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Janadele said:
Cleon,
Slowvehicle…
Your comments are taken from anti-Mormon literature and have no basis in reality.

Joseph Smith had in his possession three or four long scrolls, plus a hypocephalus (Facsimile 2). Of these original materials, only a handful of fragments were recovered at the Metropolitan Museum. The majority of the papyri remains lost, and has likely been destroyed. Critics who claim that we have all, or a majority, of the papyri possessed by Joseph Smith are simply mistaken.

The Egyptian characters on the recovered documents are a portion of the "Book of Breathings," an Egyptian religious text buried with mummies that instructed the dead on how to successfully reach the afterlife. This particular Book of Breathings was written for a deceased man named Hor, so it it usually called the Hor Book of Breathings.

Other than the vignette represented in Facsimile 1, the material on the papyri received by the Church, at least from a standard Egyptological point of view, does not include the actual text of the Book of Abraham.
New Era, January 1968.
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IMO: No reasonable non-Mormon who has seen the facts could agree that the Book of Abram isn't an obvious fraud.
 
One more thing:

Janadele said:
Your comments are taken from anti-Mormon literature and have no basis in reality.
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A.) This is ad hominem argument. B.) Skeptics fight frauds. The JREF has taken on all kinds of frauds. We are interested in the truth not attacking people just to attack them. If and when anti-Mormon literature make unreasonable claims about Mormonism we will expose them also.
 
Pup said:
That's actually addressed somewhat in post 300.
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The thing is that you have to have records somewhere to get baptized, many are born to bloom unseen and leave no records on the desert air.

ETA: but wait...tsig does hand wave and says baptismal prayer, now the everybody in the world is a member of my church.

Send money.
 
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Janadele said:
Cleon,
Slowvehicle…
Your comments are taken from anti-Mormon literature and have no basis in reality.

Joseph Smith had in his possession three or four long scrolls, plus a hypocephalus (Facsimile 2). Of these original materials, only a handful of fragments were recovered at the Metropolitan Museum. The majority of the papyri remains lost, and has likely been destroyed. Critics who claim that we have all, or a majority, of the papyri possessed by Joseph Smith are simply mistaken.

The Egyptian characters on the recovered documents are a portion of the "Book of Breathings," an Egyptian religious text buried with mummies that instructed the dead on how to successfully reach the afterlife. This particular Book of Breathings was written for a deceased man named Hor, so it it usually called the Hor Book of Breathings.

Other than the vignette represented in Facsimile 1, the material on the papyri received by the Church, at least from a standard Egyptological point of view, does not include the actual text of the Book of Abraham.
New Era, January 1968.
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The Church has defended Smith's claim against the findings of academia. Hugh Nibley, a late professor of Mormon scripture at Brigham Young University, was the Church's primary apologist for many years. Nibley's main defense was that the papyrus fragments recovered from the Metropolitan did not happen to be the same ones in which Smith found the Book of Abraham, and thus the different translations; after all, perhaps as much as two-thirds of the original papyri have never been recovered. Ferguson scoffed at this suggestion, pointing out that all three of Reuben Hedlock's illustrations exactly match those in the existing papyri.

Smith, Cowdery, and Phelps had also written the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar, purportedly a guide for understanding the heiroglyphs in the documents they translated, which has remained in the Church's possession. It makes clear references to the heiroglyphs and their positions on the pages, unambiguously referring to the existing papyri. They are clear, additional evidence that the existing papyri are the ones claimed to contain the Book of Abraham. Nibley dismissed the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar as "of no practical value whatever and never employed in any translation." I have to agree with Nibley here: They certainly do not seem to be of any practical value, but that says nothing about the finding that they do reference the existing papyri.
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Source.
 
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Pup said:
For what it's worth, a lot of the LDS religion is a time capsule of when it was founded, and the Curse of Ham is part of that. For example, the following is an 1834 commentary on the Bible by a doctor of divinity, printed in Baltimore by a Methodist Protestant church publisher:
http://books.google.com/books?id=l0wXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA565&output=html

The footnote for Joshua 9:23:



The idea was so widespread that Charles Sumner, the abolitionist senator who suffered the curse of cane, brought it up as an example of one of two main arguments for slavery in 1860:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Z-dAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA112&output=html



The idea of American Indians being one of the lost tribes of Israel had been promoted as a (supposedly) scientific theory of origin by James Adair in the late 18th century and was of widespread interest and speculation into the early 19th. A good summary: http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/07/native-americans-and-lost-tribes-of.html

The Word of Wisdom mimicked current health advice, which explains the curious phrase "hot drinks," which was common then. For example, the following was published by Anthony F. M. Willich, London, 1802, whose advice spread and flourished in America thanks to Sylvester Graham and other similar writers and lecturers:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VJ5bAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA85&output=html


Others in the thread have mentioned the strong influence of Masonic rituals on the church ceremonies.

