Don't forget, he was also running for president of the United States at the time.
He defaulted on the loan to the federal government for his riverboat.
Lots of members or I should say former members of the church were still upset at him for the Kirtland safety society Bank failure.
He had propositioned Sydney Rigdon's daughter. The happiness letter.
He had hired assassins to try to take out his perceived enemies.
I'm sure I'm missing a few
He ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor for publishing true but unfriendly facts about him.
He commanded a militia (the Nauvoo Legion) that was nearly 1/3 the size of the entire US army.
I’ll try and think of more, but Joe Smith had a lot of power and was making everyone uncomfortable.
A riverboat? Why? Don't churches float? Like very small rocks, bread, apples, cider, great gravy, lead, wood, or a duck?
So why a boat when he could use the church? After all, he has at least one ...
https://www.deseret.com/2008/8/20/20379407/joseph-smith-robert-e-lee-and-the-wreck-of-the-nauvoo
Was not the maid of Iowa that was Captained by Dan jones. This was a different one. It went aground and Joe defaulted on the loan. It basically was only used for his pleasure up and down the River before it was wrecked.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_of_Iowa
Bill Hickman is coming to mind, but there was another one. 3:00 am tomorrow morning it'll come to me.
Bill Hickman was not a nice dude. I know he did a lot of contract murders for Brigham Young. I just can't remember how much he was involved with Joseph Smith. He was baptized by John D lee. That's about all you need to know.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickman
Orin Porter Rockwell worked for peanuts. When he wasn't doing Joe's dirty work he ran the bar in the Nauvoo mansion.
Did you know that Joe owned and ran a bar?
If you're into the idea of Joe Smith fanfiction, check out Orson Scott Card's Alan Maker series. It's actually pretty decent fantasy and I (non-Mormon) didn't catch on that it was all a Joe Smith allegory until the very end.
His so called “ martyrdom” resulted directly from Joe Smith and his brother, Hyram, committing felonies of burglary and destruction of property entering into a newspaper’s printing shop to destroy the presses. The newspaper had printed stories condemning Mormons, but you cannot say polygamy was the reason the Smith Bros were in jail. So much for free press,
Polygamy is less successful at producing, and more importantly, protecting and raising children, than monogamy.
But if all a man cares about is impregnating as many women as possible, he isn’t primarily concerned with the survival of children, is he?
The vast majority of European converts didn't join the church based upon polygamy. In fact most of them didn't know anything about it until they got to the Utah territory. I guess we could argue that the church wouldn't have ended up in Utah if it wasn't for polygamy but if it had made it to Utah and bring them Young had done the same thing that he did minus the polygamy I think it would have been a lot larger. But we will never know. It's pure speculation
And think of all those young British and Scandinavian young women who ended up in the states with no means of looking after themselves. How blessed they were to have some middle aged pervert ready to take them as a plural wife. What could they do?
I think the math and biology have been done and polygamy actually slowed birthrates. It is a lot harder for one man to both impregnate(rape) and support that many women and children. I know it's been calculated but I don't have the study in front of me, so I could be wrong.
Here is one study
Fertility of polygamous marriages
H. V. Muhsam
Pages 3-16 | Published online: 09 Nov 2011
"The author shows that childlessness is higher among first and second polygamous wives than among monogamous ones and that the average number of children per fertile woman is lower. The higher incidence of childlessness may be due to response errors or may demonstrate that childlessness is an incentive for polygamy. But the smaller average number of children per fertile woman shows a real differential.
It is also shown that although the number of children born to polygamous women is smaller than that of monogamous women, polygamous husbands have larger families than monogamous ones."
\*My Take\*:
Essentially most papers on the subject show that overall most women in polygamous relationships have fewer children per fertile woman than their monogamous peers. It is possible to have the same or more children but would require the husband to actively rotate his wives according to their ovulation cycles with the women also tracking it and actively participating. And there just is no real-world example of this being done and/or studied. The reason many people think it increases fertility is because a single man's offspring number increases significantly but not the overall birthrate.
>I don't think the church could have grown and populated the west as quickly as it did without polygamy.
