LDS: The 'first copy' of the Book of Mormon??

[hosemonkey]

Read the link that I just posted. It explains what happened after the pages disappeared. True he was disappointed but more concerned about what heavenly father would do. If he were a fraud, it would not matter to him if the pages went mission at all.

Now of course, it is up to you to prove a fraud had occured. Do you have proof and if you do, make it public.

The evidence speaks for itself. As I said before, if you took the evidence FOR the BOM into court, you would lose. It is a demonstrable work of fantasy. We have been over this ground many times before. No reputable authority (except maybe BYU, who is a dubious authority, at best) gives the BOM ANY credibility. It is the product of JS’s imagination.

 

[adstrinity]

The hat translation is quite positive for the book of mormon. And it does make sense. Why would JS write a book complete with manuscript, if he were a fraud and then disgard the manuscript and stick his head in a hat and automatic write a book?

Can you answer that question?

Somebody saw him do the hat thing, right? So, to do the hat thing leads to his credibility if he had a co-conspirator. Also, it is his story, so, the accounts would be pretty much the same. If I am typing something here and for some reason I lose it, I can type it all over again, about the same as it was before. The plates that nobody but his friends alledgedly, “saw,” make a good story.

Of course, just because what I typed makes logical sence to a skeptic, that does not negate the faith aspect of the Mormon, and I accept that.

 

[RC_Matt]

The translation process occured in various of ways. But more to the point, an artists account of the procedure is just that… an artists account and no more.

Dude, give me a break, the SAME picture is in the Mormon missionary training manual. It’s just more of the “lying for the lord” and “milk before meat” deception, institutionally perpetrated to avoid scaring off investigators before they’re baptised. In fact, unless ALL my Mormon friends and acquaintances deliberately lied to me (and I find that highly unlikely), a lot of Mormons themselves don’t even know the rock-in-the-hat story. I had to discover that little detail myself.

 

[AMDGtoo]

The translation process occured in various of ways. But more to the point, an artists account of the procedure is just that… an artists account and no more.

Really? In this case it’s an artist’s rendition that is completely false and is misleading. It’s certainly not promoting truth. Sounds more like propaganda.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

For what it is worth, for those of you who have not blocked me and can read this, permit me to say that I just clicked on the link provided by the OP and found the following message, “This video has been removed by the user.”

I suspect whomever it was at YouTube who originally posted the movie was confronted by some legal threats by some LDS lawyers or something.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Really? In this case it’s an artist’s rendition that is completely false and is misleading. It’s certainly not promoting truth. Sounds more like propaganda.

I and MANY OTHERS only envisioned Smith sitting at a table with the plates in front of him, if I REALLY KNEW he was reading out of a hat with the plates in another room that FACT ALONE would have turned me (and others) off immediately. This is one of those bits of information you stumble across accidentally because I highly doubt this would come out as mainstream/basic knowledge.

The LAST thing the LDS would be putting on pictures is Smith reading out of a hat, it looks silly and absurd and goes against common sense. It leaves you more suspicious than when you originally thought.

 

[Tracy10]

Forget about what’s true and what isn’t. Focus only on the aspects of everything “anyone” teaches that you consider truly loving, caring, respectful, and Christ-like. There are good and bad things in pretty well all religions. There are also truths and lies in every single one of them. Remember, religions are run by man, and no man is perfect, regardless of his own claim or of claims by church officials.

I was shown a video from YouTube on the LDS religion:
youtube.com/watch?v=kYq0OIwN1wI&feature=related

What I do know about Mormons, I believe that video was more or less accurate.
However, some of the issues I did NOT know about were in the movie and one of them was when Joseph Smith first translated the book of Mormon he had his head in a hat so nobody could see. And from there he would read off what he claimed to be translating Is that true? If it is true I consider that a very questionable and even ridiculous claim for not being able to show the evidence.

BUT what was MORE interesting and that I really didnt know about, and what I REALLY want to know more about, is the first copy of the book that was made and taken by Mr Harris to his wife. Mrs Harris had a plan to keep the first copy and demand Joseph Smith make another translation to compare with the first. This way if the translation was real the stories should be the same.
DID this event really take place and do you have any more information on it (eg where is the first copy)??

