Which way did they go Joe?

[_Blixa]

[...]
I need to follow up on the "mere rhetoric." : )

This reminded me of a quote that I came upon earlier this week in the book I'm reading:

"Those who were sophisticated enough always knew the apologetic demonstrations depend primarily upon the believer’s naïveté, rather than upon the soundness of the case. Rhetoric works only as long as one does not know how it works."

Hans Dieter Betz, “In Defense of the Spirit: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians as a Document of Early Christian Apologetics,” in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza ed., University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1976, Pg. 100 (Emphasis in original)

Heh. Though perhaps I could think of a few counter examples (Paul de Man, for one). And one could also say, what's not rhetoric? Where is pure discourse? Even, is anything outside of language/the symbolic order?

Trope-fully yours,

Blixa

[_charity]

I don't think Joseph's neighbors were money diggers. Just Joseph and some of his friends. You make it seem like money digging was like voting.

Pretty close to very common. This is from the Palmyra Herald newspaper of july 24, 1822. These excerpts are off the FAIR wiki (http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith_and_money_digging)


"In the young Joseph Smith's time and place, "money digging" was a popular, and sometimes respected activity. When Joseph was 16, the Palmyra Herald printed such remarks as:

"digging for money hid in the earth is a very common thing and in this state it is even considered as honorable and profitable employment"
"One gentleman...digging...ten to twelve years, found a sufficient quantity of money to build him a commodious house.
"another...dug up...fifty thousand dollars!"

Do you accept contemporaneous accounts?

[_karl61]

I don't think Joseph's neighbors were money diggers. Just Joseph and some of his friends. You make it seem like money digging was like voting.

Pretty close to very common. This is from the Palmyra Herald newspaper of july 24, 1822. These excerpts are off the FAIR wiki (http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith_and_money_digging)


"In the young Joseph Smith's time and place, "money digging" was a popular, and sometimes respected activity. When Joseph was 16, the Palmyra Herald printed such remarks as:

"digging for money hid in the earth is a very common thing and in this state it is even considered as honorable and profitable employment"
"One gentleman...digging...ten to twelve years, found a sufficient quantity of money to build him a commodious house.
"another...dug up...fifty thousand dollars!"

Do you accept contemporaneous accounts?

they don't try people in court for things honorable and profitable when you put those terms together.

[_charity]

Could be just about anywhere on the planet, I would guess.

Or at least a place that had, ummm, streams, and, ummm, fruit trees. You know, like anywhere in the middle latitudes?

Um, like the Arabian Peninsula where less than 1% is arable land?

If you go to wiki, you can look at the global map of arable land.

I helps to do a little research before yoiu post.

Oh, please, did I not say ... the middle latitudes.

To use your own source, wiki: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_latitudes)

The middle latitudes are between 33 degrees 33' 33" North and 66 degrees 33' 33" and 63 degrees 33' 33" South and 33 degrees 33' 33" Southlatitude , or, roughly, the earth's temperate zones between the tropics and the Arctic and Antarctic.

Now, if you look on a map, again on your source, wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Worl ... cs-non.png), you'll notice that the majority of the Arabian Peninsula lies below the northern middle latitudes.

The reason not much grows in that area in general, and the Arabian Penensula in particular, is because it is too near the equator. That's why all the growing is around the rivers. The rest is desert, or at least, extremely arid.

Research indeed.

It doesn't matter what you said. It matters where Lehi and his company found the land Bouintiful. And they said it ws in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. Oh, sure we could there are lots of treees in Maine, but if you are talking about living in Arizona, that is not even relevant.

[_charity]

I don't think Joseph's neighbors were money diggers. Just Joseph and some of his friends. You make it seem like money digging was like voting.

Pretty close to very common. This is from the Palmyra Herald newspaper of july 24, 1822. These excerpts are off the FAIR wiki (http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith_and_money_digging)


"In the young Joseph Smith's time and place, "money digging" was a popular, and sometimes respected activity. When Joseph was 16, the Palmyra Herald printed such remarks as:

"digging for money hid in the earth is a very common thing and in this state it is even considered as honorable and profitable employment"
"One gentleman...digging...ten to twelve years, found a sufficient quantity of money to build him a commodious house.
"another...dug up...fifty thousand dollars!"

Do you accept contemporaneous accounts?

they don't try people in court for things honorable and profitable when you put those terms together.

I see you don't accept contemporaneous accounts. You are stuck in your presentistic attitude.

[_harmony]

Fact: Joseph was a treasure hunter who swindled people.
Fact: The papyrus is a funeral poem.
Fact: Joseph married teenagers and other men's wives.

Those aren't piddly little things, charity. They shake the foundation of the church.

