Did John Whitmer actually see the plates?

[Hyrum Page]

Mr. Peterson,

There is nothing cutesy-poo about "Vogelian"? Give it a rest.

It is your own paradigm which pushes you to call my formulation of Moses' experience "reduced, metaphorical, second-best, less real, or in any way inferior to ordinary physical sight." In fact, to many people, the spiritual eyes of Moses would be considered superior to his natural eyes. It does not require that one demand the consistency between all texts, ancient and modern, that you assume here, to do so. One can value one's spiritual eyes without them being natural eyes that are quickened by the spirit.

HP

[Scott Lloyd]

Mr. Peterson,

There is nothing cutesy-poo about "Vogelian"? Give it a rest.

It is your own paradigm which pushes you to call my formulation of Moses' experience "reduced, metaphorical, second-best, less real, or in any way inferior to ordinary physical sight." In fact, to many people, the spiritual eyes of Moses would be considered superior to his natural eyes. It does not require that one demand the consistency between all texts, ancient and modern, that you assume here, to do so. One can value one's spiritual eyes without them being natural eyes that are quickened by the spirit.

HP

Then why use the concept in an attempt to dismiss a spiritual experience as a hallucination -- as is being done here?

[Daniel Peterson]

There is nothing cutesy-poo about "Vogelian"? Give it a rest.

There is not. Would you prefer Vogelesque, perhaps? Or Vogel-style? Or analogous to the manner favored by the author legally known by some form or other of the designator "Dan Vogel"? Or, possibly, reminiscent (in a way carefully calibrated so as not to be bothersome to "Hyrum Page") of Vogel? Give it a rest, indeed.

It is your own paradigm which pushes you to call my formulation of Moses' experience "reduced, metaphorical, second-best, less real, or in any way inferior to ordinary physical sight."

Really? Why, then, did you use that word "only"? (See above: "Yet here we have Moses, still claiming to have spoken with God face-to-face, claimng to have seen him only with his 'spiritual eyes.'")

That is why I immediately thought of our friend Mr. Vogel, since he uses references to "spiritual eyes" to downgrade the experience of the Witnesses to "hallucination" rather than accepting it as an encounter with objective external reality.

I agree that there is nothing whatever wrong with "spiritual eyes." That's why I stepped forward to deny your insinuation that there is.

[Mighty Curelom]

The apologetic defense that "spiritual eyes" doesn't necessarily mean only "spiritual eyes" is absurdly ad hoc. Consider the following analogous phrases:

in my mind's eye

with my imagination

in a dream

in a vision

In each of these cases, the qualifier only is obviously implied. No reasonable person would assume from the statement "I rode a flying pony in a dream" could mean anything other than onlyin a dream did she ride a flying pony. From the statement "With my imagination, I could see through the wall," no reasonable person would assume that, in addition to seeing through the wall via imagination, our hypothetical speaker was actually literally seeing through the wall.

Yet that's exactly what apologists claim when they object to the word "only." Just because so-and-so said he saw the plates with his spiritual eyes doesn't mean he wasn't simultaniously viewing them with his actual eyes, right? Come on. No one's buying it.

[Daniel Peterson]

The apologetic defense that "spiritual eyes" doesn't necessarily mean only "spiritual eyes" is absurdly ad hoc.  Consider the following analogous phrases:

in my mind's eye

with my imagination

in a dream

in a vision

For a moment there, MC, I actually thought you were serious!

Anybody who hasn't caught MC's clever joke should realize that defining spiritual eyes as equivalent to such words or phrases as mind's eye, dream, and imagination, and then using that stipulated equivalence to demonstrate that spiritual eyes means no more than mind's eye, dream, or imagination, is a textbook illustration of the logical fallacy known as "begging the question." It represents reasoning so perfectly circular that Copernicus might have been inspired by it to formulate his model of the solar system.

In each of these cases, the qualifier only is obviously implied.

My point precisely. I really appreciate your willingness, MC, to offer yourself as an example of the very reductionism and dismissal that "Hyrum Page" says is not occurring here.

[Mighty Curelom]

Anybody who hasn't caught MC's clever joke should realize that defining spiritual eyes as equivalent to such words or phrases as mind's eye, dream, and imagination, and then using that stipulated equivalence to demonstrate that spiritual eyes means no more than mind's eye, dream, or imagination, is a textbook illustration of the logical fallacy known as "begging the question." It represents reasoning so perfectly circular that Copernicus might have been inspired by it to formulate his model of the solar system.

