mormonism

[veryberry]

Hi, if you would like to learn more about the cult of mormonism you can check out my wifes blog at http://what-ive-learned-about-mormonism.blogspot.com/ . You can also check out http://hotm.tv/ , which has television episodes hosted by Shawn McCraney who was in the Mormon faith for 40yrs before he came to know the real Jesus Christ and http://utlm.org/ which is run by Sandra Tanner who is the Great-great granddaughter of the second mormon president Brigham Young. Alot of Mormons are great people (ina worldly view) who want to know Jesus but are being decieved and brain washed by this cult and desperately need help!

 

[Jamesone5]

No kidding. Think about what you are saying. Do you really believe it is possible to receive revelation from God that does NOT agree with the revelation He has already revealed to one of His prophets?

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When you cherry pick quotes like this you make the church’s teaching on this seem more ridged and unreasonable. I can find many more quotes from Mormon prophets that you would say are teaching just the opposite of the ones you have presented here. Then you would just say the Mormons don’t know what they believe because they just contradict themselves. This is what happens when you look for reasons to disagree instead of trying to really understand and try and find common ground. When you do what you have done here you will never find understanding.

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QUOTE]
Lot's of contradictions here and a real dilemma: A "Prophet" speaks for God and his word should not even seemingly contradict what another Prophet says. Yet, you at least partially admit that Joseph Smith and succeeding prophets of the LDS Church "seemingly" disagree with one another. Supposedly being in the "One, True Church here on earth" should not include a dilemma such as this because you are supposedly relying on your own conformations to believe the words of one Church Prophet and not the others.

In coming to True knowledge and understanding, one should not agree for the sake of agreement, because then one sets themselves up for deception. As was with me, you have to maintain your Faith in the Church and in Joseph Smith---those two items have to remain Supreme and thus you set yourself up for dismissing the huge problems the Church has in so many areas, most certainly those of Doctrinal Beliefs. True discernment means that one will find disagreement and while I will admit there is a lot of good in the Mormon Church, many of their Doctrinal Beliefs are deeply flawed

 

[proveallthings]

Do you NOT think that it is a tad bit audacious to rewrite a letter by the world renown scholar WF Albright?

By Grace, I don’t believe you are doing this consciously, but this appears to me that you are just looking at ways to be offended in order to avoid dealing with the real points I am trying to make. It should be very obvious that I am not trying to rewrite the letter any more than you have been. I have not altered a single word or sentence of the letter. I have been very careful to only do a commentary on it. We have both offered opinions as to what his meaning might have been. You should ask yourself what is influencing you to assume the worst of me, which becomes an excuse to not take seriously my arguments and therefore causes you to misunderstand my intent and meaning.

The first line of the letter does not mention if Howard is a critic or an adherent to Mormonism. Therefore that is irrelevant.
Likewise it is irrelevant what Howard was attempting to do; it is not mentioned, therefore that is moot.

This is exactly what I am talking about. In order to understand what I said about the first sentence you must look at its context with the entire letter and have some knowledge about the topic. In order to get as much meaning as possible from the letter we must make assumptions based on context that comes from the entire letter and general knowledge we have outside of the letter of the subject matter in the letter. By doing this we can make logical conclusions that are not explicitly spelled out in the letter. You are actually doing this, but your conclusions are based on a false assumption that this letter is referring to the reformed Egyptian of the Book of Mormon. I tried to correct that, but you seem to have missed it because of your contempt that comes from the assumption that Mormons are all about deceiving in order to cover up the obvious fraud that you have been taught Mormonism is.

What IS relevant is the FACT that Howard presented that stuff to Albright as "a copy of the publication of Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar". You are reading too much into the words of Albright.

Well, at least this time you recognize that the letter is in fact about the Egyptian Alphabet, which you missed earlier, probably for the reason I listed above. Please understand that the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar have nothing to do with the Book of Mormon or its reformed Egyptian. This is referring to the Book of Abraham, which came into Joseph’s life years after gold plates with reformed Egyptian were gone. The only thing they have in common is the Egyptian influence.

