LDS

[SezMe]

Were you there?

Ken Ham, is that you?

 

[RandFan]

Uh, I think you're taking this far more seriously than I meant it. It was a joke about the fact that if one has evidence, one doesn't need faith, and the paradox of a skeptic suggesting a hypothetical situation where the strongest imaginable evidence against the faith would in fact confirm some of the faith (the existence of life after death). It was just a comment about a funny paradox, and wasn't meant to be any deeper than that.

I apologize. Yes, I see your point now.

That said, my intent was to use your post to make a larger point. I honestly don't think people understand just how difficult the problem of justifiable knowledge is.

In the movie "Oh God", the character of God demonstrates to a packed court room that he is indeed god. We watch that and think to ourselves, well yeah, if I were there I would believe also. That thought, that human temptation to take a far fetched idea and insert ourselves into the narrative and then infer that it would be sufficient evidence is a mistake.

RE highlighted text: It would be evidence. The question is evidence of what? That's my point. If I could get one idea across to people it is this, a natural explanation is still orders of magnitude more likely than a supernatural explanation regardless of what the "evidence" is.

In short, joke or not, if I had that experience the only reasonable conclusion to be had is that there was a natural explanation that I did not possess. The only evidence I would accept is if the deity could pass the Million Dollar Challenge or something equally compelling.

Sorry I missed the point of your post.

 

[Cat Tale]

The following is the most objective analysis of the trial I've seen. The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith, Jr.
There is little doubt in my mind that Smith was involved with "magic" to find buried treasure prior to the first vision. The seer stone(s) predates the Urimm and Thummim. Odd that Smith was implicated in this activity before he claims to have been visited by an angel.

I'm not saying he wasn't searching for money, gold, etc. I'm just asking, what evidence is there that Joseph Smith was convicted?

The problem is, all of the accounts are either written long after the fact, or are hear-say. Just as skeptics and anti-Mormons say, it's convenient that the Gold Plates were taken back by the angel. I have to say that it's convenient that Miss Pearsall happened to tear those pages out of her uncle's book before leaving for UT (she being Episcopalian, not LDS), then her clergy inherited them, then he gave them to the Methodists and the Methodists lost them. Therefore it becomes all hear-say. If she'd kept them in her Uncle's book in Bainbridge we'd have the record. Wish she did.

I admit that if the account is correct, that would alter my view on the historic circumstances, but the problem is I'm LDS, I'm somewhat a skeptic, and I'm a historian. All three make for a weird mix.

 

[zooterkin]

One could report them as rule six violations -- disruptive formatting which makes it difficult for people to read the forums.

I'm pretty sure that's happened at least once.

 

[Cat Tale]

It could only happen on one level, JS appearing before you.

I said it ain't gonna happen though, on so many different levels.

Considering where we're posting a possible reason it wouldn't happen is because there is no afterlife.

To me it isn't going to happen (not because I don't believe in an afterlife) but just because I don't believe it's gonna happen. And that too, can have many different levels.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't shake my faith, maybe it would strengthen it for other reasons... Ah the possibilities.

 

[Pup]

I apologize. Yes, I see your point now.

That said, my intent was to use your post to make a larger point. I honestly don't think people understand just how difficult the problem of justifiable knowledge is.

And I totally agree that there's a lot of depth to be explored. It's why I had to hand-wave away all that depth with the disclaimer "for real, verifiably, not a vision or hallucination or trick," because otherwise the joke wouldn't work.

More seriously, I haven't studied the various theories of knowledge, so can't really comment on those, but it all just seems so obvious to me, maybe because I had to learn it at a very young age through practical experience. My father was a paranoid schizophrenic, so part of my growing-up years involved figuring out, on my own, that the most influential authority figure in a typical person's life couldn't be trusted.

So it's not hypothetical for me to imagine myself in a situation where I'm stuck listening to someone argue for hours, carefully and logically, how the world works, and get it completely wrong. Despite the fact that this person was responsible for feeding, clothing and housing me, I had to make up my mind which of his statements were true and which were false, based on my nine or ten years of experience on earth, and behave accordingly, with or without his approval.

If one can go through that and come out uninfluenced, with a fairly rational, evidence-based view of the world, the chance that I'd be swayed by a typical hallucination 40+ years later, is slim-to-none.

In short, joke or not, if I had that experience the only reasonable conclusion to be had is that there was a natural explanation that I did not possess.

Exactly. That just seemed so obvious to me that it went without saying.

 

[RandFan]

I'm not saying he wasn't searching for money, gold, etc. I'm just asking, what evidence is there that Joseph Smith was convicted?

