A Book of Mormon tour

[tommiatkins]

First, regarding miracles and witnesses, will 70,000 or so do: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Fatima

Second, and more importantly, God’s presence is here, every Christian is called to represent Him and live in us, quite literally. Sure, we often fail quite miserably at it, but then, we aren’t gods, we are humans.

70 thousand people , mainly devout beleivers, staring at the sun, and all claiming to see their own pattern-recognition illusion, bent on by religious fervour, crowd psychology and expectation does not surprise me in the slightest.
What would be strange is , if an actual manifestation of a 1950 year old dead person arrived in the way it did, is how nobody else, whipping themselves into a religious fervour two miles outside the town and those traipsing accross the medows of southern france , diddnt notice it. Not least the fact that a sun zipping about the sky would cause the instantaneous destrction of all life on the planet.

Mass suggestion is nothing new. High numbers do not make it any different.
Perhaps next time Mary decideds to pop down, she could arrive in such an amazing way for some actual purpose. Perhaps at the United Nations? Or how about Palastine?
Nope, she chose 1952 and a town in portugal, stuffed with catholics. Way to go mary. You saved that town from…ummmmm…err…Yeah, what was the point again?

 

[tommiatkins]

No, it draws so much criticism because it is demonstratable false. It makes claims about historical facts that are actually falsifiable because we do now know the real, archeologically-supported stories behind the people it talks about. We know for a fact that Native Americans did not originate in Israel, for istance, and that there has never, ever been a language known as “Reformed Egyptian” (I debunked that in this thread several pages ago). I’m sure there are other easily falsifiable claims to be found in the BoM, but I don’t want to have to read it to come up with more.

We know the Jews were not in slavery in eygpt, that they diddnt live 40 years in a desert, that there wasnt a flood, that the world is 4 billion years old, that man evolved from primates.
If i had to list the fallacies, i’d need a supply of keyboards and this whole year off.
Mormonism is indeed provably mad. But no more so than Islam or Judaism/Christianity

 

[RebeccaJ]

70 thousand people , mainly devout beleivers, staring at the sun, and all claiming to see their own pattern-recognition illusion, bent on by religious fervour, crowd psychology and expectation does not surprise me in the slightest.
What would be strange is , if an actual manifestation of a 1950 year old dead person arrived in the way it did, is how nobody else, whipping themselves into a religious fervour two miles outside the town and those traipsing accross the medows of southern france , diddnt notice it. Not least the fact that a sun zipping about the sky would cause the instantaneous destrction of all life on the planet.

Mass suggestion is nothing new. High numbers do not make it any different.
Perhaps next time Mary decideds to pop down, she could arrive in such an amazing way for some actual purpose. Perhaps at the United Nations? Or how about Palastine?
Nope, she chose 1952 and a town in portugal, stuffed with catholics. Way to go mary. You saved that town from…ummmmm…err…Yeah, what was the point again?

So, your main complaint is that a miracle must conform to your specifications?

And you chalk it all up to a psychological phenomena…all from reading one wikipedia article. You must have amazing supernatural powers of your own to know what 70,000 people experienced and that all of them suffered from a psychological delusion.

 

[tommiatkins]

So, your main complaint is that a miracle must conform to your specifications?

And you chalk it all up to a psychological phenomena…all from reading one wikipedia article. You must have amazing supernatural powers of your own to know what 70,000 people experienced and that all of them suffered from a psychological delusion.

Delusions are seperate to hallucinations, seperate from hysteria and from suggestions.

Yes, for me to accept a miracle, it has to conform to my specifications. thats my beleif, hey, its my faith! Dont diss it

In Brazil, 25000 people in a main city saw a UFO doing stunts for half an hour. In Falluja in 2005 Allah sent giant freaking spiders the size of sofas to kill the americans, in 623 at Badar the Muslims had 1000 or ten thousand angels, all mounted on celestial chargers arrive to help them kill seventy caravan gaurds in a four hour battle. (pretty good going huh?)

C’mon Yahweh! Allah can drop 1000 angels at a point when they are needed. Is one single pointless arrival in portugal of Jesus’s mum the best that can be done? Why not arrive in india and convert all those elephant-man/god chappies?

if your doing a miracle, then perhaps dumping another trillion quails onto a country like was done to the jews in the desert? How about ethiopia in 1984. They’d have scoffed a few. Perhaps enough to put a plauge on them for whining about the dietry restrictions?
Bob Geldof could have put his feet up.

