Polygamy - prophetic voice

I've posted before about John Taylor's questionable sanity, but please consider for a moment John Taylor's summation of the evil of monogamy:

"...the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people."

Holy shit that's a moronic thing to say!

Now consider that he was not at all alone in departing such stupidity from the pulpit. WTF, folks? There's no way LDS Mormons are supposed to believe any of this, right?

Neil Andersen criticized

For any of you who have ever doubted Joseph Smith because of something you've read online or from uncorrelated material, please read or listen to Neil Andersen's recent Conference talk. His strategy of quoting Joseph Smith about himself, reading a crazy-ass quote from John Taylor and offering up brainwashy methods of "gaining a testimony" should be enough to make you wonder if he's sincerely illogical or carefully hiding something. I can't help but think that his talk will ultimately do more harm to members' testimonies than he could possibly imagine. (And he's showing much love when he categorizes dissenters as Judases.)

Why will it harm members' testimonies? Because, as in the case of the Church's anti-science stance, Neil's argument requires that you reject study (as least anything you study that the Church won't like) and favor ignorance instead. In this case instead of repeating "I don't know" to ourselves we're supposed to repeat Joseph's false history to ourselves until we believe it. A testimony like that can only be protected by plugging your ears and shutting off your critical thinking.

No ordinary man

I always hated that statement that Joseph "did more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it". I guess it's not really a statement, it's scripture.

I think we can all admit that Jesus did a hell of a lot for the salvation of man, like proposing The Plan, creating the Universe, and suffering for everyone's sins and shortcomings so Our Father can legally forgive us without tanning our hides. That's a lot of work, but more important still - HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONLY REASON ANYONE IS SAVED AT ALL.

What did Joseph do? Well, he "brought forth the Book of Mormon", sent the Gospel to the "four quarters of the earth" via some missionaries, wrote the D&C and some other stuff, gathered thousands of people, and built a city (Nauvoo). Has anyone else ever done anything similar at all?

Moses dueled with the pharaoh, freed hundreds of thousands of Israelite slaves, gave them rocks with God's handwriting, paraded around the desert with them for 40 years, and showed them the Promised Land, which is full of many significantly more famous cities than Nauvoo.

What about Enoch? The dude was so bad ass that not only did every single person in his city go straight to heaven, but the city itself lifted off the ground and went celestial! That sounds like some mighty heavy work for the salvation of men.

How many billions of people are indebted to the Gospel writers for their knowledge of Jesus? And how many people are indebted to Joseph for their knowledge of the Savior? A few million.

This belief that Joseph is second only to Jesus in saving souls is nonsensical. Think for a moment how many souls could have been saved without Adam and Eve? Don't our first parents deserve a lot more credit than Joseph for the simple fact that their eating of the fruit made Jesus-Savior relevant in the first place? That sounds like a pretty huge role to play in the salvation of men.

The thing is this scripture always sounded ridiculously hyperbolic and overblown. As I recall from a Church movie, John Taylor wrote this when he was under the influence of a giganto cry-gasm. Why is it canonized scripture? Why is anyone even competing for the title of Person Who Did the Most for the Salvation of Men in the first place? All glory be the Father's, remember?

P.S. Here's a great entry about this topic at By Common Consent.