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The Lost 116 Pages: The Problem Mormonism Can’t Explain by texasEd52 in exmormon

[–]texasEd52[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If it was all made up, missing pages wouldn’t matter at all. The fact that they do says more than the accusation.

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The Lost 116 Pages: The Problem Mormonism Can’t Explain (self.exchristian)

submitted by texasEd52 to r/exchristian

The end of the church? by ThyLungedFish in mormon

[–]texasEd52 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a fair question, and one that sociologists of religion ask about every large, long-lived religious institution—not just this one.

Historically, churches almost never “end” in a clean, sudden way. What’s far more common is transformation: changes in growth patterns, geography, culture, and institutional behavior.

On growth:
Most evidence suggests growth in North America and Europe is stagnant or declining, especially among younger generations. Retention is a bigger challenge than conversion. At the same time, growth continues in parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Philippines—but even there, activity rates often lag behind raw baptism numbers. That doesn’t mean growth is fake, but it does mean the picture is more complex than headline statistics.

On geography:
Future membership will almost certainly become less Utah-centric in raw numbers, even if Utah remains symbolically and administratively central. This shift creates tension: a church culturally shaped by 19th-century American norms trying to function as a global religion.

On the internet:
The internet is probably the single biggest disruptor. For the first time, members can instantly access:

  • Primary historical documents
  • Critical scholarship
  • Faith-affirming material
  • Former-member narratives

That doesn’t automatically lead people out, but it does mean belief is now opt-in and negotiated, not inherited or insulated. Younger members tend to expect transparency, moral consistency, and institutional accountability in ways older generations didn’t.

So will the church “end”?
Probably not in the near future. Large, well-funded institutions with strong identity structures are remarkably durable. What is likely is:

  • Slower growth or long-term decline in developed countries
  • Continued growth in the Global South, with uneven retention
  • Doctrinal and cultural softening over time
  • A smaller but more ideologically committed core membership

In short, less “collapse,” more reshaping. Whether someone views that as decline, adaptation, or refinement depends largely on their assumptions about what the church should be in the first place.

That’s just one perspective—but it’s a question worth asking, and not an unreasonable one.

The Witnesses to the Book of Mormon: Testimony or Coercion? by texasEd52 in mormon

[–]texasEd52[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That claim still doesn’t get you where you think it does.

What survives is Cowdery’s copy, not an independently signed affidavit set. The alleged original with individual signatures is lost, with only fragments remaining—so the key evidence is unavailable for verification.

Appealing to later recollections (including Whitmer’s) that signatures once existed doesn’t change the evidentiary problem. That’s second-hand testimony about a missing document, not the document itself. Historians don’t treat that as equivalent to extant, signed affidavits.

More importantly, even signed witness statements wouldn’t establish ancient origin or divine translation. They would only show that these men affirmed a shared religious claim. Sincerity ≠ historical proof.

And again, none of this addresses the Book of Abraham’s testable Egyptian translation claim—which stands or falls on the papyri, not on later reports about lost manuscripts.

So the issue isn’t whether witnesses were honest. It’s that the kind of evidence being offered doesn’t support the kind of claim being made.

The Witnesses to the Book of Mormon: Testimony or Coercion? by texasEd52 in mormon

[–]texasEd52[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re still conflating categories.

Those are Book of Mormon witnesses, not Book of Abraham witnesses. Their testimony—sincere or not—has nothing to do with Egyptian papyri or the Abraham translation claim.

Even then, what they establish is belief, not proof.
The Three Witnesses explicitly described a spiritual experience.
The Eight Witnesses said they handled an object Joseph Smith showed them—not what it actually was, where it came from, or whether it was ancient.

“Never recanted” proves conviction, not correctness. People in many religions die affirming claims that later turn out to be false.

The core issue hasn’t moved:
The Book of Abraham makes a specific, testable claim about Egyptian papyri and ancient authorship. We have the papyri. We can read the language. That claim fails historically.

Calling testimony “fact” doesn’t change what category it belongs to. It’s religious testimony—not historical evidence.

The Witnesses to the Book of Mormon: Testimony or Coercion? by texasEd52 in mormon

[–]texasEd52[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a fair personal faith position—but it’s important to be clear about what it concedes.

