The Mormon Apologist's Modus Operandi

[_maklelan]

You're the one who seemed to think it was okay to say Emma was a stupid minded mook who believed every thing her husband ever said or did. I took exception and showed why. If you don't like the discussion tangent, why did you feel the need to follow it?

I didn't "seem to think" anything of the sort. You must have me confused with someone else. I was glancing through comments and saw your incredibly naïve statement about Joseph Smith not having to do any real work and living the good life in a cushy pad on the church members' dime. I responded to that point alone and you equivocated. Your new point makes no sense at all.

Do NOT ever make the mistake of thinking you can tell me or anyone else on this board what to do.

Save your self-righteous indignation.

If you think my posts are a waste of time, don't read them. But do NOT tell me to stop anything, ever. This isn't MAD and you aren't God here.

Nor are you. When you make naïve statements, though, I'm going to correct you. When you attempt to assert some privileged perspective that you don't have, or imply you know something about this I don't know, I'm also going to correct you.

[_maklelan]

If either of these references said anything about the thickness of the plates or the condition of the back-side of the plates, I couldn't find it.

Did you read the first article?

Which source did you rely on to assert that the back-side of these plates did not show any sign of impression?

I've seen the backsides of both artifacts. The inscription was also etched, which does not leave an impression. Good photographs aren't readily available online, though. I would ask you to just take my word for it as someone who has worked with photographs of hundreds of ancient texts over the last two years for a book being published later this year, but I know you'd prefer to deny me that courtesy because it lets you grasp on to this silly notion you have that your assumptions and your cynicism mean something.

Which source did you rely on to assert that the plates were thin enough to "rustle"?

For the Ketef Hinnom scroll, the fact that it took them 3 years to find a way to unroll it without tearing apart, and the fact that it's about as thin as tin foil. For the shema inscription, the fact that it is just as thin. Stuff much thicker than tin foil can rustle.

I’m waiting for you to provide more information and verification that backs up your assertions. You have yet to give us any detailed verified information about the thickness of the plates you’ve shared, and what is on the back-side of the plates. It’s reasonable to expect to be asked to verify whatever assertions you make. Do you really think you can post a couple of pictures and make generalizations based on those pictures and not expect to be asked to provide verification of your assertions?

Let me know when you read the Barkay article. I'll see if I can dig up something else that I'm allowed to post here.

His description was good enough for LDS.org

I couldn't care less.

by the way, I think it's pretty funny that someone who has yet to offer any verification of his claims is crowing about me being "out of my league".

Based on the fact that you were just making up facts about what inscriptions on metal can and cannot do, and the fact that I've worked professionally with photographs of these artifacts, I can confidently say that you're not even in the same sport, much less the same league.

Your league, so far, just seems to consist of making assertions based on photographs that do not provide evidence for your assertions, providing links to articles that also do not provide evidence for your assertions, and dismissing a source the church's own website is content to use.

Verification of such technical details is simply not available to the public online. I've cited one article that gets into the details, and since you assert that I have not verified anything, I have to assume you didn't read it. You can think I'm a liar if that makes you feel like you're right, but there's not really anything I can about that if you won't even bother to check my references.

[_why me]

What perks?

Having a husband who was famous, who was revered, who wasn't required to work with his hands. Have you seen the picture of the Nauvoo Mansion? Not too shabby, for a man who worked only a handful of days all the days of his life.

The only problem with those perks were the extra women. And she left that behind when he died and she refused to move to the wilderness.

Famous? Perhaps. But he was certainly punished for his fame as was she. Revered? Hardly. Perhaps by his following but among outsiders he was hated and despised. And in the end, this had a tremendous impact on his and Emma's pyschological makeup. And if I remember correctly, Joseph did do physical labor even as prophet. He was no wus. Plus, he attempted to be a businessman and failed. And the Nauvoo Mansion if I remember correctly was also a guest house for visitors and members.

In the end, when he was murdered he didn't have a pot to do wee-wee in. I don't remember Emma getting rich from his death.

[_why me]

You're the one who seemed to think it was okay to say Emma was a stupid minded mook who believed every thing her husband ever said or did. I took exception and showed why. If you don't like the discussion tangent, why did you feel the need to follow it?


