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To: Scoutmaster
Again you Hateful BIGOTs MOCK our great founder!

--MormonDude(Can you NOT see that Joseph {pbuh} invented the Ritz® cracker???)






68 posted on 02/02/2012 5:03:13 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Elsie
Again you Hateful BIGOTs MOCK our great founder!

Posting a photo of one of Joseph Smith's seer stones, owned by the LDS Church and held in a LDS museum, isn't mocking anybody. Smith had many seer stones; the LDS church admits that he was involved in the use of seer stones between 1820 and 1830 and it has several of his in its possession.

There was a magical worldview in that era that isn't prevalent today.

From LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith:

"The statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated. The Urim and Thummim so spoken of, however, was the seer stone which was in the possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith in early days. This seer stone is now in the possession of the Church."

Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 3, p. 225.

Early LDS leader George Q. Cannon:

"One of Joseph's aids in searching out the truths of the [Book of Mormon] was a peculiar pebble or rock which he called a seer stone, and which was sometimes used by him in lieu of the Urim and Thummim."

Life of Joseph, 1888, p. 56.

LDS Historian B.H. Roberts:

"The seer stone referred to here was a chocolate-colored, somewhat egg-shaped stone which the Prophet found while digging a well in company with his brother Hyrum, for a Mr. Clark Chase, near Palmyra, N.Y. It possessed the qualities of Urim and Thummim, since by means of it as well as by means of the Interpreters found with the Nephite record, Joseph was able to translate the characters engraven on the plates."

Comprehensive History of the Church, Vol. 1, p. 129.

There are dozens of other quotes from other LDS leaders, Smith himself, Smith's family, and LDS historians, about the Urim and Thummim, Smith's various different seer stones, how they were used to translated the gold plates, and where the various seer stones are today. The records are printed by then-official or now-official LDS sources.

The LDS apologetic site, fairLDS.org, discusses Joseph Smith's seer stones and speculates on how many he owned. It discusses: a brown, baby's foot-shaped stone; a white one (found in 1822 by using the brown one); the Urim and Thummim (found by using the white stone); and at least two more stones. FAIR describes the Urim and Thummim, and says that witnesses to the BOM saw Smith use both the white stone and the brown stone in his hat to translate the plates.

FAIR also has a page in which it gives its explanation as to why God would allow Smith to use his money-digging brown stone to translate the BOM. The two pages (on Smith's multiple seer stones and why God would permit the seer stones to be used on plate of the Urim and Thummin) are these:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones

http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones/%22Rock_in_hat%22_used_for_Book_of_Mormon_translation

Here's another one of Smith's seer stones. This is apparently the one given to Smith in the 1820's by Jack Belcher in Pennsylvania. This made it's way into the possession of Elder Philo Dibble, an early LDS member who was with Smith in an an upper room of the John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio, when Smith had his first vision of the three degrees of glory.


69 posted on 02/02/2012 6:07:40 AM PST by Scoutmaster (You knew the job was dangerous when you took it)
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