Mormon Theocracy?

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by Adam

It is amazing that you would write such a long post full of information regarding Muslim plural marriage that is completely false. Totally.

I speak Arabic. I have many Muslim friends. I have lived in the Middle East.

You are totally and completely wrong in nearly every respect.

Now Islam is a big enough religion that I'm sure if you looked hard enough long enough you would find some Muslim that agreed with you. But the 99.99% of Muslims would not.

Really?? you have lived in the middle east and know arabic ,but still infirm to actualize one of the most obvious and comfortably comprehensible concept in isalm ?!

you were probably too obsessed visiting middle east attractions that missed the opportunity to meet islamic sophisticates to grasp accurate interepretation of quran verse concerning polygamy.

i assume you were being in an uneasy position reading my post ..or something .. which prevented you to appreciate the point i was trying to make .

i wasnot explaining when and how muslims are allowed to practice polygamy
nor reciting quran verse ..rather 1) demonstrating a specific situation 2) expressing different possiblities about the case 3) stating islamic point of view and the way it offers people to follow period

the very other important thing you dismissed in my post was ,when i talked about muslims who practice polygamy" just becuse "they think they are allowed to , without any care to embrace the ture exegeses of quran .

however islam has let the men who are not satisfied in their married life for whatever reasons (or who are overwhelmingly happy to be overcomed by thier desires) ,to live polygamy , but it has determined a very good FINE for them to make sure they didnot make up excuses

to cut the story off, the next time you are going to come here in the middle east ,let me know , since i think you dont deserve to be so empty minded in islamic issues .you woulndot need to be in the region or know arabic to learn about islam though ,you just would need to be honestly avid to know.

[non sequitur]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

Wow, I'd never seen this web site before:

http://www.removenelson.net/

Props to Elder Nelson for doing so well on his second marriage. I'm guessing she was the roommate of one of his grandkids.

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by Adam

Mindful, since you actually know something about Islam--almost certianly more than I do--I'll be more specific in my response to your post.
The Koran and current majority Islamic teaching says that the ultimate reward for the rightous martyr is multiple virgins in heaven. So while in Islam women are given as a reward as chattel, in Mormon doctrine, plural marriage is allowed in heaven, but women are never given as a reward. So I think your statement is 180 degree off on both religions. I agree that Islam does not, like Mormonism did not, offer earthly women as chattel reward today very often.

well, first of all i should respect your knowledge about islam ,however it doesnot seem to be qualified in many aspects, but still appreciable.

second of all ,while you should have provided authentic sources in your claim about righteous martyer be rewarded with women ,since i think i know what you are talking about ..so here is my answer.

in islam we believe that human would be resurrected spiritually and corporeally , both. accepting this fact that spirit and body need to be fulfilled in their demands ... logically we come up with this conclusion that in heaven ,both aspects of human being would be perfectly pleased.

needless to mention that spiritual power would be definitely much loftier than what it used to be in this world.

so for both ,women and men we would have angels who would be flawlessly serving human beings .

fortunately you know arabic ,so you know that the word "Hoor" which you have translated to virigine women is a plural none that signifies male angels (Ahvar) and female angels (Hora) both ....which obviously indicates that there is the same reward for "women" righteous martyers to be served by male angels as well.

lets not forget that in heaven ALL IS GOOD. so there is no such things as " voracity ,greed ,lust ,wrath , malevolence ,violance ...etc.

now its the time to see what we will have assembling all these points .

we are going to have a place named heaven dedicated to righteous people, who had been monitoring their physical desires ,following religion instructions,sacrificing their life for the sake of islam ,who will be having a spiritually and physically perfect life for the eternity!

to make this point a little bit more clear let me spare a question ..does having other divine affluence in heaven like flowing milk and honey and prolific ,dreamy trees all avialable in heaven ...mean heavenly citizens would kill themselves eating and drinking ?? no of course not ..due to lack of greed and voracity .

there is an exact analogy about sexual desire as well...so to speak.

therefor basically its over simplistic to say serving angels for human being (men and women) means offering women as chattel.

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by Adam

I disagree. I think the philosophy in Islam is to permit multiple marriages as a social construct to give men a sexual outlet without damaging the family (the unspoken reason) and to provide for the widowed women and orhaned children.

As the Qur'an states:

And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry [their mothers] that are lawful to you, two two, three three, four four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them], then only one, or those which your right hands possess. That will be more suitable to prevent you from doing injustice. And give these women their dowers also the way dowers are given; but if they, of their own good pleasure, remit any part of it to you, take it and consume it gladly.

—Qur'an 4:3
Yes your example is one way in which plural marriage in Islam could be practiced. But it is misleading to cite it without stateing that almost any reason or no reason is good enough. This under both modern practice and the Koran.
It is interesting that you call those wishing to enter into plural marriage for the man to have another sexual outlet "inferior muslims".
I believe plural marriage is a wonderful blessing in ancient cultures. The men often died young in war or of sickness or in accidents while hunting or building, etc. The widows were damaged goods and without plural marriage most would have been left to die.
But equally important, it gave man's libdo an outlet without destroying the family.
You start out your post by mocking the West's common occurance of "unfaithfulness" "disloyalty" and "adultery" --and rightfully so. Because of the intimacy outlet in Islam, these things are reduced.

