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S5E32 · Atheism Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 32 · 1:14:18

Atheism Part 1

Asked which Christian church he'd join if he had to pick, atheist Alex O'Connor answered 'Mormonism,' and the hosts couldn't resist playing the clip.

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The question ·
I have an atheistic friend who has listened to several episodes of your podcast.
Brandon (listener)

Kristy's Corner tackles D&C 84 and the light of Christ given to every person. Betty thanks the hosts for teaching her to check sources, and Gerrit explains the historian's two rules: leave nothing out and make nothing up. Rebecca asks about her ancestor Lettice Rushton, the blind English widow who woke Joseph Smith with Christmas carols at one in the morning in 1843. Then Brandon writes about an atheist friend who says that if he converted he'd become a Latter-day Saint. Richard plays clips of Alex O'Connor and Bart Ehrman, and Gerrit responds to Ehrman's dismissal of the Book of Mormon witnesses, setting up a series on atheist arguments.

Who comes upJoseph SmithLettice RushtonHyrum SmithBart EhrmanAlex O'ConnorOliver CowderyPaulClayton Christensen
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Richard joins Gerrit in person and sends them straight to Kristy's Corner.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise, and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I am joined live and in person with Dr., with or by? I guess with, I'm not joined with you, by Dr. Richard LeDuc.
Richard Here I am with you, Gerrit. I'm excited, thank you for having me back. Very excited, that was quite the introduction. Yeah, let's edit it all out.
Gerrit And by that, I mean, publish it as it is, like we do with everything else.
Richard So we are going to waste no time jumping straight to Kristy's Corner, Dr. and Covenants, Section 84.
Gerrit Boy, these are the, these are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier is gone.
Richard Sunshine Patriot.
Gerrit Yes, as Thomas Pade would say. When you do a Kristy's Corner and it's a relatively short revelation that's not super impactful, it's easy to help people see it in a different way that brings it more impact. Then you have Section 84.
Richard Two, three verses?
Gerrit Yeah. You want me to give a Kristy's Corner to the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. I'm trying to find a way to not turn this into the entire episode because I know we have a lot to cover.
Richard We have a lot to cover. We want to talk about atheists. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Gerrit It really is the opposite of the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.
Richard It kind of is, and so I need you to do it. I need you to make it snappy.
Gerrit Okay. Well, let's start with the fact that this revelation is received right after Joseph gets back from, he moves back from Hiram. Okay, so went down to Hiram, Ohio, and as we know, that wasn't the best of experiences all the time. He did have the vision there, which was great.
Richard That was great.
Gerrit And also, tarring and feathering and pretty awful things happening. So we don't know exactly where this revelation was received, but it's most likely in a Null K. Whitney store, because that's where they move into. So either in what they call the translating room, the kind of upstairs office, or the School of the Prophets room, the two areas where Joseph is receiving revelations basically when he's there. And the interesting part about this, this is a revelation that's received in two parts, which makes sense because it's so long. But it's a revelation received in two parts that appears to be at essentially the same time. Meaning the first manuscripts of this are dated to September 22nd, and then there's a break in the manuscripts.
Gerrit September 23rd is lined in there, and then they keep going. So it almost makes you wonder if they were doing this all night, receiving this revelation, which you're going to think that when you're reading this on your own. Oh yeah, I could see why it would take all night to receive this revelation. I mean, what's 120 verses among Friends? But of course, it outlines, as you'll study in your Come Follow Me, it outlines some of the nature and history of the priesthood power, of the lesser priesthood and the higher priesthood, which is an evolving thing over the course of time in the church. In our earliest documents, what's interesting is you don't really see the term priesthood used. And part of the reason why that's fascinating is in the Book of Mormon, you do see the word priesthood used. But in our early documents, they use the term authority, and even the names of the priesthoods, that seems to be something that comes later.
Gerrit So this revelation has a lot there that obviously there's so many different things that you could talk about. But I thought, you know, maybe in light of our, you know, our discussion that we're going to have later, I hope, about atheism, that maybe we should spend time on verses 45 and 46 and 47. How's that sound?
Richard That sounds great.
Gerrit For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light. Now, this idea that truth and light is going to be something that Joseph is going to receive much more information on in just a short span when you get to Doctrine and Covenants, section 93. So this idea of truth and light. And whatsoever is light is spirit, even the spirit of Jesus Christ. Verse 46 is a, I mean, in a lot of ways it's a refutation of the doctrine of total depravity. Remember that the Calvinist world that Joseph Smith lives in believes that all of mankind is irreparably fallen and there is nothing good that they can do. Even the ability to discern what is good, they don't have the ability to do that because of their fallen nature unless God has given them the grace of Christ.
Gerrit Then, then they can do good, but they still don't merit salvation. But verse 46 says something different. The Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world. Now hold on a second. This isn't just saying that everyone who believes in Jesus, they have the Spirit. It's actually saying something far different. The Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world. And the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit. And everyone that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even to the Father. So this idea that, look, obviously as Latter-day Saints, we believe that we are in a fallen state. We believe we're separated from God. We believe the natural man is an enemy to God.
Gerrit I mean, we get it. We're sinners. But we don't believe in total depravity. We don't believe that there is literally no way for us to know God's will outside of God's grace. Because we believe that every person who comes into the world has the spirit given to them. And where this is defined better, obviously, is Mormon talking about it better than me. Not better than Joseph, but better than me, you know, when he talks about the Spirit of Christ. This is Moroni 7. For behold, my brethren, is given unto you to judge that you may know good from evil. And the way to judge is as plain that ye may know it with a perfect knowledge as the daylight is from the dark night.
Gerrit For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man that he may know good from evil. So the Book of Mormon and the Revelation are both repeating the same thing here. Everyone at some level inherently knows good from evil. Now, obviously, the traditions of your fathers and what you are taught to believe, I mean, the whole nature versus nurture debate, there's an awful lot that can be said for both things. But at its base level, something that Joseph is going to learn in Doctrine and Covenants Section 93, is that every spirit that came into the world was innocent. That far from believing the total depravity, that all of us are irreparably separated from God, that in fact, we were all pure once, and we can all be pure again through the atonement of Christ.
Gerrit For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil. Wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge for everything which invite to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ. Wherefore, you may know with a perfect knowledge that it is of God. That idea of the Light of Christ, we sometimes talk about it, that helps people know inherently what is good and what is evil. And, you know, what happens? We try to suppress it. We fight against it. We try to find all kinds of justifications to not follow it. And yet, God has given to everyone in the world this ability to, on a base level, know right and wrong. Anyway, I think it's good to read Doctrine and Covenants Section 93 and Moroni 7 in conjunction with reading Doctrine and Covenants Section 84.
Gerrit I know I'm giving you more homework. I know that's not... That may not be the point of Kristy's corner.
Richard I like the direction of Kristy's corner. You know what? Why don't you read 84 and get back to us?
