Are Defenders simply incorrigible?

[_sock puppet]

I have tried over the past 18 months on this board (before 'sock puppet' as 'nimrod') to consider that those defending the LDS Church and its claims to be reasonable, thinking people not completely given over to irrational, emotive driven behavior. But the more I read here (and when I used to also at MAD), the more I am failing in maintaining this consideration.

Don Bradley, bless his soul, is going to trot out at the FAIR convention this summer some new observations and maybe a new primary source or two about the Kinderhook Plates fiasco for Joseph Smith Jr. With all due respect, that's nibbling on the fringe of a mountain of damning evidence against Joseph Smith Jr and Mormonism.

Here is the Joseph Smith Jr that the historical record reveals:

1-Faced charges in court in 1826 for the then illegal practice in the State of New York of glass-looking for hire, using a magic rock and claiming evil spirits underground were moving the treasures, to prevent those digging from finding the treasures. This was 130+ years after the Salem Witch Trials, which had by the 1820s become reviled in the north eastern part of the U.S. as a sordid misuse of legal process based on irrational fears. The New York Assembly had years before made glass-looking for hire illegal in that state. "Folk magic" may have been more common in the 1820s than it is today, but that does not mean it was mainstream in the 1820s by any stretch.

2-Claimed that a giant white toad or salamander walloped him repeatedly for trying to get the gold plates before he had proven himself--the prospect of this becoming public so troubled the LDS First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in 1985 (150+ years later) that they fell victim to paying top dollar for forged documents from Mark Hoffman, and entangled in a web that involved Hoffman murdering two people. LDS Apostle Dallin H Oaks initially denied, then 'fessed up about the Church being involved in the purchase, and on another occasion tried to equate Joseph Smith Jr's use of the term salamander as a mere descriptor for an angelic spirit.

3-Planted his face in the crown of a hat and stared at a 'magic' rock to translate a good portion, if not most, of the Book of Mormon--a magic rock that the LDS Church has today, but its 'prophets, seers, and revelators' won't use today.

4-Claimed that the lost 116-page manuscript of the Book of Mormon could not be re-translated from the gold plates because if he did, the lost 116-page manuscript would be changed and used as evidence that the second manuscript was not identical. (Since god is omniscient, how was that a potential problem as the original 116-page manuscript has not surfaced publicly since being lost? Also, as the angel Moroni took back the gold plates, why not just remove the lost 116-page manuscript from the face of the earth? This point #4 alone is just pregnant with a litter of at least a dozen damnations against Joseph Smith Jr's claims. The South Park cartoon straightened out how twisted and backwards the claims of Joseph Smith Jr/LDS Church are in this regard.)

5-Numerous anachronisms in the Book of Mormon for which apologists can barely muster the lamest of defenses.

6-No archaelogical evidence for the Book of Mormon civilization or polities describes. None. Nada. Zip.

7-The View of the Hebrews predated the production of the Book of Mormon, with similar claims of Hebrew ancestry for the Amerindians.

8-The Book of Mormon having exact passages of Isaiah from the KJV of the Bible, replete with the Elizabethan English, even though the KJV was not prepared until centuries after the gold plates were supposedly enscribed.

9-Claimed he was translating ancient languages, but the Explanations to the Facsimiles that are part of the Book of Abraham do not correlate with the characters and pictographs on the Facsimiles.

10-Restored hieroglyphic characters with hieratic ones, not realizing the difference, but passing it off as a restoration of Facsimile No. 2 rather than just publishing it in the condition found in 1835.

11-Claimed that the papyrus found in the Kirtland Mummies was written by the hand of Abraham (see even the official introduction to the Book of Abraham in the LDS Church's current publication, the Pearl of Great Price, part of the LDS canon), but the papyrus doesn't date far enough back to Abraham's time.

12-Claimed that the papyrus included a story of Abraham, but in reality just a funerary.

13-Thought some phonied up and planted plates found near Kinderhook were ancient, and told the story of a descendant of Ham.

14-Thought that a Greek psalter bore ancient Egyptian characters, and slipped out the back door while Prof. Caswall with John Taylor and other Nauvoo Mormons continued examining the old psalter.

15-Claimed that he was compelled by a threat of death to engage in a "new and everlasting covenant" (sex with women other than his one and only legally wedded wife) even though it was against the law, but within 60 years the LDS Church forbade, and does forbids to this day, anyone engaging in that "everlasting" covenant because it is against the law and the Mormons wanted the Utah Territory to become a state.

Now, in the face of this mountain of evidence, the defenders retreat into a subjective interpretation of an emotional experience--their burning bosoms.

