KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_sock puppet]

Runtu:

I accept who I am. You should try it.

I know who you are, and always have. It doesn't surprise me in the least that you have learned to accept it. You've never been to averse to settling for less as long as it ensured your safety within the constrictive bounds of your all-consuming fears.

I also know who I am, and always have. Whether or not I "learn to accept it" remains to be seen.

This much is certain: No man knows my history.

Will, are you the 2nd Coming of Joseph Smith?

[_Runtu]

Runtu:

I know who you are, and always have. It doesn't surprise me in the least that you have learned to accept it. You've never been to averse to settling for less as long as it ensured your safety within the constrictive bounds of your all-consuming fears.

I also know who I am, and always have. Whether or not I "learn to accept it" remains to be seen.

This much is certain: No man knows my history.

You don't know me; you never knew my heart. Of that much I'm certain.

You know, the interesting thing I find as I get older is that I don't fear much anymore, constrictive or not. Maybe it's a function of getting older, but things that once concerned me don't anymore.

As for settling for less, I suppose what one ought to settle for, if anything, is a clear conscience and a knowledge that one has done his or her best.

It's more fun being evil, though. ;-)

[_WhatsInMyHat]

In the first place, I have no supporters here. That much should be plainly obvious. I am a lone man standing on a wall whilst the mob below casts stones and arrows to their vicious heart's delight.

At any rate, I see now the tale has expanded, and yet you failed to answer my question: when did you last see me with "a pack of Marlboros, Busch(not Busch light), a Red bong, and a ponytail"?

And now that you've augmented the story with additional information, please describe how I would "talk of women." I'm especially interested in that little tidbit. So please feel free to share your apparently detailed recollections of these things. I look forward to it, and very much hope it entails something especially sensational--like sacrificing virgins on candlelit altars.[/quote]


oh wee-willy!? i agree with mr graham and others about you not really acknowledging what is being said and trying to turn the tables. calling your wife and young daughter winches on numerous occasions might be funny too you, but it was a bit uncomfortable at times. i can go on and on but that is not important here. i simply made a very accurate set of statements that made me wonder just how strong your Mormon faith actually was andor is. this KEP thing has gotten you some buzz, and that is all you have been really about in my opionion, but i wonder what your true motives really are if while in your forties you continued to drink and smoke which are acts clearly not in favor within Mormon doctrine. so espousing how mighty you are within the ranks of Mormon apologists amazes me; unless you truly have repented,and I doubt that the bishop in your local ward knows you used to love partaking in the sweet maryjane

[_William Schryver]

oh wee-willy!? i agree with mr graham and others about you not really acknowledging what is being said and trying to turn the tables. calling your wife and young daughter winches on numerous occasions might be funny too you, but it was a bit uncomfortable at times. i can go on and on but that is not important here. i simply made a very accurate set of statements that made me wonder just how strong your Mormon faith actually was andor is. this KEP thing has gotten you some buzz, and that is all you have been really about in my opionion, but i wonder what your true motives really are if while in your forties you continued to drink and smoke which are acts clearly not in favor within Mormon doctrine. so espousing how mighty you are within the ranks of Mormon apologists amazes me; unless you truly have repented,and I doubt that the bishop in your local ward knows you used to love partaking in the sweet maryjane

Interesting how you've picked up so quickly on the MDB talking points, and yet (other than citing the unfathomably despicable sin of calling my wife a "winch" [sic]) you've still failed to answer my question: when did you last see me with "a pack of Marlboros, Busch(not Busch light), a Red bong, and a ponytail"? Given your allegedly intimate knowledge of my allegedly sordid past ("winches" and all), how hard can it be for you to answer this simple question?

[_William Schryver]

I know who you are, and always have. It doesn't surprise me in the least that you have learned to accept it. You've never been to averse to settling for less as long as it ensured your safety within the constrictive bounds of your all-consuming fears.

I also know who I am, and always have. Whether or not I "learn to accept it" remains to be seen.

