stemelbow wrote:Darth J wrote:No, I didn't, because neither you nor the LDS Church is merely trying to prove that Joseph Smith, the Child Molester, had a set of plates. (You never responded to my suggestion that for the simple purpose of identity, we refer to "Joseph Smith, the Child Molester." So I am taking that to mean that you conceded the point.)
Your point is merely distraction, as usual, DJ.
No, it isn't. You asserted that when the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses says Joseph Smith (i.e., the Child Molester who was born in Sharon, Vermont) is the translator of the plates, and they handled as many leaves as were translated, the Eight were not making a claim about the plates they were shown being translated. According to you, the statements about translation were just about "identification." I'd like to test how sincerely you believe in that reasoning. So there's no valid reason for you to oppose making it clear that when we're talking about "Joseph Smith," we mean Joseph Smith the Child Molester. I'm not making any claims by using those words. I'm just identifying what I'm talking about.
It's true, even to you, that the testimony of the 8 is evidence that Joseph Smith had metallic plates that appeared ancient. One claim of Joseph Smith? Check. There is evidence for it.
Really, really sad, and yet not surprising, that defense of Mormonism's truth claims requires such ongoing misrepresentations. For example, your ongoing misrepresentation that I have supposedly agreed that Joseph Smith (you mean Joseph Smith the Child Molester, right?) had metallic plates that "appeared ancient." I've been explaining for many pages of this thread why there is no foundation to the "appeared ancient" claim. At least Muslims get 72 virgins when they do things for Allah. What do you get in return for lying for the Lord?
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It's really sad that Mormonism's truth claims are so indefensible that you think you've scored a point by stating a tautology. "Evidence that Joseph the Child Molester had metal plates is evidence that Joseph the Child Molester had metal plates." (I am not making any affirmative claims; I just want to be clear who I'm talking about. Thus, "Joseph the Child Molester.")
Yeah yeah little baby. Don't get so sad so fast.
It's so very curious that you were trying to appear reasonable and talk like a normal adult, and now you're lapsing back into your "pep pep" thing and name-calling. Certainly neither Chap nor I explicitly said we saw this coming.
This is just one claim that you seem to pout enough about. remember you brought up the issue in your attempted assessment of evidence. Joseph Smith claimed he had metallic plates that appeared ancient and had writings on them.
Let's clarify who you mean by "Joseph Smith." For the purposes of identification, you mean Joseph Smith the Child Molester, right? Just for the purposes of identification!
I've already explained repeatedly why there's no foundation to the claim that the object shown to the Eight Witnesses either appeared ancient or had writings on it. But you go ahead and keep misrepresenting things in order to be faith-promoting. I'm sure President Hinckley is smiling at you from on high.
You don't dispute his claim even though you haven't seen them, nor has any other living person.
Funny you should mention that. Joseph Smith the Child Molester wanted to prove he had metallic plates. Just that one simple claim. But instead of showing those plates to the world at large, he only shows them to his dad, his older brother, and six other close friends and relatives who already believed his story. And then suddenly those plates aren't around to be examined and verified by people who are not already inclined to accept his story, but we're all supposed to rely on what these eight true believers and intimates of his said they saw. It's just the darndest thing!
You don't because there is evidence for their existence. You whimper and whine about a tautology when this was all your creation. You dispute evidence for LDS claims. I don't' know why you would think evidence for a given claim is actually evidence against the claim, but that is your reasoning.
If I had to guess, I would say it's because you keep equivocating between what is actually sought to be proved by the testimonial of Joseph the Child Molester's dad, older brother, and other intimates.
And if he ended his claim at, "I, Joseph the Child Molester, have some metal plates," then you would indeed carry the day on this undisputed point. But as Joseph the Child Molester did not end his claim there, your victory is so banal that only your desperation to grasp at anything explains why you keep talking about it.
How sweet you gave me victory.
Yay! Our hero who was criminally charged as a glass-looker used the exact same seer stone in his claim to have obtained and translated ancient records, and then he showed a prop to a small inner circle of friends and relatives who already believed his story! And then the thing they were shown disappeared forever, so nobody can verify what they were shown! Sweet victory!
