BoM

[Hagoth]

Man, Mormorrisey, talk about seek and ye shall find!

[Bloodhound98]

Bloodhound,
There is a fresh wound in my journey, the 3 Witnesses, and i think it relates to your question. In the recently secret-recorded interview on MS podcast, the historian easily dismissed the 3 Witnesses as merely a "visionary" experience. Now, I've read that before but it struck me how his manner was so easy, as if we had all believed that all long. I don't know about you, but I swear we've always been taught that they were Witnesses in the traditional sense of the word. After all, they signed a document saying they saw the plates and that document is supposed to prove the existence of the plates, not that they had some nice spiritual moment, right?

Also, in D&C 17 God Himself directs them to see the plates with their eyes. It also says they will see them as Joseph saw them, and Joseph made a big deal out of handling them, hiding them, getting a box to hide them in, hiding them in the hearth, etc... JS certainly said he saw and handled the plates and that they were a physical object.

Which take me back to Historian Mr. Grow, who waives it off like no big deal. Well, sorry, but not so fast.

If the 3 Witnesses are now only a visionary experience, then I can conclude that it was a sham from the beginning. The D&C Section in the voice of God, the written statement intended to prove the existence of the plates - it's just too much to blow off as though we have always taught it (pure gaslighting) or that we misunderstood all along (pure BS).

Bottom line: The BoM, including the Witnesses, were the thing that I really clung to at the end of my belief in the church. I think we have clear evidence now that it was a fraud from Day 1. You can argue about the intentions of the people and if the book still teaches about Jesus, but it's not historical and the plates never existed. Peace.

Welcome to the roller coaster ride!!!! Yes that podcast was amazing, mostly because I feel like I'm in the same boat.

But yes Mr. Grow dismissed so much stuff so easy! I like the DNA theory too. We don't know what DNA Lehi had. Lol doesn't the BoM spell out his lineage???

Super excited for you newbies on this journey. I'm maybe 2 months in and it's been a rollercoaster for sure. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Good luck!!!

[Mormorrisey]

If the 3 Witnesses are now only a visionary experience, then I can conclude that it was a sham from the beginning. The D&C Section in the voice of God, the written statement intended to prove the existence of the plates - it's just too much to blow off as though we have always taught it (pure gaslighting) or that we misunderstood all along (pure BS).

Good to hear from you, Yobispo! Love your comments on reddit; if Sister M ever finds that I have an online presence there, THAT will be a sad tale. But it's fun to lurk.

This is big, no doubt; yet the Bushmans and the Givens have been pushing this "alternative history" for years, and it's still not being touted at the institutional level, which is still the big problem, EXCEPT for the church. That way, they can try to answer questioning members with this spin, yet never really acknowledge these kind of liberal answers in the Ensign, at conference, etc. etc. etc. The biggest challenge for the church going forward is the internet; anybody with a connection can see that the arrows just aren't lining up.

[Palerider]

If the 3 Witnesses are now only a visionary experience, then I can conclude that it was a sham from the beginning. The D&C Section in the voice of God, the written statement intended to prove the existence of the plates - it's just too much to blow off as though we have always taught it (pure gaslighting) or that we misunderstood all along (pure BS).

Good to hear from you, Yobispo! Love your comments on reddit; if Sister M ever finds that I have an online presence there, THAT will be a sad tale. But it's fun to lurk.

This is big, no doubt; yet the Bushmans and the Givens have been pushing this "alternative history" for years, and it's still not being touted at the institutional level, which is still the big problem, EXCEPT for the church. That way, they can try to answer questioning members with this spin, yet never really acknowledge these kind of liberal answers in the Ensign, at conference, etc. etc. etc. The biggest challenge for the church going forward is the internet; anybody with a connection can see that the arrows just aren't lining up.

A couple of years ago (on another board) I mentioned that the GA's are cowardly for not standing up and addressing the problems specifically and directly. They love allowing the apologists to run interference for them. It allows them to sit back and see which theories get saluted as they run them up the flag pole. Plus they have the enviable position of being able to disavow any proposed theories at a later date as not being authorized by the First Presidency. We should all have it so good....

The apologetic on that was, "Well, these men are just running the church. They're not scholars, historians, etc. etc."

My response was similar to the young gentleman in the wiki podcast. "Yeah, they're just prophets seers and revelators that claim to have a special mantle to speak with God....that's all....we shouldn't expect anything profound from them." Personally, I think they know a lot of this stuff and don't want to sound ridiculous trying to answer it. So in reality they're hiding like the wizard of OZ, hoping that no one will see the man behind the curtain.

As far as the church historian was concerned, you can tell when they're grasping at straws by how many "maybe" "perhaps" and "look at it this way's" you hear. I've never heard someone redefine words and concepts so fast as that guy was doing. I had to stop listening before I broke my monitor. And the GA was no better. For him all this stuff was inspired by SATAAAANNN...... Every critic of the church just wants to lead you to HELLLLL!!! The same old playbook that Joseph Smith was using all those years ago. I'm surprised he didn't ask the young guy if he'd been doing something immoral lately.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

If the 3 Witnesses are now only a visionary experience, then I can conclude that it was a sham from the beginning. The D&C Section in the voice of God, the written statement intended to prove the existence of the plates - it's just too much to blow off as though we have always taught it (pure gaslighting) or that we misunderstood all along (pure BS).

Good to hear from you, Yobispo! Love your comments on reddit; if Sister M ever finds that I have an online presence there, THAT will be a sad tale. But it's fun to lurk.

