on Brother Brigham, but even in her dying testimony to her son, she used the same words Joseph (and she) had used decades earlier, words designed to divert attention from the practice while not, in actual fact, denying it. Lehi

And yet we are given stewardship over our children, and that does not mean to allow the government to take them and their minds to mold them into servile, docile wards of the state. Luke 6: 29~30 (JST) An offense against me, personally, I can forgive. One against my wife or child, or grandchild, one responsibility against another, it's up to me to determine which is the greater. And there is no contest. Lehi

If it keeps even one child from suffering under the delusion of education and the reality of indoctrination, then it has great value indeed. Lehi

Emma did not want this. After the Battle of Nauvoo, when the apostates and antis had largely left her alone, she wanted little to do with religion. She rebuffed the RLDS apostles when they came to importune JSIII to become their prophet. It was only after several attempts on their part that she allowed it. Lehi

Neither Emma nor JS III had anything to do with "starting the Reorganized LDS Faith". Two of their apostles came to see her about having Joseph III become their prophet, months after they had organized their apostasy. She initially refused to let them speak with him, but afterward relented. Lehi

Please provide. Lehi

Because you know I speak the truth. Lehi

Indeed. Clinton panders because her actions are in direct conflict with her actions and history. I much prefer someone with whom I disagree than someone who panders to me by telling me things I know he doesn't belive, and is only trying to manipulate me. Lehi

Pandering is what she does best. Well, that and having people killed if she doesn't like them. Oh, and attacking the women who dare accuse her husband of rape. I nearly forgot, losing eMails. Lehi

Three things apply here: 1) You don't know the backstory. For much of it, we don't, either, but we have the background to put these things in a perspective that you cannot imagine. 2) Because you can't imagine the universal Fatherhood of God, you reject that He can and does allow or even actively do things that may advance our betterment, but which, from our PoV, seem immoral. 3) You don't understand covenants and the associated blessings for keeping them, nor the associated curses that follow on rejecting them. I was an Officer Candidate in the Army. Much of what I went through was just plain harsh, and that's a mild description. But it was not to actually harm us candidates (although it did), it was to help us find our strength and dig deeply into ourselves to build on that undiscovered strength. Those who understood this principle graduated. Those who did not, dropped out. Someone who saw the "training" might think the Tac Officers were being immoral. But that does not mean they were being evil. In one case, a cycle before mine, a Tac Officer cut off a man's finger with a bayonet. It was part of the training — not cutting off the finger, but what he was doing when it happened. We have, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a scripture that explains a bit why things are evil in this world, and why God allows them. Doc&Cov 122:7. After listing a few of the very hard things in life, God told Joseph "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good." Just as in OCS, we learn by doing hard things, and we learn from our experiences. We learn from bad experiences more, probably, that from the comfortable things that happen to us. Lehi

By their fruits ye shall know them. I read that somewhere, and it seems fitting. Lehi