LDS Come Unto Christ

He is the way

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Why not? This is the exact same argument that the members of other restorationist religions like Islam use for their books: "Our prophet couldn't have authored the book! He wasn't literate/smart enough/educated enough!" Okay, and that prevents him from dictating it to his scribes how? Same deal with JS: It doesn't matter if he was dumber than a box of rocks if he had enough imagination and enough people in on the scam (either knowingly or unknowingly).

Well I guess that settles it. The Mormon doesn't believe that the Book of Mormon could've been authored by the Mormon prophet. Therefore it had to be from God. Those are the only two choices, apparently, even though there's no evidence of JS ever actually 'translating' anything, golden plates or not. (See: JS Papyri, the Kinderhook plates forgery.)

I know that imagination wouldn't be enough to create a book similar to the Book of Mormon.
 
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drstevej

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A person would definitely need God's help or many years of work with a dedicated staff of people to get everything right.


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The BOOK OF ZELPH was translated by Josh Anderson in 2005.

And is it true? Roll the dice

Melph 5

4. And I promise thee that if ye ask if this book be not true, and roll a pair of dice with a sincere heart, and desire exceedingly for the book to be true, yea, the dice shall reveal the truthfulness of this book unto thee.

5. And if ye roll a seven, yea, it doth mean this book be a true book, and ye shall rejoice at the knowledge of the truthfulness of this book. For no learned man shall sway thy opinion with supposed evidences against this book, for once the dice have spoken the debate is over.

8. Wherefore, if ye roll not a seven it was an error, and ye must roll the dice again, yea, even with a more sincere heart, and even desiring more to know the truth. 9. And if ye again roll not a seven, and if ye roll not a seven three times, yea, it be the fault of the dice. Wherefore, retrieve different dice, and roll again. 10. And ye must keep rolling dice until ye roll seven. And after the manner in which ye roll a seven, behold, ye shall rejoice at thy knowledge of the truthfulness of this book. 11. And I bear witness unto thee that ye shall know this book is true through the dice.
 
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He is the way

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51nUcVfpSTL.jpg


The BOOK OF ZELPH was translated by Josh Anderson in 2005.

And is it true? Roll the dice

Melph 5

4. And I promise thee that if ye ask if this book be not true, and roll a pair of dice with a sincere heart, and desire exceedingly for the book to be true, yea, the dice shall reveal the truthfulness of this book unto thee.

5. And if ye roll a seven, yea, it doth mean this book be a true book, and ye shall rejoice at the knowledge of the truthfulness of this book. For no learned man shall sway thy opinion with supposed evidences against this book, for once the dice have spoken the debate is over.

8. Wherefore, if ye roll not a seven it was an error, and ye must roll the dice again, yea, even with a more sincere heart, and even desiring more to know the truth. 9. And if ye again roll not a seven, and if ye roll not a seven three times, yea, it be the fault of the dice. Wherefore, retrieve different dice, and roll again. 10. And ye must keep rolling dice until ye roll seven. And after the manner in which ye roll a seven, behold, ye shall rejoice at thy knowledge of the truthfulness of this book. 11. And I bear witness unto thee that ye shall know this book is true through the dice.
Monkey business:
"10. My best friend is a monkey, my monkey and me are as one."

From: http://www.mormonthink.com/backup/bookofzelph.pdf
 
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Peter1000

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Why not? This is the exact same argument that the members of other restorationist religions like Islam use for their books: "Our prophet couldn't have authored the book! He wasn't literate/smart enough/educated enough!" Okay, and that prevents him from dictating it to his scribes how? Same deal with JS: It doesn't matter if he was dumber than a box of rocks if he had enough imagination and enough people in on the scam (either knowingly or unknowingly).



Well I guess that settles it. The Mormon doesn't believe that the Book of Mormon could've been authored by the Mormon prophet. Therefore it had to be from God. Those are the only two choices, apparently, even though there's no evidence of JS ever actually 'translating' anything, golden plates or not. (See: JS Papyri, the Kinderhook plates forgery.)
JS was not the author. The authors were ancient American prophets that lived between 600BC and 400AD. JS translated their writings by the gift and power of God, he was unlearned in their language.

