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| + | #REDIRECT [[Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink]] |
| − | {{Resource Title|Mockery, hyperbole and nonsense statements from MormonThink.com}}
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| − | {{FAIRAnalysisHeader
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| − | |title=[[../|MormonThink]]
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| − | |author=Anonymous
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| − | |noauthor=
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| − | |section=Mockery and hyperbole
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| − | |previous=
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| − | |notes=
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| − | =="Wait, Mormons actually know this story and they still believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet?"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=There's an episode of the cartoon South Park called "All About the Mormons". In the episode, a faithful LDS family tells the story of the Lost 116 pages to a neighbor boy they are trying to convert. They tell this story as proof that Joseph Smith was telling the truth and Mormonism is true. Perhaps the most telling comment we've ever heard about the Lost 116 pages debacle comes from the neighborhood boy, who, after hearing the story of the Lost 116 pages, exclaims "'Wait, Mormons actually know this story and they still believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet?'
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| − | |source=Editor's Comments, "The Lost 116 Page of the Book of Mormon," ''MormonThink.com''
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| − | |response=Why yes, ''of course'' we should give credence to a satirical cartoon as providing valuable insight when determining what our most life-altering and sacred religious beliefs entail.
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| − | =="The Nephites and Lamanites were primitive peoples"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=The Nephites and Lamanites were primitive peoples. Joseph Smith would have been considered a scholar compared to any Indians that lived 2,000 years ago. Yet we don't question that the ancient Indians wrote the original Book of Mormon, but we totally reject the idea that a 19th century man couldn't have done the same thing. That makes reason stare.
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| − | |response=The authors seem to naively equate "ancient" with "primitive," and they actually insult both present day Native Americans and "ancient Indians" with their statements. There was nothing "primitive" about the Nephites and the Lamanites: they had sophisticated societies and the ability to keep records. It is one thing to write a history of one's own time and place that one experiences with such matters as angelic visitations, theophanies, revelations, and the appearance of the resurrected Christ. It is quite another to ''concoct'' a fictional account of such things, complete with the complex and internally consistent geography, theology, cultural behaviors, and other matters that are counter-intuitive for the modern author/translator.
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| − | <br><br>
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| − | Furthermore, Joseph Smith was the first to admit that he was no scholar. In his 1832 history, he started by explaining, "we were deprived of the bennifit of an education suffice it to say I was mearly instructid in reading <del>and</del> writing and the ground <ins>rules</ins> of Arithmatic which constuted my whole literary acquirements." Joseph Smith, at the age at which he dictated the Book of Mormon, was no scholar.
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| − | }}
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| − | =="it's pretty certain that the Book of Mormon is not so spectacular of a book"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=Very few objective people would disagree that the Book of Mormon pales in comparison to such literary masterpieces as A Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace or any the works of William Shakespeare. Many books are far more complex and difficult to write than the BOM. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings fiction series, not only are multiple interacting civilizations created, but also their own languages. If William Shakespeare had said that an angel gave him a set of gold plates in which he translated the Book of Mormon, no one would have believed him because everyone knows that Mr. Shakespeare was certainly capable of writing a book like the BOM based on the other impressive works he wrote.
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| − | So we think it's pretty certain that the Book of Mormon is not so spectacular of a book that no one on the planet could have possibly written it without divine intervention.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon," MormonThink.com
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| − | |response=The claim that Latter-day Saints believe that the Book of Mormon is "so spectacular of a book that no one on the planet could have possibly written it without divine intervention" is pure hyperbole on the part of the MormonThink author. We believe that the book could not have been produced by Joseph Smith, given his educational background and under the circumstances that it was, without divine intervention.
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| − | Similarly, Latter-day Saints also do not claim that the Book of Mormon is a "literary masterpiece" comparable to the works of Shakespeare or Dickens. Again, this is hyperbole on the part of the MormonThink author. Latter-day Saints believe that the Book of Mormon is a book of scripture, comparable to the Bible, that contains spiritual truths.
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| − | }}
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| − | | |
| − | =="is it possible that ONE of the millions of farmers with limited formal education could produce such a volume"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=No one is claiming that the average farmer of 1830 with limited education could be expected to produce something like the BOM. But the BOM did happen once. So to explain it we have only to ask is it possible that ONE of the millions of farmers with limited formal education could produce such a volume.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon," MormonThink.com
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| − | |response={{antispeak|incomprehensible}}The logic behind this argument is fatally flawed. The critics are claiming that the Book of Mormon exists, and we know most farmers couldn't have produced it, but it is possible that one actually did.
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| − | == ==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=No one outside the LDS community thinks that the Book of Mormon is the work of a "genius" (such as Shakespeare, or the person/s who wrote Proverbs, etc.). Mark Twain's comment about it being "chloroform in print" seems about right to many of the non-Mormons who have ever read it.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon," MormonThink.com
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| − | |response={{antispeak|trivialization}}Mark Twain was also a humorist--and thus inclined to go for the laugh. This is not a deep analysis. Mark Twain was entitled to his opinion. Everyone "outside the LDS community" is entitled to theirs as well. There are also a lot of people who find Bach, Shakespeare, or Monet boring too. That says nothing about the quality of such works.
