darth_ender said:
RicOlie_2 said:
darth_ender said:
RicOlie_2 said:
AntcuFaalb said:
What's your opinion on this, d_e? http://cesletter.com/Letter-to-a-CES-Director.pdf
I came across it on Reddit recently.
Ender, could you elaborate on your thoughts about the following specific points outlined in the letter (or whatever it is) that AntcuFaalb linked to?:
- Why were there multiple, contradictory accounts of Joseph's first vision? That doesn't seem like the kind of thing one would forget enough to contradict oneself on (p. 23 in the PDF);
Have you read the accounts?
No, I have not read the accounts themselves. Certain details seemed to be mutually exclusive when I read the letter's summary of them (I don't feel like opening up the PDF again just to check for sure), but I can easily believe that critics exaggerate the differences (and they tend to exaggerate similarities when it suits their purpose).
- There is, of course, the issue of Joseph translating Egyptian artifacts which were later translated yielding a completely different result. I believe you've explained this before in this thread, but if I recall correctly, you simply (I don't mean to imply that you're a simpleton here, just that you don't have complicated beliefs on the subject :)) believe that the Egyptian texts have a dual meaning, and I'm curious why you believe that (pp. 25-30);
It's one of several possibilities posed by apologists. What I believe the texts to be are ancient Egyptian texts, exactly as most interpret[...].
I think that makes sense and that's the first time I've heard a reasonable rationalization of those data.
- Joseph Smith was shown to be unreliable with his denial of his polygamy, so it seems quite possible, if not likely, that he was unreliable in general. If he got thirty-one witnesses to sign in testimony against Joseph's polygamical practices, should one consider the testimony of the witnesses to the golden plates any more reliable? If Joseph Smith was known to lie, and used his leadership to pressure numerous women and girls to marry him, while forbidding polygamy to all other Mormons, how can anything else he said and claimed be trusted ? (p. 34);
While being unreliable does cast a person's character in doubt, it does not invalidate all that a person says[...]
As for his witnesses, different events, the extent of their witness, who the witnesses are (i.e. one being a poor witness for something does not invalidate another's witness for something else), once again the social conventions and circumstnces, etc. It would be a fallacy to discredit Book of Mormon witnesses because of the affidavit of the witnesses of Joseph's marriages.
I agree with that. My point was just that if he could find such a large number of people to testify to his monogamy when he was practicing polygamy, it seems he could have had people testify to the truth of the golden plates without them being true. My focus on the witnesses is in part due to a vague recollection from reading through this thread that the witnesses to the plates was a significant factor in your acceptance of Mormonism as the truth.
Those who testified of his monogamy probably knew not of his polygamy and were not lying. The witnesses of the plates actually claimed to have seen and handled them. Quite different testimonies, don't you think, and not at all useful in a comparison?
[...]
Fair enough, though I don't find all fairmormon.org's arguments more convincing than the author of the PDF's. I can put that down to lack of in-depth reading from the Mormon side of things.
Probably. What issues are you getting hung up on again?
- Some of the witnesses were apparently unreliable (I forget what you wrote previously about the witnesses, so perhaps the others make up for the following):
Martin Harris had mortgaged his farm to finance the Book of Mormon, and thus would not be an unbiased witness (and not to the golden plates themselves, but a cloth-covered object supposed to be the plates), not to mention that he had belonged to five other denominations previously, testifying to the truth of all of them at various times, and Mormonism wasn't the last (pp. 52-53);
There is no such thing as an unbiased witness. However, if he did not see what he says he saw, don't you think he'd be more likely to actually take a stand against it? "You mean I wasted my money on this phony book?!" And most of his faith was indeed devoted to schisms of Mormonism. Only his interest in the Shakers followed.
Note that this is incomplete but i won't be able to post till tomorrow probably.
