california boy

He did have 4 years to gather tin plates before he needed to show anyone anything. It certainly can't be dismissed as being undoable, just difficult.

I do agree that it is possible Joseph Smith or someone else could have made something out of metal because other people at the time also made metal plates. And in all likelihood he showed something to the witnesses. But that story really does not prove much concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon because it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the plates could have been created by someone at the time and not delivered by an angel. It is really very very difficult for the vast majority of people to believe the whole story of how the BoM came to be. Way too many flaws in the story in general that can lead to a different conclusion even by honest men seeking answers. If it is true, God made it pretty hard to determine its authenticity other then having just warm feelings about it. This plan, just by the very nature of how it is set up means that God really had little intention of a large number of people embracing his gospel in mortality. So I guess the plan all along was to do all that work, not here on earth, but after everyone dies??? It seems of little importance to God for people to find the gospel while mortal. So maybe all of this plan is working how it is supposed to work and the church will always be this small sect working hard for a few people to believe in. A more substantial investigation by more credible people who could actually subject the plates to a more scientific examination may have given way more people interest in finding out its truths. I think for most people it is a story easily dismissed.

I guess I was just referring to the record they were making that Joseph Smith claimed to receive. Why was that made out of gold and then really hardly used to be translated.

wow that is impressive.

But with effort we have two contemporary examples of people creating props out of metal to deceive others into believing they were of religious importance. I think most believe the plates were metal. There is no analysis of what the "gold-like" plates were actually made of. Like the witnesses, you are just guessing what metal they might be. One thing to keep in mind is that gold leafing had been practiced for centuries. It is not a difficult process. I actually recently did some gold leafing on our Victorian house in San Francisco. It is common throughout the city. Never took any classes in how to do it. And it was only the second time I ever tried doing it. My point is, there are many ways to make something appear to be "gold -like". Joseph Smith had 4 years to figure it out. Possibly the more troubling questioning to consider is that Joseph Smith treats the plates like a prop. He doesn't actually use it to translate the BoM. He uses a rock in a hat for that. So as the story goes, just why did all those Nephite prophets go to all that effort for something that would never actually be used for anything other than a prop? Making real solid gold plates in 600bc in the Americas wouldn't have been all that easy either. And why gold when the plates they stole were made of brass, a much more common material in 600bc. Yeah there are some problems with the whole story. I am not saying that it is impossible, or that a person like yourself could not believe in such a tale. But what I am saying is using the gold plates story to confirm your beliefs isn't rock solid physical proof of anything. So none of those people were actively involved or connected with Joseph Smith and participating in the coming forth of the church??? I was curious when people started using lead sheets for construction. Here is what Google came up with. Doesn't sound that hard to me to get some lead sheets and gold leaf them. I could put together a very convincing replica in less than a month. It doesn't require any special skills. Any 14 year old could do this without any special skills. I think you are relying on this whole idea of it being soooo difficult, when in fact it is all not that hard to do.

So basically you are saying that the plates Joseph Smith may have made were much better quality than the Voree Plates, so those must be a hoax and Joseph's plates must be real? And the only way Joseph's plates could have been made is if Joseph made them himself. You guys have a pretty low bar needed to convince you something must be true. Here are a few red flags for me. Don't show the gold plates to someone who is qualified to know something about metals. Only show them to close friends and relatives that want to believe your story Control the environment that you show them at Have a limited one time opportunity to make your evaluation. Then have them disappear forever. And finally, the gold plates end up being just a prop after all, since you do all your "translating" by looking at a rock in a hat. Anything suspicious about any of that??

Like I said to Pyreaux above, my intent is not to disprove or prove the gold plates were authentic. But I do push back when people state something is impossible to create, so the whole story must be true. Especially when there is a very similar example that we do know is a hoax and created during that exact same time period that did fool many people who could examine them as long as they wanted to and not just a brief fleeting viewing. I don't believe we really know whether Joseph thought they were genuine or not. What I do know is that he didn't immediately dismiss the Kinderhook plates as fake. The fact that he kept them also tells me he had the chance for a much more complete and careful examination of what was given him to authenticate. And to my knowledge, he never came right out and dismissed them as fake.

