Google "Joseph Smith's wives" or "Fanny Alger"

If you search for "Joseph Smith's wives" in Google, please take the time to scroll to the end of the names and pictures at the top. It looks something like this:

It would appear that Fanny's picture comes from my blog post about her. I got it from this AMAZING VIDEO. Amazing as it is, it's not entirely accurate. No angel with a drawn sword was needed to convince Joseph Smith to practice polygamy until the early 1840s, several years after he had hooked up with Fanny and a few others. That's right, it doesn't make sense and it's not the only thing about the sword story that doesn't make sense.

The doubters seem well pleased. Emma looks pissed.

I'm just happy to have helped make a slight difference in the world.

The Nauvoo Expositor

Here are a couple of very interesting facts about the whole Nauvoo Expositor fiasco.

1. The 15 resolutions the Expositor made against Joseph Smith were true. In fact, it's very difficult to find the "vicious lies" Joseph accused it of spreading.

2. Joseph Smith's order to destroy the Expositor printing press was a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution - you know, the one guaranteeing the freedom of speech and of the press? That one. In other words, what Joseph and his followers did was strictly criminal (as was their practice of polygamy, by the way).

How are members supposed to justify Joseph's behavior? Where is God in all of this? What if I seriously doubt God had anything to do with any of this whole affair?

Summer reading - the best of books

Summer's almost here and I know you're all looking for some quality literature to keep the kids' brains afloat. Nothing keeps the mind sharper than reading, so let me suggest the finest of books you could possibly hope for. It's a good long read full of powerful, uplifting stuff like beheadings, theft, the electrocution of threatening siblings, rumors of wars, fort building, city fortification, vigilante justice, dirty prostitutes, deceptions, stratagems, spearing people, dismembering people, rivers of blood, sibling rivalry, family feuds, cousin killing, patricide, fratricide, infanticide, genocide, fear mongering, demonic possession, Satan, devils, magic curses, rape, endless war, cannibalism, torture, threats, coercion, murmuring, conniving, the wrath of God, divine death threats, burning people at the stake, poisoning, conspiracies, government corruption, evil freemasons, guilt mongering, talk of eternal torment, unprecedented amounts of copulation, and more.

What is this fine book, book you ask? The Book of Mormon, dear brothers and sisters!

And for any of you out there who are worried all this might be a little too much for your kids, don't worry! The fact is The Book of Mormon is written so poorly that the boredom of reading such tedious gibberish will certainly have your children zoned completely out while moving through the pages. By the middle of Alma they'll have absolutely no idea of what exactly they're reading or why.

For those of you who aren't concerned about disturbing content but are more concerned about engaging literature, read something else, like Game of Thrones.

The Second Mindfulness Training

Reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Five Mindfulness Trainings, and despite him being a Buddhist and all, the Spirit whispered to me that he's probably taken out his endowment at some point (think "time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you or with which he may bless you" as you read this!):

"Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to cultivating loving kindness and learning ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I will practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth." The World We Have, pp. 11-12 (alternate version here)

OK, so it's not totally LDS but the Spirit's still telling me a lot of Mormons could really get behind this. It's like, you know, one of those those fragmented bits of truth out there in all religions that fits so neatly into the whole entire Truth found within the doctrine of the Church, right? Make sense to me (kind of). Except for the fact that here it feels like Buddhism has something to add to Mormonism, rather than Mormonism adding to Buddhism.

Where in Mormon doctrine do you find explicit prohibitions of exploitation of people, animals, plants and minerals? When was the last time you heard a prophet or apostle tell you to oppose anything causing "the suffering of other species"? The best we have is an awkward statement in the Doctrine & Covenants about how the U.S. Constitution "should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh" and how slavery (in the U.S.) is bad. Even if we want to believe the Second Mindfulness Training and the verses in D&C say the same thing, the truth is Thich Nhat Hanh says it way better.

So I'd like to bear my testimony that Thich Nhat Hanh is a partial prophet who should change his ways and be baptized by true authority and be saved, and that Buddhism can sort of be right sometimes but never as right as the Church I was born into. Nham oh Jheses Christh, ahmen!

What if God's not good?

Dear monotheists, what would our world look like if God were some twisted, hateful being instead of a loving, nurturing being? What if God were purely sadistic instead of wholly protective, as we like to think?

Answer: it could very well look exactly the way it does now.

Judah, Er, Onan and Tamar

Have you ever killed a man for ejaculating outside of a vagina? God has.

It's a hell of an example to follow. Don't doubt that it was a just and holy hit.

