Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am discussing polygamy as meant by the church when they told the US government they would give the practice up. You seek to conflate the real polygamy the church has abandoned with some spiritual version as means of portraying them as liars , which seems to be borne out of bitterness . I'm just giving the actual facts .
LOL. 'I am discussing polygamy from a totally non-Mormon POV in a thread about Mormon POV'. This is the best thread EVAR.
Mormon polygamy has always been first and foremost, spiritual. It’s all about the sealing and the consequences in the hereafter. Living with multiple wives, and having sexual relations with multiple wives wasn’t a requirement. And while that seems to be an issue with you, and “evidence” that polygamy ISN’T being practiced, that isn’t an issue in Mormonism.
I don’t know why you continue to ignore it, but the very definition of Mormon polygamy is a man being sealed to more than one woman. That’s a fact, and not a debateable point. That the church is still practicing this is also a fact, and not a debateable point.
Oh save your childish headsmack. You know full well that when Mormons say they have abandoned polygamy they mean the physical kind still practiced by their fundie cousins . Nobody cares about their spiritual version .
What does the spiritual version matter to a non Mormon?
LOL. 'I am discussing polygamy from a totally non-Mormon POV in a thread about Mormon POV'. This is the best thread EVAR.
Actually I'm discussing real polygamy. You are discussing an imaginary kind and trying to conflate the two to have a reason to attack a poster. You must be desperate for reason to do so.At least Tax has somewhat of a reason to be bitter over his family situation.
Oh save your childish headsmack. You know full well that when Mormons say they have abandoned polygamy they mean the physical kind still practiced by their fundie cousins . Nobody cares about their spiritual version .
Quote:
I don’t know why you continue to ignore it, but the very definition of Mormon polygamy is a man being sealed to more than one woman. That’s a fact, and not a debateable point. That the church is still practicing this is also a fact, and not a debateable point.
And another head smack because you still don’t get it.
Oh save your childish headsmack. You know full well that when Mormons say they have abandoned polygamy they mean the physical kind still practiced by their fundie cousins . Nobody cares about their spiritual version .
They do, and I'll remind you again that is the topic. Their Doctrine. As for me, I don't want them to Baptize me and seal me to whoever after I die. This is the only way that it affects me. They aren't supposed to do it for non-relatives, but they do. (And I have a Mormon relative anyway). They are supposed to ask next of kin first but they don't always. Their goal is for every person living or dead to be Mormon, sealed up in polygamous marriages, becoming Gods and Goddesses, and populating their planets with their real children and spirit children, which again, are real to them.
I have stated two or three times already that I personally believe that the ban prohibiting men of African descent was racially motivated and that God never authorized it. Despite this fact, some posters have continued to try to paint me as supportive of it, when that simply is not the case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katzpur
Even when Blacks were banned from receiving their temple endowment, the church's doctrine was that they would someday be permitted to. At any rate, I don't believe for one minute that God would ever keep someone out of the temple because of a policy that was made which should have never been made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jencam
I don't understand the bolded.
I want to start by commenting on my statement that is not in boldface type. Brigham Young, who instituted the ban in the first place, said (as far back as 1852) that the "time will come when they will have the privilege of all we have the privilege of and more." Throughout the 1960s, Presidents of the Church taught that the then-current policy would eventually be lifted and that those of African descent would eventually possess every blessing that all other members of the Church were entitled to. Among these was President David O. McKay, who specifically stated that at some future date, “the Negro will be given the right to hold the priesthood.” And when the ban was removed in June, 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball (by whom it was officially lifted) referred to the event as "the long-promised day."
Now, on to the bolded text. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone would believe that God is bound by the laws of men. In other words, for the sake of argument, let’s say that God didn’t authorize the ban and that men and women of African descent were prohibited from receiving the blessings of the temple because of a decision made by a fallible human being (which is what I believe was the case). Let’s further say that a black couple who was in every way “temple-worthy” wanted to be married in the temple but was not allowed to. (This is clearly not a “what if” situation; I’m sure that did, in fact, happen many, many times.) Let’s say this couple later went to their graves, having been faithful to one another throughout their marriage and having been faithful members of the Church throughout their lives. Would God keep them apart throughout eternity because of a policy put into place by Brigham Young? Of course not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calipoppy
Again, you can NOT say that the fundamental racist doctrines upon which the church was built simply wiped away ALL of the racist beliefs by a one paragraph statement in the 1980s. That's not how this works.
And it’s not how I said it works. To begin with, the Church was not built upon racist doctrines. Blacks had every privilege and blessing Whites had prior to when Brigham Young became the President. And the paragraph I posted was not a statement made in the 1980s at all. It was a statement made in 2006, as a poignant reminder to everyone of us that racism has no place in our Church. Between 1978 and 2018, our leaders have spoken out against racism on multiple occasions.
Quote:
So the racist policy of not allowing black men to hold the priesthood may have been overturned out of nowhere (....because the church was going to lose their tax exemption if they didn't....) but the TEACHINGS and the undercurrent of those teachings still remain.
The policy clearly wasn’t overturned “out of nowhere” and regardless of what you may believe, the Church was not going to lose its tax-exempt status even if the policy had continued. If charges of discrimination could have caused the Church to lose its tax-exempt status, it could have lost that status from the very beginning because it has never permitted women to hold the priesthood. The fact that women can’t hold the priesthood today would be being used against the Church today, but it’s not. Churches have the legal right to make policy decisions about who can and cannot hold certain positions within their ranks, whether those decisions are “fair” or not. It doesn’t matter what “BYU vice-president Robert K. Thomas feared.” His background was in English, not law. The simply, straightforward truth of the matter is that the federal government had never made such a threat towards the Church.
