This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
No, Not At All
Warren Jeffs ordered his people to commit adultery and crazy acts of abuse. To compare him to Joseph Smith is false and extremely offensive. CES Letter publishes this deceitful graph:
- The names Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs appear next to each other twice, in the same unique font, color, and style. This repetition visually builds connection between the two names.
- The images of Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs have been altered with the same image filter software, resulting in two images that look uniquely the same. Then the images are overlapped to further suggest a relationship. This is childish, really. It is the kind of thing a middle-schooler would do to a kid that he hates, put his photo through the same Photoshop filter as a creep like Warren Jeffs so they look similar, adjust the size to be the same, and overlap them. Now they look like the same person! Ridiculous, but effective as propaganda.
- The images of Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs have been altered by the image filter software to be black and a yellowish, reddish color. These colors match the graph bars that they have for Joseph Smith in the graph (dark red bars and black numbers above them.) These matching colors subtly associates the images of Warren Jeffs with Joseph Smith on the graph.
- The graph itself is ridiculously deceitful. Ages of people and amounts of people are placed on the same field, an inconsistency of measurement. For example, above “Under age 18 Wives,” Joseph Smith has 7 and Warren Jeffs has 24. Does this mean the age of under-age 18 wives or the number of under-age 18 wives? Other measurements are labeled “age” and others “number.” Which is it? This vagueness could falsely suggest that Joseph Smith married a 7-year old. Again, the kind of trick a middle-schooler would play.
- The comparisons are from such different contexts that you can’t even honestly compare them. Joseph Smith was sealed to a few teenage women for the afterlife for “eternity only” and had no physical relationship.
- Joseph Smith’s sealings were nothing like the abuse by cultist Warren Jeffs. The graph cherry-picks a few issues that could be skewed as similarities but really are comparing apples and oranges. The graph ignores the different contexts and definitions.
- The graph adds scripture verses that could be falsely skewed to apply and make Joseph Smith appear hypocritical, but in reality don’t apply. Joseph Smith did not commit adultery with other men’s wives, and the law of Moses in Leviticus is defunct.
No Adultery
This comparison is a lie. Joseph Smith and early Mormons believed women should have only one husband and partner: “But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery.”(D&C 132:63)
Some women were apparently sealed for eternity to men other than their husbands, because civil marriage and sealings were totally different things. One could be sealed “for eternity” to one person and married “for time” to another, because a sealing for eternal cohabitation in the afterlife did not involve sexual or earthly relations. The “new and everlasting covenant” of eternal marriage would nullify civil marriage in the afterlife.
“This is Warren Jeffs territory. This is not the Joseph Smith I grew up learning about in the Church and having a testimony of.”
(CES Letter)
Helen Mar Kimball and the other young women sealed to Joseph Smith were sealed for “eternity only”, which meant that it did not involve sexual or earthly relations. The women did not live with Joseph Smith as a married relationship and did not have sexual relations with him. It was literally a matter of Joseph Smith and the woman speaking some words in a ceremony and then hardly ever seeing each other again. Helen Mar Kimball described her sealing to Joseph Smith as “celestial marriage” and “for eternity alone.” (Helen Mar Whitney, Autobiography, p. 2)
Warren Jeffs reportedly was a pedophile who “married” and had physical relations with many underage women and abused them, fathering children with them. This is entirely different from Joseph Smith. Joseph was sealed to the afterlife to older women and had no physical relations with any married women or anyone underage–and likely had no physical relations with any of the plural wives at all!
Anti-Mormons are often propagating salacious gossip from two centuries ago to attack marriage and family, and to make us feel ashamed of our pioneer legacy. This assault began long ago, when consensual, adult Mormon relationships were banned by the government and new laws were passed to regulate all personal relationships in the country. It continues today. As marriages and birth rates in America fall, it seems like all of this is designed to prevent men and women in the church from joining in healthy romantic relationships. Women are shamed if they choose to stay home and spend time to raise their children, and men are shamed if they “desire” romance with a woman.
Would God Command Sinful Behavior?
CES Letter says it is not a matter of whether polygamy is “okay,” but whether God would command it. What does that mean? Are they saying a witness from the Holy Ghost doesn’t matter?
“I’ve been asked once by an LDS apologist if I would be okay with Joseph Smith’s polygamy and polyandry if I received a witness that God really did command Joseph Smith to participate in these practices. The question is not if I would “be okay with” God commanding Joseph Smith to secretly steal other men’s wives and to marry underage and teenage girls. The question is “Do I believe that God did such a thing?” The answer, based on comparing D&C 132 to what actually happened, along with my personal belief that there is no such thing as an insane polygamist god who demanded such sadistic, immoral, adulterous, despicable, and pedophilic behavior while threatening Joseph’s life with one of his angels with a sword…is an emphatic and absolute “no.””
