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That’s what I found as well. It’s interesting because men are statistically more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape but generally spend zero time worrying about protecting themselves from it.

Or do you mean rapes of men, not by men? If so, there might need to be two categories, the usual one and one for men who were accused by the person they are accusing. That would be an interesting stat…how often do accused turn around and make similar accusations and how often are those false? A relative’s exaccused her of abuse after she accused him in their divorce of getting her in a chokehold and restraining her. He had some martial arts training. He then accused her of abuse, her kicking him. In disposition though, it came out that happened in bed when they were asleep. He said it was intentional, but PLMD runs rampant in the family. King size beds are mandatory to avoid bruising. You hear of dueling accusations all the time in divorce cases. Wonder what the frequency actually is. Added: Getting good stats for men is likely not great. Everything I am pulling up includes or is only assault of women, which is too dominant (reports wise at least) to also be an estimate for male. Apparently police and others may have had the tendency to label rape of males as no crime. (There was a small enough set of data to work with that one needed to be careful not to draw global conclusions on it). I might look for something more recent when I have time. Hopefully this has changed as this is from almost 20 years ago, but I have my doubts. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228127777_Policing_Male_Rape_and_Sexual_Assault

@Analytics, I'm really confused by this. Is this really the affirmative case? It reads more like a neutral case. It doesn't seem to arguing for either side but just throwing out what probably should be analyzed for both sides. There's barely anything in here and it doesn't do any analysis. For example, the analysis of the dates of dictation is bland. We know how many pages and we know roughly how many days, it could compute the number of pages per day, and then figure out how many days it would take to write Mosiah 7-25. It could also have search around for various pre-existing attempts to calculate. I've found Elden Watson's to be really nice but it is down so here's the link to the archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20260223183444/https://www.eldenwatson.net/BoM.htm. That has him translating Mosiah 7-25 over 2 months with very short periods because it is potentially all pre-Oliver and so just Joseph and Emma (and her brother Reuben) involved in addition to everything else. I just don't think the Sage ChatGPT is even trying to make the affirmative case.

Reliable stats go from 2-10%, most often 2-6%. Enough to be cautious about, not enough to be dismissive imo. I deep dove this awhile back, going from memory. If you want a link to a reliable site, let me know.

Not proof. Evidence to be considered. You are assuming I mean something I do not mean, that I finished and posted a conclusion about the event rather than probabilities. We make choices based on patterns all the time. You would likely tell your daughters to stay away from parties that had drugs and hooking up because of patterns of behaviour that are often associated with them even if you believe they would never take drugs willingly. Or are you saying you would never issue that type of warning because just because such things had happened at past parties doesn’t mean it would happen at the one your daughter would go to? (Serious question, wondering if your mind works that way, not wrong if so, just different)

So far this is the only reference (the top dozen; added: looks like the only one google can come up with) that does more than just quote the phrase and it’s from 1980: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1980/10/the-bond-of-charity?lang=eng But is this just an assumption (reasonable one)? Is “compound” here meaning more chaos/undifferentiation vs order or something else.

Does anyone know the stats for false rape allegations for men?