Gerrit Yeah, yeah. I could tell you something about it, but you know what? Why don't you tell me something about it? I'm waiting for e-mail. Start your own podcast. I want you to start your own podcast, and I want it to be called the Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast. Then not only will it only be relevant once every four years, it will only be relevant one week out of every four years.
Richard What's best though is if you model the Standard of Truth podcast, you'll call it Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast, but you'll never actually get to Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast.
Gerrit What you'll talk about is like rice, tariffs, townships, and Rachel's mom.
Richard That's right. You'll never get to it. Never get to it.
Gerrit Well, so let's maybe pop over to the mailbag.
Richard To the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag, we first have an email coming to us from Betty. I just want to express how grateful I am for your extensive coverage of each section of the Doctrine and Covenants. I loved the three-part episodes for Section 22. She's speaking of Search These Commandments episodes, the premium episodes. Phil, my testimony was strengthened by listening, understanding the context, surrounding details, deepens my understanding and I appreciate it so much. It is the first podcast I listened to on Monday. I do pay for the premium content, so she's not a missionary. That's good. Thank you, Betty.
Gerrit Betty, they are encouraging people to serve senior missions because, I mean, free content.
Richard We are going to be going on the tour. The Standard of Truth tour is going to be next week.
Gerrit Yes.
Richard We will be driving through the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission twice. Once in, where is it, Harrisburg? And then again in Erie, we are very excited to touch the holy ground, the sacred places.
Gerrit Do you think that we could maybe have a small detour to see the oldest Latter-day Saint chapel?
Richard Oh, the second ward?
Gerrit Yeah, the second ward building.
Richard Pittsburgh.
Gerrit Yeah. You know what? The oldest ward east of the Mississippi.
Richard I do an unofficial, because we used to spend a night in Scranton. And so I do an unofficial office tour.
Gerrit I see.
Richard And so I do take people around and I point at rusted out buildings and say what they were.
Gerrit And your gym probably lived there.
Richard There's a couple spots that we go to. It's very exciting. It's very popular. I always listen to the quote unquote open podcast. Then of course the special segments you do for Come Follow Him. I also want to thank you for the guidelines you have given us on studying historical information. I recently finished a book and before I started, I checked the author's profession. They were a journalist apparently with a bachelor's degree. I also checked their connections and documentation. It seemed well documented on what he quoted, but I felt he had an agenda and was only presenting what he wanted me to know. I prayerfully read it with these caveats in mind and feel like I gained some understanding, but I'm sure it wasn't what the author wanted me to learn. At the same time, I was also reading Joseph Smith, A Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, who is a historian and university professor. They were discussing different eras, but the feel of each book was very different.
Richard I feel like Professor Bushman was very complete in his presentation and never felt like he was trying to convince me of anything or just presenting history. That may seem like a little thing, but the first book would have been very disturbing to me if I had not known how to evaluate it. And I heavily relied on all things you have taught in the podcast. I really feel like I was able to gain some valuable insights that I would not have had without the podcast. I also noticed that I had to hunt to find the author's education in the first book while Professor Bushman's info was right on the front of the book. That seems to be another red flag. I hope to be listening to your podcast for many years to come. I am 70. So I hope I have moved on to the spirit world before you stop doing the podcast.
Gerrit Wow.
Richard Thank you very much.
Gerrit I'm not even sure how to take that last line.
Richard Well, I mean, it's much like the Beauty and the Beast, the rose from Beauty and the Beast.
Gerrit Every year we do it, we're a pedal that drops?
Richard The podcast is essentially that.
Gerrit We now have to keep doing the podcast to keep her alive.
Richard That's exactly what we're saying.
Gerrit Right. So now the added pressure is this is someone's life we're talking about.
Richard I love the email from Betty because this is one of the best values or the best things that you do on the podcast.
Gerrit It's one of the things I hope you get out of the podcast is this rather than, well, look, there's a footnote and going, well, that just proves it, you know, realizing that, well, part of the reason why credentials matter is that person has been trained in the proper use of sources and yeah, whenever you have to really look hard to figure out what someone's education level is, that should be a gigantic red flag. Because you know who you don't have to look hard to find their education level? People who have PhDs. Yeah, they'll be right there on their university. Yeah, they're very proud of it. Well, I mean, if Richard's any example.
Richard Holy crap, I say it everywhere.
Gerrit We're like walking into like the Walmart and he's like, Hey, it's doctor. The guy's the lot boy. Like I was, I'm getting carts. I wasn't going to even address you with anything.
Richard It's doctor. So now that my sons have come home from their missions, the summer, our house is filled with the laughter of young single adults. And it's actually been a lot of fun to have our house full of all of these friends again, as they're coming back. Um, but I demand, because when they left, I wasn't a doctor.
Gerrit No, so they were like, Hey, brother LeDuc, how's it going? Like, get out of my house.
Richard Yeah. Uh, one of my son's friends, her name is McCall. She came over, said Richard. I said, that's Dr. LeDuc to you. Yeah.
Gerrit Yeah. And good day, sir.
Richard Or ma'am.
Gerrit Well, you were doing the Willy walk in the chocolate factory. Good day. Good day, sir. You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You get nothing.
Richard Yes, but to your point, doctors will say it.
Gerrit Yes. So, and that is hopefully one of the things that you get. I mean, it's good to vet your sources. Now look, it does not mean that because someone has a PhD that they're doing a good job. They might not, but if someone is self publishing a book and they are their own self appointed authority, then you have a lot of red flags that are going up because it means nobody who doesn't already agree with them read that material before it was self published. And that's the biggest red flag there is. You can make any argument sound great if you don't include the sources that are on the opposite side. If you only tell people, well, this is what Philastus Hurlbut said, he said this, he said this about Joseph, and you don't tell anybody, all of Philastus Hurlbut's foibles and all of his outright lies.
Richard Foibles. I will wash my hands in the blood of Joseph Smith.
Gerrit I mean, I will say it's a foible to say that you want to murder someone and wash your hands in their blood. I was thinking more of the multiple times he committed adultery, but you're thinking about murder. Adultery.
Richard Foibles. When we get to D&C 42, so the Lord gives them something.
Gerrit There are some foibles that happened. Talking about a natural man, I have foibles. You know what? I don't know that I've ever really used the word foibles before. No. And I am never going to use it again. I have been set straight. So anyway, the point being, when all you have is Mormonism unveiled, telling you about Joseph Smith, boy, it sure seems like a pretty definitive case that Joseph Smith stole the text of the Book of Mormon from Solomon Spaulding, that all these people that are talking about him all have evidence that he's not a good man, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And a bunch of it proved to be not just, you know, opinion, like, well, I think Joseph Smith wasn't pot. If you're claiming that the word Nephi and Lehi is all over the Solomon Spaulding Manuscript, and in fact, you have in your office the Solomon Spaulding Manuscript, it's more than just a foible.
Gerrit Because you know, you know, that even though all these people are saying, oh yeah, it sounded like the Bible, and it said Nephi and Lehi, and it talked all about the... You have the manuscript in front of you. So you already know it doesn't say those things. And that's the fundamental dishonesty of Mormonism unveiled. Eber Howe has the manuscript in front of him. Philastus Hurlbut has the manuscript in front of him. And yet they publish sworn statements from the Spauldings and other people who knew the Spauldings that it's word for word from Spaulding's book, knowing that it's not because they have the manuscript in front of them.