I am not arguing whether Joseph Smith thought the Kinderhook plates were authentic. There is some proof for both sides of that argument. And I certainly am not an authority on the subject. What I am pushing back on is your claim that it would be impossible for Joseph Smith to come up with a prop that was made out of metal that could pass as gold plates. I am pointing out that someone else managed to produce hoax metal plates during that exact time period and were good enough for many including possibly Joseph Smith according to some, to believe they were ancient plates as well. What is required to make metal plates look like gold depends on just how close of an examination of the plates is allowed. It is not like the gold plates were ever given to anyone who knew what to look for to test for their authenticity. And who said these plates would have had to be made by Joseph Smith in secret himself? The Kinderhook plates were more than just a single page and since no one had ever seen "Reformed Egyptian", then faking some kind of writing to look like it has Egyptain influenced would also not be difficult to do. We also don't know how many pages the witnesses were allowed to look at. We do know that most of the book was sealed so they definitely could not look at 3/4 of the prop. We also know that the Kinderhook plates were "good enough" that Joseph kept them with claims that he could translate them. He didn't just look at them for a few minutes and then have them taken away like those witnesses of the plates he showed them. And we don't know who made them as well. The fake Kinderhook plates does prove that it is entirely possible during that time period to produce a fake artifact that on the surface would be taken seriously. Is that what Joseph Smith did? You can't just dismiss that posZosibility because you think it would be too difficult to pull off. Facts do show it is possible to fabricate and pass off a similar hoax. My intent is not to disprove or prove the gold plates were authentic. But I do push back when people state something is impossible to create, so the whole story must be true. Especially when there is a very similar example that we do know is a hoax and created during that exact same time period that did fool many people who could examine them as long as they wanted to and not just a brief fleeting viewing. Zosimus brings up an even harder argument with the and the 4 witnesses of the Voree Plates to just dismiss the possibility that the plates couldn't possibly be a hoax even if witnesses are allowed to examine them. Only difference is the Strangites movement did not take off like the Mormon movement did. I think there is pretty strong evidence that creating a prop that would fool a small group of unprofessional men who want to believe what they are told and who only get a brief look is not out of the realm of possibilities.

But didn't someone else do the exact same thing you are dismissing as a possibility by creating the Kinderhook plates? Why couldn't Joseph Smith create a similar hoax? And didn't Joseph Smith's secretary record that Smith said the plates contained the history a a man defended from Ham? So it was a good enough hoax to fool Joseph Smith. In terms of testing the plates for authenticity, one of the original Kinderhook plates survived and was tested in 1980. Scientific analysis showed the engravings were made using 19th century acid etchings, not ancient techniques. This clearly shows the importance of physically testing something that claims to be of historical importance if the counterfeit plates to determine authenticity. If authenticity is not important, then yeah, showing them to a group of likely supporters then taking them away is perfectly understandable. It just requires faith to believe.

I totally agree. If you want to do something that God would never agree to, the best way to get others to go along with it is to say "the spirit commanded me to [fill in the blank]". History is full of men using that technique to do all kinds of heinous acts. And it still goes on today justifying wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, bombing World Trade Center's, discrimination, and yes, more murders.

This makes the most sense to me. How could any scholar read a language that had never appeared anywhere during this time. And to my knowledge has never appeared in any stella or other stone carvings in the Americas while other languages during that time and even earlier are still preserved. I have seen such examples in the anthropology museum in Mexico City. People believe what they want to believe.

This sentence struck me as odd. Do you believe that Mitchill and Anthon were honestly authenticating the "reformed egyptian" they were shown as authentic Meso American writing???? It is now over 100 years later and to my knowledge nothing has ever been found that is written in "reformed egyptian" let alone any existing of it during their lifetime. So how could they possibly say it was authentic?? What did they base that statement of authenticity on??

