God and our moral sense

If God exists and has the power to intervene in nature, and on occasion apparently uses that power, they [critics of religion] ask, why does God fail to intervene in so many other cases of horrific injustice, cruelty, and suffering? Why, for example, did God allow Agatha to be tortured, abused, and mutilated before miraculously healing her through a vision of St Peter? Why would god allow some to be killed by volcanic eruptions and plagues, while bestowing special protection on the inhabitants of Catania? Why, in any case, does God need to use the powers of an object such as St Agatha's veil to achieve this protection, rather than acting directly to prevent the eruption or the disease in the first place? More generally, why is one person miraculously cured while another of equal faith and virtue suffers and dies? We might say that God moves in a mysterious way - which certainly seems to have been the case if we are to believe the many religious tales of wonders and miracles through the ages - but is that a good enough response? If God created us and our moral sense, then why do God's own ways of acting in the world seem to us not to meet our own standards of what is just and good?

Thomas Dixon Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, pg. 56.

Wife #1

We typically place Emma Hale at the top of the long chain of Joseph Smith's wives because she was his first and only legal wife. However we need to keep in mind that today in LDS culture the first sealing indicates who the primary celestial spouse is. In the case of Emma and Joseph, they were not sealed until May 28, 1843 which means Emma is not wife #1 - she's something like wife #27. That's right, Joseph was sealed to well over twenty women before he was ever sealed to his dear Emma. WTF?

Christmas confusion: the divine birthday

Current apostle Dave Bednar stated in the April General Conference of this year that the date of Jesus' birth is known by revelation to be April 6. That's the same day James Talmage believed was Jesus' birthday, but is it Jesus' birthday?

It must be - Dave said it was revelation.

But not everyone agrees. In fact it looks like Dave can take his revelation and smoke it because he was dead wrong. Or Joseph Smith was. Or Joseph's scribe was. It's very mysterious.

When the historical facts and the scriptural text are considered, it appears Jesus was probably born in early December. I hope that means that December 5 will now feature a new holiday called Mormon Christmas.

Then again the person reaching this conclusion, one Jeff Chadwick of BYU, isn't a prophet, seer or revelator, so what the hell does he know?

Why God requires polygamy

The LDS Church did something big. It finally opened up to discussing its lesser-known polygamist past. Congratulations, Mormons. Truly and sincerely.

But I do have a few questions:

1. What is inherently righteous, holy or godly about plural marriage? Where is the divinity in this principle?

2. Why is polygamy part of the Gospel Restoration? What does it have to do with the Fall, the Atonement and the Final Judgement? How does it fit into the salvation of humankind?

3. What good did plural marriage accomplish either for God or Joseph or any of his wives or anyone else involved in a plural marriage or the Mormon community in general or humanity at large?

From what I can tell the article offers no answers. Why not?

Henry Eyring criticized

I like Henry. He seems like a pretty nice guy, and not because he's the most teary-eyed of the GAs. I only have one criticism specific to him - I wish he'd shut the hell up about his father the Mormon badass chemist.

Note to Henry B:

Henry, listen, you're dad was quite a guy, but here's your problem: you conflate your father's authority in science with his lack of authority with regards to spiritual realities. In other words, just because you're dad was a good scientist and a devout believer doesn't give his belief the same weight of his scientific research. No more of this "Hey, my dad was smart and still believed, so it must be true" bullshit. Listen, you've got a BS in physics and you're a fucking apostle of the big JC. Put it all together for us. Show us how it works in more than a mere 100 pages that essentially say "Embrace the mystery!"

Thank you.
Be well.
Abe

Heavenly fatherliness #24 - Rewards

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not reward his children for actions that are expected of them, such as helping with chores or performing well in school.

Does this mean that Heavenly Father should not reward us for doing his will and obeying his commandments because that's exactly what he expects of us? Does that mean that offering an eternal reward is a mistake? It looks like God's really missing the boat on this one.

