quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Smith's father and older brother were Masons.
Of this I do now know. It's quite possibly true. But again neither of them were educated. And you'd think that if a group of mysterious masons all came together to create this elaborate hoax that Joseph Smith would be the face of you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started. As it is the only individual people who are mentioned in the creation of the book are,
Joseph Smith + family, Emma Hale, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and the Whitmer brothers.
And the more complex we make this hoax the more you have to consider why it was done in the first place. Certainly not for financial gain.
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posted
I don't think it's much of a stretch for someone to copy the style of the Book of Mormon. I do think that by the time he was...say, 24, Joseph Smith could have done it. Of course, I also think Joseph Smith was a lot more intelligent than people (even church members) give him credit for.
Keep in mind that in those days, even the uneducated, when they could write, wrote very formally-- read some letters from some enlisted men in the Civil War, and you will note that they can be quite stilted. Similar to the way that we think the Bible is written.
IMO, if you're going to argue about whether or not Joseph wrote it, stay away from the 'uneducated-farm-boy' argument. He wasn't unintelligent. No one, not even his detractors, ever called him stupid. Just unschooled.
I believe Joseph translated the Book of Mormon the way he said he did. I think he COULD have written it-- but I don't think it was in his nature to do so.
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quote:Joseph Smith to the best of my knowledge did not associate with the masons until he moved to Illinois which was decades after the BOM was published.
I don't think your knowledge is correct then.
quote:Freemasonry provides a point of entry into this very complex story. As it had been in Vermont, Masonic fraternity was a dominant feature of the cultural landscape in Joseph Smith's Ontario County. . . . The dense network of lodges and chapters helps explain the Masonic symbolism that runs through the story of the discovery of the Golden Plates. Most obviously, the story of their discovery in a stone vault on a hilltop echoed the Enoch myth of Royal Arch Freemasonry, in which the prophet Enoch, instructed by a vision, preserved the Masonic mysteries by carving them on a golden plate that he placed in an arched stone vault marked with pillars, to be rediscovered by Solomon. In the years to come the prophet Enoch would play a central role in Smith's emerging cosmology. Smith's stories of his discoveries got more elaborate with time, and in June 1829 he promised Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris that they would see not only the plates but other marvelous artifacts: the Urim and Thummim attached to a priestly breastplate, the 'sword of Laban,' and 'miraculous directors.' Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith later described three or four small pillars holding up the plates. All of these artifacts had Masonic analogues. . . . Smith's sources for these Masonic symbols were close at hand. Most obviously, Oliver Cowdery would have been a source, given that his father and brother were Royal Arch initiates; one Palmyra resident remembered Oliver Cowdery as 'no church member and a Mason.' . . . A comment by Lucy Mack Smith in her manuscript written in the 1840s, protesting that the family did not abandon all household labor to try 'to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth-saying,' suggests a familiarity with Masonic manuals: the 'faculty of Abrac' was among the supposed Masonic mysteries (Refiner's Fire, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 157-158).
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Moreover, I presented that just as a possibility. Joseph Smith was deeply involved in occult societies (e.g. magic treasure finders) for most of his early life, any of which could have constructed the BOM.
I honestly don't care. I'm jsut pointing out that there are tons of more options than you seem to be allowing...which, ultimately, is sort of the point of the thread.
I don't know this author or book you are quoting, and I can't simply accept his sweeping statements as factual.
The whole vault in the hill is nonsense, Smith found the plates in a box, not a vault, and there we no pillars to speak of in anyone's accounts that I have read.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: And the more complex we make this hoax the more you have to consider why it was done in the first place. Certainly not for financial gain.
Power and control?
Isn't one of the things that all religions do (real or not) is control people?
And by 'control' I mean give them rules/guidelines to live by that you are required to follow to be a part of the religion. That certainly would give the leaders and founders of said religion a lot of power over people.
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A couple of things I an interested enough to interject then you can go back to having fun with the BOM.
Strider, of course certain parts of Scripture are going to be more right, useful, comprehensible and so forth than other parts. Remember is is not one cohesive book written by a single author, but a collection of writings, by many authors, for many different purposes, in many different styles, from many different cultures, over the course of many different centuries. They are writings that record some of humanity's idea of their relationship with the Divine. A relationship that, it is to be hoped, matures and grows in understanding.
