Mormons<\/a>, (it is better than most) still he has moments when his reworking of Whitmer\u2019s words adds some power, if not beauty:<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIf this be not truth, there is no truth,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd I have been mistaken from my youth.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nIf I\u2019m mistaken, you may know from hence<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThat there\u2019s no God, no law, no life, no sense.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cI know there is a God-I\u2019ve heard his voice,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd in his power and truth do still rejoice;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThough fools may ridicule and laugh to-day,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThey yet shall know the truth of what I say.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI particularly like these two stanzas, which seem to me like the heart of the poem:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cNo tongue can tell the glory and the power<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThat was revealed to us in that blest hour.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThe plates of brass and gold, with angel\u2019s care,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nWere placed before us as we waited there.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWe saw the fine engravings on them, too,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd heard the voice declare the book was true.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd what we saw and heard was by the grace<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nOf Him who died to save the human race.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd surely Hart\u2019s description of the gentile doctor (apparently Oliver Cowdery\u2019s son-in-law and Whitmer\u2019s Nephew-in-law, Dr. Charles Johnson) should be better known:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI asked a Gentile doctor, and was told<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThat David Whitmer\u2019s word was good as gold.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cHis honesty is fairly crystallized-<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nHis name will ever be immortalized.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cAlthough its all a mystery to me,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI know he\u2019s honest as a man can be;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019d stake upon his word my very life,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAnd so would this my good and noble wife.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another item.\u00a0 It\u2019s something that I hadn\u2019t known about a well-worn anecdote \u2014 an especially popular story among atheists \u2014 that I\u2019ve known for many years:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens quote an exchange between the emperor Napoleon and the brilliant French mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace. \u00a0Laplace had taken Newton\u2019s work and extended it in a substantial way to the entire solar system, presenting his results in Celestial Mechanics<\/i>, first published in 1799. \u00a0Newtonian physics was thus shown to govern the complicated interactions among the planets. \u00a0Some time later, Laplace made a present of his book to Napoleon. \u00a0The emperor read it and then said to Laplace: \u2018You have written an entire book about the world without mentioning its maker.\u2019 \u00a0Laplace\u2019s response was: \u2018Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis.\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cUnfortunately, both Dawkins and Hitchens leave out the final punch line of this story: Napoleon later repeated his exchange with Laplace to another great French mathematician, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, who had also done important work in astronomy and mathematics. \u00a0Lagrange\u2019s answer was \u2018Ah! mais c\u2019est une belle hypoth\u00e8se; \u00e7a explique beaucoup de choses\u2019<\/i>\u00a0(\u2018Ah, but it is such a beautiful hypothesis; it explains many things\u2019).\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAmir D. Aczel, Why Science Does Not Disprove God<\/i> (New York: William Morrow\/HarperCollins, 2014), 84-85.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd this, as well:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prolific eighteenth-century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, was also a deeply religious man. \u00a0He was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one day, the famous French atheist Denis Diderot came to visit the academy, apparently on a mission to convert its members to atheism.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cEuler was told about the visitor, and believed that Diderot knew nothing about mathematics. \u00a0So he surprised him in a public debate by demanding, \u2018Sir, a<\/i> plus b<\/i> to the n<\/i>th power divided by n<\/i> equals x<\/i>; therefore, God exists! \u00a0Respond!\u201d \u00a0Diderot, understanding nothing, could not open his mouth. \u00a0Wild laughter erupted in the room; the humiliated Diderot withdrew and, the next day, packed his bags and returned to France.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cThis story may well be apocryphal, but what the New Atheists are doing today is tantamount to the same thing. \u00a0Without a shred of evidence on their side, they declare: \u00a0\u2018Science proves there is no God! \u00a0Respond!\u201d \u2014 and a public that may not be steeped in all the nuances and technicalities of science is left flummoxed, and hence vulnerable to the New Atheists\u2019 overconfident pronouncements.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nAczel,\u00a0Why Science Does Not Disprove God<\/i>, 242-243.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Marking a milestone in the history of the Interpreter Foundation, we published a blog entry today with an invited note from Dr. Matthew Bowen, of Brigham Young University \u2014 Hawaii: \u00a0 \u201c500 Weeks of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I\u2019ve still been going through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28097,56,21037,813,918,6994,28136,28133,28127,2601,316,319,2652,28151,17294,28148,28139,28142,28130,28124,10771,28145,16772,16769,1615,177,5688,4003],"class_list":["post-94254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amir-aczel","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-book-of-mormon-plates","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-david-whitmer","tag-dawkins","tag-denis-diderot","tag-diderot","tag-euler","tag-god","tag-gold-plates","tag-golden-plates","tag-hitchens","tag-james-h-hart","tag-james-hart","tag-james-henry-hart","tag-joseph-louis-lagrange","tag-lagrange","tag-laplace","tag-leonhard-euler","tag-napoleon","tag-no-need-of-that-hypothesis","tag-pierre-laplace","tag-pierre-simon-de-laplace","tag-plates","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-three-witnesses","tag-witness"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Jordan's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/09\/116793599_910521476115476_2548113218795701981_o.jpg\")
<\/a>