quote:Originally posted by Foust: Verse 6 of Alma 51:
quote:6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of afreemen; and thus was the bdivision among them, for the freemen had sworn or ccovenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.
Covenant social theory!
And about the Alma verse, I actually think I'd prefer not to discuss it much. Last time I brought it up on hatrack, I was nearly banned.
How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea? Not only that, the government of the Nephites in the BOM is not remotely close to the government of the United States. Their judicial system is completely different from ours. And I have to agree with Scott, the whole whites losing to the blacks is not something most American authors would have been willing to say. edit: Perhaps not even willing, completely incapable of fathoming or suggesting.
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Right...maybe I'm the one not being clear here.
If accused of not being able to write the same thing twice by this pack of apparently expert forgers, Joseph Smith could easily show that this is not true by saying "Okay, choose any piece of what I've written away and then I'll retranslate it and then we can compare the pages." It's not the original stolen things he'd be comparing to, but rather two new translations that he made.
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quote:Also how hard would it be for them to simply say, here is an exact copy of the text, we have hidden the original text we stole because we don't want it tampered with. Then raise a big stink about the difference that THEY made?
Errr...if they didn't want to get laughed at, I imagine it would be very hard for them to do this. Do you not see how ridiculous this scenario you created is?
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Mr S: We are talking about frontier folks from New York/Vermont. These men STOLE the manuscript and clearly it was not for the sake of the truth. With how negatively the Book of Mormon was received by Christians as they saw it incredibly presumptuous I don't think it hard to see them latching on to ANY mud anybody threw concerning the actual translation process.
If they had approached Joseph Smith with your very honest query perhaps things would have been different.
But how is your suggestion any different then Joseph submitting characters and his translations for scholars to approve?
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quote:How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea?
The "freedom" that is repeatedly articulated is the freedom of the (lower case letter) liberal democrat. It's not a specifically 19th century idea, but it is post-enlightenment.
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quote:How is a commitment to remain free from an evil monarch a 19th century idea?
The "freedom" that is repeatedly articulated is the freedom of the (lower case letter) liberal democrat. It's not a specifically 19th century idea, but it is post-enlightenment.
Not really. The only freedom being espoused here is the freedom to worship God and to not have kings. The Chinese had freedom of religion for thousands of years, and plenty of cultures don't have kings. The Nephites as far as democracy was concerned elected their local level judges, and it was those judges who elected everyone else, all the way to the top. That's about as democratic as a match is a camp fire.
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quote:There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
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The attitude of the general public against Joseph Smith was such that villifying him was a good part of the local gossip scene. There wasn't an atmosphere to engender a meeting of equals, in which Squicky's match up could be conducted. Furthermore, the attitude the Lord displayed to resolve this conflict was one that would be well ingrained within Mormon society until they left the East Coast.
In the early days of the Church, the Lord made it quite clear that the Mormons were NOT to confront their detractors. They migrated, they fled, they ran-- they did just about anything BUT demand justice for the wrongs committed against them. And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
:shrug:
Mormons believe that the Lord had already prepared a better way around the loss of the 116 pages. Nephi's abridgement of Lehi's writings supposedly contains a more spiritual history of their journey-- and it's that account that we have now.
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quote:These men STOLE the manuscript and clearly it was not for the sake of the truth.
I'm not sure how you could say that. They could quite easily have been concerned with demonstrating an obvious fraud committed by Joseph Smith.
quote:With how negatively the Book of Mormon was received by Christians as they saw it incredibly presumptuous I don't think it hard to see them latching on to ANY mud anybody threw concerning the actual translation process.
Somehow, I think that the "Well, God won't let me translate that part now, because otherwise people could come forward with an incredibly easily debunkable attack." throws a lot more mud on the translation process than "We stole a copy to prove that he can't retranslate the same thing, but we can't show you the original. Instead here's a copy which we swear is actually what in on the original." both at the time and now, looking back on it
Yes, there are still people who would latch onto the second part, but they started out as lost causes. The people you might affect are going tosee the ridiculousness of second situation while possibly being very troubled by the first.
quote:But how is your suggestion any different then Joseph submitting characters and his translations for scholars to approve?
