Marg,

I am not sure I understand your question.

If you are asking: Does Dan believe the witnesses were not a part of Smith's fraud? Then I would say you need to ask him. I have not seen him suggest this, but I am not sure if Dan has ever made a statement on the subject.

I know I am skeptical of such a claim. It would take evidence for me to believe the witnesses were a part of the fraud. I have seen no evidence for such a conclusion in my studies.

I don't think J.S. thought the golden plates existed. There are too many implausible stories surrounding their existence and use. He was unable to retrieve from their hiding place on the hill Cumorah for several years because he didn't have the right person and or keys to get them, or running through the forest carrying them while escaping from 5 men, or hiding beneath the hearth stone only to move them just in time to avoid detection by a divining rod that could find the 2nd to last hiding place of the plates but not where they actually were, or the implausibility of the Anthon transcript manuscript story, or not using the plates in the actual translation process, and so on. His plates seemed to have the quality of all the other burred treasures that he himself looked for, in that they were always just beyond the reach of anyone else who was looking for them.

What I think all this shows are that the stores that J.S. created were stories he himself believed were possible and that he thought other people would also accept as possible. When he was shown the Kinderhook plates he was as susceptible to his own type of fraud as were others because he believed they might actually be real.

The first thing that comes to my mind when there are 3 people who claim to see an angel, hear the voice of God..with God telling them the same thing..is they are lying...not that they all experienced a vision or an halluciation.

My 90 year old dad experiences hallucinations in that he sees people which at the time are very real to him. The brain can play tricks or not function properly. But if 2 more people were in the room with my dad and they said they saw the same thing as him when he experiences these visions..I'd no longer think they were all hallucinating..because the probability of the same hallucination given they are healthy is much more unlikely. I'd think one or more were lying. Of course in the case of the 3 witnesses what the Book of Mormon witness testimony makes claim to is also much more extraordinary/supernatural ..therefore less probable and my first assumption is they are likely lying..as opposed to hallucinating. There is no evidence they were on drugs or mentally ill.

I know you subscribe to the Smith alone theory and that pretty much subscribes to treating the witnesses as if they are honest and not aware of or part of the fraud.

My mother (middle 80's now) through out her life has related experiences she has had, mostly in the temple, of seeing spirits. She has even told stories of when she and others have seen the same person. I believe that she considers these as actual events where something material appeared to her and others. These experiences are very similar to many of the experiences related by early members and similar to what the three witnesses claim. Given the right preparation, I think it is quite possible to make multiple people believe they see the same thing. Besides in the case of the three witnesses it was actually two separate events as Harris had to leave the group.

They were pretty convincing on their deathbeds. And even david wanted his testimony on his tombstone. And olive was pretty clear about his experience at the end. They claimed to either see the plates or to handle the plates. And they held on to the end and as they lay dying confirming it.

Fencesitter, your mother's experience is more random. That is in any given room of people, in your mother's case acquaintances at church, one might find a few claiming to have seen a spirit. Seeing a spirit sounds pretty general. One would have to ask them particular questions to determine if it was the same vision. My dad can give particulars such as what the people are wearing, what their hair is like, what they did. It is not likely even with suggestibility preparation that details of a true vision among people would be the same.

In the Book of Mormon case these were not random people. They were involved in helping Smith before the Book of Mormon was written and there weren't that many helping him. They were given high positions in the church afterwards. Since they are not random the probability of all having the same vision is even less..than for a random group. And given they had a vested interest in the success of the church the motivation to lie increases. So when I compare the likelihood of them all having a similar vision versus lying..for me the probability of lying far outweighs them all having the same vision. I realize Harris had his at a different time but none the less the claim is of the same vision.

I did not fill in enough details about my mother's experiences but they were not random spirits, rather they usually were/are people she knew and are very descriptive stories. In fact her stories are very similar to your dad's. She also would relate that other people present with her would claim to see (maybe even hear?) the same event. Some times it would be a deceased person who was from the same ward that she and others in the group attended. Usually it is regarding one of her dead relatives.

Here is how I think some of them happen. After an endowment session, in the celestial room, she will be talking with other people (usually someone she knows) and she will relate to them that she has just seen such and such a person, at which time it is not unusual for the someone else present to claim having seen the exact same person. These stories remind me on several of the ones told by J.S. himself regarding divine appearances wherein someone will claim to have seen the same thing J.S. describes.