Smith's purpose is irrelevant; he published it as [ possibly Reformed] Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar. Therefore the title stands, and there is only one way to determine the purpose of the book, and that is to read the preface. Otherwise, you provide speculation.

The preface of what book? I am not aware of any preface to the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar document and I have never heard it called a book. Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?

This is a way of saying that Smith was delusional: He did not know Egyptian, as proved by his grammar, but he sincerely believed that he did write a preposterous grammar and alphabet.

That little prepositional phrase in believing is the key, and it supports the belief that Smith was honest about his delusional belief that he could do what the academics could not.

I have a hard time seeing how Albright could be saying Smith was delusional while at the same time he is praising his religious genius and his being a “gifted founder” of a “great” church. You have completely ignored these factors in the letter. This is why I have a hard time accepting your explanation. I am open to an alternate explanation to mine, but so far you have not come close to offering one. Even if we accept the idea that Albright thought Smith was delusional in trying to translate the Egyptian from the papyri, it is obvious that he certainly does not think he was delusional in any way when it comes to the Book of Mormon, which is what this letter was offered as evidence of in the first place.

If we understand that the topic is not the Book of Mormon, but the papyri that came some Egyptian mummies several years later, then we can see that there is no reason for Albright to bring up the Egyptian influence in the Book of Mormon other than to counter a presumption of Howard that Joseph was a fraud. Albright's injection of this Book of Mormon fact is the only evidence we have from the letter of a reason for him to agree that Smith was a religious genius. It is very possible and I would say likely that this is only one of many examples of religious genius he is aware of in Smith, but only offered it as an example that Howard could appreciate.


By Grace,
I don’t want you to think that I am offended or angry by what I have pointed out. I have come to expect as much from many in this forum. It is to be expected when one represents ideas that challenge deep set traditions and customs of a religious nature. We all have blind spots. I have been made aware of some of mine from participation in these forums and offer to assist you and others in discovering yours. I'm sure you will continue to offer the same to me.

I humbly ask that you please consider the points I have tried to make here and go back over the letter with my commentary with them in mind.

 

[By Grace]

This is an interesting concern you have. So if you find a link that is of Mormon origin it is tainted somehow? Of course a collection of findings of ancient writings on metal plates would be done by Mormons. So what. A true objective scholar would ignore such details and see what they had to say. Then the objective scholar would check their foot notes and references to see if they are lying or telling the truth.

Are you aware that the great scholar Erasmus was NOT a Christian?

You see, the world of academia is such that if what a scholar produces is verified by other scholars, it is considered fact. There there is great confidence in what Erasmus did. In science and statistics, there is something called a "degree of confidence" and that means that there are so many samples taken that the likelihood of an error is <5%, which is considered an insignificant amount in statistics. That is because 95% is correct.

As a result, your words to dismiss academic achievement speaks of an unfamiliarity with the rigors of academia, and of course peer review.

By reading the results of what Mormon researchers have produced, you save the time of doing the research yourself. All you have to do is check their sources. I did the same Google search that you did and found what you said I would find, several Mormon links. But I checked them out and found that when you dig into their sources, they all eventually come from non-LDS findings or findings agreed to by the larger non-LDS community of scholars. You should try it and see for yourself. I promise you won't be struck by lightning for reading something from an actual Mormon scholar.

I have read things produced by Maxwell and FARMS, and I find their works inadequate. They only cite other Mormon sources and none of them cite other professional journals such as may be found on JSTOR.

You have to understand that no scholar is completely objective if he is at all human. There is always a bias involved.

That rhetoric does not square with reality.

To only accept archaeological ideas about ancient America that are written by scholars who do not believe in the Book of Mormon, would be the same as only accepting archaeological evidence relating to the Bible from those who do not believe in the Bible (Yes, they do exist.). Do you think that in order to do unbiased archaeological research that relates to the claims of the Book of Mormon one must believe it is a hoax? Do you really believe that an archaeologist that begins with the belief that the Book of Mormon is a hoax would not be biased?

