A New MI Article: Kudos to Steven C. Harper

[_Bob Loblaw]

By my count, that makes exactly two MI posts that are not bitter personal attacks. Until such articles become the norm, I will reserve judgment.

[_sock puppet]

But that required a large store of implicit trust in Joseph Smith as the martyred prophet and the one who opened the last dispensation. It was only then that the FV could begin to have the kind of heft necessary to be useful to members as an actual "argument" in favor of Mormonism. Indeed, it also required a good distance between the history of the event and the context in which it arose, since in its time the FV was fairly unremarkable as an example of a common conversion experience on the American frontier.

What do you make of the fact that these 'spiritual experiences' once involved, fairly commonly, a visual element, and the visual aspect discussed, such as by JSJr himself, in the 19th Century. But fairly quickly in the 20th Century, there became little mention among Mormons of a visual element. If I recall correctly, the last account of a visual as part of an LDS prophet receiving a revelation of divine truth was Joseph F's October 1918 dream about the redemption of the dead, that is now D&C section 138.

Now, the related spiritual experiences are more vague. Look for example at MST. I did not read all of them, but of those I did, not one mentioned a visual element to his or her experience. Looking over just the Mormon history and experience of 'spiritual' experiences, 1820 to present, it seems that the visual aspect dissipated over a time that paralleled the public gaining an understanding of hallucinogenic inducing substances and gaining an understanding of dreams (such as Freud's explanations) and how the imaginations of the human mind work.

Within Mormon circles today, if you claim an experience (spiritual) that has a visual component, even in the mind's eye such as a dream, it is treated dismissively. If you claim an audio component, as long as it is just in the 'mind's ear', short, and commanding you to be Mormon, it receives some acceptance though is not talked about as a miraculous event such as a stigmata is in Catholicism. Today's Mormon spiritual events are the vague but "undeniable" but vague... experiences that are not easily dismissed by others as hallucinations or vivid imaginations have become. I read several of the testimonies on MST; I do not recall any of them citing a visual component to the experience.

The FP/12 like to tout the FV with elohim and jehovah, which obviously JSJr did not find too sacred to talk about. But then run for the cover of vagueness, such as BKP when asked about the apostolic nature of his special witness of JC, ducks by claiming it is too sacred to discuss.

It seems that most Mormons, and definitely the hierarchy ones, are uncomfortable with the notion that anyone as proximate as withing the past 100 years has had a visual component.

It seems much easier for people of today to accept that a vision of the divine occurred 5 generations or so ago, but in the last 3 generations.

[Guest]

Oh, no need to apologize Kish, your post inspired my thinking.

What we currently objectively know at this point is that Joseph Smith stared at a stone or stones. Quite probably in connection with ritual.

Can't rule out pathology.

I'm more skeptical of substance ingestion but one could go reading through all the extant New England and Upstate New York diaries, almanacs, newpapers, etc and see what one finds. (That won't be me.)

After that it gets culturally shaped.

@Elphaba, it was probably Bringhurst I was drawing on for the comparision between the 1st edition and the 2nd edition, however poorly I did so.

[_Drifting]

I think it would be interesting to see the congregation and hierarchies reaction were a member to stand during the monthly outpouring of smugness, grief or neediness (open mike Sunday), and relate that they had seen God and/or Jesus in the flesh...Tobin, perhaps...

[_lulu]

I think it would be interesting to see the congregation and hierarchies reaction were a member to stand during the monthly outpouring of smugness, grief or neediness (open mike Sunday), and relate that they had seen God and/or Jesus in the flesh...Tobin, perhaps...

And do so in tongues!

Part of the answer to SP's question (but only part) is the move from cult to sect. If you're going to broaden your target market, you can't remain too strange. But if you become too mainstream, there's no reason to buy Mormonism over Methodism. I think that's the problem the church faces right now.

Now someone needs to save me from myself and tell me to get to work.

[_sock puppet]

That is, people on a jury could find a reasonable doubt about whether a victim was telling the truth based on this inconsistency over what year the abuse is claimed to have occurred. That's not because of some artifice of legal procedure; it's because of fundamental evaluations of evidence and judgments that reasonable people rely on in life. So if a reasonable person could doubt an alleged victim's story because of an inconsistency about what year it happened, then how well does Joseph Smith's credibility about the First Vision do when there are multiple, conflicting accounts of when it happened, why it happened, and what happened?

Not well, you say? Then I guess we need to frame the issue as "anyone who fails to believe in the First Vision only rejects it because he or she has already made up his or her mind that things like that never happen to anyone."

I guess I was overcome by the generous captatio benevolentiae, and did not delve into the article in any detail. Obviously, it is silly to think that the only reason to reject the FV is because one is an atheist. Otherwise thousands of Christians across the globe would accept the FV and perhaps join the LDS Church. Furthermore, I think it is generally recognized by atheist students of religion that people have visions. The question is rather what causes them. A theist claims that the answer is simply "God" or whatever spiritual phenomenon depicted as involved in the thing. An atheist attributes it to that bit of undigested beef, hallucinogens, or some form of epilepsy or psychopathology.

The question about the FV is really about the credibility of Joseph Smith himself. In the context of his treasure digging activities, it is easy to come to the conclusion that his credibility is not all that good, since he was well practiced in spinning yarns about ghosts and which sacrifice God required to recover the treasure chest, etc. This is why it remains the case that Mormon historians generally avoid interpreting the FV in the larger context of the treasure digging stories. People hold the latter in low regard whereas they believe the former to be sacred and numinous.

I really don't think Joseph Smith's FV matters nearly as much as apologists or critics seem to think it does. It is the Book of Mormon that ultimately matters, because it is the Book of Mormon that constitutes the miracle of Mormonism that anyone can examine. Who was with Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove on that fateful day in the spring of 1820, or wherever and whenever it may have occurred? Since the whole thing is a personal vision, which no other person saw occur, in the end it comes down to whether one chooses to trust Joseph Smith's highly personal experience or not.

This is no doubt one reason why early LDS missionary work did not involve the FV at all. It was only later, and for different reasons, that the story evolved into one of the foundational moments of the faith. But that required a large store of implicit trust in Joseph Smith as the martyred prophet and the one who opened the last dispensation. It was only then that the FV could begin to have the kind of heft necessary to be useful to members as an actual "argument" in favor of Mormonism. Indeed, it also required a good distance between the history of the event and the context in which it arose, since in its time the FV was fairly unremarkable as an example of a common conversion experience on the American frontier.

It was the career of Joseph Smith that made the FV in any way remarkable, not the other way around.

Do you think the FV was a bit much for people that could go ask JSJr, face to face, to swallow? That one of their contemporaries was visited by god and Jesus?

Interesting that while JSJr was living, he relied upon the words of the dead (Book of Mormon prophets) to convince others of the divinity of his church; after JSJr had died, his church points to his words. I guess the current revelations are simply not appealing enough to be accepted on their own merits.

[_Kishkumen]

In answer to sock puppet's question, I would say a number of factors are at work. Some of them lulu has already raised. Another is the importance of controlling charisma in a strictly hierarchical and authoritarian sect. One I raised indirectly is the tendency to pathologize visionary experiences, thus rendering them incredible. Consider this: "you're seeing things" is a ubiquitous phrase in modern colloquial English. When "seeing things" amounts to being a nut or an idiot, fewer people will probably be inclined to share their experiences of "seeing things."