You have just demonstrated what I said.

Fact: Joseph, as many others in his time, looked for buried treasure.
Error: There are no facts which establish that he swindled people doing it. There are people who said he did. Those are not facts. So you have misinterpreted and misundestood.

Joseph was on trial for swindling. For promising something he couldn't deliver. He promised he could find treasure, and then he had a list of excuses as to why he couldn't deliver.

Fact: One of the small pieces of recovered papyrus is a funeral poem.
Error: You assume that the small piece (the recovered papyrus are estimated at being less than 20% of the papyri which were in Joseph's possession) is the fragment from which the Book of Abraham was produced.

Then produce the rest of the papyrus. You can't. The only piece is a piece of a funeral poem. Therefore, mine is the fact, and yours is the error.

Fact: Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage as commanded by God. Whatever God commands is right.
Error: You think, but you don't know it as a fact, that God didn't really command it.

You completely changed my fact. Either stick with my fact, or admit you can't refute it. Joseph married teenagers and other men's wives. Those are facts.

None of your "facts" means anything against the Church. Your interpretations, which are in your own mind, might. But that is irrelevant.

And as long as the church has gullible members like you, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be hamstrung. This church really could be what it was supposed to be and live up to what it claims to be... but not as long as members like you stubbornly maintain the status quo.

[_charity]

Joseph was on trial for swindling. For promising something he couldn't deliver. He promised he could find treasure, and then he had a list of excuses as to why he couldn't deliver.

See, harmony. You just made that up. There is no testimony from anyone. There is a charge. But the record does not include any testimony at all. No one said what Joseph did or didn't do. This is the trouble with alleging there are facts. First of all, there have to be some. Second, as you just did, you assumed facts that were not there.

Fact: One of the small pieces of recovered papyrus is a funeral poem.
Error: You assume that the small piece (the recovered papyrus are estimated at being less than 20% of the papyri which were in Joseph's possession) is the fragment from which the Book of Abraham was produced.

Then produce the rest of the papyrus. You can't. The only piece is a piece of a funeral poem. Therefore, mine is the fact, and yours is the error.

Harmony, you are having a bad day. Your arguments, while I don't generally accept them, are usually well thought out. This one is a crock. Does the fact that we don't have the Venus de Milo's arms mean she didn't have any in her original state? Think this through. There are contemporaneous accounts of the appearance of the papyri that don't match with the fragments recovered. This is pretty good evidence that they exist, whether or not they can be produced.

You do have a fact. There is a fragment of papyrus which is a funeral poem. You can't go beyond that fact.

Fact: Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage as commanded by God. Whatever God commands is right.
Error: You think, but you don't know it as a fact, that God didn't really command it.

You completely changed my fact. Either stick with my fact, or admit you can't refute it. Joseph married teenagers and other men's wives. Those are facts.

Plural marraige. That's the fact. You want to intrroduce interpretation in. Marrying teenage females. Bad. My great grandmother was 14 when she married my great-grandfather about the same time period. I was 19 when I got married. Oooohhhh. Teenager. Mary the mother of Jesus is thought to have been about 13 when Jesus was born. One of my daughters married at 18. TEENAGERS! Marrying or being sealed to other men's wives? You don't know what the FACT of the situation was. All evidence is that these were not consummated relaitonships. Sealings. Ritual only. That is the fact in evidence.

None of your "facts" means anything against the Church. Your interpretations, which are in your own mind, might. But that is irrelevant.

And as long as the church has gullible members like you, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be hamstrung. This church really could be what it was supposed to be and live up to what it claims to be... but not as long as members like you stubbornly maintain the status quo.

What can the Church be without us gullible members? You mean we could say Joseph Smith was all kinds of bad person and never was a prophet, that we don't really have men who receive revelation for us, that the Church was and is sexist and racist, that practicing homosexuals should be ordained bishops and stake presidents? Then what do we get to be? Just any other apostate Christian denomination which does not have the power to save. No thanks. I prefer the true Church to some apostate, popular, version.

[_the road to hana]

All evidence is that these were not consummated relaitonships. Sealings. Ritual only. That is the fact in evidence.

Whole other thread.

You mean we could say Joseph Smith was all kinds of bad person and never was a prophet, that we don't really have men who receive revelation for us, that the Church was and is sexist and racist, that practicing homosexuals should be ordained bishops and stake presidents? Then what do we get to be? Just any other apostate Christian denomination which does not have the power to save. No thanks. I prefer the true Church to some apostate, popular, version.

Interesting either-or.