By the way I think it is very likely that having heard a description the second person to chime in will agree with what has been described, regardless of what they may or may not have seen. I think our memories are not really accurate representations of an event rather that are a mixture of what we actually saw combined with our brain filling in the details we missed. Think of how many different descriptions eyewitnesses give of the same event.

Once again Fencesitter I think what you are describing is a much more random and therefore likely occurrence..not due to lying. What alledgedly occurred with the Book of Mormon 3 witnesses is these particular people all on cue ..claimed to have the same vision. I realize Harris had difficulty having the vision Cowdery and Whitmer claimed. So I think Cowdery and Whitmer were in on the con and flat out lied. Harris claimed to have the same vision later because he felt pressure to do so and he too lied. In all the cases I don't thinkn any of them had on cue the same vision.

As an aside my dad takes medication to control these visions. I don't think he can at will bring them on. He definitely has a medical issue..partly caused by an aging brain and extremely low vision. But when he reflects on the experiences later he appreciates it was his all in his imagination. And the other thing is his visions are not a one-of...he has them with frequency though less so with medication.

Assuming for argument's sake this is true, it only proves that David Whitmer believed he had his experience (which he alternatively described as either physically real or visionary), that Oliver Cowdery believed his experience, and that Martin Harris believed he had his own experience apart from the other two. It does not prove that their claimed experience really happened, means what they think it means, or is consistent with objective reality (whether the Book of Mormon is the historical record of the Nephites and Jaredites that it purports to be).

However, Why Me, I am glad you agree that David Whitmer is a credible witness. I am sure you will further agree that God told him to separate himself from the Latter-day Saints and gave him authority to preach in opposition to Joseph Smith.

While I tend to agree with you on Cowdery and Whitmer, Harris was, in my opinion, too much of a nut job to be trusted to be in on an out right con but he was necessary for financial purposes. I am not sure if he lied also or, and more likely in my opinion, he was just one of those who could easily be made to see 'something'. In which case his "experience" would be similar to what my mother was describing, or at least those that chimed in after.

Or he could be easily persuaded via pressure to say he saw the same vision..without acknowledging even to the persuaders that he hadn't. The more one repeats a lie even to themselves the more believable it becomes. I agree his experience would be comparable to those who chimed in after your mother's experience claiming the same experience.

BTW as far as the con goes they aren't necessarily all in at the same level at any point in time. Even Smith may have not been fully in on the con. That is if one assumes Rigdon wrote most of the Book of Mormon incorporating the Spalding manuscript, even before meeting Smith, ...he may have presented to Smith initially a story that he found and translated some ancient buried writings. There are many possibilities besides taking what any of them claimed at face value.

Hi Darth,

Sorry for the delay. I want to focus on where I think we might be speaking past each other. The two issues I see are:



I am not sure were understanding each other. I don't find your analogy apt. Are you making it because Deutero Isaiah concerns or something I am just dense and not seeing from the testimony of the three witnesses? All I was saying is that it is significant that they had the supernatural experience of seeing and talking with a what seemed to them to be an actual angel of God at all! If I trust someone and have confidence in someone and they explain that same experience, if I believe them, it is certainly evidence to me as well. It is simply trusting in someone else. I would trust an angel of God telling me the Book of Mormon is a record of the ancient Nephites and therefore if someone else whom I believe had the same experience it is just a level down but doesn't cease to be evidence. Now I understand a skeptic might not, a skeptic might say I was hallucinating or that the angel of God was really a luciferian imposter or an alien being that is lying to me. The reason it also doesn't cease to be evidence just because I could seek my own testimony via Moroni's promise is because the objective and subjective differences in the two experiences. They both can confirm each other. Einstein understood relativity from a personal intuition he first had, he then confirmed that subjective intellectual experience with data. If someone subjectively read the Book of Mormon and had what seemed to them to be a subjective spiritual experience that it was from God, the 3 witnesses could act as confirmation that that experience could be properly trusted as a basic reliable subjective perception. Which leads to:



That isn't what confirmation bias is. We all do what your describing above. It is how we keep a rationale understanding of our everyday experience of the empirical and social worlds. One of the indicators of confirmation bias is that ambiguous evidence is used to support their position. I think you could be properly criticized for that possibility. I don't believe in Mormonism or the veridicality of the three witnesses. So my position isn't needing a bias. I simply find it axiomatic that if what the three witnesses described as their experience in reality and objectively actually occurred not only as they describe it but veridically occurred - they would clearly have authority from an angel of god and confirmation from the voice of god that the Book of Mormon is real - that is evidence for a seeker of truth that could override other credibility concerns, such as we don't have a college professor to confirm the characters. That seems nearly axiomatic to me. Why? Because I believe we could trust an angel of god as a proper authority on that. That at least allows for the principle of credulity to initially allow for it as evidence. Then the evidence can be defeated by the weight of other discrediting evidence.