Indeed, there is no such thing as an unbiased witness, but a person can be an unbiased (or almost so) witness for a certain thing. I don't agree he'd be more likely to take a stance against it, but I won't argue my thoughts on it, since that isn't the purpose of the thread. The letter/PDF states that Martin Harris was a member of five previous religious organizations, some of which he testified for. Is that inaccurate? Even so, if he testified for one, that seems to effectively nullify the validity of his later testimony. Again, as you say, the unreliability of one witness doesn't mean they were all unreliable, but I think it's safe to say that this one wasn't.
A person can only be unbiased on something on which he has no information (in which case he is a pretty useless witness). David Whitmer became hostile towards Joseph Smith, yet remained firm in his witness till the end. Oliver Cowdery too became hostile and was estranged from the Church, but more because of his accusations of polygamy and other reasons believe Joseph was a fallen prophet. He was not so financially invested in the Church or the Book of Mormon, but as the primary scribe and man of second highest authority for most of his early membership, you'd think he had an ax to grind once removed from authority. Indeed, he continued to criticize Joseph Smith after his fall from grace, but he never, ever denied his testimony.
Maybe I used this link before, but here are Martin Harris's five churches following his departure from the Church.
Note that four of the five are Mormon split offs; only the Shakers were not. That intrigues me, as the Doctrine and Covenants specifically addresses Shaker doctrine as false.
But the instability of Martin Harris himself makes his stable testimony of one particular thing especially interesting. Not that I believe he was truly unstable if faith, but sought for the supernatural and was ready to accept many things.
But you must bear several things in mind: the author of that pdf believes my church is wrong and is anxious to prove so. When a person believes something, he/she is determined to maintain that belief. If that belief is forcibly changed by seemingly overwhelming evidence (and it takes more than is ever requisite to truly change a mind, simply because of that tendency), the new worldview the person accepts makes it even more difficult to accept that the former view may have actually been right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
In other words, you are more likely to accept evidence that sustain Catholicism as true, while dismissing evidence that it is not. Same for me and Mormonism, same for Puggo and atheism. Some, like Jaitea and CP3S, have actually had their opinions more forcibly changed, so their acceptance of their current view is even stronger now.
That said, when you read through the pdf, you must bear the author's POV in mind. He's not just some ex-Mormon. He's obviously a bit hostile and hurt. "The church I clung to as a child was all al lie! I must expose it for what it is." But have you read the citations of his pdf? Now I'm just guessing because you've read that pdf more thoroughly than I (though I've read plenty of anti-Mormon literature in my time, covering more topics than he has included I'm sure) that the evidence he is using is not all friendly. For instance, those stories about Martin Harris's strange behavior...were they from all friendly sources, hostile sources, or neutral sources? Just as a Mormon might be more willing to tell a fib in order to strengthen others' faith, a hostile non-Mormon, or an ex-Mormon perhaps, would actually be likely to tell a little white lie in order to keep others away from those Mormon devils. Think of how often this happens today, and consider that in the 1800s when absolute historical accuracy wasn't as important as the core message how much more prevalent such practice was.
Let me give an example within the pdf. Martin Harris served as scribe for some time with Joseph Smith. Joseph's wife Emma also served as scribe briefly, but Oliver Cowdery served for the majority of the translation. Not one of them describes the "looking at the stone in the hat" scenario. But David Whitmer did, though no other source corroborates his having been present during the translation. So we actually have various methods of translation described, including the possibility of one that looks a little weird.
http://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation
But the one that looks weirdest is the one that the pdf author latches onto, whether true or not (and it may be) as the genuine and only method of translation, while all others are disregarded. The author's confirmation bias leads him to accept evidence against the church he once loved rather than accept all evidence with equal validity. The fact that he is promoting his opposition means that even if does accept the other methods as possibly true, he will promote the one that he feels will cause the most damage, just like he accuses my church of promoting the more publicly acceptable methods. Note that the above link is actually a link to my church's website because, though my church does promote the untarnished image as much as possible, we do not avoid the less glamorous aspects.
Back to Martin Harris and his reliability. Opponents have attacked him most because they claim some of his comments were less authentic sounding, as he used phrases like having seen the plates with a "spiritual eye." I invite you to read here.