Richard What is it that your dissertation chair said as it relates to history and writing history?
Gerrit I love it. No, this was my chair. This was someone.
Richard Oh, different professor.
Gerrit This is the person who taught me methods.
Richard Oh, okay. Oh, geez.
Gerrit Oh, the methods professors are hard core. No, he, two people in my cohort quit school after his methods class.
Richard Look, we've all wanted to quit school after.
Gerrit Two of them quit?
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Two of them legitimately came out and said, there's no way I can do this. And, yeah, I was one of them. I don't even have a PhD. Betty's unmasked me. He said, when you're writing history, there are two rules that you have to follow no matter what. The first is you can't leave anything out. You can't just not use a source because it doesn't help you. You have to explain that the source exists, maybe explain it away, explain how it's an anomaly, but you can't just leave it out because it's not what you wanted to say. So if you're writing a biography of Andrew Jackson and you hate him and there's a story of Andrew Jackson being incredibly kind to an orphaned Indian boy, you're going to want to not include it because you hate Andrew Jackson and he slaughtered Native Americans both before and when he was the president.
Gerrit But you have to include it because it happened. So you can't leave anything out. And the second rule is you can't make anything up. You can't just say that something happened without a source. And so you see both of these things when you read antagonistic literature. You see the leaving out of sources that would call that into question. But you also see a lot of made up things. I will never forget when I first read Fawn Brody's book on Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History. Look, that book is terrible, right? And she has a pretty big ax to grind and she's grinding it all day long. But she invents a dialogue in Joseph's head that while he is in jail, he's fantasizing about Louisa Beeman.
Gerrit There is literally not a single source that says anything like that. And there she just writes it there like she's got Louisa Beaman's journal. And it says that. It is something that you do need to be careful and it's great that you are praying and have the discernment of the Spirit as you went through it. Now look, PhD historians, they make mistakes too. So, I'm not saying, oh yeah, that person has a PhD, so it's going to be great. I have read a lot of garbage published by, I mean, just when I'm reviewing my own stuff, published by a PhD. But there's at least some safeguards in play that while the tone still may not be good, at least hopefully they're following those rules, that they're not leaving things out or making things up. And yet, you'll still find that even in the field.
Richard All right. Thank you, Betty, for that kind and wonderful email.
Gerrit And we'll try to keep the podcast going because, Betty, we want you alive.
Richard This next email comes to us from Rebecca. Hi, Drs. Dirkmaat and LeDuc. My husband wouldn't tell me how to spell your names on purpose. You nailed LeDuc, by the way. I do like Dirkmaat.
Gerrit Yeah, it kind of makes me sound like I'm a French.
Richard Yeah, more of an aristocrat. Yeah. My name is Rebecca and I am currently in labor with my first baby. My husband, Evan, is a huge fan of your podcast. He's been listening since I first got pregnant, actually, back in May. He told me that I should write an email to you while in labor so he could be mentioned on the podcast. Well done, Evan.
Gerrit First of all, this is a lot of premeditation. And what a kind wife you are, Rebecca.
Richard This is murder one, not manslaughter.
Gerrit Yes, seriously.
Richard Very premeditated.
Gerrit This is super premeditated. Like, you told him, like, guess what? We're pregnant. And his response wasn't even like, oh, I can't wait to be a dad. It was like, you know what? Now he's got to read the email.
Richard I want to, I want to.
Gerrit He said it. He's got to read the email.
Richard Well, so, and we are, we are. When it comes to my question, I thought a lot. My husband told me I could not ask questions about polygamy, so I'm not going to do that. Instead, I thought I'd play into Christmas in July and music with my question.
Gerrit Now, now, to be fair, we have done multiple, multiple episodes on polygamy while not wanting to talk about it.
Richard Yeah, we talked, we talked about, we did two-parter on polyandry.
Gerrit Okay, so we've talked about it dozens of times. We're just not going to cover it every week on the podcast.
Richard Well, we'll eventually get to D&C 132 and then, and then you'll do a nine-parter.
Gerrit Well, that'll be on the premium, luckily.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard My husband's ancestor, is it, is it Lettice, L-E-T-T-I-C-E, how do you pronounce that?
Gerrit Lettice?
Richard Lettice Rushden sang carols to the Prophet Joseph in the middle of the night in Nauvoo. It makes me wonder what kind of carols were we singing back then compared to the Christmas carols we have in the hymn book. It's a very simple question, but I'm curious to know if it's the same songs or if we have added new ones or gotten rid of old ones. Thank you for taking the time to read this. As I wrote it, in a very uncomfortable state.
Gerrit I'm so sorry, Rebecca, we've got to change this. Do we need to, we need to change it to where it's like, we'll read it if they're currently in the hospital after having given birth to the baby.
Richard I feel like labor is, it's reasonable.
Gerrit It's not reasonable at all. When we first said it.
Richard It was a joke.
Gerrit We said it because every Cutler child has started emailing us when they're in labor.
Intro Oh, we love the Cutlers.
Gerrit So we said, this is crazy. Look, our guarantee is if you write us while you're in labor, we'll read your email. Yeah, it's true. But we didn't know that that would lead to a spike in fertility rates in Utah as men are now pressuring their wives into having children so they could get read on the podcast.
Richard It's easier than going on a mission.
Gerrit Well, look, you've got two options because you're getting the premium content if you go on a mission or you're getting read on the podcast if you're in labor.
Richard Yes. Well, she says, you're bestie, Rebecca, and partially Evan. We've included a picture of our new baby, which we demand as evidence.
Gerrit We've got to have an-
Richard And then I do the analysis to determine when the email was sent and when the picture was taken, so you're not faking us out.
Gerrit And we're going to put that through Google Lens. Like so, if that's just a picture of a Gerber baby coming off a formula bot, we're going to know about it.
Richard Yeah, we sent it to a forensics lab. We're at the bottom of this.
Gerrit You know, when I was at the Church History Library, a colleague of mine and I discovered a previously undiscovered Mark Hoffman forgery. So I just want to put that out there before you send me your face.
Richard We're going to get to the bottom of this. And if you're lying to me, Rebecca, oh.
Gerrit Yeah, yep. Well, let's answer your question. This comes from Joseph Smith history and the history of the church. The history of Joseph Smith. And the story is a, I mean, it's a beautiful one. It's December of 1843. And this is how it's recorded in, in the history of Joseph Smith. This morning about one o'clock, I was aroused by an English sister, Lettice Rushton, widow of Richard Rushton Senior, who 10 years ago lost her sight. So she's not just a widow, she's blind. Accompanied by three of her sons with their wives and her two daughters with their husbands. So I don't know which of those children that you're descended from, Rebecca, but it's pretty awesome. The whole family decided, and they decided fairly late.
Gerrit I mean, at one in the morning is when they decided that they were going to go do some Christmas caroling. I don't know that I can endorse that for you to do with your own neighbors. You may want to try doing it sometime before one in the morning. But Joseph was clearly already asleep. I was aroused by an English sister, right? And several of her neighbors singing, and we know the song because they wrote it in there, Mortals Awake with Angels Join. Your question of which Christmas songs did they sing, most of the ones that you're familiar with today didn't exist in 1843, or even the ones that did existed to a different tune. So it's probably not going to come as a surprise that Rockin Around the Christmas Tree wasn't, that wasn't, it wasn't the biggest one, you know. I mean, Frosty the Snowman, they weren't singing that.