 

[dzheremi]

We know the Jews were not in slavery in eygpt, that they diddnt live 40 years in a desert, that there wasnt a flood, that the world is 4 billion years old, that man evolved from primates.
If i had to list the fallacies, i’d need a supply of keyboards and this whole year off.
Mormonism is indeed provably mad. But no more so than Islam or Judaism/Christianity

This is a strange argument to make. I talked about things that were demonstratably false, and you come back with a mishmash of things that I don’t dispute (Catholics are NOT Biblical literalists, so things like the age of the Earth or evolution cause us no trouble), and other things that are primarily unfalsifiable…

 

[why_me]

why me;3991713:

So Emma did leave the child alone and exposed to cold air then. Sounds more like neglect.

See I can take a situation and spin it for melodrama too. If people died from getting chilly there’d be a lot less people in the world today.

Put yourself in the picture. Your house is broken into by a mob. You have a child weak with the measles. You see your husband dragged out of the house. What do you do? Most likely, you grab the child and hurry out to help your husband. Hence, the exposure of the child. Now of course, you could stay put and let your husband be dragged out alone and do nothing. But this would be unlikely.

 

[why_me]

If I were to find out that some Native Americans descended from Israelis it would still not prove the Book of Mormon true. It would certainly provide me greater reason to believe in it, but it wouldn’t be enough for me to embrace the Book of Mormon. There might be a tipping point where the Book of Mormon would be proved to be true beyond a reasonable doubt, but that would take a lot of evidence that just isn’t forthcoming at this point. But even a little evidence might at least give it a little credibility. It wouldn’t prove it true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I think that any proof whether DNA or any other evidence would tip the scale in favor of god and the lds faith. The book of mormon is a different book from the bible. Both take faith to believe in them but for different reasons. The book of mormon if proven by evidence would be enough to prove the existence of god. The secular age would by and large come to an end.

The point behind the book of mormon is who exactly wrote it. And at this point, it has not been proven that JS or Sidney or anyone else wrote the book. What we do have are 11 witnesses, not including JS’s wife Emma who never denied her husband’s prophethood, that saw the plates.

 

[BartBurk]

I think that any proof whether DNA or any other evidence would tip the scale in favor of god and the lds faith. The book of mormon is a different book from the bible. Both take faith to believe in them but for different reasons. The book of mormon if proven by evidence would be enough to prove the existence of god. The secular age would by and large come to an end.

The point behind the book of mormon is who exactly wrote it. And at this point, it has not been proven that JS or Sidney or anyone else wrote the book. What we do have are 11 witnesses, not including JS’s wife Emma who never denied her husband’s prophethood, that saw the plates.

But you of course understand that many of those witnesses claimed to have only seen it with their “spiritual eyes” not physically:

irr.org/mit/bom-wit-pt1.html

 

[BartBurk]

In relation to the witnesses, I thought it would be appropriate to quote from the article I linked to above regarding Oliver Cowdrey. There is strong reason to believe Oliver denied his testimony:

There is also evidence that some early LDS Church members believed Cowdery at some point denied his testimony of the Book of Mormon. This is found in Times and Seasons, Vol. 2, p. 482. In this Mormon publication one stanza of a poem reads:

Or prove that Christ was not the Lord
Because that Peter cursed and swore?
Or Book of Mormon not his word
Because denied, by Oliver?

The reason for this belief is likely linked to Cowdery’s later association with the Methodist church. After breaking with the Mormon church, there is considerable evidence indicating Cowdery later joined the “Methodist Protestant Church of Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio.” The following is quoted from an affidavit given by G.J.Keen in 1885.

Mr. Cowdery opened a law office in Tiffin, and soon effected a partnership with Joel W. Wilson. In a few years Mr. Cowdery expressed a desire to associate himself with a Methodist Protestant Church of this city.

Rev. John Souder and myself were appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Cowdery and confer with him respecting his connection with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. We accordingly waited on Mr. Cowdery at his residence in Tiffin, and there learned his connection, from him, with that order, and his full and final renunciation thereof. (Shook 1914, 58-59)

The affidavit recounts Cowdery’s reluctance to provide a public recantation but willingness to authorize one and have the church publish it if it were required by the church. They did not demand it and upon submitting his name, Oliver Cowdery was accepted unanimously. Keen continues:

At that time he arose and addressed the audience present, admitted his error and implored forgiveness, and said he was sorry and ashamed of his connection with Mormonism. He continued his membership while he resided in Tiffin, and became Superintendent of the Sabbath-School, and led an exemplary life while he resided with us. (Ibid)

Cowdery went on to act as a clerk for this church, was elected Secretary of a church meeting, and recognized as a charter member. Minutes of a church meeting signed by him are still extant at the Methodist Church in Tiffin, Ohio (Gunn 1942, 124). While this in itself is not absolute proof that Cowdery denied or retracted his testimony, it is highly improbable that he could have become a member of this church, let alone achieve such respected standing, without disavowing his connection with the Book of Mormon and the Latter-day Saints.

