Former Stake President managing MormonThink

[_Darth J]

By the way, Whoever Is Reading This:

No, I do not expect objective reality to play any discernible role in Tobin's belief structure. I am responding to his posts to point out the lengths one must go to in order to maintain belief in this bizarre casserole of "selected parts of the church Mommy and Daddy raised me in" and "tropes from Star Trek that the voices in my head revealed to me."

ETA: If you have not figured it out yet, the unstated premise of Tobin's babbling is that Moroni carried the Golden Plates from Guatemala to upstate New York, just in case Joseph Smith might live there 14 centuries later.

[_Tobin]

It's actually an exchange of letters between Phelps and Cowdrey. And so what? Cowdrey was ALSO excommunicated I seem to remember and as far as I know, not a Nephite angel.

OMG. Read COWDERY's letters. I gave you links. I have not mentioned Phelps letters. I have not linked to them. They are Cowdery's letters that I am talking about. Why in the world are you adding more than what we are discussing? Again, get your facts straight.

The letters about Cumorah are a series of letters by Phelps and Cowdrey. Wow, have you read what you linked EVER?

Question for you. You seem fond of sticking to your guns with the Times and Seasons and Stephens Incidents of Travel. The Kinderhook plates were written about in the Times and Seasons a short time later.

Vol. IV. No. 12., May 1, 1843, page 185
http://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v4n12.htm

A person could argue that Joseph thought the region of the United States included Book of Mormon people because of the Kinderhook plates. But we also know that those plates were a hoax. Just as we know that the Mayan writing Joseph praised in the extract from Incidents and Travels does not mention a thing about the Book of Mormon, especially nothing about Zarahemla.

You seem to be suggesting that Joseph Smith did not know whether the final battle happened in New York or Central America, but he did not correct his assistant president of the church, did not correct his apostle Orson Pratt, and allowed them to promote that it did happen in New York.

An intellectually honest person does not allow unkowns to be presented as truths. So what are you telling me about Joseph Smith's character in this?

Again, this has nothing to do with the hill Cumorah. I find it very interesting that Joseph Smith never stated it himself and more importantly that the Angel Moroni never did. Your response is just bluster. How do you explain that? Hmmm. Instead your response is to pontificate about how others, who had no special dispensation, would seem to know something that neither of the people that would know stated. You also keep trying to change the topic or, even more hilariously, stating that Phelps and Cowdrey seemed to know more about the subject than Joseph Smith or Moroni himself. Ah, the critics and their absurd positions.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Again, this has nothing to do with the hill Cumorah. I find it very interesting that Joseph Smith never stated it himself and more importantly that the Angel Moroni never did. Your response is just bluster. How do you explain that? Hmmm. Instead your response is to pontificate about how others, who had no special dispensation, would seem to know something that neither of the people that would know stated. You also keep trying to change the topic or, even more hilariously, stating that Phelps and Cowdrey seemed to know more about the subject than Joseph Smith or Moroni himself. Ah, the critics and their absurd positions.

[_tapirrider]

The letters about Cumorah are a series of letters by Phelps and Cowdrey. Wow, have you read what you linked EVER?

Again, this has nothing to do with the hill Cumorah. I find it very interesting that Joseph Smith never stated it himself and more importantly that the Angel Moroni never did. Your response is just bluster. How do you explain that? Hmmm. Instead your response is to pontificate about how others, who had no special dispensation, would seem to know something that neither of the people that would know stated. You also keep trying to change the topic or, even more hilariously, stating that Phelps and Cowdrey seemed to know more about the subject than Joseph Smith or Moroni himself. Ah, the critics and their absurd positions.

The eight letters are Cowdery's. Will you kindly show me in this reprint that was published in Liverpool any of Phelps letters?

http://archive.org/details/lettersbyoliverc00oliv

The pages I referenced on the links to the former RLDS site likewise are specific to Cowdery's letters. I am talking about Cowdery's letters and you want to play silly games. Still waiting for you to explain why Joseph Smith allowed an unknown to be promoted as truth after offering to assist so "That our narrative may be correct". Tobin, you are impossible.

[_Tobin]

The letters about Cumorah are a series of letters by Phelps and Cowdrey. Wow, have you read what you linked EVER?

Again, this has nothing to do with the hill Cumorah. I find it very interesting that Joseph Smith never stated it himself and more importantly that the Angel Moroni never did. Your response is just bluster. How do you explain that? Hmmm. Instead your response is to pontificate about how others, who had no special dispensation, would seem to know something that neither of the people that would know stated. You also keep trying to change the topic or, even more hilariously, stating that Phelps and Cowdrey seemed to know more about the subject than Joseph Smith or Moroni himself. Ah, the critics and their absurd positions.

