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The Mormon Church before 1900


Guest Sweetcurio

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, If you are, would you tell me if you feel that one needs to take a serious look at the history surrounding the Bible.

Great point Calmoriah.

Your point highlights that such a question can't even be "asked" about the book of mormon as their is no history that surrounds such a book.

Perhaps I have miss judged your sense of delineation!

Please, carry on!

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest Sweetcurio

<_< Hey, I'm back! I had some things to take care of. I'm more inclined to side with the views of Rabanes about Joseph Smith's early career in folk magic than that of the Mormon Fool. Conjecture has a way of weaving fables if the literal facts are not carefully considred. When I say facts, I'm not talking about prejudicial prejudgements and virtual interpretations about a person and his neighborly associations, but, rather, about the actual record that is made at the time of the event and preserved for posterity sake. You have taken apart a court record by very liberal interpretation and super-imposed a pro-Mormon view on what is, by truth, a segment of history that condemns the Mormon position.

My father sent me that cartoon book called "The Trial of the Stick of Joseph" to read. I found it so full of logic errors and faulty presumptions in its defense of the Book of Mormon. It was really ludicrous. If "all" of history's credible evidence were brought to bear in such a trial, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith would be adjudicated as fraudulent. I'm sorry if I offend you by saying this, but your FAIR Message Board is indicative of spurious interpretations and divisions of belief about Joseph Smith's history among your own members. I have a feeling that if the entire population of the Mormon Church were to log onto the FAIR Message Board, a good number, perhaps even half or more, would go away quite disillusioned with their testimonies shaken. Is this why the bishops, stake presidents, and apostles discourages members from seeking information from non-official Church websites? Is this why members of wards are only allowed to use Church-approved historical resources when giving sacrament meeting sermons? :P

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If "all" of history's credible evidence were brought to bear in such a trial, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith would be adjudicated as fraudulent.

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz Now if only your unsubstantiated and undocumented opinion carried any authority whatsover.

I'm sorry if I offend you by saying this, but your FAIR Message Board is indicative of spurious interpretations and divisions of belief about Joseph Smith's history among your own members. 

See above.

I have a feeling that if the entire population of the Mormon Church were to log onto the FAIR Message Board, a good number, perhaps even half or more, would go away quite disillusioned with their testimonies shaken.

See above.

Is this why the bishops, stake presidents, and apostles discourages members from seeking information from non-official Church websites?  Is this why members of wards are only allowed to use Church-approved historical resources when giving sacrament meeting sermons?

Evidence for the above.

ppsssttt! I'm gonna tell you a secret! The official church newspaper that is mailed to homes has carried a full page article on the annual FAIR conference for the past two years. :P Now don't tell any Mormons this or they might find the article and check in on the website!

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Guest Sweetcurio
<_< Julianne, your sarcasm is noted, and I am not a bit amused by it. Most of the members of the Mormon Church do not subscribe to the "Church News" supplement of the "Deseret News." I suppose that you are ignorant of this fact. In fact, of the 12,000,000 Mormons that your church claims to have on its rolls, less than half that number attend Mormon services on a regular basis. All the Mormons I've talked to, including the missonaries around UCLA, are not aware of the FAIR Message Board. Now you may ZZZZZZZZZZZ youself to eternity if you so desire. :P
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:P Julianne, your sarcasm is noted, and I am not a bit amused by it. Most of the members of the Mormon Church do not subscribe to the "Church News" supplement of the "Deseret News."

Silly, that is why I told you not to tell any of them! You and "your dad" obviously know so much more than any Mormon and you are a real danger to our testimonies if you give out any of this information! Of course you have that little problem of the official church website giving out links to the FARMS website but, hey...I bet you and your dad are the only ones who go there, too!

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Most of the members of the Mormon Church do not subscribe to the "Church News" supplement of the "Deseret News."
Outside of Utah you can subscribe to the Church News just like you can the Ensign and are encouraged to do so by Church leadership. How in the world can you get discouragement of going to the FAIR website from Church leadership out of a personal choice by membership not to get the Church News?
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Occam/Sweet,

Welcome back professor! Did you see the other thread I started for you on your Fanny Alger related accusations? You might want to do a search. Clearly you have more ability than your character has lead us to believe. What do you think about the articles that have been referenced in this thread?

Hey, I'm back! I had some things to take care of. I'm more inclined to side with the views of Rabanes about Joseph Smith's early career in folk magic than that of the Mormon Fool.

Just a note in summary, my view is that Joseph's involvement in folk magic fits a prophet in training model. I appeal to such authorities as Richard Bushman and Mark Ashurst-McGee for support. Rabbanes appears to favor a pious fraud model--one which emphasizes a fraudulent aspect of folk magic/treasure seeking and sees it in Joseph's prophetic activities too. Dan Vogel is a promoter of this view. Finally a significant third view was expressed by Pahoran that is skeptical of the reports of Joseph's folk magic activities. This view finds ready support from some of Hugh Nibley's writings on the subject.

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SweetCurio writes:

Conjecture has a way of weaving fables if the literal facts are not carefully considred. When I say facts, I'm not talking about prejudicial prejudgements and virtual interpretations about a person and his neighborly associations, but, rather, about the actual record that is made at the time of the event and preserved for posterity sake. You have taken apart a court record by very liberal interpretation and super-imposed a pro-Mormon view on what is, by truth, a segment of history that condemns the Mormon position.

What "literal facts" and "truth" lead you to the conclusion that Joseph's 1826 trial "condemns the Mormon position"? I would like to see a case made for this that avoids prejudgement and super-imposed anti-Mormon views.

