If Joseph Smith got it right, then who got it wrong?

[jfro18]

I feel like I've posted this before, but I searched and couldn't find anything so I'll post again and assume I am not going crazy.

But we often look at where Joseph Smith got it wrong, because that's obviously how you evaluate someone's works as a prophet/leader/etc.

For fun though, let's assume Joseph Smith got it right and the church's truth claims are true.

Who then has gotten it wrong? Because if the church is true, clearly there are a lot of fields getting it wrong. I'll start with a few obvious ones:

1. Modern genetics: Clearly DNA is wrong because they are not able to identify that the Native Americans are Lamanites as God told Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon clearly states. That means every conviction for murder is in question and companies like 23 and Me are just flat out wrong.

2. Egyptology: Obviously if Joseph Smith got it right, then the Egyptian language has been translated wrong by the rest of the world. This is a problem, of course.

3. Biblical scholars: If Joseph Smith got it right, then Biblical scholars are incorrect to believe there are multiple authors of Isaiah, that Elias and Elijah are the same person with a different translation, that it's impossible for Book of Mormon people to have a thoroughly developed Christology before Christ even arrived, and so on. They just flat out do not understand the Bible and it's origins.

I'll add more later, but curious what others could come up with. I think looking at this makes an easier case to show the Book of Mormon isn't true than looking at what Joseph Smith got wrong in a weird way.

[annotatedbom]

going from your generality . . .

2. Egyptology: Obviously if Joseph Smith got it right, then the Egyptian language has been translated wrong by the rest of the world. This is a problem, of course.

And taking it to the specific of this spectacular image:



With knowledge that Joseph got it right, the so called experts are way off to call the fellow on the chair/throne, in all his ithyphallic glory, the mere god, Min. Joseph revealed to the world that the God of Abraham is NSFW.

[Corsair]

The "Race and the Priesthood" issue is particularly thorny. Because if Joseph got it "right", then Brigham Young through Harold Lee definitely got it wrong. Spencer Kimball got it "right", but the explanations still all seem very wrong.

[wtfluff]

• The Freemasons got it all wrong: Their creepy ceremony was really invented so Joe and his buddies could "marry" teenagers and keep it secret via "Celestial Freemasonry" vows.
• Even today: The vast majority of believing MORmONs believe that pretending to be a Polygamist Freemason is the pinnacle of MORmONism and MORmON worship, yet they have no idea what any of the Polygamist Freemason ceremony really means.

[moksha]

Additionally, the artist could have benefited from a live model for correct anatomical placement.

[græy]

Additionally, the artist could have benefited from a live model for correct anatomical placement.

It wasn't the artist's fault! The reed brush he was using was dull by that point. It was hard to tell exactly where the point would make contact with the papyrus! Wait, is that how brushes work?

[græy]

Back to jfro's OP...

• Medical science is wrong - All church member healings are the result of priesthood blessings and/or prayers from faithful members. All healings outside of church membership are due to either dumb luck, or the cursings of satan who is playing the long-con by making priesthood blessings seem no more effective than throwing a penny in a fountain at the strip-mall. When priesthood blessings and prayers fail, it is because it really was their time to lose a limb, or die.
• Financial planners are wrong - Living the law of tithing by not feeding your kids in order to give more money to the church is why church leaders are all so wealthy. The rest of us who (despite paying 10% gross for continuous decades) can't seem to make any financial progress are guilty of worrying too much about money and not keeping an eye single to His glory(tm)(r). Most of the US population have no meaningful savings because they never learned to properly budget by throwing 10% of their gross into a black-hole called Ensign Peak. Africans are living in poverty for the same reason.
• Automobile and Weapons manufacturers are wrong - No one told them that their cars and bullets aren't supposed to hurt people wearing garments.

[jfro18]

Back to jfro's OP...