Another more complicated idea. I think we tend to think of God as something separate from the natural world. I don't think this is true - or at least not complete. I believe that God is incorporated in the natural world. In us, in "nature". The questions of "did God do that or was it natural law?" or "did a person do that or was it God?" are, for me, framed in a way that leads further from what I think is true.
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quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates? Wouldn't propegating such a story weaken his position as a prophet?
Constructing an excuse that is consistent with God's actions in the Bible (denying things from his prophets because of their actions, e.g. Moses and Caanan) for not having the original miracle/magic plates would be a very good reason, to me.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I don't think it's much of a stretch for someone to copy the style of the Book of Mormon. I do think that by the time he was...say, 24, Joseph Smith could have done it. Of course, I also think Joseph Smith was a lot more intelligent than people (even church members) give him credit for.
Keep in mind that in those days, even the uneducated, when they could write, wrote very formally-- read some letters from some enlisted men in the Civil War, and you will note that they can be quite stilted. Similar to the way that we think the Bible is written.
IMO, if you're going to argue about whether or not Joseph wrote it, stay away from the 'uneducated-farm-boy' argument. He wasn't unintelligent. No one, not even his detractors, ever called him stupid. Just unschooled.
I believe Joseph translated the Book of Mormon the way he said he did. I think he COULD have written it-- but I don't think it was in his nature to do so.
I would agree that he was not stupid, his potential for intelligence was quite formidable in my opinion, but I still don't think the 21 year old Joseph Smith could have written it. It's why the initial charges against him were that he plagerized the document, nobody believed HE could have written it.
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quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
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quote:But why make the actual book itself complex, rather then the details of the story intricate and historically accurate?
Well, if you accept the premise that it's a hoax, it's easy to understand why historical accuracy couldn't've been a goal.
quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates?
It gives you a good excuse for not having the plates to show people -- and also humanizes you, helping to smooth over any errors you may commit now and in the future by pointing out that even prophets make mistakes. This makes you a sympathetic figure and gives you some leeway to screw up.
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quote:Why make up the story of God punishing Joseph Smith for not obeying him in regards to the original manuscript and taking away the plates? Wouldn't propegating such a story weaken his position as a prophet?
Constructing an excuse that is consistent with God's actions in the Bible (denying things from his prophets because of their actions, e.g. Moses and Caanan) for not having the original miracle/magic plates would be a very good reason, to me.
Except that he supposedly had the plates, had a partial translation, pestered God into letting a friend borrow the manuscript who then lost it, the plates were taken away, Joseph Smith is rebuked by God, gets the plates back, starts over again.
He could have easily said, "God wants the plates back for now because they are not safe." I don't know of many religious leaders who fabricate stories that make them look bad, do you?
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The plates weren't stolen. The first part of the translation-- 116 pages of manuscript-- was. We don't actually know if they were stolen. We just know that Martin Harris had them, and came back to Joseph saying they were gone.
EDIT: Nevermind. I misread Tom's post.
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quote:Ok. Any time somebody answers a criticism with "It depends on what you mean by exist", my bullshit detectors go off. I'm not interested in such a discussion. If you want to go off and have Deeply Meaningful Debates On What We Mean By 'Exists', go right ahead; just be aware that you've defined yourself right out of any sort of claim to being interesting. I just don't care, neither does Dawkins, and neither does Dawkins' audience. Nor, I would suggest, do the vast majority of theists. Those of us who haven't overdosed on philosophy classes have a pretty good idea what we mean by 'exists'. If you want to join our debates, you'll have to agree to not quibbling about these really trivial issues. Otherwise, fine, go over and play in your own little sandbox, but you can't play with us.
Meh. All I see here is someone saying "I don't understand it, therefore it sucks." You don't have to "overdose" on philosophy classes to know that the question of "being" is one of the deepest and richest questions the western tradition has ever tackled. And guess what? Some of the answers offered aren't shackled to "common sense."
If you're not interested in the question, that's fine. Some are. And when they see someone that expressly refuses to discuss what the nature of God's existence might be, and yet deny that wholly undefined, unquestioned existence, they rightfully sneer and role their eyes in the same way you just did.