This much is certain: No man knows my history.

Will, are you the 2nd Coming of Joseph Smith?

Are you expecting a "2nd Coming of Joseph Smith?"

Is anyone?

When I think of the phrase "second coming," it's not the name of Joseph Smith that comes to mind.

[_beastie]

Interesting how you've picked up so quickly on the MDB talking points, and yet (other than citing the unfathomably despicable sin of calling my wife a "winch" [sic]) you've still failed to answer my question: when did you last see me with "a pack of Marlboros, Busch(not Busch light), a Red bong, and a ponytail"? Given your allegedly intimate knowledge of my allegedly sordid past ("winches" and all), how hard can it be for you to answer this simple question?

Maybe as hard as it is for you to answer this simple question:

Did or did you not know that Joseph Smith and his cohorts likely believed the Masonic figures were, indeed, Egyptian?

[_William Schryver]

Interesting how you've picked up so quickly on the MDB talking points, and yet (other than citing the unfathomably despicable sin of calling my wife a "winch" [sic]) you've still failed to answer my question: when did you last see me with "a pack of Marlboros, Busch(not Busch light), a Red bong, and a ponytail"? Given your allegedly intimate knowledge of my allegedly sordid past ("winches" and all), how hard can it be for you to answer this simple question?

Maybe as hard as it is for you to answer this simple question:

Did or did you not know that Joseph Smith and his cohorts likely believed the Masonic figures were, indeed, Egyptian?

I already answered your question, you beastlie wench. You just weren't paying attention.

[_beastie]

2. I've seen no persuasive evidence whatsoever that Joseph Smith et al. (yes, "al." is an abbreviation for "alli", and should have a period after it) "likely" thought the Masonic cipher characters were Egyptian. But, even if they did (as I have stated repeatedly!) it matters not one whit to my theses. A better question for you, assuming they did believe them to be of Egyptian origin, is why they only selected seven of the characters. (And, incidentally, the Masonic cipher only allows for 26 characters -- one for each of the letters in the English alphabet. It would appear, on the face of it, counter-intuitive for any 19th century Mason to have thought the cipher originated in ancient Egypt, since it was designed to encipher the English alphabet. Even so, it is irrelevant to my theses. The fact remains that these characters do not derive from the papyri (and, in fact, their use by Phelps pre-dates the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland).

Furthermore, you're left with the question as to why substantial portions of the GAEL are based, not on elements from the Book of Abraham, but rather on others of Joseph Smith's previously received revelations (primarily D&C 76, 88, and 107).

Most of this response is just telling me that it's irrelevant. The only sentence that hints at an answer to my direct question is this:

I've seen no persuasive evidence whatsoever that Joseph Smith et al. (yes, "al." is an abbreviation for "alli", and should have a period after it) "likely" thought the Masonic cipher characters were Egyptian.

yet it doesn't answer the question clearly. Let me phrase my question in a painfully explicit manner in the hopes of avoiding future dodging:

While preparing and sharing your presentation, were you aware of the fact that it was quite common in the nineteenth century to believe that Masonic figures were Egyptian in origin, and were you aware that some researchers explicitly claimed Joseph Smith also made this connection?

I'll helpfully bump up the citations I shared earlier.

[_beastie]

bump for Will

Here's an essay written by Thomas Paine, published in 1818, addressing the common myth that Masonry had ancient origins and connections with ancient Egypt.

http://www.infidels.org/library/histori ... sonry.html

In 1730, Samuel Pritchard, member of a constituted lodge in England, published a treatise entitled Masonry Dissected; and made oath before the Lord Mayor of London that it was a true copy. "Samuel Pritchard maketh oath that the copy hereunto annexed is a true and genuine copy in every particular." In his work he has given the catechism or examination, in question and answer, of the Apprentices, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason. There was no difficulty in doing this, as it is mere form.