As I grew older, I also realized that not everything my parents did was that wonderful. There are plenty of attitudes my parents had while raising me that I vowed to not repeat those same patterns. Hopefully my children are better off from me not just blindly following the example my parents gave me. And hopefully they will also evaluate the lessons and how they were raised to be better parents themselves. I used to be totally in to this concept of revelation and God teaching his children through his prophets. But the more I studied and the deeper I got into what the scriptures say as well as modern actions I am more and more convinced that it is words written down by men of their time whether thousands of years ago or recently, maybe not with any malice, but none the less, not dictated by God either. I haven't had much success from church leaders telling me the advice they gave me came from God. I have had greater success pondering and seeking out my own answers from God. I think it is perhaps the biggest reason why so many are leaving organized religion. Those organizations have failed man dramatically and don't really come out well on the opinions they have claimed came from God. Too many headlines in the papers of behavior that would be hard to claim came from God. The church is no different than the rest of them.

Doesn't this acknowledgment repudiate most of what you rationalized? There has been no "direct commandment from the Lord" about prohibiting gay marriage. It too is a policy based on social prejudices of their time. And this issues clearly is in the same category of prophets being products of their time. Without even any "direct commandment from the Lord" preventing gay marriage, there is absolutely no foundation to deny God's children who are gay from temple ordinances simply because they value marriage and companionship in their lives. Yes marriage is for men and women. No one is saying otherwise. But it doesn't justify banning marriage for gay couples without that direction coming from God. It is just an assumption to decide God has only that narrow definition of marriage. Kinda like the assumption that just because someone has a black skin, they are not worth of marriage in the temple.

I think Calm answered your post in a very pointed way that is far more based in reality than your insistence that sex in marriage is for having more children as its principle reason. I think you should study what she says and ponder your position. I highly doubt you only had sex when you wanted more children. At some point you and your wife made a conscious decision to not have more children. It does not mean your marriage no longer had any importance to both of you. Even if biologically you could not have children, (the same situation gay couples face), it doesn't mean you should never marry or they should never marry. There is an avalanche of reasons to marry. Having biological children isn't even the most important since other ways of having children brought into your life are available to all. (that would be adoption) While every other reason for a gay couple to marry is the same as a heterosexual couple, disqualifying and demeaning their marriages and their reasons for marrying as being without purpose and meaningless simply because they can not biologically have children is putting blinders on the most important reasons for finding someone you love and sharing that loving relationship with them throughout their lives together.

Principally about having children???? How many times do married couples have sex where children wasn't the outcome? Are all of those other times against the basic principle of marriage?? Should couples that are past the age of being able to bear children quit having sex? Sorry, this makes no sense. It is more a rationalization for your unproven and untested belief that sex is principally about having children. Do you not believe it is possible for a gay couple to have their relationship strengthened by getting married? If that is the plan, just what percentage of people in the world are married for time and eternity? I will ask you the same questions I asked Teddy So are you saying that a couple should not get married if they could have children but don't wish to? Is using contraceptives to prevent children in a marriage against the main purpose of celestial marriage and against the plan of God? You do realize that a gay couple can adopt children right? So are you saying that couples, gay or straight can not be parents if they can only adopt? Why not? You have chosen to put those boundaries there. It doesn't make that choice the only valid choice. It just makes it your personal choice. It is a bit interesting to me that you can compartmentalize so much in your head even though real life doesn't really work that way. The only thing you can grab on to is two men can not biologically have children at this point in time. But when you try to shoe horn that belief as a requirement for marriage, it falls completely apart because there are literally millions, perhaps billions of successful marriages throughout history that do not fit that paradigm of marrying just to reproduce. And there have been millions, perhaps billions of children born into this world that did not come from a marriage between a man and a woman.