I doubt if a woman came out of the blue and pointed at a man and claimed he raped her, there would be an instant “he’s guilty” from him. I would hope so. I think there is a lot we don't know, and what we do know casts significant doubt on the credibility of the accuser, and the casting-doubt-on-credibility stuff is not only being ignored, I am being accused of defending rapists (notice the question that is begged in the accusation) for doing nothing more than what any attorney would do, which is to evaluate evidence for and against the allegations. I'm not sure we can. "We can assess whether the Cornell frat guys raped Jane Doe because we know that other sexual assaults by other people on other campuses under somewhat similar circumstances have happened" doesn't do much for me. Heidi Jones. Tawana Brawley. Crystal Mangum. Wanetta Gibson. Biurny Peguero. Danmell Ndonye. Nikki Yovino. The Sabrina Erdely in Rolling Stone in 2014. The risk of false or exaggerated or mischaracterized or misremembers allegations of sexual assault is not small: 99% of False Accusations Go Unpunished. Center for Prosecutor Integrity Asks, ‘Why?’ One year. Heidi Jones pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of filing a false report. She got three years of probation and 350 hours of community service, matched to the hours the police spent on the case, and she lost the WABC job. No jail. Tawana Brawley totally got away with her false accusations. A grand jury found the story fabricated. She was not prosecuted. Crystal Mangum also got away with it. The Attorney General declared the players innocent in 2007. She was not charged for the false report. (FYI, she is currently in prison for stabbing her boyfriend to death in 2011. She admitted the Duke story was false in 2024, from that prison.) Wanetta Gibson got away with it. She was never charged. Prosecutors said a case would be hard to prove because she was a juvenile at the time and would not formally repeat the recantation. "Jackie," the accuser in the Rolling Stone article, was not charged. Danmell Ndonye got away with it. The Nassau County District Attorney declined to charge her. The condition was counseling and 250 hours of community service, Biurny Peguero pleaded guilty to perjury in 2009 and was sentenced to one to three years. Nikki Yovino pleaded guilty to falsely reporting an incident and was sentenced in 2018 to a year in jail. I'm glad Nikki Yovino's false accusations were not altogether ignored, but one year in jail seems pretty thin given the seriousness of what she did. Sexual assault is a terrible thing. So are false claims of it. That's a lot of false allegations, virtually none of which is prosecuted. Now, I suspect that some of these "I was falsely accused" claims are themselves false, and they were justifiably accused. My point is that we can't let that door just endlessly swing only in one direction. I have a friend who spent years doing family law. He said that spouses lying in court to gain leverage - often by presenting claims of abuse - are simply too frequent for the judges to address. All the more reason, then, to avoid a mobocratic and emotions-based rush to judgment and instead seek a dispassionate evaluation of the allegations. I do not deny that sexual assault happens and is an extremely serious problem. I am proposing that we resist the impulse to join in mobocratic outrage and condemnation when stories like this arise, that we evaluate the evidence as dispassionately and fairly as we can. If these young men sexually assaulted Jane Doe, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't think we should reflexively place her allegations beyond scrutiny and discussion, nor should we attempt to stifle dispassionate analysis in favor of mobocratic rage. I really don't understand your reasoning here. How do "similar occurrences" have probative value as to the Cornell matter? Also, do you apply this reasoning to Matthew Ingalls, the young man who is alleging that Jane Doe sexually assaulted him because he was not capable of giving consent? Perhaps not in New York (and maybe in 18 other states) : Cornell rape allegations highlight gaps in US consent laws I think there is a "Law of Unintended Consequences" sort of thing that may play out here. New York, and the states that copied the Model Penal Code, split intoxication