The EARLIEST ACCOUNT that the Smith family gave of Joseph Smith’s discovery of the golden plates (i.e, the source text for the Book of Mormon) involved a treasure guardian rather than an angel or a prophetic calling. There are overt indications within the account that this treasure guardian was evil. The religious content of later accounts can be shown to be anachronistic.
If the source text for the book was *from a demon according to Smith himself* that settles the debate. And yet my opponent did not engage with the extensive, multiply attested, highly credible, directly and indirectly corroborated testimony that establishes it. His best source was decades later than my sources, written by Smith’s own mother, and was *demonstrably edited to whitewash admissions about Smith family involvement in folk magic.* Even Smith’s own story bears all the marks of a money-digging yarn and none of biblical election to prophethood.
Rather than saying *debunked* while ignoring all my evidence, do any Mormons want to deal with the MASSIVE PROBLEM presented by these historical facts?
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint Do you want me to make the argument that JS publicly and privately lying about his polygamy is evil? Bc the OT never says such behavior is ok
@BradWitbeck@BenBird53920553@ThoughtfulSaint@LukeFHan Ethan actually gave arguments as to why the sworn testimony of William Stafgord is reliable. I'm skeptical of both, the difference is thay Ethan has given some substantive historical reasoning as to why we should trust the testimony
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint What evidently ecil acts did Jesus do? Did Jesus have 30+ wives? Did Jesus engage in demonic sacrifices? Did JS perform countless vindicatory miracles? Etc
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint 1) Ethan ties it directly to his authorship argument. Not a gish gallop if
2) How is he vague? He claims to directly summarize LDzs authorities
3) How so? Ethan explains the principles by which he judges and doesn't change them for Bible vs BOM
@ThoughtfulSaint I've yet to see a reason as to why this rendered Ethan's arguments less effective. The only claims Im seeing seem to basically be saying that the optics are bad, not actually explaining how this disproves Ethan's case
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint 1) These points had already been brought up throughout the debate tho, right? Luke had already had opportunities to respond, right?
2) I'm still not sure what your critique it here? Are you looking for a source fir his claims?
3) And Ethan responds, showing why it's not ad hoc
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint 1) How is it a gish gallop in this section? Presumably Luke had already had many chances to respond to these points earlier in the debate.
2) Flesh this out. I don't see this at all in the short clip shared
3) How so? Imo Ethan makes a reasoned distinction, not special pleading
@seanproxy@IgorIsBack@emuse1955@ThoughtfulSaint Setting aside the whole debate and just focusing on this particular section, why do you think this particular exchange was an embarrassment for ethan?
@ThoughtfulSaint@emuse1955 It preaches plenty of good morals. Beyond that tho, I don't think Mormonism actually bears any good fruits of a supernatural kind, in fact, I'd say it bears many bad fruits, as evidenced by the life of the very man who founded it.