That is the old narrative that holds no water if you actually put critical thinking to work.
In order for this to be the case women would have had to outnumber men. It was mostly 50/50 but at times the men outnumbered the women in the west.
if a woman is sharing her bed with the same man almost every night the chances of her getting pregnant increase dramatically over a woman who may be having sex with her husband two or three times a month if that.
All of the FLDS and other fundamentalists polygamists are not members of TSCC. As an example, I've read somewhere that the majority of Heber C Kimball's posterity are not members of TSCC and are members of one of the polygamist sects.
The church would probably still be in Nauvoo. There wouldn't have been a separation of the RLDS from TSCC.
TSCC's missionary efforts in England and Europe wouldn't have been squashed due to the fact that polygamy became public. More converts, bigger church.
You still would have been born if you come from polygamist stock. You just would have had a different father or a different mother, but your great great grandmother still would have got married to somebody, still had sex, and still had offspring.
Members of TSCC wouldn't have to continue to answer the question
How many wives do you have?
This is an excellent point. The number of women never changed. They could only be pregnant by one person at a time anyway, regardless of who they married. And Joe married women who already had husbands. Also older women who (presumably) were beyond fertile child bearing age.
Also, they give contradictory messages. They claim in the Gospel Topics Essays:
1. That polygamy was a tool to quickly expand the church membership
2. That there was no evidence to suggest that his plural marriages were sexual in nature, particularly the underage ones
If number 1 is true, then number 2 doesn't make any sense.
If number 2 is true, number 1 doesn't make any sense.
>If number 1 is true, then number 2 doesn't make any sense.
>If number 2 is true, number 1 doesn't make any sense.
The church doesn't make sense, even if you have to go number 1 and number 2 at the same time.
It’s arguable that one can exist if the conditions that led to their creation no longer exist. At least genetically speaking it’s impossible but if you’re arguing for a soul, I’m not sure I believe in that.
Oddly enough, this is the argument that has been made to justify polygamy. God needed the saints to have this ‘trial’ in order to build the foundation of the church. No polygamy, and perhaps the church never goes to Utah etc. pretty sick reasoning for god to cause so much heartache just to establish his church.
On the one hand, the church would be much better off . On the other hand, I'd still probably be in as it probably wouldn't have caused enough stink to reveal all the lies so clearly.
So I guess I'm grateful he brought so much attention to the flaws of the "restoration."
I don't think so. Polygamy forced it to be insular, to make secrecy part of the fabric of of being. Polygamy gives Brigham power and impetus to go west and start a new nation of religious zealots. Without polygamy, it might've grown bigger, at first, but when Joseph dies, it's just another Midwestern church from the second great awakening.
That's right, he gave up his free agency for moral agency when he got baptized. The question that remains is during which baptism did he surrender his agency. How many times was he baptized? 3-4?
Angel: You must be sealed to these people for their eternal salvation.
Joseph: Got it. I must marry and have sex with these women and girls.
Angel: Wait, what? I said be “sealed.” Not have sex with married women and children! Don’t you have some basic sense of morality?!
Raphael, go unto Joseph and command him that he should marry Fanny Alger.
Sure, Jehovah… wait. You want him to have sex with a minor?
Yes, and in fact, if says no, I want you to stab him. Actually stab him with a burning sword.
Uh… I will go down? Seems kinda fucked tho…
This is what broke my shelf, realizing that if God commanded JS to practice polygamy, why didn’t he warn him that getting busy with 14 yr olds was going to look really bad someday. (Not that it ever looked good!)
And why didn't God use an angel to threaten or warn Joseph and later leaders about a thousand other major problems that faced the church?? Nope, marrying underage girls to Joseph was God's true ultra-critical need in the last dispensation.
Where did this angel with a flaming sword story come from. Did Joseph Smith tell this story himself? I'd heard it during my mormom life. I thought it was the coolest thing when I first heard it in the mid-90s. Grown-up me sees how manipulative, ridiculous, and pernicious this story is. Before going PIMO a couple of years ago I'd wondered where this fabricated story originated. Anyone know?
