Is the LDS Church telling the truth about the stone?

[_Quasimodo]

Quasi,

My comments above were mainly intended to show that the seer stone was not obsidian (as had been suggested).

The seer stone in the photographs does not look like jasper to me, either - mainly because of its surface morphology (not because of the banding). True jasper is microcrystalline silicate that is closely related to agate and onyx. These rocks are classified as chalcedony, which is hard and can be polished to a high luster.

Given the relatively rough and pitted surface of the seer stone, I agree with others who have suggested that any luster it has probably comes from a varnish or other artificial coating.

Hi Doc,

Sorry for the late reply, but my life is a little hectic right now. I understand your point and hope I didn't seem unsupportive. I was just answering the thread in general that banded jasper (going by the image of the seer stone) is most likely what it is. It is certainly not obsidion.

It appears to have spent a long time rolling around a creek bed and has that rounded, slightly polished look to it. Artifacts I have found (scrapers, hand axes and stone knives) often have a silky sheen that comes from long contact with human hands. Maybe Joseph Smith liked to rub on that stone a lot when it was in his pocket.

[_DrW]

Quasi,

My comments above were mainly intended to show that the seer stone was not obsidian (as had been suggested).

The seer stone in the photographs does not look like jasper to me, either - mainly because of its surface morphology (not because of the banding). True jasper is microcrystalline silicate that is closely related to agate and onyx. These rocks are classified as chalcedony, which is hard and can be polished to a high luster.

Given the relatively rough and pitted surface of the seer stone, I agree with others who have suggested that any luster it has probably comes from a varnish or other artificial coating.

Hi Doc,

Sorry for the late reply, but my life is a little hectic right now. I understand your point and hope I didn't seem unsupportive. I was just answering the thread in general that banded jasper (going by the image of the seer stone) is most likely what it is. It is certainly not obsidion.

It appears to have spent a long time rolling around a creek bed and has that rounded, slightly polished look to it. Artifacts I have found (scrapers, hand axes and stone knives) often have a silky sheen that comes from long contact with human hands. Maybe Joseph Smith liked to rub on that stone a lot when it was in his pocket.

Hey Quasi,

Sounds interesting.

If it is not a secret, where (in general) do you go to find the kinds of artifacts you mentioned?

Do you collect them personally?

Or is your work for a museum or other archaeological organization / entity?

[_sock puppet]

The more I look at, and think about, this latest article on the seer stone, and the more I talk with TBM and NOM family members about it, the more I believe that the LDS Church (PR Dept. or no PR Dept.) has made a big mistake here.

Are they really so out of touch that they think it is a good idea put this stuff into the public domain in full color print and expect some significant percentage of members (including sheeple) not to gag on it?

Several people I have spoken with about this (including my mother) have left me with the impression that it has been a watershed / last straw event for them.

This article seems to me to be a clarion bell of bu!!sh!t that cannot be unrung. People with an ounce of self respect have to be reading this article and asking themselves if they would feel comfortable sharing this little nugget of Church history with their non-LDS friends.

The answer?

No - hell no. Are you kidding me?

For an organization that is so sensitive to PR and how their pronouncements look, this is the biggest bone-headed PR move of the 21st Century. Releasing now, for the first time pictures in color (at least b&w would have perhaps distanced in time as nostalgia) of the magic rock. Did the Community of Christ blackmail the LDS Church with threats of revealing some more damning information? This is a PR disaster. This makes LDS truth claims look as ridiculous as ... well, as they are.

This puts their religious claims right there on a par with the validity of Freddy the magic flute in H R Puff N Stuff. I don't suppose, DrW, that your mother is alone. The LDS Church is just one bone-headed PR move from being moribund. I don't know that this is it, but it certainly portends that those making the decisions are clueless enough to make the one that will be.

Have I said lately how embarrassed the LDS church keeps making me that I did not bolt when I was 10 years old? Make that 7 years old now.

I think that the Thursday morning meetings where the FP/12 get together must be the biggest, most incestuous ego circle jerk known to mankind. What the hell were they thinking releasing this photo?

The LDS church is stuck in an early 19th Century moment that it can't get out of. (Sorry, Bono.)

ETA: Is this a test of faith? See how damn absurd that the FP/12 can make LDS believers look to see which of them is so gullible to 'keep the faith'? And to think, even the utterly fanatical BKP was not here to see this doubling down of LDS ridiculousness.

[_sock puppet]

We thank thee our minds for reason, to dispel these myths that are silly.

We thank thee for questioning the BS designed to take our money and lives...

* * *

I am truly grateful that I live now and not in 1915.

[_Quasimodo]

Hi Doc,

Sorry for the late reply, but my life is a little hectic right now. I understand your point and hope I didn't seem unsupportive. I was just answering the thread in general that banded jasper (going by the image of the seer stone) is most likely what it is. It is certainly not obsidion.

It appears to have spent a long time rolling around a creek bed and has that rounded, slightly polished look to it. Artifacts I have found (scrapers, hand axes and stone knives) often have a silky sheen that comes from long contact with human hands. Maybe Joseph Smith liked to rub on that stone a lot when it was in his pocket.

Hey Quasi,

Sounds interesting.

If it is not a secret, where (in general) do you go to find the kinds of artifacts you mentioned?

Do you collect them personally?

Or is your work for a museum or other archaeological organization / entity?

Oh, no secrets. I find it fun to guess where an Indian campsite might have been and have a look around. For me, it's a bit like solving some great mystery and very rewarding when you guess correctly. With at least 15,000 years of Native American habitation in North America there are hundreds of thousands of ancient villages and campsites all over the US.