(CES Letter)
CES Letter Is Dishonest – We have already seen how this graph in CES Letter is deceitful, and we have seen how they continue to repeat disgusting lies. An honest portrayal of Joseph Smith’s polygamy would be that he was sealed “for eternity only” to most of his “wives,” and likely did not have sexual relations with any of them. But Anti-Mormons frame eternal sealings as the same thing as physical civil marriage, and they go on to compare it to modern pedophiles and sickos. Suddenly, a simple ceremony for the afterlife makes Mormons insane, sadistic, immoral, adulterous, despicable, and pedophilic. Suddenly, polygamy is no longer a difficult sacrifice like the sacrifice of Abraham that Mormons had to suffer through. Now, it is God commanding the worst kind of sinful behavior.
Suddenly now, the question is not if we “received a witness” of truth, and no matter what kind of “witness” we receive that Joseph Smith was following God’s commandments, we must not believe it. Even if an angel appeared and wrote glowing letters in the air that said “Joseph Smith was right,” we will always be outraged and refuse to admit the truth, because we bought into the Anti-Mormon lies. What CES Letter is arguing is that religious truth is dependent on moral fitness rather than any kind of witness. The problem with that is it’s easy for CES Letter to skew history, push lies, and use logical fallacies to demonize our moral fitness as Mormons, so this is an easy way to get people to deny confirmation of truth from the Holy Ghost.
This is a classic case of defining an issue by how it is framed rather than the actual issue. This fits the Marxist philosophy for setting the conditions for a person’s human nature to best flourish and produce moral behaviors: “For Marx, however, unlike for Aristotle, the key question was not about how best to foster human flourishing in this society within a given structure. It was, rather, about the kind of society necessary to allow humans to flourish in this fashion.”(Kenan Malik)
This is what social justice is. Did God set proper conditions by introducing polygamy the way Joseph Smith did? According to Marxists, it was wrong for God to institute polygamy two hundred years ago, because there are polygamist cultists today who abuse people. If polygamy happens to be part of our history, then we should purge that history, according to Marxism, so that our society can restructure in a way that will mold people into what we want them to be. Their solution would be to erase polygamy from the history books, I guess.
The truth is, Joseph Smith’s sealings were not sinful behavior. He did not have physical contact or civil relationship with any woman under 19, and evidence shows he had no sexual relations with anyone except his wife Emma. These were different times and we can never understand the circumstances that necessitated Mormon polygamy. But to compare it to predators like Warren Jeffs is a betrayal to abuse victims and it cheapens the horrific nature of that crime. Our pioneer ancestors were no adulterous or abusive, but strong and virtuous, and they handed down great standards of chastity and virtue. They secured for us the blessings of being sealed to our families for eternity. The doctrine of eternal marriage seals us together and brings joy in our lives and peace to our society, so that we can enjoy eternal life with those we love.
CES Letter Logical Fallacies
| Falsehood | Joseph Smith did not commit adultery, polygamy, or pedophilia. The “new and everlasting covenant,” or eternal sealing was different than civil marriage and did not involve physical relations. it is nothing like the abuse practiced by Warren Jeff’s cult. |
| Shifting Goalposts | CES Letter acted shocked by the “bizarre rules outlined in Doctrine & Covenants 132.” But in the graph in this argument, they act like Joseph Smith was evil because he contradicted D&C 132 and was committing adultery. CES Letter places age on the same scale with a graph of amounts, creating an inconstancy of measurement. |
| Strawman Fallacy | In the graph, CES Letter quotes from the law of Moses in Leviticus. But that doesn’t apply. CES Letter claims “Warren Jeffs is more closely aligned to Joseph Smith Mormonism than the LDS Church is” because of the fake similarities. |
| Repetition | CES Letter repeats five previous issues that don’t apply: “It’s when you take this snapshot of Joseph’s character and start looking into the Book of Abraham, the Kinderhook Plates, the Book of Mormon, the multiple First Vision accounts, Priesthood restoration, and so on that you start to see a very disturbing pattern and picture.” (CES Letter) CES Letter repeats six polygamy issues that they already repeated. |
| No True Scotsman | ‘True’ Mormons practice polygamy. |
| Cherry-picking | CES Letter picks 6 issues with completely different contexts and definitions to imply causation. This is the same game they played with the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham. They picked random similarities with contemporary books to imply they were inspiration for Joseph Smith writing the Book of Mormon. With polygamy, they skew different contexts and lump them all together as “wives.” |
| Argument From Ignorance | Most of what we know about Joseph Smith’s polygamy is speculation. CES Letter‘s claim that Joseph Smith had 34 wives is baseless. |
The narrative that Joseph Smith victimized women is important for Anti-Mormonism because it gives us a reason to hate Mormons. If the Book of Mormon was made up and Joseph Smith was a conman–so what? Even if he were a fraud, aren’t Mormons still nice people who do nice things and make the world a better place? Why not just let them be? The powerful thing with these polygamy arguments is that CES Letter tells you why Mormonism is evil: it victimizes women. This is easy rhetoric for them to push, as the internet is filled with all kinds of false rumors about Mormon polygamy and because the fake news media labels modern-day polygamist cultists as “Mormon”. They are not Mormons. No matter how many times the fake news media tells us they are, these cultists are not Mormon.