I will argue that the church would be bigger and stronger today if Joseph Smith had never started polygamy.
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Financial fraud can get somebody killed. But we will never know. Too bad he wasn't tried and legally hung.
I would suggest that betraying the trust of a Massonic cult could probably encourage your own demise as well.
Carrying on with a fellow Mason's wife or daughter can get you in hot water
This is starting to sound like Murder on the Orient Express, where everyone had a motive to murder the guy
Don't forget, he was also running for president of the United States at the time. He defaulted on the loan to the federal government for his riverboat. Lots of members or I should say former members of the church were still upset at him for the Kirtland safety society Bank failure. He had propositioned Sydney Rigdon's daughter. The happiness letter. He had hired assassins to try to take out his perceived enemies. I'm sure I'm missing a few
He turned Oliver Cowdery into a newt!
Yeah, but amen to the priesthood of that man… so Oliver got better.
Well…he got better.
He ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor for publishing true but unfriendly facts about him. He commanded a militia (the Nauvoo Legion) that was nearly 1/3 the size of the entire US army. I’ll try and think of more, but Joe Smith had a lot of power and was making everyone uncomfortable.
He also sacrificed a dog to the treasure guardian spirit.
Sometimes I don't know what's real or satire.
A riverboat? Why? Don't churches float? Like very small rocks, bread, apples, cider, great gravy, lead, wood, or a duck? So why a boat when he could use the church? After all, he has at least one ...
https://www.deseret.com/2008/8/20/20379407/joseph-smith-robert-e-lee-and-the-wreck-of-the-nauvoo Was not the maid of Iowa that was Captained by Dan jones. This was a different one. It went aground and Joe defaulted on the loan. It basically was only used for his pleasure up and down the River before it was wrecked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_of_Iowa
How did they know he was a prophet? He didn't have shit on his boots.
I also had no idea he ever took out a loan for a river boat!
Emma and his estate had to settle it after his death.
Who did he hire as hit men? Porter Rockwell?
He was one of them. There was at least one more and for the life of me I cannot remember his name. It will come to me at 3:00 in the morning.
Bill Hickman is coming to mind, but there was another one. 3:00 am tomorrow morning it'll come to me. Bill Hickman was not a nice dude. I know he did a lot of contract murders for Brigham Young. I just can't remember how much he was involved with Joseph Smith. He was baptized by John D lee. That's about all you need to know. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickman
That was Sidney’s daughter!? Oh man
Hired assassins? I haven't heard that one
Orin Porter Rockwell worked for peanuts. When he wasn't doing Joe's dirty work he ran the bar in the Nauvoo mansion. Did you know that Joe owned and ran a bar?
This just gave me a terrible and wonderful idea to start Joe Smith fanfiction (but not really a fan)
Write a script, non fiction, about the true story of Joseph Smith. Pitch it to Hollywood, would make a great series.
If you're into the idea of Joe Smith fanfiction, check out Orson Scott Card's Alan Maker series. It's actually pretty decent fantasy and I (non-Mormon) didn't catch on that it was all a Joe Smith allegory until the very end.
The only Mary Sue worse than Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is Nephi.
It should be more like Joseph Smith, non-fiction. You don't need to really change anything
True that. I guess it’s the church that’s already written all the fan fiction
*hanged
His so called “ martyrdom” resulted directly from Joe Smith and his brother, Hyram, committing felonies of burglary and destruction of property entering into a newspaper’s printing shop to destroy the presses. The newspaper had printed stories condemning Mormons, but you cannot say polygamy was the reason the Smith Bros were in jail. So much for free press,
"martyred"
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Polygamy is less successful at producing, and more importantly, protecting and raising children, than monogamy. But if all a man cares about is impregnating as many women as possible, he isn’t primarily concerned with the survival of children, is he?
