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You know, monogamous marriage is an institution created by the patriarchy to protect both their daughters and property. The patriarchy never gets credit for this. It provided a father with a legal process to at least discourage the mistreatment of daughters.

I'm sick of busting Mormons' chops with this embarrassing part of their history, particularly now that we have women walking around in chadors in Sam's club. Met one today. They man came up and touched me! He was just letting me know that he was moving his cart in such a way so as to not block traffic. He didn't really do anything out of line, but I sure didn't like being touched by a Muslim man when I know he is not supposed to do it, accding to his own Sharia.

Ugh. He didn't know who he was touching, and my instinctive reaction I managed to hide.

Anyway, I wish we'd stop picking on the Mormons when we've got Sharia to worry about.

Of course, it was economics. After the Civil War, there were thousands of destitute widows and girl orphans, and they got taken advantage of...such is life. We are all desperately wicked as the sparks fly upward.

Given the natural progression of "same sex marriage" we will see an inevitable return to polygamy and must think of our own daughters.

Did you know that polygamy is legal both in India and Ontario, Canada?

Of course, it was economics. After the Civil War, there were thousands of destitute widows and girl orphans, and they got taken advantage of...

As a general Western pathology of the 25 years following the Civil War, this is not true. John Widtsoe was born in the immediate post-Civil War days and became an Lds "apostle" by 1921.

According to the Changing World of Mormonism, pp. 224-225: [LDS} "Apostle John A. Widtsoe stated: ’We do not understand why the Lord commanded the practice of plural marriage.’ (Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, p.393). One of the most popular explanations is that the church practiced polygamy because there was a surplus of women. The truth is, however, that there were less women than men. Apostle Widtsoe admitted that there was no surplus of women”: 'The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seems always to have been more males than females in the Church.’.. The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, ... there was no surplus of women'” (Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, pp.390-92," as cited in Changing World, pp. 224-225).

Imagine single men having to “do without” such a wife because some men were “hoarding” them, 27, 40, 57 at a time!

Anyway, I wish we'd stop picking on the Mormons when we've got Sharia to worry about.

It must really to get picked on!!

Joseph Smith continues: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (, p.270).

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (, p. 119).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" ( 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" ( 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" ( 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (, vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" ( 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (, p. 255).

Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (, 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (, vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (, 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (, vol. 2, p.196).