I'm not sure how it is the same.
The scholars would not be able to translate the characters. They could be completely made up marks for all they knew. This doesn't answer the accusation that he wasn't really translating because he was unable to write the same thing twice in any way that I see, whereas writing the same thing twice in the manner I'm suggesting would do so.
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quote:Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
The difference being, that there exist only a few characters to go on from the Book of Mormon. There are reams of examples of Mayan language. Or...well, probably not reams, but more than a single slip of old paper with ten characters on it.
Also, it helps that the Mayans developed codices, and were able to preserve some of them through the years.
quote:There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Tell that to the folks that have figured out how to read ancient Mayan writing, one of the most complex scripts we've discovered, with no rosetta stone-like assistance.
With the help of some translations made by Catholic colonialists who wrote in Latin. We still have not cracked the entire language.
Are you saying that you think Egyption glyphs would have ultimately been translated just fine without the Rosetta Stone?
And apparently God wanted the BOM to come out precisely when it did. Had he used your method we would have had a completed book that I doubt every scientist would have agreed on sometime in the 1900s.
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I'm sorry, but this particular bit of pleading is definitely going to be taking the short bus to school.
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I am accusing you and Scott of special pleading. You wouldn't put up with this sort of argument in defense of anything but something you already believed strongly in.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I am accusing you and Scott of special pleading. You wouldn't put up with this sort of argument in defense of anything but something you already believed strongly in.
So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
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quote:And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
I think his death was precipitated more by his destruction of his opponents' printing press, a somewhat less laudable endeavor than his attempt to gain a political office.
Had he not attempted to silence them violently, they very well may not have felt it necessary to seek a more direct manner of confrontation.
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quote:And when Joseph finally did decide to run for political office to call attention to his people's plight, he was killed shortly thereafter.
I think his death was precipitated more by his destruction of his opponents' printing press, a somewhat less laudable endeavor than his attempt to gain a political office.
Had he not attempted to silence them violently, they very well may not have felt it necessary to seek a more direct manner of confrontation.
Except that long before the incident with the printing press many attempts had been made on Joseph's life.
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quote:So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
What is your reasoning behind the assumption that he is unfamiliar with the text? Can't the criticisms be addressed independently of your assessment of his qualifications to make them?
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quote:So what? You wouldn't make such ridiculous criticisms of the text if you were actually aquainted with it. Or at least you making those criticisms would be worthy of respect.
What is your reasoning behind the assumption that he is unfamiliar with the text? Can't the criticisms be addressed independently of your assessment of his qualifications to make them?
His own failure to state that he IS indeed familiar with the book, something I'd imagine KOM would have done had my accusation pages ago been incorrect.
I have already tried to address those criticisms ignoring his ignorance of the text. I've had to deal with random verses posted with the claim that it would be pretty easy to recreate them. I'd rather not loop through the conversation again, it's all on the previous page of this thread.
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MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
I don't disagree. I just think that the act of illegally destroying a printing press as a response to the content published with it could reasonably have been expected to provoke an escalation.
Murder is never justified, but prudence on behalf of the victim can often prevent it from occurring nonetheless.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: MattP: I dunno but the destruction of a printing press is a pretty pathetic justification for the taking of 2 men's lives.
I don't disagree. I just think that the act of illegally destroying a printing press as a response to the content published with it could reasonably have been expected to provoke an escalation.
Murder is never justified, but prudence on behalf of the victim can often prevent it from occurring nonetheless.
Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
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quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: ... And it's not possible to bring up a child as a member of a religion (which requires labelling them as a member of that religion) without labelling them.
I think this is probably at the root of the misunderstanding. If this is impossible, an incredible number of people manage to do the impossible.
All you have to do is expose the child to the religion and when they are old enough to say that they want to commit to the religion in earnest, then you've successfully brought up the child in the religion.
This is not remotely an extreme position. The rhetoric of "child abuse" is provocative but the actual advocated policy of allowing a child to make their own decisions can be echoed even in many of OSCs columns about groupthink in university. OSC often mentions that one should educate a child to think, evaluate evidence, and come to conclusions to their own rather than have them dictated to them by authority.
quote: Extremism however, is also, not an absolute. It is relative, and relative to how people think, and act, now. It would be extremist to promote armed gay resistance against homophobia in Iran (no matter whether or not it'd be a good thing), but would you call the French Resistance extremist?
