I’m amazed that the “father-daughter” aspect of this story has not been talked about more on this thread.
It seems like we’ve been taken down a detour by a ‘tar baby’ comment.
I hate to say this, but Romney’s candidacy is making me lose patience with the LDS organization.
Agreed.
The "better" LDS apologists will try to dodge this aspect by emphasizing that (a) they still believe in a "virgin" birth of some sort; and (b) saying something to the effect that it wasn't necessarily Heavenly Father-Mary sexual relations which produced Jesus as offspring.
I guess I'd like to know how both "The LDS Christmas Story" (citations & all) fits into the LDS apologists' view in light of the following LDS general authority citations:
Citation 1: "...As the horse, the ox, the sheep, and every living creature, including man, propogates its own species & perpetuates its own kind, so does God perpetuate His." LDS prophet John Taylor, Mediation & Atonement, 1882, p. 165
[Any of you farmers had any immaculate conceptions in light of Taylor's pronouncement?]
Citation 2: "The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood—-was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers." LDS prophet Brigham Young JoD, vol. 8, p. 115
[Notice that historic Christianity puts the emphasis on the birth of Christ being a supernatural event, whereas Brigham twice emphasizes it being only a natural event].
Now, it's important in all of this to remember the backdrop of how LDS see Heavenly Father:
(1) He's a physical ex-mortal man with a physical body, sexual organs & all.
(2) His spirit babies in the so-called "pre-existence" were born via sexual relations with an unnamed goddess or goddesses...in which even Eliza Snow wrote a hymn about that's in all the LDS hymnals. Note this Young quote which fleshes this out:
"God...created man [as spirit children], as we create our children: for there is no other process of creation in heaven, on the earth, in the earth, or under the earth, or in all eternities, that is, that were, or that ever will be." LDS prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 11, p. 122
[I would say Brigham sounds a bit all-encompassing & comprehensive w/such a statement, wouldn't you all? So if Young thought that spirit babies were created in heaven by the same "natural" process of sexual relations, then there was nothing objectionable to him to having viewed Mary as yet another "wife" of Heavenly Father].
That is EXACTLY what has happened; just as I warned against!