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Mormon Church Admits Founder Joseph Smith ... Married a 14-year-old (Truncated Title)
Daily Mail ^ | October 26, 2014 06:55 GMT | Kieran Corcoran (AP)

Posted on 10/25/2014 11:04:54 PM PDT by Up Yours Marxists

The Mormon church has admitted that its founder was a polygamist who married a 14-year-old girl, breaking a lengthy silence about its history.

Joseph Smith, who wrote the Book of Mormon and established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is thought to have married as many as 50 women, but for years the senior church officials did not address the subject.

But this week the organization acknowledged that the practice took place, and named Helen Mar Kimball, 'who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday.'

Estimates have placed the total number of Smith's wives between 27 and 50, though the church said it is impossible to say for sure.

However, it suggested many of his marriages may not have involved sex, and that Smith was reluctant to adopt the practice, which was eventually banned in 1890.

(...)

FULL TITLE:

Mormon church admits founder Joseph Smith was a polygamist who married a 14-year-old - but says many of his marriages 'may not have involved sex'

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Religion
KEYWORDS: marriage; morman; polygamy; smith
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To: alexander_busek

Let’s read your defense of the thread topic, not whether you have seen it in action.


41 posted on 10/26/2014 2:22:17 AM PDT by ansel12
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To: Morgana

Yes, meaning ole Joe, despite all his prophetic prowess, could not render due benevolence 50 times a night such that many of his cast off “wives” had sexless marriages. How noble of him!


42 posted on 10/26/2014 2:42:57 AM PDT by Theophilus (Be as prolific as you are pro-life.)
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To: ansel12; entropy12
Let’s read your defense of the thread topic, not whether you have seen it in action.

I do not choose to defend the thread topic. In fact, I do not choose, at this point in time, to adopt any stance on the thread topic.

FReepers are free to join in on a thread and express their disapproval of the impolite behavior (unnecessary aggressiveness) of other posters, without themselves volunteering a decided opinion on the main topic.

In fact, I do have an opinion, but don't believe that it would especially enrich the discussion here, so I will reserve it to myself for the time being.

However, I do feel that unnecessary rudeness should be critized whenever it rears its ugly head. Free Republic should be protected as a forum for polite discourse at all times.

Regards,

43 posted on 10/26/2014 3:02:35 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

In other words, you have nothing to add other than a scold about what you perceive as tone?

Just defend what it is that you want to defend as morals and politics.


44 posted on 10/26/2014 3:13:22 AM PDT by ansel12
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To: Up Yours Marxists
Makes one wonder how much involvement the LDS has with the same sex movement, to justify their dirty polygamist past perhaps????

At least in California's Prop. 8. they actually were among the good guys, enough so that they were singled out by the homos, who weren't interested in taking on the black churches.
45 posted on 10/26/2014 3:20:43 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you're litigating against nuns, you've probably done something wrong."-Ted Cruz)
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To: Morgana

Maybe he married the ugly ones for their money.


46 posted on 10/26/2014 3:27:29 AM PDT by MNDude
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To: ansel12; entropy12
In other words, you have nothing to add other than a scold about what you perceive as tone?

There's an old German saying: "Der Ton macht die Musik." I.e., an uncivil tone will frequently mask a legitimate point. So, I feel that you are doing yourself no favor by rudely attacking another apparently well-meaning poster (entrophy12) who simply wanted to make a casual observation, and not engage in a "tooth-and-nail" fight.

And, yes: I don't think that anything that I have to say on this time-worn issue would prove especially edifying or entertaining to most other FReepers - with whom I am probably in accord, anyway.

Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.

Regards,

47 posted on 10/26/2014 3:52:18 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Up Yours Marxists

Well, he’s not as bad as mohhamed, he married his favorite wife when she was 9.


48 posted on 10/26/2014 4:05:46 AM PDT by john drake (Lucius Accius-Roman,170 BC - "oderint dum metuant" translated "Let them hate so long as they fear")
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To: Politicalkiddo

What part of Appalachia or the South were they from?