Gerrit But there are only two Christmas songs that are in the original 1835 hymn book. One is Mortals Awake with Angels Join, which, you know, that's not a popular Christmas carol anymore. It was in the Methodist hymn book for years. I think it still is in some. I think it went out of our hymnal in like 1927 or something like that. Talking about the Advent of Christ, the other one is Joy to the World. Although the current music that goes with Joy to the World, I believe isn't attached to it until 1836. So it's in there. It's in the 1835 hymn book, but I don't know what it would have sounded like or if they would have adopted the new music or not. But what's really interesting about Joy to the World is a very popular Christmas hymn. I mean, look, there's other hymns like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. That's in something that's sung.
Gerrit We Saw Three Ships. That is a Christmas hymn that's being sung by people. The idea behind Oh Come All Ye Faithful, but back then it was sang in Latin, because it was a Catholic hymn. So that probably didn't get a whole lot of traction in anti-Catholic Protestant America. But here's what I think is pretty interesting. On the premium podcast, we discussed our Conconfession Section 25, and we talked about the hymns and the hymn book, as Emma was called to arrange it. And we talked about how WW. Phelps edited many of these hymns that he got, that Emma selected from other religions, other hymnals. The way he edited Joy to the World is, it's pretty fascinating actually.
Gerrit So I thought maybe I'd share. You want to? Yes. Yeah, let's get a little bit of Joy to the World. The way that he edited, so you all know that the standard version, right? It is saying Joy to the World because Jesus was born, right? That's the idea behind it, right? Joy to the World, the Lord has come. How did Phelps edit it? Remember, Latter-day Saints are essentially among the only premillennialists that are around, that they are looking for a sudden, cataclysmic, great and terrible day of the Lord to come. So Phelps edits the text to make it be a song looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ.
Richard Oh, that's kind of cool.
Gerrit So instead of, joy to the world, the Lord has come. Joy to the world, the Lord will come. Instead of, let earth receive her king and earth receive her king. You know, so some of the lyrics are similarly the same, but joy to the earth, the Savior reigns, that's the original. He's gonna change it to, rejoice, rejoice when Jesus reigns. So you go from the Jesus reigns because he was born to the pre-millennial idea, I can't wait till Jesus is back so Jesus can reign. So he's editing the text. Frankly, it kind of goes from being a Christmas text to being a millennial text, to being a text of Zion. If you go to the fourth verse, right? So no more let sin, this is the original, no more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.
Gerrit He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. So Jesus comes and there's not gonna be any, there's no more thorns infesting. His blessings are flow, very similar, but how does Phelps edit it? No more will sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He'll come and make the blessings flow far as the curse was found. So it's talking about the Second Coming rather than the first coming. And then there's a pretty big difference in the fourth where the original said, he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. That's kind of a pretty Calvinistic type of, you know, God is sovereign. He changes that a lot. Rejoice, rejoiced in the most high, while Israel spreads abroad, like stars that glitter in the sky and ever worship God.
Gerrit So again, talking about the spreading of the gospel in preparation to the Second Coming, not a statement of God is in charge of everything. Now, interestingly, I mean, we kind of change a little bit back to some of the more original texts by the time we get to the 1985 end book, but a lot of that's still the same. So there you are with the songs. It's actually pretty difficult. I couldn't really find a good rendition. I mean, you can find people playing the piano of Mortal's Awake that Joseph would have heard, but not a good one where someone's singing it. So if anyone's listening who's a musician and wants to create a rendition of Mortal's Awake and send it to us, but Joe's response to that was, you know, after having been awakened in the morning, was to say, which caused a thrill of pleasure to run through my soul, and all of my family and borders arose to hear the serenade, and I felt to thank my Heavenly Father for their visit, and bless them in the name of the Lord.
Gerrit They also visited my brother Hyrum Smith, who was awakened from his sleep. He arose and went out of doors to them, and he shook hands with them, and he blessed each one of them in the name of the Lord. So you have Hyrum also experiencing something, some more to Joseph in that regard. And honestly, what Hyrum says is pretty awesome. He said that he thought at first that a cohort of angels had come to visit him. It was such heavenly music to him. So that's a pretty awesome story that that's associated with your family. Congratulations on the child. I apologize for your husband in premeditating that for as long as he did.
Richard Well, it's very nice. Well, now, Gerrit, we have the email to get into the meat of our conversation. It's 40 minutes in that we'll allow.
Gerrit We've been answering questions.
Richard Well, you've been doing a great job.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard This is one of the best ones we've ever done.
Gerrit No, this is the worst one we've ever done.
Richard So this email comes to us from Brandon way back in April. So again, thank you for all the emails we receive. We don't get a chance to respond.
Gerrit We literally read all of them. We literally do. But we get hundreds of them.
Richard Every five to ten minutes. It's the scene from Miracle on 34 straight. It's on my desk.
Gerrit Yes, on my desk. And I mean, we got somewhere in the neighborhood of like three dozen missionary emails in a day.
Richard Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. So anyway, so just to say, this email came back in April, or was back in April. It was an interesting question. And now here we are trying to answer it a little bit. Comes to us from Brandon. I have an atheistic friend who has listened to several episodes of your podcast. I've sent him several.
Gerrit Has he listened to them or you're just sending them?
Richard Well, he has thoroughly enjoyed them and has repeatedly told me that if he were to convert to Christianity, he would convert to Mormonism. Reminds me a little of Paul preaching to Agrippa. Almost thou persuade me to be a Christian type of thing. His name is Hugh and we have had many conversations about theology and faith. He has said to me more than once, don't ever leave your faith, Brandon. Also, he has said that those that do leave Mormonism don't have anywhere else to go. We've actually talked about this quite a few times. How can you go from an all-loving God who saves all mankind to a limited God who only saves those who are lucky enough to be born at the right time in the right circumstances? Truly, God is no respecter of persons. I have told him that my favorite quote of Joseph Smith that you shared on this podcast is, I have no fear of a hellfire that don't exist. He did the chef's kiss motion and thought that it was some very sound doctrine.
Richard So this idea of atheism is one that we would love to discuss, and so there's, I've gone through, combed through all of the interwebs and the internets and all of the things.
Gerrit So you've been trying to find as much atheist rhetoric as you can? Pretty much. Okay.
Richard Yeah, and so there's one particular atheist who more calls himself an agnostic. Sometimes atheists can be strident and they can be kind of jerks.
Gerrit And by sometimes.
Richard Well, not always. But it sounds like his friend Hugh here is a thoughtful.
Gerrit You'll have to tell Hugh he got a shout out.
Richard He got a shout out. Well, we hope that you send these episodes to Hugh, actually.
Gerrit Well, there's one thing that atheists love more than anything and that's when religious podcasts give them a shout out.
Richard Well, but some view, you know, some of these atheist arguments are actually asking very difficult questions.
Gerrit And very good questions.
Richard Very good questions.
Gerrit Given what traditional Christianity is maintaining as their theology.
Richard And so the idea, there's a couple of things that I wanted to start with. And so the person that I'm mentioning here, Alex O'Connor, he made it fairly a name for himself in Mormon-dom when he was on a three-hour long podcast.
Gerrit So not ours. Ours just feels like it's three hours.
Richard The Russell and Katie podcast. And so I'd like to start by playing that bit. And if you are on the Instagrams at all, you likely have heard it. It's been played and played again. But I'd like to play that here as kind of the jumping off point for us to start our discussion.
Other Thank you for doing this, Alex. I appreciate you. Hopefully we do this someday in person.
Gerrit Here's an interesting one from Deadpool. He said, Alex, if you have to join one Christian denomination, which do you believe has the most consistency according to the history of the church and scripture?
Other Uh oh, this is where Alex would have to pick a jersey. Mormonism, of course. Oh my gosh.