I think your view that plural marriage could only be practiced by a "good Muslim" upon the disability of a wife is not mainstream Islam and a tiny minority viewpoint in Islam.

having read your other posts about mormon doctrines ,i should expect you to present a much better and more complete approach regarding quran interpretation..i am quite confident that you would not jump to the conlusion observing just one verse of quran though.

as far as i know plural marriage in quran is a matter of could ,not should ...what is great about islam is its comprehensiveness, which has let it to be practiced in any "time and place" .

I purposely reiterated that ,becuse islam has been revealed in arabic peninsula with the infamous pagen who had a reputaion of treating women like slaves and annihilating baby girls , having countless marriage ..using women as a tool to wage a war or make peace ....etc .

you might appreciate that no religion could drastically make changes ,thus the first thing islam got to do was, making persistent and indefatigable efforts to reviving women's dignity ,respect and value.

as all prophet mohammad's immaculate progenys derived from his" Daughter "..and his daughter has earned the unprecedented glorious dignity ...,but it didnot make islam an irrational religion which would neglect ordinary people demands in thier lives.

therefor it got to be fairly logical ..while at the same time we have quran verses and many narrations ,--emphasising women's and men's roles to take the responsibilty of protecting the family and not being a matter of temptation for the societies, embracing the value of modesty and loyalty to build a loving ,pleasent family -- " men are allowed to practice polygamy "for different reasons changing due to multiple situations inside and outside the family ..

like women not being willingly available or unable to have intimacy or infertility, psychosomatic illness and as you mentioned ,war aftermath lefting out many families without men and so forth.

keeping in mind that its a matter of could ,not should , men needs to get his wife asked for permission ,in order to be able to go for second marriage ,otherwise impossible.

but the utmost things you evidently ignored in your answer was ..if islam just wanted to make another outlet for men ..wouldnot have made them married women ...since marriage is all about responsibility ...another woman would impose man to build secound family ,with all its necessities and equipments and problems.

islam strictly has inquired men to do justice in love ,treatment and livelihood ..islam has vowed to punish these men severly if they are practice polygamy while they arenot genuinely just.

ironically many quran experts believe this verse actually is sort of deterrent for men who are dreaming more pleasure seeking for polygamy!

Yes i do call those men inferior since its unthinkable for me to see a man ---who is having healthy ,loving wife "who cares about her husband and her family ---" indecently looking for any opportunity to gain more pleasure ..

of course its my own point of view ..but simingly islam is nicer to men than i am ...

it dares them marry agian "if its what they canot stop thinking to "...and put an end to thier darn desire forcing them to carry such a heavy burden "two families" !!!!

[Radawg]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

Here is my fundamental question: Why is it that we Mormons have been so quick to disavow our socialistic theocratic beginnings, whereas the former practice of polygamy is often defended by the average Mormon (with claims that its temporary existence was inspired by God and occasionally the implication that it's going to come back someday).

Does this mean that the Mormon utopian/socialist movement wasn't inspired, but polygamy was inspired? We've abandoned both concepts, but polygamy's former existence somehow seems to be defended by the average Mormon. This is reinforced by the Church's practice of sealing men to a multiple spouses (ala Russell M Nelson) for eternity, while not doing the same for women. By contrast, Mormon socialism is treated as if it never existed or isn't an important part of Mormonism, even though we still covenant to live the law of consecration.

Wow, I'd never seen this web site before:

http://www.removenelson.net/

I feel like the early mormon experimentation with socialist/utopian societies isn't a juicy issue like polygamy, and so it's easy to sweep under the rug and ignore. You just don't hear about the socialism stuff unless you go digging through church history books (which your average mormon doesn't).

Polygamy, on the other hand, is the one thing that everybody in the world associates with mormonism. Everybody knows about it, so we can't just sweep it under the rug. We hear about polygamy in church because our non-mormon friends are going to ask about it, and we've got to have answers. We've got to maintain that it was inspired (because that's what JS claimed) and make up excuses for why it was a reasonable thing for god to inspire. I remember being taught in the MTC how to deal with the question of polygamy: "well, we haven't done it for over 100 years; old testament progphets did it; you see, tons of the mormon men were being killed by evil mobs and they had to do something to take care of the extra women; god really doesn't like polygamy but sometimes it's a 'necessary evil' (jacob 2); etc." If polygamy wasn't so well known, I bet it would be disavowed/swept under the rug faster than the socialism stuff.

I find it very interesting to ask other mormons about their views on polygamy. It seems to me that many very faithful/believing people I know really dislike it, and they come up with all sorts of ways to justfiy it. They also tend to forget that, though we don't practice polygamy currently, it's still very much a part of mormon doctrine (eg. SoonerCoug's reference to Nelson). It would be interesting to see how these people react if polygamy gets reinstated. Just to see what happens, I would almost vote for gay marriage on the off chance that it leads to the legalization of polygamy and the "restoration of all things" once again.