You've misunderstood my point. I wasn't making the argument that "spiritual eyes are analogous to imagination, therefore spiritual eyes are analogous to imagination." That, of course, would be "perfectly circular."

The point I was making is that in certain phrases and concepts, the modifier "only" is implied. Anyone not currently defending Mormonism would immediately grant that stating something was seen with "spiritual eyes" would mean it was seen only with spiritual eyes. If I say "I picked up the ball with my right hand" logically one could make the argument that I may have picked up the ball with both of my hands. After all, I didn't say "I picked up the ball with only my right hand." But even though one could appeal to strict logic to prove that I used both my hands, anyone can see that such a tactic is transparent and disingenuous.

[charity]

Actually, MC, a circular argument is "spiritual eyes are analagous to imagination, because imagination is analgous to spiritual eyes."

[Daniel Peterson]

Once again, though, MC, you're begging the question. If I say "I was only able to see it thanks to my newly heightened sense of vision," that would mean that I was able to see it with my transformed eyes, not that I didn't see it with my eyes at all.

There are many such instances of the word only.

Some baseball players have been accused, for instance, of having only set their home run records thanks to performance enhancing drugs. But that surely doesn't mean that their eyes and the muscles of their arms weren't involved.

I was able to make it through graduate school only with the loyal support of my wife. But I did some work, too.

A word to the wise: In the future, you should probably accuse your opponent of transparently disingenuous "tactics" only when he's actually wrong.

Addendum: Perhaps I can make my reading clearer to you by saying that I take spiritual eyes in Moses 1 to refer to "spiritualized eyes" and not to an entirely different and distinct set of "eyes" (e.g., those pertaining to Moses' "spiritual body" or even, merely, those of his "mind" or "imagination"). To presume that only functions in an exclusionary either/or fashion in Moses 1 is to beg the question by presuming that spiritual eyes carries the latter sense. But that is precisely the question at issue.

[rameumptom]

In the current JBMS, Richard Lloyd Anderson discusses Vogel's prime "evidence" on the 8 Witnesses. It ends up being third hand responses by Turley, who claimed it was not a physical experience.

Yet, John Whitmer clarified Turley's statement by stating, "I now say I handled those plates. There was fine engravings on both sides. I handled them."

That does not seem to be a "spiritual eyes" event. Of the dozens of accounts, only one or two seem to stray from the main idea that they physically handled the plates and saw them with their own eyes. Clearly, in a court of law, we should take the first person experiences as being of more weight than a couple of third hand accounts that come from people seeking to impune the Church and the 8 Witnesses.

Let's face it, Vogel has a chip on his shoulder. His purpose is not to be a quality researcher, but only to seek for reasons to disbelieve anything Mormon. A true researcher would consider ALL of the accounts and place the proper weight on each one of them. This didn't occur in Vogel's writing.

[Jaybear]

Clearly, in a court of law, we should take the first person experiences as being of more weight than a couple of third hand accounts that come from people seeking to impune the Church and the 8 Witnesses.

Here, here. Though second hand accounts are clearly helpful when looking to impeach first hand testimony. Thus an accussed protestation of innocence in open court, can be impeached by his cellmate testimony in open court claiming the accussed said otherwise. Third hand accounts, are consider unreliable. Though it does mean that they are false.

You are also keen to point out issues of bias. Understanding bias is helpful in evaluating the weight of the evidence. Thus alibi testimony from a close friend or relative can and should be heavily discounted.

I would also put more weight on a first person account made contemporaneous with the event, rather than years later. Witness testimony well after the crime scene can be easily contamined by accounts they read in the paper, or after comparing recollections with others.

Putting aside the witness statement, what then is the earliest first hand account by one of the eight wintesses? I would first look to journal entries and personal diaries. Afterall, if true, this event would have been something to write home about.

Of course, this is just the way I would approach evaluating the purported evidence. I have not read Vogel, but as I have been accused of adopting his methodolgy, I would expect he would have taken a similar approach.

[Dan Vogel]

Rameumptom,

In the current JBMS, Richard Lloyd Anderson discusses Vogel's prime "evidence" on the 8 Witnesses. It ends up being third hand responses by Turley, who claimed it was not a physical experience.

