Saturday, March 28, 2015

--Episode 809--

Topic: Gender inequality in Mormonism; "The Works of Abraham"
Guest co-host:  Earl Erskine

3 comments:

  1. I am from the Netherlands. I admire your work, I saw the sister wives on TLC and was at first amused by it, but when I looked at google what religion it make this family lives this livestyle I was very very shocked to see the darkside of it and i wondered how in earth that can happen in such a modern country. The army go to afganistan soldiers are killed there, while in America the same things happen with women. So glad to see you all are doing something about it. Repression did not help, but change from within that cult is perhaps working. I think you must have more support from all the women in America and abroad to go on with that good work you do. Only the women self can change the practice of plural mariage, luckely there also men who help. I don't believe the sister-wives girls are so happy, allthough they are good persons so sorry for them, even that Cody have no house for his own..Everythings you say is true
    Sorry for my english. Many greetings from a 73 year old woman in Holland

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  2. I do enjoy listening to your show. I can't get it on TV where I live but watch in it on the internet anyway. Seems easier and can watch it at my leisure.
    However I do have several questions regarding religion all religions. They all have aspects that are pretty hard to accept.
    The question I have for you on this show is, if Adam was the first man and Eve was the first woman on earth as the Bible says. Then who did their children marry? Each other?
    This isn't talked about much and I haven't heard it addressed openly yet.
    Would you please give me your thoughts on it?
    Thanks so much, I am always searching and studying but as I do it seems that I just find more unanswered questions.

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    Replies
    1. This is a good question. The Bible doesn't address this directly, but we are left to speculate that Adam and Eve's children initially married one another; it wouldn't be many years, however, before there would be numerous "distant cousins". While the idea today is repulsive, the laws about marriages among close relatives did not come about until Moses. (Even Abraham was married to his half-sister). Secondly, one of the main reasons behind the prohibition of marrying close relatives is the danger of concentrating genetic problems in offspring. If we consider that Adam and Eve would have been created with a perfect genome, we can presume that it took a number of generations AFTER the fall before genetic problems became markedly pronounced. Some theorize that this could be behind the decreasing lifespan we see recorded in Genesis--the earliest people were living more than 900 years, and by the time we get to the Patriarchs at the end of Genesis, their typical lifespan is just over 100. It was around this time that God established the laws governing marriages, and it may very well have been (in part, anyway) to mitigate the genetic problems caused by intermarriage.

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