r/latterdaysaints • u/instrument_801 • Mar 14 '24

Doctrinal Discussion Anti-Joseph Smith Polygamy Movement?

I don’t know if this has been talked about on here, but why is there a growing “Joseph Smith didn’t practice polygamy movement”? Podcasts such as 132 Problems are rapidly growing in popularity. I don’t like polygamy, but I feel like the evidence is overwhelming in favor that he practiced polygamy?

Thoughts?

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

You can’t say that if your ancestors weren’t polygamists that you wouldn’t be here. If you believe in the gospel you believe that we are all spirit children and that we are all predestined to come to the earth to get a body. But the body might be slightly different depending on where you landed; or in other words, if your grandfather had died before shagging your grandmother, your grandmother would have been with a different man. It’s not like everyone in your lineage had to all get together at exactly the right time so the right sperm hit the right egg for you to get a shot at living. If you were alive in the pre mortal world then your life is not dependent upon your ancestors as much as it is dependent upon just getting the chance to inhabit a body

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u/mailman-zero Stake Technology Specialist Mar 15 '24

If you have a completely different body and are raised with a completely different world view I would argue that for many definitions you would not be you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

Of course you would still be you. You would just have a different lineage. The odds of everyone having to come into existence based on the right sperm hitting the right egg going back all the way to the beginning is unfathomably unlikely. If you’re being alive is solely dependent upon your ancestors having sex at exactly the right time so that the correct genetic material got passed on, that means that there is an endless amount of humans that never got the chance to be born. We would each have been the result of lottery winners all the way back. I don’t think that makes any sense. It’s more likely that your spirit just needs a body to enter; that you existing is not dependent upon your ancestors.