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| − | }}
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| − | | |
| − | =="The average person couldn't write any of those books yet millions of people write those books every day"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=There are millions of books in libraries all over the world. The average person couldn't write any of those books yet millions of people write those books every day. Some of us can't fathom how extremely complex stories like Lord of the Rings, War and Peace or even Star Wars were written by one person yet no one questions that a single, modern author wrote each of those works.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon," MormonThink.com
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| − | |response=
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| − | {{antispeak|incomprehensible}}Let's parse the critics' logic on this one...
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| − | *"There are millions of books in libraries all over the world." OK, we agree.
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| − | *"The average person couldn't write any of those books yet millions of people write those books every day." Uh...OK. So the "average person ''couldn't'' write any of those book," but "millions" write them every day. Whatever...
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| − | *"Some of us can't fathom how extremely complex stories like Lord of the Rings, War and Peace or even Star Wars were written by one person yet no one questions that a single, modern author wrote each of those works." They're very intelligent authors. They write novels. It's what they do. Some people have that kind of talent to create entire fictional worlds.
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| − | So, is this supposed to prove that Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon simply because ''other people have also written books''? After all, the library if full of the evidence of this.
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| − | Now, tell us which ones can do it in 90 days while simultaneously working on the farm, or treasure hunting, or dictating it from memory in full view of everyone while looking into a hat....and retain total consistency of cross references not only within the book itself, but with the Bible?
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| − | |quote=
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| − | =="Joseph's "angels" perhaps were no more supernatural than David Copperfield's assistants"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=Joseph may have received help, but Joseph's "angels" perhaps were no more supernatural than David Copperfield's assistants.<br>....<br>We don't know exactly how illusionist David Copperfield can make the Statue of Liberty seem to disappear or how magician Chris Angel can 'float' between buildings but us not knowing exactly how these gifted magicians perform their illusions doesn't change the fact that they are merely tricks and nothing supernatural. Similarly, we don't know exactly how Joseph Smith came up with the Book of Mormon but to merely assume it must have been by using seer stones and gold plates is a bit premature.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon," MormonThink.com
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| − | |response=Follow the logic:
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| − | *MormonThink doesn't know how magic tricks are performed, but they know that magic doesn't really exist, so another explanation is necessary.
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| − | *MormonThink doesn't know how the Book of Mormon was produced, but they know that the "gift and power of God" doesn't really exist, so another explanation is necessary.
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| − | Let's try some new logic:
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| − | *Definition of "apologist": one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something.
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| − | *LDS apologists defend the idea that the Book of Mormon could have been produced by supernatural means. LDS apologists begin by assuming belief in such things.
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| − | *MormonThink apologists defend the idea that the Book of Mormon could ''not'' have been produced by supernatural means. MormonThink apologists begin by assuming disbelief in such things.
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| − | }}
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| − | | |
| − | =="He didn't write it, he told the story and others wrote it down"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=He didn't write it, he told the story and others wrote it down. Since he was so secretive, we don't know for sure how he did it, but there are lots of possibilities. He could have told an original story while borrowing heavily from other sources. He could have plagiarized directly from Spalding's manuscript. Or he could have done a combination of the two, or perhaps it was completely original and he somehow coincidentally used exact verses from the Bible and borrowed identical ideas from View of the Hebrews.
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| − | <br><br>
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| − | Any of these possibilities is infinitely more likely than a ghost led him to a set of buried plates with strange engravings which he translated into English using a magic rock, and the plates miraculously disappeared before any third party could examine them.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?", MormonThink.com <nowiki>http://mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm#full</nowiki>
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| − | |response=
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| − | {{antispeak|spaghetti}} Any port in a storm, right? If you don't believe in God or in His power, then any of these explanations will do. The critics should simply choose whichever of these worldly explanations their intellect can accept, despite the problems with each one. They state that it could ''not'' have happened the way Joseph said, and simply assume that it ''must'' be one of the alternative explanations offered, despite a distinct lack of evidence for each of their theories. It requires no in-depth research of the alternative theories offered - only a declaration that one of the ''must'' be true.
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| − | }}
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| − | =="There's no shortage of theories as to why Joseph would tell a false story"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=There's no shortage of theories as to why Joseph would tell a false story. People do it all the time. A few of the more popular theories: Financial Gain....Pious Fraud....Delusions
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?", MormonThink.com <nowiki>http://mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm#full</nowiki>
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| − | |response=
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| − | {{antispeak|spaghetti}}If you don't believe in the "gift and power of God," than any one of these explanations will do.
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| − | }}
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| − | | |
| − | =="It's just not a remarkable book. Mormons are brainwashed"==
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| − | {{MormonThinkIndexClaimQuote
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| − | |claim=It's just not a remarkable book. Mormons are brainwashed (in Emperor's New Clothes fashion) to think that it is. But it isn't. And really, a religious education to go along with his vivid imagination is all Smith needed to produce the Book of Mormon--that's where all of the book's impressiveness lies: in the sermons and the long doctrinal asides. Whereas the 'historical' side of the book is, well, far-fetched and ignorantly composed.
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| − | |source="Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?", MormonThink.com <nowiki>http://mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm#full</nowiki>
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| − | |response=
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| − | This isn't evidence. It isn't even an argument. This is simply a diatribe against believers.
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| − | *{{antispeak|truth}} According to the critics, if you don't agree with them then you are "brainwashed."
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| − | *{{antispeak|mocking}} The "Emperor's New Clothes".
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| − | *{{antispeak|trivialization}} "And really..." it wasn't all that hard to produce the Book of Mormon, right?
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| − | }}
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