 

[hosemonkey]

Forget about what’s true and what isn’t. Focus only on the aspects of everything “anyone” teaches that you consider truly loving, caring, respectful, and Christ-like. There are good and bad things in pretty well all religions. There are also truths and lies in every single one of them. Remember, religions are run by man, and no man is perfect, regardless of his own claim or of claims by church officials.

While I applaud your sentiment, it is only sentiment. Wether something is true or not is extremely important, especially if you are basing your eternal salvation on it. If my Church taught something that I later found out to be a deliberate lie, I would be very suspicious of anything else it taught. “Feels good” don’t feed the bulldog, no matter how "touchy-feely it is. The Catholic Church stands on a body of Truth, not by the dubious testimony of some dude peering into a hat.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Forget about what’s true and what isn’t. Focus only on the aspects of everything “anyone” teaches that you consider truly loving, caring, respectful, and Christ-like. There are good and bad things in pretty well all religions. There are also truths and lies in every single one of them. Remember, religions are run by man, and no man is perfect, regardless of his own claim or of claims by church officials.

When I hear this kind of absolutism it starts to sound like opinion masquerading as its own dogma to me. It sounds just like the infallible statements: “There is no God!” or “Trust no one but me to tell you the truth”, “there is no such thing as truth”, “there is no such thing as a lie”, “Everything I say is a lie”, etc. etc.

What you are proposing absolutely is nothing more profound that relativism and fractionalism and a weak compromise. You would use an “absolute” to arrive at the non sequitur that absolutes do not exist. This line of reasoning is useless except for those that want to toss out the baby with the bathwater by declaring it all soiled.

Care to point out what you judge to be objective lies in Catholicism?

James

 

[Tracy10]

Sorry, I’m not on this board to discourage anyone from choosing the religions they have. It’s a matter of personal choice.

There is more than ample history of how every church got started as things they did that could be considered both ethical and unethical. Some leaders meant well, while others had more selfish concerns in mind.

Those truly interested in finding out what they need to know have all of the information they need right at their fingertips.

When I hear this kind of
Care to point out what you judge to be objective lies in Catholicism?

James

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Sorry, I’m not on this board to discourage anyone from choosing the religions they have. It’s a matter of personal choice.

There is more than ample history of how every church got started as things they did that could be considered both ethical and unethical. Some leaders meant well, while others had more selfish concerns in mind.

Those truly interested in finding out what they need to know have all of the information they need right at their fingertips.

You need to provide links or resources, otherwise all you offer is your own personal opinion.

May the peace of the Lord be with you,
Prodigal Son1

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Forget about what’s true and what isn’t. Focus only on the aspects of everything “anyone” teaches that you consider truly loving, caring, respectful, and Christ-like. There are good and bad things in pretty well all religions. There are also truths and lies in every single one of them. Remember, religions are run by man, and no man is perfect, regardless of his own claim or of claims by church officials.

I understand the main idea of what you are saying and I agree with it to an extent.

What I dont agree with is that the idea that there isnt one objective truth out there, I believe there is and apart from believing there is one objective truth opens the door to inhumane and evil treatment of people.

 

[PaulDupre]

Really? In this case it’s an artist’s rendition that is completely false and is misleading. It’s certainly not promoting truth. Sounds more like propaganda.

It’s also an artist’s rendition that is approved and published by the LDS apostles who surely know better. Therefore it is a willful deception on the part of those leaders.

 

[PaulDupre]

Forget about what’s true and what isn’t…

…said the serpent.

 

[PaulDupre]

The hat translation is quite positive for the book of mormon. And it does make sense. Why would JS write a book complete with manuscript, if he were a fraud and then disgard the manuscript and stick his head in a hat and automatic write a book?

Can you answer that question?

Yes.

At the time the Book of Mormon came forth many people believed in “peep stones.” These stones were sometimes placed in a hat and used to locate buried treasure. The following, taken from the Orleans Advocate, appeared in the Wayne Sentinel on December 27, 1825:

MR. STRONG—Please insert the following and oblige one of your readers.

Wonderful Discovery.—**A few days since was discovered in this town, by the help of a mineral stone, (which becomes transparent when placed in a hat and the light excluded by the face of him who looks into it,** provided he is fortune's favorite,) a monstrous potash kettle in the bowels of old mother Earth, filled with the purest bullion. . . . His Satanic Majesty, or some other invisible agent, appears to keep it under marching orders; for no sooner is it dug on to in one place, than it moves off like "false delusive hope," to another still more remote.

