I already provided to you an example of God putting his will to the roll of the dice (or whatever was meant at the time by “lot”).
Actually, you’re misrepresenting or misunderstanding what the vote is. It’s the Church, as a body, voting that they will “support and sustain” the revealed word. Basically, IMHO, your description of the event is no different than saying that just because the majority of the people on planet Earth do not accept the Bible as the word of God, it therefore is not the word of God.
I would like to take this a step further. The Book of Morman and the rest is not backed up by the historical record. The places that he talks about have not been found and are not written about elsewhere.
The Golden Plates were only seen by Joseph Smith. That is suspect. Where are they? Mormons will tell you that the angel Marconi took them back to heaven. Only ONE person seeing something is not reliable evidence and having no other record of it makes it even worse.
How about twelve people (Joseph Smith, Jr., and the eleven individuals cited above) claiming to have seen it? By the way, where are the other records for every single event reported in the Bible? Especially, where are the other records of the sun standing still?
As with any other religious group, the Latter-day Saints came to a conclusion as to what they would consider to be the corpus of their canon. At some point, something was included or left out based on the concensus of the group–be it the leadership, a general conference, or the entire membership–designated to make such a decision. Perhaps those groups prayed about it, perhaps those groups made a study of the items in question first, perhaps those groups had a mass hallucination, perhaps they had another means of determining their answer.
All that is irrelevant to the question posed in the OP:
Basically, the deciders for the groups concerned decide and they do it based on whatever authority they are claiming.
I really don’t know about that. I was a member of RLDS that was reorganized by Joseph Smiths son. We of course believed we were the rightful heirs of Joseph’s legacy and Brigham Young and the others such as William Strang were heretics.
I remember reading way back then that there were Indian legends of a white bearded God associated with a cross. It might be an interesting subject for another thread.
Actually I think the angel was named Moroni and Marconi was an Italian inventor {telegraph?}
I also remember the plates were seen by the three witnesses whose testimony is in the front of the Book of Mormon. That doesn’t make it a lot better. My opinion is that Joseph Smith was a charlatan. The story of the golden plates and the Urim and Thu min makes little sense. {although I once accepted it} What appealed to me was the idea that God continues to reveal himself to to mankind and that he reached out in love to people in other parts of the world. That part of my belief remains intact. The difference is now I see scripture as just a word made up by mankind. Joseph Smith got his ideas from books available to him in his day. There are theological ideas in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants that are very interesting. I’m curious to know where Smith got his ideas although some say it was from books on Gnosticism and/or the Kabbalah.
Either way, regardless of the motives of Joe Smith I believe that good sincere people in LDS and RLDS {now community of Christ} will seek and find God’s guiding spirit. It’s one of the beautiful things about the Holy Spirit. Even a church founded by a charlatan can be a tool to help folks find their way if their heart is sincere.
And I could write the Book of Norman, claim it was revelation and it would have as much validity as anything now referred to as scripture.
It is reasonable to expect some archaeological evidence to certain events described in the Bible or the Book of Mormon. If the major events have no evidence it is reasonable to think they are myth.
Handy that these few people saw some plates and they weren’t preserved for any experts that might verify them, ain’t it?
Is it a pun that if you drop the i the Angels name would be Moron? Was that Joseph’s way of thumbing his nose at the believers?
Did any of those people deny their testimony before they died? How closely related were they? the testimony of these witness doesn’t really lend much credibility.
I believe the Book of Mormon is just as spiritually significant as the Bible. I also think Smith made it up.
The word moron was coined 66 years after Joseph Smith was murdered, taken from a Greek root for fool. While it is “fun” to link the name of the angel with the (now disused) psychometric term, there is no legitimate connection between them.
To you, that is. Perhaps your proposed Book of Norman might have some neat ideas for living and acting and some folks decide that it’s a pretty good blueprint. Nothing stopping those folks from claiming that your Book of Norman is their scripture.
Depends on what you expect scriptures to be: a guide to living or a science/history textbook.
Lots of stuff in lots of scriptures for lots of religions is handy.
I don’t recall. I do recall hearing that one or more of them fell out with Joseph Smith, Jr., but those individuals didn’t recant their testimonies regarding the Book of Mormon.
I’ve no idea. I do know, however, that in some families the relatives get along and in some families the relatives don’t get along.
I cannot believe anyone could take the word of Joseph Smith about anything. The man was a convicted swindler. A pure con-man. The fact that the “Revalations” of this crook have been shown to be scientificly ridiculous should be enough to dissuade any person of the validity of his cult.
Just to be evenhanded: In Genesis, the snake told the truth, and God was a liar.
There’s a series called conversations with God that is interesting. I don’t know of anyone claiming it’s scripture but it fits the profile for scripture given in
“for profit” should be added.
Personally, I think there’s a great misunderstanding about what inspiration is and isn’t which has resulted in the so called holy books from many religions being elevated to a status that is as limiting as it is helpful. I suppose it’s all just a natural part of human development, spiritual and otherwise.