Just my take,

mikwut

The Three Witnesses are purporting to be witnesses of certain objective facts.

1. That Joseph Smith had in his possession metal plates that were an ancient record of the Nephites and Jaredites.
2. A fortiori from #1, that the Nephite and Jaredite civilizations described in the Book of Mormon really existed.
3. That the manuscript of the Book of Mormon was the translation of what was enscribed on those metal plates.

They did not know any of this. They could not possibly have known any of this. The knowledge they purport to attest to comes from God, not from their own experience or observations. They were not witnesses to the truthfulness to the Book of Mormon at all.

witness

6. an individual who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing; a beholder, spectator, or eyewitness.
7. a person or thing that affords evidence.
8. a person who gives testimony, as in a court of law.
9. a person who signs a document attesting the genuineness of its execution.
10. testimony or evidence: to bear witness to her suffering.

Under definition 6, they are not witnesses to the factual claims to which they purport to testify. The other definitions beg the question, because it is their qualification as witnesses to those factual claims that is at issue.

Believing the Three Witnesses were telling the truth is not the same as believing they were correct. They may very well have been honest in believing they had a supernatural visionary experience, but that does not mean the knowledge they claim to have received from God was accurate. Accepting their story as ontologically true means that you believe they accurately related what God told them, which means the knowledge came from God, which means that God is the witness to the claimed authenticity of the Book of Mormon. It's the same with my example of telling you God said to me that Elvis was Jack the Ripper. If you believe the substance of what I said, it does not mean you believe I am a witness to the claimed fact. It means that you believe God really said that, and I am accurately reporting him having said that.



But they don't confirm each other, because it is self-referential. It's God who is always the witness. The Three Witnesses are not independent witnesses for the Book of Mormon's authenticity. The only reason they would confirm each other is if you believe God really told them the Book of Mormon is true. But if you believe God really said that, you're relying on religious faith, which is the same basis for your own belief that the Book of Mormon is true.



And now we're back to the fallacy of appeal to authority. The Three Witnesses provide no empirical data analogous to scientific confirmation of the theory of relativity. They don't have any knowledge independent of God. Data would be things like confirming the plates were ancient, confirming there was a written language on them, archaeological evidence that the Nephites or Jaredites ever existed, etc.

Which of these provides data to support my claim that God revealed to me the fact that Elvis was Jack the Ripper?
1. Another person says, "Yeah, he told me that, too!"
2. Birth records showing Elvis Presley was born in the 19th century; contemporary witnesses who saw him in London; documentation that shows he had training either as a surgeon or a butcher.

Or maybe the evidence that it is not possible that Elvis was Jack the Ripper is equally balanced with the evidence consisting of my assertion that God told me he was. And since the evidence is equally balanced, I am justified in filling in this ambiguity in human knowledge by accepting it on faith that Elvis Presley was in fact Jack the Ripper.



That's exactly what confirmation bias is.



What we don't do is choose to find someone credible based on no criterion other than they say something I already believe, unless we are engaged in confirmation bias. As in, "I believe God really said the Book of Mormon is true and the Three Witnesses are accurately reporting that because I already believe that the Book of Mormon is true."



You're welcome to think that, but you are incorrect. My premise is based on taking their story at face value, not rejecting it.



The OP is not about whether one does or does not believe in Mormonism. The OP is about whether the Testimony of the Three Witnesses on its face constitutes independent evidence that the Book of Mormon is true.



See the underlined part? That means you are relying on the authority of supernatural beings, not the authority of these three men. You would be not be relying on the knowledge of these three guys. You would be relying on religious faith that God or an angel really said that, and trusting the Three Amigos (oops, I meant Three Witnesses) in accurately conveying a divine message to you. The source of knowledge is not David Whitmer and Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery. The source of knowledge is God.

Would you be willing to consider me as a witness to the fact that Elvis Presley lived in Victorian London and murdered prostitutes, on the sole basis that I claim that God told me so? Would you therefore count my claimed revelation from God as evidence in favor of this historical fact? What if you thought I was a totally honest person and that I sincerely believed God told me this information? Now does my testimony count as evidence in favor of that claimed fact?