-Cited in “The Changing World of Mormonism” by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, pg 78

It is obvious that stories like this gave young Joseph the model for his seemingly magical translation technique. If this was what people wanted to believe in, then this was what Joseph the con-man would give them. Joseph used the stone-in-the-hat trick in his fraudulent treasure hunting for years before pretending to translate the BoM.

How hard is this to understand?

 

[CentralFLJames]

Sorry, I’m not on this board to discourage anyone from choosing the religions they have. It’s a matter of personal choice.

There is more than ample history of how every church got started as things they did that could be considered both ethical and unethical. Some leaders meant well, while others had more selfish concerns in mind.

Those truly interested in finding out what they need to know have all of the information they need right at their fingertips.

That is a disingenuous and evasive response.

I could be wrong but I’d say you are here to proclaim a competing theology formed around faux objectivism and a personal godhead. I’d invite you to discover the clear hubris and self-contradiction in thinking you have a “more enlightened” truth here. Do you really trust yourself to remain rational and “truthful” with yourself while advising others that ‘there are no truths’?

If you are going to set yourself up as an infallible secular pope and try to advise and teach around here then you really need to name your religion to something other than “atheism” so we can bump the “cult odometer” by one more.

James

 

[Carl_Nicholas]

Yes.

It is obvious that stories like this gave young Joseph the model for his seemingly magical translation technique. If this was what people wanted to believe in, then this was what Joseph the con-man would give them. Joseph used the stone-in-the-hat trick in his fraudulent treasure hunting for years before pretending to translate the BoM.

How hard is this to understand?

Hi Paul,
Thank you for sharing all your knowledge ( and backing it up with links and facts ) with all ( or atleast one, me ) of your Catholic brothers.

I have learned a TON about this that I, not only never knew, but has shocked me more than just a little.

I want to make this clear, I have had, and still have, a very kind and mutually respectfull realationship with a handfull of my Morman brethran and at NO TIME in our countless discussions of faith and grounds for faith has this been brought up in this light.

ON THE CONTRARY, each AND EVERY time it has been in the arena of our conversation, it has been told virtually the same, the following way.

J Smith finds gold tablets, Translates them with stones to scribes sitting next to him and then Book of Morman existed.

Never was I or any of us led to believe or not ever a MENTION of a hat with the gold bars not even in the same room.

This also strikes me::: translate means to put an unknown language into a language of the audiences language to underdstand.

Well if the gold bars wer not even in the same room as JS or the scribes that were sitting next to him, than what what he " translating " from the hat??? ( confused )

Thanks again for your sharing,
God bless
Carl

 

[CentralFLJames]

Well if the gold bars wer not even in the same room as JS or the scribes that were sitting next to him, than what what he " translating " from the hat??? ( confused )

Thanks again for your sharing,
God bless
Carl

Well to me it sounds like the ol’ cliff notes in the hat liner and fireflies in the boot polish jar trick to me…

Anyone know if any of the witness have accounts of Mr. Smith translating while rocking vigorously in a rocking chair (to shake up the fire flies) or him periodically getting agitated and shaking his hat or reports of an faint glow leaking out from around the brim of his hat near his ears?

James

 

[Carl_Nicholas]

Well to me it sounds like the ol’ cliff notes in the hat liner and fireflies in the boot polish jar trick to me…

Anyone know if any of the witness have accounts of Mr. Smith translating while rocking vigorously in a rocking chair (to shake up the fire flies) or him periodically getting agitated and shaking his hat or reports of an faint glow leaking out from around the brim of his hat near his ears?

James

Hi James,
Although I must admit, I did get a " large smile " from your response.

It really was an honest question.

What do the Morman officials say he was " translating "??

God bless,
Carl

 

[why_me]

I can see that no one read my link about the translation process:

library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1977.htm/ensign%20september%201977.htm/by%20the%20gift%20and%20power%20of%20god%20.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

It is uncertain just how the translation process occured. But it is all in the lds church magazine ‘Ensign’. It was David Whitmer who mentioned the hat and that was many years after the event. Who knows if he were joking after being asked over and over again about the book of mormon. But one thing is for sure. No witness denied the book of mormon or the gold plates. They stuck to their story until death.