I maintain that the best way to understand Joseph Smith and Mormonism is to learn about the lost 116 pages.
Joseph Smith was dictating the Book of Levi claiming that he was translating it by looking at the golden plates through transparent “seer stones” at the bottom of his hat. A guy called Martin Harris was transcribing what Smith said. Harris took these 116 pages home and then lost them.
So, what could Smith do? If he was really using some legitimate method to translate the golden plates, all he needed to do was translate them again. But Smith didn’t do that.
Harris was dragged into the Smith family home in distress and without the pages. Smith urged Harris to search his house again, but Harris told him he had already ripped open beds and pillows. Smith moaned, “Oh, my God! … All is lost! all is lost! What shall I do? I have sinned—it is I who tempted the wrath of God”.
After returning to Harmony without Harris, Smith dictated to Emma his first written revelation, which both rebuked Smith and denounced Harris as “a wicked man.” The revelation assured Smith that if he was penitent he would regain his ability to translate.
A very weird reaction. He didn’t lose anything except a translation. Smith still should have had the seer stones and gold plates. Why would he be upset? Why would he attract the wrath of god and lose the ability to translate?
Surely, either god would understand and create a miracle to exactly reproduce the pages, in which case Smith would never have lost his ability to translate, or if god actually got angry at him, then somebody else would be selected to translate the rest, right? It’s hard to see how it could ever make sense that Smith would lose the ability to translate, and then gain it back. That idea simply doesn’t make any sense. So, what happened?
According to Smith, he did not retranslate the material that Harris had lost because he said that if he did, evil men would alter the manuscript in an effort to discredit him. Smith said that instead, he had been divinely ordered to replace the lost material with Nephi’s account of the same events. When Smith reached the end of the book, he said he was told that God had foreseen the loss of the early manuscript and had prepared the same history in an abridged format that emphasized religious history, the Small Plates of Nephi.
Everything becomes clear. Smith was afraid that if he retranslated the pages, that the original pages would suddenly appear again, and everybody would see that the two translations were very different. It would be impossible to claim that they were two translations of the same source material.
The fact that Smith was talking about an effort to discredit him is extremely telling. It’s the way a con artist thinks. A person who was actually religious, or even simply delusional and honestly thought they were translating would not think of this. They’d simply expect the second copy to match the first one, and would be shocked when the copies were different.
If Smith had been a really intelligent con man, he’d have predicted something like this and pre-written the story so that he could produce a “miracle” if challenged. Instead, it was all pulled out of his ass in real time. It’s hard to imagine that any rational person could look at this series of events and believe anything except that Smith was a run-of-the-mill con man who invented a religion for his own benefit. (Usually, power, money, and women.)
Lucy Harris smart smart smart smart smart
Martin Harris dum-da-dum
Explanation: The Mormons believe some pretty odd things, even by religious standards, about the foundation of their faith in the 19th century by a known huckster and charlatan. Referenced in the meme is the idea that the founder, Joseph Smith, found golden plates of the Angel Moroni written in Egyptian, and translated them to a secretary from behind a curtain, permitting only a select few to ‘see’ the tablets before they conveniently disappeared, returned to Moroni’s divine hands.
Mormons would go on to become a major sect of Christianity in the USA, primarily in the American West, after their ‘prophet’ was driven out of many areas of eastern and midwestern America. They remain prominent to this day.
Even more embarrassing is the “Pearl of Great Price,” which the mormons accept as a book of scripture the same as the bible or book of mormon. Joesph Smith raised a mess of money to buy four scrolls from egyptian mummies, and claimed they had previously unknown accounts from Abraham and Moses. But… we have the scrolls still and we can read them now, and they just don’t say any of all that.
I can never get over “Moroni”.
Well, “Nimrod” was a mighty hunter. Maybe the meaning of Moron has changed over time. Does seem like believing this angel was real is something a Moroni would believe though.
Actually moron is newer, first coined in 1910 from Greek roots as a medical term (nearly 100 years later), so entirely coincidental.
Nimrod coincidentally only became an insult because of bugs bunny calling Elmer fudd nimrod ironically, and Young kids not clocking the reference.
I have a few Mormon friends, but I can’t think of a tactful way to ask them if they actually believe Joseph Smith was really a prophet.
They do, or at least they are very much supposed to. It’s the interplay between their 7th and 9th articles of faith. To follow on that, they (are supposed to) believe that literally every president of the LDS church is/was a prophet.
The direct line to God is super helpful when, for instance, the whole operation is gonna be shut down due to the feds finally having enough presence in the region to enforce polygamy laws, or when they’re going to exclude your flagship university from the student loan program because you said that black men couldn’t hold any leadership positions due to being descended from the wrong dudes in Old Testament times.
I get that they’re supposed to, I’m more curious if the seemingly smart and sensible people I know who happen to be Mormons sincerely believe that obvious conman was a prophet or if they just let it slide because they value the community and moral teachings.
compartmentalization, dude. joe smith’s history of being a conman? that’s just the devil’s opposition.
They could also just pay lio service out of fear, because being excommunicated as a Mormon is incredibly serious.
I haven’t “been Mormon” in decades, and the internet was likely a game changer, but there is a reason they get called a cult from time to time.
There is a powerful taboo against even reading, much less investigating, secular sources of history about the early church. If your friends seem to be true believing, then they likely do believe that Josiah Smith was a prophet, the same way mainstream Christians (and Mormons too, lol) believe a Judean rabble rouser came back to life after he got executed because he was divine.
If they’re intellectually honest, they would probably acknowledge that the “facts” exist but would say they’re incomplete or intentionally shaded, and that their faith is not dependent on contemporary non-Mormon accounts. They will roll out quotes from the leadership among the lines of “doubt your doubts” or that faith does not require perfect knowledge.
Then, factor in that the social aspects of church life are pretty all encompassing and that church discipline is very real within the top-down organization they have, and there are powerful psychological motivations not to dig too deeply.
Usually scifi fandoms are a bit toxic, but Mormons seem to be kinda decent people somehow. I wonder what does that.
From my experience as an ex-Mormon, one of two things; the first is that they have it drilled into them from birth to be submissive and inoffensive. They’re not even allowed to swear, least of all criticize their own leadership. Second, they have a mandatory two-year period where they have to actually go out into the rest of the world and make some kind of effort at assimilating into another culture as missionaries. That tends to give them a slightly more worldly perspective in some regards, but not all.
They aren’t bad people. They’ve been tricked into believing something harmful.
I have a weird alternative theory why they’re so cool. It’s because they don’t consume coffee.
Tell me more about Joseph Smith. I couldn’t find any good info on him and would love your take.
I think he was posing a hypothetical question I could ask them.
Cue South Park: “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb etc.”.
I get so annoyed when I remember that most religions boil down to “trust me bro.”
People fielding the cult questions in HistoryMemes before I even sit down to type anything!
Oh fuck yes, this is a good day. This is SUCH a good day!