Similar to the Bible. The author was not 1 person, but were many prophets of God that lived between 1400BC to about 120AD. The translation of their writings was also accomplished by the gift and power of God, by men who knew the language they were written in.

The origin of the Quran is much different.
 
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dzheremi

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JS was not the author. The authors were ancient American prophets that lived between 600BC and 400AD.

No. This is the Mormon belief, not objective, historical reality.

JS translated their writings by the gift and power of God, he was unlearned in their language.

Again, no. This is the Mormon belief, not objective, historical reality.

Similar to the Bible. The author was not 1 person, but were many prophets of God that lived between 1400BC to about 120AD. The translation of their writings was also accomplished by the gift and power of God, by men who knew the language they were written in.

This is surely what is accepted in your religion, but again, it's not reality. This is fantasy.

The origin of the Quran is much different.

The defense of the two is very similar.
 
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Peter1000

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No. This is the Mormon belief, not objective, historical reality.

Here is your problem of your historical reality: We have many witnesses that say that they saw JS translating the BOM. We have many witnesses that say they have seen and lifted the gold plates and know they are real and historical. 3 of them say they beheld the plates in the hands of an angel. And to their dying day, they denied not their testimony of these things.

You have no witnesses to the contrary, show me one that has evidence that can deny all of our witnesses that say the BOM is more than just a Mormon belief, is objective and is an historical reality.
Show me one that has conclusive evidence that 20+ people who claim they saw the gold plates under different circumstances are all lying. Just 1 person please.

This is surely what is accepted in your religion, but again, it's not reality. This is fantasy.

So the bible was not written by prophets of God, and not translated into many different languages?
What did I say that was not a reality, in fact a fantasy? Interested to hear your response.

The defense of the two is very similar.

Actually, the defense of the 3 are very similar.
 
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dzheremi

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Here is your problem of your historical reality: We have many witnesses that say that they saw JS translating the BOM.

So what? The only thing that has ever been shown to actually exist that JS supposedly 'translated' (the so-called "JS Papyri" that he purchased from a traveling salesman of antiquities) proved that he couldn't translate anything. He claimed that an Egyptian funerary text was actually the writings of Abraham "written by his own hand", and the people who can actually read it all say no. That's wildly incorrect. So now the LDS religion has had to walk back that claim, even though it is apparently present in the 'translated' text itself, to now say that "By the gift and power of God, Joseph received knowledge about the life and teachings of Abraham" in some unspecified manner via his relation to the text. Even though that text has nothing to do with Abraham.

We have many witnesses that say they have seen and lifted the gold plates and know they are real and historical.

Anyone can claim anything. That's a low bar indeed.

3 of them say they beheld the plates in the hands of an angel. And to their dying day, they denied not their testimony of these things.

So what?

You have no witnesses to the contrary, show me one that has evidence that can deny all of our witnesses that say the BOM is more than just a Mormon belief, is objective and is an historical reality.

Sure. Here is the recollection of Martin Harris, one of the witnesses, from an interview with Anthony Metcalf (emphasis mine):

I never saw the golden plates, only in a visionary or entranced state. I wrote a great deal of the Book of Mormon myself, as Joseph Smith translated or spelled the words out in English. Sometimes the plates would be on a table in the room in which Smith did the translating, covered over with a cloth. I was told by Smith that God would strike him dead if he attempted to look at them, and I believed it. When the time came for the three witnesses to see the plates, Joseph Smith, myself, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, went into the woods to pray. When they had engaged in prayer, they failed at the time to see the plates or the angel who should have been on hand to exhibit them. They all believed it was because I was not good enough, or in other words, not sufficiently sanctified. I withdrew. As soon as I had gone away, the three others saw the angel and the plates. In about three days I went into the woods to pray that I might see the plates. While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the angel and the plates. (Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast,n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71.)
Show me one that has conclusive evidence that 20+ people who claim they saw the gold plates under different circumstances are all lying. Just 1 person please.

