LDS

[dafydd]

And hopefully the truth about Mormonism will dawn on her one day.

 

[pakeha]

Good question, dafydd.
May I add to it:
Why don't they like to defend the veracity of their holy scripts/texts/whatever?

 

[dafydd]

Good question, dafydd.
May I add to it:
Why don't they like to defend the veracity of their holy scripts/texts/whatever?

Perhaps that would force them to actually read the texts and think about them. Calling all Christians. Do you believe that the Hindu pantheon of gods actually exist or are they just figments of the imagination?

 

[Cat Tale]

I've no animus toward Janadele. I sincerely wish her health and happiness.

Thank you Randfan, I feel exactly the same way.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

It's well-deserved. You've saved this thread from itself.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

It's very easy when she won't address any of the points put to her but indulges in mind-numbingly boring preaching.

And yet.... the flock laps it up and still asks the same questions...?


Anyway. I already put in my two cents.

And on a side note..........

Grew up on the very rich side of Town..........
And right down the street from Dick Marriott.

(And his three daughters......)

Most ended up at BYU. If they weren't cheerleader/models, well they should have been.

 

[dafydd]

And yet.... the flock laps it up and still asks the same questions...?

It's more fun than anything on TV. I like reading the responses of people like her. I've never heard of Dick Marriot and his three daughters. Does he have anything to do with the subject of the thread?

 

[Sticky Fingers]

It's more fun than anything on TV. I like reading the responses of people like her. I've never heard of Dick Marriot and his three daughters. Does he have anything to do with the subject of the thread?

Yeah. Very rich and gives alot of money to the church.

 

[dafydd]

Yeah. Very rich and gives alot of money to the church.

Which church?

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Am I in the right thread?

 

[dafydd]

Am I in the right thread?

Oops, sorry. I misread the title of the thread, I thought it said LSD.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Hey. If ya got something that works for ya, then go with it!

 

[skyrider44]

Not true, this case was a criminal case, so the actual examination was by the people (government), it was not for Stowell or his sons to stop once it was started. The fact that it was the people is so stated on the document at the top of the FAIR article. "The People vs. Joseph Smith the Glass Looker March 20, 1826."

It looks like what really happened was that Stowell's sons complained to the sheriff and the sheriff arrested Joseph and the state had to decide whether or not to prosecute.

Isn't that precisely what I stated in my post? Stowell's sons (or possibly a nephew) complained to a law enforcement official and Joseph Smith was taken before Judge Neely. The rationale for the sons' complaint was, as near as I can determine, not that Joseph Smith was cheating their father,* but that he had "unlimited control over the illusions of their sire. They caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without means of livelihood" (Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol 1, 1951, p. 479).
Does it not seem strange that Smith was charged with being a vagrant in view of the fact that he was working for Stowell at that very time? *In fact, Stowell specifically denied that Joseph had cheated him (from Dr. Purple's own account).

If the 1826 trial was so damning to Joseph Smith's reputation, why wasn't it brought up in the second trial held in 1830? Why was it not even mentioned in Hurlbut's affidavits which he collected in 1833? (Recall that Hurlbut was seriously dedicated to destroying Smith's reputation.) And finally, although the 1826 trial was mentioned in 1831, it was not brought up again in a published record for 46 years? (FAIR, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," Russell Anderson).

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities. If you haven't read Dr. D. Michael Quinn's book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, I encourage you to do so. Quinn puts into perspective the so-called "criminal" activities of Smith and hundreds/thousands of his contemporaries.

: Joseph Jr's own testimony basically admits to all the seer-type activities, by giving a background of his life.

Nothing surprising about that (see above); he was simply being honest. Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

 

[dafydd]

Isn't that precisely what I stated in my post? Stowell's sons (or possibly a nephew) complained to a law enforcement official and Joseph Smith was taken before Judge Neely. The rationale for the sons' complaint was, as near as I can determine, not that Joseph Smith was cheating their father,* but that he had "unlimited control over the illusions of their sire. They caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without means of livelihood" (Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol 1, 1951, p. 479).
Does it not seem strange that Smith was charged with being a vagrant in view of the fact that he was working for Stowell at that very time? *In fact, Stowell specifically denied that Joseph had cheated him (from Dr. Purple's own account).

If the 1826 trial was so damning to Joseph Smith's reputation, why wasn't it brought up in the second trial held in 1830? Why was it not even mentioned in Hurlbut's affidavits which he collected in 1833? (Recall that Hurlbut was seriously dedicated to destroying Smith's reputation.) And finally, although the 1826 trial was mentioned in 1831, it was not brought up again in a published record for 46 years? (FAIR, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," Russell Anderson).

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities. If you haven't read Dr. D. Michael Quinn's book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, I encourage you to do so. Quinn puts into perspective the so-called "criminal" activities of Smith and hundreds/thousands of his contemporaries.



Nothing surprising about that (see above); he was simply being honest. Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

Religion is supernatural mumbo-jumbo. What's new? 'Twas ever thus.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Isn't that precisely what I stated in my post? Stowell's sons (or possibly a nephew) complained to a law enforcement official and Joseph Smith was taken before Judge Neely. The rationale for the sons' complaint was, as near as I can determine, not that Joseph Smith was cheating their father,* but that he had "unlimited control over the illusions of their sire. They caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without means of livelihood" (Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol 1, 1951, p. 479).
Does it not seem strange that Smith was charged with being a vagrant in view of the fact that he was working for Stowell at that very time? *In fact, Stowell specifically denied that Joseph had cheated him (from Dr. Purple's own account).

