NY Times Article on Dissaffected Swedish Area Authority

[Uncle Ted]

Not just populated, but populated by people looking like this:

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It seemed a reasonable hypothesis at the time.

LOL. And you actually believe that we landed men on the moon using a 2 Mhz computer with 2K words of RAM?

six_foot_quaker_moon.jpg

[PaloAltoCougar]

Or, "would of been." I better that would have gotten his spider sense tingling as well. Sometimes I wonder if he has written some kind of script that screens all CS posts and automatically pings him if some bad grammer comes up.

...or mispellings!

[Harry Tic]

...or mispellings!

(Shhhh! The trap is set. "Crouch we here awhile and lurk").

[Dwight Schr-ute]

LOL. And you actually believe that we landed men on the moon using a 2 Mhz computer with 2K words of RAM?

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Ha. You mock but I just saw this posted on a friend's FB page from this morning's parade:



I think these must be the new internet mission uniforms.

[woot]

This has to be the case. Ages, polyandry, etc., I can see. To just not know that Joseph practiced polygamy? I have a hard time believing that one.

I'm behind on this thread so perhaps this has been pointed out, but I think there was a poll on CB a while back in which the (vast?) majority didn't acknowledge JS's polygamy. And why would they? It was never once taught to me in church. I think a lot of you are overestimating a TBM's motivation to investigate the underbelly of the church on the internet.

I don't remember when I found out about it, but I know that a lot of it, including the polyandry stuff, I didn't discover until after I'd already left the church.

[Harry Tic]

I'm behind on this thread so perhaps this has been pointed out, but I think there was a poll on CB a while back in which the (vast?) majority didn't acknowledge JS's polygamy. And why would they? It was never once taught to me in church. I think a lot of you are overestimating a TBM's motivation to investigate the underbelly of the church on the internet.

I don't remember when I found out about it, but I know that a lot of it, including the polyandry stuff, I didn't discover until after I'd already left the church.

For some reason, it makes me smile to think that Joseph Smith wouldn't be able to pass a temple recommend interview today.

We've come a long way, baby!

[Shaka]

YMMV

As a kid I was certainly no church scholar. I got the majority of my info about the BoM from the graphic novel for kids. However, I knew JS was a polyg long before my mission.

[Donuthole]

...or mispellings!

I'm in the middle (past the middle, I suppose) of a 2-week jury trial, but I sense a disturbance in the force. Will you guys stop messing around so I can get some work done? The jury is starting to wonder about my twitching.

[ERCougar]

YMMV

As a kid I was certainly no church scholar. I got the majority of my info about the BoM from the graphic novel for kids. However, I knew JS was a polyg long before my mission.

That's why I don't understand the whitewashing efforts. BY's polygamy was only minimally better executed than JS' polygamy, yet we are much more likely to shrug it off.

The only way to make marrying 15 yr olds palatable is early inoculation.

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[jay santos]

That's why I don't understand the whitewashing efforts. BY's polygamy was only minimally better executed than JS' polygamy, yet we are much more likely to shrug it off.

The only way to make marrying 15 yr olds palatable is early inoculation.

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I think it's the arm's length principle. We look at BY as someone following along a principle he inherited. JS received the revelation. It makes you feel like Joseph's revelation is legit if he wasn't the recipient of the approval for sex with lots of young girls.

[Northwestcoug]

The church manual Truth Restored implies that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy although it leaves out the details...

https://www.lds.org/manual/truth-res...rance?lang=eng

'Implies' is a strong word:

It was first announced by Joseph Smith at Nauvoo in 1842. Many of those close to him knew of it and accepted it as a principle of divine pronouncement.

And that's it for his involvement in it.

Me? I probably heard about it before my mission. But as HT said before, the details of it didn't sink in until I was at BYU. I never knew about polyandry until I read some of Brodie's book in a Provo bookstore. Same with the BOA. I remember reading the Encyclopedia of Mormonism about the scrolls, and just not being able to mentally process what I was reading. You're telling me the facsimiles have nothing to do with the text??? I just couldn't deal with those implications in the believing mindset that I had at the time.

So yeah, the messy details were shelved for a long time.

[ERCougar]

I think it's the arm's length principle. We look at BY as someone following along a principle he inherited. JS received the revelation. It makes you feel like Joseph's revelation is legit if he wasn't the recipient of the approval for sex with lots of young girls.

I'm trying to remember where I thought the idea of polygamy started, but I think I just assumed it was Brigham Young. Really, I probably just didn't like to think about it. Which is why the church should drop the Joseph Smith polygamy bomb at an age when people really don't think about things, at least if they want to minimize its impact.

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[MarkGrace]

I think the context is what makes it shocking. He had married their daughter a few weeks before he wrote this letter.

Unless I'm missing something, I still don't get how this is shocking.

[Pheidippides]

'Implies' is a strong word:



And that's it for his involvement in it.

Me? I probably heard about it before my mission. But as HT said before, the details of it didn't sink in until I was at BYU. I never knew about polyandry until I read some of Brodie's book in a Provo bookstore. Same with the BOA. I remember reading the Encyclopedia of Mormonism about the scrolls, and just not being able to mentally process what I was reading. You're telling me the facsimiles have nothing to do with the text??? I just couldn't deal with those implications in the believing mindset that I had at the time.

So yeah, the messy details were shelved for a long time.

I didn't know about the BOA until six years ago. Maybe less. For all I know there are still major things out there I don't know anything about, although at this point I think I've read all the usual books.

[Applejack]

Isn't this all about the point at which you accepted the truthfulness of JS' polygamy/andry? Gained a testimony, if you will?

Growing up in SLC, I had heard that JS was a polygamist from various anti-mormon pamphlets. On my mission, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Evangelicals constantly talked about (1) Polygamy (2) BOM translation issues [but not methods], and (3) Adam-God doctrine. Again, I heard about the issues but didn't believe them. I assume Mattson had a similar experience - he had heard people tell him that JS was a polygamist, but he brushed it off as anti-mormon nonsense.

I would wager that in 1993, an overwhelmingly large majority of members did not believe that Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy. But the internet converts hearing into believing. So too books like Rough Stone Rolling which many of my friends have pointed to as the first time they came to understand that JS did, in fact, have multiple wives.

So yes, Mattson certainly "heard" about polygamy before his crisis of faith. But hearing about it and believing it are two different things.