Marin Harris ought to be good enough, since he was one of Joseph's early scribes. But if not him, how about Brigham Young, from the same page I just linked(again, emphasis mine):

Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel. One of the Quorum of the Twelve — a young man full of faith and good works, prayed and the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel. (Journal of Discourses 1860, 7:164)​

So even though these people supposedly saw an angel, they doubt that they had. I wonder why? That seems like the type of thing that, if it had actually happened, they'd not immediately wonder if it had actually happened. Such a thing never happened to the Theotokos St. Mary, for instance. Maybe in the Mormon case it was different because it was by "the vision of their minds" being opened at the time, rather than actually seeing any kind of physical manifestation with their bodily eyes, just as in the case with the one of the quorum of the twelve mentioned above. If you pay close attention, Young does not say that the young man actually saw anything with his eyes, but that the "vision of his mind was opened". The two are not the same. There's a reason why one of the more popular critical appraisals of the Mormon narrative is a book called Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. This sort of thing was apparently common in early Mormonism.

So the bible was not written by prophets of God, and not translated into many different languages?
What did I say that was not a reality, in fact a fantasy? Interested to hear your response.

I don't really care what you would say, because that's not a very good comparison. The writers of the Bible are not recorded as having ecstatic visionary experiences as a vehicle for their writing of the scriptures. Certain visions do occur in the text (e.g., St. Peter's vision on the road to Damascus), but they're not the basis of either its authentication or its transmission, as in Mormonism.

Actually, the defense of the 3 are very similar.

In the "vision of your mind", perhaps, but not in reality.
 
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Peter1000

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So what? The only thing that has ever been shown to actually exist that JS supposedly 'translated' (the so-called "JS Papyri" that he purchased from a traveling salesman of antiquities) proved that he couldn't translate anything. He claimed that an Egyptian funerary text was actually the writings of Abraham "written by his own hand", and the people who can actually read it all say no. That's wildly incorrect. So now the LDS religion has had to walk back that claim, even though it is apparently present in the 'translated' text itself, to now say that "By the gift and power of God, Joseph received knowledge about the life and teachings of Abraham" in some unspecified manner via his relation to the text. Even though that text has nothing to do with Abraham.



Anyone can claim anything. That's a low bar indeed.



So what?



Sure. Here is the recollection of Martin Harris, one of the witnesses, from an interview with Anthony Metcalf (emphasis mine):

I never saw the golden plates, only in a visionary or entranced state. I wrote a great deal of the Book of Mormon myself, as Joseph Smith translated or spelled the words out in English. Sometimes the plates would be on a table in the room in which Smith did the translating, covered over with a cloth. I was told by Smith that God would strike him dead if he attempted to look at them, and I believed it. When the time came for the three witnesses to see the plates, Joseph Smith, myself, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, went into the woods to pray. When they had engaged in prayer, they failed at the time to see the plates or the angel who should have been on hand to exhibit them. They all believed it was because I was not good enough, or in other words, not sufficiently sanctified. I withdrew. As soon as I had gone away, the three others saw the angel and the plates. In about three days I went into the woods to pray that I might see the plates. While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state I saw the angel and the plates. (Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast,n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71.)
Show me one that has conclusive evidence that 20+ people who claim they saw the gold plates under different circumstances are all lying. Just 1 person please.

Marin Harris ought to be good enough, since he was one of Joseph's early scribes. But if not him, how about Brigham Young, from the same page I just linked(again, emphasis mine):

Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel. One of the Quorum of the Twelve — a young man full of faith and good works, prayed and the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel. (Journal of Discourses 1860, 7:164)​

So even though these people supposedly saw an angel, they doubt that they had. I wonder why? That seems like the type of thing that, if it had actually happened, they'd not immediately wonder if it had actually happened. Such a thing never happened to the Theotokos St. Mary, for instance. Maybe in the Mormon case it was different because it was by "the vision of their minds" being opened at the time, rather than actually seeing any kind of physical manifestation with their bodily eyes, just as in the case with the one of the quorum of the twelve mentioned above. If you pay close attention, Young does not say that the young man actually saw anything with his eyes, but that the "vision of his mind was opened". The two are not the same. There's a reason why one of the more popular critical appraisals of the Mormon narrative is a book called Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. This sort of thing was apparently common in early Mormonism.



I don't really care what you would say, because that's not a very good comparison. The writers of the Bible are not recorded as having ecstatic visionary experiences as a vehicle for their writing of the scriptures. Certain visions do occur in the text (e.g., St. Peter's vision on the road to Damascus), but they're not the basis of either its authentication or its transmission, as in Mormonism.



