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Old-Timer wrote:
I’d love to be certain about lots of things, but total certainty would destroy a lot of the fun of life for me. I understand and appreciate that most people aren’t like me in that regard (how I really am a “weird duck” in that regard), but I really love the mysterious and mythical and cosmic and mind-bending stuff – which is one of the reasons I actually love the Book of Mormon so much. There are SO many tiny, subtle things I get when I read and ponder it (plus an occasional big epiphany) that bring an element of excitement and anticipation to me that seeing actual plates would destroy some of that for me – even if they were proven to be accurate and historical.
If I want mind-bending cosmic stuff, these days, I get into higher mathematics and quantum physics. That always gets me my mystic fix.
:ugeek: Brown wrote:Also, I think marriage as we practice today is largely a man-made convention. Do we really think God is sitting there with a clipboard and he cares that some clerk at the courthouse in your hometown signs a certificate? In the middle of nowhere, and certainly in ancient days, there would be nobody to perform what we consider a real marriage. And yet if two people got together, made a commitment and started a family, would god consider that a sin? Similarly I have a friend at work that has been with the same woman for 18 years and helped raise her children. They never got a marriage certificate, but he has been a husband as well as any of us. The fact that marriage is carried out in countless ways across the globe means God is really only looking for a commitment and not a certain document.
This raises an issue that has been a big burr under my saddle for years, namely,
whoactually has the authorityto marry other people? I think it’s absurd to assign this authority arbitrarily to a government, but then I don’t recognize any church to have this authority either. Granted there are practical legal reasons for a government to want to keep track of marriages just as with other legal contracts (for inheritance, child custody and so forth.) But that could be accomplished by recording a contract stipulating the relationship between the individuals involved. From an ecclesiastical point of view, that’s a totally subjective matter … it’s just a ritual that people can have or not have as they see fit. The only “authority” required is the will of the people involved, that they want to consider themselves married. I would argue that the authority of the LDS organization ended with the dissolution of the church in 1890 (or thereabouts) but that’s a thorny subject for another thread.
cwald wrote:I don’t like coded language at all. Just call a spade a spade.
Fair enough. Now let’s get back to talking about “gay marriage.”
Old-Timer wrote:Nope. That would be “polygamy” or “plural marriage”, generally speaking and not worrying about being exactly precise and complicated.
🙂 I’m not quite sure if I’m comfortable with being instructed about the proper way to refer to a major tenet of my belief system or not. But it’s your forum.
😳 Old-Timer wrote:Oh, and fwiw, this is a modern LDS-focused forum, so let’s not use the term “the principle” to mean “polygamy” – even those few here who still believe in and/or practice it. Generally, I wouldn’t say anything about terminology, but this is one example that just isn’t “right” for this site.
I understand it might cause some confusion among some readers not familiar with Gospel terminology, but I thought it was the accepted non-pejorative way of referring to this practice.
:Katzpur wrote:I am not opposed to same-sex marriage, because in my opinion it is a violation of a person’s civil rights not to be able to have the right to marry whomever they may want to marry.
One positive outcome of a broadening of our concept of civil rights regarding marriage is that the practice of the Principle may once again return, at least on a small scale.
SilentDawning wrote:In a section on prophets, I remember McConkie saying that a prophet is someone who receives revelation for a stewardship that is theirs. Therefore, Thomas S Monson is a Prophet of the Church. The Bishop is a prophet to the Ward, and you and I are prophets to our own personal affairs. Note, the difference between capital P and small p prophets, however. The Prophet of the church is large P, and all others are small “p”. Also, if you go broadcasting you’re a prophet to your friends and neighbours, expect to be sanctioned.
That’s an interesting take, imo. I don’t throw the title “prophet” around either for various reasons, lol. I’ve long known that we are each entitled to receive revelation for our personal stewardship as you say, and I’ve been told this by more than one official (bishop, SP, the mishies and so forth) so there’s nothing controversial about it. I think it’s just that people don’t stop to really consider the ramifications and responsibilities that this doctrine, which is a true one, carries with it.