The eight letters are Cowdery's. Will you kindly show me in this reprint that was published in Liverpool any of Phelps letters?

http://archive.org/details/lettersbyoliverc00oliv

The pages I referenced on the links to the former RLDS site likewise are specific to Cowdery's letters. I am talking about Cowdery's letters and you want to play silly games. Still waiting for you to explain why Joseph Smith allowed an unknown to be promoted as truth after offering to assist so "That our narrative may be correct". Tobin, you are impossible.

Please read the link before you sound off. http://www.centerplace.org/history/ma/v2n01.htm These are part of the links YOU provided. Amazing you don't even know what they say. And I've already answered you sufficiently. If you are incapable of understanding my prior points, you won't be able to understand them if I repeat them. You are free to reread what I said to you anytime you wish. And I'm stilll waiting for the answer to my question, why didn't Joseph Smith or Moroni directly and often refer to the hill as the hill Cumorah? hmmm

[_Darth J]

Laying aside for the moment Moroni's incredible 2200 mile journey to carry the Golden Plates from Guatemala to New York, why are Tobin and so many other internet Mormons and Mopolgists eager to say that the number 2 guy in the foundation of Mormonism (Second Elder, received priesthood keys, scribe for the Book of Mormon, 1/3 of the Three Witnesses) was wrong about where the Hill Cumorah is?

Why is the retort, "Nu-uh, 'cause look: Joseph Smith was totally wrong about Mayan ruins being Zarahemla!" (Which is not responsive to whether every single one of Joseph Smith's contemporaries thought that Cumorah was in New York, and Joseph Smith said so in D&C 128:20.)

And why does Tobin know better than Oliver Cowdery where the Hill Cumorah is? (Hint: the answer may involve the extraterrestrial Tobin Star Trek god.)

[_tapirrider]

Please read the link before you sound off. http://www.centerplace.org/history/ma/v2n01.htm These are part of the links YOU provided. Amazing you don't even know what they say. And I've already answered you sufficiently. If you are incapable of understanding my prior points, you won't be able to understand them if I repeat them. You are free to reread what I said to you anytime you wish. And I'm stilll waiting for the answer to my question, why didn't Joseph Smith or Moroni refer to the hill as the hill Cumorah? hmmm

"The pages I referenced on the links to the former RLDS site likewise are specific to Cowdery's letters." Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

How do you know that Moroni didn't mention the hill cumorah being the final battle? You weren't with Joseph Smith and Moroni when they communicated. The fact that Joe did not correct one of his special witnesses or one of his apostles can just as easily be assumed that what they said about the final battle was in agreement with what Joseph was told by Moroni. You don't know their private conversations, you were not there. But if you continue to insist that he did not know, then explain why he was intellectually dishonest by allowing an unkown to be promoted as truth.

[_Darth J]

And I'm stilll waiting for the answer to my question, why didn't Joseph Smith or Moroni directly and often refer to the hill as the hill Cumorah? hmmm

Notice the sleight of hand, where Tobin is trying to make it out that Moroni and Joseph Smith are different people. Maybe we could ask Tobin to find us some words of Moroni that do not come from Joseph Smith.

But in answer to Tobin's question: http://www.LDS.org/scriptures/dc-testam ... 0?lang=eng

So why is it preferable that nobody has any idea where any location in the Book of Mormon is, if the Book of Mormon represents an actual historical account of a real civilization?

[_Tobin]

Please read the link before you sound off. http://www.centerplace.org/history/ma/v2n01.htm These are part of the links YOU provided. Amazing you don't even know what they say. And I've already answered you sufficiently. If you are incapable of understanding my prior points, you won't be able to understand them if I repeat them. You are free to reread what I said to you anytime you wish. And I'm stilll waiting for the answer to my question, why didn't Joseph Smith or Moroni refer to the hill as the hill Cumorah? hmmm

"The pages I referenced on the links to the former RLDS site likewise are specific to Cowdery's letters." Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

I read quite fine. You should try reading the material you link sometime. It might help.

How do you know that Moroni didn't mention the hill cumorah being the final battle?

That isn't an answer to my question. Where does he refer to it with Joseph Smith? Where does Joseph Smith refer to it himself? If it was the hill, why didn't they just say it - that would have been trivial and it is inexplicable that they did not.

You weren't with Joseph Smith and Moroni when they communicated. The fact that Joe did not correct one of his special witnesses or one of his apostles can just as easily be assumed that what they said about the final battle was in agreement with what Joseph was told by Moroni. You don't know their private conversations, you were not there. But if you continue to insist that he did not know, then explain why he was intellectually dishonest by allowing an unkown to be promoted as truth.

We have many accounts from Joseph Smith about what Moroni said and plenty of source material, yet curiously no mention of the hill being Cumorah. That is simply stunning. And the rest of your respose is simply a non-answer. Because others speculated and Joseph Smith didn't correct them could have been for any number of reasons, the most likely being that he simply didn't know where the hill Cumorah was. Your attempts to characterize it beyond that is laughable.

[_Darth J]

Was Joseph Smith lying in the Wentworth Letter, or was he just unable to distinguish between his imagination and divine revelation?

Like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.