Book of Mormon Transliteration

[_jfro18]

Last night I asked my wife later in the evening just before bed, "Where do you think the words came from that Joseph was reading off of the seerstone in the hat?" She looked at me like, "Huh?" I'm not sure that most members of the church have really even thought about the translation process except to default to the position that God was behind it. I would guess that most members would also default to Moroni being directly involved in the appearance of the words on the seerstone since he was the one that had most of the preparatory interviews/interactions with Joseph.

I think most members would give you a "huh" in response to asking to explain the translation process, especially once they realize it was done with a stone in a hat.

The one thing I would LOVE to do would be to do focus groups of our local ward in asking what each member knows of the history and then what they think it means. I contend that most members have no idea of these types of things because they're taught it was done with plates and through the power of God... but I guess that's another issue.

But to your point, I think your wife's reaction is going to be very similar to anyone else's who isn't spending time researching this stuff beyond the surface. It's when you start really trying to make sense of it that things go south for a lot of people.

[_mentalgymnast]

How do you explain the qualitatively different spiritual confirmations that people receive about the truthfulness of other religions and other religious scripts, such as the FLDS?

That's a question I've thought about a LOT and commented on multiple times on this board. You can go back and look if you're interested in my take. Or at least what it was at the time I commented.

I'd like to keep this thread on topic in regards to looking at Book of Mormon translation/transliteration. Up to this point things have remained pretty much on track in that respect.

Regards,
MG

[_I have a question]

How do you explain the qualitatively different spiritual confirmations that people receive about the truthfulness of other religions and other religious scripts, such as the FLDS?

That's a question I've thought about a LOT and commented on multiple times on this board. You can go back and look if you're interested in my take. Or at least what it was at the time I commented.

I'd like to keep this thread on topic in regards to looking at Book of Mormon translation/transliteration. Up to this point things have remained pretty much on track in that respect.

Regards,
MG

It was you who introduced the subject of spiritual confirmations in relation to the Book of Mormon, you introduced Moroni’s promise (but got the wording wrong), I was responding to what you posted.

[_jfro18]

It was you who introduced the subject of spiritual confirmations in relation to the Book of Mormon, you introduced Moroni’s promise (but got the wording wrong), I was responding to what you posted.

Not just this, but by using spiritual confirmations as your rationale for coming up with these different theories to try and make the language work, it's within the topic given the lengths you're going through with spiritual committees and Moroni's promise.

It's an important conversation although one that we'll never be able to find agreement on.

[_Lemmie]

Joseph understood how easy it was to manipulate emotion into belief.

I think this is kind of a cop out. But you're right in the sense that from your perspective an emotional response to stimuli is always that....

It's kind of hard to produce an emotional response that can be mistaken for the Spirit when praying on one's own without the influence of other stimuli.

I disagree with you mentalgymnast, the spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that it is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual.

Exactly. I hope Gadianton doesn't mind if I quote a comment he made in a thread about these religious 'feelings.' It has always resonated with me, and bears repeating, especially in a thread where these feelings are used in the place of facts about the physical process of producing the Book of Mormon:

The idea of spiritual experiences are dispensable, and while people fool themselves through feelings and perhaps worse through the belief their feelings determine base reality, the religious will invariably find a way to fool themselves.

The allure of feelings is all remedial philosophy, and how to ground truth via subject discerning object....

Science has all but abandoned a bottom-up approach for top down, but the draw of a "world out there" that can be personally accessed is persistently frustratioing, and the spirit idea is an unfalsifiable, easy answer that does have a certain draw for the unaware.

[From thread titled: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?
viewtopic.php?p=1085828#p1085828 ]

[_Lemmie]

Re: the flashdrive. Right. They had a flash drive but not computers.

Joseph and the translating committee didn't have access to computers however.

C'mon. Lighten up a bit.

Does this mean you want people to overlook the logical inconsistencies in your arguments? Why?

[_I have a question]

How can adult members now think that a failed treasure seeking rock was the magical projector screen used to display verbatim the Book of Mormon, but that the ancient gold plates that Joseph had to wait four years to receive and the special translating instruments (ancient magic spectacles) that were specifically set aside and hidden along with the gold plates for the purpose of keeping the record safe for over a thousand years and which they previous believed were the devices used, were actually not used?