Again, the entire account of the witnesses can be found here:

irr.org/mit/bom-wit-pt1.html

There is absolute proof in the above that Oliver Cowdrey joined the Methodist Church in Tiffin, Ohio and acted as its secretary. With his public notoriety, it is likely the church would have required him to renounce his former witness of Mormonism. It also seems very strange that with all of his own revelatory experiences that Oliver was willing to join the Methodist Church.

The Mormons rely on a supposed testimony given by Oliver in a Michigan courtroom that he believed in the Book of Mormon to bolster their faith. The article shows the folly of that defense:

One of the favorite stories used to defend Cowdery during his years away from the Church is cited by LDS historian B.H. Roberts. He recounts an incident in Michigan where Cowdery, as a prosecuting attorney, is challenged by the defense as to his role in the Book of Mormon. Cowdery’s lengthy response includes a solid affirmation of his testimony in the Book of Mormon and the visitation of the angel. A similar story is related by Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, p. 258.

Stanley Gunn in his B.Y.U. Master’s thesis (1942) could find no record of Cowdery practicing law in Michigan, and stated “The testimony is given here merely as ‘possible or probable testimony,’ but its authenticity lacks official confirmation.” (Gunn 1942, 139) Yet, given the questionable nature of the story, LDS apologist Preston Nibley in his book Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, published in 1953, uses the story and prefaces his quote of the Michigan account with, “The following interesting event… gives conclusive proof that Oliver Cowdery was faithful to his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, and that he fearlessly proclaimed that testimony during the years that he was out of the Church, from 1838 to 1848.” (Nibley 1958, 42) Whether this was purposefully deceitful cannot be known for sure, but one wonders about the wisdom of not consulting a Master’s thesis entitled Oliver Cowdery - Second Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, when writing a book on the Book of Mormon Witnesses.

By 1962, when Gunn published his book Oliver Cowdery - Second Elder and Scribe, he still had found no evidence of Cowdery’s practicing law in Michigan, or his attaining the office of Prosecuting Attorney. Richard Anderson (Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 1981) admits the third hand-nature of this account, but still uses it as evidence, attributing its most accurate telling to George Q. Cannon. While this was a late recollection on Cannon’s part, Anderson justifies using it by stating that Cannon “had a remarkable intellect and a great capacity for accurate detail in his personal writing.” However, Cannon’s own reliability is questionable since he, “in his biography of Joseph Smith in 1888, admitted the ‘paltry things’ were left out of his account of ‘men of God… pure and holy.’” (Russell 1983, 132) Selective historiography has tended to be sanctioned and at times encouraged by the Mormon Church as long as it is faith-promoting in nature.

It is true that when Cowdrey was in ill-health near the end of his life that he was re-baptized as a Mormon. The article above goes into a bit of detail about that as well. You will have to click on part 2 of the above link to get to the information on Cowdrey. I firmly believe Oliver was in on the original Book of Mormon fraud. He apparently spent the last years of his life in a great deal of confusion after his unjustified expulsion from the Mormon Church in Missouri.

 

[majick275]

I think that any proof whether DNA or any other evidence would tip the scale in favor of god and the lds faith. The book of mormon is a different book from the bible. Both take faith to believe in them but for different reasons. The book of mormon if proven by evidence would be enough to prove the existence of god. The secular age would by and large come to an end.

The point behind the book of mormon is who exactly wrote it. And at this point, it has not been proven that JS or Sidney or anyone else wrote the book. What we do have are 11 witnesses, not including JS’s wife Emma who never denied her husband’s prophethood, that saw the plates.

no we have 11 people of very questionable character, all of whom were close friends//relatives of JS who CLAIMED to see the plates. quite frankly there is a stronger case for the loch ness monster and if we stick to religion the koran has a far greater claim than the BoM…and we KNOW it’s false.

 

[majick275]

zaffiroborant;3992001:

Put yourself in the picture. Your house is broken into by a mob. You have a child weak with the measles. You see your husband dragged out of the house. What do you do? Most likely, you grab the child and hurry out to help your husband. Hence, the exposure of the child. Now of course, you could stay put and let your husband be dragged out alone and do nothing. But this would be unlikely.

i guess it depends on how upset she was that he was trying to sleep with the farmers daughter where they were living. (interesting note that the woman question did in fact become one of his documented plural wives)

the child was adopted too…so we don’t know if there were extenuating circumstances from birth that contributed. it appears that the infant wold have died no matter what.

