Simon Belmont
So, a combination of option 1 and option 2?
No. Here is a definition from Wiki
"Pious fraud a term used to describe fraud in religion; for example, a pious fraud can be the act of counterfeiting a miracle or result in a sacred text falsely attributed to a biblical figure) because of a belief that the end justifies the means, in this case the end of increasing faith by whatever means available."
This doesn't fit your first option or your second. It's is an option by itself, and one that many think is the most reasonable. I think you may not want to acknowledge it since it destroys most of your arguments. You can read my post above for some of your arguments, although others have provided reasons they don't work as well.
What happens when the pious fraud is faced with beatings, tarrings, verbal slander of himself, his colleagues, and his family? The official Joseph Smith website notes that:
First I do think you have read a lot of material, but I can see that it was most likely church sanctioned which is why you showing a lack of accurate information about Joseph Smith history.
Remember pious frauds believe in what they are doing, so they are likely to act similar to your option 3. Also, Joseph was not really aware of what conflicts may arise when he started his religion, and many of them had little to do with LDS belief or doctrines. Even people who know they are major frauds have endured pain and risk of life in order to try and gain from their endeavors, so pious frauds would be even more willing to.
I believe that this would drive any person, sane or not, to recount their supposed fraudulent activities as a measure to save the lives of their loved ones, their colleagues, and themselves. Yes, there was no guarantee that this would work, but in fight or flight mode, a person will attempt anything! If not himself, then his colleagues would surely "rat him out" to save their own lives. It is human nature.
You might want to study human nature a lot more. If Joseph is a pious fraud(I think he was)His colleagues would would at most also be pious frauds or true believers unaware of what things Joseph had made up. Remember we are not really discussing options 1 or 2 since they don't work with a pious fraud.
And in every other case, the fraud is eventually discovered. Not true with the Mormons.
LOL if we assume this is true, that means half of them never get discovered. Unfortunately many of Joseph's lies and frauds have been discovered.
Nothing is more compelling to me than to realize that Martin Harris continued to actively testify of the Book of Mormon's truthfulness. No, I do not believe some other things he may have been witness to, but combined with the other compelling evidence, I do believe the Book of Mormon.
LOL you obviously are reading only church friendly material, or you would understand better Martins is not the best eye witness to have on your side, not to mention just how our understanding has grown of the limitations of the eye witness testimony. I say more, but I'm not sure where to begin with your amount of ignorance on the subject. I know beastie put up some good articles on it.
You are correct. If there were, however, any sign of mental incompetency, illness, insanity, or anything else, wouldn't it have been written about, documented verbally . . . something?
Again it depends on what problem he would have and it's severity, but this really has nothing to do with pious frauds.
That was referring to one example. The point I was making was that the polygamous relationships of Joseph Smith were most likely nothing like you, as modern people, imagine them to be. I referenced Compton in that example. It would be silly to think that Smith never had sexual relations with his other wives, and I am sure he did. He was a "rough stone rolling," he was a moral man.
Moral is a subjective term. It's good top see you do believe he did have sex with some of his wives. Now having sex is not the real issue though. It's about Joseph behavior and claims in regards to polygamy that people find hard to believe would be God sanctioned.
We have the issue of looking at Joseph Smith through our twenty-first century eyes. We must judge him in context of his own time, truth dancer.
And she has. Why do you think that Joseph was lying about it?
God works through people. People are human and make mistakes; in fact, we make many mistakes, and so did Joseph. He was not perfect, and I do not claim that he was. His shortcomings have no bearing on whether he is what he claimed to be -- a prophet of God.
I don't know anyone who think Joseph needed to be perfect, but their actions and behavior do have a bearing on whether their claims are likely to be true or not, and many of his actions have been much worse then most other people would behave, so trust and credibility should suffer.
An extremely important aspect of the Gospel is that of faith. If God simply visited everyone in 1830, and said "okay guys, my church is back, and I will personally visit everyone who questions this" that would leave no room for faith. That is not His plan.
I agree with jason
You know who says this? The very few that claim God speaks to them. Maybe the prophets are not being honest about this.
God never asks for faith. Only those who want you to believe they represent him.