Witnesses to fraud

[_why me]

But, Harm....I thought your position was that you believed in the Book of Mormon. You didn't feel that Joseph became a fallen prophet until AFTER Fanny.....that the Book of Mormon was the ONE honest, prophetic work he accomplished.

If that is the case, why would the witnesses be lying?

And, if Joseph WAS scamming everyone about the Book of Mormon as well as everything else, then I suppose I do have to question why you have any conviction of the truthfulness of the LDS gospel at all? How can the Book of Mormon be a second testimony of Jesus Christ if it is completely false?

I had a hard time understanding harmony's position also. If she were a man, I would claim that she has been caught with her pants down on this one. Hopefully she has a good explanation.

[_why me]

...David's role in Missouri
...

As I said, he kept quiet because he sincerely believed that the problems he saw in the Church
would eventually be resolved. Same reason Oliver Cowdery did not bring Smith to trial before
a bishop's court or high council, for his violation of the law of the Church with the Alger girl.

Whatever else you may say of them, David and Oliver considered themselves to be faithful
Latter Day Saints at the time of their deaths. But, as Whitmer testified, Smith was a fallen prophet.
I think that much the same conclusion could be extracted from the compiled utterances of Harris
and Cowdery.

But, if the basic question is, why did they not "renig" -- then the basic answer must be "faith."

UD

Not just faith. They could not deny what they saw and experienced. What they thought of Smith later is irrelevant. However, if it were all a fraud, they would have come clean with the fraud. Both were dissatisfied with Joseph. Oliver returned after his death but still during the time of dissatisfaction they both had ample opportunity to make hay of a fraud, if they knew a fraud existed.

[Guest]

.

It is not that they DID NOT witness faith-deflating events within the early church: it's more that they
had a faith which allowed for the possibility that those problems "would eventually be put right. "

UD

And this has to do with...? The point: there is no recantation of what they saw as witnesses to the Book of Mormon. We humans are born doubters and over time, doubt can reign supreme. But I see no doubt in the witnesses. Even John could not deny what he saw and felt. Now he could well say....who knows...but he saw what he saw. Doubt is something that you are a pro about. You cast doubt like Johnny Appleseed casting apple seeds over the land. And that is fine. But...we need to see the diversions that you do create.

[_why me]

.

It is not that they DID NOT witness faith-deflating events within the early church: it's more that they
had a faith which allowed for the possibility that those problems "would eventually be put right. "

UD

And this has to do with...? The point: there is no recantation of what they saw as witnesses to the Book of Mormon. We humans are born doubters and over time, doubt can reign supreme. But I see no doubt in the witnesses. Even John could not deny what he saw and felt. Now he could well say....who knows...bt he saw what he saw. Doubt is something that you are a pro about. You cast doubt like Johnny Appleseed casting apple seeds over the land. And that is fine. But...we need to see the diversions that you do create.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
They could not deny what they saw and experienced. What they thought of Smith later is irrelevant.
...

They experienced Smith.

A good example of a dedicated follower, whom Smith alienated, is his brother-in-law, Benjamin Winchester:

"What kind of man was Smith?

"I have entertained him for a month at a time while we lived in Philadelphia, while he was hiding from a mob. There was not a particle of true religion in him. His talk was never about anything pure or elevating. He liked to talk about be[ing] a great general or leader, and commanding people, and getting before the public. He could not reason on anything. He was well versed in Billingsgate vocabulary. Well versed in blackguard language for his evidences. He liked to use slang and cutting remarks on his persecutors. He loved to give orders to the church and to show authority. As a boy he was wild and curious. His mother and father expected great things of him. He carried what he called a 'Peep stone' through which he claimed to see hidden treasure & etc. This is what he afterwards called his 'Urim and Thummem.' Finally he took the notion to get up a book. Then he claimed to have made the discovery of the plates.
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1900winc.htm
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/UT ... htm#092289

Other followers, who were less and less impressed with Smith, as they grew to know him better,
included the Law brothers, David Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon and Ebenezer Robinson.

Benjamin Winchester was a truly dedicated member -- he researched and wrote the first LDS rebuttal
of the Spalding authorship claims -- did much missionary work in Pennsylvania -- edited and published
an early church periodical, etc. etc. Since his sister was one of Smith's plural wives, Benjamin had a
good opportunity to see the man up close, away from the public eye. He did "not deny what they saw
and experienced" -- and what he heard and experienced was Smith in private life.

UD

[_Danna]

I'm also unimpressed by airy (but extraordinarily selective and agenda-driven) a priori dismissals of witness testimony. I strongly suspect that, were you to clearly see somebody you recognized burgling your house or stealing your hubcaps and car radio, it wouldn't sit well with you if the police declared your eyewitness account irrelevant on the grounds that such accounts are notoriously unreliable.

No, no one likes to have their memory questioned. The fact remains that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. If modern-day 'counsellors' can counsel clients into full-blown belief of alien abduction on no more than their (the counsellors) personal belief in AA and a list of 'symptoms', what could JSjr do if he was actually trying to induce belief in a visiting angel? Even working within the constraints of somewhat restrictive ethics boards, a number of my colleagues, and myself on the odd occasion, have induced people to report false memories of all manner of events.

Do you know of any research indicating that eyewitnesses are invariably reliable? Do you have any indication the three witnesses had some extraordinary defence against suggestion, obeisance to (prophetic) authority, will to believe, the sunk-cost effect, simple human learning heuristics, and imagination inflation?

[_Daniel Peterson]

The fact remains that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.

But we rely on it constantly, every day. Because, on the whole, it's reliable.

Try living your life as if you can't depend at all, or even substantially, on what you yourself have seen or heard. Try living it as if you needed to reject all or virtually all that your friends, acqaintances, and others say they've seen and heard.