I'm not sure what you're getting at. For example, Dawkins in that sentence you brought up essentially says exactly the same thing as Thomas Jefferson. Would you consider both of them extremist? Or is Dawkins only extremist because he lives today and Jefferson lived 200-odd years ago?
quote: ... What's humorous or broadside-y about labelling someone's God lots of nasty things, without considering whether in the event of his existence, this would be true?
Did you even watch the video? Perhaps you could ask the audience of Christians in Lynchburg what was funny? Clearly you did not find it funny, but a great number of people from across the ideological spectrum do find it funny.
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quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
Were these unprovoked attacks, or were they at least partially in response to aggressive things that Smith and his followers did and said?
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quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
The printing press/carthage jail incidents are well documented. Are there similarly well documented cases of these other attempts? I'd certainly be interested in reading them if you have some links.
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quote:Indeed, but what about the fact that Smith was assaulted several times and attempts on his life had been made long before that particular incident?
Were these unprovoked attacks, or were they at least partially in response to aggressive things that Smith and his followers did and said?
Initial attacks were based on the fact Joseph Smith found the gold plates in a hill that nobody had a deed of ownership therefore it belonged to the county. Several attempts were made to find and obtain the plates ranging from using courts to assembling an armed mob and assaulting his home. After one particular court appearance where he was aquitted and permitted to come home in the custody of the sheriff, the sheriff admitted that he had been bribed to allow Smith to be taken from the carriage and killed by men lying in wait.
Because of persecution the church moved its main body to Ohio, it was there the first temple was constructed. Heavy immigration of converts to the area prompted fears of the long time settlers that the Mormons would obtain a controlling bloc in Ohio and impose a theocracy. Using a mixture of violence with a request the Mormons leave prompted another exodus to Missouri. Joseph Smith was dragged from his home in the middle of the night where he was beaten, poison and tar was forced into his mouth breaking some of his teeth, and he was tarred and feathered and left for dead by the mob. He crawled home and taught a sermon about forgiveness the next day with members of the mob in attendance. After the Mormons left the temple was entered by unbelievers who purposely defiled it.
In Missouri the church reestablished its base and a new temple was planned but never built. The Mormons since they did not own slaves and practiced an unconventional religion were looked at suspiciously by their neighbors who eventually decided that the Mormons were there to kick them all out and abolish slavery. Joseph Smith was thrown in Liberty Missouri's prison for several months in very unsanitary conditions without any formal charges being leveled and released with no apology.
When Mormons started getting beaten, raped, and murdered it was talked about that the church needed to move again. Governor Lilburn Bogs "Extermination Order" clinched the deal and the Mormons were forced to leave at gun point, Haun's Mill being the most tragic affair of the entire exodus.
It was reasoned that if the Mormons moved somewhere NOBODY wanted then they would be the original settlers and their rights would be respected. Subsequent events would prove them wrong, anyone can follow Scott's link.
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Now obviously this does not account for individual acts. In fact I refuse to believe that there were NO Mormons who at best said things that inflammed their neighbor's fears and at worst fired weapons and killed their enemies.
But Joseph Smith was certainly not a violent man, he was known to be very physical, but he certainly did not seek to hurt others. He most certainly injured and possibly killed somebody when he fired that revolver in Carthage Jail, but to me knowing the history of the church, its pretty clear that Joseph Smith had he not destroyed that printing press would have eventually found himself murdered anyway. I certainly don't agree with the decision to destroy the press, but I am pretty certain there were men around him who were determined to see him dead no matter what he did.
I will take me some time to provide links to the Bribe Sheriff incident and the Tar and Feather incident but I can't really do that at work.
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quote:But Joseph Smith was certainly not a violent man
You mean the second Mohammed, who wanted to make the path to peace either choosing the sword or Joseph Smith?
It seems to me you are leaving out an awful lot of history that casts Joseph Smith and his followers in a more negative light than you seem to be showing them.