Graven images

 As a missionary I loved accusing Catholics of worshiping idols. It made me feel so superior. Hadn't they read the Bible, or God's sake? It's very clear:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 

I think that means no statues of birds, or calves, or fish, or Satan, or prophets, or God, etc. Let's keep reading:

Yes.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

I find it odd that God would feel so insecure about statues of stuff. Keep in mind he's not saying he feels self-conscious about how big a sculptor might make his nose or how small of a penis an artist might give him - he seriously just can't stand people using statues of any kind in worship. It doesn't seem to matter if the statue is nothing more than a vehicle to get people focused on God and his works. GOD FORBIDS ALL STATUES. 

Of course.

God's so touchy about this shit that he's totally willing to accuse users of statues of hating him and threatening their children. Yes, I know, he sounds like a asshole, but what I really want to point out here is that Mormons love their religious statues. 

Oh, that'd be perfect for the living room!

I reached a point where I had to doubt LDS adherence to Number Two of the Big Ten. That really sucked because it made criticizing Catholics so much harder.

 

Oh, my! Satan has such a strong hold on the World!

"United to persecute me"

 

"Soun's like bullshit, son. I'm gonna go excite the public mind agains' ya!"

Why, oh why did Joseph not say anything about being persecuted until many years after his First Vision? Why, oh why did no one in Joseph Smith's family (or anyone else, for that matter) talk about Joseph suffering persecution at the hand of the community?

It looks to me like Joseph, in an effort to turn himself into a new Paul, concocted a narrative of persecution for his followers to latch onto. A little pathos goes a long way. (Maybe he was persecuted but it wasn't quite as bad as he later made it out to be.)

But why worry about the early persecution at all? How does persecution logically indicate you're right about anything? Answer: because Satan.

Polygamy - unscrupulous seduction

The recent explanation of how the LDS Church got involved in polygamy mentions that:

A few men unscrupulously used these rumors [of Joseph Smith marrying multiple women] to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as “spiritual wifery.” When this was discovered, the men were cut off from the Church.

Couldn't this also apply to Joseph? His version might look something like this:

Joseph Smith unscrupulously used his prophetic authority and a story about being threatened by an angel to seduce women to join him in an unauthorized practice sometimes called "celestial marriage." When this was discovered, he was cut down by critics and eventually a violent mob.

History is written by the winners.

Polygamy - difficult tasks

The LDS Church's recent explanation of polygamy in Nauvoo makes it clear that God's pretty much a horrible communicator and very much a dick.

Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment. [...] When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.

Did you catch that? God couldn't be bothered to tell Joseph Smith what he was supposed to do exactly or why, but he was insistent enough that his prophet get with other women that he sent an angelic hit man to lean on him.

"Goddammit, Joe, you faithless fuckface, I'm gonna count the three!"

What kind of loving being would act like that? Why is that God's more than willing to lay out explicit instructions for communicating with him, ship building, tabernacle design, temple building, temple dealings and just about all aspects of our daily lives (including diet), but not for plural marriage and temple sealings?

Wait, what? He did give explicit instructions to Joseph on how to practice polygamy in 1843? Hm...

The Color Purple

I read Alice Walker's The Color Purple when I was in high school. I had heard praises for the book from somewhere and so when I ran across it on a teacher's shelf I asked to borrow it. I was disgusted by it from the first page to the last, but I couldn't put it down.

Why was I so utterly disgusted by it? I was scandalized by the sex and horrified by the domestic violence. But most of all I was furious about how it spoke of God and religion. I found it blasphemous and I couldn't stand it.

So why was I so enthralled and read in two days? The narrative and writing style were recognizably compelling. And so were the arguments against God and male privilege.

The Color Purple made me recognize some of my doubts (which is why the Church doesn't recommend such reading) - doubts I buried as best I could, even though I knew deep down that I agreed with so much of what the author was saying.

Heavenly fatherliness #41 - Risking personal safety

According to popular wisdom, a good father will put his own safety on the line to keep children out of harm's way.

This is another attribute Heavenly Father doesn't get points for. How could he? His personal safety is never ever at risk. Ever. He's immortal and resides in the safety of perfection - he cannot in any way risk his safety, even should he want to.

However, he does let his children suffer every day and die horribly every day for no apparent reason. And he will let a good many of them live throughout the eternities alienated from him forever. The truth about the Gospel according to Mormonism is that we, God's children, are the ones risking everything. If we decide not to obey him for some reason, we're screwed.

For me, it's impossible not to doubt Heavenly Father's love and devotion to us.