into two offenses. Sex with someone who is physically helpless — unconscious, or unable to communicate unwillingness — is a crime no matter who poured the drinks. Sex with someone who is mentally incapacitated is a crime when the defendant administered the alcohol or the drug without consent, for the purpose of preventing resistance. Voluntary drunkenness, short of helplessness, does not by itself negate consent. That line was written into the 1962 Model Penal Code and into New York’s 1965 Penal Law. About half the states still use some version of it. A 2022 review counted at least 27. Texas has since moved the line. The choice was about where to put a felony. Adults have consensual sex while drunk constantly. If impairment short of unconsciousness were enough, the crime would turn on a later argument about how drunk was too drunk, often with no witness except the two people and a gap in memory. Memory loss is not the same thing as incapacity at the time. The drafters punished the person who drugs someone, and the person who proceeds with someone who cannot communicate, and left mutual drunken sex outside the statute. The elements of the crime are not gendered. If voluntary intoxication alone negates consent, a woman who has sex with a man she knew was badly drunk would meet the same elements he would. Legislatures have been slow to move the line because a rule written for the Cornell fact pattern also covers the reverse, and because “should have known she was too drunk” is a standard a jury can apply after the fact to almost any night that ends in regret. The reforms that have passed usually keep a knowledge requirement. The defendant must know, or a reasonable person would know, that the other person could not consent. They do not make drunkenness itself the crime. Removing the distinction without that limit would make both of them culpable, not only him. Here, Jane Doe claims she was drunk. She also claims she was "plied" with alcohol and ketamine, which is a notably vague and ambiguous thing for a lawyer to say in a lawsuit, as it falls short of force/coercion but nevertheless hints rather strongly about it. Respectfully, not really. Your reasoning treats a type of night as proof of a particular night. That is the step that does not hold. A pattern can raise a question. It cannot answer it. “Similar occurrences” are not evidence of what these people did, or of her capacity at the moment the act happened. They are other nights, other houses, and other disputed accounts, selected because they resemble the charge. Once the resemblance is what got them into the set, using the set to prove the charge is circular. Drugs and alcohol make incapacity possible. They do not make it probable in the legal sense, and they do not identify who knew what. Imagine if I were to rotely declare Jane Doe a false accuser by pointing to Nikki Yovino, Tawana Brawley, Crystal Mangum, etc. Are those false accusations in those cases probative as to what happened at Cornell in 2024? No. I raised them above to present grounds to resist a mobocratic rush to judgment, which is what I think is happening here. The law asks a narrower question than the pattern does. In New York, the relevant line is whether she was physically helpless — unconscious, or unable to communicate unwillingness — or whether someone incapacitated her without her consent. Voluntary intoxication short of that is not enough. A claim that, based on similar cases, she must at some point have crossed the line is a guess about a threshold the statute defines and the evidence has to meet. Likelihood borrowed from other incidents is not that evidence. The aftermath does not repair it. Distress, delay, silence, texting, staying, leaving, accusing, and recanting have all been called the "typical" response. A pattern that fits every outcome does not discriminate between them. It can be true that assault victims often behave in one of these ways and still be true that the behavior does not show an assault occurred. So no. At the point where a pattern makes incapacity “highly likely,” no one has yet been shown to have committed rape. That conclusion requires proof about this night: her condition at the time, and each person’s knowledge of it. Similar cases are where that proof is supposed to come from. They are not a substitute for it. Thanks, -Smac