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quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
I've seen many attempts to harmonize the two things, but have never seen more then a very superficial similarity. I think proponents of that position stretch the truth far too much in order to be taken seriously.
edit:
Tom:
quote:Well, if you accept the premise that it's a hoax, it's easy to understand why historical accuracy couldn't've been a goal.
quote:Originally posted by Andrew W: Well you mistake me, I didn't ever call him extremist - though he certainly is, if you take that to mean saying things like raising children religious is tantamount to child abuse - or in his words "labelling children" I'm sure many would consider any religious figure extremist if they suggested that raising children atheist or in a different religion was that.
You're completely changing what he actually said. He suggested that the *labelling* of children was child abuse, not the actual raising up of children (although obviously he would not be a fan of that either).
quote: What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. I find it very odd that in our civilization we're quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim of child that is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn't dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. And yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child.
That is hardly an extremist position. Heck, if you separate the rhetoric (child abuse) from the idea, this is pretty much TomDavidson's position earlier in the thread. This goes back to my original point. Most atheists would not have an issue with the actual position, just the actual term. This is a problem with *how* he phrases his argument, not *what* he is saying. Thus, he cannot be extremist unless most atheists are extremist, which kinda renders the term useless.
quote:"I saw a picture of this woman," Dawkins says. "She had one of the most stupid faces I've ever seen. She actually said, 'Christians should be allowed to work for British Airways."'
He continues, face reddening: "Well, of course, Christians are sodding well allowed to work for British Airways. It's got nothing to do with it. She is clearly too stupid to see the difference between somebody who wears a cross and somebody who is a Christian."
A) *shrug* He's admitted that he lost his temper on this one.
quote: I should also say something about the BA stewardess whom I unfortunately insulted. As various people have said, this was not my finest hour. Just occasionally, even the most even-tempered person can be goaded beyond endurance, and I was goaded by this woman. She had succeeded in bringing one of the world's great airlines almost to its knees by her religiously-inspired refusal to abide by a simple dress code of the kind which is implicit in the very idea of an airline uniform. If you don't like wearing a uniform I entirely sympathize, but then don't join one of the very few professions that requires you to wear a uniform. BA also didn't cover themselves with glory. They allowed the essentially frivolous row over this ridiculous woman to escalate to a point where they obviously were going to have to back down. They eventually did back down, but not soon enough.
... She actually said, 'Christians should be allowed to work for British Airways'."
This latter statement by her was part of what had provoked my temper. She seemed to think that anybody who does NOT wear a cross can't be a Christian.
Of course I regret losing my temper, as anybody must. Losing it in the presence of a reporter was even worse. But that is what temper means: you temporarily lose control.
quote: And to pretend he is anything but deliberately provocative would be silly after programs like "The Root of All Evil?" an obviously polemical and non-literal title to his attack on religion, yet, if a Catholic Cardinal wrote a book of the same name about Atheism no-one would hesitate to call him 'extreme' or 'hardline' or whatever.
I never said he was not deliberately provocative. Quite clearly he is, but that does not make him an "extremist." That quite neatly fits into the *how* of what he says than the *what* he says.
If a very polite man promotes eugenics or young earth creationism, that is extremist. If someone swears and yells at me that glucose is a sugar, thats not extremist, its just impolite. Extremism is characterised by ideology and actions, not politness (or lack thereof).
Of course you've neatly made a very strange point. If a Catholic priest made that point, it would not be extremist because it would be pretty mainstream for religion. Heck, even the supposedly secular President can say "No one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted" link or "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." link
It would not be extremist for religion because it *would* be mainstream.
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Since we're dipping into the temple ordinances a bit, please be reminded that the Cards have asked us not to discuss specifics here.
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quote:you'd think they would have figured prominantly in the church he eventually started
Didn't the masons feature very prominently in the early LDS and doesn't Masonic imagery and ritual persist in the religion to this day?
Yes, particularly in the temple. I, of course, have no direct knowledge, but a formerly temple-going friend of mine has confirmed that the web sites that catalog the many Masonic elements of temple ordinances are accurate. Out of respect for the hosts, I will not provide links or details here.
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I thought the story (and goodness knows I don't know much about the origins of LDS) was that the friend's wife took the translation and said that he should retranslate that section so that they could compare what he had already written with what he would write the next time to see if they matched. And then, Joseph Smith claimed that God wouldnt' let him translate that section again.