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quote:You mean the second Mohammed, who wanted to make the path to peace either choosing the sword or Joseph Smith?
I am not sure what you are talking about. Are you referring to a claim made by a man that Joseph Smith fancied himself a second Mohammed to this generation who would make one big gore from the rocky mountains to the eastern sea board?
I'm not leaving anything intentionally. I went so far as to admit that Mormons were not guiltless. But the Mormons were certainly seeking to live in peace even if their self righteous behavior pissed off their neighbors. It was not the Mormons who pulled out their guns and told their neighbors to leave.
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In the heat of the Missouri “Mormon War” of 1838, Joseph Smith made the following claim,
“I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was ‘the Alcoran [Koran] or the Sword.’ So shall it eventually be with us—‘Joseph Smith or the Sword!’ ”[1]
quote:[1] Joseph Smith made this statement at the conclusion of a speech in the public square at Far West, Missouri on October 14, 1838. This particular quote is documented in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, second edition, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), p. 230–231. Fawn Brodie’s footnote regarding this speech contains valuable information, and follows. “Except where noted, all the details of this chapter [16] are taken from the History of the [Mormon] Church. This speech, however, was not recorded there, and the report given here is based upon the accounts of seven men. See the affidavits of T.B. Marsh, Orson Hyde, George M. Hinkle, John Corrill, W.W. Phelps, Samson Avard, and Reed Peck in Correspondence, Orders, etc., pp. 57–9, 97–129. The Marsh and Hyde account, which was made on October 24, is particularly important. Part of it was reproduced in History of the [Mormon] Church, Vol. III, p. 167. See also the Peck manuscript, p. 80. Joseph himself barely mentioned the speech in his history; see Vol. III, p. 162.”
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Do you have any idea what he meant by that? It could easily have meant the way of the Lord or the sword, those are our only two options. The fact the Mormons left Missouri rather then banding together and fighting, something Joseph Smith emphatically discouraged makes me question just how violent he was.
So it's a quote that we can't read the context of that was pieced together based on the accounts of 7 men? Ignoring the fact some of those sources left the church because of less then admirable reasons, we do not know if they wrote that quote down at the time or recalled if from memory. The fact that Sampson Avard is one of the 7 men makes me immediately question the statements authenticity as he was one of the most dishonest and violent men I have ever had the displeasure of reading about. It was he who created the Danite band against Joseph Smith's explicit orders and they traveled about doing all the same vile things the Missourians were doing to the Mormons, in the name of Joseph Smith. He was excommunicated for it.
However I will note that while Fawn Brodie left the church for doctrinal disagreements alot of her work in church history has proven invaluable.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: BB, You left out the entire "Mormon War", except to potray the Mormons as passive victims.
I left out the Utah War as well, I didn't have time to write EVERYTHING. I have less SPECIFIC knowledge of the Mormon War then other events in Mormon history. The only major event of the Mormon War I know ANYTHING about is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crooked_River
The articles claim that Elder Patton was a leader of the Danite Band is incorrect as far I know.
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quote:It could easily have meant the way of the Lord or the sword, those are our only two options.
No, it really couldn't have. That makes no sense in the context of the Mohammed reference.
quote:The fact the Mormons left Missouri rather then banding together and fighting, something Joseph Smith emphatically discouraged makes me question just how violent he was.
They would have lost. It doesn't take a peaceful man to back down from a fight he can't win.
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Mr S: Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword? How do you know he was not speaking in terms of suing for peace when it comes to the mobs? You didn't address my questions on the quotes authenticity.
As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that, or that apparently they felt it was God's will that they NOT fight?
I think the weight of evidence is against Joseph Smith being a violent person by nature, but certainly I agree that he did not shun violence in all it's forms. If a man had attempted to assault him one on one he would have almost certainly fought him.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Mr S: Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword? How do you know he was not speaking in terms of suing for peace when it comes to the mobs?
Using "or" is too vague. Because 'koran or sword' can mean "Use the Koran or use the sword", but it can also mean "Use the Koran or we use the sword on you!".
'And' would mean "use the Koran...and we're gonna use our swords on you too."
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quote:As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that...