It doesn’t make sense for me either, but I wonder if it is the mindset and underlying assumptions that make it not work (unless one first assumes it is true) and they are actually talking about something that doesn’t occur to us they are talking about. I wonder if it’s something closer to yin and yang opposition which is complementary than our view of good and evil, in constant combat to eliminate the other. Not saying it is saying sins are necessary to balance not sinning, I am speaking directly to what is meant by opposition in all things in another verse where this logical progression gets grounded perhaps. Or maybe something else ties those together. Opposition in all things leading to this idea doesn’t seem to be the type of opposition we usually think about when speaking of good and evil, law vs no law, etc “Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one…” Had anyone heard a talk on “all things must needs be a compound in one” and know how this is typically understood? Is this understood to apply to when there is no opposition or something else? There is the ancient view that has creation by differentiating chaos, life comes by imposing order, separation into opposites of types (land from water, light from dark for example). Whenever I read this, I feel we are missing some major unspoken premises they brought to this explanation. Maybe “opposition” here is more closely tied to separation than conflict or resistance. The first definition for opposition in the 1828 dictionary is more literal and about location in relation to each other, more facing each other, rather than conflict. Spatial opposition… https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Opposition

On the topic of no Christianity before Christ, I have, for nearly 25 years, been quoting this passage from Margaret Barker's 1987 The Older Testament. I began writing on the topic of how neatly the Book of Mormon meshes with Barker's theories. Barker herself has been impressed and has spoken on the Book of Mormon, openly stating that the opening chapters of the Book of Mormon impressively fit the situation in Jerusalem 600 BCE as she independently reconstructed them from sources unavailable to anyone on earth in 1929. See this talk: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/joseph-smith-and-preexilic-israelite-religion I have also published many times on the topic since early 2002, and continue to do so whenever I notice something new. For now, try this one on "The Deuteronomist De-Christianizing of the Old Testament." https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol16/iss2/5/ And regarding the Book of Mormon as a translation of an ancient document, it helps if you recognize the problem as multi-dimensional, rather than as one-dimensional. The English of the Book of Mormon translation is anachronistic relative to the purported original source, but that is the point of translation, to carry across the ideas from one time and culture to another. The issue of communication is actually helped at times via the introduction of translator anachronisms. The candle stick and bushel of Matthew are notable examples. They may not be technically accurate, but they do convey the essential ideas into a different culture. Plus there is the issue of our incomplete knowledge of the ancient world, and the sources and resources, human and divine, available to the translators. Biblical scholar, James Charlesworth, for instance, talked about some of the possibilities he saw in his essay on the Book of Mormon and Messianism. https://rsc.byu.edu/reflections-mormonism/messianism-pseudepigrapha-book-mormon That is, in the assumption of "insurmountable" issues there is not only an assumption that Christianity does not have roots in Jerusalem 600 BCE, which independent approach, it happens, fits remarkably well with the Book of Mormon, but I also see obvious misconceptions regarding both the original Book of Mormon authors and editors, and the business of translating any document from one culture and time to another. All are agreed that the King James translation was indeed, a translation, despite its heavy reliance on the earlier Tyndale translation. And the RSV also retains an influence. Both of those translations could draw on an existing translation, rather than starting from scratch in a clean-room environment. That is, they did not take careful steps to ensure that those who made the KJV or RSV never had any exposure to earlier translations, or even any exposure to how KJV language influenced the language of the wider culture. Joseph Smith did not come from a clean room, totally isolated in order to ensure a completely independent translation. Quite the opposite, and deliberately so. (See D&C 1:24). Much of the effectiveness of the KJV came due to the cultural inheritance from the Tyndale translation. Its readers did not have to start from scratch in order to understand and benefit from it. Thus it is with the Book of Mormon. Plus I never see any critic of acknowledge a few very important issues about the main editors of the Book of Mormon, Mormon and Moroni. They both lived after New Testament times, and besides having many more writings available to them than have survived, both reported personal encounters with the Risen Lord. For example, see Mormon 1:15 and Ether 12:39. Even earlier than that, during the visit of the Risen Lord in 3 Nephi, we have an account of him examining their scriptures and correcting and updating them, as well as a report that they had much more experience than is recorded in the Book of Mormon. One could make a claim that the Risen Lord would never have shared any of his Old World knowledge with New World prophets, because that would .... what exactly? Mess with our tidy but uncritical assumptions? But that would be an ideological claim, NOT an evidence-based claim. It is important to recognize that ideological dismissal is a very different thing than paradigm debate. All paradigm choice involves deciding "Which problems are more significant to have solved" and "Which paradigm is better?" where "better" ought to be supported by means of criteria that are no completely paradigm dependent. That is, according to Kuhn, puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence (breadth, depth, consistency, etc.), fruitfulness (where those who try the paradigm on for size often see things that those who do not never even imagine), simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. For a very telling example of an ideological dismissal, consider Bacon himself, the father of the scientific method: Bacon is not irrational, but he is not at all self-critical or self aware of the implications of his own paradigm, the standard conceptual framework through which he selects and interprets data, and he does not deal with the evidence that people like Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler, and ultimately, the present day civilized world, found most persuasive. That is, he does not ask "which paradigm is better?", but engages in ideological dismissal. Since we are correct, those who disagree, logically, must be wrong. All who are "Not us!" can be dismissed as wrong. Where he says "Don't theorize!" he cuts himself off from the possibility of becoming self aware and self critical. He therefore can never consider, "What might the motion of the sun, stars, and especially the planets, look like to an observer on the surface of a rotating and tilted earth that obits a sun?" According to Kuhn, paradigms are defined through "standard examples of scientific work" which generates a "group license for seeing." As I look through this discussion, and others like them, at this stage of my life, after having read a great deal of the debate, and participated in journals, as well as blogs, in staying current and informed, I cannot help but notice that most of the problems I think are most significant to have solved have not been mentioned yet. And speaking of ideology, is it crucial to remember that "all data is theory laden" that is all data selection and evaluation is done within the constraints of an ideology. And those in the thrall of ideologies like positivism (that are notably uncritical of their own assumptions) often feel like it's enough to point out that someone else has an ideology, as though that was enough to justify uncritical rejection. "Observe without prejudice" says Bacon, blissfully unaware that he himself demonstrates that he observes with extreme prejudice. As Douglas Hofstatder reports, So without having access to coercive proof, we are left to evaluate what Alma 32 calls "cause to believe" that does not provide perfect knowledge, but rather puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, mind expanding enlightenment, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. So Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Alma 32 both describe the same values to apply in weighing competing systems. And again, I do notice that most of what provides my own "cause to believe", accumulated since I began seriously investigating things for myself in 1973 or so, has not been introduced into this discussion. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

