S5E32 Atheism Part 1

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast Summary

Title: Standard of Truth
Host: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat
Episode: S5E32 Atheism Part 1
Release Date: July 31, 2025
Description: The podcast aims to help Latter-Day Saints better understand their history and bolster their faith by exploring the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith.

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Introduction

In Season 5, Episode 32 of the Standard of Truth podcast, hosts Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc delve into the challenging topic of atheism. This episode, titled "Atheism Part 1," navigates through theological debates, historical perspectives, and personal anecdotes to address common atheist arguments against Mormonism.

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Christy's Corner: Doctrine and Covenants Section 84

The episode begins with the hosts introducing Christy's Corner, a segment dedicated to exploring specific sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. In this installment, they focus on Section 84, particularly verses 45-47, which discuss the concepts of truth and light.

• Dr. Dirkmaat emphasizes the significance of these verses in countering the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity. He explains, "For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil. And the way to judge is as plain as the day is different from the night" (00:45:06).

• Dr. Leduc adds, "Now, obviously, as Latter-Day Saints, we believe that we are in a fallen state... but we don't believe in total depravity" (00:46:09).

This discussion underscores the belief that every individual possesses the innate ability to discern good from evil through the Spirit, challenging the notion that humanity is irreparably fallen.

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Mailbag: Listener Feedback and Source Evaluation

The hosts transition to the Mailbag segment, where they address emails from listeners. Two notable contributions include feedback from Betty and Rebecca.

1. Betty’s Email:

   • Betty expresses gratitude for the podcast's thorough coverage of the Doctrine and Covenants, particularly praising the three-part episodes on Section 22. She shares, "I was also reading Joseph Smith, A Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman... I heavily relied on all things you have taught in the podcast" (12:34:57).

   • Dr. Dirkmaat responds by highlighting the importance of evaluating sources: "Whenever you have to really look hard to figure out what someone's education level is, that should be a gigantic red flag" (16:00:57).

2. Rebecca’s Email:

   • Rebecca writes about her husband's enthusiasm for the podcast and poses a question regarding the Christmas carols sung during Joseph Smith's time. She asks, "I wonder what kind of carols were we singing back then compared to the Christmas carols we have in the hymnbook" (26:02:00).

   • The hosts humorously engage with this by discussing historical hymns and their evolution, offering insights into the original hymnal content of the early church.

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Main Discussion: Addressing Atheism and Mormonism

The core of the episode revolves around an email from Brandon, who seeks to engage the hosts in a deep conversation about atheism and its challenges to Mormon beliefs.

1. Brandon’s Concerns:

   • Brandon shares his atheist friend's struggles with reconciling an all-loving God with the existence of evil and suffering, questioning how a limited God can be consistent with traditional Christian theology.

2. Analysis of Atheist Arguments:

   • Dr. Leduc introduces arguments from prominent atheists like Bart Ehrman and Alex O'Connor, illustrating their skepticism towards Mormonism's claims.

   • They play and dissect clips where these atheists critique the number of witnesses to Joseph Smith's revelations. For instance, Ehrman is quoted saying, "There are 11 eyewitnesses. And they talk to the golden plates" (49:53:00), which Dr. Dirkmaat contests by emphasizing the multiple witnesses asserting their experiences.

3. Defense of Mormon Witnesses:

   • The hosts argue that Mormonism provides a robust number of witnesses compared to other religious claims. They highlight that even after leaving the faith, many witnesses continued to affirm their experiences, strengthening the credibility of their testimonies.

   • Dr. Dirkmaat points out, "They have multiple witnesses. You have angels appearing to many people... it's not just one witness" (54:12:00).

4. Polygamy Discussion:

   • Though initially hesitant to discuss polygamy, the conversation naturally flows into addressing the miraculous experiences claimed by women who practiced plural marriage, reinforcing the argument against dismissing these as mere fabrications.

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Insights and Conclusions

Throughout the episode, Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc emphasize the importance of evaluating sources critically and acknowledging the breadth of testimonies supporting Mormon doctrines. They challenge atheist critics to provide substantial evidence rather than dismissing faith-based claims based on limited or misunderstood information.

• Dr. Dirkmaat asserts, "Either you never actually studied them at all, which makes you a liar... or you do know and you're a liar" (63:06:00), highlighting the frustration with perceived superficial critiques of Mormonism.