 

[NewSeeker]

the world is 4 billion years old, that man evolved from primates.

But did man’s consciousness, artistic creativity, and will evolve from primates? Where’s the evidence? The fossil record supports the theory that our physical form evolved. What’s your theory for the origin of our consciousness and on what evidence is it based? We may have similar bodily structures to the other primates, but, except for Planet of the Apes, I have yet to see an ape colony erect a statue to a great ape forbearer, build a temple around it, and light incense in his honor. Unless Dawkins and Hitchens produce some alternative evidence and a reasonable theory (both are required) to explain the origin of our consciousness, they’re just blowing hot air. But they can’t explain it. There’s no evidence from nature that our consciousness evolved. They have a doctrine against supernatural explanations, and zero evidence that materialism completely explains our humanity.

NS

 

[zaffiroborant]

zaffiroborant;3992001:

Put yourself in the picture. Your house is broken into by a mob. You have a child weak with the measles. You see your husband dragged out of the house. What do you do? Most likely

, you grab the child and hurry out to help your husband. Hence, the exposure of the child. Now of course, you could stay put and let your husband be dragged out alone and do nothing. But this would be unlikely.

Weaving more tales to shore up the ridiculous? The simple explanation is the child died of measles, no speculating on what most likely or unlikely.

 

[hosemonkey]

if your doing a miracle, then perhaps dumping another trillion quails onto a country like was done to the jews in the desert? How about ethiopia in 1984. They’d have scoffed a few. Perhaps enough to put a plauge on them for whining about the dietry restrictions?
Bob Geldof could have put his feet up.

So you’re not a believer. What are you doing here? Are you searching or merely confirming your unbelief?

 

[RebeccaJ]

70 thousand people , mainly devout beleivers, staring at the sun, and all claiming to see their own pattern-recognition illusion, bent on by religious fervour, crowd psychology and expectation does not surprise me in the slightest.
What would be strange is , if an actual manifestation of a 1950 year old dead person arrived in the way it did, is how nobody else, whipping themselves into a religious fervour two miles outside the town and those traipsing accross the medows of southern france , diddnt notice it. Not least the fact that a sun zipping about the sky would cause the instantaneous destrction of all life on the planet.

Mass suggestion is nothing new. High numbers do not make it any different.
Perhaps next time Mary decideds to pop down, she could arrive in such an amazing way for some actual purpose. Perhaps at the United Nations? Or how about Palastine?
Nope, she chose 1952 and a town in portugal, stuffed with catholics. Way to go mary. You saved that town from…ummmmm…err…Yeah, what was the point again?

Well, you have an “interesting” religion going on there. Rock on.

 

[tommiatkins]

Well, you have an “interesting” religion going on there. Rock on.

Thanks, but i would repay the complement.
I’m finding catholicism facinating at the moment!

 

[tommiatkins]

So you’re not a believer. What are you doing here? Are you searching or merely confirming your unbelief?

Oh my unbeleif dosnt need confirming, and yet daily it is. I just like debating.
Plus, any faith thats worth beleiving in has to be able to defend itself?

 

[tommiatkins]

This is a strange argument to make. I talked about things that were demonstratably false, and you come back with a mishmash of things that I don’t dispute (Catholics are NOT Biblical literalists, so things like the age of the Earth or evolution cause us no trouble), and other things that are primarily unfalsifiable…

Why bother with the bible then? If you are accepting that its as real or trustworthy as the Wombles Annual 1976, then why not use that instead?

 

[why_me]

But you of course understand that many of those witnesses claimed to have only seen it with their “spiritual eyes” not physically:

irr.org/mit/bom-wit-pt1.html

I think that you are trying to quote Martin Harris. Martin Harris was asked repeatedly throughout his life about his book of mormon experience. He never denied his testimony. As for spiritual eyes, one can describe the process in various of ways, but the fact remains that he never denied his testimony. Many of the comments from second hand sources about what was said can be just a tad shaded. But none of the witnesses denied their testimony even when it could have been very advantageous to do so.

 

[why_me]

no we have 11 people of very questionable character, all of whom were close friends//relatives of JS who CLAIMED to see the plates. quite frankly there is a stronger case for the loch ness monster and if we stick to religion the koran has a far greater claim than the BoM…and we KNOW it’s false.

What made their character questionable? David Whitmer was highly respected as was Martin Harris. The others seem quite okay too.