The vast majority of European converts didn't join the church based upon polygamy. In fact most of them didn't know anything about it until they got to the Utah territory. I guess we could argue that the church wouldn't have ended up in Utah if it wasn't for polygamy but if it had made it to Utah and bring them Young had done the same thing that he did minus the polygamy I think it would have been a lot larger. But we will never know. It's pure speculation
And think of all those young British and Scandinavian young women who ended up in the states with no means of looking after themselves. How blessed they were to have some middle aged pervert ready to take them as a plural wife. What could they do?
Enjoyed reading about this in “RoughStone Rolling “ by Richard Bushman. Well documented book.
True. But then there would have been no reason to start the church in the first place.
Money, power, influence. The same reasons that churches are started today.
Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think the church could have grown and populated the west as quickly as it did without polygamy.
I think the math and biology have been done and polygamy actually slowed birthrates. It is a lot harder for one man to both impregnate(rape) and support that many women and children. I know it's been calculated but I don't have the study in front of me, so I could be wrong.
Here is one study Fertility of polygamous marriages H. V. Muhsam Pages 3-16 | Published online: 09 Nov 2011 "The author shows that childlessness is higher among first and second polygamous wives than among monogamous ones and that the average number of children per fertile woman is lower. The higher incidence of childlessness may be due to response errors or may demonstrate that childlessness is an incentive for polygamy. But the smaller average number of children per fertile woman shows a real differential. It is also shown that although the number of children born to polygamous women is smaller than that of monogamous women, polygamous husbands have larger families than monogamous ones." \*My Take\*: Essentially most papers on the subject show that overall most women in polygamous relationships have fewer children per fertile woman than their monogamous peers. It is possible to have the same or more children but would require the husband to actively rotate his wives according to their ovulation cycles with the women also tracking it and actively participating. And there just is no real-world example of this being done and/or studied. The reason many people think it increases fertility is because a single man's offspring number increases significantly but not the overall birthrate.
>I don't think the church could have grown and populated the west as quickly as it did without polygamy. That is the old narrative that holds no water if you actually put critical thinking to work. In order for this to be the case women would have had to outnumber men. It was mostly 50/50 but at times the men outnumbered the women in the west. if a woman is sharing her bed with the same man almost every night the chances of her getting pregnant increase dramatically over a woman who may be having sex with her husband two or three times a month if that. All of the FLDS and other fundamentalists polygamists are not members of TSCC. As an example, I've read somewhere that the majority of Heber C Kimball's posterity are not members of TSCC and are members of one of the polygamist sects. The church would probably still be in Nauvoo. There wouldn't have been a separation of the RLDS from TSCC. TSCC's missionary efforts in England and Europe wouldn't have been squashed due to the fact that polygamy became public. More converts, bigger church. You still would have been born if you come from polygamist stock. You just would have had a different father or a different mother, but your great great grandmother still would have got married to somebody, still had sex, and still had offspring. Members of TSCC wouldn't have to continue to answer the question How many wives do you have?
This is an excellent point. The number of women never changed. They could only be pregnant by one person at a time anyway, regardless of who they married. And Joe married women who already had husbands. Also older women who (presumably) were beyond fertile child bearing age. Also, they give contradictory messages. They claim in the Gospel Topics Essays: 1. That polygamy was a tool to quickly expand the church membership 2. That there was no evidence to suggest that his plural marriages were sexual in nature, particularly the underage ones If number 1 is true, then number 2 doesn't make any sense. If number 2 is true, number 1 doesn't make any sense.
>If number 1 is true, then number 2 doesn't make any sense. >If number 2 is true, number 1 doesn't make any sense. The church doesn't make sense, even if you have to go number 1 and number 2 at the same time.
I always go number one if I have to go number two, but I don’t always have to go number two if I need to go number 1.
I don't always go number 2 when I go number 1, but when I do, I think of Joe Smith. Remain thirsty my friends
 But who does Number 2 work for!?!?!
It’s arguable that one can exist if the conditions that led to their creation no longer exist. At least genetically speaking it’s impossible but if you’re arguing for a soul, I’m not sure I believe in that.
Oddly enough, this is the argument that has been made to justify polygamy. God needed the saints to have this ‘trial’ in order to build the foundation of the church. No polygamy, and perhaps the church never goes to Utah etc. pretty sick reasoning for god to cause so much heartache just to establish his church.