There is a GREAT deal of difference between a person who lets the data speak for itself, and a person who is trying to "defend Joseph Smith". As you are a TBM, I am aware that your presupposition is that Smith is correct because he is a prophet, yada yada yada. And in EVERY piece of drivel I read from FARMS and FAIR, etc, there has been that underlying presupposition, and there is always a tangential allusion to something that COULD be this, or COULD resemble that. Unfortunately, there is ZERO that has been identified by other professionals in the area, and that is why the absence of evidence is indeed the evidence of total absence for anything that supports the BoM.

OTOH Christians do not go to archeology to find support for the Bible. That is because when God worked, He left traces of what He did, and He also left cities exactly where the Bible said they were. Therefore archeology is another testament to things that God did in the Bible, and it squares exactly with what is recorded in the Bible. The same cannot be said for the BoM.

For example, do you know that the pinnacle of Native American civilization in North America was only 8 miles from the Smith homestead outside of Palmyra? Ganodan is the name, and you can easilly find it on Bing. It did not resemble anything that Smith described in the BooM.

I mean no disrespect. I know you are only acting on the information and behavior you are aware of, as am I. I just ask that you consider these ideas.

I see no disrespect, but I do see ignorance of some facts, as I stated above. No, I am NOT calling you names, or maligning you in any way; I am merely stating that you are unaware, (hence ignorant) of the rigors of academia. That is why your statement "You have to understand that no scholar is completely objective if he is at all human. There is always a bias involved." is out of touch with the rigors of academia, and the quality of peer review. Mormons reviewing other Mormons is NOT peer review because they all share the same bias: "protect Smith".

So we are covering ground, thus we move on. But we must base our discussion on reality, not wishful thing or rhetorical manipulations. In reality if there were ONE item that is found in the Americas, such as the wheel used for transportation by any native American , EVERY Mormon would be pointing to that, and saying "LOOK!! See!" That does not exist, and that is why the usage of rhetorical manipulations take the place of evidence.

To use another metaphor, I am asking you "Where's the beef?" Instead of being forthright, you are doing as you have been taught, (as you admit) to point to the pickles, and discuss cheese and say that If I believed in Smith, I would also see the beef. Do you agree that an accurate assessment of your position?

 

[By Grace]

By Grace, I don’t believe you are doing this consciously, but this appears to me that you are just looking at ways to be offended in order to avoid dealing with the real points I am trying to make. It should be very obvious that I am not trying to rewrite the letter any more than you have been. I have not altered a single word or sentence of the letter. I have been very careful to only do a commentary on it. We have both offered opinions as to what his meaning might have been. You should ask yourself what is influencing you to assume the worst of me, which becomes an excuse to not take seriously my arguments and therefore causes you to misunderstand my intent and meaning.

I am NOT offended in your efforts to defend Joseph. Nor am I taking this in any personal way. It is a discussion of facts.

However, your "commentary" as well-intentioned as it was does not conform to the facts of the letter. As a gentleman, Albright was using soft words to indicate that Smith did not know anything about Egyptian, let alone "Reformed Egyptian". If something like that existed, then you could tout it as a fact that Albright said Smith knew Egyptian, or did a great job "translating". So while you have not altered anything, (but Lindsay did, as I proved) you have missed his innuendos, and I dare say that you are doing so because you may be using "Smith colored glasses".

Well, at least this time you recognize that the letter is in fact about the Egyptian Alphabet, which you missed earlier, probably for the reason I listed above. Please understand that the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar have nothing to do with the Book of Mormon or its reformed Egyptian. This is referring to the Book of Abraham, which came into Joseph’s life years after gold plates with reformed Egyptian were gone. The only thing they have in common is the Egyptian influence.

Yes, I assumed that the stuff was most likely Reformed Egyptian because that was what Smith said the BoM came from. If it was the case that the stuff that Howard sent was Smith's "alphabet and grammar" then the put-down by Albright, ... and that he was quite honest in believing that he really could decipher these ancient texts is devastating. If Albright believed that Smith was accurate in any sense, he would have made reference to the Rosetta Stone which was found in 1799.

The preface of what book? I am not aware of any preface to the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar document and I have never heard it called a book. Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?

