JSJr's Face-in-the-Hat: Troubling to the Faithful

[_why me]

Just when I thought why me couldn't post anything dumber, he tops himself.

Let me get this straight: the critics' drawings that show Joseph Smith with his head buried in his hat are not accurate (which, I guess, makes liars out of, at least, Emma Smith and David Whitmer) because his face was really just above the brim of the hat. Umm, ok. And the Church's depictions that show Smith sitting next to Cowdery with the plates right in front of them both (which is not supported by any first-hand account) is somehow more accurate?

Oliver was a scribe. He told his friend how the process was done. Now it is true that most of the accounts of how it was done later on are problematic because of memory. But an artist can use it as they wish. We do not know much detail from the man who was most involved in it, Joseph Smith. And that is a problem.

But how the critics show the event of the hat cannot be accurate because it would be difficult to breathe and speak from within a hat. Not to mention for the scribe to hear clearly from a muffled voice. So, the head could not have been completely in the hat as the critics portray the event.

[_why me]

Maybe it matters as to how much oxygen JSJr was getting to his brain during the process.

This is true. If one sticks one's head into a hat to see words, and breathe and speak what was is seen, that is alot going on inside a hat. He could not have had his head buried inside a hat. My guess is that his face was close to the hat so he could see the words, breathe freely, repeat what was seen so that the scribe could hear clearly. And the scene is not as crazy as the critics make it out to be in their drawings. Also, if one is sitting with a head buried in a hat doing the whole process, one's back would begin to ache after a time. So, the critics interpretation in their drawings of a bended back could not be accurate.

[_why me]

Emma acting as a scribe. She became a physical witness of the plates, reporting that she felt them through a cloth, traced the pages through the cloth with her fingers, heard the metallic sound they made as she moved them, and felt their weight. She later wrote in an interview with her son, Joseph Smith III: "In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."[4]

Most of these accounts were said years and years later. But physically, it would not be possible to have a head buried in a hat, seeing words, breathing, speaking without a headache or muffled voice or a back ache. See my point? Try it for an hour or so, and see what happens.

[_Themis]

Here is the problem: when I stick my head in a hat and attempt to breathe and speak I find it very nearly impossible to do both.

Do you really think anyone is going to buy this? Most already have enough expereince to know you are completely wrong here. And whats the point if you already accept that he used a seer stone in a hat to do the translation?

Plus, my voice would be muffled inside the hat.

One can still easily hear one talking in a hat if they are in the same room and listening.

This is the kind of picture the critics draw of Joseph Smith when they show his head in a hat. It could not be this way. His head would need to be near the hat so he could breathe and speak without too much trouble. But not in the hat.

WE already know he could do it this way. IT is not a picture that critic paint, but what eye witness's tell us.

The faithful never found it troublesome.

Then why do so many say it is troublesome?

The church magazines had articles about the possiblity of the hat in the past. One can be read from the ensign in 1977. So, I knew about the hat for a long time. No one had a problem when they read it back then.

The church brings it up so little in comparison to showing it done in other ways that most members will miss what really happened. It's to bad you can't be a little open minded when it comes to LDS issues. You consistently come up with the craziest ideas.

[_Themis]

Oliver was a scribe. He told his friend how the process was done. Now it is true that most of the accounts of how it was done later on are problematic because of memory. But an artist can use it as they wish. We do not know much detail from the man who was most involved in it, Joseph Smith. And that is a problem.

We don't need Joseph in order to have first hand witnesses to using a seer stone in a hat. We have them such that apologists accept that this is how it was done. As to what he saw in the hat we don't have first hand accounts, but we do have good second hand accounts from people close to him and involved in the translation process. It's reasonable that they would be asking Joseph personally how it was done.

[_Themis]

This is true. If one sticks one's head into a hat to see words, and breathe and speak what was is seen, that is a lot going on inside a hat. He could not have had his head buried inside a hat. My guess is that his face was close to the hat so he could see the words, breathe freely, repeat what was seen so that the scribe could hear clearly. And the scene is not as crazy as the critics make it out to be in their drawings. Also, if one is sitting with a head buried in a hat doing the whole process, one's back would begin to ache after a time. So, the critics interpretation in their drawings of a bended back could not be accurate.

This is another one of the stupidest posts I have read. Critics show his head in a hat becuase that is what the witnesses say he did, and no one buys what you are saying here. It's to obviously wrong. It also doesn't change anything about how Joseph was supposed to translate the Book of Mormon. You think showing Joseph looking into his hat from a slightly higher position changes anything.

[_mikuu]

But physically, it would not be possible to have a head buried in a hat, seeing words, breathing, speaking without a headache or muffled voice or a back ache. See my point? Try it for an hour or so, and see what happens.

If God can enchant a rock with a glowing parchment I think he could totally make it possible for Joseph to speak and breath in a hat without hurting his back. Maybe the rock had multiple functions, for example, a display, a breathing apparatus and a loud speaker.

[_thews]

Emma acting as a scribe. She became a physical witness of the plates, reporting that she felt them through a cloth, traced the pages through the cloth with her fingers, heard the metallic sound they made as she moved them, and felt their weight. She later wrote in an interview with her son, Joseph Smith III: "In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."[4]

Most of these accounts were said years and years later. But physically, it would not be possible to have a head buried in a hat, seeing words, breathing, speaking without a headache or muffled voice or a back ache. See my point? Try it for an hour or so, and see what happens.

As you continue to contradict yourself by using the conclusions you've come up with regarding how hard it would be to translate using head-in-hat, it is exactly what Emma stated, which includes seer stones. It's exactly what Whitmer and Harris stated, which also specify seer stones. When these accounts were written down is moot, as these sources are not "anti-Mormon" as bcspace asserts.

