Move 1: 12th Article of Faith - We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Move 2: D&C 58:21 - Let no man break the laws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land.

Move 3: From the essay - "When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully."

Move 4: From the essay - "In Joseph Smith’s time, monogamy was the only legal form of marriage in the United States."

Very well done! I love this.

They are so situational with their ethics I can't stand it.

I agree it is well done and that their ethics are supportive of Mormonism first.

I take the position that religion, beliefs, should be willing and able to clash with laws, especially if the consequences are "eternal".

The problem for mainstream Mormons is that they lack any record of conviction over time where they violate a law and refuse to change the will of God to meet the laws of man.

Clearly the Articles of Faith 11 are feel good articles though and has never been reality. The whole origin story of Mormonism is that all religions are an abomination and that Mormonism needs to fill the earth and consume all other faiths and laws.

gentlestrength Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Clearly the Articles of Faith 11 are feel good
> articles though and has never been reality. The
> whole origin story of Mormonism is that all
> religions are an abomination and that Mormonism
> needs to fill the earth and consume all other
> faiths and laws.

Sounds so much like the sweeping empire of Islam of history in convert or be killed.

TBM's will counter with the "god can do anything" trump card. Trying to reason with them using solid reasoning is near impossible.

Years ago I had pointed out the polygamy flip flopping of their god/church to a TBM acquaintance, and how I felt if there were any revelatory changes they would certainly not run counter to one another.

His type do not care about what makes sense or what may sound ridiculous. It's all about obedience to him and others like him.

He will be a member until Joseph Smith himself comes back from the dead and pries his naively obedient hands off of the iron rod.

You can never use reason when magical thinking is involved...Magic will always win.

1 Nephi 4:13 Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

Exodus 20:13 Thou Shall Not Kill.

When God is involved it doesn't matter. God can override commandments that God created.

Which places LDS in good company with the likes of David Koresh.

Unconstrained by logic and reason places God in company with David Koresh as well I think.

Unfortunately, this would involve Mormons thinking beyond the first move: "Follow the prophet...the end".

My ex REFUSES to read the essays. Why? because "they are too risque and may hurt" her testimony. "Faithful members should not read that stuff"

I like it. Nice play.

I wonder if the remaining story of The COJCOLDS will be like a dam that cracks slowly, almost imperceptibly, only to break suddenly when a certain structural tipping point is reached at which the structure is too weakly held and the reservoir is losing water too quickly to stop. Perhaps this best describes what may happen as most of the rank and file continue to be exposed to things like this essay that they can still absorb into their whole perspective of the church in the short term (assuming the church isn't fully successful with what appears sometimes to be a reveal but bury strategy), but in the long term there would be too much potential for a dissonance between the new old Mormonism and whatever comes next for too many people.

Weakening the dam only to strengthen it in a different form but slowly enough that it's almost imperceptible would be their best bet long-term but I doubt the folks in the COB could make it work in a way that doesn't accelerate beyond repair sooner or later, especially with so many of their own talks and works on the internet. The people who see the problems with the church keep looking like they're right too much and their prophets, seers, and revelators are mostly revelating the misdeeds and mistakes of former prophets and seers.

I doubt Mormonism will fully disappear anytime soon. Some people will always be vulnerable to what they're selling. I just doubt that they can draw their latter days out forever. This sort of checkmate is coming though I don't know how many moves, or cracks in the simile above, it will take.

I think Free Agency vs. an angel with a sword *demanding* JS multi-wed kinda takes away free agency, dontcha think?

I love this line of thinking. I agree with the above comments. It always bothered me even when I was a TBM.

Did you know that the 2nd Article of Faith is a contradiction in itself as well? "Men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression." Then how do you explain Cain's transgression? Does his descendants to be punished because of his errors? It is a blatant lie trying to explain away why we have blacks and why we should be superior to them. Nuts!

K

Yes, that one bothered me from the time my Catholic + black female friend pointed it out to me my junior year in high school. I was a smarty pants, but not clever enough to answer that one.

Yes. This was a GIANT crack in my dam.

Because it wasn't a 'transgression' to kill Cain, it was a 'sin' silly =)

Nice job Facsimile 3.

1. All lawful laws of the land in the USA have always been intended to pave the way for the establishment of the Lord's Kingdom in the USA (i.e. the LdS church) and towards the eventual establishment of this church as Jesus Christ's millennium global government.
2. If any laws of the land are ever interpreted to contradict God's laws then the person interpreting them is incorrect as the first law of heaven is obedience and God's laws must be followed as the first and foremost law of the land.
3. Joe was God's prophet and every LdS church president since then has been God's prophet and whatever God's prophet wants right now is exactly what God wants right now as God's unquestionable supreme law.

The purpose of #1, #2, and #3 is to give the LdS church president a green light to do whatever the hell he wants to do without ever having to be accountable or face consequences. And sadly for TBM's it works.

When it doesn't work is when they come to realize that some of their foundational beliefs start crumbling and their shelf collapses so they go from being TBM to being exmo. That happened to me when I came to believe that the Book of Mormon was fiction. All of the rest of you exmo's have your own tales on how the foundation crumbled for you.

