The Mormon Apologist's Modus Operandi

[_wenglund]

Joseph Smith performed manual labor until he discovered the attractive alternative of conning people.

There is no need for you to continue reaffirming your bigotry with pejoritive caricatures like this. It is already quite evident. I'm just letting you know so as to save you some time--that is, unless this is just your way of trying to get negative attention.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_maklelan]

Emma Smith Bidamon Interview with Joseph Smith III, February 1879 p 539

The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at con=cealment, wrapped in a small linen <table> cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I have felt of the plates, as they lay on the table, tracing their outline [p. 8] and shape. They seemed to be pliable like st thick paper, and would rustle <with a mettalic sound> when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.

Joseph Smith III to Mrs. E. Horton, 7 March 1900

“My mother [Emma Smith] told me that she saw the plates in the sack, for they lay on a small table in their living room in their cabin on her father’s farm, and she would lift and move them when she swept and dusted the room and furniture. She even thumbed the leaves as one does the leaves of a book, and they rustled with a metalic sound.

And so you mean to assert they meant bending the pages rubbing against each other and not laterally sliding the papers against each other. I see. And what evidence do you have to preclude the latter?

You're the one asserting it's possible, and you insinuate that you have verified this through searching "elsewhere."

Academic articles and books that are not available to the public online. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

So why is it my job to provide evidence to support your assertions?

Did you read the first article I cited (by Barkay)? A simple yes or no will suffice.

[_Calculus Crusader]

Joseph Smith performed manual labor until he discovered the attractive alternative of conning people.

That must have happened, at the very least, more than two years after the establishment of the Church in April 1830.

Here is Brigham Young's account of his first meeting with the president of the Church, in the summer of 1832, when he and his brother Joseph and and his friend Heber Kimball traveled to Kirtland, Ohio :

"We went to his [Joseph Smith's] father's house, and learned that he [Joseph Smith] was in the woods, chopping. We immediately repaired to the woods, where we found the Prophet, and two or three of his brothers, chopping and hauling wood."

When exactly, based on your intimate knowledge of his biography, CC, do you think that Joseph Smith gave up actually working? He only has twelve more years, after the summer of 1832 and before his murder by an anti-Mormon mob, in which to do it. Please be specific.

Performing chores around your house or for your family members is quite different than working as a manual laborer for a living. It's the latter that I had in mind.

[_Calculus Crusader]

Joseph Smith performed manual labor until he discovered the attractive alternative of conning people.

There is no need for you to continue reaffirming your bigotry with pejoritive caricatures like this. It is already quite evident. I'm just letting you know so as to save you some time--that is, unless this is just your way of trying to get negative attention.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

BIGOT, n.
One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

[_beastie]

And so you mean to assert they meant bending the pages rubbing against each other and not laterally sliding the papers against each other. I see. And what evidence do you have to preclude the latter?

I’m not asserting anything. I am quoting the statement Emma made on the subject, which her son also referenced. When you “thumb through the pages of a book”, you flip through the pages. You don’t “laterally slide the papers against each other.” She specifically stated they were about the thickness of thick paper. Or is this another witness statement you allow yourself to ignore as needed, like Pratt’s?

Academic articles and books that are not available to the public online. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

LOL. When I make an assertion, I accept that it’s my responsibility to provide evidence to support that assertion from reliable sources. I’ve done so many, many times in the past. See my website for examples.

Mormonmesoamerica.com

You seem to think that you ought to have the privilege of making assertions and then not providing evidence to support those assertions, and, instead, asserting that it’s your opponent’s job to verify those assertions for you. It doesn’t work that way. Really, it doesn’t.

Did you read the first article I cited (by Barkay)? A simple yes or no will suffice.

YES. I even read it twice because you claimed it provided evidence of your assertion. Help me out by copying and pasting the sentences that you believe support your assertion. Or is that my job, too?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Performing chores around your house or for your family members is quite different than working as a manual laborer for a living. It's the latter that I had in mind.

So you imagine that the wood they were chopping and hauling in the summer of 1832 was just some of the shrubbery around their cute little suburban cottage? Maybe they were planning to put in a backyard patio or a water feature, and didn't want to have to hire illegal Mexican labor?

These were farmers, CC. They were clearing fields. Just as they had in New York. Just as I documented.

You're really difficult to take seriously. And that's too bad, because you're not without some intelligence.

[_Calculus Crusader]

Performing chores around your house or for your family members is quite different than working as a manual laborer for a living. It's the latter that I had in mind.

So you imagine that the wood they were chopping and hauling in the summer of 1832 was just some of the shrubbery around their cute little suburban cottage? Maybe they were planning to put in a backyard patio or a water feature, and didn't want to have to hire illegal Mexican labor?

These were farmers, CC. They were clearing fields. Just as they had in New York. Just as I documented.

You're really difficult to take seriously. And that's too bad, because you're not without some intelligence.

