RE: The Obsession with Discussing the Supposed Rudeness of Atheists
September 30, 2015 at 11:30 pm
(September 30, 2015 at 8:15 pm)Homeless Nutter Wrote: (September 30, 2015 at 7:36 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: Holy SHIT !!, I'd like a shot at some brethren. I'd love to ask about the 6 (so far) mutually inconsistent versions Joe Smith gave about his first visitation and why the Mormon church does NOT recognize the only version that is penned entirely in Joseph Smith's hand.
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I thought Smith couldn't write - he could barely read. Which is why he enlisted help of gullible morons, like Martin Harris, to write down his "translation" of the golden plates.
Old Horny Joe had scribes and gave dictation. As time went by his meager writing skills did improve somewhat. And of course, when he plagiarized stuff (and he did that quite a bit) he had that to help too.
The neat thing about the first visitation story he penned himself is that it wasn't really suspected to exist so no one was looking for it, and that includes the unscrupulous Mormon hierarchy so they didn't snag it and either burn it or just make it 'unavailable' like so much other stuff. This version was amongst some other handwritten items he did not pen, and IIRC, it wasn't till the 1960s someone noted a difference in handwriting and bingo, we get ANOTHER version of the first visitation story. And of course, by the 1960s, it was a little late for another version of the first visitation story to turn up and get ensconced in the lit-ra-chure, despite what it said and regardless who said it, even if it was Joe Smith himself.
An otherwise 'good' Mormon can be excommunicated for expressing doubt about the 'official' version of the first visitation story, so having 6 versions might be considered a problem to some degree. Even worse, the best version, the one Joe wrote entirely by himself (!!!), and therefore uncontaminated by an unfaithful scribe, or scrambled by Brigham Young, or twisted by any of his successors to read better, did not turn up in time to be 'THE' version.
Awkwardly, prior church published versions, and including a version or 2 actually approved for publication by Joseph Smith himself, differ significantly from each other and, need I add, the hand written version that turned up in the 60s.
It is quite a mess, clearly it's a sore subject for the LDS admins, and for most folks aware of the gory details, stunningly convincing evidence Mormonism is an EMPHATICALLY false religion, and AMAZINGLY, a religion entirely falsified by the MORMONS THEMSELVES.
Atheists didn't insert themselves in the self corruption of the Mormon church at all, they did it unto themselves.
I would also note, early on in Mormonism, Joe Smith, Brigham Young, and most other church leaders were eager to accuse other religions of all manner of connivance in their records, scriptures and conduct starting with their inception. Almost unbelievably, it turns out virtually any manner of skulduggery the Mormons accused any other faith committing, through their own ineptness and perfidy, we now know they themselves committed, and knew or should have known, they themselves were committing too.
Mormonism, in my opinion is the petri dish, if you will, for how religions gestate themselves. Wonderfully, they felt they were commanded by God to be a record keeping people, and those very records PROVE the depths of corruption percolating through the entire edifice of Mormonism.
And of course, we know the church hierarchy, to this very day, knows that too.
The LYING BASTARDS.
But as a model for all other faiths, most of which have long since mislaid their incriminating early smoking guns, the Mormons have (stupidly since from day one they deigned to be dishonest about everything) actually provided a useful service in how we can look at those other faiths and what they deemed pragmatic to do to assure their own continuance and survival.