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Posted on 05/08/2008 5:04:47 PM PDT by Grig
I am posting this on behalf of many LDS freepers. They will post their own 'signature' to this in the comments below. --- Some of you have noticed lately a lot of LDS (ie: Mormon) threads here on FR. I'm going to tell you why.
For many years there have been several active LDS freepers here. We post to all the forums on relevant issues, and were happy to have a site where conservative values were so openly welcomed.
Those conservative values include faith in God, and freedom of religion. We fully respect the rights of all posters to express their opinions and views on religious matters, even when people choose to use those rights to express criticism of our own faith. We also support the ideas embodied in FR rules against religion bashing. There is no need for hostility and there should be no room for bigotry on FR. Every religion has it's miracles and mysteries. Every faith has things in it that are not or can not be proven, and things that run contrary to what secular science would have us believe. Someone mature and confident in their own faith generally doesn't feel the need to belittle the faith of others.
We have, to the best of our ability, conducted ourselves with civility and dignity. We do not feel that that respect has been returned by some posters (putting it mildly).
When Mormon missionaries were murdered, the moderators were kept busy pulling jubilant posts off the thread. When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home, we contended for months with posters who appeared to be motivated by religious bigotry doing all they could to smear the family and accuse the father. Several posters openly admitted their religious motivation in opposing Mitt Romney and confessed that no matter how conservative any Mormon was, they would never vote for one for President of the USA. When the Pope died, I don't think any Mormon poster posted anything unkind, yet the thread about the passing of our President recently needed many comments removed.
Nearly every thread having any connection with Mormons, or Utah winds up being hijacked by anti-Mormon activists who copy and paste the same false accusations over and over even when it has been clearly and factually pointed out to them on multiple occasions that they are bearing false witness against our faith. Everything possible is done by these activists to make FR a hostile place for Mormons, and for at least some of them, bashing Mormonism is all they do here. Their most recent project is trying to blur the fact that the polygamous FLDS is a separate and distinct religion from ours, just as Lutherans are a separate and distinct religion from Catholicism.
In our opinion, such poster do a great disservice to FR and to their fellow freepers by spreading disinformation and promoting hostility towards a people known for walking the walk of conservative values.
Why the moderators here don't see the behavior of these anti-Mormon activists as religion bashing is a mystery to us, but it is the moderators call to make and we respect their right to do so. That doesn't mean we have to be passive however. We have all spent many hours refuting the accusations leveled at our faith, but these wind up buried deep in a flood of comments, effectively shouting us down.
Recently some of us have decided to take a more proactive approach. Rather than try to wrestle the pig into taking a bath, we are just going to hose it down. We will actively define our faith here rather than just respond to accusations.
So expect to see lots of Mormon threads, now and for as long as we see fit to keep posting them (although probably not as many as there are Catholic threads). They will be about our basic doctrines and responses to common accusations. If you want to know what our faith is about, read the articles we post. We will post them as open threads and I encourage you to compare the difference in tone and spirit between what we post and what our critics say.
Are you trying to be mean to me DU?
Your premise which you conveniently cut off from the Quote was "If you are claiming the bom to be that second witness, then it first stands and falls upon the credibility of the writer – Joseph Smith" Your premise that the writer is the only support is flawed, and is the "Standard of man" that you accuse me of using.
Not really DU, as the originator of the BOM, his credibility is more than fair play
There is of course the work itself, testimonies of others, and in the case of something that purports to be scripture, God's testimony of lack thereof.
Fine, the work itself – no archaeological or anthropological support, plagiarism from the KJV, anachronisms out the wazoo. Contradicts other mormon doctrines. This is just the short list, the work itself fails to stand on its own.
Testamony of others – David Whitmey, one of the Three Witnesses wrote this: About the same time that I came out, the Spirit of God moved upon quite a number of the brethren who came out, with their families, all of the eight witnesses who were then living (except the three Smiths) came out; Peter and Christian Whitmer were dead. Oliver Cowdery came out also. Martin Harris was then in Ohio. The church went deeper and deeper into wickedness (An Address to all Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, 1887, pp.27-28
Joseph Smith denounced them and their character in the strongest manner – why believe them.
Please explain how Joseph a boy with three years of education wrote this huge book with systems of government, systems of weights and measures, societies, and geography from the Middle east that he could not have known all accurately portrayed, and never made a mistake in one pass, this being his first such work. Experienced writers cannot do that easily, or at all.