• The hosts conclude by reaffirming their commitment to addressing atheistic challenges head-on in future episodes, aiming to strengthen the faith of their listeners through informed and respectful discourse.

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Notable Quotes

• Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat:
  "For the word of the Lord is truth and whatsoever is truth is light." (05:34:00)
  "The Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world." (06:06:00)

• Dr. Richard Leduc:
  "And everyone that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even to the Father." (09:07:00)
  "You have multiple witnesses who continue to attest to their experiences even after leaving the faith." (54:30:00)

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Final Thoughts

"S5E32 Atheism Part 1" serves as a thought-provoking exploration of the challenges atheism poses to Mormonism. By juxtaposing historical testimonies with contemporary atheist critiques, Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of faith, evidence, and the enduring question of belief versus skepticism.

For those seeking to deepen their understanding of Mormon history and theology, this episode offers valuable insights and equips listeners with the tools to engage thoughtfully with opposing viewpoints.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett 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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Foreign. Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I am joined live and in person with Dr. With, or by, I guess, with.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I'm not joined with you by Dr. Richard Leduc here.

I am with you, Garrett. I'm excited. Thank you for having me back. Very excited. That was quite the introduction. Yeah, let's edit it all out.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So we are going to waste no time jumping straight to Christy's Corner. Doctrine covenants, section 84.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christy Christie's Corner. Boy, these are the, These are the.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Times that tribe and souls. The, the. The. The summer soldier is gone.

Sunshine patriots.

Yes. As Thomas Paine would say, you know.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

When you do a Christie'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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Then you have section 84.

So two, three verses.

Yeah. You want me to give a Christie's quarter to the oath and covenant of the priesthood?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I'm trying to find a way to not turn this into the entire episode because I know we have a lot to cover.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We have a lot to cover. We want to talk about atheists. It's going to be a lot of fun.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It really is the opposite of the oath and covenant.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It kind of is. And so I need you to do it. I need you to make it snappy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, you know, all the time. He did have the vision there, which was great.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's great.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 Newell 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, 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 22, and then there's like a break in the manuscripts.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

September 23 is lined in there and then they keep going.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, you know, 120 verses among friends. But of course it outlines as you'll study in your, in your. Come follow me. It outlines some of the, 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 priests. That seems to be something that comes later. 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, I hope about atheism that maybe we should spend time on verses 45 and 46 and 47. How's that sound?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That sounds great.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, when you get to doctrine covenant section 93. So this idea of truth and light and whatsoever is light is spirit, even the spirit of Jesus Christ, verse 46.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Is a.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, then, then they can do good. But even, but, but they, 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 hearkened 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's an enemy to God. 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. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Everyone.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

At some level inherently knows good from evil. Now obviously the traditions of your fathers and, and, and, 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's going to learn in doctrine covenant 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. 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, 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Read.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Doctrine Covenant Section 93 and Moroni 7 in conjunction with Reading Doctrine Covenant Section 84. I know I'm giving you more homework. I know that's not. That may not be.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You know what?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I like that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I like the direction of Chrissy's Corner. You know what, why don't you read 84 and get back to us?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 your email.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

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. And then not only will it only be relevant once every four years, it will only be relevant one week out of every four years.

What's best though is if you model the Standard of Truth podcast. You'll call IT doctrine covenant section 84 podcast. But you'll never actually get to Dr.

It'll be Dr. Covenant section 84 podcast. And what you'll talk about is like rice tariffs, townships and Rachel's mom.

That's right. You'll never get to it.

Never get to it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, so let's, let's maybe pop over to the mailbag.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

To the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. We first have an email coming to us from. From Betty. I just wanted to express how grateful I am for your extensive coverage of each section of the Doctrine Covenants. I loved the three part episodes for Section 22. She's speaking of Search these Commandments episodes, the premium episodes. And 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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Betty, you know they are encouraging people to serve senior missions because I mean free content.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We are going to be going on the tour. The Standard of Truth tour is going to be next week.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We will be driving through the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mission twice. Once. Once in Where's Harrisburg and then. And then again in Erie. We're very excited to touch the. The holy ground, the sacred places.

Do you think that we could maybe.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Have a small detour to see the oldest Latter Day Saint chapel?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, the Second Ward. Yeah, the Second Ward building. Pittsburgh. Yeah. You know what ward? East of the Mississippi.

I do an unofficial. Because we just spend a night in Scranton.