49 posted on 10/26/2014 4:07:18 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: eclecticEel

That’s what I was thinking.


50 posted on 10/26/2014 4:11:00 AM PDT by djf (OK. Well, now, lemme try to make this clear: If you LIKE your lasagna, you can KEEP your lasagna!)
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To: entropy12
"Did the Mormons behead any non-Mormons?"

Google "Mormon blood atonement"

51 posted on 10/26/2014 4:21:45 AM PDT by fulltlt
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To: Politicalkiddo
I know someone whose great-grandparents married when they were both 13. This was in the early 1900s.

One of my great-grandfathers married my great-grandmother when he was 42 and she was 16, in 1880.

GGM was the oldest living-at-home child of her parents, who both died the previous year of whatever went through the farming village that winter. The younger children were parceled out to local families for raising, but she was presumably considered old enough to be married. GGF had lost his second (or third, we're not sure) wife at about the same time, so it was almost certainly a marriage of convenience: he needed someone to take care of the house and raise his children (though one of them was 18 at the time), and she needed a home and someone to provide for her.

They stayed married 20 years until his death in 1901, and had a number of children, one of whom was my father's mother. None of which in any way provides any "cover" for Joseph Smith, of course.

52 posted on 10/26/2014 4:29:25 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: ansel12

Your tables don’t seem right to me at all. For instance, some ages at marriage don’t vary by a hundredth of a year over a century. That’s simply not possible, given the statistical nature of the data. What are your sources?


53 posted on 10/26/2014 4:32:38 AM PDT by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: Up Yours Marxists

Ms Kimball was several months pregnant when “wed” if memory serves. The first Mrs. Smith separated from Joseph shortly before No. 2 “wed” him. Many of the subsequent “marriages” served to enforce his power in the cult. Would you challenge a guy who could take your wife away?
W R to the perception they are peaceful folk, there is a lot of violence among them, but the victims know silence is safer.


54 posted on 10/26/2014 4:40:10 AM PDT by Missouri gal
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To: entropy12

Let me help you: see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
I didn’t know about this until a friend, who’s a descendant of one of the few Christian survivors, went to the dedication of a monument and was apologized to by modern Mormons.


55 posted on 10/26/2014 4:40:16 AM PDT by Moonmad27 ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." Jessica Rabbit)
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To: alexander_busek
"Free Republic should be protected as a forum for polite discourse at all times."

Hear, hear!

56 posted on 10/26/2014 4:40:29 AM PDT by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: pepsionice

“History for most Americans only starts on 7 December 1941.”

And history for most Japanese only starts on August 6, 1945.

Back on topic: the LDS church’s latest admission about their randy founder is deck chairs on the Titanic, in my opinion.

Modernity is the worst enemy of those who seek to falsify the past, as modern technology as applied to information management, DNA microbiology, and even archaeology are now being brought to bear against the long-accepted claims made by the LDS.

What could be dreamed up or falsified by a 19th century charlatan & snake oil salesman in his day, primitive in comparison to today, is now being subjected to withering scrutiny.

For example, the Mormon teaching that today’s American Indians are descended from Hebraic “Lamanites” who destroyed the “white & delightsome Nephites”, has been quietly set aside by the General Authorities in Salt Lake City.

The Mormon dam of misinformation is leaking badly & could burst at any time.


57 posted on 10/26/2014 4:40:41 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel.")
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To: entropy12
yep, with a life expectancy of around 30, you basically had to have a baby as soon as you started menstruating, otherwise you wouldn't live long enough for it to grow up!
58 posted on 10/26/2014 4:47:39 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
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To: Up Yours Marxists

Are we forgetting Jerry Lee Lewis’ 13 year old bride ?


59 posted on 10/26/2014 4:57:17 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Rip it out by the roots.)
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To: Up Yours Marxists
Estimates have placed the total number of Smith's wives between 27 and 50 ... and that Smith was reluctant to adopt the practice ...

Define reluctant.

60 posted on 10/26/2014 5:02:55 AM PDT by samtheman
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