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Although you apparently disagree, I would just like to point out that missionary work in Christianity, the LDS church included, is done out of love for fellow man and a desire for salvation. Not a lack of respect, but in fact borne out of a deep respect for the divine nature of the human soul.
Call it what you want, I call it a lack of respect for those who want nothing to do with their religion. Their intolerance of gays and their right to happiness leaves me with nothing but contempt for them.
Based on your comment, they care more about a soul than a person.
I have a sign on my door. They ignore it. Whatever I do to them on my property is well deserved.
I'm sorry you feel so strongly that you're willing to do away with some fundamental constitutional rights of other people. Yes, other people should respect you and your desires. Yes, you have certain rights pertaining to your property. No, you can't entirely trample on the rights of others to voice their opinion just because you don't want to hear it.
They have no right to trespass on my property.
Do what they want when it doesn't affect me.
Sorry you have no respect for the rights of others who don't want your religious bs tossed at them.
Maybe you should find a small island where all the religious can go and bother each other all day.
Godbotherers: STAY AWAY from me.
Don't bother responding Paul, you've now filtered.
Last edited by chielgirl; 11-07-2008 at 09:32 AM..
It appears you have dropped the earlier assertion that the FAIR article was inaccurate and you have yet to provide evidence of widespread coverups of historical facts by the LDS Church.
I'll go ahead and respond to your post.
But LDS *DO* believe that there was a revelation to Smith at that time. The Church did not practice it, nor could it until directed to do so by God, but LDS Christians do assert that Joseph Smith was introduced to the doctrine of Plural Marriage as early as 1832.
That is a loaded question. The "Church" repeated later what the Prophet and others claimed earlier, namely that the relationships were commanded of God and that the sealing power was invoked and that these were real marriages.
Your timetable is off. Some leaders knew about the doctrine of Plural Marriage many years before 1843, back in Missouri and probably Ohio days. It was shared with a wider circle of people in 1843.
Without granting the "retroactive" assumption in your statement, I agree that the fact that it was kept secret and denied by Church leaders for many years is a difficult thing for some people to accept.
Yes. There are ways to interpret the events as working against Joseph Smith and other early leaders' views. However there is evidence to support the fact that Fannie and Joseph considered themselves and were considered by others to be married in the early/mid 1830s. When dealing with the new social structure of plural marriage, it is difficult sometimes to figure out how someone "should" have acted if she was one of several wives.
Yes, this is called "polyandry." There are a number of articles that are on the FAIR websites about this. It certainly has no known biblical precedent as you say.
ParkTwain, there is a lot of material here that we could talk about, such as the 1830/1840s idea of the role of "sealings," the concept of "dynastic marriages," and so forth. There is no question that much of this is unfamiliar to us today, both in terms of historical knowledge and in terms of cultural understanding. But other than being "odd" and against some of our sense of morality or proper social roles, how does our 21st century view of 19th century practices bear on your earlier assertion that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hiding historical facts? I'm not quite sure what your point is with all of this except to show that one could put together an argument against the LDS claims.
I have no intention on this board to try to convince you that I am right or that the LDS Church is true. I don't believe such a thing is possible. But I will "fight" when you start asserting that informed, intelligent belief in LDS principles simply isn't possible.
As I said earlier, there is evidence on both sides. Intelligent and reasonable people can look at all of this and find different sides of the argument to be more compelling. I don't think someone is stupid for not believing the LDS claims, but I'd like the same respect back that there is at least some merit in the counterarguments and that I and my co-believers aren't stupid, ignorant, gullible liars for believing the way we do.
Unfortunately, you answers don't cite any references. And your stating that "everyone knows" that there was plural marriage going on in the 1830s is again begging the question, unless you can provide contemporaneous sources that show the notion of plural marriage was in those folks' head at that time. "Everyone knew" such a thing AFTER THE FACT, which calls the whole deal into question to an outside observer. It's easy to assess the church's history on that matter as simply a group "covering" for their earlier behavior.
You also didn't address why Fanny Alger didn't follow Smith west, given that, as you say, "everyone involved" considered the two to be married. That looks like full-blown hogwash. Sorry.
Polyandry and sharing spouses are certainly not the same thing. What Smith et al were doing with each other in Nauvoo by "sharing" spouses wasn't polygyny or polyandry.
I'm looking at mostly hand-waving on your part in your responses. I don't care what your role is in FAIR or any such thing. If your job is to shill for the church, good luck to you. We haven't even talked about Views of the Hebrews, Smith's prospector's stones, the almighty plates that appeared then disappeared, the silly pseudo-King James language found in the Book of Mormon, the Danites, the Mormon War in Missouri, the "hit" on the ex-Governor of Missouri, the Nauvoo Expositor episode in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith's failure to correctly translate true Egyptian (Book of the Dead), etc, etc.
Hey, folks, we're talking here about home-grown American religion at its best! Inventing a story that would give North Americans a sense of God's purpose directly for THEM, and assigning historical priority to their doctrines based on a new set of scriptures that claims priority over everything found in all the previous Christian scriptures, were clever moves because we're talking about a semi-literate society (1830s) already inclined to bend the knee to a holy book. All these are great moves to make if one's goal were to establish a new alternative society with access to vast tracts of raw materials and capitalistic economics. The trick was to create enough of a semi-plausible beginning myth (with retroactive substantiaton of the key facts) to get the organization started, then the enterprise aspects and the plural marriage stuff would make it highly probable that the movement could attract converts going forward. There was sure to be no shortage of male converts to such a religion and would of course result in rapid population increases among the faithful! The sheep are always out there to be found!
