Posted by:
Anon the Great
(
)
Date: September 17, 2018 10:11PM
babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> As much as I’m dazzled by your brilliance, the
> BoM is a mash-up of 19th century religious memes
> and clumsy plagiarism. No occult required.
>
> The Smiths were big into folk magic, which is
> where Priesthood blessings come from. Consecrated
> oil, very occult. If those blessings worked for
> you, it was because the occult works. Which pagans
> knew long before Joe.
I believe no one is brilliant or stupid, but we believe in smart or stupid ideas. So I don't consider myself brilliant, but I have controlled my mind all of my life to embrace good ideas and discard bad ideas by reasoning through the assumptions and valid evidence. If possible, I depend on first-hand evidence; but if that is not possible, I will make make a calculated choice to believe the assumptions I create, like I did with Greg Olson, but will change the assumptions if the evidence forces me to change my mind. I am in control of the ideas I believe, not the evidence. There is too much fake evidence to leave my mind to the evidence only. Case in point is the salamander letter or the Book of Abraham evidence. It is phony evidence, so I don't believe it. The evidence must be validated first.
I use a mental process with silent prayer and meditation techniques outside of confusing churches. The scientific method I use with thoughts on the inside, not just with physical observation on the outside that we already knows works. It is the identical scientific process applied to thoughts or ideas.
Thus, these ideas of yours are very rational from the assumptions you believe in. But they don't appear to embrace the stories of the three witnesses. The witnesses either made up the gold plate claims with all the 13 men in collusion, or Joseph Smith and the sons of God deceived all of them. I use Occam's razor principle and believe Joseph Smith and his family single-handedly deceived everyone by the occult power he used. It is the simplest explanation for Mormonism, and it fits a zillion more facts than any other theory, including your assumptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Whitmer