Richard That's amazing.
Other We don't call it. We don't consider them Christians. Give me another one. No, well, that's the interesting thing is that they're sort of often not, I don't even know if they really like to consider themselves Christians as such. I think there's some pretty interesting, I've been learning a lot about Mormonism. Do you know, by the way, who the first ever US presidential candidate to be assassinated was?
Richard He was a Mormon.
Other It was Joseph Smith.
Richard Oh, he was a candidate?
Other Joseph Smith was running for the, that's interesting. Mormonism is a fascinating religion in many ways. A lot of people aren't aware of its history and also of a lot of its doctrines and theological ideas, and its different idea about what God is, and all of this kind of stuff, and the persecution, the history of persecution of Mormons in the United States is pretty amazing too. There's so much really interesting stuff. The extermination order of Missouri, where people were told to just kill them. It's an unbelievable history. Of course, Joseph Smith dies in a shootout in prison. It's one of the most dramatic stories of world religion in the world. Of course, it remains the case that we have, because it's so new, we have better eyewitness testimony to Moroni and the plates than we do, unfortunately, to the resurrection of Jesus, it seems. But that was also a point that raised some eyebrows in my original video, which I found quite entertaining.
Gerrit Okay, well, that's, I mean, not a huge fan of the whole shootout motif. That's also something that's put forward by the Christian community. It's like, is it a shootout if people break into my house and try to murder me, and I pick up a gun and shoot back? You don't usually call that a shootout. You call it being murdered by 200 people.
Richard But the larger point that he's making...
Gerrit The larger point... Notice the Christian group that he's with. Their reaction was they thought he was kidding. Now, you didn't see the video of it. They think he's telling a joke. And, you know, it's in that, like, about a second and a half, they realize he's not kidding. And the bemusement on their face and the laughter turns to, you got to be kidding me.
Richard They're not Christian.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, we don't even consider them Christian. And you know, the discussion of whether or not we consider, of course we consider ourselves Christian. We certainly don't consider ourselves creedal Christians. It's almost like the Lord told Joseph Smith that their creeds are an abomination to me. So we kind of aren't big fans on the creeds because the Lord said that they're an abomination. I mean, I wouldn't lead with that with you. I mean, I wouldn't lead with you, Christian friends.
Richard But so the thinking behind playing that clip, and there's another clip that I want to play that has Bart Ehrman, he's on a, you've mentioned him several times on the podcast. He's at University of North Carolina.
Gerrit Yes, and he's, I mean, one of the leaders in New Testament textual histories. And he was an evangelical Christian. He went to, you know, Wheaton Bible College and was, started out as very conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing Christian. And over the course of time, lost his faith. Now all of his Christian friends tell him that he lost his faith because he, you know, kept studying too much about the differences in the different Greek manuscripts and that made him lose his faith. And he's very clear. He published a book on it that that's not why I lost my, I lost my faith because the world is filled with horror. And either God isn't who we think he is, or God doesn't have the power that we think he does, in which case he isn't who we think he is.
Gerrit And, and he really presents the kind of classical atheist, you know, argument that either God has the power to stop all of this ridiculous suffering that's all around us, and he just doesn't, in which case it's pretty hard to make that argument about how all good he is, or God doesn't have the power to stop the suffering, in which case God isn't what we think he is. And so that, that, so he also is very careful to say that he's an agnostic, not an atheist.
Richard Alex O'Connor, while an atheist, in many of his arguments, says a similar thing.
Gerrit Yes, yes, I'm willing to believe, I want to believe, but I can't believe because of these factors.
Richard Right, and so I wanted to play another clip, a clip here.
Gerrit Of him talking to a Christian.
Richard Yes, and so, and the purpose behind both of these clips is to show that both, in the case of Alex and Dr. Ehrman's case, that they are pointing to Mormonism, so-called, as this different approach to answer some of these things and how quickly they are dismissed.
Gerrit Okay, let's listen to this other clip.
Other What is the evidence? You brought up Islam, you brought up Mormonism, well, in Islam, this only supernatural, really, claim is to Muhammad. It's one, you know, one eyewitness. And I agree with Deuteronomy, we shouldn't trust anything unless it's at least two or three witnesses. So we have four that you agree with, you know, in Christianity, when it comes to Mormonism, again, Joseph Smith is the only person to say that Moroni appeared to him and he said Jesus and God the Father and a lot of other strange things. But only one person, only one eyewitness in both those cases, both those religions you brought up, but I'd like to hear the evidence of the Greek and Roman. I don't know if you've studied Mormonism very much. Oh, I've studied a lot. There are 11 eyewitnesses. To the Golden Plates? Yes. So we're going to compare Golden Plates to the resurrection of Jesus? No, I'm just saying if you're a historian, and what you're doing is you're saying we're going to trust eyewitnesses. Okay, I'm fine with them seeing Golden Plates, but what does that tell us? Four of them say they saw Moroni give them to him. Four saw him. Who actually signed affidavits. Half of them left the faith.
Other They left, no, they didn't, they left Joseph Smith. But when they abandoned Joseph Smith, they continued to say that they saw Moroni. So do you credit those? Okay, well that's still, that would only be three. But to abandon Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith is the foundational prophet. It's four plus Joseph Smith. That's five. I'm just saying, are you being impartial or are you saying it's more likely because these are biblical witnesses? In those cases, by the way, we actually have their testimony. And it's within a hundred years. So with the New Testament, you don't have Peter's testimony, or James' testimony, or the 500. So you don't have, you've got Paul. But what we have is good enough to convince you, for the New Testament eyewitnesses, you've already agreed. This is exactly my point. Jesus appeared to them. So with Moroni- Exactly my point, I agree they claimed it. But let's stick with Moroni. But that isn't proof that it happened.
Gerrit Wow, that is a great clip. I had not heard that.
Richard It's great.
Gerrit And I like how the host is so belligerent with him that he won't even let him talk. So first of all, how do you know that someone has not studied Mormonism in depth when they are claiming that they have? Well, cause Moroni, how do I know you've talked to zero Mormons in your extensive deep study? Because you sound like someone reading the Book of Mormon for the first time, who refers to Nephi as Nephi, which I don't fault an investigator doing that. But if you're claiming you're an expert, and when you're pushed on it, you say, oh, I've studied all about Mormonism. Really? Like you studied so much that you don't even know how to pronounce one of the foundational features of it. I mean, yeah, I'm sure you're like super studying it all the time.
Richard So, I mean, there's a lot to get to in that clip.
Gerrit There's a lot.
Richard There's a lot. But the idea that he also is like, all right, so gold plates, so what?
Gerrit Gold plates, so what? Yeah, so they show him the gold plates. Are you comparing the gold plates to the resurrection of Jesus? And you know, look, Airman's, you know, it's not his job to defend our faith. But he kept having to interrupt the guy because it's just one person, it's just one person. No, there's Three Witnesses. There's 11 people who see the plates. There's three other people who see angels. And again, I don't expect Bart Airman to defend my faith. But there's actually dozens of people who have these witnesses. We're not talking about just the three and Eight Witnesses. Oliver Cowdery is with Joseph Smith when he sees Jesus and Moses and Elias, when he sees John the Baptist, when he sees Peter and James and John, when Sidney Rigdon is with him and he sees God and Jesus, when the entire School of the Prophets group is with him and they see God and Jesus, when many people who are at the Kirtland Temple see angels and see cloven tongues of fire for crying out loud, to claim that there is only one witness.
