Is it possible that instead of seeing God the Father and Jesus that Joseph Smith saw demons or hallucinated?

[rainman10]

You moved the goal posts, but as to your point only one recorded and accepted as scripture, just like Paul. Or are you suggesting that Paul only gave one version word for word perfect any time he related it? To prove that, we would need to have more witnesses of Paul’s teachings than we currently have (which woudl be wonderful to have!).

Maybe they did not repeat their stories word for word each time, but I doubt they told totally different stories from their original story.

 

[rainman10]

It is untruthfull to look only at the good…Jesus came to establish one Church, not this or “that” one. To split HIs Church and work against the Church He established on the Rock is not good fruit.

If you ask the right people there can be found good fruit in something as evil and satan led as abortion. Can this prove abortion is God sent?

So, in essence, is God saying that since Jesus did such a lousy job of starting a church while He was here on earth, that God decided to come to Joseph Smith, so he could do what Jesus could not do?

 

[rainman10]

If it is the true chuch. That’s a big if. I could go through the acts of the church in the early centuries, the horrors perpetrated by it in the name of Christ and I think we might both agree that it’s reasonable for a person to have some doubts that this church was “true” to Christ. I don’t want to do that. That’s not why I am here. But let’s not pretend that these horrific acts didn’t ever happen.

But what you are referring to here is the people of the church, not the church itself. Yes, there were “horrors” as you say it, but it was because of some of the people of the church, not the church itself. Certainly there are Mormons that have taken horrific actions, so do you then claim that the Mormon church is not the true church either? I seriously doubt it. You conveniently refer to this ideology only when referring to the Catholic Church.

 

[dcana]

Hmm…don’t all non-Mormons believe this (or #1 as explained below)? I mean, the one thing that is definitely not possible is that JS saw God the Father and/or Jesus. I suppose it could have been satan or his minions in the appearance of them. There are only three possibilities for the claims, exactly the same as for Mohammad, who made very similar claims. Namely, he saw an angel from heaven who told him the True Church was gone from the earth, God is not a Trinity (in M’s case, Jesus was simply a “prophet”), the Bible is corrupted, and with the “revelation” God is restoring his “True Church” on the earth.

The three possibilities:

1. He made the whole thing up - no “visions” at all.
2. He, for whatever reason, was hallucinating.
3. He saw “something,” but it was most definitely not God nor angels nor anyone from heaven.

I personally subscribe to explanation #1.

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

Thanks to all who participated.
Thread closed.