So, Baura, have you had any takers/anyone attempt to meet "the challenge?"



"The Baura Challenge:

"I will pay $2000 (US) to anyone who can show that Joseph Smith CLAIMED to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate personages who told him to join none of the then existing churches. Note that I'm not asking anyone to prove that the First Vision actually happened but that Joseph Smith claimed it happened.

"Here's the kicker: you are limited to documents in existence BEFORE 1835. Since it supposedly happened in the spring of 1820 this gives a fourteen-year period for something to have been written concerning the First Vision.

"During this fourteen year period there were letters written, newspaper articles published, affidavits of Joseph's neighbors sworn, books about Mormonism published, Church periodicals published, missionary pamphlets and broadsides printed, sermons recorded and reported, diaries and journals kept. The documentary record from this period that discusses Mormonism is staggering. All you have to do to get the two-thousand dollars is find any mention in any of this of

"(1) God the Father and Jesus Christ appearing as separate personages to the young Joseph Smith,

"and

"(2) them telling Joseph Smith to join none of the existing churches.

"Do that and you get a cool $2000.

"Cheers,

"Baura"


http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,7264,7393#msg-7393



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 05:15AM by Fetal Deity.

Hmmmmm that looks familiar.

It was discussed on a Mormon site once.

Since I threw it out there nobody has attempted to claim the money.

If you really believe that this evidence isn't true you may as well raise the amount to $2 million. You don't have to pay if it never occurred. I would be willing to give $200 million, if I had the money.

It's even mentioned in this well-done video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ac_fLUHiBw&feature=youtu.be

attempted to claim the prize.

This was one of the first posts I read when I first started coming to RfM a few years ago. Wasn't there another part of it, to find any recorded evidence that Brigham was familiar with the current version of the first vision story?

I actually mentioned this challenge to my dad in the early days of my apostasy, because I was frustrated (and still am) by his lack of concern over just how much BS TSCC spews. His response was to brush it off, "Oh, I'm sure there's some evidence out there. Does it matter either way?"

Yes. Yes it does.

(B) Find any indication that Brigham Young knew of the current version of the first vision. They can use the Journal of Discourses, Newspaper accounts, journals, church magazines, proselyting materials etc. Since BY preached many sermons on the nature of the Godhead this should be a piece of cake. After all the First Vision shows that God the Father and Jesus Christ were separate, distinct personages. Surely Brigham Young would mention this. To win the money they must show directly that BY knew of the details of the first vision. No fair saying "well, BY was a big mucky-muck in the church and knew JS personally so OF COURSE he knew about the first vision." They have to actually show that BY knew about it directly.

Did you get this idea from the James Randi "One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge?"

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Several years ago, I emailed Daniel Peterson. I asked him to produce a single non-Mormon scholar who would say that the Book of Mormon is an ancient artifact.

I'm still waiting for a reply.

Baura, After learning about the secret, hidden aspects of church history, my wife and I wrote an essay about why we no longer believe. In studying, thanks to the "Top 10 Mormon Problems Explained" video that was linked to above, we heard about your challenge, but couldn't find any information on it (mostly because I couldn't understand the name given on the video - I did a lot of Google searches for Barack Hale...) so even though I really wanted to, I couldn't mention your challenge in the essay as evidence against the first vision because I couldn't find any confirmation to the video's claim that you made the challenge and our intention with the essay was to use only information that we could verify. Do you mind answering a few questions about your challenge so I can include it in our essay? We've announced that we don't believe to a few friends and family, but haven't really gone public with it. We are about to go very public with it and we want to polish up our essay to be sure that it will have the maximum impact possible. If you need to verify that I am sincere, several respected posters here can vouch for me and here is a link to our essay. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6IWv1y1m4yzM1psTVF0T3dCNlU/edit?pli=1

Anyway, here are the questions.
1. When did you publicly announce the Baura Challenge?
2. Have you had any responses to it at all?
3. Have you received any threats because of, or harassing responses to, the challenge? If so, are you willing to share your thoughts on that?
4.Have you discussed the lack of evidence of the First Vision with any church historians? What sort of response did you get?
5. Do you mind listing the history of your relationship with the church? If you posted it elsewhere on the RFM, I'd be more than happy with a link.
6. Do you have a website for the challenge?

Thanks so much and I hope to hear back from you.

The "challenge" made its debut posted here about 4 years ago.
I've also made it to my TBM brother who is a CES employee.

I've never had anyone actually claim they could meet the
challenge. It was discussed on a Mormon discussion board
(pro-LDS) with a lot of dismissals as "that doesn't mean
anything."

Since the only real venue for the "challenge" has been this
board no harassing threats have been made.

I've not discussed it with any "Church Historians," but I've
read a lot of what they've written.

I'm BIC. Was TBM for about 30 years and have been a
disbeliever for more than 30 years. I'm still technically a
"member in good standing" (i.e. not disfellowshipped or exed),
but I do not participate.

There's no "website" for the "challenge."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2013 01:36AM by baura.

Thanks. We appreciate your response.

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Several years ago, I emailed Daniel Peterson. I
> asked him to produce a single non-Mormon scholar
> who would say that the Book of Mormon is an
> ancient artifact.
>
> I'm still waiting for a reply.

Well, for what it's worth, if you believed the BoM to be a legit ancient artifact, aren't you pretty likely to become Mormon? I mean if it's as ancient as it claims and contains the info it does, you kind of have to at least be a Christian (or at least believe Jesus had superhuman abilities), and its miraculous translation method would lead you to believe the same about Smith, at which point you almost have to be Mormon. Not necessarily LDS, as you could easily conclude it is a new apostasy. But some flavor of Mormon, anyway.