[_sunstoned]

Plural marraige. That's the fact. You want to intrroduce interpretation in. Marrying teenage females. Bad. My great grandmother was 14 when she married my great-grandfather about the same time period. I was 19 when I got married. Oooohhhh. Teenager. Mary the mother of Jesus is thought to have been about 13 when Jesus was born. One of my daughters married at 18. TEENAGERS! Marrying or being sealed to other men's wives? You don't know what the FACT of the situation was. All evidence is that these were not consummated relaitonships. Sealings. Ritual only. That is the fact in evidence.

Charity,

Why the denial? Are you ashamed that God commanded Joseph Smith to poink a teenager in a hay barn? Oliver had a hard time with that one also. I think he called what he saw a dirty, nasty, filthy affair. I'm not sure what Emma called it, but I'm sure she was devastated. To believe that someone could be so deceitful to his wife and followers and claim it to be God's will just boggles the mind.

[_harmony]

Joseph was on trial for swindling. For promising something he couldn't deliver. He promised he could find treasure, and then he had a list of excuses as to why he couldn't deliver.

See, harmony. You just made that up. There is no testimony from anyone. There is a charge. But the record does not include any testimony at all. No one said what Joseph did or didn't do. This is the trouble with alleging there are facts. First of all, there have to be some. Second, as you just did, you assumed facts that were not there.

Where did I say there was testimony? Among the list of excuses I saw was that the treasure somehow slipped away into the earth. As if it ever existed at all? Naw. Charity, I can't believe that a woman with as much education and native intelligence as you obviously must have (no matter how deep it's buried) doesn't see a con coming. I at least have an excuse.

Fact: One of the small pieces of recovered papyrus is a funeral poem.
Error: You assume that the small piece (the recovered papyrus are estimated at being less than 20% of the papyri which were in Joseph's possession) is the fragment from which the Book of Abraham was produced.

Then produce the rest of the papyrus. You can't. The only piece is a piece of a funeral poem. Therefore, mine is the fact, and yours is the error.

Harmony, you are having a bad day. Your arguments, while I don't generally accept them, are usually well thought out. This one is a crock. Does the fact that we don't have the Venus de Milo's arms mean she didn't have any in her original state? Think this through. There are contemporaneous accounts of the appearance of the papyri that don't match with the fragments recovered. This is pretty good evidence that they exist, whether or not they can be produced.

That which cannot be produced cannot be used as evidence. Produce what you claim exists, charity... or understand that you have no leg to stand on. The papyrus that exists is a funeral poem. (And if you want to argue Book of Abraham, I suggest Kevin Graham, but I suspect the reason why you don't take him on is because he wipes the floor with you).

Fact: Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage as commanded by God. Whatever God commands is right.
Error: You think, but you don't know it as a fact, that God didn't really command it.

You completely changed my fact. Either stick with my fact, or admit you can't refute it. Joseph married teenagers and other men's wives. Those are facts.

Plural marraige. That's the fact. You want to intrroduce interpretation in. Marrying teenage females. Bad. My great grandmother was 14 when she married my great-grandfather about the same time period. I was 19 when I got married. Oooohhhh. Teenager. Mary the mother of Jesus is thought to have been about 13 when Jesus was born. One of my daughters married at 18. TEENAGERS! Marrying or being sealed to other men's wives? You don't know what the FACT of the situation was. All evidence is that these were not consummated relaitonships. Sealings. Ritual only. That is the fact in evidence.

Stick to the facts, charity. We're talking about Joseph marrying teenagers and other men's wives, not your GGmother. And the fact that those already-married wives claimed marital relations in their personal journals of course has no bearing on your so-called rituals. No, of course not. Sealings alone are still despicable, charity. Don't you get that? Those husbands were married to their wives; they loved their wives; they deserved to be sealed them, not have them stolen by Joseph. Don't you get that? Have you so far gone in your worship of Joseph that you can't see how despicable a man he was?

None of your "facts" means anything against the Church. Your interpretations, which are in your own mind, might. But that is irrelevant.

And as long as the church has gullible members like you, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be hamstrung. This church really could be what it was supposed to be and live up to what it claims to be... but not as long as members like you stubbornly maintain the status quo.

What can the Church be without us gullible members? You mean we could say Joseph Smith was all kinds of bad person and never was a prophet, that we don't really have men who receive revelation for us, that the Church was and is sexist and racist, that practicing homosexuals should be ordained bishops and stake presidents? Then what do we get to be? Just any other apostate Christian denomination which does not have the power to save. No thanks. I prefer the true Church to some apostate, popular, version.

Oh, no. We're not going there. I never said Joseph wasn't a prophet. I said he wasn't the lily-white almost-perfect man you worship. And I presented just a few of the many facts that exist to support my belief. You on the other hand are relying on non-existent evidence to bolster your case.

What the church could be and what the church is is two entirely different things. And that's another thread.