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Critics claim that when Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith in his room on September 21, 1823 that his siblings who were sleeping in the same room should have woken up. They claim that this is evidence that Joseph's story is false.
The web site states,
"Now the big question is when Moroni came and spoke with Joseph in the night of September 21, 1823, why didn't this wake up Joseph's brothers who were sleeping in the very same room with him?"
Let's start with the basics. Genesis 2꞉21 tells us,
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
What if we were to state,
"Now the big question is that when the Lord God removed one of Adam's ribs, why didn't he wake up?"
For anyone who believes that for God nothing is impossible, the question is simply ridiculous. Why, then, must we insist that Joseph's brother's should have been awakened? Why is it unreasonable to assume that God simply kept them asleep? Recall that Joseph was useless the next day on the farm. He was exhausted and totally drained from the experience. The family was very very poor, and they could not afford to take a day off of work. Had the other boys woken up with Joseph every time, they too would have been useless, and the farm would have suffered as a result. The animals wouldn't be fed, the cows wouldn't be milked, the crops wouldn't have been tended too. That would have created some severe problems for an already poverty stricken family.
Van Wagoner and Walker argue that it is possible Joseph saw Moroni in vision through his seer stone. In response, Mark Ashurst-McGee noted:
"This argument falls short theoretically. For those who do not believe in Joseph's visions, there was nothing to wake anyone anyway. For those who do believe in Joseph's visions, the argument sounds theologically naive. Could not Moroni manifest himself to Joseph only? None of Paul's companions on the road to Damascus saw the resurrected Christ. A vision needs only to hold the attention of the visionary. Joseph's brothers can sleep in peace." (Ashurst-McGee, pg. 293).
The site continues to drill down in detail by noting that "[t]here has never been anything recorded by Joseph Smith that the all-powerful creator used his powers to keep ten people from waking up during the night of September 21, 1823."
Why should Joseph Smith have recorded this mundane fact? Even the writer of the paragraph acknowledges that most people don't even think about it. Why should Joseph Smith have thought to mention it? .
The site claims that there "no precedent for our Heavenly Father using his divine powers to keep people from waking up during spectacular events."
This is simply incorrect. Just a few examples from the Bible:
We also have this from the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 24꞉19),
And in the morning the Lord caused a deep sleep to come upon the Lamanites, yea, and all their task-masters were in a profound sleep.
The assertion that there is "no precedent" for using "divine power" to keep people from waking up is simply a bad argument. The owners of MormonThink appear to be quite unfamiliar with the Bible or the Book of Mormon.
Now the site gets to the real point of this entire argument. The claim is presented that, "If God would actually use his powers to alter people's consciousness then how could anyone really ever trust their senses?" In other words, the entire argument is simply a setup to prove that you can't trust visions. Joseph's experience with Moroni is then characterized as "dream or a hallucination," or even a "inspired fantasy."
This entire hypothesis is based on their premature conclusion that there is no way Joseph's brothers could have slept through the experience.
Some Church artwork does indeed portray Joseph as being along—this is simply an artistic interpretation. The August 2009 Ensign, page 54, however, shows a painting of Joseph sitting up in his bed looking at Moroni. Next to Joseph one can clearly see three of his siblings in the same bed...sound asleep. Even the official LDS web site has a painting that shows one of Joseph's siblings asleep in bed during Moroni's visit. See: The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
The entire argument is not only absurd, but it is clearly refuted by the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and artwork presented by the Church itself.
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