I

[Dan Vogel]

Dr. Peterson,

The Vogel line, as I understand it, is not that the Eight were involved in a dishonest conspiracy -- that line of argument has now been surrendered by reputable critics, since we have such abundant evidence for the good character of the Witnesses -- but that these farmers, who spent their lives clearing fields of rocks, pulling up tree stumps, digging wells, and traveling by foot or with the help of animals, were disconnected from the world of empirical reality (while the modern critics, who work mostly under artificial light, in artificially air conditioned work spaces, staring for hours each day into television screens and computer screens, traveling in enclosed, artificially lit and air conditioned machines, have a firmer grip on the real, material world).

And no, none of the Witnesses ever denied having seen the plates. Hence, the urgent necessity for certain unbelievers to explain their testimony away, or devalue it as evidence.

If anything, you do sometimes make me laugh. You seem to write this stuff so effortlessly. It must be a gift. I hate to mess up such great prose, but according to Vogel-logic it is not possible to say what the witnesses experienced was unreal or resulted from a lack of

[Dan Vogel]

Hyrum Page,

There is not. Would you prefer Vogelesque, perhaps? Or Vogel-style? Or analogous to the manner favored by the author legally known by some form or other of the designator "Dan Vogel"? Or, possibly, reminiscent (in a way carefully calibrated so as not to be bothersome to "Hyrum Page") of Vogel? Give it a rest, indeed.

This is an attempt by apologists to devalue my interpretations as idiosyncratic as opposed to theirs being the result of standard historical protocol. A funny position to take for apologists defending the supernatural, don

[Jaybear]

As argued above, this is not the case. Thirdhand accounts are not automatically dismissed, even in courts of law.

Indeed, some would argue that to dismiss the reports simply because they are third hand, would be Vogelesque, err dogmatic.

Btw, in order to assess whether a statement is first, second or third hand, you need to define what issue you are addressing.

If the question presented is not what actually happened on that special day, but rather what did the witnesses claim to have happened, Turley's account is second hand, not third hand.

LDS make the same mistake in evaluating the translation process. They assume that the plates were translated, making JS the only first hand account. Since he published little, everything is second hand. But when the question is more aptly presented how did JS PURPORT to have translate the plates, then anyone watching or hearing JS's claim provides a first hand account.

[William the Conqueror]

If anything, you do sometimes make me laugh. You seem to write this stuff so effortlessly. It must be a gift. I hate to mess up such great prose, but according to Vogel-logic it is not possible to say what the witnesses experienced was unreal or resulted from a lack of

[Dan Vogel]

Dr. Peterson,

That is why I immediately thought of our friend Mr. Vogel, since he uses references to "spiritual eyes" to downgrade the experience of the Witnesses to "hallucination" rather than accepting it as an encounter with objective external reality.

Of course, there is some

[charity]

Dan and others of the same idea, I do not see where the experience of the Three Witnesses should be confined to a non corporeal experience.

"And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man.

To me this described what they saw, that the engraving were shown to them, not by Joseph Smith, but by Moroni. An angel sent from God is surely by the power of God. That does not mean that Moroni did not physically stand before them, and display the plates. This is exactly what is said in the next sentence: "And we declare with words of soberness that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before ou,r eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true."

How is anything in this not a physical experience? The Red Sea was parted by the power of God, not by Moses stretching forth his staff. And the physical waters went back on both sides. And the children of Israel witnessed it with their physical eyes.

So, trying to say that the witnesses had some kind of hallucination is just bunkum.

[Dan Vogel]

Charity,

Dan and others of the same idea, I do not see where the experience of the Three Witnesses should be confined to a non corporeal experience.

How could you or the witnesses know the difference?

"And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man.

To me this described what they saw, that the engraving were shown to them, not by Joseph Smith, but by Moroni. An angel sent from God is surely by the power of God. That does not mean that Moroni did not physically stand before them, and display the plates.

It doesn

[Paul Osborne]

See my response to Dr. Peterson. It is not possible to say it was hallucination or true vision.

Hey, Dr. Peterson said I'm probably the only LSD member on the board.

Paul O

[cdowis]

>Of course, there is some

[rameumptom]

Rameumptom,

In the current JBMS, Richard Lloyd Anderson discusses Vogel's prime "evidence" on the 8 Witnesses. It ends up being third hand responses by Turley, who claimed it was not a physical experience.

I

[grego]

dan vogel wrote:

"Just because the witnesses believed the angel was really there doesn

[Moksha]

The apologetic defense that "spiritual eyes" doesn't necessarily mean only "spiritual eyes" is absurdly ad hoc.

[Dan Vogel]

Dclowis,

>Of course, there is some

[Dan Vogel]

Grego,

dan vogel wrote:

"Just because the witnesses believed the angel was really there doesn