EVERY book has a preface. What then did Howard send to Albright?
Yes, I assume that it was some sort of printed material

I have a hard time seeing how Albright could be saying Smith was delusional while at the same time he is praising his religious genius and his being a “gifted founder” of a “great” church. You have completely ignored these factors in the letter. This is why I have a hard time accepting your explanation. I am open to an alternate explanation to mine, but so far you have not come close to offering one. Even if we accept the idea that Albright thought Smith was delusional in trying to translate the Egyptian from the papyri, it is obvious that he certainly does not think he was delusional in any way when it comes to the Book of Mormon, which is what this letter was offered as evidence of in the first place.

Would you please read this again?

There were, however, as yet no Egyptian grammars or dictionaries in existence, so the best he could do was to follow books from the seventeenth and eighteenth centures (including some from the nineteenth) which treated the hieroglyphs very much as Horapollo did about the sixth century A.D.--as pure ideographs. Joseph Smith's translation does not, however, follow the pseudo-Neo-Platonism of Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century, but is a kind of quasi-biblical composition. In any case it has nothing whatever to do with the original Egyptian manuscript of a copy of the Book of the Dead.
​

Since there were no grammars in existence when Smith wrote the BoM, Albright says he HAD to use other sources, and mentions Horapollo did about the sixth century A.D.--as pure ideographs. That is NOT a language. Please research the meaning of the word "ideograph"

He also says that Smith did NOT " however, follow the pseudo-Neo-Platonism of Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century" (as a standard of reference) BUT is a kind of quasi-biblical composition. Thus this is a clear indication that what Smith wrote was NOT anything like a translation.

Here you show more contempt and refusal to acknowledge the fact that you had completely missed the last sentence of the letter by saying that the words gifted and great church were not in the letter. You refuse to give me credit for anything and continue to ignore words critical to understanding Albright's meaning and tone.

Guilty as charged for the sin of unintentional omission

By Grace,
I don’t want you to think that I am offended or angry by what I have pointed out. I have come to expect as much from many in this forum. It is to be expected when one represents ideas that challenge deep set traditions and customs of a religious nature. We all have blind spots. I have been made aware of some of mine from participation in these forums and offer to assist you and others in discovering yours. I'm sure you will continue to offer the same to me.

I humbly ask that you please consider the points I have tried to make here and go back over the letter with my commentary with them in mind.

I have, and I addressed where I erred

 

[Speculative]

Guys, I had to edit a couple of posts. Please address the issues and not each other. Remember, Rule 2.5, which states:
"2.5: Respect each others' opinions. Address issues, not persons or personalities. Give other members the respect you would want them to give yourself.

It is a violation to misquote or misrepresent another member.

Any personal problems with another member, then deal with it through private messages. No harassing members via PM. No public posting of PMs. Publicly announcing who is on a member's Ignore list is prohibited.
Respect where others are in their spiritual walk, do not disrupt the flow of discussion or act in a way that affects others negatively including when debating doctrinal issues, in the defence of the Christian faith, and in offering unwelcome spiritual advice.Remember, in a medium like this, it is nearly impossible to accurately assess the motivations of another poster. So please, let's not try to determine whether of not someone is being contemptuous (or anything else) and merely address the points they are making.

Thanks, and God Bless

 

[proveallthings]

However, your "commentary" as well-intentioned as it was does not conform to the facts of the letter. As a gentleman, Albright was using soft words to indicate that Smith did not know anything about Egyptian, let alone "Reformed Egyptian". If something like that existed, then you could tout it as a fact that Albright said Smith knew Egyptian, or did a great job "translating". So while you have not altered anything, (but Lindsay did, as I proved) you have missed his innuendos, and I dare say that you are doing so because you may be using "Smith colored glasses".

You mean my commentary does not conform with your assumptions of the letter. You ASSUME that Albright is being diplomatic in his treatment of Smith rather than defending him. I agree there is some evidence that one could use to come to that conclusion and you have clearly pointed those out. But as I have pointed out, in order for you to come to this conclusion you have had to ignore other components of the letter. You say I look at the letter with “Smith colored glasses†and forget that you look at the letter with “anti-Smith colored glassesâ€. Do you really believe that you are somehow above bias and I am not?