Yeah.

And so I do an unofficial office tour.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I see.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so I do take people around and I point at rusted out buildings and say what they were.

And you're like, Jim probably lived there.

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. Professor. They were discussing different eras, but the feel of each book was very different. I feel like Professor Bushman was very complete his presentation and never felt like he was trying to convince me of anything or presenting history. 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. Well, thank you very much.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm not even sure how to take that last line.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, I Mean, it's much like the Beauty and the Beast. The rose from Beauty and the Beast. And as every.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Every year we do it, we're a pedal that drops. The podcast is essentially that we now have to keep doing the podcast to keep Betty alive.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's exactly what we're saying.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right. Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

All right.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So now the added pressure is, is this is someone's life we're talking about.

So it's a. So I love the. The email from Betty because this is one of the best values or the best things that you do on the podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. It'll be right there on there. Yeah, they're very proud of it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, I mean, if Richard's any example, Holy crap.

I say it everywhere.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 cards.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I wasn't gonna even address you as anything. 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. But I demand, because when they left, I wasn't a doctor. No.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Hey, brother leduc. How's it going? Get out of my house. Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

One of my son's friends, her name is McCall, she came over, said, Richard, I said, that's Dr. Leduc to you.

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep. And good day, sir or ma'.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Am. Well, you were doing the Willy Wonka the Chocolate Factory. Good day.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Good day, sir.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You stole fizzy living drinks.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You get nothing.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes, but to your point.

Yeah, doctors will say it. Yes. So.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 Flasus Hurlbut said.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He said this, said this about Joseph.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And you don't tell anybody all of Flasus Hurlbut's foibles and all of his outright lies.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Foibles. I will wash my hands in the blood of Joseph Smith. Foible. I will say it's a foible to say that you want to murder someone and wash your hands in their bed. Blood. Foible. I was thinking more of the multiple times he committed adultery that you're thinking about. Murder, adultery, foibles. So when we get to DNC 42.

So the Lord gives us.

There are some foibles that happen. 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 and I am never going to use it again. I have. I have been set straight. So anyway, the point being.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, stole the text of the Book of Mormon from Solomon Spalding, that all these people that are talking about him all have evidence that he's not a good man. And, and a bunch of it proved to be not just, you know, opinion like, well, I think Joseph Smith wasn't PI. If you're claiming that the word Nephi and Lehi is all over the Solomon Spalding manuscript and in fact you have in your office the Solomon Spalding manuscript. It's more than just a foible 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. Eberhau has the manuscript in front of him. Phoastus Hurlbut has the manuscript in front of him and yet they publish sworn statements from the Spaldings and other people who knew the Spaldings that it's word for word from Spalding's book. Knowing that it's not because they have the manuscript in front of them.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What is it that your. Your dissertation chair said as it relates to history and writing History? I love it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, this was my chair. This was someone.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, different professor.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This is the person who taught me methods. Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, geez.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Professor Hardcore?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, he.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Two people in my cohort quit school after his methods.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Look, we've all wanted to quit school.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

After two of them quit. Yeah, two of them legitimately came out and said, there's no way I can do this. And yeah, I was one of them.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I don't even have a PhD. Betty's unmasked me.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 gonna want to not include it because you hate Andrew Jackson and he slaughtered Native Americans both before and when he was the President. But you have to include it because it happened. So you can't. 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. 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. It's terrible, right? And she has a pretty big ax to grind, and she's grinding it all day long.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

She invents a dialogue in Joseph's head that while he is in jail, he's fantasizing about Louisa Beeman. There is literally not a single source that says anything like that. And there, she just writes it there like she's got the wise of Beaman's journal. And it says, that is something that you. You do need to be careful. And it's great that you were praying and had 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. Has a PhD. So it's going to be great. I. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

All right, thank you, Betty, for that kind and wonderful email.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And we'll try to keep the podcast going because, Betty, we want you alive.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

This next email comes to us from Rebecca. Hi. Doctors Dirk Mont and leduc. My husband wouldn't tell me how to spell your names on purpose. You nailed leduc, by the way. I do like Dirk Mont.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, it kind of makes me sound like I'm a French.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

First of all, this is a lot of premeditation and what a kind wife you are.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, sure. This is murder one, not manslaughter.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, seriously, very premeditated.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

This is super premeditated.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like you told him. Like, I, I, you know, guess what, we're pregnant.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And his response, his response wasn't even like, oh, I can't wait to be a dad.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It was like, you know what? Now he's got to read the email.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I wanna, I wanna.

