Vogel response to witnesses apologetics

[_Themis]

Tobin, As important as your personal spiritual experiences are to you, they are not relevant to the present topic. Do you have something meaningful to say that's not testimony-based?

Dan, I'm not addressing you. I'm responding to Themis who seems to like to carry things into adjacent threads for some reason.

Yet you brought it up. Hmm interesting. Now back on track, even though I admit to going of topic as well. :)

[_Equality]

Whitmer also said:

John Murphy interviewed David Whitmer in June, 1880.

When asked in 1880 for a description of the angel who showed him the plates, Whitmer replied that the angel "had no appearance or shape." Asked by the interviewer how he then could bear testimony that he had seen and heard an angel, Whitmer replied, "Have you never had impressions?" To which the interviewer responded, "Then you had impressions as the Quaker when the spirit moves, or as a good Methodist in giving a happy experience, a feeling?" "Just so," replied Whitmer. Whitmer interview with John Murphy, June 1880, in EMD5: 63.


Whitmer was a rube, just like the other yokels of the time.

David Whitmer was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1838 for turning against Church members and joining in persecuting them. Though he never returned to the Church in his lifetime, he never denied the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and even publicly defended it near the end of his life in the Richmond, Missouri, Conservator on March 25, 1881:

The Book of Mormon“Unto all Nations, Kindreds, Tongues and People, unto whom these presents shall come: . . . I wish now, standing as it were, in the very sunset of life, and in the fear of God, once [and] for all to make this public statement: That I have never at any time denied that testimony [of the Book of Mormon] or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that book, as one of the Three Witnesses. Those who know me best well know that I have always adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do again affirm the truth of all my statements as then made and published. “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear;” it was no delusion; what is written is written, and he that readeth let him understand. “And if any man doubt, should he not carefully and honestly read and understand the same before presuming to sit in judgment and condemning the light, which shineth in darkness, and showeth the way of eternal life as pointed out by the unerring hand of God?” In the Spirit of Christ, who hath said: “Follow thou me, for I am the life, the light and the way,” I submit this statement to the world; God in whom I trust being my judge as to the sincerity of my motives and the faith and hope that is in me of eternal life. My sincere desire is that the world may be benefited by this plain and simple statement of the truth. And all the honor to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen!”

http://historyofmormonism.com/mormon-hi ... testimony/

The deathbed testimony tops all others as claimed by this person or that person.

You do realize that Whitmer believed Smith was a fallen prophet, right? Was he right about the Book of Mormon but wrong about Smith? Why would you give more weight to his dying feelings about the Book of Mormon than his dying feelings about Smith, Brigham Young, and the church Young led west?

[_Equality]

When one is faced with meeting their maker with a lie, one may come clean.

I guess you believe aliens crashed at Roswell in 1947. After all, we've got a deathbed confession on it:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-465276/Roswell-officers-amazing-deathbed-admission-raises-possibility-aliens-DID-visit.html

[_Joe Geisner]

Thank you Scratch for the thoughtful comments. You will not get an argument from me with your call for a change. But then we still have the apologists and Church employees dedicated to Fayette as the organizational place when all evidence points to Manchester. If they can't get this right, not sure how they can get much else right.

I continually find Sterling McMurrin's response to Blake Ostler satisfying when Ostler asked him about the Book of Mormon:

“I came to the conclusion at a very early age, earlier than I can remember, that you don’t get books from angels and translate them by miracles; it is just that simple."

[_Joe Geisner]

The James H. Moyle diary entry about his interview with David Whitmmer is devastating for apologist. He is a believing member at the time and the father of future Apostle and 1st Presidency member. This experience was heart wrenching for this man. As Dan writes:

James Henry Moyle, who recorded in his journal that the witness said the vision “was indiscribable that it was through the power of God. … he then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ but his associates did not. Because it is only seen in the Spirit.” Moyle “asked if the atmosphere about them was normal.” In other words, did the angel appear in normal surroundings, as Anderson’s interpretation would predict, or had the vision entirely obscured the natural world? According to Whitmer, “it was indescribable, but the light was bright and clear, yet apparently a different kind of light, something of a soft haze.” Moyle noted his disappointment: “I was not fully satisfied with the explanation. It was more spiritual than I anticipated.”

[_Blixa]

Just because I don't feel like taking the time HOURS to step by step prove my opinion doesn't mean my opinion isn't based on what I know and don't know.

We've all seen the ungrammatical double negative, but this resets the bar. All I can get out of it is, "My opinion is based on what I don't know."

[_Equality]

The James H. Moyle diary entry about his interview with David Whitmmer is devastating for apologist. He is a believing member at the time and the father of future Apostle and 1st Presidency member. This experience was heart wrenching for this man. As Dan writes:

James Henry Moyle, who recorded in his journal that the witness said the vision “was indiscribable that it was through the power of God. … he then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ but his associates did not. Because it is only seen in the Spirit.” Moyle “asked if the atmosphere about them was normal.” In other words, did the angel appear in normal surroundings, as Anderson’s interpretation would predict, or had the vision entirely obscured the natural world? According to Whitmer, “it was indescribable, but the light was bright and clear, yet apparently a different kind of light, something of a soft haze.” Moyle noted his disappointment: “I was not fully satisfied with the explanation. It was more spiritual than I anticipated.”

How do Anderson and DCP, et al. address this journal entry?

[_Joe Geisner]

How do Anderson and DCP, et al. address this journal entry?

I could find no reference to Moyle in Anderson's JBMS article. Anderson does quote from Moyle's "journal" in his "Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses." Anderson does not quote what Dan quotes in his response, nor does Anderson give any indication that Whitmer gave Moyle anything but a positive response to the visit when asked about his testimony.

Anderson does combine Moyle's journal and an article that Moyle wrote decades later that was published in the Juvenile Instructor to provide "evidence" for this positive experience.

Since reading Roger I. Anderson's "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined" twenty years ago, I have been suspect of Richard Anderson's historical writings and analysis.

http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=379

[_RayAgostini]

Do you give the same credibility to witnesses of alien abductions?

How much have you studied this phenomenon? Now tell the truth.

Alien abduction.

John Edward Mack.

That's why, for the most part, I don't bother with lengthy debates on this board. It's often the ex-Mormon version of "when the scientists speak, the debate is over".

Here's another heretic ready for the flames of secularism and "rationalism":

Robert Anton Wilson.

[_RayAgostini]

Thanks, Joe! I also posted an announcement on MADD.

Hello, Dan. I've only just started reading your article, so forgive me if my question seems a bit "premature".

You've noted David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness, and you said that

"Whitmer [said] that they were only seen 'in the Spirit.' In other words, it was a visionary or extrasensory experience.

Have you accounted for this on page 26 of the David Whitmer Interviews?:

I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life declaring that they (the plates) were translated by the gift and power of God."

In regard to Martin Harris, Whitmer said:

"I don't think he saw all that we did, but our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is strictly and absolutely true just as it is there written."

Henry H. Moyle's recollection, on page 158, that:

He was some what spiritual in his explanations He was not so materialistic in his descriptions as I wished

Doesn't quite explain why Moyle remained a faithful member of the Church for life, and a believer in Joseph Smith as a prophet. If Moyle had drawn your conclusion, he would have left the Church. No?