Please help me, defenders, have some reason to have some respect for you. After 18 months of reading and posting on this board (and for a time on MAD), I am finding it less and less reasonable for me to respect you. Your positions are ever more tenuous and thin as time goes on, yet you cling to your unreasonable assertions of Mormon truth claims. You nibble at edges while there is a mountain of evidence against you.

Why should I consider you rational people when it comes to your Mormon claims?

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

sockpuppet,

Come on now, you are just nitpicking.

[_Simon Belmont]

This is oddly familiar to your "founder's list."

Do you consider me rational? I'm educated, and I'm successful (by my own measure) in both family and professional life. Many irrational people cannot make these claims.

[_sock puppet]

This is oddly familiar to your "founder's list."

Do you consider me rational? I'm educated, and I'm successful (by my own measure) in both family and professional life. Many irrational people cannot make these claims.

I find your belief in and defense of Mormonism irrational, even if you are successfully using reason to navigate other aspects of life.

[_sock puppet]

This is oddly familiar to your "founder's list."

I would not think it so odd as I am the source for both. These items are historical facts that I find extremely damning of JSJr. The point of this thread, unlike the Founder's List is the shear weight of all these things when taken together. (The Founder's List was more of an assembly of points, that each in isolation from the rest is terribly troubling.)

Defenders may nibble here a little and there a little, but when you consider all the facts and circumstances as a whole, Mormon apologetics is a colossal failure.

[_Buffalo]

This is oddly familiar to your "founder's list."

Do you consider me rational? I'm educated, and I'm successful (by my own measure) in both family and professional life. Many irrational people cannot make these claims.

I find your belief in and defense of Mormonism irrational, even if you are successfully using reason to navigate other aspects of life.

It's called "compartmentalized thinking."

If Mormons treated everything the way they treat the church, they'd constantly be the victims of fraud (and many of them are). If they treated the church the way they treated anything else in life, many of them (but not all) who now believe the church to be true would conclude that it's false.

[_Simon Belmont]

when you consider all the facts and circumstances as a whole, Mormon apologetics is a colossal failure.

If it is so plainly obvious what a fraud Mormonism is, why is it so popular?

[_stemelbow]

Hey SP,

I have tried over the past 18 months on this board (before 'sock puppet' as 'nimrod') to consider that those defending the LDS Church and its claims to be reasonable, thinking people not completely given over to irrational, emotive driven behavior.

oh come on, SP, this is about as silly as any LDS claiming Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. Sadly, I don't' think anyone can takeyour opening line seriously.

Faced charges in court in 1826 for the then illegal practice in the State of New York of glass-looking for hire, using a magic rock and claiming evil spirits underground were moving the treasures, to prevent those digging from finding the treasures.

oh sheesh. Your every word seems to drip with bias against LDS. Who seriously reads this sentence and thinks you've somehow given this particular"issue" a fair shake?

I truly hate to come off as harsh (I'm sure you can take it), but seriously, SP, your posts, generally, aren't anywhere near reasonable, civil or responsive for that matter.

[_sock puppet]

when you consider all the facts and circumstances as a whole, Mormon apologetics is a colossal failure.

If it is so plainly obvious what a fraud Mormonism is, why is it so popular?

Why were mood rings and pet rocks so popular in the 1970s? Seriously, there is an emotional need to be 'taken care of'. Mormonism, like most religions, tell you how to live your life. It puts you back into the prepubescent, serene life. Less worries, just do as you're told. When one considers that he or she is truly responsible for his or her decisions, and thus station in life, it is sobering and for many, it is depressing. Much easier, emotionally, to just do what you are told, with the hope that some grand magistrate will after this life right all wrongs you have endured and suffered in this life. It is also comforting to think that death might not be final, that you might get to 'see grandma' again.

[_Buffalo]

Hey SP,

I have tried over the past 18 months on this board (before 'sock puppet' as 'nimrod') to consider that those defending the LDS Church and its claims to be reasonable, thinking people not completely given over to irrational, emotive driven behavior.

oh come on, SP, this is about as silly as any LDS claiming Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. Sadly, I don't' think anyone can takeyour opening line seriously.

Faced charges in court in 1826 for the then illegal practice in the State of New York of glass-looking for hire, using a magic rock and claiming evil spirits underground were moving the treasures, to prevent those digging from finding the treasures.

oh sheesh. Your every word seems to drip with bias against LDS. Who seriously reads this sentence and thinks you've somehow given this particular"issue" a fair shake?

I truly hate to come off as harsh (I'm sure you can take it), but seriously, SP, your posts, generally, aren't anywhere near reasonable, civil or responsive for that matter.

If there are mistakes in his assessment of the money digging issue (or any other) feel free to correct him.