Yeah, said it. He's got to read the email.

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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now. Now, to be fair, we have done.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Multiple, multiple episodes on polygamy while not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Wanting to talk about it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, we talked, we talked about. We did two parter on polyandry.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay, so we've talked about it dozens of times. We're just not going to cover it every week on the podcast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, we'll eventually get to DNC 132 and then, and then you'll do a nine part.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, that'll be on the premium, luckily.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, yeah.

My husband's ancestor. Is it. Is it lettuce? L, E, T, T, I, C, E. How do you let us. Latisse Rushton 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.

So sorry, Rebecca, we've got to change this. Do we need to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, I.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Feel like labor is. It's reasonable.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's not reasonable at all. When we first said was a joke, we said it because every Cutler child has started emailing us when they're in labor. So we. So we love the colors. So we said. This is crazy.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Look, our guarantee is if you write us while you're in labor, we'll read your email.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, 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 can get read on the podcast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's easier than going on a mission.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, look, you've got two options because you're getting the.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You're getting the premium content if you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Go on a mission, or you're getting read on the podcast if you're in labor.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes.

Well, she. She says your bestie, Rebecca and partially Evan. Yes. We've included a picture of our new baby, which we demand as evidence we got to have.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And then I do the. I do the analysis to determine when the email was sent and when the picture was taken. So you're not faking us out.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And we're going to put that through, like, Google lens, like.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So if that's just a picture of like a Gerber baby coming off a.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Formula bot, we're gonna know about it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, we sent it to a forensics lab. We're to the bottom of this.

You know, when I was at the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Church history library, 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We're get to the bottom of this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we're gonna, We'll.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We'll know you're lying to me, Rebecca.

Oh, yeah?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep. Well, let's answer your question. This comes from Joseph Smith History in 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 the history of Joseph Smith. This morning about 1 o', clock, I was aroused by an English sister, Latice 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. I mean, at one in the morning.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Is when they decided that they were.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Going to go do some Christmas caroling. I. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But Joseph was clearly already asleep. I was aroused by an English sister.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 you know Christmas songs that 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, you know, it's. It's probably not going to come as a surprise that Rocking 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. 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 isn't. 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. Isn't attached to it until 1836.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So. So it's in there. It's in the 1835 hymn book.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 as a very popular Christmas. I mean, look, there's other hymns like God rest you married gentlemen, that's in something that sung. We saw three ships. That is a Christmas hymn that's being sung by people. The idea behind oh, come all you 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's. What I think is pretty interesting. On the. The premium podcast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We discussed doctor cover section 25, and we talked about the hymns and the hymn book, as Emma was called to arrange it. And we Talked about how W.W. phelps edited many of these hymns that he got that. That Emma selected from other religions, other hymnals. The way he edited Joy to the World is. It's pretty fascinating, actually. So I thought maybe I'd share. You want to?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's kind of cool.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He's going to change it to Rejoice.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Rejoice when Jesus reigns. So you go from the Jesus reigns because he was born to the premillennial idea. I can't wait till Jesus is back so Jesus can reign. So he's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He's editing the text.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Frankly, it kind of goes from being a Christmas text to being a millennial text to being a text of Zion. There's. 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. He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found. So Jesus comes, and there's not going to 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 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, 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, wonders of his love. So 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. So it, again, talking about the spreading of the gospel in preparation of the second Coming, not a statement of God is in charge of everything. Now, interestingly, I mean, we, we kind of change a little bit back to some of the more original texts by the time we get to the 1985 handbook, but a lot of that's still the same. So there you are. That with the songs. It's. It's actually pretty difficult. I couldn't really find a good rendition. I mean, you can find people playing the piano of Mortals Awake that Joseph would have heard, but not, not a good one where someone's singing it. So, you know, if anyone's listening who's, you know, a musician and wants to create a rendition of Mortals Awake and, and, and, and send it to us. But Joseph'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 boarders 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. 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 similar 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 what's very nice.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, now, Garrett, we have the email to get into the meat of our conversation. 40 minutes in. That will allow.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We've been answering questions.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, you've been, you've been doing a great job. Yeah, this is one of the best ones we've ever done.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, this is the worst one we've ever done.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So this, this email comes to us from Brandon way back in April. So. Okay, again, thank you for all the emails we receive. We don't get a chance to respond.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We literally read all of them. We literally do, but we get hundreds.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Of them every five to 10 minutes. It's, it's, it's the scene from Miracle on 34th Street. It's on my desk.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes, on my desk. And it's, you know, I mean that we got somewhere in the neighborhood of.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Like three dozen missionary emails in a day.