Gerrit The reason why that was so offensive to Bart Ehrman, even though he's not a Christian, is it's a historical, factual lie. is it's a historical, factual lie. You want to say you don't want to believe the witnesses, like, oh, what difference does it make if he has gold plates? Okay, now that's a stupid thing to say. But you're trying to claim that there aren't even any witnesses because his entire argument was, there aren't any witnesses.
Richard I love how he starts with, you got to have two or three witnesses. And then Bart gives him two or three witnesses.
Gerrit And he says, well, they don't count.
Richard And what was great, especially about that, too, is as he is quickly dismissing it, and Bart is explaining, no, they actually claim to have seen these things.
Gerrit But then they left Joseph Smith.
Richard That's actually one of our best arguments.
Gerrit So let me get this straight. They say an angel came and appeared to him. You're saying because they no longer followed Joseph Smith, that proves that it's not true, even though they continue to say it was true even after they stopped following Joseph Smith.
Richard So for Bart, for Dr. Airman, his point was, yeah, the fact that they leave the church but never deny seeing it, that's actually a stronger argument.
Gerrit That they had an angelic experience. Now, what do you want to interpret from that angelic experience? Kyle, you could take that somewhere else. Sure, of course. But the fact that you're saying that a being from the unseen world appeared to you when you're no longer a member of the faith that that experience spawned, that is something that I wish we could get antagonists who leave the church today to do. I wish you could get people to admit that they really felt the spirit on their mission. Instead, I have people inventing all kinds of garbage. Yeah, I like never, I never felt the spirit my whole life. Really? Because I have a letter here from you saying I had the most spiritual experience of my whole life yesterday. So were you lying to me when you wrote that to me? No, I mean, I was just like confused and just thought I felt the spirit. Well, since you're so easily confused that you don't know the difference between the spirit or anything else, how do I know you're right now? Frankly, you could be wrong now. Since you're the one who gets easily confused, I'm not.
Gerrit So, maybe the dander meter's not going to work. We've got a real dander problem. You were supposed to make this light and easy, and I would be Captain Funball Gerrit and just happy, la la la la la.
Richard But that clip was great though, wasn't it?
Gerrit Yeah, it does. I mean, I love the fact that, you know, at every point he was right. So, fundamentally, I'm sure Bart Ehrman was annoyed because he has had multiple Latter Day Saint graduate students. In fact, some of my colleagues at BYU, in the religion department, got their PhDs with him as their chair in biblical studies. And I've actually had a conversation with one of them where I asked him, I'm like, oh Bart, because I've read all of Bart Ehrman's works, and he's a brilliant scholar and, you know, a contemplative guy. And I said, well, so what does he think of getting, you know, Mormon so-called students, you know, because most people are going into New Testament textual stuff there. They're coming from a, you know, Trinitarian Christian background. And what this guy told me is like, well, you know, he actually says he likes getting Latter-day Saint students. And I was like, oh, really? Like, that seems like that'd be kind of weird.
Gerrit And he's like, he's like, no, he says, because what he's trying to do is demonstrate, you know, that, you know, he's the one who kind of coins the phrase that there are more variations in our existing Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, then there are words in the New Testament. So if you let that sit in for a second, there are more differences between the existing, when everyone's like, oh, I read it in the original Greek. No, you didn't. Yes, there is no original Greek. There's the earlier or earliest Greek copy, which is already a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, and then you say copy 15 times more. And so, you know, you said, you know, one of the hardest things for him to do is you get these, you know, super, you know, solo scriptura Protestant Christians who come to get their degree, and the hardest thing to convince them is that there's any errors in the Bible at all, that there could be any differences in the manuscripts, which, you know, is the historical point you have to make.
Gerrit If you're going to examine these manuscripts, you have to admit that this early manuscript says this, and this one says something else. You got to do something with that. But with Mormon students, it's not hard is what he said. You know, you're like, you know, there's problems with the Bible. The Mormon student's like, yeah, we know all about that. Yeah, there's problems. I mean, so, you know.
Richard So my nephew, I can't remember which one it was, whether it was Ben or Jack, so I'll give them both credit. Rather than calling it the Dandermeter, they like Dandometer.
Gerrit The Dandometer.
Richard I liked that one.
Gerrit I feel like that's a shout out to your dad as well.
Richard Yeah, his name's Dan, so the answer is the Dandometer. So how much is this podcast like Dan, or how much is your dander up? So for most of the podcast, she held it below 100,000. What happened? You really peaked over 700 here at the end.
Gerrit I think at the end, I think what happened is this guy claimed that he knew all about Mormonism, that he'd studied all about it as he mispronounced Moroni's name.
Richard That seemed to get you more than almost anything.
Gerrit Well, look, if someone is trying to tell you that they're best friends with someone as they're trying to sell you something, like the salesman at the door who's like, who's like, yeah, you know, I was over talking to your good friends, the Johnsons, and they said they want to buy it. And like, you mean the Johansons? Is that what you mean by the people that you know really well? I mean, it's a demonstration of the over claiming that happens with Christians. And frankly, it's lazy. I have read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. I have read many of Martin Luther's tracks. I have read many of Charles and John Wesley's writings. I have studied the theology of other Christian groups. Am I an expert on them? Of course, I'm not. I've taken many graduate level classes on them, but I wouldn't say that, oh, come to me for all your Methodist history.
Gerrit But here is someone who is claiming that they're an expert, and they don't even know that the three witness experience included the angel. He made the statement. Had Bart Ehrman not corrected him, he said, Moroni appeared just to Joseph Smith and no one else. What if Professor Ehrman had not said, yeah, that's not true? And what I find a lot, especially online, you know, because like X and Reddit are like the dumpster fires of, you know, every self-proclaimed expert that there is in the world. How shallow the Christian argument is. You want to tell me you don't believe my faith? That's great. How about you bring something other than lies about it then? You're the one who said, you know, as Richard pointed out, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, okay, well, the Mormons got like dozens of them.
Gerrit Yeah, well, they don't count. Okay, so it's not out of the mouth of two or three witnesses? Because you thought that was a good argument. Because when you were talking to other uninformed Christians and you were bashing Islam, you thought, oh, Mormonism is just like Islam, just like Muhammad is the only witness, Joseph Smith is the only witness, and it sounded great to you, and you said it to your buddies multiple times, and you went on a podcast with an actual trained theologian, and they took you to the woodshed because you want to make a claim that sounds amazing. Think of how amazing that claim would have sounded to his listeners if Bart Ehrman wasn't on there. Oh, it's great. All of his listeners would have been like, oh, my gosh, you're right. It was only one witness with Mohammed, and it was only one witness with Joseph Smith. Wow. God is letting us know that these are false. And what the fact that I mean, again, Bart Ehrman is not a Latter-day Saint and doesn't believe in our theology and doesn't believe in God.
Gerrit But he does believe in sources. You can say that I don't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. What you can't say is that there are no witnesses to the miraculous events that took place. That is garbage. And either you are pretending to have knowledge that you don't have, which I think is clearly the case with your Moroni self, or you do know and you're a liar. Now that, I mean, frankly, and we've said this before when we come to sources on the podcast, you get to decide you're either an idiot or you're a liar. That's the only option we have left. You told everyone on your podcast that you have studied a lot of Mormonism and succeeded in getting literally every word that you said after that 100% wrong to the point where an agnostic non-Latter-day saint had to correct you and tell you you were wrong.