.

I said that Emma was no mook and that she would have known her husband was a fraud. Now lets see a raise of hands...who on this board believes that Ruth Madoff did not have a clue that her husband was a fraudster? Just as I thought...hardly any.

Emma would have known since she saw the translation process of Joseph Smith sticking his head in a hat and felt the plates beneath the linen. She would have known if he was a fraudster.

[_beastie]

Makelan,

Ok, I’m willing to take your word that these examples you shared were thin enough to be rolled up like a scroll with very light etchings on one side that didn’t distort the opposite side at all.

Your entire point is dependent upon disregarding the statements of witnesses who described the plates as being “engraved” - not etched or scratched upon.

Yet, oddly enough, the folks who supposedly saw these plates all asserted they were “engraved”. These individual plates measured only 7 by 8 inches, and, according to you, were thin enough to be rolled up like a scroll, with engravings on both sides which did not distort the opposite side, and yet still weighed about sixty pounds.

I wonder how the compression of the weight of the plates on one another would impact “etchings” or scratchings, versus deep engravings. Now, I’m no expert, but it does seem to me that if the pages were compressed against one another with significant weight – sixty pounds cumulative – the effect of that weight would erode the etchings.

For these gold plates to “rustle” when being flipped with the thumb, the individual plates would have to have about the thickness of modern Reynolds wrap. I encourage folks to try the experiment for themselves – I’m going to. I’m going to scratch some light etchings on some Reynolds wrap – light enough not to distort the other side and allow the same sort of etchings on the other side – and then put sixty pounds on top of it overnight. I can’t do the right experiment, which would be to pile lots of pages of Reynolds wrap on top of each other with light etchings, and pile sixty pounds on top of them and leave them in place for over a thousand years, of course.

Here’s some more descriptions:

"[The plates] were filled with . . . Egyptian characters. . . . The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving."36 —Joseph Smith Jr., Orson Pratt
"There were fine engravings on both sides."37 —John Whitmer
"We also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."38 —Eight Witnesses
"[T]he characters . . . were cut into the plates with some sharp instrument."39 —William Smith
"Upon each side of the leaves of these plates there were fine engravings, which were stained with a black, hard stain, so as to make the letters more legible and easier to be read."40 —Orson Pratt

So, according to mak, these descriptions really described characters that were scratched onto the surface, and not actually engraved by removing material – like “cutting into the plates with some sharp instrument”.

[_harmony]

I didn't "seem to think" anything of the sort. You must have me confused with someone else. I was glancing through comments and saw your incredibly naïve statement about Joseph Smith not having to do any real work and living the good life in a cushy pad on the church members' dime. I responded to that point alone and you equivocated. Your new point makes no sense at all.

What do you classify as "real work"? Please show a consistent employment record for Joseph Smith, which includes his extensive list of "real work". (Bilking people out of their money doesn't count as "real work".) I'm very interested to see it. And since he lived the vast majority of his life "on the members' dime", I don't see how you have much of a list. (Incidently, prison time doesn't count as "real work" either, but since while he was incarcerated, Emma and his family were taken care of by others, that does count as "on the members' dime".)

Do NOT ever make the mistake of thinking you can tell me or anyone else on this board what to do.

Save your self-righteous indignation.

I have a remarkable absense of self-righteousness. Indignation though... I have that in spades.

If you think my posts are a waste of time, don't read them. But do NOT tell me to stop anything, ever. This isn't MAD and you aren't God here.

Nor are you.

Actually, yes, I am. Closer than you, anyway. You might want to look under my name. Since Shades is God here...

When you make naïve statements, though, I'm going to correct you.

Then correct me. You thought you could tell me what to do. I corrected your mistake.

I'm waiting your correction.

When you attempt to assert some privileged perspective that you don't have, or imply you know something about this I don't know, I'm also going to correct you.

But you haven't, Mak. You have asserted, but you haven't corrected anything. Show me what ya got.

[_maklelan]

Makelan,

Ok, I’m willing to take your word that these examples you shared were thin enough to be rolled up like a scroll with very light etchings on one side that didn’t distort the opposite side at all.

Thank you.

Your entire point is dependent upon disregarding the statements of witnesses who described the plates as being “engraved” - not etched or scratched upon.

