This was one of the things that opened my eyes.

Alawishis said:

If I stood in a forest and said I saw 20 trees would you call me a liar once you discovered on your own the forest had hundreds or thousands of trees. If all I can see is 20 trees why would you doubt that I saw them? I don't think the purpose of God's visions are meant to be an astronomy lesson. She described what she saw, as would any of us. If she named the moons and got the names wrong, or said something about green cheese, that may be concerning. But here it doesn't even sound like she names the planets she is seeing; she only describes them. Elder Bates guesses what planets they are she is sees based on the description.

The same mistake is made when people look at the bible and point out apparent scientific errors. For example the anatomy of insects, or the smallest seeds, or that a firmament is not a scientifically accurate description of the sky. Have you not heard any of these then check out some Atheist websites, this is the same thing you are doing here. The bible also is not meant to be a scientific manual any more than Mrs.White vision was.

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Ellen White is supposedly flying through space in this vision and counting the moons of each planet. She is not off by just 1 or 2 moons. In the case of Jupiter, she is off by at least 60 moons. By some incredible coincidence, she sees exactly the number of moons that were known by astronomers to exist at that time.

Did God show her a false vision in order to help her convince Bates to come on board? Maybe, but I like to think God could think of a better way to convince Bates of EGW's gift of prophecy. After all, wouldn't God know that this vision would damage her credibility many years down the road? It doesn't add up.

Imagine she had actually seen the correct number of moons. Today we would have almost no way to second-guess her prophetic gift if she was the first person on record saying Jupiter has 64 moons. It might have been hard to believe at the time, but today it would be unbelievably powerful.

Sadly, the simplest explanation is that she heard about how many moons each planet had somewhere and pretended to make the discovery in this "vision". She certainly had the means, motive, and opportunity.

Princessdi said:

Ok so, I have been looking at this thread for a while, and it is not rare, but I believe I am missing something.......before I comment. I'd like to ask this: EGW Went int vision regarding space, stars, planets, etc., right? And without any prior knowledge, she described them according to what science knew then and well enough for Cap. Baates to recognized the planets., etc., right?

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Sounds like you got it. The part about her having no prior knowledge we are just taking her word for. Ellen White needed Bates for financial support at the time and he was still not convinced of her prophetic gift. This vision was probably the turning point.

One other interesting point is Ellen White also didn't mention the rings around Uranus or Jupiter, mostly likely because astronomers hadn't discovered them yet.

Princessdi said:

Ok so what is the problem? The question of is she might have had prior knowledge? The good Captain was in doubt, can we view it as God usint God EGW to persuade him. Also, I am almost sure that God realizes that "spreading the Gospel" here on earth takes money. In fact, we count it a blessing when money comes through for one evangelistic effort or another. whether it is a street ministry or mission trip to a foreign land. What would be different about this. I believe one's overall feelings regarding EGW clearly dictates how they interpret an account of this sort.

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You can view it that way and I am sure many Adventists do.

This vision just doesn't sit well with me.

1) You have God giving false information in a vision. Is there another time that He has done that? He would have had to show Ellen planets with far fewer moons and missing their rings in some cases.

2) Does God ever use visions like this anywhere else? To convince a person who has money to give it to a church? It seems like visions in the Bible were not over such trivial stuff. A fake space tour for money?

3) Did God give visions on demand to people in the Bible? Were they able to sit down with someone and launch into vision? My perception of them is they come out of the blue and are of great importance.

I admit my overall feelings are probably influencing my perceptions. I am certainly not without bias. I just identified this as one of my breaking points and wondered how it might look to other people.

Maybe God just told her to make the vision up. That would have been even easier.