https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/10/joseph-the-seer?lang=eng

I envisioned straining gnats as I read it.

For the TBM folks who knew nothing of the stone, SURPRISE! Your naughty ExMo friends and family tried to tell you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2015 11:02PM by brandywine.

LDS., Inc.

I'm struck by the use of "emotional catnip" articles as I scanned the entire magazine.
It's no wonder that Mormons fall for the sound bite quotes that they post ad nauseum on the FB pages.

You know the kind. Those bumpersticker-eque trite phrases and quotes. They never really take the time to think those phrases thru.

Hey, I tried... Couldn't do it though. It's pure tripe. And apparently it took three of them to do it.

Yes. Tripe.
Appreciate your observation that it took 3 of 'em to do it, too. I didn't pay attention to that.

Ah, shucks, ma'am, t'weren't nuthin.

Alrighty then, the church officially says he used the rock in the hat, and then goes right back to showing the old pictures they've been using for years!!!

There isn't a bigger enough can of Krylon paint to spray this turd gold...

Plus they threw the artists under the bus, like they did with Brigham Young and racism. The artists' works have appeared in church approved literature for decades, obviously with official approval. Never mind the words, just look at the pictures! I am surprised they showed a picture of the poop stone, given that some members will see it and think WTF?

Richard Turley is such a douche bag. How embarrassing to have this guy on your team.

This article must be not very important. It's towards the back of the printed magazine. I wonder why its not the first presidency message for the month!??? Maybe they think nobody is going to read it!??

I don't suppose any of this crap is ever mentioned in conference... OR, the D&C - does not count.

It wasn't even mentioned in boring morg church services the week the morg mentioned it to the press! Instead we got crickets!!

Y'know, just reading that tripe--and it is really tripe--I realize that the Mormon church approaches all its subjects this way. The yammer on and on, digressing to Joseph Smith, then to a quote by Joseph's own made-up scriptures to back him up, then to a story (true or not) about Oliver Cowdry, or another early supporter/relative of JS, and by the time you read into the 30th paragraph to the real point, your brain is already hypnotized into a stupor. I wanted to stop reading that article about 5 times.

Then they show all kinds of pictures. Now, a picture is worth a thousand words, the the lazy, bored Ensign readers will mostly just look at the pictures and not read the captions which say, "No, Joseph really didn't let anyone see him translate the Golden Plates...but here's a picture of him and Oliver translating them together at the same desk.

This article actually raises more questions than it answers. Why did Joseph stop using the Urine-thumbs, why was no mention ever made of the brown poopstone? Why didn't the owner of the poopstone come forward for all these years? Why did the angel take back the Golden plates and Urine-thumbs, and leave the poopstone behind?

I think all this mental gymnastics makes one tired. It is late at night, and I had to struggle through the convoluted article.

Everyone who has taken Journalism 101, and everyone who reads the newspaper and magazines knows that the first two paragraph are usually read, but the reader moves on to another article after that. Therefore, journalists put the most important points at the very beginning of the article. I have never read a Mormon article that did that. I have never had a conversation with a Mormon that got to the point, either. All that extra verbiage is thrown in there to confuse and intimidate the reader. I was a straight-A student in high school, college, and grad school, because I loved to learn. Yet, in religion class, I felt absolutely STUPID. Nothing made sense. Nothing was clear.

Whoever is assigned to give this as a talk will end up reading it word-for-word, as these Ensign talks are always given. This mess will never be unravelled. Disgusting.

Note that the hat that Joseph Smith had his head stuffed into was only mentioned once.

Wouldn't it be funny if they showed a picture of that? Then as members are browsing the Ensign and land on that picture we'd have lots of people in shock.

They fluff the whole thing up so much that the "stone in the hat" get lost in all of the other crap they try to justify it with. I think we could probably diagram this article and show chaismus form in it and that alone would verify its truth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2015 01:28PM by baneberry.

I also noticed the "everyone was doing it" tactic; so how does this make JS special if a magical world view was common in the 19th century? Wouldn't folk magic be classified in the "natural man is an enemy to God" category? And comparing a little brown rock to biblical talismans (which of course, would have been based on ancient nature worship religious thinking) is stretching things more than the waistband of my worn-out Fruit of the Looms...