Then again, if we look at the real world, it's impossible to know if we're being disciplined or rewarded at all, so much so that the very existence of earthly and heavenly rewards is debatable. We have to rely on faith. 
  
Maybe God's doing okay after all.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #16 - Alone with his wife

According to popular wisdom, a good father spends quality time alone with his wife.

It's the wife thing again. Does God have a wife to spend quality time with? Mormons want to think he does, but have to admit that they have no idea. Most Christian folks will say he doesn't because he'd not married. So where does that leave us? Square one. What our Sky Parents do together is only speculation. 

So much for setting a good example for us when it comes to nurturing a loving marriage! Thanks, Dad.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father. 

Whittling our wicks

Even though Jesus supposedly fulfilled the Law of Moses and the uncircumcised have been initiated into God's covenant people since the days of Paul, Mormons in the United States still think it's a very good idea to have their newborn sons' prepuce paired down a tich.

I'm really can't imagine why God thought circumcision was a good practice in the first place. Or why it would be necessary. Didn't God create our bodies just the way he wanted them? So why'd he come back at us with a design adjustment?

 (Circumcision comes at the end...)

For some strange reason, God thought circumcision might be an effective sign of fidelity to him even though the only people who would see this physical sign were the circumcised men and their wives. It would have made more sense to trim down earlobes or something more visible and less functional. Oh well, God's not exactly known for his logic - mystery is more his game.

Let me ask you this: WHY WOULD YOU WORSHIP A BEING WHO SAYS "IF YOU LOVE ME  CUT YOUR PENIS!"? That's pretty messed up. If this reminds you of any of your intimate relationship I recommend you get out of them before you incur any further abuse.

Moving now to modern Mormonism, why exactly it is that members are so okay with this painful and presumptuous practice puzzles me. My guess is that it has more to do with being a part of American culture than than it does God's culture. (Then again, maybe God's insecure enough that he requires all his boys' penises to look like his.)

Mormons (and Americans in general), please stop cutting your sons. If they want the snip they can decide for themselves later. InthenameofOiledJoshua,Amen!

Sarah Bapson (Smith?) - wife #18

Here's the first of the very mysterious possible wives of Joseph Smith. A "Miss B*****" is mentioned in John C. Bennett's The History of the Saints, and in 1899 Lorenzo Snow authorized a proxy sealing for Joseph and "Sarah Rapson." It gets more mysterious still. She's also been identified as Sarah Poulter, Sarah Poulterer, Sarah Davis, and Sarah Royson. I don't know the details.

Suffice it to say that if we are to believe the "Miss" we can perhaps assume she was a virgin. However, I would also assume that Joseph kept this marriage - like the others - from Emma. What I mean is, this marriage, if it happened, didn't follow the rules of plural marriage.

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner (Smith) Young - wife #9

Mary Rollins (April 9, 1818 - December 17, 1913) first met Joseph Smith in Kirtland in 1831 when she was a 12-year-old girl. He made quite an impression on her. She claimed year later that, in addition to receiving a blessing from Joseph on that first encounter, the prophet took her aside and told her that God had commanded him to take her as his first plural wife.

I can't say I believe Mary, though. Joseph testing the plural marriage waters in 1831? That seems a little premature. If we are to believe her, all I can say is HOLY SHIT! A 12-YEAR-OLD? God must have a seriously sick sense of humor.

Mary also claimed that in 1834 in Missouri Joseph was commanded to take her as a plural wife but he chickened out. She would have just turned sixteen.

The next year Mary married the non-Mormon Adam Lightner. By 1840 they were living in Nauvoo with two children: Miles Henry and Caroline (it seems). A third child, George Algernon, would soon follow.

Joseph approached Mary about plural marriage again in early 1842, this time with the whole "an angel's gonna kill me if we don't!" bit (that's right, I don't buy the angel story). This time he added more shit about how "all the Devils in hell" could never get the angel off his back and how God promised he'd be saved thanks to the practice of plural marriage and God can't lie so obviously Joseph will practice plural marriage (which he already was in fact practicing).