Gerrit So there's only two options. One, you never actually studied them at all, which makes you a liar. You did study them and didn't understand any of it, which makes you an idiot. I mean, I don't really know. There's really no where to go from there. And once again, someone might say, well, you're being pretty harsh. You can't expect people to know everything. I don't expect people to know everything. Unless that person says, I know everything. And then I think it's kind of an okay expectation to have. If you say, I'm an expert on this religion, and then fail to even get the most basic aspect of what they believe, not spiritually right, factually correct. He repeated, even when Ehrman corrected him, no, only one of them saw it. No, no, there was 11. They saw, well, they only saw the plates, though. They didn't see an angel.
Gerrit They saw the plates. What difference does that make? Four of them saw the angel, too. What, you know, I mean, like, he, he continued to restate his false statement, and then when he was corrected, stated it falsely again, and then when he was corrected, stated it falsely again. And this was not Professor Ehrman's premise. He didn't come in there saying, there's only one witness, and you don't have any witnesses. It was the Christian who was trying to bash Islam and Mormonism that said they only have one witness. Well, except that they, you know, Latter-day Saints have multiple witnesses. You have angels appearing to many people. And incidentally, it's one of the reasons why I know that we didn't want to talk about plural marriage.
Gerrit But you know what? I'm just gonna bring it up here.
Richard Oh, perfect.
Gerrit Yeah, I just figured, you know what? Now's the time. Dandometer's high. Might as well just throw a little polygamy in there. You know what? Let's make this a part 11. Several of the women who marry Joseph Smith claim to have had miraculous spiritual experiences, including angels appearing to them that causes them to practice it. And that's part of the reason why you cannot just blithely reject that Doctrine and Covenants Section 132 came from God. Because you're not just claiming, oh, this was a mistake. You're also saying that Lucy Walker is lying about an angel appearing to her. And what's your evidence for the fact that an angel didn't appear to her?
Gerrit Well, because I don't want to think that an angel did. Okay, that's great. It's wonderful that you don't want to think that an angel did. That's not the same thing as having evidence. And I think that's what Bart Ehrman, he's not trying to talk to him about polygamy, but I think that's what he's trying to do here in this clip. He's trying to say, you don't want to accept their witnesses, but that's not the same thing as they don't have witnesses. And then he points out, and you know what? Theirs were less than 150 years ago. Theirs, they were still living. We had witnesses of the Book of Mormon still living and in 1887, in 1887, we had witnesses to those events still living. And as he pointed out, but he got drowned out, he was trying to say, we don't have Peter's actual testimony. Now, I disagree with him on that. You know, he's he's arguing from the from the religious theological perspective that, you know, you know, Peter's written later, and then maybe it's changed over the course of time, but he's trying to point out, we don't have Peter's actual affidavit.
Gerrit We don't have Paul's actual letter. We have a copy that's over 100 years after it was written. We don't have John's actual gospel. We have a copy that's, you know, 70, 80 years after it was written. And so the point he's trying to make is. Latter-day Saint witnesses are at least as viable as those of the Bible because we, this is their actual statement. This isn't a copy of a copy of a copy. Here's them in multiple venues, multiple times, repeatedly saying the same thing. I can think whatever I want about Oliver Cowdery. What I can't, as a historian, think that Oliver Cowdery didn't really say that he saw an angel, multiple angels, including John the Baptist, including Peter, James and John.
Gerrit In fact, when Cowdery is coming back into the church, one of the points he makes about how he doesn't want to be drug through the mud to come back into the church is, you know, if you had Peter, James and John's hands on your head, you wouldn't want to be drugged through either, basically. And you can debate whether that should be his point that he's making. But Oliver Cowdery repeatedly, personally, and consistently avowed that he saw angels. You want to say he's a liar, you can say he's a liar. But this person, and many people like him, are actually claiming that there isn't even a witness. And you saw how frustrated Professor Ehrman was when he said, yeah, well, they left Joseph Smith. That just shows because he's like, no, it's like the exact opposite. They're still saying they saw an angel even after they left him.
Gerrit And so the difference between someone who has training in the proper use of sources and someone who's just a zealot, who thinks that because they say words, that that makes them true.
Richard So the intent with those two clips was to make me mad. Well, yes, always. But to-
Gerrit Are the other clips gonna, I haven't, I don't know any of the clips. He's doing this, this is blind. I hadn't heard either of those until-
Richard Well, so first of all, I like Alex O'Connor. I feel like he is about as fair of an atheist or agnostic as there is. I just watched a three-hour video where he's going through all the different arguments-
Gerrit You're not gonna like suddenly tell me that you've decided you're an atheist, are you? This is like, what a great lead-up. Like, I watched three hours and I prayed about it and I didn't get an answer, so I figured God wasn't there.
Richard Yeah, the hiddenness. So, but I wanted to set the table by starting with two people. So, Bart Ehrman and Alex O'Connor and kind of their discussion and how quickly dismissed Mormonism or the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is by Christian apologists. And then in our next episode, play some of these arguments from atheists, attempts by Christians to answer them, and how those answers leave a person wanting.
Gerrit Well, I hope it doesn't come across that I have better answers.
Richard You don't, but the church, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Gerrit So, clearly, I'm not going to be giving very good answers, but I'll at least be able to point out, hey, yeah, we don't believe that because of like prophets and stuff.
Richard Yeah, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, these things provide the answers.
Gerrit It is funny, when you're an early church historian, you're essentially a fraud, like I'm a fraud, because you'll go speak places and people will come and tell you, like, oh, I really felt the spirit. And you're like, yeah, I know, I was just reading Joseph Smith quotes the entire time. They'll come and talk to you like, well, your thoughts are really profound. No, it's Doctrine and Covenants section 93. I'm just telling you what Joseph taught. So you sound way smarter than you are. It's almost like you got in a time machine and you went back in time and you're like, I bet they build a highway here next year. And there are people like, what? And then they build it like, wow. How could you possibly have known that? It's kind of the same thing when you're just sharing a bunch of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Emmet Smith quotes and they're like, man, that's really profound. I know, that's the best part.
Richard On the business side, I just quote Clayton Christensen all the time, same thing.
Gerrit Yeah, he was quoting him heavily at lunch. I was. We even forced at least one friend of the show to not indulge in Jersey Mike's because she dislikes it so immensely.
Richard So immensely.
Gerrit Now, she doesn't dislike Jersey Mike's.
Richard No, no.
Gerrit She hates all sandwich shops.
Richard Hoagies, Grinders, all of them.
Gerrit Yeah, no. If anyone has any part of a sub sandwich, she's out.
Richard In fairness, she brought up private equity and that was my opening and then I was like, here we go. Let's do this.
Gerrit All right. So thanks so much for joining us. We're going to try to get the dandermeter down for next week. We can't just keep making me mad. I feel like you're doing it deliberately.
Richard No, I think what will be interesting actually is I believe that what will, I will predict the future here.
Gerrit Okay, yes.
Richard I believe what will happen is you'll hear the atheist argument and it's thoughtful and they're kind of going through and I think that they're relatively fair and then you're going to hear the Christian rebuttal and that's going to make you mad.
Gerrit So, I'm going to be mad at the Christians. This is putting me on the wrong side of the street. Okay, so thank you so much for joining us.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