If so, the motive is pretty darn obvious to me.
1) Avoid the comparison.
2) Establish that any sort of checking would result in God stepping in to prevent it.
And, as I said, the Old Testament is full of stories of prophets being rebuked by God. So a story involving that would likely increase, rather than decrease in credibility.
Likewise, one of the techniques that con men use is to make small mistakes or tell stories in which they are shown to be humiliated. It, if done correctly, plays on people's sympathies and leads people to trust one more.
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Again, the point isn't so much to specifically criticize the beginnings of LDS, but rather to demostrate that there are actually potentially valid explanations that aren't even being considered.
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quote:I've seen many attempts to harmonize the two things, but have never seen more then a very superficial similarity. I think proponents of that position stretch the truth far too much in order to be taken seriously.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Perhaps you haven't seen the same material I have, but the similarities are astonishing in some *very* key elements.
Brigham Young described the temple endowment ceremony as follows:
quote:"Let me give you the definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."
Again, I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens."
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Mr S: According to Joseph Smith and Martin Harris (the man who lost the manuscript) he took the manuscript home and showed it to his family and close friends as Smith had instructed him. He then showed the manuscript to some men that had doubted the authenticity of the manuscript so as to persuade them that it was real. The manuscript disappeared, and Martin Harris returned empty handed. Joseph Smith stated that God told him the manuscript had been stolen specifically so that alterations could be made by the men who stole it. The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
I can easily see how this might set off somebody's BS alarms, but there it is.
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So why did you present that story as being somehow proof that Joseph Smith must have been a conduit for God?
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quote:I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens.
:shrug:
It's hardly endemic to the Masons, either. A variation of these three things exist in rituals all over the world. (Think of the coins that the Greek dead presented to Charon before they could cross to the other side for judgment)
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Scott, I don't think that Matt was saying that having words, signs, and tokens were the commonalities, but rather the specific words, signs and tokens.
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I don't think I'm familiar with that usage of the word pedantic. I can't get a meaning out of what you just said. Could you explain how you meant it?
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quote:I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that a person who is well versed in Masonic rituals will already know a fair portion of these "key words, signs, and tokens.
:shrug:
It's hardly endemic to the Masons, either. A variation of these three things exist in rituals all over the world. (Think of the coins that the Greek dead presented to Charon before they could cross to the other side for judgment)
I mean the specific words, signs and tokens, not just the concepts of words, signs and tokens.
If you Google "masonic secret handshakes," the first few hits are to sites that describing some of the Masonic ceremonies. These sites DO NOT make any reference to LDS temple ceremonies, though my understanding is that several of these Masonic elements do appear in these ceremonies in identical or virtually-identical form.
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Ignoring the schtick about Masonic rituals in the Mormon temple ceremonies. It seems strange to have masons create the Book of Mormon which does not dabble in ANY of these supposed similarities.
Mr S: I already admitted that I could see how it appears suspect but the only people who know the truth of the matter are Joseph Smith and Martin Harris. Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible. I mentioned the whole situation as indicators that Joseph Smith was translating plates and not creating some elaborate hoax as not many hoaxers are willing to paint themselves in a negative light as often as Joseph Smith was. His revelations frequently contain reproofs directed at him along with everything else. It's not enough to make you think, "Why does God even stick with this guy?" but it is enough to make you wonder, why a person is willing to let so many people read criticisms of his person if he is trying to dupe them all.
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quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
No, see, to me, their justifications make no sense at all.
Changing stolen pages (assuming they have some sort of advanced forgery techniques so no one could tell the difference) to say that he can't write the same thing twice is almost infantile as is being unable to counter it.
All you need to do is show that you can write the same thing twice. It would be incredibly easy to do. Write a bunch of stuff, then have someone select a part to take away without you knowing which part they are going to take, then retranslate that part so that they can be compared.
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I was showing off my knowledge that there are other societies that use keys, signs, and tokens to navigate through rituals, especially as concerning rituals involving the passage of the dead into the next life.
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quote:It seems strange to have masons create the Book of Mormon which does not dabble in ANY of these supposed similarities.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you explain what you mean by dabbling in the supposed similarities?
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quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
Is it really that plausible a justification? How easily forged was Smith's handwriting?
quote:it is enough to make you wonder, why a person is willing to let so many people read criticisms of his person if he is trying to dupe them all.
