The Place Which Was Called Nahom

[Olavarria]

I think the grand tapestry of the mormon foundation is one that shows clearly and plainly that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of anything like the God that the LDS teaches. Why mince words? Here's why I think the Book of Mormon is wrong.

Ok so your going to tell us why the BoM is wrong. Ok, lets see.

I don't buy Richard Lyman Bushman's idea that God, assuming God exists, would use treasure-seeking and peepstone looking for hire to train up a man to be his sole authorized representative to the world, and prophet, seer, and revelator.

So, because Bushman is "wrong" ergo the BoM is ahistorical? OK. Isnt it possible that Heavenly Father is more open and accepting than you give HIm credit for? Isnt it possible that He would actually work with people based on what they know, or think they know, as opposed to what you or I think they should know? And treasure has what to do with Lehi and Moroni?

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would command a man to take additional wives behind his own wife's back, nor to take the wives of other men still living, nor to promise a woman exaltation for her and her family if she would go along with him in this, nor to tell a young woman that an angel would kill him if he didn't take her as his wife, and all the rest of it.

OK, fine. If that is what you expect then so be it. But the questian for me is not whether or not I "believe" that is what Heavenly Father would do but rather "what actually happend?" As for "Emma not knowing", I dont think is totally clear what she knew or when she knew it. It's pretty much an uncontested fact that she chose the Partridge sisters and the Lawrence sisters to be Joseph's wives, even going so far as to allow them to live under her roof, only too shortly kick them out there after. But when her son Joe 3 asked her if Joseph ever had plural wives she side stepped the questian by saying "not to my knowledge". What did Emma know and when did she know it? The only fool proof source for that answer is Emma herself, and sadly she was never completly honest about that. And polygamy has what to do with Lehi and Moroni?

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would have his sole authorized representative and mouthpiece, and prophet on earth, lie to the world to cover up this practice (the secretly-practiced polygamy) and print declarations to the world which contained untruths designed to mask or hide this practice, nor to stand idly by as others printed or proclaimed such things in his name.

I believe that Heavenly Father would allow that. The Prophet had to protect his people, Huan's MIll will do that to ya. And polygamy deniels have what to do with Lehi and Moroni?

I don't believe that the Book of Abraham is an inspired document. I believe that Joseph Smith's followers presented him with the papyri and expected something of him that he could not honestly deliver, so he made something up and gave them what they wanted, and he used it to develop his (or others' in his inner circle) doctrines for the church he'd founded. I do believe that Joseph told people he could translate the egyptian from the papyrus, and that he clearly could not, and that the whole book is a complete and utter fraud.

Ive started another thread that provides people of that position to debate the matter, but the BoA has what to do with Lehi and Moroni?

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit.

Which members of the Church? Me, ok that may be true. But how about taking stuff written by Gee, Rhodes, Petersen and Nibley, the professionals and START SHOWING US WHY IT IS WHAT YOU SAY IT IS. Again, BOA "apologetics" have what to do with Lehi and Moroni?

Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

cliches, cliches. Show us.

I believe that Joseph Smith was not an honest man, he was not a moral man, he was not a Godly man, he was not authorized by any God who may exist to be his sole mouthpiece and representative on earth. And this is the same Joseph Smith who first produced, either alone or with others, the Book of Mormon. To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. This isn't my own logic, so don't even go there. This is Gordon B. Hinckley's logic. In this I do agree with Pres. Hinckley.

Ah hA!!! So your problem is not with the BoM but with its translator. Your problem is not with whether a 1st temple era Jew named Lehi took his family to the new world, started a religious culture, had descendants that were visited by the ressurected Christ and had the record of this lineage buried in the earth. Your problem is with Joseph Smith. I believe clarity is better than agreement. So Im just being clear, you have nothing on the BoM. Your problem is with Joseph Smith.

I believe that the church has revealed its lack of inspiration from the beginning. It cannot, or should not, be disputed that the church's leaders from the beginning taught something like what we now call the Hemispheric model. Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle.