Darth,

Let me ask it this way. Take a mundane example, rather than Jack the Ripper and Elvis, that includes witness testimony and empirically confirmatory data of that testimony. Does the testimony cease to be evidence and if not why does it when the confirmatory evidence is Moroni's promise? It seems a double standard. And again I reiterate your whole paradigm reduces to simply the question of the veridical nature of spiritual experiences.



They don't have to for the evidence to still be significant. An angel is a proper authority. That goes without saying if the angel is actually an emissary from the cosmic deity. I think proper evidential checks and balances on our 5 senses are superceded by supernatural fact.

Second hand testimony from God-to a witness to me is still evidence.

A Mormon bearing their testimony of their personal witness from God of the truthfulness is evidence.

How reliable, credible and of what value that evidence is is the proper response to them.

I don't know Egyptian but I accept that the Book of Abraham papyri are funeral documents and not the hand of Abraham. So yes If I testified to the knowledge purported by that it would not come from my own experience but it would come from rational authority that could be corroborated by anyone else.



If the credibility of their experience is high, the authority on which they make the factual claims they make is high, regardless of the academic weakness in their personal intellects. They have supernaturally learned the providence of the Book of Mormon.

We are simply arguing the value of spiritual or supernatural experiences and the weight that should be afforded them. If someone believes in God and that God talks to mankind the value of these experiences is greater than to one who does not. The motivated confirmatory bias cuts both ways depending on broader background knowledge.



A distinction with no value. So the men are a conduit of that authority, how does that change anything?

They are unqualified but not irrelevant.

It is interesting question and issue.

mikwut

BECAUSE MORONI'S PROMISE IS NOT AND DOES NOT PURPORT TO BE EMPIRICAL. IF YOU THINK THAT, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IS.



Then I wonder how it is that I am framing it in terms of accepting their story as true for the sake of argument.



THEY HAVE TO KNOW THAT FOR IT TO BE EVIDENCE AT ALL.



Huh. So what is the knowledge they have from their own observation and experience, independent of a revelation from God, that the Book of Mormon is true?



Is that because of objective, empirical evidence from people who know how to read Egyptian writings, or because you prayed about it?



Except that you are not qualified to testify of that, and you are not a witness of that. You are relating what someone else told you, and irrespective of your sincerity in taking his or her word for it, the issue with respect to the meaning of the papyri is whether the person you are relying on was accurate.

Here's what you're asserting: the nature of evidence is such that Egyptologist A knows how to read the writings papyri and says they're funeral documents. I believe that Egyptologist A is correct, so I am an independent witness to what the writings mean. My reliance on Egyptologist A's knowledge is additional, corroborative evidence of what the writings mean. So we now have two pieces of evidence: Egyptologist A's knowledge, and my trust in his knowledge.

Really, mikwut? Really?



IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VALUE OF OR THE REALITY OF SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES. THE ISSUE IS THE SOURCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE. THE KNOWLEDGE CAME FROM GOD, NOT THE THREE WITNESSES. EVEN IF THEIR STATEMENT IS TRUE, THEY HAVE NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER WHETHER THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE. THEY ARE NOT WITNESSES OF ANYTHING EXCEPT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE.

It changes them from being witnesses to being messengers. Unless you think that, for example, Walter Cronkite was an eyewitness to the stories he reported as the anchor on CBS News.

Darth,

That reduces the evidential value - it doesn't eliminate it.

mikwut

The is no evidential value for the truth claims/authenticity of the Book of Mormon via the 3 witnesses' statement. Their statement is only evidence that they claimed to have had an experience..but that says nothing about the truth/authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

Darth,



I don't think that. I was talking about a double standard among different types of evidence so I don't know why Moroni's promise being empirical or not matters, it is the example of the double standard I am arguing about. I have to utilize a non-empirical example to make my point.



Aren't you simply saying here that knowledge from God isn't knowledge? If God imputed knowledge via revelation to the three witnesses and sent an angel to show them and tell them of the truthfulness why would they not be witnesses to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon at all? The relevant scope of its truthfulness includes and is found under the umbrella of it coming from a divine source, the witnesses experiences and testimony about the divine source is provided in an empirical manner. It would be a distinction of what kind of knowledge and therefore what kind of witness they are. This is why I keep repeating to you you are simply arguing that supernatural experiences can't be veridical, they can't transfer actual knowledge. It is a shell game.