That's because you are being deliberately obtuse. If the Book of Mormon is not a real historical account of pre-Columbian America, it doesn't matter if Joseph the Child Molester showed 8 of his close friends and relatives who already believed his story some unidentifiable metal plates. On the other hand, if you believe Joseph the Child Molester's story, you necessarily believe that an undead Hebrew American prophet gave him some plates, so you don't need the testimony of the Eight Witnesses. In addition to lacking foundation to the claim at issue (that the Book of Mormon is true), their testimony is irrelevant to the claim.
Without their testimony there would be that much less reason for you to accept that he had metallic plates that appeared ancient at all. Talk about deliberately obtuse.
I still have no reason to believe that the object they were shown appeared ancient at all, because I have no reason to believe they would have known what ancient metallic plates would have looked like, and they didn't say why the object they were shown looked ancient. And what do you know, neither I nor any other living person will ever be able to find out!
Not to change the subject, but did you know Bernie Madoff just sent statements to his investors telling them what securities he had bought for them, but never allowed an audit or anything like that to confirm that the securities really had been purchased? But he showed them an unverified statement! So his investors had evidence (but not proof!) that everything was fine!
Yes, they did, and I am not going to play your game that they were merely trying to identify who Joseph Smith was. They also had to believe Joseph Smith the Child Molester's story as a precondition to be shown the object he purported to be the plates, and the LDS Church touts their testimony as evidence of the divinity and authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
Nice try, pouty pants.
Huh. You're back to the trolling, "pep pep" persona. Go figure!
"We're trolling, trolling, we're trolling in the name of the Lord....'
The LDS Church, which deserves your utter contempt for some reason,
Probably because it takes people's money under false pretenses and doesn't hold itself to its own standards.
couples the two testimonies together and makes their observations. You here are trying to separate them and then pout about the Church's assessment of the two. I know you and your buds are happy playing such deceptive games, but it's only fair I call you on such games.
No, the deceptive game is the Church drawing the unwarranted conclusion and inviting others to do likewise. That's what this thread is about. Just because you have a childish emotional reaction when your cherished beliefs are looked at rationally doesn't mean that other people are also pouting. Then again, you are coming from a belief system that advocates using emotional impulses as a way to evaluate claims of fact. Pep pep!
See, the reason it's obvious you're being disingenuous is that you keep returning to the same rhetorical sleight of hand. There is no foundation for the claim that the object Joseph the Child Molester's dad and older brother and so on were shown was "ancient in appearance." They would have had no way of determining what ancient plates would look like, and they never said how the plates they were shown looked "ancient." A conclusory statement with no explanation is not evidence of anything. The same is true with "writing." They had no possible way of knowing if the scratchings or etchings or whatever on the object they were shown were real, actual writing from another (non-English) language.
But I am perfectly happy for our internet Mormon warriors to make themselves look foolish and disingenuous to any reasonable observer who is browsing message boards like this one. So by all means, please continue as you have been.
EDIT: minor typographical corrections that in no way affect the truth that the foregoing was the most correct post on Earth.
Oh stop blubbering by now. Of course you are left to complain that the 8 had no special training to know whether the plates were ancient even if they thought they appeared so. Nor are they capable of knowing whether what they saw ont he plates were writings of anyone. So? It's still their observations.
Right, right! They had absolutely no qualifications to make the conclusions they made and the LDS Church is relying on, but SO WHAT?????? We already know the Church is true, so who cares if there is no foundation to the conclusion they drew from their observations!
You readily now know that Joseph Smith
Which Joseph Smith? The Child Molester? I ask for the purpose of identification.
had plates that appeared ancient to untrained eyes and had some sort of scratching or etchings that untrained eyes figured were writings.
Wow! What compelling evidence!
"And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but 'hefted' them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified." ---Mark Twain
But there is plenty more data to the whole story. This is just one piece and you have unwittingly confirmed by point over and over.
Just look at the mounting evidence for Mormonism's claims! The Church claims that God told Abraham that our sun receives its light from another star, and look outside: there's a sun in the sky! The Church says that the Book of Abraham is the translation of some papyrus from the "catacombs" [sic] of Egypt, and we have the papyrus! The Church says it was founded in Palmyra, New York in April 1830, and Palmyra is a real place! You start adding together all these little pieces, and pretty soon you've really got something!
So, we can stop the pain you are causing yourself as you whine about Mormon people again.
Oh, look! It's that "you hate Mormons" red herring again. Who would have thought? Why do you need to play the persecution card, stemelbow, when you have all this compelling evidence????