So what? Joseph Smith didnt write the BoM . He was an uneducated farmboy, a well digger, who was a mere reader of the BoM. He was just as free to speculate about the geography as you or I are. I recommend that your actually read Sorenson's Mormon's Map. Its clear that the BoM itself does not support a hemispheric view; it all occured in an area about 200 sq miles. If you read An Ancient American Setting for the BOM; yes, cover to cover youll see that the BoM fits nicely within preclassic mesoamerica. The nephites abondon their cities at the same time the pre-classic cities in chiapas were abandoned, volcanism causes a hiccup in population growth some time during the 1st centuary, both BoM people and Meso's start using cement at the same time, make calendar prophesies that center on 400 year intervals and practice a form of warefare that prefers capture or slaughter. I really dont give a rip about Joseph's views on geography. Then questian for me is how could he write a hemispheric romance and accidently describe a mesoamerican one? Answer: he didnt. Then again, what do geographical speculations have to do with Lehi and Moroni?

Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part.

Ah, so now he believes the events actually took place.

Else why was Zelph found at the site of his death in battle between the Nephites and Lamanites in Illinois? And why was this Zelph known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains.

Now it's all LGT, Mesoamerica, etc. At the very least this shows the lack of inspiration on the part of not just the early prophets, seers, and revelators, but in fact pretty much them all down to the modern time.

Ah es, Zelph. If you read this apologetic drivel you might learn something.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.ph...jbms&id=202

Speaking of lack of inspiration, these are the same prophets, seers, and revelators who have never discovered from God the fact that the arm of flesh has revealed, that there was no global flood of Noah as described in Genesis. Our vaunted prophets, seers, and revelators of God, who receive (as it is supposed) their marching orders directly from the great Jehovah who stands at the helm of the LDS church, still suppose and teach to this very day that nothing died on Earth until Adam fell a few thousand years ago. They still teach that the global flood of Noah was a baptism of the earth by immersion, just as they teach we must be baptised. This flood didn't happen, however, and their God, whom they represent on Earth as (as they claim) his sole authorized representatives and mouthpieces on earth, his prophets, seers, and revelators, have never so much as been given a heads up by their God that they're spouting for doctrines the mythologies of their forefathers, mingled with scriptures.

You're obviosly not aware that a diversity of opinion exists on these issues, EVEN AMONG THE BRETHEREN. Again, what do interpretations on Genesis have to do with Lehi and Moroni?

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

The questian is, will you post on this thread, using facts and not melodrama?

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=23343

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces

Tiny pieces that have all been spit bak at the anti community who refuses to acknowledge or even read the rebuttals. Thena again, I should probably start believing China doesnt exist given that mandarin texts to this day refer to Pandas, a member of the racoon family, as "bear cats" and dolphins as "sea piglets".

www.farms@byu.edu

in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

Ah yes, Sethbag is the rational and intellectually honest one here. How else could people like us see the same data he sees and come to the opposite conclusion. The same "tapestry" and "fingers" motif could be used against you bud. But I wont because we apologists try to base our arguments on facts and not rhetorical cuteness.

[Smith]

In summary, my testimony of the Book of Mormon is of a sufficient depth that I can look at things like The Flood, and questions about polygamy and about Joseph Smith, and realize that I there are things that I don’t know, that may at this point in time be unknowable, that will explain those things. However, the Book of Mormon is true, it is of God, and I therefore am able to put these questions in abeyance an move forward.

My best to you,

Steve

SolarPowered steve,

(I like that name! I wonder why?)

That was an excellent post. Much of what you wrote I can identify with and a lot I can't but that makes no difference. The thing I wanted to add here is that I too have had significant spiritual experiences that I cannot deny and that I find too personal to share in a forum like this. I don't know if this is of any value to Sethbag but I will add my voice to yours of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and especially the teachings it contains especially in that it is far beyond anything a few uncouth yokels could produce. Thanks for sharing that!