In the "vision of your mind", perhaps, but not in reality.
A whole lot of words have been written about the witnesses of the BOM. A lot of them are outright lies by mainly reporters who wanted to make a name for themselves for proving that the BOM was not true.

Each of the 11 main witnesses did not recant the testimony they wrote in the front part of the BOM. Not one. And because of the lies that were printed, they had to continually keep bearing their testimonies in order to keep the record true.

What is interesting to me, is that most of the witnesses were excommunicated from the church. Don't you think if you were so close to JS and you all came up with this fantastic story about gold plates and ancient Jews in America and you thought you could get rich by selling the book all over the world, that the second you were humiliated by JS in a public excommunication from the scam organization, you would take that opportunity to let the cat out of the bag and expose JS to the scammer he was.

Many people in the church did that. Tried to gain from telling false stories about JS, but for some reason the witnesses stayed strong in the testimonies, even to their last breath.

You would have thought with their life over, and nothing to gain or lose, they would have let the cat out of the bag. But to the frustration of all that wanted to get the scoop on false Mormonism, they stayed true to JS in this respect.

Martin Harris's words have been reconstituted in many different forms, when he said he had a spiritual experience when he met with the angel and the angel showed him the gold plates. In his spiritual eyes he beheld the angel and the gold plates, does not mean he had a midnight, half asleep dream of an angel and the gold plates. His testimony of his spiritual experience with the angel has given an opening to lots of suggestions that he really did not see the plates but had some kind of a night vision of them. You have to read his whole life long testimony of seeing the plates to get the real truth, which you will not do, because you want to tell the only testimony that may have an edge to it that you can exploit to throw a dark blanket over it. Come and read his whole life testimony and you will have the real truth.

Our witnesses are solid, you have nobody on the inside that can prove it was a sham from the beginning.
 
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dzheremi

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A whole lot of words have been written about the witnesses of the BOM. A lot of them are outright lies by mainly reporters who wanted to make a name for themselves for proving that the BOM was not true.

Uh huh.

I've done that by pointing out the obvious nonsense that is "Reformed Egyptian", which is a part of the foundational claims of the BOM. I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not exactly in money, fame, and women or whatever you imagine LDS critics to be doing what they do for. So I don't buy it. (Or where the heck are my money, fame, and women?! The "Christian Anti-Cult Movement" told me they'd be here any day!)

Each of the 11 main witnesses did not recant the testimony they wrote in the front part of the BOM.

Did they write the testimony themselves, or did they just sign their names to it?

Not one. And because of the lies that were printed, they had to continually keep bearing their testimonies in order to keep the record true.

Uh huh. Like seeing things with their "spiritual eyes", the "eyes of their mind" and so on with all different kinds of ways to avoid admitting that they didn't see anything, or were in a kind of hallucinatory state.

What is interesting to me, is that most of the witnesses were excommunicated from the church. Don't you think if you were so close to JS and you all came up with this fantastic story about gold plates and ancient Jews in America and you thought you could get rich by selling the book all over the world, that the second you were humiliated by JS in a public excommunication from the scam organization, you would take that opportunity to let the cat out of the bag and expose JS to the scammer he was.

I don't know...JS had a tendency to get a little printing-press-destroying, militia-starting over things he didn't like. Besides, the two are not logically connected: the people could've been excommunicated while still believing in JS' story or the reality of the plates by means other than seeing them with their physical eyes. It's not like getting into a beef with JS is going to magically change the fact that these people had the magical world view that they had. Didn't Harris talk about seeing Jesus in the form of a deer and talking with him in that form? Am I supposed to take that as true just because he really believed that it happened? And if not, why should I treat the BOM any differently than his Jesus-deer vision?

Many people in the church did that. Tried to gain from telling false stories about JS, but for some reason the witnesses stayed strong in the testimonies, even to their last breath.

It couldn't be because most of them were related to the Smith family...it couldn't be because JS was extremely powerful by that point and could command a mob to do his bidding...nope! It had to be God! No other explanations are possible!

Yeah. Right. And I'm the angel Moroni. :doh:

You would have thought with their life over, and nothing to gain or lose, they would have let the cat out of the bag. But to the frustration of all that wanted to get the scoop on false Mormonism, they stayed true to JS in this respect.

