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? I've not bothered any more with that pdf, but I doubt it actually includes the accounts, which critics are eager to make more contradictory than they actually are. I've read them all, and while they emphasize on different things, they are not particularly contradictory. The biggest challenge comes from the earliest account mentioning only Jesus Christ (whom we believe is separate from God the Father), while later accounts include both. But again, it doesn't exclude the possibility. What must also be borne in mind is the fact that Joseph was addressing different audiences. There is no indication of contradiction found among Joseph's family or earliest followers, who might have mentioned some issue with the changing tale had they really found a contradiction.
- 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. But I also believe they are the corrupt remnants of what Abraham taught the Egyptians. If you read the Book of Abraham, you see that Abraham visited the Egyptians and taught Pharaoh many things. Imagine if Joseph Smith were a prophet of Norse mythology. He found some text about Santa Claus in an unknown language, but translated it as a history of the Norse god Odin. There are traits that have ultimately been passed down to our present day Santa Claus, and one could easily see them as a corruption of the "true faith" of Odin worship. I hope my analogy makes sense. I've linked elsewhere to further research and popular theories, but I won't take the time to find that right now.
- 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. Furthermore, circumstances must be taken into account. Polygamy was and is socially unacceptable to most, and was offensive to his wife. There was no need to proclaim that such was a necessary public revelation, unlike the Book of Mormon and other teachings.
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.
Did Joseph pressure women to marry him? It depends on the truth of his claims, I suppose. But you really cannot rely on such a poorly documented and hostile source for all your information. though the author of that PDF is a huge critic of FAIR, they are far better at documenting their research than he is. I recommend reading through their treatments and deciding for yourself who argues more effectively. There are numerous and effective points, such as the lack of any sexual contact between Joseph and many (if not most) of his wives, having consent from appropriate parties to follow through with the marriages, the nature of the marriages not being earthly (i.e. not effective on earth) but being heavenly (ultimately in force only after death), etc.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Template:PolygamyPortal
- 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.