[charity]

her amun, this is the best catch I have seen. Woo hoo!

sethbag said: "To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. "

Then sethbag says, "Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part."

And her amun caught him. You can't believe both, sethbag. So which is it?

[Sethbag]

From my perspective, by contrast, NHM is merely one of an entire rather extensive web of evidences supporting the Book of Mormon. And, moreover, I've never seen a plausible comprehensive counterexplanation for all the data relating to the book. So, for me, belief in the book's claims is easier to maintain than an intellectually honest disbelief would be to achieve. [emphasis added]

Here is an example of what I was alluding to. Am I wrong? Is Dr. Peterson not alluding to disbelief, in light of the "entire rather extensive web of evidence supporting the Book of Mormon", being somewhat forced, and intellectually dishonest? Is that not part of his point?

[Smith]

Is that not part of his point?

That your belief is intellectually dishonest? I think so, but are you not also claiming the same of him? So what is the point?

[Log]

Dear Sethbag: Dan merely said that, knowing what he knows, it is easier for him to believe in the historicity and divine provenance of the Book of Mormon than it is for him to disbelieve it.

[Sethbag]

Yeah, you got me. Want me to do my whole Korihor thing now?

Give me a break. I don't think that Joseph Smith really believed the whole Book of Mormon thing. Yes, I said "Joseph clearly believed" blah blah blah. You caught me.

Joseph Smith "believed" that the story as narrated in the Book of Mormon referred to the geography of at least certain parts of North America. Joseph Smith "believed" that the story of the Book of Mormon could plausibly include a white Lamanite dying in battle right there in Illinois. That's not the same thing as Joseph Smith believing in the Book of Mormon. Joseph believed that he could tell this tale about Zelph the white Lamanite and put it into a Book of Mormon context in the area they were in at the time, and that it would be believable to those who were with him.

----------------------------------------

SolarPowered/Steve: I appreciate your post. I'm not sure we're really all that different in our experiences and beliefs, only that I reached a tipping point where I was no longer willing to put my disbelief in certain things on the shelf, when there were obvious answers right there for the taking. I got tired of kicking against the pricks of reality. When the prophets, seers, and revelators don't seem to know anything more than anyone else about most things, it sounds to me like there's a very good reason for that, and that reason is that they are pretty much anyone else. LDS apologetics has done more to turn "prophet, seer, and revelator" into some kind of synonym for "just your average, normal person with their own opinions on things, however wrong they might be, and no special insight on practically anything all, because God apparently sees fit not to reveal much of anything to them at this time" than any anti-mormon or critic ever could.

Steve, one more thought. When you say things like how could such a great church with caring, helpful people and whatnot exist if it were created on a fraud. Well, to that I would answer that there are lots of great churches filled with helpful and caring people, that LDS people must admit are based on a fraud. Just look at the JWs. To us outsiders they're strange and bizarre, but to themselves, in their own strong internal faith communities, they're friendly, helpful, caring, etc. toward each other just like LDS are. If you look around at all these other churches out there, you realize there are tons of them out there that are good and helpful to their members in various ways. This is what happens when you put well-intending, loving people together in a society and motivate them to care for and be helpful to each other. But that doesn't mean they're "true" in the sense LDS say the LDS church is "true".

----------------------------------------------------

Her Amun: you kept asking what some given thing I mentioned in my post above had anything to do with Lehi and Moroni. The short answer is: everything. The slightly longer version is that we know absolutely nothing about Lehi and Moroni except what we have from Joseph Smith. When you can show me the excavations with Lehi and Moroni evidence and artifacts and such, referring clearly to the Lehi and Moroni of the Book of Mormon, identified as such and corroborated by good evidence and whatnot, then we can talk about Lehi and Moroni unconnected to Joseph Smith. But so long as all the information we have about Lehi and Moroni comes through Joseph Smith, the credibility of Joseph Smith has everything to do with whether or not it's like Lehi and Moroni ever even existed. If Joseph Smith can be seen not to be credible, and to have invented other scripture, and made up doctrines, and acted out of character from how a true prophet of God would act, then there's no good reason to take his word for it on the Book of Mormon either.