Arguing with TBMs is pointless. If you try to checkmate them then they will insist that the dialogue has to be completely on their turf or no dialogue at all because they "know" you are a minion of Satan. Until their foundation collapses on their own terms I don't think its possible to engage them at all.

For the most part I agree with these comments. However, in this particular case, the Church has dug an incredibly deep hole. The Saints of the 1800s gladly rejected the government and embraced the whole "God's law is higher than man's" idealogy. But in the leadership's zeal to retire polygamy in the early 1900s, they thoroughly brainwashed the next generations to believe that they MUST obey the laws of the land and that the Church HAD ALWAYS obeyed the laws of the land. This is what I was taught in the 1970s and 1980s, and what James E. Talmage preached extensively in "Articles of Faith". This was recommended reading for ALL missionaries in 1988, and I was among the masses that bought this whitewashed version of the Church's record on civil obedience.

The majority of the membership thinks this way today, and are simply UNAWARE of the anti-bigamy and anti-adultery laws that existed in every state of the union in Joseph Smith's day. This is still true among my TBM family members, and was also true for Stan Barker of SHIELDS in 2002 (based on an email "debate" arranged by my mother). This is an irreconcilable problem for the modern Mormon mind, and I would not be surprised to see the Church remove that one line on legality from the essay very soon. Fortunately for them, it is subtle enough that it will escape the casual reader, given that it does not emphasis the word "illegal" like I would.

I should add here that the Church must absolutely embrace the "laws of the land" ideology in order to maintain access in foreign countries. This was the issue that gained them access in East Germany before the fall of the USSR, and I clearly recall their triumphal crowing during general conference extolling the 12th Article of Faith as the key.

Agreed. As missionaries in East Germany, we heard this many times. Monson himself told us that Kurt Löffler indicated this is why Mormons were trusted. And I don't think it hurt that the Stasi had many informers in each ward and branch to make sure this was the case. Funny how after the wall came down and the Stasi was disbanded how many people stopped coming. I guess they were bored too.

As a matter of fact, we were instructed to be sure we followed all of the laws of the land so we would be able to keep our access. This included using only the government-approved money exchanges, etc.

They mentioned it over and over as a positive. But a big reason the wall came down was due to the churches and their willingness to stand up in front of the government and get people out on the streets to protest. After the wall came down, the East Germans hated the 12th AoF. Non-members said that it made the church a collaborator with the Partei.

It was not a positive proselyting tool. You'd think a prophet would have been able to see that in advance.

Another checkmate argument:

1. Moroni 7:16 "The Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ is sent for by the power and gift of Christ; Wherefore you may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God."

2. Upon hearing about plural marriage, people were repulsed, disgusted, heartbroken and even suicidal. From the essay:

"Her father, Heber C. Kimball, agreed. "I never felt more sorrowful," he said of the moment he learned of plural marriage in 1842. "I wept for days."

Brigham Young said, "it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave."

Lucy Walker, "Every feeling of my soul revolted against it."

The essay summarizes, "Some Latter-Day Saints rejected the principle of plural marriage and left the Church...."

3. Using the light of Christ, we must conclude Smith's revelations were not of God.

Moroni 7:18 "And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgement which ye shall also be judged."

4. But we know from BKP that this light, "can direct us to moderate our actions- unless, that is, we subdue it or silence it."

From the essay again, "Nevertheless, for many women and men, *initial revulsion and anguish* was followed by struggle, resolution, and ultimately, light and peace."

I presented this argument to my Stake President just before I resigned my membership. It's one that leaves people speechless.

I love it...especially the BKP quote, which perfectly describes what they did.

1 Nephi 3:7 "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

There was never any way for Joseph Smith or any other Mormons to obey the commandment to practice polygamy. It was against the law, so attempting to practice it contradicted D&C 58:21 quoted above. Smith's attempts to practice it, which included lying about it, led directly to his death. After his death, polygamy was a major factor in getting the Mormons run out of Illinois; and their practice of it in Utah territory, in defiance of the law, nearly got the church put out of business.

So, according to 1 Nephi 3:7, plural marriage could not have been a true commandment from God.

Best GOTCHA moment I've seen in a while. WOW! Thanks.

Is the polygamy essay the same one as the pedophile essay?

Please provide a link to these essays/this essay.

I agree it is well done and that their ethics are supportive of Mormonism first. - supportive of JS first and above all forever. The ass kissing of JS is the only ETERNAL thing about the CULT.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2014 10:49PM by verilyverily.

I just read the entire polygamy essay (I know I'm behind many of you) but anyway, the CULT is so good at SPINNING I'm surprised that they haven't died of dizziness.

This is precious - "To help their husbands avoid prosecution, plural wives often separated into different households or went into hiding under assumed names, particularly when pregnant or after giving birth.25" - GAWD FOLKS AND HEERRE WE HAVE THE EARLY BEEGINNINS OF THE DED BEET DAD WITH MA SUPPORT. GOLLY.