This is big, no doubt; yet the Bushmans and the Givens have been pushing this "alternative history" for years, and it's still not being touted at the institutional level, which is still the big problem, EXCEPT for the church. That way, they can try to answer questioning members with this spin, yet never really acknowledge these kind of liberal answers in the Ensign, at conference, etc. etc. etc. The biggest challenge for the church going forward is the internet; anybody with a connection can see that the arrows just aren't lining up.

A couple of years ago (on another board) I mentioned that the GA's are cowardly for not standing up and addressing the problems specifically and directly. They love allowing the apologists to run interference for them. It allows them to sit back and see which theories get saluted as they run them up the flag pole. Plus they have the enviable position of being able to disavow any proposed theories at a later date as not being authorized by the First Presidency. We should all have it so good....

The apologetic on that was, "Well, these men are just running the church. They're not scholars, historians, etc. etc."

My response was similar to the young gentleman in the wiki podcast. "Yeah, they're just prophets seers and revelators that claim to have a special mantle to speak with God....that's all....we shouldn't expect anything profound from them." Personally, I think they know a lot of this stuff and don't want to sound ridiculous trying to answer it. So in reality they're hiding like the wizard of OZ, hoping that no one will see the man behind the curtain.

As far as the church historian was concerned, you can tell when they're grasping at straws by how many "maybe" "perhaps" and "look at it this way's" you hear. I've never heard someone redefine words and concepts so fast as that guy was doing. I had to stop listening before I broke my monitor. And the GA was no better. For him all this stuff was inspired by SATAAAANNN...... Every critic of the church just wants to lead you to HELLLLL!!! The same old playbook that Joseph Smith was using all those years ago. I'm surprised he didn't ask the young guy if he'd been doing something immoral lately.

The money quote was when Clark said Jeremy Runnels started his own religion, "the anti-mormon religion". I always thought John Dehlin held that coveted title.

[Bloodhound98]

Even better was his quote on how you will raise your kids outside the Church????

[Hagoth]

This is big, no doubt; yet the Bushmans and the Givens have been pushing this "alternative history" for years, and it's still not being touted at the institutional level, which is still the big problem, EXCEPT for the church. That way, they can try to answer questioning members with this spin, yet never really acknowledge these kind of liberal answers in the Ensign, at conference, etc. etc. etc.

Yes, the current strategy seems to be generating as many possible (if contradictory) answers to questions so that you can flip through all of the options and pick the best one for the circumstance. The essays are excellent examples of this. Why isn't the Book of Abraham on the Joseph Smith papyri? We are told that a) the scroll was once much longer but the BoA part has been lost, b) the BoA really is there, it's just been transformed by millennia of copying into an encoded form that is not obvious to our modern eyes, and c) the BoA isn't there at all, the papyrus was merely the catalyst that triggered the revelation of the BoA directly to Joseph's mind. These are all mutually contradictory answers, but any one of them might have the intended effect on a particular questioner. And one of them answer some of the most serious questions, which have to do with the facsimiles. If none of these have the desired effect the expected tactics are to play the Satan card and/or blame the victim.

The disturbing thing is that the motivation of this type of apologetics appears to have nothing to do determining the actual truth. The goal is to get the questioner back into marching formation and to shut the mouths of people asking questions. This does not seem to be worthy behavior for God's appointed servants. At some level these men must know the problems are real and the answers are just tap dancing. The question is, are they intentionally just covering their asses to maintain staus quo, or do they just assume the blanket the belief, based on emotional "confirmation" that it's all true, no matter what the facts and evidence say, so let's keep it swept under the rug as long as possible. Or is it the third option: even if it's just myth they think we're better off believing it, and it will make us happier than the less-magical truth, so they'll do whatever it takes to keep it alive.

I also believe there's an element of not-on-my-watch syndrome. "I'm 90 years old and I've given my entire life to the cause, only to get to the top and discover that God's not waiting here for me. I only have a few years left, so I'm certainly not going to be the one who goes down in history as bursting everyon's balloon."

[tedcrow33]

Something I realized is now that we are making up our minds it's more about how to talk to other people. I really don't think there's much we can say. People are people and whether it is if God have profits and spoke to them and establish the true church what do you want to know about it and people are like eh.. it's the same for us. If Joseph Smith was an adulterer and ruin peoples lives and marriages and married other men's wives and send husbands on missions and married their wives and daughters and generally made it all up and people are like eh... I think people especially women are far more influenced by feelings and emotions than knowledge facts and thoughts. So is there a way to actually talk to people and get them to listen to podcasts I think that might be the only way…

[RubinHighlander]

I love this analogy!

Another big moment for me was the realization that the choice of either staying in the boat or giving myself over to the storm is a false dichotomy. Once I had taken that big step, and realized I was standing in calm knee-deep water, I saw that there was no storm, just a bunch of frightened people still on the boat, jumping up and down and creating the illusion of a storm.

The old ship Zion is not what she appears to be once you finally get off and can look back at her.

[Emower]

I love this analogy!

Another big moment for me was the realization that the choice of either staying in the boat or giving myself over to the storm is a false dichotomy. Once I had taken that big step, and realized I was standing in calm knee-deep water, I saw that there was no storm, just a bunch of frightened people still on the boat, jumping up and down and creating the illusion of a storm.

The old ship Zion is not what she appears to be once you finally get off and can look back at her.

I second that. Perspective is everything. Not only can you see what the ship really is, but everything around it as well, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[Bloodhound98]

Hagoth you are great! You hit stuff right in the head. I wish I knew a better way to penetrate the Mormon mind! There has to be a way. But I assume I'm on a journey that most of you have been on and perhaps most of you have been on the "missionary" journey as well.
I've posted about being angry and how I think it's not helpful. Well I experienced anger by how quick my family rejected my feelings and apostate views. I'm determined but definitely stalled for a minute.