Stormy Waters wrote:For me coming out has almost completely solidified that I will never go back. At first people want to discuss your concerns, but if you demonstrate a decent knowledge of polygamy/polyandry you'll usually scare them off. Frankly apologists don't have answers and neither do local leaders.
That's the problem: there are no good answers, and the church knows it. Hence the crappy apologetics of people like Jeff Lindsay and Wade Englund, and the nasty attacks of the FARMS crowd.
There are no good answers simply because the church is not really true. Joseph never saw God. There never really were groups of middle eastern people who migrated over the to America's thousands of years ago. Joseph made that up, just as he did the Book of Abraham. It's because of this that we can never get good answers, just as we cannot get anything close to coherent answer to a Global flood or young earth.
Themis wrote:There are no good answers simply because the church is not really true. Joseph never saw God. There never really were groups of middle eastern people who migrated over the to America's thousands of years ago. Joseph made that up, just as he did the Book of Abraham. It's because of this that we can never get good answers, just as we cannot get anything close to coherent answer to a Global flood or young earth.
That's about it.
"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS
"¡No contaban con mi astucia!" -- El Chapulin Colorado
Tobin wrote:But there are 12 witnesses to the Book of Mormon.
That is if we iclude the Whitmer's mom. She never denied her experience either.
No, you should include Joseph Smith. He is a witness too. There are 12 witnesses to the Book of Mormon.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. Joseph Smith We are “to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all…” Joseph Smith
Some guy with a backpack showed a credulous woman an object she could not possibly authenticate, and this is supposed to be probative of a vast, thousand-year technologically and socially advanced civilization of pre-Columbian Hebrews---a civilization for which not a shred of evidence exists.
Some guy with a backpack showed a credulous woman an object she could not possibly authenticate, and this is supposed to be probative of a vast, thousand-year technologically and socially advanced civilization of pre-Columbian Hebrews---a civilization for which not a shred of evidence exists.
Yeah, that sure is something.
Let's see, we have:
Her son, David Whitmer, before his death, testified on several occasions that his mother had seen the plates, and when Elders Edward Stevenson and Andrew Jenson visited Richmond, Missouri, in 1888, John C. Whitmer, a grandson of the lady in question, testified in the following language: "I have heard my grandmother (Mary Musselman Whitmer) say on several occasions that she was shown the plates of the Book of Mormon by a holy angel, whom she always called Brother Nephi. (She undoubtedly refers to Moroni, the angel who had the plates in charge.)
Two guys say that this one guy said that his grandmother said that ...
Suppose this story was to the general effect that Joseph Smith had failed to pay a parking ticket. Can you hear the cries of 'hearsay'? But this is hearsay times two. The evidential weight that this kind of account can bear is near negligible, even if the things it was supposed to be evidence of were not in themselves highly unlikely.
(The Nephi/Moroni confusion is interesting in its own way, since it points to the same problem in Smith's early accounts of his nocturnal visitor ... but that is a different point.)
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
I think if David Whitmer was selling time share opportunities on Pluto you would be telling EVERYONE to trust him and to buy them whilst not buying any yourself.
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
Some guy with a backpack showed a credulous woman an object she could not possibly authenticate, and this is supposed to be probative of a vast, thousand-year technologically and socially advanced civilization of pre-Columbian Hebrews---a civilization for which not a shred of evidence exists.
Yeah, that sure is something.
but but but they never denied it, so it must be true.
I think you can be a witness as well, if you are willing to follow the Lord and do as he asks. Having seen God and know that he has them, I hope to reform my life in such a manner that I too will be blessed with seeing them.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
sorry to go off-topic from the OP, but all this chatter about the witnesses brings to mind a question i've often wondered about...
did Joseph Smith actually find/create a set of metal plates?
it's pretty clear from a variety of accounts that he had *something* hidden by that box/sack/tablecloth. but i'm thinking that whatever it was, it must have been far less convincing to the eye than, for example, the Kinderhook plates. because if not, there would have been little risk and much to gain by Joseph showing his plates to some neutral witnesses in the nieghborhood. but as it was, he showed them only to his most trusted associates and family members, and we can't even say for certain whether he showed it to them (i don't count spiritual visions as "showing", obviously).
so what exactly was "it"?
Last edited by Guest on Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
No, you should include Joseph Smith. He is a witness too. There are 12 witnesses to the Book of Mormon.