Polygamy, the one practice that made the church stand out, was actually condemned in the Book of Mormon and seems to be a new development that became useful when Joseph Smith and others wanted it. Jacob Cochrane had already tried to start a polygamous sect, but the 1840s was a time when many experiments involving unusual marriages were going on.

From a modern book about the "free love" Oneida Community which discusses the era a little:
http://books.google.com/books?id=b2SnVuHWIJkC&pg=PR9&output=html


So most of the church beliefs seem to be a mixture of what someone might come up with by taking the latest, newest ideas that looked like they were going to be eternal truths in the early 19th century--which of course is what Smith did. They're already starting to get dated, lose their social context and sound strange or inexplicable, since that era is long gone. But it would be like starting a church today, saying that God recommended a low-carb diet, accepted gay marriage and revealed that we once interbred with Neandertals--all revelations that would sound up-to-date to people in the early 21st century, just as Smith's revelations did to people in his day.
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Thank you, This is why I love this forum, I get to learn new things all the time.
 
Janadele said:
Wolab, There is no need to blaspheme against a Prophet of God, nor is it wise to do so.

Regarding the age of consent, this has historically been at an age lower than what we today expect it to be. Times change, children worked from a young age years ago, took on responsibilities, and married early.
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So how did Mr. Smith decide it was alright to take a child bride? A 37 year old man marrying a 14 year old. He claimed by marrying him, her and her entire family were guaranteed eternal salvation.

That seems like a lot of pressure on a child. THE authority figure and self proclaimed profit prophet of god, a man you have respected, trusted, and revered tells you he will save your family from eternal damnation. Sounds to me like he was a Goddamned sleazeball of the highest order. No surprise though as he was a sleazeball for most of his entire life.
 
Janadele said:
Wolab, There is no need to blaspheme against a Prophet of God, nor is it wise to do so.

Regarding the age of consent, this has historically been at an age lower than what we today expect it to be. Times change, children worked from a young age years ago, took on responsibilities, and married early.
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So Joe was wrong?
How are we going with the barley?
 
Janadele said:
The Spirit of Jesus does commune with the righteous.

The Holy Spirit is given as a companion to those who are baptised by authority to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This companionship is requisite on the recipient living a righteous life.

Knowledge and answers to prayers are given through both the Spirit of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ has promised that a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon will be given to those who pray in sincerity and ask if it is true

Revelations for the world is given through the Prophets.
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How do you know?
 
RandFan said:
Evidence for Lucifer please?
Why are people anti-Catholic?
Why are people anti-Scientology?
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Lucifer wouldn't want the false religions to waste resources fighting each other, so the other religions are all anti-Mormon but not anti-each-other. That's why we don't see any friction between, say, Judaism and Islam.

Ohhhh, wait . . . .
 
dasmiller said:
Lucifer wouldn't want the false religions to waste resources fighting each other, so the other religions are all anti-Mormon but not anti-each-other. That's why we don't see any friction between, say, Judaism and Islam.

Ohhhh, wait . . . .
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:)
 
Quad4_72 said:
A number of us have asked her to stop doing this, but she rudely ignores us and claims she disagrees that it is difficult to follow. There really should be a forum rule put in place for that kind if thing. Personally, i don't take someone serioiusly if thy cannot follow basic grammar structure in the english language.
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It's like everyone else is having a conversation, and one poster is playing Jeopardy.

Janadele, was the Lucifer thing serious, or tongue-in-cheek? No smiley there.
 
jsfisher said:
Well, putting aside how improper your supposed citation was, you may be surprised to learn the FAIR website offers the same text, word for word, with no credit to New Era. The site is good enough to recommend the January 1968 publication for additional discussion of the material, but that's not the same as a citation.

Be that as it may, what you are saying, then, is that FAIRMORMON.ORG is the plagiarist. I'm glad we cleared that up.
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Following up on this, I can find lots of word-for-word reproductions of exactly what you posted, Janadele. Some cite FAIRMORMON.ORG as the reference; the rest have no citation; nobody credits New Era, though, as near as I can tell.

My real take-away, however, is not so much who said it first, but how often it gets passed along. Parroting the party line is not equivalent to engaging in intelligent discussion. I am saddened by this.
 
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