I don't even understand why you're approaching things in this way. We don't need the witnesses to have recanted their testimonies in order to find them false, because whether or not they really believed in them, they weren't actually true depictions of real events. Nobody ever handled any golden plates with "Reformed Egyptian" characters on them, because that's not a thing that has ever existed in the world to begin with. It's like believing that the Loch Ness monster is real because you have 11 buddies who swear up and down that they saw it, rode on it, gave it belly rubs...whatever. You can really believe it, they can really believe it, you all can convince 15 million people around the world that it really happened and is really true.

Guess what, though? It still wouldn't be true.

Martin Harris's words have been reconstituted in many different forms, when he said he had a spiritual experience when he met with the angel and the angel showed him the gold plates. In his spiritual eyes he beheld the angel and the gold plates, does not mean he had a midnight, half asleep dream of an angel and the gold plates.

I never said it did. I only said that there is no evidence that he saw them in the real world with his real eyes, as opposed to in a vision or hallucinatory state. Again, I wouldn't believe either way, but the point is that if even the source doesn't testify to having seen them in the actually existing world, with his real, fleshly eyes, then it's a little bit ridiculous to present his testimony (or any of their testimonies) as proof of the physical, tangible reality of the golden plates or the engravings upon them, because they're not testifying to the reality of those things in the context they'd need to in order to even be backing up your claim that these things are physically real. They don't help your case at all.

His testimony of his spiritual experience with the angel has given an opening to lots of suggestions that he really did not see the plates but had some kind of a night vision of them. You have to read his whole life long testimony of seeing the plates to get the real truth, which you will not do, because you want to tell the only testimony that may have an edge to it that you can exploit to throw a dark blanket over it. Come and read his whole life testimony and you will have the real truth.

I don't have the time to read some yahoo's life story. If there's something in there that says "I saw the plates with my physical eyes, not with the 'eyes of my mind' or the 'eyes of faith', but just in regular circumstances, with no angels or visions surrounding them, and I touched them and felt them and can testify to the fact that they really physically existed in the regular world" or something similar, you can feel free to present that. Again, I'm still going to call the entire thing baloney, because that's what it is, but at least then you'd have something -- however slim -- that actually supports your argument, in the sense that "this guy who I say said it was true actually did say that" (not proof of anything, but at least accurate reporting of what this guy claims).

Our witnesses are solid, you have nobody on the inside that can prove it was a sham from the beginning.

I don't need someone "on the inside" of your Church-Corporation to "prove it was a sham from the beginning." You know who proves it was a sham from the very beginning? Jesus Christ, our Lord, His apostles and disciples and 2,000 years of solid Christian witness, and your religion's blatant contradictions of and parasitic relationship to all of the same.
 
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Peter1000

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Uh huh.

I've done that by pointing out the obvious nonsense that is "Reformed Egyptian", which is a part of the foundational claims of the BOM. I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not exactly in money, fame, and women or whatever you imagine LDS critics to be doing what they do for. So I don't buy it. (Or where the heck are my money, fame, and women?! The "Christian Anti-Cult Movement" told me they'd be here any day!)

We are not talking about witnesses that were scholars and could confirm that the gold plates had genuine reformed Egyptian characters. We are talking about an angel that showed 3 men golden plates and the characters upon them. And 8 men beheld the golden plates and lifted them and turned the pages, but saw no angel. It was a simple showing that the golden plates were real.

And don't be too concerned about bursting my bubble, work as hard as you will, but I know these things are true by the Holy Spirit, not by scholarly pursuits. It is nice when a piece of evidence pops up and confirms what JS said, but I count that kind of evidence way secondary to the Holy Spirit telling me that these things are true. He has.

Did they write the testimony themselves, or did they just sign their names to it?

They signed a written testimony of what they saw, and then at least the 3 witnesses have written their testimonies many times since that showing of the plates.

Uh huh. Like seeing things with their "spiritual eyes", the "eyes of their mind" and so on with all different kinds of ways to avoid admitting that they didn't see anything, or were in a kind of hallucinatory state.