*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 #39 - Protection

According to popular wisdom, a good father protects his family at all costs.

As the story goes, God cursed us with pain and disease and death. That's the opposite of protection. But that's because Heavenly Father's concerned mostly about protecting our ability to make choices and less concerned about protecting us physically. That's why he was willing to permanently exile a third of his spirit children - because they were anti-choice. That's why God placed us in a crazy, mixed up world, so we can try to navigate it by making righteous choices. Righteousness will then protect us from sin and pain.

OK, that's not really true. No mortal man can be righteous enough to avoid sin, and even the most righteous are still vulnerable to the all sorts of painful experiences, like accidents, sicknesses, natural disasters, deaths of loved ones, ugly breakups, disappointment, and all the rest. All righteous choices can do is make you a prime candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. It's the kind of protection you might expect from a shady insurance company, but with even foggier details.

When it comes to the cost of all of this, apparently it was enormous: the blood sacrifice of one perfectly righteous demi-god. Never mind that that God got a full return on his investment within a few hours. Which one of your children would you give up to die horribly if you knew you could get him or her right back?

*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 #35 - Unconditional love

According to popular wisdom, a good father shows unconditional love.

Oh man, Heavenly Father loves us so much! He loves us unconditionally and has shown us that love through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which saves us from an otherwise inevitable damnation. It's so easy to see that he's a great dad!

Except in Mormonism we have to deal with the whole sticky issue of God's full blessings being entirely predicated upon a long series of conditions called commandments. If we're even lukewarm about things God will find us disgusting. If we oppose his One True Church and willfully sin against him, he'll count us as enemies and royally fuck us up.

Just look at Satan and his followers. Does God ever mention loving them after their rebellion? If he still loves them, why hasn't he forgiven them? It seems to me that God's love is by definition conditional.

*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 #32 - Appreciation

According to popular wisdom, a good father teaches his children to appreciate things.

"Thanks, son. I make like five bazillion of these things everyday, but thanks."

I don't know how much appreciation we can really expect from a god that cans an entire third of his children before they even take a breath. What kind of value does this being place on his children when only a very select few will be allowed into his presence when all is said and done?

I know some people feel like Heavenly Father sends them his love. I personally thought I might have felt God's love a couple of times when I prayed really hard about it. Other people never feel a damn thing ever. It's very hard to sort these things out.

In a world where the law seems to be kill or be killed, take or be stolen from, God asks us to count our blessings. Be thankful you're not dead, be thankful you're on the side that does the killing, be thankful you aren't stolen from, but thankful you have people who steal for you. Be thankful when you lose something - it teaches that material things don't matter. Remember it was worse for the early saints. Be thankful for deaths in the family - they teach you to value God's generous Plan.

"Thank me constantly, kids. You don't wanting me getting pissed off at your ingratitude."

Generous, that's what Heavenly Father is. Generous in the sense that he gives us what we earn.

*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 #27 - Tough but fair

According to popular wisdom, a good father is tough, yet always fair.

We like to think that God is perfectly just and everyone will receive his or her just reward in the Hereafter. We're obsessed with the idea that everyone will be getting what they deserve one day. I'm not sure why anyone believes this, though. God has given no indication throughout scriptural history of ever being fair. In this life God is totally unpredictable, if that were not the case people would have learned that the benefits of living righteously outweighed the benefits of evil doing. Instead we see that being a backstabbing fuck often pays and that climbing the ladder of success means stomping on the fingers of the people on the rungs below.

And God? He's no better than the rest of us, is he? He'll mess anyone up in order to keep his place at the top.

If God's willing to stoop to racism, genocide, war, murder, theft, petty, controlling rules, etc. here and now, why should we believe he's going to sort everything out at the Final Judgement? Because he said so? Are we really going to trust this lying, sadistic megalomaniac? 

"Don't run! I am your fair and loving Father-God!"

*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 #23 - Peace talks

According to popular wisdom, a good father is a supportive and active disciplinarian through the power of his words, not his fists.

When it comes to words, nothing gets more ink than religious writing. Everyone, even non-believers, have a copy or two of books filled with holy writ, so I should probably concede that God and his fans are doing what they can to "discipline through the power of his words." If only those words made more sense. 

When it comes to fists, sure God's had to do some smiting from time to time, but we're adults, we can deal with it.  

Besides he seems to be done with the whole smiting thing for now. He seems to be content sitting back and watching his children following his earlier example.

*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 #18 - Exemplary behavior

According to popular wisdom, a good father leads by example and stands true to set principles and values he would like his children to follow.

