Assessng the evidence - conscious fraud?

[hauslern]

Over on the other board:

"Let's imagine for the moment that Joseph did somehow create the plates. If so, so what? We anoint the sick with oil. Physically speaking, this does nothing besides getting the person's hair or skin greasy. But if someone were to point out this stark fact and call the person doing the anointing a conscious fraud, we could properly counter the accuser was missing the point. What is important about anointing the sick is not what the oil physically does. What is important is the symbol--the sacrament. It is what the sacrament points to, not the oil itself. same would be true if JosephThe created the plates. The plates are a symbol, a way of speaking to us "in [our] weakness, after the manner of [our] language, that [we] might come to understanding" (D&C 1:24). The fact is that, as human beings, we physical in nature. We want to see, we want to heft and feel things in our hands. If Joseph was inspired to give his immediate followers something to see and pick up and feel, so be it. I can live with that. The plates are a symbol--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself.

Let's imagine for the moment it does go the other way. The plates are real, and they are authentically ancient. If so, so what? I think it sufficiently noncontroversial to bluntly point out that the Book of Mormon text was produced using a seer stone. The plates remained on the table under a sheet or in a box or whatever have you. They had nothing to do with the text as we have it. The plates are still a symbol in this case--what is important is the Book of Mormon itself."

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/74 ... /#comments

This kind of reasoning gives me a headache.

[drumdude]

Quite fascinating to see some faithful Mormons throwing Joseph Smith and the plates under the bus at that board. I think it would have been unimaginable to see posts like that 10 years ago on that discussion board.

The foundations of the church are cracking under the weight of the evidence.

[High Spy]

The OP shows that some people are catching on to what the Davidic Servant has spoken.

... All I know for sure is what the Spirit revealed to me. There was a manuscript that PPP brought from Ohio where Sidney lived to where Joseph Smith lived and that the theology in the manuscript was from Sidney. And that is me putting the pieces together.

The Spirit said on occasion:
1. During the movie -- That man is the source of the theology in the Book of Mormon
2. In the Bishop's office -- Parley is the angel that brought the "plates" took them away and brought them back a year later. (The Spirit was rather chatty that time. and I understood that the "plates" were really a manuscript. I also understood that there was not a 116 pages. That was just a story to cover up the fact that Joseph Smith gave the entire manuscript to Martin Harris to show his wife and that it was Martin Harris' wife that sent the manuscript back with PPP so he could bring them back a year later, this last part was knowledge and not in the form of words)

[IHAQ]

Quite fascinating to see some faithful Mormons throwing Joseph Smith and the plates under the bus at that board. I think it would have been unimaginable to see posts like that 10 years ago on that discussion board.

The foundations of the church are cracking under the weight of the evidence.

It's fascinating behaviour. Vehemently defending the narrative that the Book of Mormon was produced by Joseph donning seer spectacles and "reading" reformed Egyptian off of gold plates, until the Church goes "Ahem, actually it happened a different way..." after which they vehemently defend that the Book of Mormon was produced by Joseph putting a treasure seeking stone (an unsuccessful one) in his hat and reading out loud the words that magically appeared on it. If the Church went on to say Joseph pulled the words out of a cows ass these people would vehemently defend the miraculous nature of that.

The plagiarised content of the KJV Bible that appears in the Book of Mormon is sufficient evidence that it wasn't transcribed from ancient gold plates, nor read from a magic seer stone. That evidence in and of itself shows deliberate fraud.