Last edited by ParkTwain; 11-07-2008 at 10:18 AM..
I have a sign on my door. They ignore it. Whatever I do to them on my property is well deserved.
They should not ignore your sign.
Not everything you could do to such people would be "well-deserved." I can think of horrific punishments that don't seem to fit the "crime."
And certainly not everything you could do to such people would be legal. In fact, if they merely rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, almost anything you would do to them would be illegal. You can ask them to go away or scream at them, and you can call the police, but simply touching them or throwing something at them could get you arrested for battery.
Sorry, that's the law. You don't have unlimited rights on your property. To give an extreme example, if a woman from some religious group knocks on your door contrary to your posted sign against solicitors, do you have the right to drag her into your house and rape her? Would you describe such a response as "well-deserved"? Of course it doesn't matter what you think, because the law is quite clear that you don't have any such right. You don't even have that right if you caught her in your kitchen at 2 AM carrying a gun and holding your gold coin collection.
I know that emotions here have run high and that some people really don't want to have any person knock on their doors to talk about religion.
And I certainly agree that visitors have a moral (and in some cases, legal) obligation to honor your posted wish to not be disturbed.
But despite any intense emotion you may have on this matter, the law sees such violations of your posted wish generally as minor incidents and your legal responses to such violations are limited. Unless you are actually threatened by the visitors or they refuse to leave, you have no right to do anything physical to people standing on your porch.
Another thing that people need to realize is that they can't easily pick and choose. If you let the high school band, the girl scouts, and election candidates come to your door, you just might remove any legal significance to a posted sign that claims that solicitors aren't welcome. Often in legal matters one's actions are more important than one's words.
That's a silly tautology. They don't, by definition, have a right to trespass on your property. But they might have a right to stand on your public doorstep and ring your doorbell.
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Do what they want when it doesn't affect me.
Sorry, but in our society your right to be left alone doesn't supersede all other rights of all other people. There are times that people have a right to bother you even when you would prefer that they did not.
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Sorry you have no respect for the rights of others who don't want your religious bs tossed at them.
I'm sorry that your intolerance and bigotry makes you jump to conclusions about what I believe about the rights of others.
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Maybe you should find a small island where all the religious can go and bother each other all day.
That's one solution. Another is to remain part of a pluralistic society where we figure out how to live together.
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Godbotherers: STAY AWAY from me.
A lot of good that anonymous post will do...
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Don't bother responding Paul, you've now filtered.
That's fine with me (as if somehow I should feel punished or insulted). Any instance of a small-minded bigot removing himself/herself from the conversation is always a benefit to everyone.
My, you sure are testy today! And "not quite stable"?
I'm glad you have so much respect for your coworker (btw, what church is he affiliated with?). But I was responding to where the thread had moved: people coming to one's door to talk about their religion or church. I'm quite right in what I posted, and I'm mildly curious to hear what your esteemed coworker thinks is wrong in what I've said.
Your OP is a bit ambiguous. What do you mean by someone being "clearly assigned" to you? Are you or a member of your household members of the LDS Church? Do you have LDS friends and family, and are they asking that you be visited?
I think you will be disappointed in your ability to successfully "prosecute" someone for knocking on your door. The best you can hope for is a possibly injunction against future visits, hardly something that the other person needs to worry much about.
Sufice it to say you obviously are not speaking for mormons or for the mormon church. As for the answers to your questions, well, no thanks. And as for my property, well, we'll see if they find you after you show up. Hope you leave a list of places you'll visit with someone who cares about you. Have a nice day.
Wait up, Chielgirl, I'm activating the ignore beam too. Before I go though, fair warning: it probably is a good idea to have a close relationship with god before you come lurking on my property.
loved your answer. "no mormons allowed" lmao but then I wouldn't get my mail ; ) I'm gonna look up the reversed pentagram, that might help.
Pents don't scare 'em. Though answering the door with a chicken and a large knife does work with some religious canvassers.
The missionaries who've been by us are generally polite. The Moonies were polite when they used to come by, too, and the Jehovah's Witnesses are almost alwayys so old I hate to be short with them.
OTOH, the garden variety fundies (usually some variation on The Church of the Screaming Apoplectic Jesus) are a mixed bag, and I had to ask one batch if they were virgins because I was in need of a sacrifice Saturday night. Don't know if they thought I was serious or not, but they left pretty quick.
The LDS church is a social movement having a fraudulent "religious" basis and whose agenda is to create an alternative society, with its own enterprises, etc. They have wisely chosen to do so within the territory of and with the acquiesence of a nation that allows a great degree of religious freedom.
Religion in America tends toward being an entrepreneurial activity, and the LDS church is a shining example.
Eh. The LDS don't look much goofier than most other religions (including my own). Whether it's angels with golden tablets, elephant-headed guys, sacrificing ham sandwiches to the Construction Gods, or the ever popular dead guy on a stick, it all looks pretty silly unless you happen to be a believer.
Believe what you want, folks. Just don't do it on my doorstep, or ask me to eat your cookies.
Although I have to give the LDS props for cool genealogy sites, even if I don't want to think too hard about what they're doing with them.
" He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction." Proverbs 13:3
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The "Church" repeated later what the Prophet and others claimed earlier, namely that the relationships were commanded of God and that the sealing power was invoked and that these were real marriages.
They don't, by definition, have a right to trespass on your property. But they might have a right to stand on your public doorstep and ring your doorbell.