Seriously. Try it for a day or two.

Hyperskepticism about the reliability of witness testimony in the case of the Book of Mormon is ideologically driven. Period.

We're dealing with history and historical data here, not with syllogistic patterns in deductive logic.

Do you know of any research indicating that eyewitnesses are invariably reliable?

I know of no research suggesting that anything human is "invariably reliable."

With such language, you raise the bar absurdly high.

I don't have to believe in inerrancy of any kind in order to function reasonably well in life.

Do you have any indication the three witnesses had some extraordinary defence against suggestion, obeisance to (prophetic) authority, will to believe, the sunk-cost effect, simple human learning heuristics, and imagination inflation?

I'm not obliged to present evidence of any "extraordinary defence."

It's quite enough to conclude, as the evidence abundantly warrants, that they were honest, sane, intelligent men who were presented with plenty of opportunities over the course of decades to back away from their often-expressed testimonies, but did not.

[_why me]

Other followers, who were less and less impressed with Smith, as they grew to know him better,
included the Law brothers, David Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon and Ebenezer Robinson.

Benjamin Winchester was a truly dedicated member -- he researched and wrote the first LDS rebuttal
of the Spalding authorship claims -- did much missionary work in Pennsylvania -- edited and published
an early church periodical, etc. etc. Since his sister was one of Smith's plural wives, Benjamin had a
good opportunity to see the man up close, away from the public eye. He did "not deny what they saw
and experienced" -- and what he heard and experienced was Smith in private life.

UD

I will bet my shorts that when he said what he said, he was not a member of the LDS church. For example, he took the notion to get up a book and then he claimed to made the discovery of the plates does not sound like an active member to me.

Also, he seems like a guy with an axe to grind. Good ol' Joseph Smith was not very careful for a fraudster. A fraudster would be much more guarded in language as would a believer. However, Joseph Smith was a rough stone and he admitted this himself. He was a frontier spirit with the habits of a frontier man. I am sure that some people expected to find a mystic, someone is constant prayer living in a cloistered environment. Instead what they found was an avid wrestler and a man of the frontier a man who would rather hang out with men who would curse up a storm, as long as they were not hypocrites. Then, with people who were self righteous and hypocritical.

[_harmony]

But, Harm....I thought your position was that you believed in the Book of Mormon. You didn't feel that Joseph became a fallen prophet until AFTER Fanny.....that the Book of Mormon was the ONE honest, prophetic work he accomplished.

If that is the case, why would the witnesses be lying?

And, if Joseph WAS scamming everyone about the Book of Mormon as well as everything else, then I suppose I do have to question why you have any conviction of the truthfulness of the LDS gospel at all? How can the Book of Mormon be a second testimony of Jesus Christ if it is completely false?

I'm not trying to put you on the spot here...I'm trying to understand your position. Frankly, I think your position makes a lot of sense. I have always had problems with D&C section 132.

This thread isn't about my testimony, much as you and Daniel and why me would like it to be, so I'll only comment once. I'd like the thread to be about the witnesses, what they sincerely thought they were witnessing, and the reliability of witnesses due to a number of factors.

I believe the Book of Mormon was given to Joseph to enrich us. God's gift to us, as it were, through Joseph. It was, I believe, supposed to be Joseph's only gift. And it truly is a marvelous work and a wonder. It matters little to me if it's historically accurate, nor do I care by what means it was developed. When I read things like the birth of Christ in the Book of Mormon, my soul resonates with the words and the meaning, thus it matters to me in ways the other books Joseph had a hand in do not. Which is, I suppose, why I am suspicious of the other books. I simply don't pick up the same wonderful spirit from the other books.

I believe Joseph went on to do many great and wonderful things, after he delivered God's gift to us, until he got caught up in the process instead of the content, and decided that what was important was his will instead of God's will. He was not the most profitable servant, and I believe that accounts for his early and untimely death. Had he been allowed to live out his life, I have no doubt he would have destroyed the church, and that would have been a shame, since I think that despite it's many faults and historical castastrophes, it continues to evolve into something that can be a conduit for God to use when speaking to his children. But to say that Joseph developed into an imperfect vessel is not an exaggeration.

I think the whole story of the golden plates isn't as it appears on the surface. I think the witnesses were sincere and honest when they reported what they saw, despite the backgrounds of some of them. I just don't think there's anything to support that what they think they saw is what has been reported to us. And until someone can produce the gold plates themselves, I'm afraid that suspicion will likely continue.

But then, I think if the walls of Jericho actually did fall down, it wasn't because the Isrealites had anything to do with it. I don't believe the Red Sea parted either, nor do I believe in any of the 7 plagues. I don't think Paul's experience was what was finally written, nor do I believe the circumstances around Christ's birth were quite what was written. Everything that is written, from Biblical stories to Book of Mormon stories, comes to us via the minds of men. God never picked up a writing utensil. Never dipped a pen into ink. We only have his word via the minds of men, and we can take it or leave it, take pieces or take the whole, believe part and disbelieve other parts. We are, as they were, discerning, intelligent, faithful people. If my relationship with God was purely based on the Book of Mormon or the Bible, I'd be an unprofitable servant too (and I may be that anyway, just as Joseph was).

[_harmony]

It's quite enough to conclude, as the evidence abundantly warrants, that they were honest, sane, intelligent men who were presented with plenty of opportunities over the course of decades to back away from their often-expressed testimonies, but did not.

And why would they, if they believed that what they saw was what they were told they were seeing? That doesn't make what they saw actually what they thought they were seeing though.

You place a lot of weight on their testimony, so much so that you wrote about it and probably will do so again. But even you can't prove that what they saw was actually what they thought they saw (unless, of course, you have the real gold plates hidden in your hallway closet).