At face value this appears to be God's exact nature and attitude: He's perfect and requires us to try to be perfect like Him.

Then again Heavenly Father turns out to be a very mobile target.

Let's start with God's standard for the family if only because a couple of recent posts mention a husband's attitude and behavior toward his wife. His standards for the family are all over the place. Adam gets it on with his own rib, Abraham sires children through a servant, Lot had children with his daughters, David has a shitload of concubines, Jesus says divorce is adultery, Paul says marriage is for the weak, and Joseph says let me fuck your wife/sister/daughter/mother.... So what's the standard? What are we supposed to do exactly? Whatever it is, you won't figure it out from the scriptures. Or from semi-scripture either.

The easiest example of a broken standard is God's disobedience to the commandment to not kill people. He kills selectively at times and at others indiscriminately, sometimes with natural disasters, other times with is chosen people, like when he ordered the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites - men, women, children, and livestock - and then there was that one time he used bears. Children and livestock? These are beings who cannot think critically and don't know any better (it's not like the Canaanite children had any opportunities to learn about and worship the One True God of Israel), so why should they die? Where is God's understanding and mercy? Who cares? Fuck 'em all! He even orders the killing of unborn babies and their mothers. The only thing more vile would have been if he had ordered his murderers to defecate into the victims' mouths or something like that. Then again he once wanted to make children eat shit pies. Jesus didn't exactly set things straight either. He gave us a pretty weird example to live up to when he cursed that fig tree for not having figs out of season. Are we supposed to be like that?  

When it comes to owning slaves the Bible's pretty clear. You can have them! Hooray!

Marriage, killing, and slavery only make up three examples but they're pretty heavy issues, aren't they? Just think how confusing things get once you get down to the small stuff. 

*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 #15 - Fighting in front of family

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not fight with his wife in front of their children.

Heavenly Father doesn't do anything with his Wife in front of his children, so I guess he gets a point on this one. Then again, we don't know anything about Heavenly Mother. God keeps her from us. 

But when it comes to family fights, we do know that God has a very strained relationship with most of his children and fights with them daily. Maybe we should give our Father in Heaven a half point instead of a full one when it comes to domestic aggression.

*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 #7 - Got your back

According to popular wisdom, a good father stands up for his children when needed.

Supposedly God's the Ultimate Sky Warrior and he can decimate anyone or anything he wants like, say, Egyptians or the Red Sea. He's the Ultimate Backup. Even if God isn't killing all your Egyptians with the most horrific tortures imaginable (like turning all water into blood, plaguing your enemies with boils, or killing their first born), believers will tell you that you had better side with God because in the end God will prevail against Satan and his evil hosts. So run and hide under God's warrior wing. It's your only chance at survival, or eternal life, or something like that. 

It will be so awesome and gratifying to see God destroy everyone who disagreed with you (and didn't repent), and you'll totally feel important and loved. Not only will you feel vindicated, you'll feel powerful!

Or not. Let's think about how this would play out in real life. How gratifying could it possibly be to have your dad stomp on over to that one person's house who, when you were in third grade and he was in fifth, called you and your friends insulting names, beat the crap out of you, and pissed in your lunchbox? What good is it going to do anyone at this point? After all these years, the only thing your dad should probably do about that injustice is sincerely apologize to you for not having gone to have a talk with the bully's parents the same day you came home with a black eye. What's the point in God waiting until the very end to exact justice? Is that a good disciplining tactic?

I sincerely hope that when we get to Heaven God takes some quality time with each of us to apologize for not being there when we needed Him. "Hey, um, remember that time you totally felt like shit and you had no one to turn to at all so you prayed to me and I didn't answer or anything? I'm sorry about that. And you know that time you prayed that I would protect you as you walked home late at night and you ended up getting mugged? That was my bad. I'm sorry."

"Now hang on," you might be thinking, "this is about God helping us keep the stuff we have, not protect our feelings or even our bones." That would be less appreciated by most, in my opinion, but at least it would be something. Unfortunately God's not so great at watching over our stuff either, not even the stuff we think he has explicitly given us.

Essentially every Sky Father religion out there has its persecution sob story. Why is that? Why hasn't God protected His children?

Heavenly Father is probably the worse dad in the universe when it comes to getting our backs, especially because he could turn on you at any moment either because you did something that offends him (e.g. wearing a cotton-poly blend) or because he just feels like you need a good old fashioned test (think of poor Job). Instead of getting your back, he might stab you in the back. It's pretty fucked up of Him.

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing 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.