Ray A wrote:Who Knows wrote:I don't want to know what vogel thinks, i want to know what you think. Could Joseph Smith have not had ancient gold plates, but still not be considered a fraud?
How can you genuinely believe you have ancient gold plates, but not have them? Some type of serious psychological disorder is the only thing i can think of.
So I'll grant you this, he was either a fraud, or a schizophrenic. Take your pick.
I think what Vogel wrote expresses it best, that's why I gave the link. It is not a simplistic matter. What you want to do is reduce my options down to yours, a prophet/fraud dicotomy. If you read the link you will see examples given from the Old Testament as to how people can deceive "in order to achieve greater ends", hence the "pious fraud" term. This is what they believed. I am not excusing this behaviour, but it has to be understood in historical context, also taking into consideration that human beings are not always consistent, and can be motivated by numerous factors, and Joseph Smith felt he had biblical precedents for doing what he did. See the article.
I guess another possibility is that he
really could find treasures and that they "...kept settling away from under them while digging." -- I guess...
But by the time Smith was deep into the fraud -- contriving plates, coercing witnesses, coopting manuscripts -- there is no reason to assume that
any pronouncement was "pious". Possible, of course, but I think most people that are engaged in credit card fraud aren't under the delusion that God wants them to do it.
Vogel wrote:Among the first lines Smith wrote in his new journal, which he began keeping in November 1832, was: "Oh my God grant that I may be directed in all my thoughts Oh bless thy Servant Amen." A few days later he wrote: "Oh Lord deliver thy servant out of temptations and fill his heart with wisdom and understanding." Such passages, unavailable to Brodie, are revealing of Smith's inner, spiritual world, and those who ignore this fact, who fail to recognize a deeply spiritual dimension to Smith's character, or who count his profession of religion as contrived for appearances only, are throwing away a major piece of the prophet puzzle. I am convinced that those who wish to understand Smith on his own terms must escape the confinement of Brodie's paradigm." (Emphasis added.)
Exactly
because of the props that Smith concocted -- plates, witnesses and manuscripts -- it is very likely that he continued the fraud in journals, etc. A con-man can't leave incriminating evidence, as he discovered when he had to concoct the Small Plates of Nephi.
Robert Tilton reminds me a lot of Joseph Smith...only Tilton has made a lot more money than Smith ever did.
"Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder" --Homer Simpson's version of Pascal's Wager
Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
Religion is ignorance reduced to a system.