Would you please read this again?

There were, however, as yet no Egyptian grammars or dictionaries in existence, so the best he could do was to follow books from the seventeenth and eighteenth centures (including some from the nineteenth) which treated the hieroglyphs very much as Horapollo did about the sixth century A.D.--as pure ideographs. Joseph Smith's translation does not, however, follow the pseudo-Neo-Platonism of Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century, but is a kind of quasi-biblical composition. In any case it has nothing whatever to do with the original Egyptian manuscript of a copy of the Book of the Dead.
​

Since there were no grammars in existence when Smith wrote the BoM, Albright says he HAD to use other sources, and mentions Horapollo did about the sixth century A.D.--as pure ideographs. That is NOT a language. Please research the meaning of the word "ideograph"

Again you show your lack of understanding and not comprehending what I have tried to explain. I must take some responsibility in that for assuming too much about what you knew. Let me try again. Please understand that any discussion about translating actual Egyptian writings in this letter is only referring to a portion of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which anti-Mormon writers called “Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet and Grammarâ€. That is not what Joseph called it. In fact, it is not even written by Joseph’s hand. Virtually all Mormon scholars believe that it was not an attempt by Joseph Smith to translate Egyptian. Albright at this point had only received information about this from anti-Mormon sources (Since his only references are the document named by the Tanners as “Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar†and his mention of Fawn Brodie’s work). He was probably not aware of what Hugh Nibley was producing on this subject at that time. This is one of the reasons I correctly assumed that this Howard person was most likely a critic of the LDS Church.

I could have gone into more detail on this, but didn’t think it necessary because the point Lindsay and I were making with this reference was about the Book of Mormon, not the papyri obtained by Smith SEVERAL YEARS LATER. It is clear that Albright is looking at actual Egyptian characters next to some English next to them on the page. This is what he is critiquing. There is no way to critique the Book of Mormon translation, since the reformed Egyptian is not available to examine.

I thought that all I needed to do was clear up the misunderstanding by pointing out that the letter was not in any way critiquing Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon. With that understood, I thought it would be obvious that he only would have brought up the Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon to defend Smith. The problem is that after all I have said on this, you still think the letter is somehow criticising Smith’s translation of the BofM.

If none of his critique was referring to the BofM, then why did he bring it up at all? The only reason I can see is to support his belief that Smith was a religious genius. If he had a negative opinion of Smith, why bring up the Egyptian names in the BofM or the religious genius statement at all?

He also says that Smith did NOT " however, follow the pseudo-Neo-Platonism of Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century" (as a standard of reference) BUT is a kind of quasi-biblical composition. Thus this is a clear indication that what Smith wrote was NOT anything like a translation.

What you don’t realize is that Albright is supporting the findings of LDS scholars here. None of them believe it was anything like a translation either. Therefore, whether he realized it or not, his appraisal of the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar is in support of Joseph Smith. If you knew what has been studied and concluded on this subject, so far, you would realize that Albright is likely questioning the credibility of the document actually being what it is being presented as, an attempt at translation. Read the letter with that possibility in mind and see if it works.

If you understand what I am trying to explain here, you will see that there was no twisting, lying or deception on the part of Lindsay and no ignorance of the facts on my part.

 

[proveallthings]

Is mormonism Christianity?

Mormonism is not Christianity proper. That is to say, it isn't congruent to the rest of Christendom. It's beliefs are not necessarily alien, however. There are a lot of concepts in LDS that mimic a lot of Abrahamic lore. Of course, you'd have to dig into such theologies, histories, etc. to see that.

This is a very interesting and informed comment. What is even more thought provoking is the fact that none of the Abrahamic lore mentioned here was available to Joseph Smith when he produced it. Most of it has come about in the last several decades as many ancient documents have been discovered. The obvious question is, where did Joseph get it from?

Mormons are not recognized by the Church as having a correct basis for baptism and the basic faith of western/oriental Christianity in light of the divinity of Christ. Their beliefs are highly heretical to traditional, historical Christian standards.

I like this statement because it is accurate without attempting to distort Mormon beliefs. Well done.

 

[The Gospels]

Mormonism is delusion I think