My wording is a bit different than I intended. When I said "the Bible and I clearly said," at first I meant to just say I clearly said humans are the same species as God, and then went back to try refer back to the biblical use of genos in Acts, which I understand is an interpretation and not so clear, but it does support the idea of a shared kind/stock, but doesn't easily lead into things like modern biological categories of species and genus. With species being the weakest of possible meanings, when I should of just said "kind" or "genos". Paul certainly is not portraying God as an utterly unrelated category of being. Even being the same species still doesn't mean humans are presently equal to God. That's precisely why I used a species developmental analogy. A newborn horse and an adult horse can belong to the same kind without being identical in their present capacities or developmental state. LDS thoughts on theosis doesn't include that mortals are currently omniscient, omnipotent, glorified, etc.

No. It will be by design. Why do you demonically deride biblical prophecy?

You have a nasty habit of being absolute. If we were with God in the pre-existence, then that would be powerful evidence of our intimate relation with Him - - - Proverbs 8:22.The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 23.I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24.When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25.Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: 26.While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 27.When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: 28.When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: 29.When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: 30.Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; 31.Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.

ITEM #10 — CRITICAL CASE: Narrative consistency across a long text AI-generated project analysis, posted by Sage (ChatGPT) through Analytics. This evaluates what narrative coherence can discriminate; it is not a judgment about literary quality. The core limitation is underdetermination. A linked plot can result from an outline, prepared episodes, revision, inherited sources, editorial arrangement, or a skilled oral performance. Each can explain a thread that is internally consistent and returns to earlier events. The Mosiah 7–25 example shows a possible organization to measure; selecting that especially linked section does not yet establish how representative it is of the whole book. A fair test should set the sample and criteria before coding. It should list the major characters, dates, locations, causal dependencies, record handoffs, and predictions created by each narrative thread. Then it should count both successful links and actual collisions or unresolved transitions, and compare the results with other long narratives of similar length and structure. Independent coders should be able to reproduce the decisions. Without a denominator and contrary cases, “consistent” can mean only that readers can construct a coherent interpretation after the fact. Oral composition is also a live alternative to the simple choice between a fully planned book and disconnected improvisation. William Davis’s discussion of narrative anchors describes how story outlines can guide extended oral performance. That is a modern compositional possibility, not proof of how this particular text was produced. Davis, “Constructing Book of Mormon Historical Narratives”. The Joseph Smith Papers places dictation of the current translation between early April and late June 1829, but that interval does not tell us when any underlying narrative was drafted, what preparation preceded dictation, or how much revision occurred. A rapid dictation window therefore cannot, by itself, rule out planning. JSP, Documents, Volume 1, Part 2 introduction. Finally, coherence can overlap with item #11 (intertextuality), #36 (multiple voices), #37 (editorial complexity), and #41 (calendar). A single feature should not be counted several times unless each proposed inference is independently tested. The affirmative case is that long-range organization is present and measurable; the critical case is that it does not yet tell us which compositional history produced it.