Have you never tried to con someone? If you know they don't necessarily think much of you, your credibility is improved enormously if you incorporate your flaws into your narrative.
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quote:Okay, if it was really that easy, there would never have been a stink about deleting threads.
That doesn't make any sense.
When we write threads, we're not translating, with the aid of God, from holy golden plates. We're creating the content at that moment, which is very hard to replicate.
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That's sort of the whole point. If he was translating, the two texts would match up very well. If he wasn't, it would be very difficult for him to write the same or very similarly.
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A debate over the literary quality of the BOM is going to be futile, surely? There's juuuust enough personal taste involved to create an unresolvable dispute.
What's always struck me about the BOM is the obviously 19th century American character of it. Search for the word "liberty" in the BOM. The good guys are consistently concerned with what comes down to a defense of personal property and rights. This kind of perspective just didn't exist until modern Europe.
See in particular Alma 54 and Alma 51. If that's not social contract theory pulled straight out of American common sense, than I don't know what is.
Annnd then 2 Nephi 5:21-24. I know that's a touchy verse to bring up, and I'm not doing so to call mormons racist. let's make that clear. What I want to point out here is that the villains the BOM fit perfectly with 19th century negative perceptions of black people.
It all screams "written in the 19th century by an American."
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quote:And to pretend he is anything but deliberately provocative would be silly after programs like "The Root of All Evil?" an obviously polemical and non-literal title to his attack on religion
just an fyi, Dawkins has been very vocal about the fact that he was strongly against that title for his documentary. And that the network chose it and didn't give him a say in it.
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quote:Again, by that logic, I am "agnostic" on the issue of unicorns and Santa Claus -- as are you. That definition of "agnostic" is functionally useless, for all that it's the only "truly logical position."
Not so much, since Santa Claus and Unicorns both make specific testable claims. And I would be agnostic on the possibility of there having been a horse-like creature with a horn on its head, either in the past or even on another planet. Hell I can't be entirely sure there aren't any hiding away in the deepest forest. This attitude is not functionally useless, it is the best one for proper scientific and philosophical investigation. If you write off as 'untrue' things that are merely 'in our estimation highly unlikely' without testing them, then you're going to get nowhere. If I said that an electron fired at a two slit apparatus can go through both and interfere with itself, yet when we observed its motion it clearly only goes through one of the slits, and you just said - 'look the rest of scientific understanding makes that highly unlikely' which is true, and then didn't investigate any further you would be wrong which is exactly the same problem people run into when they say - 'look at how the world works, it doesn't seem likely that a God was involved' without actually rigorously investigating it (and hopefully finding out that eventually investigation will not provide enough answers and philosophy is your only hope) then they're doing exactly the same thing.
It's like aliens - anyone with a firm position, a belief, in the existence or non-existence of aliens holds a faith position. Taking 'logical' to mean, 'has logical and verifiable reasons for a belief', the logical position on the existence of aliens, at this point, is agnosticism. It's exactly the same thing with God. Unless of course you have some very damning evidence for the lack of one.
quote:We do not generally reverse the burden of proof for claims about the natural world. Rather, we let those unchecked claims of personal experience represent just one data point in favor of the possibility. If a friend tells you that he saw an apple fall, you believe him; if a friend tells you that he saw an apple leap off the ground and fly into the distance, you cross-check that with your other experiences involving gravity before deciding to believe.
Would you say that the only logical position, when a friend tells you that he saw an apple fly into the sky, is to not be sure one way or another? What if he told you that he saw your long-dead mother? Or if he told you that he was abducted by aliens? What if he said he saw an apple fly into the sky at the moment he was thinking of your long-dead mother, and that this proved the existence of ghosts?
There is no way to obtain direct experience of these items, and no way to testably refute them. Does that mean that our default assumption should be to consider them true, out of deference to our friend -- or should we instead (and still charitably) conclude that our friend may be being honest about his experiences while still drawing the wrong conclusions from them?
Well I'd say that we should be very careful before dismissing things out of hand, just because of existing prejudices. If I trusted my friend I would absolutely believe them. Why would I not? No-one I know is in the habit of making up stories about apples. Of course I wouldn't either jump to any attitude changing beliefs about the truth about gravity - I'd be most likely waiting for the kicker of "and it all happened because someone tied a very thin string around it". If none came I'd be puzzled, but I'd not neccessarily disbelieve them. Hell, for all I know, the collision of two Higg's Bosons does cause a reversal of gravity that radiates in a narrow cone in exactly the way to make an apple nearby shoot off. There's no reason to believe that that's impossible.