If a member received a spiritual confirmation of the Book of Mormon based on the understanding that the Book of Mormon was produced by a traditional translation by Joseph using magic ancient spectacles to read the characters on the plates, and they stood up in a testimony meeting and stated they “knew of a surety” Joseph did it that way because they’ve had a spiritual confirmation of that, we’re they lying? Was the spirit lying?

[_jfro18]

If a member received a spiritual confirmation of the Book of Mormon based on the understanding that the Book of Mormon was produced by a traditional translation by Joseph using magic ancient spectacles to read the characters on the plates, and they stood up in a testimony meeting and stated they “knew of a surety” Joseph did it that way because they’ve had a spiritual confirmation of that, we’re they lying? Was the spirit lying?

And this is really the problem because my confirmation was based on the missionaries telling me the story of the gold plates and then reading it with Moroni's promise.

Once you find out the way you were taught was a lie, it makes you question what that confirmation was.

The same goes for any religion or for that matter any relationship where you feel so emotionally positive it's the right person for you.

[_Lemmie]

If a member received a spiritual confirmation of the Book of Mormon based on the understanding that the Book of Mormon was produced by a traditional translation by Joseph using magic ancient spectacles to read the characters on the plates, and they stood up in a testimony meeting and stated they “knew of a surety” Joseph did it that way because they’ve had a spiritual confirmation of that, we’re they lying? Was the spirit lying?

And this is really the problem because my confirmation was based on the missionaries telling me the story of the gold plates and then reading it with Moroni's promise.

Once you find out the way you were taught was a lie, it makes you question what that confirmation was.

The same goes for any religion or for that matter any relationship where you feel so emotionally positive it's the right person for you.

Recently, a TBM on this board made a "milk before meat" comment, jokingly saying that "you don't want to scare them away BEFORE they believe!"

This just made me sick to my stomach, because of its implications. Hooking somebody through an emotional sense of belief, all the while knowing that they wouldn't join the lds church if they really knew what they were doing, is dishonest and manipulative in the extreme. It's inexcusable.

[Guest]

What I'm saying is that in the case of the Book of Mormon I find it interesting that the reader is encouraged to actually ask God whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. That's really putting things on the line. What a bold thing to do. Yes, feelings can be manufactured and con men are in the business of playing upon people's feelings.

It's not bold at all. That's one of the main tools of the religious fraud. It's called self delusion. It doesn't work on everyone but con men already know they only need a few to be successful.

But to read a book and pray about it in private to God is something different. It is something between God and His child. There are no intermediaries in this case. One knows if they have had a witness vs. a warm fuzzy. I think that many many folks have had the warm fuzzies. I have. I'm sure you have too. Not as many have had an actual spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost. The process may take time and surely takes a lot of effort.

Again it's called self delusion, and one of your big self delusions is the idea that warm fuzzies/emotions are the only sensation the body is capable of producing and anything else must be supernatural. You have never explained how you would reasonably be able to determine this, and even though I have asked many times, you seem incapable of understanding that a lot of people are not talking about just warm fuzzies when they talk about sensory experiences they have had.

Themis, I can't tell you or anyone else the difference between a warm fuzzy feeling and an actual witness or influence of the Spirit. But I do know that there is a difference. And I know that different people seeking spiritual enlightenment make claims to having received that enlightenment. I can't speak for them. I can only speak for myself and others who I know very well.

Your problem is still not understanding that I am not saying there are not differences between what you like to call warm fuzzies and other sensory experiences people have. I am asking how you know those sensory experiences cannot be created by the body and how you know they come from an unseen supernatural entity.

Personally, I don't think Moroni's promise was inserted within the Book of Mormon to deceive or "con" anyone. I think it was put there as an actual challenge to 'put it all on the line' and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true.

I think Josephs experiences taught him better then you how people can self delude to create more then just warm fuzzies. Religions the world over are built on this, so it makes perfect sense he would use it.