Yeah, it was kind of, it was fun.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So, so anyway, so just to say this email came back in April or was back in April. It was, 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. He has.

As he listened to them or you're just, you're just sending them?

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 persuadest 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, 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 it was, that it was some very sound doctrine. So this is, this idea of atheism is one that we would love to, to discuss. And so there's, I've gone through, combed through all of the, the interwebs and the Internets and all of the things.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So you've been, you've been Trying to find as much atheist rhetoric as you can.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Pretty much.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. And so there's one particular atheist who, who more calls himself an agnostic. Sometimes atheists can be strident and they can be kind of jerks.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And by sometimes, well, not always, it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Sounds like his friend Hugh here is a thoughtful.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You'll have to tell Hugh he got it. You got a gotta.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You got a shout out.

Well, we hope that you send these episodes to Hugh.

Well, there's one thing that atheists love more than anything and that's when religious podcasts give them a shout out.

Well, but some view. Some of these atheist arguments are actually asking very difficult questions and very good questions.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Very good questions given what traditional Christianity is maintaining as their theology.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so the idea. There's a couple 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 Mormondom when he was on a three hour long podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's so not ours. Ours just feels like it's three hours.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The rustling KD podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh yes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so I'd like to start with. By playing that bit and if you are on the Instagrams at all, you likely have heard it. It's been played and, and played again. But I'd like to play that here and as kind of the jumping off point for us to start our discussion.

[Alex O'Connor]

Thank you for doing this, Alex. I appreciate you. Hopefully we do this someday in person. Here's an interesting one from Deadpool. He said, alex, if you had to join one Christian denomination, which do you believe has the most consistency according to the history of the church and scripture? Oh, this is, this is where Alex would have to pick a Jersey.

[Christian Host]

Mormonism, of course.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh my gosh.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That'S amazing.

[Alex O'Connor]

We don't call it, we don't consider them Christians. Give me, give me, give me another one.

[Christian Host]

That's the interesting. That's the interesting thing is, is that they're sort of often not. I don't even know if they really like to consider themselves Christians. As, as such, I think there's a. Some really interesting. I've been learning a lot about mourners. Do you know, by the way, who the first ever US Presidential candidate to be assassinated was?

[Alex O'Connor]

He was a Mormon.

[Christian Host]

It was Joseph Smith.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Whoa.

[Alex O'Connor]

Oh, he was a candidate. Joseph Smith was running for the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, that's interesting.

[Christian Host]

He ran for president. Mormonism is a fascinating, 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 it's different idea about, like, what God is and all of this kind of stuff. And the persecution. The history of persecution of Mormons in the United States is. Is pretty amazing, too. You know, like, there's so much really interesting stuff. The Extermination Order of Missouri where, like, people were told to just kill them. You know, like, it's an unbelievable history. And of course, Joseph Smith dies in a. In a shootout in prison. Like, it's. 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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. But.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But the larger point that he's making, the larger point.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They're not Christian.

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We don't consider them Christian.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And, you know, the discussion of whether.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Or not we consider. Of course we consider ourselves Christian. We certainly don't consider ourselves credo Christians. It's almost like the Lord told Joseph.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Smith that their creeds are an abomination.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

To me, so we kind of aren't big fans on the creeds because the.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Lord said that they're an abomination.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, but.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But.

So it's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I wouldn't lead with that with your Christian friends. But.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But. So. 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 in the podcast. He's at University of North Carolina, and he's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, one of the leaders in New Testament textual histories. And, you know, 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 faith. 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. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Alex o', Connor, while an atheist in many of his arguments says a similar thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes, I'm willing to believe, I want to believe, but I can't believe because of these factors.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

And so I wanted to play another clip, a clip here of him talking to a Christian. Yes. And so, and the purpose behind both of these clips is to show that both in the case of ALEX and in 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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay, let's listen to this other clip.

[Christian Guest]

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 says Jesus and God the Father and a lot of other strange things. I'm not sure, Justin, 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.

