Book Review "This is My Doctrine" Part 4

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_Philo Sofee
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Book Review "This is My Doctrine" Part 4

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Book Review “This is My Doctrine” Part 4
By Kerry A. Shirts (The Backyard Professsor)

Harrell but merely mentions an incident in Church History which I think is quite interesting and very important because it bears on assumptions being made, automatically, and in some cases, without critical thinking.
Harrell (p. 23) notes after the failed prophecy of Joseph Smith’s almost ridiculous bluster to the Relief Society in 1842 that queens (oh the glory!) would come specifically to these Mormon women gathered and pay their respects to them, and “they shall come with their millions and shall contribute of their abundance for the relief of the poor.” Well, and… yeah… like Paul Harvey, we know the rest of the story. This overly magnificent bluster and braggado was sometimes so typical of the early Mormons, and here we see it in Joseph Smith. No one showed up who was queenly, of course not. In fact, though the time limit Joseph gave it was ten years, this has never happened ever in Mormonism to the Relief Society where any queen has shown up and given of her abundance for the Relief Society to use for the poor. The melodrama must have been intensely spiritual to them in the moment of the breathed prophecy I suppose.
And the other prophecy was against the government that God would damn them so much so that there was not going to be left of them even a grease spot. Well… uh… any student of history can figure this one out. The government contrary to Joseph Smith, did, in fact, ignore their petition for redress, and has continued right on rollin down the royal road of progress…ho hum….

So what’s the point here? “…modern prophetic utterances, even when they are spoken of in the name of the Lord, are not always to be taken as the infallible word of God.”(p.23)

Now… sincerely… I was not raised to believe that. I was not even told about this unfulfilled prophecies using Melchizedek Priesthood sanction, and spoken of in the name of the Lord when I was raised in Mormonism. So what are we to honestly think here? For one thing the Melchizedek Priesthood certainly isn’t an infallible power. For another thing speaking in the name of the Lord, and even prophesying doesn’t always means squat either. I mean good heavens man, is anything valid then?! And how can we possibly know it?! But wait… there really is more. Honest.

How Harrell discusses this next one doesn’t do it justice, so I am going to elaborate a bit, besides, it’s quite instructive, fun and terribly interesting.

“LDS President of the Seventy B. H. Roberts explained one such apparently errant prophecy Joseph received through a seer stone stating, ‘The Prophet overwrought in his deep anxiety for the progress of the work, saw reflected in the Seer Stone his own thought rather than the thought of God.’ The implication is that prophets may not always be able to discern between their own thoughts and impressions that come from God.”(p.23) Ya think? Noooooooooo, say it ain’t so!

Now lets see the historic context to realize a sincerely serious shock, as if all the foregoing hasn’t already been. Gee, everyone else who has ever prophecies falsely has been called “false prophet” except Joseph Smith. In this case, he’s labeled fallible. Such bias! We must give Joseph Smith every single possible benefit of the doubt.

In the early 1830’s after revelations to the church had established that the Saints themselves were to feed and care for the Prophet and his family while he translated or whatever it was he did, oh, yeah, “expound scriptures” to the church, that’s it. Anyway, Oliver Cowdery who had seen many revelations of Joseph Smith, on a small matter of doctrine and practice concerning baptism wrote a possible better way to word something already written, because, according to Richard Bushman, Cowdery might have thought this was dangerously close to the traditional Puritan practice of insisting on evidence of grace, (Richard Bushman, “Rough Stone Rolling,” p. 120). And Joseph roared back who does Cowdery think he is? How dare you correct my authoritah young man! Heathen! Wretch! Buffoon! No one commands me you imbecile, I am the Lord’s law! What I write, Jesus writes! Or something like that, pretty close anyway. Blinding ironical evidence in history, in fact, did demonstrate Joseph time and again did exactly what he was telling Cowdery to shut the hell up about already! Joseph “altered, erased, and added to and diminished from revelations and commandments from Almighty God” throughout his entire career!

Notice how Joseph Smith is setting himself up, when he has a revelation as literally untouchable, infallible, perfectly knowledgable, and no mere potty mouthed boy of a spiritual man is going to tell him how to word things or what to say. Everything he wrote was exactly, precisely, spot on, accurate, right, correct, and perfect just precisely and perfectly as God wanted everyone to know. NO ONE has the authority to tell him to change his revelations! There are no errors in my revelations or how I write them is the idea here. And he labored mightily to try and convince him and the Whitmers of this.

Well, in the meantime, Smith had put aside his seer stone once he finished the translation of the Book of Mormon, but Whitmer thought that now that revelations through the stone were perfect as Joseph said, and as Joseph had shown others they could also have seer stones, and that they worked for anyone, well, Hiram Page, one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon had his own stone, and was receiving revelations through it. Now that’s more like it man! Lets write these here perfect, accurate, and real revelations from God Almighty via revelation down on paper. They had a pile of papers because God had remained as loquacious to Hiram Page as he had been with Joseph Smith. I mean if one stone works, all of em do. I say writ,… I say write boy, I’m talkin, … I say I’m talkin to you!