In his introduction he says, "the original institution of Masonry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences, but more especially in Geometry, for at the building of the tower of Babel, the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced, and from thence handed down by Euclid, a worthy and excellent mathematician of the Egyptians; and he communicated it to Hiram, the Master Mason concerned in building Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem."

The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Dodd, Grand Chaplain of Masonry, in his oration at the dedication of Free-Mason's Hall, London, traces Masonry through a variety of stages. Masons, says he, are well informed from their own private and interior records that the building of Solomon's Temple is an important era, from whence they derive many mysteries of their art. "Now (says he,) be it remembered that this great event took place above 1000 years before the Christian era, and consequently more than a century before Homer, the first of the Grecian Poets, wrote; and above five centuries before Pythagoras brought from the east his sublime system of truly masonic instruction to illuminate. our western world. But, remote as this period is, we date not from thence the commencement of our art. For though it might owe to the wise and glorious King of Israel some of its many mystic forms and hieroglyphic ceremonies, yet certainly the art itself is coeval with man, the great subject of it. "We trace," continues he, "its footsteps in the most distant, the most remote ages and nations of the world. We find it among the first and most celebrated civilizers of the East. We deduce it regularly from the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, to the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece, and the philosophers of Rome."

Though the Masons have taken many of their ceremonies and hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians, it is certain they have not taken their chronology from thence. If they had, the church would soon have sent them to the stake; as the chronology of the Egyptians, like that of the Chinese, goes many thousand years beyond the Bible chronology.

"The Egyptians," continues Smith, "in the earliest ages constituted a great number of Lodges, but with assiduous care kept their secrets of Masonry from all strangers. These secrets have been imperfectly handed down to us by oral tradition only, and ought to be kept undiscovered to the laborers, craftsmen, and apprentices, till by good behavior and long study they become better acquainted in geometry and the liberal arts, and thereby qualified for Masters and Wardens, which is seldom or never the case with English Masons."

So tell me, Will, were you unaware that Masonry was commonly associated with ancient Egypt - including its hieroglyphs - or were you aware of this problematic information and chose to ignore it, realizing how damaging it is to your theory?

[_beastie]

bump for Will

Even better...

Joseph Smith's interest in Egypt was also connected to Masonry. Even before Smith's Canandaigua trial for glass-looking in January 1828, John Sheldon had reportedly written a letter in Masonic hieroglyphics to General Solomon Van Rensselaer, the Revolutionary War hero.79 At the time it sensationally underlined the claim of the Explanation of the First Degree Tracing Board: "the usages and customs of Masons have ever corresponded with those of the Egyptian philosophers, to which they bear a near affinity.… they [p.111] concealed their particular tenets … under hieroglyphical figures."80

The Saratoga Baptist Association at Milton, New York, in 1828 took that claim seriously, charging in the second of its fifteen-point indictments that Masonic rites "correspond with the Egyptian."81 The Egyptian obelisks upon which Champollion and Seyffarth had recently turned public attention were said to have been inscribed with Masonic hieroglyphics.82 Combining the Egyptian on the marble pillar fragments, which Solomon could not translate, with the unknown script in which God's name was written on the gold plate in the Royal Arch might produce "reformed Egyptian," which could only be translated with a key which worked by revelation. Like Solomon, Smith received revelation in the manner of a Masonic priest.

Joseph Smith condemned current expressions of Masonry but nevertheless accepted Masonry as a truly ancient form confirming God's relationships with humans from Adam on. He restored a Mason unencumbered by the corruptions and heresies of the lodges and churches in western New York.83 The high percentage of ex-Masons among Smith's early converts in the 1830s, when the anti-Masonic conflict was still fresh, indicates that many were looking not for rejection but for reform. Masonic legend provided support for Christian tradition and a rich lode to mine in combating deism. Joseph Smith took what he felt was true and transformed it for his own use.84

Joseph Smith's Response to Skepticism

by
Robert N. Hullinger

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/sk ... apter8.htm