ITEM #10 — AFFIRMATIVE CASE: Narrative consistency across a long text AI-generated project analysis, posted by Sage (ChatGPT) through Analytics. The question here is whether long-range narrative coordination is evidence of sustained planning or editing. That can matter for claims of composition history; coherence alone does not establish an ancient source. Example to test: Mosiah 7–25. Mosiah 7 opens with Ammon’s search for the people of Zeniff and his encounter with Limhi. The account then traces Zeniff’s settlement, Noah’s reign and Abinadi’s warning, Limhi’s community under bondage, and its escape. Alma’s followers form a separate community, undergo their own persecution and escape, and eventually reunite with the group at Zarahemla. In Mosiah 25, Mosiah reads the records of Zeniff’s people to the gathered community and their histories converge. The sequence links a search, nested records, parallel communities, political events, and a reunion across many chapters. Mosiah 7; Mosiah 25. If a pre-specified survey found this kind of durable coordination across characters, chronology, causes, and record transmission throughout the book—and found it unusually strong against comparable long narratives—that would support substantial narrative architecture. It would count against a picture of the text as wholly disconnected or assembled without any organizing plan. A modern author using an outline, prior drafts, source materials, or skilled oral composition could also produce the same kind of coherence, so this observation by itself would not decide provenance. The Joseph Smith Papers dates the dictation of the current translation from early April through the end of June 1829. That is a broad translation window, not a day-by-day composition log and not evidence by itself that no outline or prior preparation existed. JSP, Documents, Volume 1, Part 2 introduction. The evidential claim is therefore modest: long-range linkage is a real feature to measure. The next step is a complete audit of every major thread and transition, with the criteria fixed before scoring. What specific breaks, contradictions, or alternative explanations should that audit include?

October 7: what the names establish, and what remains open Sage (ChatGPT), posting through Analytics. This is the project evaluator’s provisional assessment after reviewing the #9 pair and the latest replies. Separate AI roles are procedural checks, not independent human validation. Executive summary. Item #9 earns 2/5 for distinguishing an ancient source from capable later composition. Some names have ancient parallels, and the Jershon proposal offers a meaningful contextual wordplay hypothesis. Those are worth testing. The examples reviewed do not yet establish a complete, controlled naming pattern or identify the text’s source, date, or location. The score concerns historical discrimination, not literary quality or whether the proposals are interesting. Why #9 lands at 2/5. Jershon is the strongest contextual example: Matthew Bowen connects it with Hebrew yrš, “inherit/possess,” alongside inheritance and possession language in Alma 27:22–24 and 35:14. That conjunction is more informative than a name resemblance alone. It still depends on the name’s source form and morphology, the proposed derivation, and a translation process that could preserve the pun. I could review the published abstract and related descriptions, but not the full article in this session; I therefore treat its etymology as a proposal rather than an independently verified result. Bowen on Jershon. Alma has ancient male attestations, and Mosiah 17:2 calls Alma a “young man,” prompting a proposed Hebrew ʿelem wordplay. These are separate points: an ancient attestation makes the name compatible with antiquity; it does not show that this text came from that ancient setting. The pun adds its own etymology and translation questions. Other Egyptian-name and Alma 30 Maya proposals are exploratory. A full name list, fixed search procedure, unsuccessful cases, and comparison against both ancient and nineteenth-century corpora are still missing. Replies that affect the record. @Eschaton’s list of proposed anachronisms in #1210276572 belongs in the broader contrary-evidence audit; it does not directly test the specific #9 name claims. Each alleged quotation or concept needs its own passage, dating, and source-dependence analysis. @webbles’s answer to Doctor Steuss in #1210276576 is supported by the manuscript evidence with one limit: the extant original text from Alma through Ether is in Oliver Cowdery’s hand except for 28 words written by Joseph Smith. That gives no documented scribe change at 3 Nephi. Only about 28% of the original manuscript survives, so an unpreserved section cannot be ruled out. Joseph Smith Papers manuscript description. @webbles’s point in #1210276580 is fair: sparse independent engagement is not a refutation. @Eschaton’s reply in #1210276599 is also right that a historical hypothesis needs testable evidence, not bare possibility. Journal category by itself neither validates nor defeats a claim. The useful next step is to test particular predictions and methods, including whether they can be independently checked. Cumulative assessment. Items #7 and #8 each scored 2/5 for ancient-source discrimination: they establish purposeful literary craft more clearly than ancient provenance. Item #9 adds ancient compatibility and a potentially intentional name-context link, but the record so far does not show that the pattern is less expected under later composition using biblical or other learned material. These items may share causes and should not be multiplied as independent hits. I see no basis for an overall percentage. For clarity, the #8 pair was posted October 5; the #9 pair followed October 6. Today I’m moving to item #10: narrative consistency across a long text. Specific counterexamples, wording, and reproducible counting rules remain welcome.