Here is the text of the actual announcement (overturning the ban on Black men holding the priesthood) as it was made in June of 1978:
“As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the Lord over the earth, we have been grateful that people of many nations have responded to the message of the restored gospel, and have joined the Church in ever-increasing numbers. This, in turn, has inspired us with a desire to extend to every worthy member of the Church all of the privileges and blessings which the gospel affords.Moderator cut: Copyrighted material. Post just a snippet and the link
Quote:
MANY still believe and they teach those beliefs in one form or another by action or by deed.
Well, if they do, they have only themselves to blame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jencam
Hinckley changed the policy on race, but when asked if the policy had been wrong he said no. Ouch.
Ouch is right! That foot in your mouth has got to be getting kind of uncomfortable. The policy was changed 17 years before President Hinckley was President of the Church. (Man, gal, you really need to start fact-checking your posts before you make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have.) And when it was changed, it was changed effective immediately. Black men were ordained to the priesthood within days of the announcement and shortly thereafter, the first Black couple was sealed for time and all eternity in the temple.
Now, before I end, I want to tell you about the day the ban was lifted. I was 29 years old at the time, and working in an ad agency in downtown Salt Lake City just a couple of blocks away from Church headquarters. Just before noon, I started hearing a lot of excited voices in the hallway. People were saying, “Have you heard? The Church just made an announcement that the priesthood ban is being lifted and Black men are going to be given the priesthood!” There was so much excitement. Somebody’d had a radio on and had heard the news. It spread like wildfire. It was just before lunchtime. I was trying as hard as I could to just keep my mind on my work, but it was impossible. I was just beside myself with pure joy. I decided to go to lunch a little early, so I left and headed for the downtown mall across the street. As I was crossing the street, I suddenly became very self-conscious. I realized that I was smiling from ear to ear. I felt kind of silly, but I just couldn’t stop. I remember thinking, “People are going to wonder what on earth is wrong with me, grinning like this!” Just then, though, I pulled myself away from my own thoughts and glanced about at the crowd of people on their lunch break. Everybody was smiling! Everybody! I’m sure there were people who weren’t happy, but they were part of a very, very small minority. I will remember that day for as long as I live.
Last edited by Katzpur; 09-18-2018 at 04:21 PM..
Reason: Copyrighted material
Women can't lead themselves and their children into the Celestial Kingdom. Not all the way up to the top. So it might be considered unfair to wife #1 to be knocked down a rung for eternity and only wife #2 Exalted.
Nor can men. It works both ways. Neither a woman nor a man may be exalted without the other.
Quote:
Honestly if I were a Mormon woman and believed in all this, I would surely NOT give permission to be unsealed unless I was getting sealed again. That would be crazy, to give up my place in the highest levels of eternity. I'd rather deal with being sealed to my ex even if that meant his new wife or 3rd wife or whatever.
If you were a Mormon woman, you’d understand the doctrine instead of just shooting from the hip. When any individual makes a covenant with God, the blessings promised as part of that covenant are conditioned solely on one’s that person’s faithfulness. Personal worthiness is more important than an ordinance. No worthy person will be denied any blessings due to circumstances beyond his or her control.
Quote:
The article I linked is from a second wife who doesn't think it's right to be forced into a polygamous eternal life. I understand her feelings about it as well. The Church does harp on how polygamy is absolutely and totally wrong, so that would be hard to deal with for many. The polygamous after-life.
When polygamy was being practiced, men were only permitted to take a second wife if the first wife agreed to it. I believe that polygamous marriages performed with the consent of all participating parties will endure throughout eternity. Nobody will ever “be forced into a polygamous eternal life.”
Quote:
There is a lot of double talk. They are told they cannot reach the highest levels of the Celestial Kingdom unless they do all of the ABCs here on earth, but when one of them is beyond their control… they are told not to worry, God will work it out.
And you find this to be unreasonable? Why? I have heard from mainstream Christians on countless occasions that if someone dies without having had the opportunity to even hear of Jesus Christ, God will take that into account when judging that person. Despite the fact that Mark 16:16 states, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” huge numbers of Christians will readily acknowledge that it would be completely unjust for God to condemn someone for whom being a Christian was never even a real option. They will say, as I have heard many of them say here on City-Data, that “God will work it out.” I guess He’s got the ability to work some things out, but not others.
Quote:
One of the things I liked about the show Big Love was that they went into all of these dilemmas over the course of the series. This one was touched on when the mother of the first wife was getting remarried. She got unsealed from her ex, even though her new husband did not. The why was told very quickly because the focus was not on that character. Barbara, the first wife, had enough problems of her own.
In fact Barbara has to deal with just about every dilemma that exists in both LDS and FLDS either directly or on behalf of another, and I love the way she comes out of that. She decides she too can be a Priesthood holder and doesn't even need the Church's permission for that. Why not? So many other things seem to be so wishy-washy, change with the times, why not that too?
Brilliant show.
Well, at last we have found something we can agree upon. I loved this show, too. I didn’t miss a single episode and I binge-watched it a second time a couple of years after it ended. Of course, I had one edge over you. I was easily able to spot those instances in which the show’s writers took some artistic license in how they depicted the LDS Church. Oh, and by the way, the polygamists depicted in the show were not FLDS. They were the members of some other fictitious sect, so of course accuracy wasn’t even an issue on how they were portrayed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jencam
Many Mormons are still unsure about this issue.
Actually, that isn’t the case at all. Some may be unsure, but for the vast majority of us, it’s nowhere near the issue you are trying to pretend it is.
Quote:
Currently even the LDS church appears unsure about whether it's required for the highest level of the afterlife.
Nope. That’s not true at all, as I already explained. We don’t pretend to have all the answers that you do, but then you obvious have a better understanding of the doctrine than we do because, after all, you read something in a book once.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