Mary said no amazingly enough. She even had the guts to ask if Emma knew about her, to which Joseph dodged with an "Emma thinks the world of you." She still wanted to pray about it real hard first, which she did and got the spiritual confirmation she wanted. It was a beautiful wedding. Very secretive and mysterious. Brigham performed it while Adam was out of town. She, like Joseph's other plural wives, stayed with her husband as Joseph instructed and kept a tight lip about their union. When Adam needed to move his family fifteen miles away for work, Joseph bawled his terrible tears and gnashed his terrible teeth and made sure to prophesy hard times for the Lightners. Their new home was struck by lightening and Mary became deathly ill.

Joseph was killed in June, 1844. Mary was endowed and sealed to Brigham in 1845. She never had a child with either of them. Her long life ended in Utah.

There are a lot of issues with this marriage - the proposal to a preteen, the angel threats, the devil talk, the challenge to challenge God's promise - but if we want to believe all of that we still have to go by the book, don't we? In that case, the thing is that Brigham had no right marrying Mary because she was already sealed to Joseph, who had no right marrying her either because she was not a virgin and consequently "belonged" to Adam, who fathered various children with her. Mary had no rights because she was a woman and considered property of her legal husband.

P.S. There is a possibility that Mary's third child, George Algernon, born in Nauvoo, was Joseph's.

The Lehites' neighbors

You know what would really help us in our search for Book of Mormon lands? The names a few neighboring peoples. We all know that the America's have been populated by human beings for at least the past 15000 years, so why don't we have any mention of these first inhabitants in the records of the Jaredites, or the Lehites, or the Mulekites. We get all manner of "-ites" deriving from these three sets of settlers, but no manner of neighbor.

The LDS Church has currently decided to take the stance that the Book of Mormon peoples integrated extensively with the populations already in the Americas to the extent that virtually all Near Eastern DNA markers have disappeared somehow.

All it would have taken to clear up this whole mess would have been a mere name of a tribe or two, even a verifiable name or two of individuals of an origin other than Jaredite, Lehite, or Mulekite. Just one. Anything to match up with what scholars know about pre-Contact peoples.

It's just hard to take The Book of Mormon seriously when there are holes this big running throughout its supposed history of 2200 BCE - 400 CE.

Tribal hunting

Mormons believe in the "literal gathering of Israel ... and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes," according to the tenth Article of Faith.

The gathering and restoration project has to happen because in the 8th century BCE Assyria invaded Israel and carried off most of the Israelites. Amazingly enough, the Assyrians pretty much managed to capture every member of all of the tribes living in the Northern Kingdom: Asher, Dan, Ephraim, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon, and Zebulun. Members of Levi who were residing in the Northern Kingdom were also carried away, but other Levites were hanging out with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the Kingdom of Judah. Their separation is obviously a very bad thing and needs to be fixed.

This makes for a very exciting game of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, but with Israelite tribes instead of Carmen. 

Back when Joseph Smith wrote the Articles of Faith, much of the world was still an unknown. The tribes could have been hiding anywhere. Many settlers of the American continents believed the tribes would be there, but there was no need to completely exclude the nooks and crannies of Africa, the far reaches of Asia, the Down Under, and the many isles of the sea. The search was on.

Mormons have sent missionaries to every region of the world and have found converts among all peoples, and all we've found are a bunch of Josephites (Ephraim and Manasseh). In fact, the vast majority of Mormons have been assigned to the tribe of Ephraim. It's a little discouraging. Especially when we can't even keep track of the other Josephites. 

What's even more discouraging is that, even though many people claim to be the lost tribes, researchers who have sought out the Lost Tribes have found no trace of them anywhere. Where haven't we looked? How in the world can Israel hide from today's DNA analyses? It's like the whole Lost Tribe thing was just made up by some ignoramus in the 7th or 8th century CE. But don't lose hope. They'll show up some day soon!