[Bart Ehrman]

I don't know if you've studied Mormonism very much.

[Christian Guest]

Oh, I've studied a lot.

[Bart Ehrman]

There are 11 eyewitnesses. And they talk to the golden plates.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes.

[Christian Guest]

Yeah. So we're going to compare golden plates for the resurrection of Jesus?

[Bart Ehrman]

No, I'm just saying, if you're a historian.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Bart Ehrman]

And what you're doing is you're saying we're going to trust eyewitnesses.

[Christian Guest]

Okay, I'm fine with them seeing golden plates, but what does that. What does that.

[Bart Ehrman]

Four of them say they saw Moroni, give them to him. Four saw him. Some of them who actually signed affidavits.

[Christian Guest]

Half of them left the faith.

[Bart Ehrman]

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.

[Christian Guest]

Okay, well, that's still. That would only be three. But, but, but to abandon Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith is the foundational prophet.

[Bart Ehrman]

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?

[Christian Guest]

Okay.

[Bart Ehrman]

In those cases, by the way, we actually have their testimony.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay.

[Bart Ehrman]

And it's within 100 years with the New Testament. You don't have Peter's testimony or James's Testimony or the 500 or so you don't have. For. You've got Paul.

[Christian Guest]

But what we have is good enough to convince you for the New Testament eyewitnesses, you've already agreed that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This is exactly my point.

[Christian Guest]

Jesus appeared to them. I agree they claimed, but let's stick with that.

[Bart Ehrman]

But that isn't proof that it happened.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Wow, that is a great clip. I had not heard that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's great.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, because, Maroni. 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, you know, 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, like super studying it all the time.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I mean, there's a lot to get to in that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

There's a lot. There's a lot.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But the, the idea that he also is like, all right, so gold plates. So what?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Gold plates. So what? Yeah, so they showed the gold plates.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Are you comparing the gold plates to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, it's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

There's three witnesses. There's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

There's 11 people who see the plates. There's three other people who see angels. And. And again, I don't expect Bart Ehrman to defend my faith, but there's actually dozens of people who have these witnesses. We're just, we're not talking about just the three and eight witnesses. Oliver Cowdery is with Joseph Smith when he sees Jesus and Moses, 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, 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. The reason why that was so offensive to Bart Ehrman, even though he's not a Christian, is it's a historical factual lie. You want to say you don't want to believe the witnesses.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Like, oh, what difference does it make if he has gold plates?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I love how he starts with, you gotta have two or three witnesses.

Yeah.

And then Bart gives him two or three witnesses and said, well, they don't count. And what was great, especially about that too, is as. As he is quickly dismissing it and Bart is explaining, no, they actually claim to have seen.

Yeah. But then they left Joseph Smith.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That was.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's actually one of our best arguments.

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So let me get this straight. They say an angel came and appeared to him. You're saying because they no longer followed.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Joseph Smith, that proves that it's not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

True, even though they continue to say it was true even after they stopped following Joseph Smith.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

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.

It's a.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That they had an angelic experience. Now what do you want to interpret from that angelic experience? You could take that somewhere else. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Really?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. So maybe the dander meters.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so. So we've got it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We've got a real dander problem. You were supposed to make this light and easy and I would be Captain Fun Ball Garrett and just happy. La la la la la.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That clip was great though, wasn't it?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. I mean, I love the fact that, you know, every point he was right. So. 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 Ambron's works. I mean, he's a brilliant scholar and, you know, a contemplative guy. And I said, well, so what's. 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And what this, what this guy told.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Me is like, well, you know, he actually says he likes getting Latter Day Saint students. And I was like, oh, really?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Like, that seems like that'd be kind of weird.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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 than 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. 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, and so, you know, he said.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You know, one of the hardest things.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For him to do is you get these, you know, super, you know, sola 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, that there could be any differences in the manuscripts, which, you know, is the historical point you have to make if you're going to examine these manuscripts. You have to admit that this early manuscript says this and this one says something else.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

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 in the Bible. The Mormon students, like, yeah, we know all about that. There's problems. I mean, so, you know, 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 dander meter, they like dandometer.

The Dandometer I like.

I like that one.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I feel like that's a shout out to your dad as well.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, his name's Dan.

So the Dan Don, how much is.