If the presumption is that Smith perpetrated a hoax, it's safe to also reason that he didn't genuinely believe God was on his side.
(Who was it that said that, throughout history, one of the few constants has been how reliably God has been on the side of the better army?)
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quote:Why the Koran or the Sword instead of The Koran AND the Sword?
I'm not sure you understand the context of this reference. Islam spread through conquest. The choice offered to people that they were conquering was for peace either through the Koran (converting) or the sword (being killed).
I don't know what you want me to say in response to "Well, maybe he didn't say it and those 7 people are lying." Ummm...okay? Sure, that's possible.
quote:As for the Mormons losing a war, they believed God was on their side, that's been enough for many people to fight to the last man. Or are you arguing that Mormons did not seriously believe that, or that apparently they felt it was God's will that they NOT fight?
I'm saying that it is entirely possible and that Joseph Smith chose to not make a stand and fight primarily because he knew there was no chance of him winning.
This is especially the case if he was a con man.
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I think that was Voltaire. I'm pretty sure Napolean's quote was about artillery. That little dictator loved his big guns.
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Mr S: I didn't accuse the 7 men of lying. I said constructing a quote from the comments of 7 men is pretty tough to swallow. I even ignored that some of them later left the church. I only pointed out one as somebody who was known to lie about what Joseph Smith said and usually mad sensationalist comments about what Joseph Smith was saying.
Its a pretty distinct con man who holds on to a lie even after going to jail numerous times, having many of your friends abandon you for insisting you are not lying, getting beaten and eventually killed.
I suppose you could argue that eventually he started to actually believe the lie.
But perhaps he actually did what he said he was doing.
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quote:Its a pretty distinct con man who holds on to a lie even after going to jail numerous times, having many of your friends abandon you for insisting you are not lying, getting beaten and eventually killed.
There is such a thing as being committed. If after all that you admit that you really were lying, what are people going to think? You'd never show your face again in that county, for sure. And before you say that this is better than being beaten up, and so forth, consider these two things: First, would you rather be beaten, or be caught going to a brothel and have this action published to your friends and family? And second, humans will quite literally die for the approval of their friends; this is how armies work.
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And, by the way, you keep saying "It's possible he was telling the truth", as though this were some sort of novel insight that we weren't admitting. Yes, yes, it's possible, but then again it's also possible that Ron L Hubbard believed in the whole panoply of Scientology that he invented. The possibility that somebody believed what they were saying is not a strong standard.
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quote:To be fair to the senior Bush, there is considerable dispute about whether or not he actually did say this. Drawing from memory here, but as I recall it, the only witness is a reporter whose veracity is not utterly unchallenged.
Except that Bush, the White House, and the Bush Library have always responded to questions about the veracity of the claim with responses like: "The President is entitled to his opinion," or some such. Bush has never claimed that he didn't make the statement, and refuses to clarify his position on the issue. If he wanted to lay this to rest, it would be ridiculously simple to state that "the president recognizes that religious belief is not a requirement for citizenship," but he doesn't.
The Bush Library told me that they do have documents regarding the event, but that they aren't available to the public.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And, by the way, you keep saying "It's possible he was telling the truth", as though this were some sort of novel insight that we weren't admitting. Yes, yes, it's possible, but then again it's also possible that Ron L Hubbard believed in the whole panoply of Scientology that he invented. The possibility that somebody believed what they were saying is not a strong standard.
Yes but when you say it, it's with the contempt of somebody saying, "Sure it could be true, and it's true that one day pigs will fly."
I only keep reiterating it because it starts to feel like the conversation is going in the direction of, "Joseph Smith may have used a masonic group to write the Book of Mormon, and then he held on to the lie the rest of his life while intentionally trying to fight a war with his neighbors in Missouri which culminated in his being murdered which could have been avoided had he not destroyed a printing press."
I think there is a more correct and plausible explanation to Joseph Smith's life.
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quote:I think there is a more correct and plausible explanation to Joseph Smith's life.
I don't see how Joseph Smith being selected as God's prophet on earth to restore His One True Church is more plausible than the idea that a relatively small group of people perpetuated an unusually successful act of hucksterism.
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