Go back and look at the thread. Inconceivable changed his timeline to 1830. And you still chimed in. Is he wrong or do you agree with him?
If you don't agree with him, where is the evidence to refute him? In the book you sent me to read?
The claim was that there is no evidence of the FV prior to 1840. Apparently it has been shown, to everyone's agreement, that such is not the case. I fully endorse that view. I also recommended a book that deals with primary sources and the First Vision. My work here is done.
[Look at me running away! shifty goalposts=bad.]
One moment in annihilation's waste, one moment, of the well of life to taste- The stars are setting and the caravan starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste! -Omar Khayaam
Nevo wrote:Do you accept any of Joseph's visions for which there were witnesses?
That's a subject for another thread. As pertains to this one: I like the visions I believe in to be documented by unrelated observers. The First Vision isn't documented either by witnesses or proof. It's also interesting that the early members of the church evidently didn't know about it or at least didn't put much stock in it.
From my personal experience, teenagers have been known to make stuff up.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
An overwhelming majority, 83 percent, of public school and private religious school students admitted to lying to their parents about something significant, compared to 78 percent for those attending independent non-religious schools.
As I said: teenagers have been known to make stuff up.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
An overwhelming majority, 83 percent, of public school and private religious school students admitted to lying to their parents about something significant, compared to 78 percent for those attending independent non-religious schools.
As I said: teenagers have been known to make stuff up.
I appreciate you going to the trouble to find this statistic, but I wasn't really disputing the assertion that kids lie. Rather, I was trying to apply your own criteria (a bit clumsily, I admit) to your claim to know something "from personal experience". The point being that it is unreasonable to demand "witnesses" to establish the validity of a subjective experience (like a vision).
Nevo wrote:I appreciate you going to the trouble to find this statistic, but I wasn't really disputing the assertion that kids lie. Rather, I was trying to apply your own criteria (a bit clumsily, I admit) to your claim to know something "from personal experience". The point being that it is unreasonable to demand "witnesses" to establish the validity of a subjective experience (like a vision).
My point was, and I backed it with evidence, is that teenagers make stuff up... and Joseph was a teenager at the time of the FV. And we know his track record, later in life, when he lied bold faced from the pulpit to the people who trusted him. For that kind of man, I'd like witnesses and proof please.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
"Christian anti-Mormons are no different than that wonderful old man down the street who turns out to be a child molester." - Obiwan, nutjob Mormon apologist - Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:25 pm
Based on passages in the Book of Mormon which appear to contain fragments of Joseph's first vision experience, I suspect that the vision, or at least the claim to a vision, may be traced to the 1820-21. I therefore reject the suggestion that Smith invented the vision in the 1830s."
--Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 30.
Would it not be just as easy, and just as supportable, to hypothesize that Joseph took the fragments from the Book of Mormon that Vogel is talking about, and used them in a later synthesis of a First Vision story? Not only does it account for the existence of whatever fragments Vogel was talking about and the First Vision, but is also consistent with the deafening silence about the First Vision during the church's earlier years.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Sethbag wrote:Would it not be just as easy, and just as supportable, to hypothesize that Joseph took the fragments from the Book of Mormon that Vogel is talking about, and used them in a later synthesis of a First Vision story? Not only does it account for the existence of whatever fragments Vogel was talking about and the First Vision, but is also consistent with the deafening silence about the First Vision during the church's earlier years.
So you think it's reasonable to say that the Book of Mormon came first? Kind of a chicken/egg thing?
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.