I did not suggest that they were not engaged in real labor. But helping out your family (and/or yourself) by chopping wood is not the same as hiring yourself out as a manual laborer. You are not without some intelligence, so I should think you would apprehend the distinction I made in my previous post.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I did not suggest that they were not engaged in real labor. But helping out your family (and/or yourself) by chopping wood is not the same as hiring yourself out as a manual laborer.

They were subsistence farmers who lived, to a large extent, by barter in a frontier economy that often lacked currency. (That was the reason for the issuance of notes by the Kirtland Bank, whatever you may think of it otherwise. And it was far from the only bank on the American frontier to issue its own quasi-currency.)

In a frontier farming community, basically brand new, to whom would you hire yourself out? Virtually every family was farming for itself. They had little alternative.

And what difference does it make? Your claim was that Joseph Smith gave up on manual labor in order to glut himself on the labor of others. That he and his family were still doing their own clearing and plowing and sowing and harvesting in mid-1832 runs directly counter to your claim. It's irrelevant, really, whether they were hiring out or farming for themselves. In neither case would they be giving up manual labor. In neither case would they be living off the proceeds of a con.

You're obfuscating, CC.

And, by the way, you have an even narrower window than I had indicated above in which to have Joseph Smith abandoning manual labor in order to live off of his supposed con.:

"Come brethren," Joseph would say when he was foreman of the quarry in Kirtland, "let us go into the stone-quarry and work for the Lord." "The Prophet went himself," remembered Heber C. Kimball, "and worked at quarrying stone like the rest of us" (Deseret News [27 May 1863], 377).

Construction began in the summer of 1833 -- a year after Brigham and the others met Joseph when the Prophet was out chopping and hauling wood -- and the temple was dedicated in the spring of 1836.

So you now have not twelve years in which to have Joseph giving up on manual labor prior to his assassination, but, at most, eleven years. And, very possibly, as few as eight years.

How many trees have you chopped down and hauled? How much stone have you quarried? How much of this did you do with manual tools -- that is to say, with neither electric- nor gasoline-powered equipment?

Harmony? CC? Tell us of your strong commitment to truly manual labor. Boast of your brawny arms, your backbreaking dawn-to-dusk work. Point the finger of scorn at the shiftless Joseph Smith yet again.

[_Calculus Crusader]

I did not suggest that they were not engaged in real labor. But helping out your family (and/or yourself) by chopping wood is not the same as hiring yourself out as a manual laborer.

They were subsistence farmers who lived, to a large extent, by barter in a frontier economy that often lacked currency. (That was the reason for the issuance of notes by the Kirtland Bank, whatever you may think of it otherwise. And it was far from the only bank on the American frontier to issue its own quasi-currency.)

In a frontier farming community, basically brand new, to whom would you hire yourself out? Virtually every family was farming for itself. They had little alternative.

And what difference does it make? Your claim was that Joseph Smith gave up on manual labor in order to glut himself on the labor of others. That he and his family were still doing their own clearing and plowing and sowing and harvesting in mid-1832 runs directly counter to your claim. It's irrelevant, really, whether they were hiring out or farming for themselves. In neither case would they be giving up manual labor. In neither case would they be living off the proceeds of a con.

You're obfuscating, CC.

And, by the way, you have an even narrower window than I had indicated above in which to have Joseph Smith abandoning manual labor in order to live off of his supposed con.:

"Come brethren," Joseph would say when he was foreman of the quarry in Kirtland, "let us go into the stone-quarry and work for the Lord." "The Prophet went himself," remembered Heber C. Kimball, "and worked at quarrying stone like the rest of us" (Deseret News [27 May 1863], 377).

Construction began in the summer of 1833 -- a year after Brigham and the others met Joseph when the Prophet was out chopping and hauling wood -- and the temple was dedicated in the spring of 1836.

So you now have not twelve years in which to have Joseph giving up on manual labor prior to his assassination, but, at most, eleven years. And, very possibly, as few as eight years.

Very well, professor, I rescind my initial comment re: Smith and manual labor and replace it with the following:

Joseph Smith performed manual labor even after he discovered the attractive alternative of conning people, but only when absolutely necessary.

How many trees have you chopped down and hauled? How much stone have you quarried? How much of this did you do with manual tools -- that is to say, with neither electric- nor gasoline-powered equipment?

Harmony? CC? Tell us of your strong commitment to truly manual labor. Boast of your brawny arms, your backbreaking dawn-to-dusk work. Point the finger of scorn at the shiftless Joseph Smith yet again.

I have not performed manual labor for a long time, and even then it was for a short amount of time. However, unlike your "prophet," I have never claimed to be able to find buried treasure in lieu of honest work, nor have I commissioned myself a lieutenant general.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Joseph Smith performed manual labor . . . [ only when absolutely necessary.

Unlike his contemporaries, who cleared fields and quarried stone for the sheer relaxation of it, after a long day sitting in front of a computer at the office?

I have never . . . commissioned myself a lieutenant general.

Did Joseph Smith commission himself a lieutenant general?

Is that your final answer?