Rivers

Are you implying that Dr. Muhlestein would be intentionally lying? I don’t buy that. Dr. Muhlestein is actually very open about his own bias.

Dr. Gee expressed that he had zero interest in such a thing. Dr. Muhlestein did.

May he Rest In Peace. My condolences to his family and friends. I know he did a super long Mormon Stories interview of which I listened to part. The guy had some very strong opinions about Gee and other apologists for the Book of Abraham. The Book of Abraham has been a big interest of mine for quite some time. I recently read the chapter on the BOA from The Pearl of Greatest Price by Givens and Hauglid. It was very insightful. I really would have liked to see some kind of debate or discussion between Ritner and Kerry Muhlestein on the subject.

🎶There is no end to this song …🎶

I like this rendition.

Apologists deserve a lot credit for at least engaging with the tough issues. Even if if their defenses and arguments aren’t perfect, it’s still better than sweeping the hard questions under the rug. The best thing apologetics has done for me is help me have a well-rounded knowledge of the issues.

Don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for apologists in the church. Some of them have been very helpful to me. However I recently heard an interesting point made by Terryl Givens(I’m not whether I would label him an apologist or not). He said that when you base a testimony on an apologetic argument, that particular argument could later turn out to be incorrect. For example, you could believe an argument that Joseph Smith couldn’t have known something about Abrahamic traditions found in the Book of Abraham. This is like a God of the Gaps argument because you later learn that Joseph did have that information available. Are there ways to do apologetics better?

I find it humbling that even an apostle of Jesus Christ can be wrong about so many things. It goes to show that we all truly see through a glass darkly.

What kinds of things would you put on the positive side of the scale?

Bruce R. McConkie gave us the words to my wife’s favorite hymn:

The way I understand it, breaking the law of chastity is sex outside of marriage. Everything outside of that is a gray area.

California.

I guess you could apply the elephant analogy to just about anybody or anything. Take Donald Trump for example. People can touch him and call him all sorts of both positive and negative things. You use the analogy of “touching” Jesus. The church has been doing a campaign on how we “hear” Him. I believe the scriptures give us a clear picture on Jesus with the title Immanuel. It means “God with us.” It’s worth noting that was the title of Uchtdorf’s most recent talk. Christ is the manifestation of God on earth. If we have seen the Son, we’ve seen the Father.

Yep. You sure did.

Is there really a difference between spirits and intelligences? Joseph Smith used the two terms interchangeably.