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Selek at MAD needs our help

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:36 am
by _SatanWasSetUp
On the thread entitled "Joseph Smith Manual -- Deletion From Wentworth Letter, Why do you think this part was deleted?" Selek accuses a critic of not being informed that Joseph Smith was down with the Limited Geography Theory. Selek said this:

You are conveniently ignoring the statements that Joseph himself made discounting the hemispheric model.
It is convenient for you to do so, but it is also disingenuous.


This obviously generated much curiosity from other participants, both TBM and critics.

could you provide statements by Joseph Smith that indicate he did not believe the Indians were descendants of Lehi and comments where he discounts the hemispheric model? Show me just how disingenuous I am.


I too am interested in Joseph Smith's statements discounting the hemispheric model. I was unaware that he ever did. I thought he frequently spoke of a hemipsheric model. I would be interested if he went away from that theory before he died.


Same here. I'm interested in reading the "statements that Joseph himself made discounting the hemispheric model".


I'm also not aware of quotes that discount a hemispheric belief. In fact, it seems to me that every time Joseph Smith had a chance to identify some artifact, ruin, or Native People, he referred to them in terms of the Book of Mormon.


Selek finally replied the next day:
I don't have the book with me, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for specific quotes, but Terryl Givens covers this at some length in one of his earlier tomes.

I'll post the relevant quotes and citations tomorrow.


Here we are two days later the thread has continued on different subjects, and still no reply from Selek. A couple more posters remembered his promise and bumped the thread for him:

Bumping for Selek. I'm interested in reading the reference.


I would like to see the quotes, also.


Do you think Selek is still digging for the reference, or did he simply give up and forget to come back to the thread so he could apologize for calling someone else disengenuous? Does anyone here have any idea what he could be referring to? Can anyone help him out? I would be surprised to see this quote. Saying that Joseph Smith was an LGTer is like saying Brigham Young was totally into traditional monogomous marriage.

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:14 am
by _beastie
I haven't read Givens, but usually when believers pretend that Joseph Smith believed in LGT they are referring to some of his statements that certain locations in Mesoamerica could be certain Book of Mormon locations. However, this, in and of itself, does not constitute LGT unless he is also saying that other locations on the continent are not also possible locations. In other words, a hemispheric model necessarily will also include Mesoamerica but not be restricted to Mesoamerica.

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:15 am
by _The Dude
Selek and LifeOnaPlate and a few others are in a rut, you see. They're so used to dealing with numbskull antimormons, mostly evangelicals, who don't know the status of Mormon difficulties. So they lazily call the antimormon "ignorant" or "unaware", and then leave it to the MAD-mob to bury the challenge under a pile ad hominens. Tsk tsk.

Probably Selek and LOP had in mind something like Joseph Smith's letter in the Nauvoo rag where he said the ruins of the Yucatan were representative of Book of Mormon civilizations. Apologists frequently cite this to demonstrate how Joseph Smith was thinking about limited geography before John Sorenson was even born. But, in fact, it was just another instance of Joseph appropriating an American site as one of his Book of Mormon locales. It's as perfectly hemispheric as Zelph the midwestern white lamanite whose exploits were "known" from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. Joseph Smith's opportunism knew no bounds of mountain, desert or sea. He knew nothing of limited geography and unmentioned "others". This is one battlefield the apologists should not try to hold.

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:17 pm
by _Who Knows
Hmm, i wonder what would happen to the critic if the roles were reversed here: Critic makes unsubstantiated claim, TBM's issue multiple 'cfrs', critic can't back it up.

I see some 'red text' for the critic...

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:29 pm
by _Runtu
Who Knows wrote:Hmm, I wonder what would happen to the critic if the roles were reversed here: Critic makes unsubstantiated claim, TBM's issue multiple 'cfrs', critic can't back it up.

I see some 'red text' for the critic...


There's a good example of that over there. Yme has a habit of making statements and then not backing them up. For that, he has been mocked mercilessly, and several posters have followed him around demanding that he back up his assertions. I think they're more polite to apologists, even the acerbic ones, like selek.