This podcast like Dan or how much is your dander up? But so for most of the podcast, she held it below 100,000 and you really peaked over 700 here at the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

End, 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That seemed to get you more than almost anything.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, look, if someone is trying to tell you that they're best friends with someone as they're trying to sell you something, you know, like the salesman at.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The door who's like, who's like, yeah, you know, I was over talking to your good friends, the Johnsons, and they.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They said they want to buy it. Like, you mean the Johansson's? 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 tracts. I have read many of Charles and John Wesley's writings. I have studied the theology of other 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. 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 Airman 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. Yeah, well they don't count. Okay, so, 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's the only witness, Joseph Smith's 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, 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 Muhammad and it was only one witness with Joseph Smith. Wow, God is letting us know that these are folks. And what the fact. I mean again, Bart Ehrman is not a Latter day Saint and doesn't believe in our theology and doesn't believe in God, 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 Maroney 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. 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. I don't really know. There's really nowhere 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. Not spiritually. Right. Factually correct. He repeated even when Airman corrected him.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, only.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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. They saw the plates. What difference does that make? No, they. 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 Airman'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, but you know what? I'm just going to bring it up here.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, perfect.

Yeah, I just figured, you know what?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now's the time Dander meter's high. Might as well just throw a little polygamy in there. You know, let's make this a part.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

11.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Several of the women who marry Joseph Smith claim to have had miraculous spiritual experiences, including angels appearing to them. That. That causes them to practice it. And that's part of the reason why you cannot just blithely reject that doctrine and covenant. Section 132 came from God. Because you're not just reject, 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? 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 in 1887. In 1887, we had witnesses to those events still living, 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 affidavits. We don't have Paul's actual letter. We have a copy that's over a hundred 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, 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. In fact, when Cowdery is coming back into the church, one of the points he makes about how he doesn't want to be drugged 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Want to be drugged through either, basically. And, and, and you can debate whether.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

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, when he said, yeah, well, that 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. And so you know 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So the intent with those two clips.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Was to make me mad was.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, yes, always.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But 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.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so first of all, I like Alex o'. Connor. I feel like he, 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.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You're not going to like suddenly tell me that you've decided you're an atheist, are you?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Like, what a great lead up.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like, I watched three hours and I prayed about it and I didn't get.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

An answer, so I figured God wasn't there.

Yeah, the hiddenness.

Yeah.

So, 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, and how those answers leave a person wanting.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, I hope it doesn't come across that I have better answers.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You don't. But the Church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So clearly I'm not going to be giving very good answers, but I'll at least be able to point out, hey.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, we don't believe that because of, like, prophets and stuff.

Yeah. Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine Covenants, These things provide the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It is funny when you're early church historian, you're essentially a fraud. Like, I'm a fraud. Because you'll go speak places and people will, like, come and tell you, like, oh, I really felt the spirit. And you're like, yeah, I know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I was just reading Joseph Smith quotes the entire time. Like, they'll come and talk to you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like, well, your thoughts are really profound. Like, no, they're.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's doctrine covenant, section 93. I'm just telling you what Joseph taught.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like, so.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You sound like way smarter than you are.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's almost like. It's almost like you got in a.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Time machine and you went back in.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Time and you're like, I'll bet. I bet they build a highway here in next year, and there are people like, what? And then they build it like, wow.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

How could you possibly have known that?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's kind of the same thing when you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You're sharing a bunch of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young Emma Smith quotes, and.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They'Re like, man, that's really profound. I know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's the. That's the best part.

On the business side, I just quote Clayton Christensen all the time. Same, same thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, he was quoting him heavily at lunch.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And we even. We. We. We even forced at least one friend of the show to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

To not indulge in Jersey Mike's. Because she dislikes it so immensely.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So immensely.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, now, she doesn't dislike Jersey Mike's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No.

No. She hates all sandwich shops, hoagies, grinders, all of them. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, she. If anyone has any part of a.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Of a.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Of a sub sandwich, she's. She's out.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

In fairness, she brought up private equity and that. That was my opening. And then I was like, here we go. Let's do this.

All right, so thanks so much for joining us.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We're gonna try to get the dander meter down for next week. We can't just keep making me mad. I feel like you're doing it deliberately.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, I think what'll be interesting actually, is I believe that what will. I will predict the future here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay. Yes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

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.

So I'm going to be mad at the Christians. This is putting me on the wrong side of the street.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So thank you so much for joining us.

[Narrator]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot 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.