• Medical science is wrong. - All church member healings are the result of priesthood blessings and/or prayers from faithful members. All healings outside of church membership are due to either dumb luck, or the cursings of satan who is playing the long-con by making priesthood blessings seem no more effective than throwing a penny in a fountain at the strip-mall. When priesthood blessings and prayers fail, it is because it really was their time to lose a limb, or die.

Add to that about medical science that we now know coffee and tea have great health benefits although they are banned from members, while boiling water (which would've saved a lot of lives in Joseph's time) was never mentioned.

[græy]

Add to that about medical science that we now know coffee and tea have great health benefits although they are banned from members, while boiling water (which would've saved a lot of lives in Joseph's time) was never mentioned.

Very true. I added a couple more to my own list above.

[deacon blues]

I am convinced that the field of organized religion, while it may motivate some to be better people, is a lousy area to explore if you are seeking truth or reality. Think of it for a moment. If Joseph was right, every other religious organization is wrong. Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Buddists and all the rest are wrong. The field of organized religion is 1% wheat and 99% tares. Oddly enough, I still find it a fascinating field of study because it reveals so much about human nature. People exploit others so easily in this field too. In the USA it is a great way to build a family fortune.

[jfro18]

Oddly enough, I still find it a fascinating field of study because it reveals so much about human nature. People exploit others so easily in this field too. In the USA it is a great way to build a family fortune.

If you watch South Park, there's an episode called Faith +1 where Cartman starts a Christian rock band to get a platinum record quickest.

At one point Kyle says like "You don't know the first thing about Christianity, Cartman" to which Cartman replies "I know enough to exploit it."

If that doesn't explain a lot of modern religion figures (and political, too), I don't know what does.

[2bizE]

I’m placing my bet on modern science. The spirit of revelation is too subjective.

Sure, the spirit of revelation has taught us many wonderful truths, including: Its OK to marry 14 year old children as well as other men’s current wives, but deeper truths like your skin can become white and delightsome if you follow church leaders. Other truths such as Cain is Bigfoot, women,blacks and gays (actually all non-white, non-straight people) are inferior, magic rocks, ditch witches (divining rod) are perfectly viable ways of ascertaining the truth...
Even with these strong evidences, I’m sticking with science.

[Mackman]

After all "The truth is not useful" .

[Reuben]

jfro18, what you're getting at here is the probability of the evidence given "it's all true." Specifically, that this probability is ridiculously close to 0.

To do a proper Bayesian analysis, to estimate the probability of "Joseph Smith made it up" given the evidence, we would need two more things. One is the probability of the evidence given "Joseph Smith made it up." The other is the prior probability of "Joseph Smith made it up" (i.e regardless of the evidence).

It's interesting to me that most disaffected members seem to focus on the last two probabilities. Maybe assuming "it's all true" for a short time is distasteful. Maybe it's just confirmation bias. But without evaluating the evidence given "it's all true," any analysis is necessarily incomplete.

[jfro18]

jfro18, what you're getting at here is the probability of the evidence given "it's all true." Specifically, that this probability is ridiculously close to 0.

To do a proper Bayesian analysis, to estimate the probability of "Joseph Smith made it up" given the evidence, we would need two more things. One is the probability of the evidence given "Joseph Smith made it up." The other is the prior probability of "Joseph Smith made it up" (i.e regardless of the evidence).

It's interesting to me that most disaffected members seem to focus on the last two probabilities. Maybe assuming "it's all true" for a short time is distasteful. Maybe it's just confirmation bias. But without evaluating the evidence given "it's all true," any analysis is necessarily incomplete.

I think that's true. There was something I was reading a while back and it was an apologetic thing and instead of looking at it like "That's not true because evidence says XYZ," I started looking at it like "If that is true, then everything we know about genetics/archaeology/modern medicine/etc is wrong."

So I suppose I wasn't trying to get to a Bayesian type approach because if you followed along with the article last year (How could joseph have known?), those kinds of analysis are usually just a complete hatchet job when not peer reviewed.

I would love to get some people who are specialists with Bayesian analysis to do one that have no horse in the race, but no one without a horse in the race would care enough to do it.