I don't mean to derail but this
Is not the truth. It's difficult for you to say it because you don't know what you're talking about.
Joseph Smith was a conman who came from a family of con artists. Before he was a "prophet" he was using the seer stone(the very same he supposedly used to translate the BoM) to scry for buried treasure in the countryside of New York and New Jersey. The scam goes like so: you find some land and the mark that owns it. Then you place something there beforehand, like a feather or a piece of metal, underground a little ways. Then you convince your mark that you saw some treasure protected by spirits on his property. You get some sort of deposit or payment beforehand and then set up a time and place to find the treasure. You gotta kill a goat on the spot, shedding its blood, to bind the spirit(theatrics). Then while the seer keeps an eye on the treasure underground, the mark and whatever men you've hired to dig, start to dig. They find something! A feather! Or a chunk of metal! Hoo-boy! We're cookin' now! Gonna get tha treasure! Keep digging. Then, oh no! What's this? The seer says something has gone wrong. The guardian spirit that is protecting the treasure has broken free of its binding somehow! And now it is sinking through the earth with the treasure! Oh, gosh darn! that treasure sure is slippery.
It's called money digging and Joseph Smith was arrested and taken to court three times for doing it. And he was known as a storyteller as a young boy, regaling his family with tales around the fire at night. The Book of Mormon was not just plagiarized from the Bible but several books made and popular around that time, including a children's history book of the war for independence in New York and View of the Hebrews, which also told stories of ancient Israelites traveling by sea to the Americas, eventually becoming the Natives that colonists found here when they arrived. And guess how polygamy among the Mormons started? Joseph was caught screwing the 16 year old nanny, Fanny Alger, and told his wife, "No, god wanted me to do this. It's uh....revelation! Surprise! I'm bringing polygamy back!"
So, don't kid yourself that he was "inspired" or spread misinformation about the nature of where the Book of Mormon came from. It was a scam run by the Smith family from the beginning attempting to accrue wealth without doing labor or working the land to get it(Joseph Smith Sr. was a failed farmer).
Quote:And this is also true about other founders of religious movements. It's difficult for me to say that Joseph Smith, for example, was a full-blown manipulator. But his production (the Book of Mormon) seems to be plagiarized from the OT/NT, it could be that Joseph Smith was so well acquainted with the Bible that his religious experience(his subconscious at work) was more or less some fresh and passionate way to present christianity, but no genuinely new material.
Is not the truth. It's difficult for you to say it because you don't know what you're talking about.
Joseph Smith was a conman who came from a family of con artists. Before he was a "prophet" he was using the seer stone(the very same he supposedly used to translate the BoM) to scry for buried treasure in the countryside of New York and New Jersey. The scam goes like so: you find some land and the mark that owns it. Then you place something there beforehand, like a feather or a piece of metal, underground a little ways. Then you convince your mark that you saw some treasure protected by spirits on his property. You get some sort of deposit or payment beforehand and then set up a time and place to find the treasure. You gotta kill a goat on the spot, shedding its blood, to bind the spirit(theatrics). Then while the seer keeps an eye on the treasure underground, the mark and whatever men you've hired to dig, start to dig. They find something! A feather! Or a chunk of metal! Hoo-boy! We're cookin' now! Gonna get tha treasure! Keep digging. Then, oh no! What's this? The seer says something has gone wrong. The guardian spirit that is protecting the treasure has broken free of its binding somehow! And now it is sinking through the earth with the treasure! Oh, gosh darn! that treasure sure is slippery.
It's called money digging and Joseph Smith was arrested and taken to court three times for doing it. And he was known as a storyteller as a young boy, regaling his family with tales around the fire at night. The Book of Mormon was not just plagiarized from the Bible but several books made and popular around that time, including a children's history book of the war for independence in New York and View of the Hebrews, which also told stories of ancient Israelites traveling by sea to the Americas, eventually becoming the Natives that colonists found here when they arrived. And guess how polygamy among the Mormons started? Joseph was caught screwing the 16 year old nanny, Fanny Alger, and told his wife, "No, god wanted me to do this. It's uh....revelation! Surprise! I'm bringing polygamy back!"
So, don't kid yourself that he was "inspired" or spread misinformation about the nature of where the Book of Mormon came from. It was a scam run by the Smith family from the beginning attempting to accrue wealth without doing labor or working the land to get it(Joseph Smith Sr. was a failed farmer).