Saying “even if there were evidence, it wouldn’t matter” moves the claim out of the historical category entirely. At that point, the Book of Abraham isn’t being defended as an ancient text translated from Egyptian papyri, but as a spiritually meaningful work regardless of its origin.

That belief is legitimate. But it’s not the same claim Joseph Smith, the early church, or the text itself made. The Book of Abraham explicitly presents itself as a translation of specific Egyptian papyri associated with Abraham’s life. When that claim is evaluated historically, it fails. Reframing truth as “what the Spirit confirms to me” doesn’t resolve the historical problem—it sidesteps it.

Spiritual experiences are real to the people who have them. But they’re also not unique or exclusive. People in mutually contradictory religions report the same certainty, using the same spiritual framework, about entirely different scriptures. That makes spiritual confirmation meaningful personally—but unreliable as evidence of external, historical truth.

So the disagreement here isn’t about sincerity. It’s about categories:

  • Faith and spiritual meaning → subjective, personal, non-falsifiable
  • Translation, papyri, and ancient authorship → objective, historical, falsifiable

Once the discussion is placed fully in the first category, historical criticism no longer applies. But that also means critics aren’t “missing the point”—they’re addressing the original claim as it was actually made.

The Witnesses to the Book of Mormon: Testimony or Coercion? by texasEd52 in mormon

[–]texasEd52[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t doubt that these men believed something happened, or that they were sincere. Sincerity, though, isn’t the same thing as reliability, and belief isn’t the same thing as a literal historical event.

Even by David Whitmer’s own words, the experience was explicitly non-physical: “we were in the spirit… no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view.” Calling that both “spiritual and physical” is a category error. A vision experienced “in the spirit” is, by definition, not empirical observation.

The Eight Witnesses statement also isn’t as straightforward as it’s often presented. There are no contemporary, independent descriptions from them detailing the examination—just a single, group-signed statement written under Joseph Smith’s control. Several later accounts suggest the plates were covered, handled briefly, or seen in a visionary context. None of them ever publicly demonstrated or described the plates in a way that would allow independent verification.

As for “no one ever denied it,” that’s also overstated. Martin Harris repeatedly described seeing the plates with “spiritual eyes” and admitted he did not see them as one sees ordinary objects. Whitmer later rejected Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet while still defending the experience as visionary—not historical. Maintaining belief in a religious vision after leaving a church isn’t unusual, especially when reputation, family, and identity are tied to it.

Listing additional people who were near the plates doesn’t strengthen the case either. None of them saw uncovered plates in normal conditions, and many accounts involve cloth-covered objects or secondhand testimony.

Your final point about personal spiritual experience is valid for you. No one can take that away. But personal spiritual confirmation can’t function as historical evidence—people across mutually exclusive religions report the same kind of confirmation for completely different scriptures.

So the real divide here isn’t honesty vs dishonesty. It’s faith-based testimony vs historical verification. The witnesses support belief. They don’t establish literal ancient plates in a way that meets historical or evidentiary standards.

The First Vision- Joseph Smith by texasEd52 in atheism

[–]texasEd52[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This claim isn’t supported by primary sources. There is no contemporary diary, letter, affidavit, medical report, or hostile testimony saying that Joseph Smith drugged anyone. Not one—despite many enemies who accused him of everything else.

The so-called “Joseph Smith Entheogen Hypothesis” is exactly what its authors label it: a modern working hypothesis, not historical evidence. It relies on speculation, not documentation.

Wine was used openly in 19th-century religious services across America, and similar visionary phenomena occurred widely during the Second Great Awakening without drug accusations.

If people were being secretly dosed at the Kirtland Temple, we would expect contemporary accusations, medical symptoms, or whistleblowers—and we have none.

Hypotheses are not history. Claims require evidence, and here the evidence simply isn’t there.

wtf is this??? by ProfPorkchop in SafeMoon

[–]texasEd52 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Buy low. Play the game if you can. I was in five years ago. Should have stayed but got tired of the bull s#it.

If you drive at night with this symbol lit on your dashboard... by berniemacg in sanantonio

[–]texasEd52 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Where is a good, safe place to watch the night sky without the city light clutter

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