Now Joseph does a funny thing, he has a funny reaction. Instead of being glad, happy that the Lord is pouring forth his revelations to enlighten mankind toward their salvation and exaltation, Joseph throws a four star tizzy! NO ONE BY ME MYSELF, ONLY HOLY PROPHET OF ALL CAN GET REVELATIONS FOR THE CHURCH! I AM THE HEAD! NO ONE ELSE! I ALONE AND ONLY HAVE THE RIGHT! PUT THAT ROCK AWAY YOU DEVIL WORSHIPPER EVIL WICKED MAN! Or something close to that. He was livid, and he definitely made Hiram Page get rid of that evil devil inspired stone. (one account says it was actually ground to powder) How did Joseph know it was the devil that inspired Page? BECAUSE I SAID SO (Smith would have said)!
Welllllllll……… O.K. then Joe, so, the hurried meeting of the Church gathered together and immediately voted that only Herr Smith was dictato…..er head prophet and only he and he alone all by his singular had the authoritah to speak for the church, no one, man, woman, child, angel, perhaps maybe Jesus, and ONLY He and Elohim could do so.

Now isn’t it rather curious, that the incident leading up to this was that Smith had sent Hiram Page and others to Canada to sell off the copyright of the Book of Mormon for as many thousands of dollars as they could rip the buyer off for so they could party and have a good time back in the states?! And he prophesied (not that it means anything, as further history showed, but the brethren sure thought it was a sure deal and a won lottery ticket) that they would be successful, and come home with bags and bags o money!!! WE’LL BE RICH DUDES!!! So, the brethren eagerly carried their little legs as fastest as they could goest to Canada, and utterly, miserably, and totally failed to sell the Book of Mormon. They came home dejected, and miserable, and murmuring began that Smith’s skill at prophesying wasn’t any good. Ya think? Well heck, I guess that money makin scheme is off the table, what now?

How do the Mormon faithful get out of this obviously terrifically failed and thus, by any standard, false prophecy, thus showing the world yet another false prophet? Don’t get excited, there is a way, and the Prophet found it! By golly lets justify this with a really cool sleight of hand a professional magician could pull off only after 10 years of daily practice shall we? How does Smith do it? Very cleverly. He says “Some revelations are of God, some revelations are of man, and some revelations are of the devil.”(B. H. Roberts, “History of the Church,” Vol. 1:165). Notice, Joseph Smith obviously couldn’t tell the difference! He actually sent the men on a wild financial goosechase, and prophesied in the name of Jesus they would be utterly successfully successful beyond their wildest imagination. Then defended his bare little buttocks with one of the silliest excuses I have ever read.

Now, a question arises at this point in the story, one that literally no one discusses. How then, do we know which influence was Joseph under during his use of the seer stone in any of his activities and revelations, including the translating of the Book of Mormon, and several sections of the D&C? If Joseph Smith couldn’t figure it out, how can we? Well, that’s easy. Joseph Smith said all others stone were the false ones, his was the TRUE one, and therefore, everything he heard, saw, and read through it was just a-O.K. Notice how no one ever asked how we know HIS was right, WHEN HE WAS SOOOOOOO WRONG in his prophecy using it.

Hiram Page’s, and all the other dozens of scryers in his area? Noooooooooo, they were devil rocks, because I, Joseph Smith say so! Mine? Oh why me oh my ladies and gentleman, mine is the only true seer stone. Although, everyone can have one, and ought to, it’s God ordained, but no one does cause you idiots are evil! You can’t handle the stone like I can you babies, get over it!

And so the people like innocent lambs believed what Joseph told them because…. Well, he told them, and he wouldn’t lie would he? Not the Prophet! Well, I mean, yeah he was stuck with that valueless stupid book he spent so long on, and then tried to unsuccessful ditch for some beer money, but other than that, I mean that’s a mere quibble, hee, hee. For the BIG stuff, I’m good for it man! No one else’s rock is allowed to outdo mine! That’s not fair! You guys either put your stupid rocks away, throw em in the river, or I’m pickin up all my toys and goin home! And so they all did, and Joseph once again, got his way.

Now on a serious note, which is quite hard for me to be anymore with all the silliness of early Mormonism. Why didn’t God simply give actual truth and good knowledge for all people and their benefits through all the stones that were giving revelations from him to so many hundreds of people? This looks for all the world as if it is one gigantic con job. The reason everyone was receiving contradictory revelations through valid seer stones which Joseph Smith was also using, is because people were making this crap up. And we actually have some evidence on this, amazingly enough.

William Hine, one of those whom Joseph Smith and others dug treasure with (never successfully, good heavens man, you didn’t think the rock actually worked did you?) testified that he “used Joseph Smith’s seer stone many times and could see in it whatever I imagined.” (D. Michael Quinn, “Early Mormonism and Magic World View,” 2nd ed., Signature Books, 1998: 52). Imagine that… through imagination he could see anything! Well, now… lets keep the context, keep the context I say! With Joseph Smith it was revelation from the Lord, not just some dumb stories like he was tellin his family for years in their houses like his mama said. How do we know this? Cause he said so stupid. Come on! This is Joseph Smith speaking. And when he says he received real revelations he did, and when he says no one else’s revelations and valid and only he has the revelations, the keys, the priesthood, whatever, then he did. And if the Holy Spirit don’t confirm that to you, then you ain’t done prayed hard enough pilgrim. Git on yer knees and dontcha rise til heaven answers that Joseph Smith was right! That there is how to learn it proper.
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
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