When he plagerized wholesale from the bible, his work is considerably reduced. Second, he didn’t work alone – he had his helper scribes who could have contributed to the work. And never make a mistake – ROTFLAICGU! I guess 4000+ changes don’t count as mistakes, even significant changes as recent as the early 1970’s.
How could Joseph possibly have known the route from Jerusalem to Naholm to Bountiful and portrayed it so accurately that we can follow the trail today and find the only place on the coast that meets with the description of Bountiful? indeed, the Valley, the wadi that flows year round, how?
As I stated earlier, the only thing found are the intials NMH, in a culture that was non Hebrew. That is what your whole premise rests. The so-called site of Bountiful no where near fits the description.
How could he have known to put Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon?
Yawn. Fellow mormons do not believe at face value Chiasmus :
Book of Mormon Authorship has made a prima facie case for the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon. It fails, however, to respond to scholarly criticism in some crucial areas. For example, since Welch first published his study on chiasmus in 1969, it has been discovered that chiasmus also appears in the Doctrine and Covenants (see, for example, 88:34-38; 93:18-38; 132:19-26, 29-36), the Pearl of Great Price (Book of Abraham 3:16-19; 22-28), and other isolated nineteenth-century works. Thus, Welch's major premise that chiasmus is exclusively an ancient literary device is false. Indeed, the presence of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon may be evidence of Joseph Smith's own literary style and genius. Perhaps Welch could have strengthened his premise by demonstrating that the parallel members in the Book of Mormon consist of Semitic word pairs, the basis of ancient Hebrew poetry. Without such a demonstration, both Welch's and Reynold's arguments from chiasmus are weak. (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 16, No. 4, Winter, 1983, p. 141-143)
The chiasms that Mormon researchers find all over the Book are, in fact, a result of the incredible amount of repetition contained therein, and are well within the bounds of probability. This, coupled with the rather loose definition of a chiasm employed by the researchers, wherein they can include only those elements which fit the structure, and discard those elements which don't, results in a large number of imaginary chiasms in the Book.
How could he have known that now they would begin to find Jewish and Other Semitic Texts Written in Egyptian Characters?
A wimpy article that cherry picked sentences from other articles. I’ll pick one item cited in your reference:
Demotic magical papyrus of London - Its importance for the deciphering of the demotic script by the help of the numerous glosses in Graeco-Coptic characters. The Maxwell is deceptive in saying that the underlying origional text was Northwest Semitic tongue, an early form of Hebrew/Canaanite, where it appears the Gnostics the document is associated with borrowed the Semitic words, rather than vice versa. Infact they shoot themselves in the foot by agreeing with me Egyptian scribes were sufficiently versed in the Northwest Semitic tongue that they were able to transliterate it using their own writing system (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2012873/posts )
How could he have known that in the modern day we would find the Ten Commandments in america written in a form of Hebrew no one in his day could read?
ROTFLAICGU! I see you stopped using the website that specifically states mormons visited the Los Lunas stone and discarded it as even evidence!!!!!!! But did you read this website either???? Lookie here:
Further speculation involved the authorship of that rock inscription.Some even considered it to be an inscription from a member of one of the lost tribes of Israel. Others have expressed the thought that perhaps some Mormons may have carved this message in an attempt to support their views of an ancient pre-columbian semitic history in North America. However, a simple research on Mormon Web sites reveals absolutely nothing about this rock inscription. It is not used by their church as a proof for the existence of ancient Nephites in America. For a certainty it is not written in so-called "reformed Egyptian" language
http://www.mhccorp.com/archaeology/decalogue-background.html
Bawwwaaahhhh, you are 0 for 2 on this evidence DU.
How could he have known there would be other stones with ancient Hebrew on them, again this form of Hebrew which nobody knew how to read or write? Once again, failure to read the website, several options are given
1. Cherokee
2. Hebrew, but Masonic
3. Welsh Coelbren
And from another site about the stone:
Those who have believed the Bat Creek Stone to be a forgery of fraud, include Dr. Charles Faulkner, anthropologist at the University of Tennessee and Jefferson Chapman, Director of the U.T. McClung Museum. They believe that Emmert perpetrated the fraud. My researches indicate that Emmert himself, was a victim of the fraud, set up to send in a fraudulent engraved stone so he would get fired, for the second time. If this is evidence for the bom – then were are the rest of the artifacts? Where is the great mormon city that would be associated with it?
How did he know they would start finding records inscribed on metal plates, in his day it was unheard of.
Broken clock
How did he know that it is now common to find along with the book of breathings other scriptural works buried with mummies? no one knew it back then.
