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Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist
For example, let's bring up a slightly more recent example. Much has been written about Joseph Smith, his life, his works, where he went, who he knew, what he did and said. But all of that work doesn't answer one fundamental question for me:
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Did he find tablets, were they inscribed with something so-far unknown in all the world called "reformed Egyptian," and did he use a "seer stone" or "urim and thummim to translate this so-called reformed Egyptian into English? Or did he just make it all up?
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We can argue forever and a day about what was written and when, but what we cannot resolve is the truth of what was written. Someone may be able to prove that I wrote the statement "no elephant known weighs more than 11 pounds," but the proof that I wrote it does not constitute proof of the statement itself. |
I'm taking it the the "quote" text is the fundamental question you want answered... but it appears to me that that question is rather different from the question of the truth (or should one say Truth) of Joseph Smith's revelation. It is possible that one make up something that is True, after all... or is it your contention that, because the story about how it was found is untrue, then the contents must, necessarily, be untrue?
And isn't that a bit like shooting the messegner, and then ignoring the message because the messenger got shot?
Of course, if we say that all "fiction" is necessarily false, then one has to explain why so much fiction rings True.
But perhaps I simply misunderstand you.