No dice. For clarification, though, "etching" in modern usage refers to using solvents to eat away at a surface, so that's not the best word. The word "engrave" literally means "to scratch or scrape," so the techniques employed by whoever created the Ketef Hinnom amulets and the shema scroll can accurately be called engravings, and they same technique is in no way precluded by that word in the accounts of the witnesses.

Yet, oddly enough, the folks who supposedly saw these plates all asserted they were “engraved”. These individual plates measured only 7 by 8 inches, and, according to you, were thin enough to be rolled up like a scroll, with engravings on both sides which did not distort the opposite side, and yet still weighed about sixty pounds.

Yup. Nothing you said is physically unlikely.

I wonder how the compression of the weight of the plates on one another would impact “etchings” or scratchings, versus deep engravings. Now, I’m no expert, but it does seem to me that if the pages were compressed against one another with significant weight – sixty pounds cumulative – the effect of that weight would erode the etchings.

Erosion would require friction, not pressure that left a net force of zero.

For these gold plates to “rustle” when being flipped with the thumb, the individual plates would have to have about the thickness of modern Reynolds wrap.

No, it can be thicker than that.

I encourage folks to try the experiment for themselves – I’m going to. I’m going to scratch some light etchings on some Reynolds wrap – light enough not to distort the other side and allow the same sort of etchings on the other side – and then put sixty pounds on top of it overnight. I can’t do the right experiment, which would be to pile lots of pages of Reynolds wrap on top of each other with light etchings, and pile sixty pounds on top of them and leave them in place for over a thousand years, of course.

Here’s some more descriptions:

"[The plates] were filled with . . . Egyptian characters. . . . The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving."36 —Joseph Smith Jr., Orson Pratt
"There were fine engravings on both sides."37 —John Whitmer
"We also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."38 —Eight Witnesses
"[T]he characters . . . were cut into the plates with some sharp instrument."39 —William Smith
"Upon each side of the leaves of these plates there were fine engravings, which were stained with a black, hard stain, so as to make the letters more legible and easier to be read."40 —Orson Pratt

So, according to mak, these descriptions really described characters that were scratched onto the surface, and not actually engraved by removing material – like “cutting into the plates with some sharp instrument”.

That perfectly describes scraping out the letters. Cutting out small amounts of material is how you scrape inscriptions into thin metal. You're not the first to contemplate this problem, and I'm not the first to show that it's not problematic, so you might as well just move on to something a little more in your wheelhouse.

[_maklelan]

What do you classify as "real work"? Please show a consistent employment record for Joseph Smith, which includes his extensive list of "real work".

Do you really mean to aver that "real work" entails employment? You've never worked on a farm or made extensive repairs to your own home before, have you? This is an utterly ludicrous inference, harm.

(Bilking people out of their money doesn't count as "real work".)

Joseph never had money. I don't know where you get the idea he was bilking people out of their money.

I'm very interested to see it. And since he lived the vast majority of his life "on the members' dime", I don't see how you have much of a list. (Incidently, prison time doesn't count as "real work" either, but since while he was incarcerated, Emma and his family were taken care of by others, that does count as "on the members' dime".)

And you find that reprehensible?

I have a remarkable absense of self-righteousness. Indignation though... I have that in spades.

Your statements conflict with that assertion.

Actually, yes, I am. Closer than you, anyway. You might want to look under my name. Since Shades is God here...

I wasn't aware that one's number of posts dictated some kind of unquestionable hierarchy.

I'm waiting your correction.

Take off the blinders.

But you haven't, Mak. You have asserted, but you haven't corrected anything. Show me what ya got.

I already explained why Joseph Smith cannot be asserted to have avoided hard labor. I'm not going to copy and paste dozens of journal entries because you're not willing to do your due diligence. If that irks you then grow up.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello,

I notice another tactic, which is being used by Mr. Maklelan. It is this:

If I type the words, then it must be so. It is upon the critic to disprove my assertions because I just proved my assertion by typing the words.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_Daniel Peterson]

Maklelan is right.

Harmony is wrong.

Maklelan knows what he's talking about.

Harmony . . . has poor DCNC4M(8) on her side.