And by that, I mean, publish it as it is, like we do with everything else.

GerritBanter

But we don't believe in total depravity. We don't believe that there is literally no way for us to know God's will outside of God's grace.

GerritInsight

What's best though is if you model the Standard of Truth podcast, you'll call it Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast, but you'll never actually get to Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast.

RichardBanter

We now have to keep doing the podcast to keep her alive.

GerritBanter

The first is you can't leave anything out.

GerritInsight

And the second rule is you can't make anything up.

GerritInsight

This is murder one, not manslaughter.

RichardBanter

It's easier than going on a mission.

RichardBanter

I wish you could get people to admit that they really felt the spirit on their mission.

GerritInsight

No, it's Doctrine and Covenants section 93. I'm just telling you what Joseph taught. So you sound way smarter than you are.

GerritBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Joseph Smith was the only witness to the angel and the plates.
Witnesses who left Joseph Smith discredit their own testimony.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

D&C 84:46 and Moroni 7 teach that the Spirit of Christ gives light to every person who comes into the world, so everyone can know good from evil.

Two rules for judging history: leave nothing out and make nothing up. If you have to hunt for an author's credentials, that's a red flag.

Lettice Rushton, a blind widow, woke Joseph Smith with carols at one in the morning, and Joseph said it sent 'a thrill of pleasure' through his soul.

You can choose not to believe the Book of Mormon witnesses, but you can't honestly say there were none.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Kristy's CornerD&C 84 is too big to make snappy (1:42-2:27); start your own 'Doctrine and Covenants Section 84 podcast' that's relevant one week every four years and never gets to section 84 (11:13-11:54).
Rice tariffs, townships and Rachel's momWhat the Section 84 podcast would actually cover (11:48).
The only true missionThe tour drives through the Pittsburgh mission twice to touch holy ground, with a detour to the second ward building (12:49-13:16).
Doctor inflationPhDs put it everywhere; 'Hey, it's doctor' to the Walmart cart boy (16:44-16:55), and his sons' friend McCall must say Dr. LeDuc (17:19-17:31).
FoiblesHurlbut's 'foibles' include threatening to wash his hands in Joseph's blood; Gerrit vows never to use the word again (18:58-19:27).
Keep Betty aliveBetty hopes to die before the podcast ends, so now it's the rose from Beauty and the Beast (15:25-15:44, 25:28).
The labor-email policyRebecca writes in labor at Evan's premeditated urging (25:33-26:33); the Cutlers started it, and fertility rates spike in Utah (28:11-28:59); photo evidence goes to a forensics lab, and Gerrit once found a Hofmann forgery (29:09-29:39).
The worst one we've ever doneRichard calls it one of the best; Gerrit, the worst (39:26-39:28).
Gerrit's dander and the Dandometer'We've got a real dander problem,' and Gerrit was supposed to be Captain Funball (55:43); the nephews' Dandometer peaks over 700,000 (58:24-58:50); a little polygamy thrown in for a part 11 (65:37).
Jersey Mike'sA friend of the show hates all sandwich shops, and Richard quotes Clayton Christensen at lunch (72:40-73:12).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 84The Gift of TestimonyElder Gérald CausséElder Caussé, recalling the scripture that comforted him at two calls to serve, teaches that bearing witness of Jesus Christ belongs not only to apostles but to every disciple who has taken His name by covenant.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 84The Infinite Power of God in Our CovenantsElder Jeremiah J. MorganElder Morgan grew up in another church that also believes in the Book of Mormon, where his single mother read it to him daily.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 93I Am a Child of GodElder Hutch U. FaleElder Fale teaches that every person is a beloved child of heavenly parents, illustrating God's unearned love by showing his children their baby pictures: they did nothing to earn their parents' love and can do nothing to lose it.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
D&C 84, D&C 93 and Moroni 7 read together on the light of Christ and Calvinist total depravity (5:37, 10:03).
The 1835 hymnbook and W. W. Phelps's edits to hymns like 'Joy to the World' (31:49, 33:50).
Mormonism Unvailed, Hurlbut and the Spaulding manuscript they had and didn't disclose (19:27, 20:39).
The atheism series Richard sets up: atheist arguments, Christian answers, and where they leave people wanting (70:49).
SOT Litner · S5E32.