Another Sealed Portion?

[Anon70]

I so wish Joseph and Oliver we're here today. We could have this thing translated quicker than you could get your hat off and look inside.

Favorite thing I read on the internet today

[Hagoth]

Holy cow! Here is a video of the 8 witnesses bearing testimony about the plates.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/113956329

I have only watched part of it but this is pure gold. It's a way to witness in realtime what happened in Palmyra/Harmony/Fayette/Kirtland. These guys seem intelligent, sincere and genuinely moved by their experiences. Of course, they had physical plates to examine, but there were also 3 witnesses who saw the angel with the plates. There were outpourings of the spirit, visits from the 3 nephites, the gift of tongues, dreams and visions, etc. etc.

This is how it happens, folks. One fraudster (or pious fraudster) and a lot of sincere people who really want to believe. If you build it they will come.

[Hagoth]

Testimony of the 3 Witnesses:



Partial translation:

After some time with Mauricio Berger, who told us about the events on Mount Agudo, we decided to accompany him to the mountain. We can say that everything we have seen there has an extraordinarily sacred character. The prayers and praises offered to the Lord in that place, seeking to do the will of the Father, resulted in the visit of celestial beings; the instructions received directly from the Angel Moroni, are events that have marked our lives forever and ever. We squeezed his hand and received from him the Golden Plates, the translating stones and the Sword of Laban, formerly in possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. This sublime circumstance had a powerful effect on our beliefs by enlarging our perception of this great and marvelous work.

Now, why would someone lie about something like that? What kind of argument could you make that these guys are all either lying or deceived, but Joseph Smith's witnesses couldn't possibly have been deceived or lying? Certainly not the argument from testimony, because there are many members of this movement who have been powerfully moved by the spirit to testify that it's all true. There have been visions and visitations and miracles. If this can happen here and now in the 21st century with the information sharing technology that we have at our access, isn't it even more likely that people might have had similarly powerful experiences in the 19th century that became magnified in the retelling over 200 years?

[Hagoth]

This might get really interesting. Maricio was commanded to build a temple in Zion (Jackson County) where Jesus will return and read from the sealed portion just before the final destruction. These people believe that destruction is going to happen very soon AND they have the Temple Lot church caught up in this movement. Won't it be fascinating if a temple really does get built on that site but the Salt Lake Church is completely out of the picture?

[Hagoth]

I'm just popping in to drop notes as I listen to the Q & A portion of the 8 witnesses talk.

So...

Mauricio has found people to finance him so he doesn't have to work a normal job, this enables him to focus full time on the translation. He should be able to do it in 4 or 5 months but he had to give the plates back to Moroni because evil men were showing up at his home in attempts to steal the plates. He thinks it will be another 5 months or so before Moroni brings them back. He also needs Moroni to activate the interpreters. Mauricio had started translating the plates but he got a vision of the destruction that's coming and it was so much more horrible than anything the Nazis did that he assumed such terrifying visions could only come from Satan, so he took a hammer and smashed the interpreters. Moroni then reassured him that God really is capable of such horrible destruction and instructed him in how to build a new set of interpreters, but Moroni took those too because they won't work until Moroni inscribes special characters on them.

Man, I wish OUR conference was this interesting.

[Palerider]

Testimony of the 3 Witnesses:




Now, why would someone lie about something like that?

If anything, you have a stronger case for belief here because you have the actual document and the signatures are original and individual.

LDS officials have no signed documents and the "replicas" from the printers manuscript that we see in our BofMs were all signed by Oliver Cowdery....Pfffthttt...

[wtfluff]

and photographs of angels

Angels? Really?

Dammit, now I'm going to have to scan through that stupid document. Can't... Not... Look away...

All-Rightee. Sorry to be skipping back to the previous page, but I wasted a few moments scanning through the document, and the "photos" of angels did in fact live up to my expectations! Lame "photos" of glowing "personages" wearing togas. How original! I'm curios if all the gods/angels that humans invented before the Greek gods also wore togas? Shouldn't mormon angels upgrade to the current version of the "priesthood uniform" and wear 1950's IBM-esque business attire?

The photos of the magic rock, the plates and the swords are pretty cool. Too bad god has to hide this actual evidence from all but a select few.

It's also interesting that none of these select few has a functioning cell phone to get video of their visitations with resurrected and twinkled beings. I know, I know... God doesn't work that way. We have to set aside absolutely all logic, reason and skepticism, completely ignore reality and "Just Believe."

[Hagoth]

One of the 8 witnesses was promised in his patriarchal blessing that one day he would be allowed to turn the pages of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon.

That's pretty dang specific. How many Utah Mormons can top that?

[Brent]

Let's face it it should be something to pray about, to ponder, you know do that stuff the missionaries asked you to do.

[slavereeno]

I'm just popping in to drop notes as I listen to the Q & A portion of the 8 witnesses talk.

Haha! Awesome digest of this stuff Hagoth! My family are all in town right now and they are all gushing about RMN and the COJCOLDS constantly, its driving me crazy. Its all I can do not to pull this up and have a family discussion about it!

[Hagoth]

I'm just popping in to drop notes as I listen to the Q & A portion of the 8 witnesses talk.

Haha! Awesome digest of this stuff Hagoth! My family are all in town right now and they are all gushing about RMN and the COJCOLDS constantly, its driving me crazy. Its all I can do not to pull this up and have a family discussion about it!

I made the mistake of summarizing the whole story to some TBM friends at lunch yesterday. One kind of smiled and raised his eyebrows in a polite show of attempted interest, the other sat very quietly, looked away, and acted as disinterested as possible until I got off the topic. Neither asked any questions or showed any interest in discussing it. I don't understand how this can be so fascinating to me and so uninteresting to people who actually believe in this kind of stuff. Even as a believer I would have found it very interesting and I would have wanted to look into it and see if there was any chance of it being true, otherwise I would have wanted to debunk it so it wouldn't be haunting the fringes of my beliefs.

[Reuben]

I'm just popping in to drop notes as I listen to the Q & A portion of the 8 witnesses talk.

Haha! Awesome digest of this stuff Hagoth! My family are all in town right now and they are all gushing about RMN and the COJCOLDS constantly, its driving me crazy. Its all I can do not to pull this up and have a family discussion about it!

I made the mistake of summarizing the whole story to some TBM friends at lunch yesterday. One kind of smiled and raised his eyebrows in a polite show of attempted interest, the other sat very quietly, looked away, and acted as disinterested as possible until I got off the topic. Neither asked any questions or showed any interest in discussing it. I don't understand how this can be so fascinating to me and so uninteresting to people who actually believe in this kind of stuff.

It's not uninteresting, it's an existential threat.

[2bizE]

I feel so stupid for believing in this crap.

[slavereeno]

Haha! Awesome digest of this stuff Hagoth! My family are all in town right now and they are all gushing about RMN and the COJCOLDS constantly, its driving me crazy. Its all I can do not to pull this up and have a family discussion about it!

I made the mistake of summarizing the whole story to some TBM friends at lunch yesterday. One kind of smiled and raised his eyebrows in a polite show of attempted interest, the other sat very quietly, looked away, and acted as disinterested as possible until I got off the topic. Neither asked any questions or showed any interest in discussing it. I don't understand how this can be so fascinating to me and so uninteresting to people who actually believe in this kind of stuff.

It's not uninteresting, it's an existential threat.

This exactly this.

[moksha]

Garcon, I will have the sealed portion of herring and pommes frites.

[slavereeno]

Garcon, I will have the sealed portion of herring and pommes frites.

LOL, that's terrible.