It's just a hobby for me, along with photographing petroglyphs. I belong to an archaeological society, but I haven't attended a meeting in a long while.

I used to collect artifacts when I was a kid and when it was legal (still have them), but now, I leave them where I found them. I may take a photo and put it back exactly where I found it.
After I became better educated about it, I realized that I had boxes full of rocks that were doing nobody any good.

Finding artifacts is very easy when you know where to look. Villages and campsites are always located near clear water sources (with a very few exceptions). Even in Florida (I think that is where you are located) there are thousands of places to find artifacts. Look for places near the beach where a stream enters the ocean. Then look for shell middens (large piles of clam and oyster shells that have been discarded after eating).

In the deserts, any flat ground near a water source (spring or dry creek bed) will have artifacts. When I lived in Tennessee, any plowed field near a creek would have artifacts in the overturned earth.

It's a fun pursuit, but try to resist the temptation to take any artifacts home. Just take photos.

[_I have a question]

Are they really so out of touch...?

Yep.

Their only interaction with members is when they glad hand an awestruck congregation and they are surrounded by inadequate 'Yes' men like Otterson. They do not have, nor do they put any effort into having, a mechanism for sampling the challenging feedback that any good leader would seek out to help better the organisation. When was the last time an Apostle made the effort to sit down for some quality time with people who have left Church activity, to understand the why's and the wherefores? Answer - they never have. Projects like City Creek are more important than getting to the bottom of why retention and activity stats are so bad.

Let me add. I think they intuitively know the problems, but recognise they have no answers. So they quietly pump out essays and let the history department show some stuff, hoping the problem will go away. They're failing, they know they're failing, but they are unable (unwilling?) to grasp the nettle. Instead, they have written off this chosen generation and are concentrating on inoculating the rising generation in the hopes retention rates will be better.

[_DrW]

Oh, no secrets. I find it fun to guess where an Indian campsite might have been and have a look around. For me, it's a bit like solving some great mystery and very rewarding when you guess correctly. With at least 15,000 years of Native American habitation in North America there are hundreds of thousands of ancient villages and campsites all over the US.

It's just a hobby for me, along with photographing petroglyphs. I belong to an archaeological society, but I haven't attended a meeting in a long while.

I used to collect artifacts when I was a kid and when it was legal (still have them), but now, I leave them where I found them. I may take a photo and put it back exactly where I found it.
After I became better educated about it, I realized that I had boxes full of rocks that were doing nobody any good.

Finding artifacts is very easy when you know where to look. Villages and campsites are always located near clear water sources (with a very few exceptions). Even in Florida (I think that is where you are located) there are thousands of places to find artifacts. Look for places near the beach where a stream enters the ocean. Then look for shell middens (large piles of clam and oyster shells that have been discarded after eating).

In the deserts, any flat ground near a water source (spring or dry creek bed) will have artifacts. When I lived in Tennessee, any plowed field near a creek would have artifacts in the overturned earth.

It's a fun pursuit, but try to resist the temptation to take any artifacts home. Just take photos.

Thanks.

It is a great hobby, I know.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, high adventure was hiking along the Columbia River looking for agates and Indian arrowheads on or near the shoreline. Turns out that (like lots of other folks) I often walked over, or right by, the place where Kennewick Man was eventually found.

(By the way, Kennewick man was found not far from a well known Indian burial ground on a place called Bateman Island, where we used to find lots of Indian artifacts until it was put it off limits without a special permit.)

Question: Can one get in trouble for having personal collections of Indian artifacts that were found before moving them was made illegal?

[_DrW]

Instead, they have written off this chosen generation and are concentrating on inoculating the rising generation in the hopes retention rates will be better.

And how has that been working for them so far?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Let me add. I think they intuitively know the problems, but recognise they have no answers. So they quietly pump out essays and let the history department show some stuff, hoping the problem will go away. They're failing, they know they're failing, but they are unable (unwilling?) to grasp the nettle. Instead, they have written off this chosen generation and are concentrating on inoculating the rising generation in the hopes retention rates will be better.

Oh, man. Ain't this the truth. The seer stone issue ought to just kill a Mormon's testimonkey. It really should. It's so laughable and outlandish that any claims to divine inspiration being conducted through a damned rock should just end the conversation.

I actually think the Church's game plan is pretty decent. Play up the social aspects of Mormonism coupled with a strong Victim 101 program and you might be able to convince enough young Mormons to get keep getting married young and locking themselves in with the chitlins.

- Doc

[_Quasimodo]

Thanks.

It is a great hobby, I know.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, high adventure was hiking along the Columbia River looking for agates and Indian arrowheads on or near the shoreline. Turns out that (like lots of other folks) I often walked over, or right by, the place where Kennewick Man was eventually found.

(By the way, Kennewick man was found not far from a well known Indian burial ground on a place called Bateman Island, where we used to find lots of Indian artifacts until it was put it off limits without a special permit.)

Question: Can one get in trouble for having personal collections of Indian artifacts that were found before moving them was made illegal?

It's a pity you were not looking down when you walked over Kennewick Man. He might now be called the DrW Man.

I sure hope it's legal to own artifacts found before those laws were enacted .

I agree with those laws, by the way. So much history can be lost when people put artifacts in their pockets and and remove them from their relationship to the site in general.

I think it's legal to own things that were found before the laws were enacted. I think it's also legal to hunt for artifacts on private land (with the owner's permission, of course). Something that I would no longer do.