The problem is, all of the accounts are either written long after the fact, or are hear-say. Just as skeptics and anti-Mormons say, it's convenient that the Gold Plates were taken back by the angel. I have to say that it's convenient that Miss Pearsall happened to tear those pages out of her uncle's book before leaving for UT (she being Episcopalian, not LDS), then her clergy inherited them, then he gave them to the Methodists and the Methodists lost them. Therefore it becomes all hear-say. If she'd kept them in her Uncle's book in Bainbridge we'd have the record. Wish she did.

I admit that if the account is correct, that would alter my view on the historic circumstances, but the problem is I'm LDS, I'm somewhat a skeptic, and I'm a historian. All three make for a weird mix.

Thanks. I understand your point. But here's the problem. We have some facts. What explanation best fits the facts we have?

Facts:

1. Joseph Smith used rocks he claimed were supernatural to search for treasure.
2. Joseph Smith was accused of fraud for claiming to use supernatural means to find treasure.

Possible conclusions:

1. There is a god and that god relied on a heretofore supernatural treasure hunter to recover buried golden plates.
2. A con-man who was caught trying to run a scam changed his methods to make it more difficult for him to be brought up on charges but still make money without working for it.

"You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!" --L. Ron Hubbard

 

[Pup]

Speaking of verifying whether a spirit-appearance of Joseph Smith would be real, I'm surprised no one's mentioned D&C 129 yet.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/129?lang=eng

I'm not sure why Joseph Smith chose shaking hands as the litmus test, but it made me think that the angels and spirits who come to visit us mortals must feel something like Mrs. Frances Trollope did, when she came from England to visit America in the late 1820s:

...the eternal shaking hands with these ladies and gentlemen was really an annoyance...

...when the visitor entered, they would say, "How do you do?" and shake hands...

at length, rising abruptly, they would again shake hands, with, "Well, now I must be going, I guess."

The constant shaking of hands, and also spitting, annoyed her so much that she satirized a typical American husband coming home to his wife: "He comes, shakes hands with her, spits, and dines."

I've wondered when the custom of shaking hands became so much more common in America compared to England, that it would stand out to an Englishwoman, and if it had any connection to the larger social context of why Joseph Smith chose that particular thing. It doesn't seem to imply a secret handshake, just any handshake--the touching itself being the key.

Edited to add: But it seems just one more thing that makes the LDS church such a quirky, uniquely American religion.

 

[Cat Tale]

Thanks. I understand your point. But here's the problem. We have some facts. What explanation best fits the facts we have?

Facts:

1. Joseph Smith used rocks he claimed were supernatural to search for treasure.
2. Joseph Smith was accused of fraud for claiming to use supernatural means to find treasure.

Possible conclusions:

1. There is a god and that god relied on a heretofore supernatural treasure hunter to recover buried golden plates.
2. A con-man who was caught trying to run a scam changed his methods to make it more difficult for him to be brought up on charges but still make money without working for it.

Again, I'm in agreement that there was money-digging (period newspaper term for gold, silver, money, etc digging) going on in the area. I'm in agreement that Joseph Smith and some of his family were involved in the digging. One thing I'm still not sure on though is why Joseph was being tried in 1826? The accounts from the link that you sent seem to imply the charge was being a "disorderly person" and/or "vagrancy." I suppose "con-man" could fall under that category, though I tend to see "disorderly person" more like when he was tried in 1830 for preaching Mormonism, though even there I'd have to ask where was his first Amendment right?

Also edited to add, all along my only arguement has been I wanted evidence that he was "convicted," and unfortunately, the Methodists lost it. BTW, I'm not denying he WAS convicted, I'm just saying when folks say the public record is clear that he's a convict -- no, it's not.

 

[Cat Tale]

Actually Pup just asked me whether I agree with number one or two. I said I answered it, and now see I wasn't clear.

I agree with both. There is a God AND Joseph Smith was a con-man at that time.

 

[RandFan]

Again, I'm in agreement that there was money-digging (period newspaper term for gold, silver, money, etc digging) going on in the area. I'm in agreement that Joseph Smith and some of his family were involved. One thing I'm still not sure on though is why? The accounts seem to imply he "disorderly person" and "vagrancy." I suppose "con-man" could fall under that category, though I tend to see "disorderly person" more like when he was tried in 1830 for preaching Mormonism, though even there I'd have to ask where was his first Amendment right?

I understand that, which is why I'm focusing on probabilities. Let's grant for sake of argument the possibility of there being a god that intervenes in personal affairs. Granting that possibility and assuming the null hypothesis as our base position, which explanation is A.) most parsimonious? B.) More likely?

Let me try this: You and I meet on the street and I show you what appears to be an official lottery ticket with a payout of $30,000. I also happen to have a newspaper showing the winning numbers for the date that appears on the ticket.

I tell you that I'm an illegal immigrant and I cannot collect the winnings. I tell you that I'm desperately in need of money and will take whatever you can afford in return for selling you the ticket.