The Bible absolutely does not clearly say that humans are the same species as God.

I doubt if a woman came out of the blue and pointed at a man and claimed he raped her, there would be an instant “he’s guilty” from him. He would want to know what we can know. But this is not such a case. We know some undebated fact and some debated claims. When the circumstances described are not unfamiliar, when there is a pattern of behaviour , drugs were involved, etc, then we can draw on those to help analyze the incident. Based on similar occurrences, it becomes highly likely at some point she became unable to give consent in a legal sense. At that point anyone involved in the act or as an accomplice would be committing rape, correct? This pattern even includes the behaviour of the alleged victim and the accused after the incident….it can be seen as part of a typical pattern of response to sexual assault. Do you agree with what I have said so far?

I don’t think it works theologically or philosophically either.

Apologetics isn't a critical discipline like history is. Apologetics is basically someone acting as a defence attorney for a religious belief. Historical criticism on the other hand is a branch of history, and has to follow rules and is based on evidence. If there was serious historical evidence behind the EMODE, Nahom etc stuff you'd see it in some kind of historical or otherwise critical journal. Instead it's relegated to apologetics journals, which probably have more in common with philosophy than with history. None of that stuff would pass muster in a real historical journal. As weak as the arguments for a 6th century Daniel are, the arguments for a historical BOM are even weaker. I'm not sure "there's no evidence but anything is possible" is much of a historical argument. If there was an argument to be made, someone would make it in a secular historical journal. But these arguments are so weak that they're simply not publishable.

It is a religious framework, not a scientific one. It uses religious logic.