The use of "Urim and Thummim" is an outright lie, as the conflated use of these words to describe Joseph Smith's seer stones is an intentional ruse to mask the fact that the Book of Mormon was translated using occult objects Joseph Smith already owned before the Book of Mormon. If you find this faith promoting it hardly surprises me, but it's blatantly obvious to anyone with knowledge of the subject how the LDS church attempts to hide these truths from its members.

The end result of all these facts, is the translation method, as depicted by the LDS church, is incorrect... a lie. The knee-jerk conditioned response from bcspace to use "anti-Mormon" to describe these truths is actually accurate, as the truth doesn't support the lies the LDS church is guilty of, which would make telling these truths opposing, or "anti" to TBM's.

Your house of cards is crumbling whyme, as your straw man needs to throw Emma, Whitmer and Harris under the bus to support the "finger on book" translation method.

[_Radex]

The Correlation Committee continues to whitewash out the fact that JSJr's face being planted in the crown of his hat was a mechanism for translation.

Maybe the hokey, laughable image that conjures up is not the real problem. The real problem may be what supposedly was happening inside the hat crown. Words appearing in English supernaturally above a little stone that JSJr was staring at.

COJCOLDS wants members to believe that they can and do receive personal revelation from the same source, the Spirit, that was directing JSJr in the 'translation'. Members might not believe their own thoughts and self-induced feelings are coming from elohim/jehovah since such pale, on the natural-supernatural scale, when compared to the supernatural manifestations that JSJr claimed.

If COJCOLDS was up front, honest and blunt about the magic parchment above the stone in the crown of the hat, it might make members more easily doubt their own personal 'revelation'. Such have a natural explanation. They are palpably supernatural.

It also helps JSJr's claims he was a translator, if illustrations show him studiously looking at the gold plates while Oliver scribes it down. If JSJr is to be believed, then all he was actually doing was reading out loud from the magic parchment, as a 3rd grade school student is often asked to do from a book. So what? Big deal. elohim/jehovah were carrying all the weight, mentally, in that exercise. Leaves one wondering why JSJr's ego needed to have him arrogate to himself the title of 'translator'.

Good afternoon, sock puppet:

Your thread title reads JSJr's Face-in-the-Hat: Troubling to the Faithful. Do you mean to say that all faithful LDS people are troubled by Joseph Smith putting his face in a hat and the depictions thereof? It isn't troubling to me, and I consider myself faithful. Perhaps I am an exception to the rule, as is often the case I'm finding. I don't see what is so troubling about it: it's a hat, a stone, and a man putting his face into the hat to block out light. Well, when any of us wear head clothing, do we not all put our heads in a hat? Have you tried to put your head in a hat, in the dark, and accidentally put your face in it first? I have, but again, I might be an exception to the rule.

It's just a hat. It's just a stone. It's just a man.

Which brings me to this

Words appearing in English supernaturally above a little stone that JSJr was staring at.

In this case, both the stone and the words exist in the natural world. If you believe the words never appeared, then nothing supernatural happened. If you believe the words did appear, then something natural happened.

What do you think, my good man?

[_sock puppet]

The Correlation Committee continues to whitewash out the fact that JSJr's face being planted in the crown of his hat was a mechanism for translation.

Maybe the hokey, laughable image that conjures up is not the real problem. The real problem may be what supposedly was happening inside the hat crown. Words appearing in English supernaturally above a little stone that JSJr was staring at.

COJCOLDS wants members to believe that they can and do receive personal revelation from the same source, the Spirit, that was directing JSJr in the 'translation'. Members might not believe their own thoughts and self-induced feelings are coming from elohim/jehovah since such pale, on the natural-supernatural scale, when compared to the supernatural manifestations that JSJr claimed.

If COJCOLDS was up front, honest and blunt about the magic parchment above the stone in the crown of the hat, it might make members more easily doubt their own personal 'revelation'. Such have a natural explanation. They are palpably supernatural.

It also helps JSJr's claims he was a translator, if illustrations show him studiously looking at the gold plates while Oliver scribes it down. If JSJr is to be believed, then all he was actually doing was reading out loud from the magic parchment, as a 3rd grade school student is often asked to do from a book. So what? Big deal. elohim/jehovah were carrying all the weight, mentally, in that exercise. Leaves one wondering why JSJr's ego needed to have him arrogate to himself the title of 'translator'.

Good afternoon, sock puppet:

Your thread title reads JSJr's Face-in-the-Hat: Troubling to the Faithful. Do you mean to say that all faithful LDS people are troubled by Joseph Smith putting his face in a hat and the depictions thereof? It isn't troubling to me, and I consider myself faithful. Perhaps I am an exception to the rule, as is often the case I'm finding. I don't see what is so troubling about it: it's a hat, a stone, and a man putting his face into the hat to block out light. Well, when any of us wear head clothing, do we not all put our heads in a hat? Have you tried to put your head in a hat, in the dark, and accidentally put your face in it first? I have, but again, I might be an exception to the rule.

It's just a hat. It's just a stone. It's just a man.

Indeed. No god. No inspiration. Just a hat, a stone, and a man--and his imagination, running away on him. I'm with you, man.

Which brings me to this

Words appearing in English supernaturally above a little stone that JSJr was staring at.

In this case, both the stone and the words exist in the natural world. If you believe the words never appeared, then nothing supernatural happened. If you believe the words did appear, then something natural happened.

What do you think, my good man?

So you take issue with the concept of 'supernatural', right? To you, everything is natural?

I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the Mormon God chooses to make himself obscure and unobservable--or, "unnatural". It's a mental cat-and-mouse game at best.