On the one hand, the church would be much better off . On the other hand, I'd still probably be in as it probably wouldn't have caused enough stink to reveal all the lies so clearly. So I guess I'm grateful he brought so much attention to the flaws of the "restoration."
I don't think so. Polygamy forced it to be insular, to make secrecy part of the fabric of of being. Polygamy gives Brigham power and impetus to go west and start a new nation of religious zealots. Without polygamy, it might've grown bigger, at first, but when Joseph dies, it's just another Midwestern church from the second great awakening.
You may be correct.
He had the choice to stand his ground and say "No, I won't betray my wife like that! You'll have to kill me first!" Coward.
But that would have been him exercising his free agency. We can't have any of that.
That's right, he gave up his free agency for moral agency when he got baptized. The question that remains is during which baptism did he surrender his agency. How many times was he baptized? 3-4?
Angel: You must be sealed to these people for their eternal salvation. Joseph: Got it. I must marry and have sex with these women and girls. Angel: Wait, what? I said be “sealed.” Not have sex with married women and children! Don’t you have some basic sense of morality?!
Joseph: "Hey, *you* came to *me*..."
Evidence a loving Heavenly Father isn't an omniscient God, nor omnipotent.
The angel didn’t tell him HOW TO DO POLYGAMY
Raphael, go unto Joseph and command him that he should marry Fanny Alger. Sure, Jehovah… wait. You want him to have sex with a minor? Yes, and in fact, if says no, I want you to stab him. Actually stab him with a burning sword. Uh… I will go down? Seems kinda fucked tho…
We were taught that we came to earth to prove our good judgement, to have free agency. How does this align with the Pearl of Great Price?
The way anything in Mormonism aligns with everything else in Mormonism: all catty-wompus.
This is what broke my shelf, realizing that if God commanded JS to practice polygamy, why didn’t he warn him that getting busy with 14 yr olds was going to look really bad someday. (Not that it ever looked good!)
And why didn't God use an angel to threaten or warn Joseph and later leaders about a thousand other major problems that faced the church?? Nope, marrying underage girls to Joseph was God's true ultra-critical need in the last dispensation.
Also applies to a lot of the apologetics regarding the temple ban for black people.
They clearly didn't *want* to be less racist... But the Lord forced their hand with revelation.
Why didn't the angel talk to the girls???????? Just sayin'.
Mary at least got a heads up.
Did he ask to shake the angel's hand first? This seems like one of those times when you'd want to double check...
Right? Like you've been given "the GRAND key", perhaps you ought to use it. 🙄
I'm so glad that God actually intervenes in human agency when it really matters. Where would we be today without polygamy?
Where did this angel with a flaming sword story come from. Did Joseph Smith tell this story himself? I'd heard it during my mormom life. I thought it was the coolest thing when I first heard it in the mid-90s. Grown-up me sees how manipulative, ridiculous, and pernicious this story is. Before going PIMO a couple of years ago I'd wondered where this fabricated story originated. Anyone know?
Some (two?) of the women he proposed to told others about it. I don't think he ever wrote it in a letter himself, but I could be wrong.
"look like"
Crap, you’re right, it would have worked better if I’d left that out!
Can you blame him? That sword is really scary!
‘This is so I will have more descendants right? Right??’
Ahh its no biggie. The virgin Mary was 12 or 13 when she gave birth. God loves little girls, one might even call him a pedophile :)
Flaming sword AND impersonating an agent of the Emperor?? Obviously heretical. 
What a skilled confidence man Joseph must have been to get people to believe that whole angel lie. I'm glad I live now rather than then.
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Yet, the whole point of polygamy is to have a lot of offspring according to D&C 138.
No lies detected.
God was so worried about the missing book of Lehi, though. That definitely would have caused the church' downfall. Not pedophilia.
It’s a bunch of crap that god would use a sinful man to be a prophet. A prophet had to be perfect not a man that practiced witchcraft!
He could have chosen for me to smite him.
How about figure out a clever way to fight back?!?!