Opponents in the media have trumpeted this kind of narrative since the beginning. In the 1800’s, American newspapers were putting out story after story about how women in Utah were treated as “slaves.” It led to the federal government for the first time registering all marriages, controlling the definition of marriage, and jailing Mormons who did not fit that definition. This is the kind of society and moral rules Anti-Mormons envision. Still today, Mormons are persecuted as some kind of oppressive patriarchy that victimized women. It poisons the well against honest and open discussion. It smears Joseph Smith.
Big Lie Tactic – In the polygamy arguments, CES Letter approaches marriage from our modern society’s definition, ignore all historical context, and perpetuate the big lie that eternal sealings in the temple were the same as a civil marriage with a physical relationship. People are much more likely to believe CES Letter‘s narrative because they connected the dots out on their own, subconsciously. They are also more likely to believe the evidences for that deduction. One lie leads to another.
Why do so many “pro-equality” activists, good progressives who say people should be free to marry whoever they love, condemn Mormons for their history with polygamy? The same Anti-Mormons who attack us for the old history of polygamy also endorse “progressive” ideas about marriage and love. Shouldn’t polygamy be on their list of marriages that deserve “equality?” Well yes, it should, and this is why Anti-Mormons spin polygamy as something that coerces and manipulates women into subjugation. Lately, this narrative has become evens easier as there really are crazy cults that actually do victimize young girls and force people to marry, criminals like Warren Jeffs.
Attack On Family – The claim that men were victimizing women establishes a frame of ‘predator versus victim,’ and that leads us to a Marxist ideology. Marxism is all about protecting victims from the predators. Marxists think the biggest miracle about mankind is that we evolved to the top of the food chain without ever becoming predators of other animals. Economically, Marxists protect working classes from a predator class. Marxism is all about protecting the vulnerable from those seeking unequal advantage–and all about keeping people weak in order to keep them reliant on a benevolent dictator for safety.
A major part of Marxism is the deconstruction of masculinity. They seek to pick positive masculine traits that propagate the ideology, such as the gusto to fight for the cause, and eliminate “toxic masculine” traits such as the desire to marry and have children in a traditional family. They think traditional families are evil because men contribute labor to the economy while women are “subjugated” as mothers and do not perform labor. The ideal for Marxists is a state where men and women are completely equal working bees and children are grown and raised by the benevolent dictator state. Nobody is preying on anybody.
| See also: | CES Letter Contradiction Strategy |
CES Letter wants us to believe Mormons were manipulating and victimizing women in the same way as this Marxist narrative. The narrative that women are coerced into marriage because of Christianity comes straight from Karl Marx, and it is nothing but an attack on the traditional family. CES Letter‘s appeal to emotion is not only about attacking the church. It is about replacing the testimony of a gospel. Marxists believe females are oppressed by men in a giant class struggle that hinders their economic output. Polygamy in the Mormon church was problem for Marxists because the higher law of eternal marriage is the perfect example of “inequality” that Marxists hate.
CES Letter can get away with this Big Lie because it is the consensus among so many fake scholars. People are too lazy to actually look through all the historical documents. Even mainstream church apologists are beaten down by all of the accusations and have give way to the big lie. They are too tired defending against it. They let CESLetter get away with the lie. Even if you don’t believe the allegations, just this association frames Joseph Smith negatively.
We could see the intellectual tricks and sophistry CES Letter used to portray Joseph Smith as a fraud in their arguments about the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham. It is easy to just repeat claims over and over, not give any evidence, and make the issue personal through manipulative repetition. Our Mormon ancestors were under intense pressure and blazed the western frontier through grit and hard work. They were virtuous, honest, and good people. Their legacy should be honored.Complete answers to CES Letter questions about Mormons: