Droopy ~ Your questions:
Droopy wrote:1.The First Vision.
It's possible that someone or something did appear to Joseph Smith in the grove. I don't believe it was God the Father & Jesus Christ telling Joseph Smith that all other Christian churches were wrong---I think that was added as Joseph Smith's theology and ecclesiology developed---but I'm not opposed to the idea that Joseph did really have some visionary experience there. The entirety of the 1832 account of the First Vision could have really happened and it would be completely consistent with my own theological worldview.
But there seems to be a problem of logical consistency here. You assert that elements of the 1832 are not compatible with your general worldview, and then claim immediately afterword that the entire account is. The 1832 version contains, among other things:
I found that <mankind> did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and living faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ …
the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not (my) commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me
The concept of the Great Apostasy and the need for a restoration of ministerial authority exists, in fundamental form, in the 1832 account. As later versions can be easily seen as nothing more than expansions of the original experience for different audiences and emphasizing different aspects of the same experience, it would appear that, in accepting the 1832 version, one must accept at least the possibility that the later versions are simply more inclusive and/or more detailed accounts of the whole. If you've already accepted the possibly of a vision, per se, then it would seem hasty to presume such an experience would not be parceled out, over time, as different audiences became open to the implications and ideas expressed in the totality of such an experience, an experience which may have gone on for hours, as far as we know.
Droopy wrote:2.The literal visit of Moroni to Joseph Smith and the physical reality of the gold plates.
I don't believe that it happened. I don't know whether Joseph Smith intentionally made it all up to deceive people, whether he made it all up because he honestly believed in the power of his message and the need to augment that message (i .e. "pious fraud), or had some kind of Beautiful Mind-style mental illness that made him think it was real. I'm pretty apathetic on the matter.
Well, that's a pretty classic Signature Books kind of naturalistic/psychological explanation for pretty much all of Joseph's metaphysical experiences leading to the origin of the church. I would have to term this "anti-Mormon" in the sense that it directly confronts and denies core elements of what LDS understand to be the historic events leading to the restoration of the gospel.
Droopy wrote:3.The personal visitation to Joseph Smith and others of physical, resurrected beings, such as Moses, Abraham, Noah, Enoch, Peter, James, and John etc., to restore keys and ordinances.
I don't believe that it happened and I don't believe in "priesthood" in the sense that Mormons teach it. I think the accounts of his ordinations to priesthoods by resurrected beings were added years later to deal with challenges to his authority in the church. Even Richard Bushman has stated that "the late appearance of these accounts raises the possibility of later fabrication" (RSR 75). I imagine it's a pretty standard take on the matter among non-LDS historians.
So this is, again, a direct oppositional perspective to that of the Church and the personal records of events left by the Church's founders. This would have to be understood as contra-Mormon, as the Church's origin claims must be rejected outright if your position is adopted.
Bushman is a careful scholar and, as far as I know, a faithful member. You have here implied that he is open to the possibility that the entire origin narrative of his religion, as well as its devine ministerial authority (priesthood), which he himself holds, is a fabrication. Are you sure you want to go there? Is it not rather quite possible that Bushman is simply, as a rigorous scholar, playing a kind of Devil's advocate by allowing that outside observers, looking at the same evidence, might conclude that the evidence supports later fabrication?
He doesn't say that it does, but allows intellectually honest people outside the Church to follow what the evidence appears to suggest, from within one kind of intellectual template.
"The doctrine of preexistence."
I don't believe that it happened, although I don't think there's anything in the Bible that contradicts it.
Kevin Barney's response to Chapter 3 of James Patrick Holding's
The Mormon Defenders contains some work on non-LDS Christians who have taught preexistence.
Some of the major Church Fathers taught it, I am quite aware. But if you don't accept this core concept, then this again, is "contra" to settled church teaching.
Droopy wrote:The whole "misogyny" claim I consider to be nothing more than a libel, and a deeply tendentious, if not mendacious one at that.
Well, you're wrong on all counts. And the fact that I critiqued a single Latter-day Saint whose behavior I strenuously objected to (and believed to be very much out of harmony with the teachings of his church) does not make me an "anti-Mormon."
No, I'm not wrong on any counts. I looked at all the evidence you posted, saw a few things that were improper and over-the-top on Will's part, some claims about him that were highly exaggerated and way overwrought, and other things that were clearly a psychological ploy, overwrought to the extent that I suspected a strong feminist streak in the author of the claims of "misogyny." Mysogyny, is, in the way you and others used it against Will, and like "racist," "sexist," and "homophobe," politically correct throwaway lines used to poison the well against existential ideological threats that one feels cannot be critically examined and your case made through rational argument.
When you then claim that you do not argue from the Left, when using its tactics and intellectual categories, are not feminist, when using its intellectual categories and language, and not anti-Mormon when much of your personal views are, indeed, in strong contradiction to core LDS truth claims, and you spend substantial time here on a notorious anti-Mormon message board supporting and boostering the views and psychology of other vehement anti-Mormons, you send mixed messages and create suspicions that you're trying to be all things to everyone while hiding your core perspectives behind a mask of scholarly disinterest.
Perhaps this is part of the reason, as well as the way you tend to retreat behind a wall of snark when challenged strongly, why others here find you a divisive figure.
I don't even remember my participation in that thread. Over a year ago, and one of countless threads on Joseph's sex life? Clearly, some people invest much more time and intellectual energy in this place than I do. My participation, since the Will dogpile, has been, at the very best, minimal.
I don't deny having feminist inclinations or critiquing the way the LDS church treats women, just as I critique the way many evangelical denominations treat women.
But you balked when I first made the claim a long time back. So too you reacted when I openly claimed you had leftist, secularist views. Now, you admit to being an "egalitarian," (i.e., socialist). You are not "anti-Mormon," and yet hold views that would, if accepted, unravel the entire body of core truth claims upon which the Church is erected.
All very interesting.
Until it becomes mind numbingly boring.
I have a daughter who is a member of record with the church and attends the LDS church with her father at least twice a month. I think I would be an irresponsible parent if I didn't keep tabs on what others are teaching my daughter about her identity. None of that makes me "anti-Mormon"
Based on numerous positions you've taken in this forum, I think reasonable people could disagree with this characterization.
though, or else I would also be "anti-evangelical." What it makes me is "anti-patriarchy," or maybe "anti-male-privilege."
Classic, textbook radical feminist intellectual categories (the mythical "patriarchy" standing in here for the "bourgeois" in an earlier template from which much of the philosophical substructure of second and third wave feminism was taken)
I have repeatedly clarified that a good number of feminists wouldn't think I am a feminist because I'm pro-life. I don't have a problem identifying as a feminist, but many of them would object.
So here, again, you are and you aren't. Reminds me of that old Chuck Berry song, Reelin' and Rockin':
"Sometimes I will, then again I think I won't
Sometimes I will, then again I think I won't
Sometimes I do, then again I think I don't"
Yeah, that's right Droopy, I'm a "leftist." The kind of "leftist" who can count the number of Democrats that she's voted for on one hand.
Whatever. I'm not nearly as interested in your cries of foul as I am in the arguments you actually make here.