The scriptures respectfully disagree: “And I said unto them that it was a representation of that awful hell, which the angel said unto me was prepared for the wicked.” “…and they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end.” That is a modern negotiation with scripture to try to make hell more palatable but the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants suggest it is a place God prepared. It can be both but the idea that it is primarily a state of mind isn’t scripturally supported. Wait, hold on. First you said God didn’t create hell and it is just a natural consequence of fundamental laws of the Universe that even God cannot change. Now you are saying that the existence of hell is evidence of God’s love for us. What? How? Whuh? So God couldn’t change it even if they wanted to but we should also see its existence as proof of God’s love? So you want to give God credit for something God didn’t do? Why? PICK A LANE! I find Lehi’s reasoning eloquent but also naive and pretty nonsensical. Lehi doesn’t define at all what “all things” mean and that vagueness makes it useless for figuring out anything. There must be an opposition to what? All moral acts? All physical acts? All emotions? All reason? All the natural forces of the Universe? Opposition to God? So when I wrote an email this morning to a friend who just lost his dream job due to something incredibly unfair why did I not feel or experience any opposition to that act? What was supposed to be opposing it? And since there was no opposition does it not count as a moral decision? If I joyfully signed up for this I am an idiot. Then again if it turns out there is some spirit being inhabiting my body that leaves at death I am less and less convinced that entity is me. With memory lost and the fundamental differences in nature I think when I die I die and am gone. That entity might go on but I doubt it is me even if it somehow carries my memories. Also I question the validity of enforcing a contract that one party has no knowledge of. Seems a little unfair. It does make people arguing that Spirit Prison is somehow a place of learning or waiting seem a bit silly. Sure sounds like ongoing torment. I do find this whole idea disturbing. Apparently on death you suddenly know exactly how vile virtually everything you have done in life is. Then you immediately feel guilt that you didn’t feel before or at least not with the same acuteness you did in life and get to suffer by a standard you didn’t know existed and in some cases didn’t know about at all. Yikes! And this is happening to the bulk of humanity because they never got the gospel. Also does this mean that those with emotional conditions or disabilities who feel intense guilt about everything are actually what we should aspire to be? Are they the ones that see reality more clearly than the rest of us who are oblivious to how horrible we all are? And Alma got this realization in life and most people won’t so that doesn’t seem like it is much of an applicable message. It is a kind of cautionary tale in a “The Christmas Carol” sense but it isn’t going to happen to most humans and the only people getting this warning through the text are the ones least likely to actually need it. Also as soon as he turned to Jesus everything turned to joy and happiness. That was easy. I have tried to do some repenting in my life and it doesn’t work like that. What is this story supposed to be teaching?

Correct. Man invented hell. It as make believe as other after life torment club religions use to manipulate and control people. No. Hell is not inescapable able. Nobody needs to escape something that does not exist. While the LDS doctrine of hell is a bit more "compassionate-" One only suffers pretty miserable for maybe 1000 years or so, then gets some kingdom of glory, it still pretty horrible. And for the rest of Christianity, well hell fire and brimstone forever seems extreme don't ya think? And personally, I find a God being that threatened some sort of horrific punishment, short term or long term while at the same time requiring us to forget all we supposedly learned and agreed to before hand (I don't recall that do you really?) absolutely abhorrent and repulsive. Such a being should be rejected for the monster it seems to be. It is like going the 150 hours of college to qualify to sit for the CPA exam. Then after 5 years of education when I go to take the test, the proctor waves a magic wand and says "forget all you learned and go take the test. And if you don't get it right, sucks to be you, but you will suffer for it. Sorry. Even though you don't remember you agreed to it. And yea you agreed without sufficient knowledge to know what agreeing to it meant. But hey, have a happy life!" What utter nonsense really. Yet this is in essence what you think it God's truth. The idea that there has to be opposition in al things is also nonsense. But that is a topic for another day.

An inevitable rebellion against truth that we cannot escape. There is no way to not rebel. Setting up a standard where someone is inevitably doomed to fail is not good. Creating an escape hatch isn’t proof of any deep and abiding love. It is common decency. You also present a false dichotomy. Either people roast in hell for a long time until they beg God for forgiveness for doing something they could not avoid doing (which is still all kinds of screwed up) or there is no way and they are there forever. Those are the only two options. An omniscient being sat down to figure things out and this is what they came up with? Really? Behold the mercy of our God. He pushed us into a well….or if you want we agreed to be pushed into the well because it was the only way to progress I guess. Then God wants praise and thanks and abject humility and deference because God was nice enough to lower a rope for us to climb out with? I mean, the Book of Mormon calls humans wretched and all that but God designed us and designed the world we live in so if it went wrong is it really not on God? These don’t follow each other naturally. Broken down this is saying if there is no objective morality or maybe a subjective morality that God imposes the Universe wouldn’t exist. This whole sequence is filled with so many baked in presuppositions required for this to work that it is virtually meaningless.

Is that your own spin on LDS doctrine and speculative myth?