Democracy for Vancouver

As an atheist, I find it telling when religious believers, monotheistic or otherwise, tie themselves in knots trying to find loopholes or excuses for behavior which runs counter to their faith’s own teaching. So, they believe in a higher power, they just believe that their god(s) either got it wrong, have been interpreted wrongly by prophets or translators, or aren’t scary/vindictive enough to warrant worrying about sinning against. This is particularly obvious in the case of the Mormon church; Joseph Smith had a “revelation” that god wanted he and other Mormon men to enter into plural marriage as a way of legitimizing his insatiable sexual appetites (but not his wife Emma Smith’s):

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed…

- Section 132, The Doctrine and Covenants

But then in 1890, when the U.S. was threatening to seize church assets and at the same time was refusing Utah statehood, another Prophet and Mormon President, Wilford Woodruff, had a contrary revelation:

We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice…

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.

There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy… And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.

Interestingly, Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants remains, and has never been directly countermanded or removed.

The same pick-and-choose mentality is rampant among all faiths: there are Catholics who approve of the death penalty (helloooo, Rudy!) and birth control; adulterous/gay evangelicals and right-wing politicians; mixed-race fundamentalist couples; and all Christians and Jews who eat pork and shellfish but refuse to stone to death their disobedient children.

But Israeli Jews win the prize when it comes to working the system:

JERUSALEM — Yochay Sorok and thousands of his fellow farmers should be taking the year off right now, allowing their land, and themselves, to rest in observance of a Jewish tradition that dates to Leviticus.

It is the Shmita year, an agricultural Sabbath that comes every seven years, during which, according to the Old Testament, Jewish farmers in the land of Israel must let their fields lie fallow.

But Sorok, customer relations manager for the Chubeza organic farm outside Jerusalem, is working — as are the vast majority of Israeli farmers. Just before the start of the Jewish New Year on Sept. 13, Sorok signed papers at the offices of his local chief rabbi, technically selling the farm to a non-Jew.

He never met his farm’s “buyer” and doesn’t need to. Next September, the purchase check will be torn up and everything will return to normal.

“It’s a trick. But it’s a smart trick,” Sorok said of the nominal land sale. “That’s the Jewish way of dealing with the Torah. You reinterpret – not for small, selfish reasons but for good reasons. . . . Giving people a living is a higher cause.”

Known as heter mechira, or permitted sale, the loophole has long been endorsed by Israel’s religious establishment as accepted practice.

At least they’re up front about it. But shouldn’t it give them pause that their omnicient and omnipotent God can be tricked so easily???

[emphasis added.]