And yes, I've seen the LDS apologetics on all sorts of Book of Mormon criticisms, and I regard most of it as very unconvincing and contrived. I agree a very small number of apologetic responses effectively defang certain very specific claims of some critics, but in the vast majority of other cases, I don't think they do.

At any rate, as I've said in the past, the whole NHM/Nahom connection is interesting, and I agree that it is evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon. I also see the rest of the context in which the Book of Mormon came out to demonstrate fairly convincingly, at least to those who aren't already steeped in the belief system and needing for it to be true, that Joseph Smith was simply not credible as a prophet of anything like the God the LDS church believes in. And that pretty much sinks the credibility of the Book of Mormon, in my estimation.

[Sethbag]

Dear Sethbag: Dan merely said that, knowing what he knows, it is easier for him to believe in the historicity and divine provenance of the Book of Mormon than it is for him to disbelieve it.

Come on. If I said "Given the overwhelming evidence against Joseph Smith's having been a true prophet of God, and having made up other books of LDS scripture, I would have to be a delusional, brain-washed, blinded nincompoop to keep believing it.", would not people be justified in saying that, in a roundabout way, I was actually implying that the people who actually do believe it were delusional, brain-washed, blinded nincompoops?

[Log]

You'll note that Dan said nothing like that. He emphasized multiple times that this was "from my perspective... I've never seen a plausible comprehensive counterexplanation... So, for me..."

[The Dude]

I also think Dan was just speaking for himself when he spoke of intellectual honesty/dishonesty.

There are, however, good examples of LDS who imply or state outright that the NHM site is proof that the BoM is authentic. As I have pointed out in this thread, Charity thinks critics are intellectually dishonest in their assessment of BoM archaeology. (Although, if you press her, you will see that she doesn't really believe God would give us such evidence -- one must wonder if she suggests intellectual dishonesty merely to mock and inflame the critics.)

An even better example was Bill Hamblin's classic NHM thread. According to him, the odds of Joseph "guessing" the consonants N-H-M are so improbable that critics must be intellectually dishonest if they still bet Joseph got these three letters by chance.

[Bill Hamblin]

An even better example was Bill Hamblin's classic NHM thread. According to him, the odds of Joseph "guessing" the consonants N-H-M are so improbable that critics must be intellectually dishonest if they still bet Joseph got these three letters by chance.

Did I say that? Funny, I don't recall making that claim. I have never believed that and I don't believe it now. Perhaps you can refresh my memory where I made this statement.

[Daniel Peterson]

Here is an example of what I was alluding to. Am I wrong? Is Dr. Peterson not alluding to disbelief, in light of the "entire rather extensive web of evidence supporting the Book of Mormon", being somewhat forced, and intellectually dishonest? Is that not part of his point?

Feel free to address me directly. I haven't yet been euthanized, and I'm still conscious. I can speak for myself.

However, the Dude and Lognormal understand me correctly.

And I can say that with considerable authority. As the saying goes, there is nobody on the face of the planet who is in a better position than I am to know what I believe. I'm the world's foremost expert on that subject.*

* I remain obstinately unpersuaded by Tal Bachman's apparent conviction that he is.

[Bill Hamblin]

As the saying goes, there is nobody on the face of the planet who is in a better position than I am to know what I believe. I'm the world's foremost expert on that subject.*

* I remain obstinately unpersuaded by Tal Bachman's apparent conviction that he is.

I'm sorry, Dan. There are many, many people here--let alone on RFM and Shades' board--who know what you believe far better than you do. Just ask them.

[Mormon Vader]

In the future if we are involved in a discussion with someone, and we find out they haven't read the source material that supports an argument and are still attempting to refute the argument, we should say we were "jaybeared."