I admit that I approach studies of Joseph Smith with the paradigm that he was called to be a prophet from a higher source. I find this paradigm to deal with the most important problems encountered in these studies as well as life and reality in general. No competing paradigm offers the same coherence and explanatory capabilities. Point me to one that does if you can. All I see from anti-mormons is the manufacturing of falsifiers and anomalies to simplistic versions of the prophet paradigm. I can point to a network of ideas that collaborate my view of Joseph's prophetic calling, and these ideas are hardly overwhelmed by the presentation of such anomalies.

I like what Kevin Christensen writes contra Vogel in the latest FARMS Review here. Christensen examines the role value judgements play in choosing between competing paradigms. These value judgements are not necessarily based solely on empirical evidence but include such criteria as "the validity of all theories should be evaluated by considering which paradigm solves the most significant problems". Christensen's article serves as good primer to the writings of Thomas Kuhn.

In admitting my approach, the reader will see that I also imply that critics also engage in paradigm-dependent facts and conclusions. And that their paradigms are built in part by value judgements.

My father sent me that cartoon book called "The Trial of the Stick of Joseph" to read. I found it so full of logic errors and faulty presumptions in its defense of the Book of Mormon. It was really ludicrous. If "all" of history's credible evidence were brought to bear in such a trial, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith would be adjudicated as fraudulent.

Who's your daddy?

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Guest Sweetcurio
:P Mormon Fool: my father, a protestant minister, has spent a long time researching Mormonism. I only know what he has told me since I started taking your six basic discussions. He has said that there are as many or more non-Mormon historians who will look at the records about the 1826 trial of Joseph Smith and conclude that Smith was guilty of practicing folk magic to deceive people. There are, you know, some very honest and objective non-Mormon historians who don't have a bone to pick with the Mormon Church who have concluded that the Mormon Church is a hodge-podge of inconsistency. My father may have a religious bias, but I don't. He taught me to be free thinker, and from what I have learned about the Mormon Church, so far, it does not stand up to serious scrutiny. Your bias about Joseph Smith has led you to disregard some very clear history showing Smith to be a walking contradiction. Such has been changed, in revision, by your Church's historical department to reflect favorably on Smith. If it can be definitely proven from your own records that Smith committed adultery with a seventeen year old girl, Fanny Alger, under his wife's nose, that he said that drinking and smoking were sinful, but smoked and drank alcoholic beverages until his death, that he plotted against the United States government when he wanted to create a national theocracy by and through becoming President of the United States, why in the world couldn't he have attempted to defraud his neighbors? You have to admit that Mormon scripture and the Church's dealings from 1830 to 1845 were a can of worms. If you don't you're either real nearsighted or selectively blind. And what's this Occam stuff? My handle is Sweetcurio because I consider myself an anachronism of sorts.
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And what's this Occam stuff? My handle is Sweetcurio because I consider myself an anachronism of sorts. 

See the post immediately preceding the one you responded too. Any comments? Any help you can give to explaining why a board moderator thinks you also registered as Occam would be helpful.

Thanks,

fool

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Mormon Fool: my father, a protestant minister, has spent a long time researching Mormonism. I only know what he has told me since I started taking your six basic discussions. He has said that there are as many or more non-Mormon historians who will look at the records about the 1826 trial of Joseph Smith and conclude that Smith was guilty of practicing folk magic to deceive people.

Can he mention any names of scholars who come to such a conclusion? I wouldn't mind looking over some of the merits of their arguments. Earlier in this thread I cited Dan Vogel, who advocates a pious fraud model of Joseph Smith. He writes that back then the word guilty was also used in a different context than it is used today. Bottom line, Joseph's 1826 court case was really a preliminary hearing and the charges were dropped for whatever reason.

There is no question that Joseph Smith practiced folk magic, but that in and of itself is not/was not a crime. There was an ordinance against using folk magic with intent to deceive and make a living in doing so. But proving an intent to deceive is quite a burden, and perhaps this is one of the reasons charges got dropped. I think there is evidence that Joseph did not have an intent to deceive because there is a number of accounts of successful ventures. In regards to the Josiah Stowell venture, it appears he was reluctant to participate. His own employer did not believe he was being de-frauded.

There are, you know, some very honest and objective non-Mormon historians who don't have a bone to pick with the Mormon Church who have concluded that the Mormon Church is a hodge-podge of inconsistency.

There is a great divide between those that accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and those who do not. Claiming "objectivity" for one side or the other fails to move me. I think a large number of inconsistencies and failures to solve the most important problems becomes immediately apparent the moment someone tries to form an alternative theory about Joseph Smith. The prophet paradigm gives me the most mileage in figuring out Joseph Smith, his works, and his followers.

My father may have a religious bias, but I don't. He taught me to be free thinker, and from what I have learned about the Mormon Church, so far, it does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Good luck with becoming a free thinker. Re-wording your statement, the Mormon Church fails to stand up when serious scrutiny is one-sided. It is good for you to come to this board so your biases can be identified and challenged .

Your bias about Joseph Smith has led you to disregard some very clear history showing Smith to be a walking contradiction.

Such as? Let's confine discussion to clear history that has been disregarded by me or my fellow saints.

If it can be definitely proven from your own records that Smith committed adultery with a seventeen year old girl, Fanny Alger, under his wife's nose, that he said that drinking and smoking were sinful, but smoked and drank alcoholic beverages until his death, that he plotted against the United States government when he wanted to create a national theocracy by and through becoming President of the United States, why in the world couldn't he have attempted to defraud his neighbors?

The keyword here is "If". But even then I can't see a causal relationship between these things. A better question is if critics falsely accused Joseph of a,b, and c, why wouldn't they also accuse him of d on a similar lack of evidence?

You have to admit that Mormon scripture and the Church's dealings from 1830 to 1845 were a can of worms.

Not really.

If you don't you're either real nearsighted or selectively blind.

What? Being a fool isn't one of my options? :P

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