Quick: Which is more likely, that you met someone who won the lottery or that I'm a scam artist? Here's the thing, we can calculate the odds of both and in both instances the likelihood of a scam are really, really high.

Lottery Ticket Scam

ETA: I just saw your last post. That's good enough for me.

 

[RandFan]

Actually Pup just asked me whether I agree with number one or two. I said I answered it, and now see I wasn't clear.

I agree with both. There is a God AND Joseph Smith was a con-man at that time.

I can live with that. Thanks.

 

[Janadele]

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat nor have I advocated eating it, nor mentioned refrigeration.

AND Joseph Smith was a con-man at that time.

... Is it not an eternal principle that animals have spirits? So why would refrigeration make a difference? If the WoW is a commandment, shouldn't all of it be equally important? Isn't it better not to eat meat also from a scientific viewpoint? I mean, the calories, the fat, the cholesterol... I've never given much thought to this before, but now I'm seriously wondering if I want to change my eating habits to limit meat.

 

[Empress]

Again, I'm in agreement that there was money-digging (period newspaper term for gold, silver, money, etc digging) going on in the area. I'm in agreement that Joseph Smith and some of his family were involved in the digging. One thing I'm still not sure on though is why Joseph was being tried in 1826? The accounts from the link that you sent seem to imply the charge was being a "disorderly person" and/or "vagrancy." I suppose "con-man" could fall under that category, though I tend to see "disorderly person" more like when he was tried in 1830 for preaching Mormonism, though even there I'd have to ask where was his first Amendment right?

Also edited to add, all along my only arguement has been I wanted evidence that he was "convicted," and unfortunately, the Methodists lost it. BTW, I'm not denying he WAS convicted, I'm just saying when folks say the public record is clear that he's a convict -- no, it's not.

Here's a site that reproduces the found documents about JS's trial in 1826. It shows him listed as a "glass-looker" which was a misdemeanor.

http://richkelsey.org/1826 Bills.html

 

[kerikiwi]

Please stop it. You know what I mean.

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat.

 

[Foster Zygote]

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat.

That sounds to me remarkable similar to the attitudes of many Catholics and Protestants toward Mormons.

 

[RandFan]

No Gods. No Masters.

• Faith honors obedience.
• The Mormon Church can punish people for thought crimes.
• Science and humanism honors and encourages both questions and free thought.

"Truth is its own reward." --Plato

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat.

 

[DragonLady]

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat nor have I advocated eating it, nor mentioned refrigeration.

There might be consequences for her beliefs? Wow.

Here in the real world, I think actions are more important than thoughts or words. She has come here in good faith, she has answered our questions, and she has put forth her opinions in a very forthright, open and honorable way.

I'm impressed with Cat Tale. If there be consequences from the church for her being willing to call things the way she sees them, shame on the church.

 

[StankApe]

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences... and by the way, I personally very rarely eat meat nor have I advocated eating it, nor mentioned refrigeration.

this is hilarious! it's smug, falsely pious, AND a No True Mormon statement all rolled into one.

My favorite part is when you try to gain some high ground by stating you "rarely eat meat"

Judge: "is it true you were raping women in the lower ward?

accused: "well yer honor, I hardly ever raped anyone that way'

Judge: "oh well, you are free to go!"

Either eating meat is wrong ,according to your religion, or it isn't! Saying "rarely" is such a silly cop out statement! I don't even know where to start with that! (other than it's an obvious attempt to show you are a "better" mormon than CatTale)

 

[Cat Tale]

If you are honest you will inform your Bishop and Stake President of your beliefs and take the consequences...

Huh? What have I said about Joseph Smith that Joseph Smith didn't say himself? The following is taken from the Pearl of Great Price Student Manual off the Church website scroll down about 2/3rds of the way to "Joseph Smith—History 1:50–53. Joseph’s First Visit to the Hill Cumorah:"

As Joseph approached the Hill Cumorah, he had thoughts about the poverty of his family and the possibility that the plates or the popularity of the translation would produce enough wealth to ‘raise him above a level with the common earthly fortunes of his fellow men, and relieve his family from want’ [Oliver Cowdery, in Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, 157]. When he reached down for the plates he received a shock and was thus prevented from taking them out of the box. Twice more he tried and was thrown back. In frustration he cried out, ‘Why can I not obtain this book?’ Moroni appeared and told him it was because he had not kept the commandments but had yielded to the temptations of Satan to obtain the plates for riches instead of having his eye single to the glory of God as he had been commanded [Cowdery, in Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1835, 198].

I might also suggest reading Joseph Smith History 1:28 where Joseph Smith talks about how he "frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the site of God."

So what exactly have I said that's against LDS doctrine? I mean, I didn't say he committed any great or malignant sin, a misdemeanor is not a big deal, in the great scheme of things.