I think the standards are set by believers who claim scriptures to be the word of God for all mankind and also historically accurate. What someone believes is their own business until they declare their “truth” to be what all people should believe and actively attempt to accomplish that. When folks attempt to pass laws that affect others based on the truth they claim to be in their scriptures then others have a right , even an obligation to challenge those beliefs.
Fortunately not all believers do that but even then I think it’s acceptable and even helpful to discern the truth from religious tradition.
So do I now that Tom has explained it. I think my sarcasm was bordering on violating GD guidelines. I’ll tone it back a notch or two.
There are mixed stories which I haven’t done any serious research on. I’d be interested in reading something about them from an impartial historian.
As one who formerly believed I would say it likely isn’t the witnesses that lend credibility to their beliefs. My guess is that the majority of those 12 million have never seriously researched and questioned what they’ve been told by the church. {I know I didn’t at the time} Beyond tradition I would also believe that many have had real spiritual experiences. It is emotionally powerful to have a spiritual experience and it is easy in human nature to then associate that experience with a church or a set of beliefs.
I get it. Good one
You have misunderstood me. I meant instead that they are both significant regardless of their source. Certainly very significant to me in my own spiritual journey. The spiritual journey is one that occurs within each individual and the details of what external elements stimulate that journey aren’t all that relevant. If a bogus preacher who is in it for the money speaks the words of Christ to a crowd someone in that crowd can have a real spiritual epiphany regardless of the preachers motives. I was moved by several things in the Book of Mormon and appreciate them still. I don’t have to believe it’s the word of God or the story of Joseph Smith for that to be so. Eckankar is a belief started by Paul Twitchell who borrowed theology from a little known Indian belief system and presented it as his own. Although he was bogus by presenting these ideas into the spiritual consciousness of many people he helped their spiritual journey. I have similar feelings about Smith.
I think that last line might be why people wouldn’t take your statements about Smith to seriously. The last time I looked at it the evidence against Smith was enough for me but not overwhelming. I can understand how true believers might see it as inconclusive and just more slander. When people who are emotionally committed to opposing the LDS beliefs publish ill researched information or outright lies about Smith it makes the real information harder to discern and easier to dismiss by believers.
Here’s a good one for you; it’s from The Legend of Biel:
Yeah, it’s in the negative, but it’s still a pretty good summation of humanity’s attitude on a lot of things.
When I took a class on Mysticism (studying what it is, not how to do it) at University of California at Davis, that very issue was brought up by the professor.
Fair enough. In my church’s Articles of Faith, we have this little bit as Article 11:
Fair enough. I really don’t think it’s that bad. Actually, I thought you were just repeating a lame joke.
There’s the rub. It’s hard to find impartial historians on that issue. I guess Jan Shipps would be a likely candidate. I also would be interested in reading such research.
Consider my comment about the Mysticism course repeated here.
Glad you liked it. It’s the Linguistics person in me (since that was my major) sneaking out.
Every time the CoJCoLDS shows up in a thread, we can pretty well expect to encounter a few similar comments,
HOWEVER,
you (and other posters) will note that the origins of the LDS are not really the point of this thread; it is an exemplar of the issue under discussion. The discussion surrounds the general notion of how writings come to be Holy Scripture and whether it is mere age or some other quality that lends credence to such writings.
If anyone needs to challenge Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, or other persons or events in the LDS history, they are free to do so–IN A SEPARATE THREAD.
I am aware that a challenge to Smith’s legitimacy could be used to simply close this discussion, which is why it is not really relevant to this discussion.
LDS are fine people, but the more you know about them the weirder it gets. I don’t buy any religion, but honestly, LDS is every bit as bizzare as Scientology. The whole Native Americans are a lost tribe thing is just the beginning. Ever heard of “Bathtub full of Worms”? Absolutely warped.
From the OP: “Why are the four Gospels defendable as canon / word of God, but a similar series of revelations and transcriptions are derided in the extreme by ( some ) Christians?”
So the fact that Smith was a known charlatan has nothing to do with the post? Christians have to have some esoteric theological explanation, as if theology were just a game of chess? Isn’t enough for a Christian to point and say, “well, for one thing, the guy was a schemer.”
If we had some kind of time machine and could go back and investigate the authors of the Bible we might find similar shenanigans, but we don’t have a time machine so the credibility of the proponents cannot be assailed. Such is not true with Smith. We know with reasonalbe certainty that he was in the business of fleecing the yokels with mumbo jumbo. This mars the credibility of his testimony, severely so, IMHO.
Which was pretty much the point of the OP. I don’t have a problem with people attempting to debunk Mormonism (or Christianity, Judaism, or Islam), I just think that making that an issue in this thread would be a hijack.
Can you provide evidence that God did not come to Smith, shake him out of his deceitful ways, and present him with a new testament? If you cannot show Smith’s notes in which he schemed to perform a Hubbard-like scam, then your comments are a hijack to this thread.
Good point, but this is the kind of thing we need to keep out of this thread.
If you step outside of a religion’s cultural context, you’ll find a dozen unbelievers each armed with 127 convincing arguments or unanswered questions about any given religion.