For instance, I have long had a testimony of the Principle (Celestial Marriage), but I consider this a revelation only for my self and don’t try to “proselytize” it or expect others to live up to this standard. Each one must gain a testimony of Gospel principles for oneself.
Brian Johnston wrote:Joseph did sort of go that direction at times, with the dynastic sealings even of men to other men (not marriage, but more like father-son or priesthood chain of command relationship).
Law of Adoption, I think they called it … haven’t read up on this in a while though so my mind is foggy on the details.
Quote:Ultimately, the whole concept speaks to the deep feelings we have of wanting to be with all the people we love, forever and ever. It is a form of happiness.
Well put!
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:I’m more interested in the “sealing for time and eternity” to multiple wives today, when the first one has died.
Serious question: Why? (I’m not “challenging” with that question. I really do want to know why you are more interested in it.)
If a spouse dies and the survivor gets remarried it’s a new marriage, in the secular world, no polygamy is involved. Sealing for “eternity” seems to imply (if I read it right) eternity, with all spouses who were ever in that marriage at some point being reunited on the other side. Some have suggested here that it’s more of a safety measure, and that they can all figure it out on the other side and decide who gets to remain a couple and who gets released to find some other relationship, but I don’t see this as an orthodox interpretation of sealing “for eternity.” As I see it, the obvious interpretation is that the deceased individuals can decide to remain in a polygamous union if they see fit, somewhere in the eternities, but this point has not been acknowledged on this thread (afaik.)
Quote:My own take: If a man really truly loves a wife, and she dies, then he really truly loves a second wife (and even if that same thing happens three or four times) . . . other than considering the possibility of the man being a mass murderer
😆 , why would we insist that he only be sealed to his first wife? Why make him “choose” in this life? Why not allow him to be sealed to all of them and find out what happens in the eternities when we get there?Sure, I don’t have a problem with any arrangement that anyone wants to enter into using their free agency. But as I wrote above, and I will rephrase now as a matter of uncertainty or ambiguity on my part, I have never interpreted the sealing for eternity ordinance as serving only as a “better safe than sorry, find out what happens on the other side” thing, but as implying actual sealing for eternity. Because, I guess, the word eternity is in there. It also makes you wonder about the first deceased spouse, sealed for eternity, and how that person might feel looking down and watching his/her spouse getting sealed for eternity to another spouse here just so that that person (the surviving spouse) can “find out what happens” later on.
Old-Timer wrote:It happens all the time outside the Church – and it happens without her dying outside the Church through divorce more than it happens when she dies inside the Church.
I’m more interested in the “sealing for time
and eternity” to multiple wives today, when the first one has died. GBSmith wrote:It’s hard to participate in a discussion on this subject without descending into a MormonMatters type debate. I guess for me the best thing is to say that that was then and now is now and let it go at that.
IIRC (and I am willing to stand corrected) Dallin Oaks and Russell M. Nelson are each sealed for eternity to more than one wife. Elder Nelson was originally sealed to his first wife, Dantzel White, who died in 2005; he married Wendy Watson a little more than one year later, and I believe he is sealed to both for “time and eternity.” Dallin Oaks was originally sealed to his first wife June, who died in 1998; in June of 2000 he married Kristen McCain, and is sealed to both. There may be other instances of this practice in recent times, but these are the two I happen to have information at hand for. It may be that their second marriages were only sealed for time, not eternity, but as I indicated I am willing to be corrected on that score.
On an unrelated note, I also find it intriguing that a man can be married to a woman for many decades and then when she dies, he gets remarried only a year or two later. I don’t think this is all that common outside of the church, afaik.
I’m not judging whether any of this is right or wrong.
workingitout wrote:I’ve heard all my life that if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the BOM is true, (and vice-versa) and therefore the church is true.
Unfortunately this question, even if answered positively, still leaves the question of “which one should I join?” — Joseph’s original question! — since if you’re only responding based upon the Bible and the BoM, and nothing else, you might have to look into the Community of Christ or a similar group.