[Christian]

QUOTE(Christian @ Apr 6 2007, 12:08 AM) *

Is the methodolgy behind the NHM argument better than the tomb of jesus methodology?

Yes. They're not even really comparable.

QUOTE(Christian @ Apr 6 2007, 12:08 AM) *

Can you say that NHM is a "slam dunk"

I don't say that it's a "slam dunk." But it's really quite good. And it's part of a manifold cumulative case (that critics, of course, need not be familiar with prior to their dismissal of it).

Thanks for your perspective.

Anyone else familiar with both arguments?

From what dabbling I've done in both, I find the "manifold cumulative" evidences, methodologies, and biased assumptions are all quite comparable in both cases. Perhaps if time permits I'll expound on this more. Maybe I could get a grant from somewhere to make the effort a little more worthwhile.

[Bill Hamblin]

Did I say that? Funny, I don't recall making that claim. I have never believed that and I don't believe it now. Perhaps you can refresh my memory where I made this statement.

Bump.

Dude is back after the holiday. Care to answer this call for evidence?

[The Dude]

Oh, was I reading too much into your classic post. If I thought (as you once thought) that the odds of JS guessing the letters N-H-M were truly 10.5 trillion to one, then I would deem those who continued to bet on JS the "good guesser" as intellectually dishonest. Is this in any way similar to your thinking at that time?

No, I don't have any proof. I can't even read your mind. If you deny it (with or without further explanation) then that's fine.

[smac97]

An even better example was Bill Hamblin's classic NHM thread. According to him, the odds of Joseph "guessing" the consonants N-H-M are so improbable that critics must be intellectually dishonest if they still bet Joseph got these three letters by chance.

Bump.

Dude is back after the holiday. Care to answer this call for evidence?

The Dude must be referring to this thread ("Probability and Nahom").

I'm not sure, however, to which of your posts in that thread he was referring.

So I've found the thread, all The Dude has to do is point out the offending posts within it.

-Smac

[The Dude]

That's right, Smac. I'm referring to the opening post in that thread.

Thus, we have the following situation.

JS has 21 consonants from which to chose. JS is limited to selecting three of the 21 consonants, and can place them in any order he wished. JS can also use doubles (e.g. RBB). As I understand it, the number of possible permutations of 21 consonants combined in three letter clusters is

3^21 = 10,460,353,203

This amounts to roughly a 10.5 trillion to one chance of JS randomly selecting the three letters NHM in that precise order from all possible triple combinations of the 21 consonants. Now, I'm no mathematician, so perhaps someone with knowledge of probability can tell me if I've understood the situation correctly.

Vogel believes this is mere coincidence, and lends no plausibility to the case for the historicity of the BOM. He is entitled to his opinion. I maintain that, on the face of it, such high levels of improbability for random hit increases the probability that the situation is not random, and therefore the plausibility of BOM historicity.

Hamblin does not say Dan Vogel is intellecually dishonest, so technically he is innocent. However, if the odds are really 10.5 trillion to one against coincidence, but Dan Vogel still thinks it's a coincidence, whouldn't you call that intellectual dishonesty?

[SolarPowered]

As far as very rough numbers go, he has it backwards--the formula he's looking for is 21^3 = 9,261.

That's still a pretty respectable number.

(I note that there are all kinds are issues with the "21^3" type of calculation, but it's at least an interesting ballpark number.)

[Bill Hamblin]

Oh, was I reading too much into your classic post. If I thought (as you once thought) that the odds of JS guessing the letters N-H-M were truly 10.5 trillion to one, then I would deem those who continued to bet on JS the "good guesser" as intellectually dishonest. Is this in any way similar to your thinking at that time?

No, I don't have any proof. I can't even read your mind. If you deny it (with or without further explanation) then that's fine.

I don't have to deny it. I wrote precisely what I thought at the time.