Being stuck with our assumptions has often held back the progress of science. When people first had tentative theories about the movement of continental plates, it was assumed that the earth's crust was stable and motionless, and people didn't give the idea the time of day, or bother to look at the evidence fairly.
You bring in talk of proof. But you're right, him seeing my dead mother throw an apple from a distance doesn't prove the existence of ghosts, to me, at least. But that's because proof requires testing - and there were no tests going on there. I've never said that we should ever "consider [experiences of others] true, out of deference to our friend" - because that would not be logical. However the logical default position about anything that you do not have evidence for or against, should be agnosticism.
For example if a friend says to me "I have discovered that hyperspatial linear charge trails wrap around each other to interfere constructively and destructively so as to cause the existence of the dimensions we experience or have discovered", there's two things for me to think.
1. I have some evidence that he hasn't discovered that, I know him, I know he's no good at maths, and is 8, and prefers to draw, I've been around him a lot and know he hasn't been running off working on this, so can probably safely assume he's lying
2. I know jack shot about what causes the existence of our dimensions and so am absolutely agnostic as to the existence of interfering charge trails. And if you think that I can assume it's wrong because he's probably made it up, I can't really, because he could easily have read it somewhere and merely be lying about the fact that he himself discovered it.
And to hop off on a tiny tangent - I think this is something that Dawkins has done, he's been so caught up with #1 that he rides roughshod over #2 and especially (to get the analogy right) because of #1.5 which is the claim my friend made that his discovery can make him invisible. He can't. He repeatedly fails to, often and in public. His only claim. (If anyone gets that reference I'll actually send them ten pounds and respect them for life) Dawkins has seen all sorts of spiritualists do this, in all sorts of situations, and this blinds him to the logical agnosticism that a scientific rationalist should take. Since so many people do claim this and that, much of which is wrong, it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling that the very concept of religion is a silly one, when really one should either adopt a 'wait and see' attitude, or man-up and take on atheism as a faith position.
If your friend claims it happened, and you trust him, then you should 100% believe that he experienced it, 50% believe that something happened that looked exactly like that (the other 50% of course being that they've had a schizoid episode) and 0% believe that you can draw any conclusions about why the apple flew upwards, unless you have some evidence.
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quote:The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
I would think the value of having the complete word of God would far outweigh the value of omitting a portion for fear of a possible false accusation.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Er... I don't see the evidences you see in Alma 54 or Alma 51. Social contract what?
Contrast what's said in 2 Nephi 5:21-24 and what said by Nephi (same prophet, same general era) in 2 Nephi 26:33. Also, the rest of the Book of Mormon in regards to race. (SPOILER: The white folks loose because they become more wicked than the black folks)
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:However the logical default position about anything that you do not have evidence for or against, should be agnosticism.
Using this definition of "agnosticism," can you explain to me the functional difference between this and disbelief?
I am saying that, unless you have evidence for something, the default position is to not believe it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I am trying to respond to specific things that BB and Scott are saying. I don't think that this is the place to bring up random accusations against LDS.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:You're completely changing what he actually said. He suggested that the *labelling* of children was child abuse, not the actual raising up of children (although obviously he would not be a fan of that either).
I used that very word in my own sentence. And it's not possible to bring up a child as a member of a religion (which requires labelling them as a member of that religion) without labelling them. That was what he was getting at. He thinks of it as unfairly pushing children into things.
Extremism is not my main beef with the moron, innacuracy, bad presentation and lack of understanding about what he is talking about, along with a total ignoring of atheists who don't think like him, and constant hectoring paranoid drivel, lapped up by many as "speaking truth to power!", would be a brief summary of it. Extremism however, is also, not an absolute. It is relative, and relative to how people think, and act, now. It would be extremist to promote armed gay resistance against homophobia in Iran (no matter whether or not it'd be a good thing), but would you call the French Resistance extremist?