On the contrary, considerable numbers of these documents were found and the finds in Egypt were widely disseminated. Further, the man Smith bought it from could have easily passed the information too. Another red herring.
How did Joseph smith a backwoods boy from America, with a total of three years of education drain the swamps at Nauvoo, build houses and roads that were a marvel of his day and design and construct temples that were beyond the engineering of his day? how?
All by himself – wow no one else with the skill and knowledge but him. I doubt that piece of fiction. Same too with the temples, the technology was well in place at that time.
Joseph is long gone, how come millions have read his Book of Mormon translation and prayed to God to see if it was his word and received an emphatic YES direct from God?
Yes, millions have been fooled by a false emotional feeling involked by the used car salesmen on bicycles. Millions of others have done the same and received an emphatic NO direct from God
Your answers to date have been to say it was Satan, or a trick, or it's not peer reviewed, you have not answered the questions, you have dodged them.
If I were dodging, I wouldn’t be writing such long, detailed posts. Yes, there are multiple answers to the specific issues, some are fooled by Satan, some by the by the desires of their own heart, some by many other combinations of things. Forgeries, deliberate stretching of evidence (as you commonly post), lack of improperly critiqued research and so-called findings, etc. What happens when mormons peer review among themselves and the results of the author are counter to mormon doctrine – most of the time they are censored, forced to drop out of the limelight and even excommunicated.
The Book of Mormon does not rest upon Joseph Smith only, any more than the Gospel of God rested upon Jesus Christ the man.
No, it doesn’t. It also relies upon external evidences (archaeology, textural criticism, etc), the credibility and validity of witnesses, and internal consistency with mormon doctrinal documents. The bom fails on all of these counts DU.
The man Jesus Christ was vilified, arrested illegally, tried illegally, beaten publicly, and murdered on a cross between two thieves. …..snip………Joseph is cast from the same mold,
Joseph Smith never died for my sins as God the Son either.
Given Smith’s prior troubles and the reason for his legal jailing (ordering the illegal destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor), it was more likely a natural understanding of his likely fate.
Your premise is a flawed premise that a man is the measure of his works, the reverse is true. The works of a man are his measure. and Joseph's works are great indeed.
Yep, Texas is just one of them.
I'll respond to the rest of your monster post later when I have time...
I wait with bated breath, and now in the immortal words of the prophet if bid you adieu.
Hehehe, my kids think so too, LOL. DU needs to mind his elders :0
Joseph Smith had a similar vision of God in his Glory.
D&C 110:
3 His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying:
4 I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father.
John also had a similar vision:
Revelations 1:
13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
How could he have known that in the modern day we would find the Ten Commandments in america written in a form of Hebrew no one in his day could read?
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Your source mentioned Columbus...
In 1492, Columbus found America...Hispanola...
he made 3 trips to America...
And other explorers did too...
In 1492, Spain expelled the last of the Moslems and also the Jews..
Both groups were given the choice of converting to Catholism or leaving...
Many were already in the army, navy..
They either converted or pretended to to save their livesand the lives of their families...
it is no surprise to me, as a historian, therefore, if someone has found the Ten Commandments written in Hebrew, on a rock in America...
The Jewish convert would have learnt Hebrew as a boy...
Good find, DU...
That’s exciting...
:)
I am in awe of your grace and patience under such an assault of arrogance and condescension! Readers are gobbling it. Don’t let up ...
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Tennessee Nana: It’s called plagiarism.
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Thank you.
How are we doing? Am I sort of, kind of, not engaging in debate.....in an off handed way that may or may not offend someone?
Careful how you post here, some one may be knocking on your door with warm maple syrup before you know it.
Too many ducks, too small a barrel.
Please refrain in the future from including me on any of your waste of time posts.
Please refrain in the future from including me on any of your waste of time posts.
Why don't you just call him...."Jesus Smith".
That is exactly how you portray him.........
DU, IMO you are so lost....you can't see the total depth of your deception.
Love your tagline! Wonder if Grig has seen it yet?
Thank you your holiness.
My faith in God doesn't depend on any writings.
ok.
Keeping the powder dry
"The terms cattle, horses, sheep and so on are mentioned at several points in the Nephite record. And it is dismaying to some who wish to be dismayed, I believe and a few others who (honestly) wish an answer could be provided why there are not cows like we mean cows, horses like we mean horses, sheep like we mean sheep. The fact is that all the ancient studies say those animals simply were not present in the New World. Period. They were not here."
Good morning Elsie...
Who or what is “Chiasmus” ???
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