If the 1826 trial was so damning to Joseph Smith's reputation, why wasn't it brought up in the second trial held in 1830? Why was it not even mentioned in Hurlbut's affidavits which he collected in 1833? (Recall that Hurlbut was seriously dedicated to destroying Smith's reputation.) And finally, although the 1826 trial was mentioned in 1831, it was not brought up again in a published record for 46 years? (FAIR, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," Russell Anderson).

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities. If you haven't read Dr. D. Michael Quinn's book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, I encourage you to do so. Quinn puts into perspective the so-called "criminal" activities of Smith and hundreds/thousands of his contemporaries.



Nothing surprising about that (see above); he was simply being honest. Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

All this is irrelevant. Even if you could establish that Joseph Smith had had a stellar reputation for fair business dealings, the glaring fact remains that the claims he made regarding ancient American civilizations are completely false. There is no archaeological or anthropological evidence for the civilizations that he described. Furthermore, modern genomic research has shown that, contrary to the claims made by Joseph Smith, no indigenous American populations are descended from Middle Eastern populations.

 

[Pup]

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities....
(snip)

Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

Phrenology was considered a science, not something supernatural, in the time period under discussion. The kinds of people who promoted phrenology were not, typically, the same kinds who would believe in seer stones or divining rods; they tended to be those who studied medicine, anthropology and the human brain.

Phrenology fell out of favor by the 1840s as a serious scientific study and had on and off revivals after that as a carnival side-show kind of thing, but in the early period, it was an attempt to explain the attributes of the human brain, similar to psychiatry today. It spread out of academia and became popular with the average person, the same way people today talk of chemical imbalances in the brain causing mental illness. So yes, it was well known and would be normal for anyone in the early 19th century to believe.

But conflating the demographics of those who promoted phrenology in the first few decades of the 19th century, with those who promoted seer stones, divining rods, etc., is mixing up two different demographics.

 

[Craig4]

Isn't that precisely what I stated in my post? Stowell's sons (or possibly a nephew) complained to a law enforcement official and Joseph Smith was taken before Judge Neely. The rationale for the sons' complaint was, as near as I can determine, not that Joseph Smith was cheating their father,* but that he had "unlimited control over the illusions of their sire. They caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without means of livelihood" (Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol 1, 1951, p. 479).
Does it not seem strange that Smith was charged with being a vagrant in view of the fact that he was working for Stowell at that very time? *In fact, Stowell specifically denied that Joseph had cheated him (from Dr. Purple's own account).

If the 1826 trial was so damning to Joseph Smith's reputation, why wasn't it brought up in the second trial held in 1830? Why was it not even mentioned in Hurlbut's affidavits which he collected in 1833? (Recall that Hurlbut was seriously dedicated to destroying Smith's reputation.) And finally, although the 1826 trial was mentioned in 1831, it was not brought up again in a published record for 46 years? (FAIR, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," Russell Anderson).

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities. If you haven't read Dr. D. Michael Quinn's book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, I encourage you to do so. Quinn puts into perspective the so-called "criminal" activities of Smith and hundreds/thousands of his contemporaries.



Nothing surprising about that (see above); he was simply being honest. Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

...and there was no cultivated barley in the pre-Colombian Americas.

 

[tsig]

Isn't that precisely what I stated in my post? Stowell's sons (or possibly a nephew) complained to a law enforcement official and Joseph Smith was taken before Judge Neely. The rationale for the sons' complaint was, as near as I can determine, not that Joseph Smith was cheating their father,* but that he had "unlimited control over the illusions of their sire. They caused the arrest of Smith as a vagrant, without means of livelihood" (Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol 1, 1951, p. 479).
Does it not seem strange that Smith was charged with being a vagrant in view of the fact that he was working for Stowell at that very time? *In fact, Stowell specifically denied that Joseph had cheated him (from Dr. Purple's own account).

If the 1826 trial was so damning to Joseph Smith's reputation, why wasn't it brought up in the second trial held in 1830? Why was it not even mentioned in Hurlbut's affidavits which he collected in 1833? (Recall that Hurlbut was seriously dedicated to destroying Smith's reputation.) And finally, although the 1826 trial was mentioned in 1831, it was not brought up again in a published record for 46 years? (FAIR, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," Russell Anderson).

Perhaps you do not understand the role the supernatural played in American life in the 19th century. Seer stones, "glass looking," divining rods, treasure hunting--all were commonly acceptable activities. If you haven't read Dr. D. Michael Quinn's book Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, I encourage you to do so. Quinn puts into perspective the so-called "criminal" activities of Smith and hundreds/thousands of his contemporaries.



Nothing surprising about that (see above); he was simply being honest. Are you unaware that some early Church leaders believed in phrenology?

Where did the events depicted in the BoM take place?

 

[dafydd]

Where did the events depicted in the BoM take place?

In Smith's imagination, where else?

 

[skyrider44]

Phrenology was considered a science, not something supernatural, in the time period under discussion. The kinds of people who promoted phrenology were not, typically, the same kinds who would believe in seer stones or divining rods; they tended to be those who studied medicine, anthropology and the human brain.

Phrenology fell out of favor by the 1840s as a serious scientific study and had on and off revivals after that as a carnival side-show kind of thing, but in the early period, it was an attempt to explain the attributes of the human brain, similar to psychiatry today. It spread out of academia and became popular with the average person, the same way people today talk of chemical imbalances in the brain causing mental illness. So yes, it was well known and would be normal for anyone in the early 19th century to believe.

But conflating the demographics of those who promoted phrenology in the first few decades of the 19th century, with those who promoted seer stones, divining rods, etc., is mixing up two different demographics.

You provide an insightful analysis; I commend you for it.

My point is simply that what we regard as bizarre or absurd or ridiculous today was, in ages past, taken seriously and widely accepted and practiced. Hence, those who regard Joseph Smith's activities as those of a "crook" and "con man" (fisher's characterization) appear to be lacking in perspective.