So in this article it says that it was totally normal to believe in folk magic but people focused on joseph's use of folk magic to undermine his message because it was totally not normal to believe in folk magic...

Anyone else notice that?? In one paragraph it talks about how it wasn't weird at all. Then in the next it talks about how it wasn't emphasized becuse the world "increasingly rejected such practices"

They talk about Zina Harris obtaining the stone after Brigham's death...they call her "Zina D. H. Young". Funny how, yet again, that woman gets glossed over.

And I believe there's an additional letter missing from that name. Hah! But they couldn't admit WHOLE truths could they?

It's a circle jerk.

Sort of like when apologists refer to "faithful biographers" recording JS' great wisdom and revelations, but when they put down contradictory or embarrassing information, then they are "careless scribes."

Yes! I noticed that too. I read it to myself, sure that I was misreading. And I read it over and over before I realized that I was being taken for a ride....

wondercat

P.S. DH says he knew about the stone for years. Learned it in Seminary. ! But he hadn't known about the hat till now.

Progress along that line is moving very well. We're talking and sharing position about the C openly. Eyes are being opened courtesy of YouTube. I'm so happy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 08:57PM by wondercat.

Sorry! Double post. My bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 08:51PM by wondercat.

Anyone who can read that article and not think, 'WTF' makes me look at THEM and think, 'W...T...F!!'

This article is such carefully crafted lying. I couldn't get all the way through it. If you're not convinced TSSC knows it's intentionally trying to fool people, this article will tell you it's crafted for fraud. Not only because of what it says, but how it's saying it. Each line, individually, is true, but the implications of the lines, collectively, are purposely obfuscated. An honest person should get sick reading it.

Early in, the article says "the villagers of Palymyra and Manchester, New York, where the Smiths lived, sought out Joseph to find lost objects before he moved to Pennsylvania in late 1827." The unspoken implication is that in the early 19th century, rocks really did have power. A man with a rock really could find a lost object. Apparently, today, rocks are just rocks--they no longer tell people where to find lost objects (so don't ask Monson where your keys are; he can't tell you).

Of course, it would have been far more accurate for the article to have said: "Joseph sought out marks among the villagers, the gullible among them he convinced to give him money by promising to find lost objects, like bars of gold, for which activity eventually he was tried and convicted of fraud."

I loved this careful wording too: "For those without an understanding of how 19th century people in Joseph's region, lived their religion, seer stones can be unfamiliar." Jesus. "19th century people?" C'mon, it wasn't that long ago. If you're unfamiliar with "19th century people" read a Dickens novel or watch Masterpiece Theatre," they'll bring you up to speed! Or "Joseph's region." Joseph's region was upstate New York. What's that, the moon? "How people 'lived' their religion?" Oh, please. Just say, "crystal ball." Everyone will get it. I promise.

Why did "the Age of Reason" reject seer stones? Because they were silly, superstitious nonsense that the unscrupulous used to confuse and defraud the public. Apparently, that's still true today.

MCR you missed the bit about RODS (you know, the divining rods that Oliver Cowdery used). Just enough so that people who aren't aware of the rod won't be scared off, and so that if it ever comes up at a later date people will be "inoculated" to that little fact - "oh we always knew about THAT." Carefully crafted for sure...

from the article "The Bible also mentions people receiving spiritual manifestations by means of physical objects such as rods,..."

Is that a real seer stone or is that a Sears stone?

Did Joseph Smith sear stoned?

Wow what a change from what I was told when I joined TSCC.

They must make this tripe up as they go along right?

No, it's not weird:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divination

Punch line of the article: "perhaps he worried that people might focus too much on how the book came forth and too little on the book itself."

Article conclusion: God certainly does work in mysterious ways. Now stop asking questions and pay your tithing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 07:12PM by perky.

wow that hypocrisy is not lost on me at all - don't talk about seer stones and divination because people won't focus on the BoM? As opposed to gold plates and angels?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 07:38PM by thatsnotmyname.