Here's what I actually said

Now, I'm no mathematician, so perhaps someone with knowledge of probability can tell me if I've understood the situation correctly.

Vogel believes this is mere coincidence, and lends no plausibility to the case for the historicity of the BOM. He is entitled to his opinion. I maintain that, on the face of it, such high levels of improbability for random hit increases the probability that the situation is not random, and therefore the plausibility of BOM historicity.

Note, first, that wat I said was: "on the face of it, such high levels of improbability for random hit increases the probability that the situation is not random, and therefore the plausibility of BOM historic". I said nothing about "intellectual dishonesty. That you may be in the habit of accusing people who see things different than you do of "intellectual dishonesty," doesn't mean that I am.

Note, second, that I was asking if these calculations were correct. I stated explicitly "I'm no mathematician, so perhaps someone with knowledge of probability can tell me if I've understood the situation correctly." An hour and fifteen minutes later, I was corrected. The correct formulation was 21^3 = 9,261. Having done nothing beyond household math for a quarter of a century I had unfortunately forgotten the correct order of the numbers, and switched the the correct 21^3 to the incorrect 3^21. A serious mistake, obviously, but a simple one that was easily corrected, and was indeed corrected immediately.

It is always nice if people get the facts straight before they start making accusations. Apologies for gross misrepresentations are also nice.

[Log]

ah, forget it.

[The Dude]

Okay Bill, I apologize.

However quick readers would have seen Lognormal's calculation of the odds, which somehow JS nailed on the "first try" ... aw, forget it.

[Sethbag]

I don't see how any of this is constrained to be random anyhow. It's a fact that "Nahum" exists in the Old Testament. In fact, it's the name of a whole "book" of the Old Testament. There are other permutations of this, such as Nehemiah. Thus, eliminating vowels, NHM is already written in to the Old Testament. Joseph Smith need only have made up Nahom from Nahum, and already he'd be tied in to things that exist in the Old Testament. Comparing Nahom to Nahum is far less of a stretch than a lot of the names some apologists pull out of the BoM and compare with somewhat similar names from Egyptian and whatnot.

It's not suprising if a lot of what's named in the Old Testament is related to people, places, and things that in fact existed, Noah's fictitious ark notwithstanding. I don't know if this is true or not, but it's entirely possible that the various NHM-related names in the Old Testament actually bear some relationship with the name of the Nihm tribe, and hence the Nihm-related tribal area being hypothesized as the BoM Nahom. At the very least, it's entirely possible that both the NHM names in the OT, and the NHM tribal name, share common ancestry, or derive ultimately from earlier sources of that particular root.

So, all Joseph Smith has to have done is adopt the Old Testament "Nahum" as his BoM "Nahom", and it may already bear some direct relation to the actual NHM tribal name. The only thing "coincidental" about it would be that the NHM name from the OT has a related NHM tribal name that can be placed into a particular vicinity and timeframe. But how many other OT names might Joseph have appropriated for use in the BoM that might have lead to their own "parallels" discoveries by modern apologists?

I think once Joseph adopts names from the Old Testament, all meaning from the subsequent discovery of correlations between those adopted names and existing Old Testament-era archeology are automatically suspect. It would be like me writing a work of fiction while borrowing names from the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and people subsequently pointing out that people I'd written about actually had parallels to existing families in New England, Virginia, etc. from the latter half of the 18th century. Well, of course they do.

So the real question is, how plausible is it that Joseph appropriated Nahum and turned it into Nahom? Does anyone want to argue that the odds against Joseph's having appropriated Nahum and turned it into Nahom are 10.5 trillion to 1, or 9000 to 1, or even just 10 to 1? Now that would be interesting discussion.

[cksalmon]

I don't see how any of this is constrained to be random anyhow. It's a fact that "Nahum" exists in the Old Testament. In fact, it's the name of a whole "book" of the Old Testament.

Yes, but what are the odds of the biblical writer hitting upon Nahum? Huh? Come back when you're a mathematician, Seth.

CKS