Observation = an actual emissary/angel from deity.



This is the prejudice I am not understanding. Are you simply saying you reject the ability to gain knowledge via revelation? What's interesting about that? So be it. But that background belief doesn't suddenly make supernatural experiences irrelevant. It is just demonstrates where you are on a bias scale.



I am saying you have a double standard. We can use the Egyptologist's credentials to trust his academic conclusions. If I have based my belief on that academic trust I am not arbitrarily forming beliefs, but basing them on what I consider trustworthy sources. Likewise, if someone has had an experience of discussing the providence of the Book of Mormon with an angel of God who states that he is in fact the afterlife identity of one of the very authors of the Book of Mormon, and that description is corroborated by two other men having the same veridical experience I would be basing my belief on a source that I would consider trustworthy, just like an empircal matter. If that is denied then a double standard regarding the kind of evidence or experience is at play, that was point. Really.



This is where I read your legal lens into this. They aren't expert witnesses on the characters and translation of the Book of Mormon. I don't think I have ever read an ensign article, heard a conference address, talked to a missionary companion, heard or read an apologist state that the three witnesses had the academic wherewithal to so testify. So what. That's the shell game your playing. No claims they do have academic knowledge. The whole issue is whether the revelatory nature of knowledge has a value just like empirical knowledge has a value. Of course if you eliminate the value of revelation and supernatural occurences as veridical they are not witnesses of anything except their own experience.

But, what is any witness a witness of except their own experience? We put all experiences into a web of connecting pieces to construct our framework of larger beliefs. Saying an actual supernatural angel telling three people that God is indeed having J.S. translate an ancient record and that the record is true is irrelevant, is nonsense. Does it have any probative value towards J.S.'s claims, yes - it is therefore by definition relevant, he claimed an angel gave it to him and instructed him on what to do, that is the claim. They saw the angel he spoke to about that and that angel corroborated that. That is their relevant testimony. They are unqualified in an academic sense, but the testimony doesn't reduce to irrelevancy.

I would suppose no research need ever be done or any argument ever made regarding for example NDEs, one need only say anyone who has one is only a witness to their own experience and it is therefore no evidence at all. Unless one of them is a brain scientist, or some other relevant empirical expert. The seemingness of experiences (our own and others) can be properly relied on to form beliefs unless there is a proper defeater (we in fact live our lives this way). I believe there exists proper defeaters for the 3 witnesses, such as other evidence that makes a natural explanation more likely - but that doesn't eliminate their testimony as significant absent proper defeaters.

mikwut

This is how I understand Darth's reasoning which I agree with.

Because the 3 witnesses are relying upon authority/God for the authenticity claim of the Book of Mormon...they are in no position to be witnesses to it's authenticity. God is the authority ..not them..at least on the claim of authenticity. Similarly if we look at science..when an individual relies upon scientific authority for authenticity of scientific claims..that individual is in no position to be a witness to those scientific claims...unless they themselves make the observation, carry out the experiment. The reason individuals rely upon scientific authority without themselves doing the critical evaluation or leg work, is because the scientific method system uses a procedure such that scientific theories get peer reviewed and get accepted by consensus..and it is on that basis that it is justified to rely upon consensus accepted science. . The goal of peer review being that the theories are objectively evaluated.

In the Book of Mormon witnesses' case..their assertion that the authority/God told them the Book of Mormon is authentic..is not open to be objectively evaluated. The claim relies upon an assertion from the authority God..which in turn then results in their claims re Book of Mormon authenticity being an assertion absent evidence by the 3 witnesses.

So for the authenticity claim by the 3 witnesses nothing has been offered other than an assertion from God for which no evidence is given to be evaluated.

So what they offer amounts to a claim that they experienced God speaking to them about the Book of Mormon. And it is that experience which can be evaluated and used as evidence for a theory. Because burden of proof is on the claimant in this case, without any evidence any justified natural explanation would be presumed and the burden of proof not met by the claimants.

Hello marg,



That's not what he is saying. His point doesn't depend on your classical skeptic thinking. He doesn't rely on burden of proof or attacking the authenticity of the experience. He in fact allows for it.



His point is, if you believe the story, God is who gave you a confirmatory testimony of it. So you don't need the three witnesses. If they were academic scholars on reformed Egyptian perhaps they would have something to say. He is arguing they are unnecessary. And they end up being just what someone who believes they subjective experience wants to hear. I am counter arguing that he would be right if Moroni's promise was certitude for an individual.

mikwut