So are you saying that a couple should not get married if they could have children but don't wish to? Is using contraceptives to prevent children in a marriage against the main purpose of celestial marriage and against the plan of God? Do you actually know how children are born in the eternities? Please share.

Just why do you always add "their having children." Is that a mandatory part of every marriage? Do people promise to anyone including God that if they get married they will absolutely have children?? Or is it simply that your rationalization for not allowing gay marriage kinda falls apart if it isn't a requirement to have children.

I mostly agree with you. Of course there are some differences. For example, you probably didn't get kicked out of your family for being black. After I came out to my strong Mormon family, I wasn't invited to any family activity, reunions, Christmas or Thanksgiving dinners, even baptisms and missionary farewells for 13 years. They thought that if they invited me or included me into any family functions, then somehow that would signal some kind of acceptance for me being gay. That wasn't an uncommon experience for a lot of gay members. I have heard a lot of similar stories, some of which are still sadly not part of their families. Prejudice can cause all kinds of inhumane treatment. Sometimes physical. Sometimes mental. Often both.

You nailed it. It is nonsense to me as well.

My partner and I just celebrated our 17 anniversary of being together 5 days ago. We are not married. A large part of that decision is me no longer carrying about the institution of marriage pounded into me by past church relationship. If such a revelation was presented, I would consider it. Honestly at this point, not really sure it would matter. Our happiness together has had nothing to do with our marital status. The only thing that I believe really matters is my conversation with God about the life choices I have made. I have been ready for that conversation for decades. I know I have made the right decisions in my life. I know my life is better with my partner in it. I know it has brought me so much happiness and joy that I don't believe for a second God would take that happiness and joy from me just because I am gay. "By the fruits ye shall know." Yeah I have a clear confirmation of that good fruit.

Well not if they are married to the person they love. You have to argue that marriage is not important if you happen to be gay. Is any of this thinking sounding familiar? Let me connect the dots. Temple marriage and the priesthood are not important for you to have in your life if you happen to be born black.

Your whole argument is based on one overriding concept. The Law of Chastity as defined, not by revelation from God, but by group thinking of men who are products of their own time. Isn't that kinda the point of the problem?? The priesthood ban had MORE claims of revelation than the current definition of the Law of Chastity. Growing up, the Law of Chastity was "no sexual relations outside of marriage". God didn't change that definition, man did. Since the churches war against gay marriage has fortunately failed, the one thing that has become clear to most people; gay marriage is a net positive to the lives of many couples and to society as a whole. Marriage stabilizes gay relationships in the exact same way as marriage for straight couples. Preaching that marriage is not a good thing for gay couples makes people wonder why it isn't also unnecessary for straight couples, and may very well be a significant factor in younger generations current trend not seeing the need to marry either. So maybe the change in the definition of what the Law of Chastity instituted by these men is based on their own prejudices just like the priesthood ban. Maybe God is not in line with the thinking that marriage is only important for some of His children and not others. Kinda like the priesthood may be good for all who strive to be worthy regardless of what color skin they are born with.

Doesn't mean it didn't happen. And doesn't mean it was very hurtful. You really can't see the difference between someone who is married and a teenager who is single? Are you saying that it is a sin for a single person of either gender to hold hands or dance with someone? Is that what you consider to be "overt romantic behavior" ? That kinda explains a lot about your comments. I am well aware that the church does not give the priesthood to women. But that is not what I was talking about was I. I was questioning why the Law of Chastity is not the same for straight couples as they are for gay couples and where that policy came from. Yeah I remember all of those arguments used to support the priesthood ban. How did that work out? Were church leaders still right to ban support the ban because they could justify doing so in the same way you are doing here?

I appreciate your comment more than you will know. I don't expect everyone to agree with what I post. That is not even the goal. I just want to provide a viewpoint that maybe others haven't considered before or have a hard time recognizing. I learn a lot from all of you, even those that I disagree with. It is what I love about this forum. I try to always do that in a respectful way.