Yes, you have taken one quote of Martin Harris. Now take all of his quotes and come up with what really happened. You see, you are the deceiver. Google "testimony of Martin Harris" and you will see what I mean. Martin Harris was certainly filled by the Holy Spirit when he saw an angel and the golden plates, so for him to say he saw these things through his spiritual eyes would not be wrong. What is wrong is to think that what he meant was that he was in some kind of a dreamy trance in the middle of the night, and thought he saw the angel and the plates.

Read his many testimonies and you will know that continuing to misinterpret his "spiritual eyes" testimony and that testimony only is deceiving those you are trying to educate.

It couldn't be because most of them were related to the Smith family...it couldn't be because JS was extremely powerful by that point and could command a mob to do his bidding...nope! It had to be God! No other explanations are possible!

It could be a whole lot of reasons, but the facts are, they did not recant their testimony their whole life.
Even though JS threw them out of the church. A person looking for the truth would at least have to take note of that fact, and wonder.

I don't even understand why you're approaching things in this way. We don't need the witnesses to have recanted their testimonies in order to find them false, because whether or not they really believed in them, they weren't actually true depictions of real events. Nobody ever handled any golden plates with "Reformed Egyptian" characters on them, because that's not a thing that has ever existed in the world to begin with. It's like believing that the Loch Ness monster is real because you have 11 buddies who swear up and down that they saw it, rode on it, gave it belly rubs...whatever. You can really believe it, they can really believe it, you all can convince 15 million people around the world that it really happened and is really true.

If I saw the Loch Ness monster and I have 11 witnesses that are willing to testify that they not only saw it, but rode on it, and gave it belly rubs and then got persecuted all their lives because of the supposed scam, but through it all we 12 people knew what we saw and knew what we did, and nobody was going to take that away from us, and we were not going to recant our experience, you would be forced to give this testimony more thought and maybe even believe them.

The 20+ witnesses of the golden plates of the BOM are just a normal group of people that have had a special experience, and from day 1 to the end bore their testimony that JS was a true prophet of God and that the golden plates and the BOM are real and true. You cannot just throw it away because you think they are not real. You truly do not know if golden plates with reformed Egyptian writing has never existed in the world. You simply can not know with the information that you have.

The Holy Spirit has told me that they do exist, so I believe the Holy Spirit. And some evidences have popped up to help me too.

I never said it did. I only said that there is no evidence that he saw them in the real world with his real eyes, as opposed to in a vision or hallucinatory state. Again, I wouldn't believe either way, but the point is that if even the source doesn't testify to having seen them in the actually existing world, with his real, fleshly eyes, then it's a little bit ridiculous to present his testimony (or any of their testimonies) as proof of the physical, tangible reality of the golden plates or the engravings upon them, because they're not testifying to the reality of those things in the context they'd need to in order to even be backing up your claim that these things are physically real. They don't help your case at all.

What evidence would you expect to find if a man sees an angel and the golden plates and then goes to heaven with the plates? Oh, let's see his testimony from day 1 to the end of his life, 20 others.

You bring the evidence the he did not see the plates. If you use the "spiritual eyes" testimony, that has been refuted by him and another of the 3 witnesses, it amounts to no evidence. It might be good for a non-believer, but for a person that has studied it out, it is interpreted deceivingly by one who does not seek the truth. To say he had a hallucination, or a dreamy night vision, is not evidence anyway.

I don't have the time to read some yahoo's life story. If there's something in there that says "I saw the plates with my physical eyes, not with the 'eyes of my mind' or the 'eyes of faith', but just in regular circumstances, with no angels or visions surrounding them, and I touched them and felt them and can testify to the fact that they really physically existed in the regular world" or something similar, you can feel free to present that. Again, I'm still going to call the entire thing baloney, because that's what it is, but at least then you'd have something -- however slim -- that actually supports your argument, in the sense that "this guy who I say said it was true actually did say that" (not proof of anything, but at least accurate reporting of what this guy claims).

The Lord knew that (maybe you specifically) many would yahoo about an angel in the testimony of the witness, so the 8 special witnesses did not have an experience with an angel. They only saw JS bring them the golden plates and they touched them and handled them and lifted them and testify that they had characters written upon them, but no angel.

So their testimony is exactly what you are asking for, read it in the front of the BOM before the beginning book of 1 Nephi.
 
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