He is suggesting that it is a form of child abuse (a very serious allegation) to merely call children "christian children" or "muslim children", and many people have gone on to say "yeah! no-one talks about capitalist children!". Well irregardless of the validity of his point (very invalid, if you ask me, but you didn't) it's a position that is extremely different from what most people believe, and levels a very serious accusation against a large proportion of the world. If that's not extremist, then I guess you're only thinking about violent extremism, which he doesn't do.
quote: My nearest approach to stridency was my account of God as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”. I don’t know how well I succeeded, but my intention was closer to humorous broadside than shrill polemic. Restaurant critics are notoriously scathing, but are seldom dismissed as shrill or intolerant. A restaurant might seem a trivial target compared to God. But restaurateurs and chefs have feelings to hurt and livelihoods to lose, whereas “blasphemy is a victimless crime”.
Yes, it is a real pity that he left out the actually strident words that immediately followed his cherry picked sentence. And a greater pity that he does come closer to shrill polemic than humorous broadside. What's humorous or broadside-y about labelling someone's God lots of nasty things, without considering whether in the event of his existence, this would be true? Everyone can say things from their side of the border and criticise the other .. sorry gtg, I'll finish this later
Posts: 83 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:If he was translating, the two texts would match up very well. If he wasn't, it would be very difficult for him to write the same or very similarly.
Er...I think this has already been covered. And you already raised objections to the explanation.
:shrug:
Neither proves anything about the Book of Mormon, either way. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. There's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Er...I think this has already been covered. And you already raised objections to the explanation.
I don't see it. I'm not sure if you are following this conversation very well Scott. It seems to me like you might be distracted.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:He is suggesting that it is a form of child abuse (a very serious allegation) to merely call children "christian children" or "muslim children", and many people have gone on to say "yeah! no-one talks about capitalist children!".
Is it child abuse to raise a racist? I think it's clear that this is the sort of "abuse" that Dawkins means.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." link
Wow, I'd never heard that. That is seriously messed up.
To be fair to the senior Bush, there is considerable dispute about whether or not he actually did say this. Drawing from memory here, but as I recall it, the only witness is a reporter whose veracity is not utterly unchallenged.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Their justification for acting as they did makes sense and is certainly plausible.
No, see, to me, their justifications make no sense at all.
Changing stolen pages (assuming they have some sort of advanced forgery techniques so no one could tell the difference) to say that he can't write the same thing twice is almost infantile as is being unable to counter it.
All you need to do is show that you can write the same thing twice. It would be incredibly easy to do. Write a bunch of stuff, then have someone select a part to take away without you knowing which part they are going to take, then retranslate that part so that they can be compared.
Joseph Smith did send a set of characters and a translation to the best linguistic scholars he knew of in New York City.
There are a handful of characters that have been copied down from the gold plates that anyone can observe. But nobody can really translate a dead language anyway, not without a rosetta stone.
Several of Joseph Smith's scribes to make mention of the fact that he never asked where he left off when he took a break from translating, he always just ended and without queue started translating again even if it was mid sentance.
Nitpick point: The forgers would have to forge Martin Harris' handwriting not Joseph Smith's. Also how hard would it be for them to simply say, here is an exact copy of the text, we have hidden the original text we stole because we don't want it tampered with. Then raise a big stink about the difference that THEY made? Why allow for a scandal even an fake one to attend the publication of the most important book published in over a thousand years? Even to this day people often claim the Book of Mormon was plagerized from a book written around the same time. It was only recently that this was proven to be absolutely lacking in truth, yet I still hear people repeat that mistake.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Joseph Smith stated that God told him the manuscript had been stolen specifically so that alterations could be made by the men who stole it. The point being that were he to write again they would then present their altered copy and claim Smith could not write the same thing twice. Joseph Smith instead started translating from a later part of the plates and never revisited the stuff that had already been written.
There's the explanation for why the plates weren't retranslated.
Here's your objection:
quote:I've got to admit, that sounds like an incredibly suspect justification to me.
It seems remarkably easy to counter.
quote:It seems to me like you might be distracted.
I'm going on a weekend trip with my wife for our tenth anniversary. I'm exceptionally giddy about it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of afreemen; and thus was the bdivision among them, for the freemen had sworn or ccovenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.
Covenant social theory!
And about the Alma verse, I actually think I'd prefer not to discuss it much. Last time I brought it up on hatrack, I was nearly banned.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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