If you are reading this thread and are curious about polygamy and how it related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, do yourself a favor and understand that most of the posts on this board that could be related to the LDS church in any way are posted and commented on by anti-Mormon activists. It should be fairly easy to figure out who they are. You will get their spin on it, their translation of it and their opinion of it. Surely you don’t base your conclusions on information from only one source do you?
Then do yourself a favor. Don’t take their word for it. Find out for yourself. Put forth some effort. You do want the truth right? Prove it.
Read both sides. Talk to both sides. Not just mine. Not just theirs. Make up your own mind.
Here’s a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. The vast majority of the issues brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ I have found but here’s more.
http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/
And if you're not satisfied only with that, ask the used car dealer for links to his in-house used car dealers & advocacy sources! Get both sides (and know who to trust!)
Thanks again. I love that you supply these links (just like the so called antis do) because it makes clear what a fraud lds is.
that most of the posts on this board that could be related to the LDS church in any way are posted and commented on by anti-Mormon activists. It should be fairly easy to figure out who they are. You will get their spin on it, their translation of it and their opinion of it.
There is NOTHING preventing mormons from posting "most of the posts on this board that could be related to the LDS church" other than perhaps, cowardliness.
Well, one of our own Freeepers, a Mormon, has on his page his belief in many wives but says it is not practiced because it is against our laws. So there you have it. How many would do so indeed if it were allowed? I think many if they could afford to do so.
Oh yeah? Yeah!
Well, one of my mentors once relayed to me that, FYI,
#1...the Saints "outlawed" polygamy in the BoM (Book of Jacob) + in the original D&C Sec. 51...
...not to mention the First Manifesto in 1890.
As I seem to recall how one of my mentors put it once in an e-mail to me, this was a bit like Lds leaders conveying to the grass roots folk: "keep what youve got but dont add to your clutch"
Then #2 in the early 1900s, another Smith (I believe it was the grand nephew of the original Joseph) was head of the Lds church and because of all the continuous poly-goings on...like hundreds of additional polygamous unions after 1890, he issued yet a Second Manifesto
Let's see, how did one of my mentors frame that one? Oh, yes; 'twas like the Lds leaders conveying to the Lds grassroots folk: "OK you dimwits ... now were getting really serious so you better really stop"
Then #3 this pronouncement was "hierarchy-ally" re- communicated in the 1923 Pronouncement, which my thus-mentioned mentor conveyed was to the grassroots folks as if they were meaning: "you dumb clunks need to realize we were really, really serious this time ... so you are really, really going to have to stop sealing your booties in our temples"
Then #4 -- the enforcement of all previous -- manifesto I (1890), Manifesto II (1903), the pronoucement (1923) -- all "enforced" during the reformation of the 1930s...after all, who could afford more than one wife in the 1930s?
And #5, when the 1945 death of Lds "prophet" Heber Grant occurred...what was the message conveyed to the Lds grassroots from their leadership? Well, as one of my mentors thus framed it: "look you morons ... our last swinger president and prophet has croaked therefore the stuff has really, finally ceased at last!"
(Ya gotta know the "inside insight" of my mentor in figurin' the history behind that comment...that 'twas Grant who began "really" enforcing the polygamous "reformation" in the Lds church...yet the reason why my thus-mentioned "mentor" utilized the word "swinger" was 'cause Grant himself, prior to his reformation emphasis, had been a polygamist!)
Well, if all of the above wasn't enough for you history buffs, then came #6 the 1953 "get a clue" message from the Utah Attorney Generals decision -- after the raid on the twin polygamous communities @ the Utah-AZ border. And the message conveyed there not only to Mormon grassroots but to ALL of us by Utahns in power was: "you imbeciles need to recognize that there is no need to prosecute that stuff any more because its ceased to exist - and because its so common we couldnt find a jury to convict and we couldnt build enough prisons"
So, now to fast-forward all this to the latest mess involving the FLDS. Hmmm...how did one of my mentors frame the message we were ALL getting from Lds, Inc? Oh, yeah: "dont you idiots realize those clowns are not really Mormons even though they are practicing our faith exactly as proclaimed by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and our sacred scriptures still say this is an everlasting covenant necessary to pass into everlasting glory."
Yeah, what a troubling Lds "scripture" that is -- D&C 132. Never rescinded by mainstream Mormons. Still elevated as a "revelation" of God to Joe Smith by contemporary mainstream Mormons. A "Mormon scripture" adhered to by the fLDS but denied by the D&C 132 heretics -- the Mainstream LDS -- yet they don't have the gall to take a pair of scissors & cut it out of their holy book.
So, since I can't frame it any better than how one of my mentors said it in an e-mail to me, allow me to end this post with this private e-mail quote:
"So if plural marriage doesnt exist,
and never has,
and was only practiced by a select few,
and was only to necessary to provide for excess women in Utah,
and stopped over a hundred years ago,
hasnt happened for over a hundred years,
and has been condemned by our prophets (even though it is still found in the quad*)
...then why dont you quit 'persecuting' our righteous brothers and sisters and get a life and move on? So there!"
[Note: 'quad' for you non-Mormon laymen = the 4-pack of Lds "scriptures" of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible...well, and the Bible "insofar as correctly translated" which means if a Mormon disagrees with portions thereof, well that part wasn't "correctly translated."]
You folks all come back now, ya hear?
Examine this graphic which shows that the polygamist cult FLDS and the Salt Lake City mormon church BOTH originated with Joseph Smith.
Onbly the FIRST two are ‘authentic’ MORMON sites.
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The others try REALLY hard to distance themselves from being the LAST WORD.
The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Rights and use information. Privacy policy. |
To Whom It May Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy
I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:
I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.
Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. |
"Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriage...I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws..."~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President