Bob Bennett's new BoM Story Reviewed

[Calm]

Oh, now you're doing his homework! And even still it isn;t sufficient to show what a "considerable time spent" would be.

LOL, just my own, I like to know if my memory is still decent.

[Calm]

Uh...yeah...tell me Jaybear - how many accused fraudsters are you aware of who were willing to subject both themselves, and their family members, to physical harm and threat of death for YEARS?

There have been some, OTOH, who have made a good living out of telling more 'enlightened' souls how they manage to dupe others.

[Gervin]

I asked

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

then, is the faith in verse 4 a leap of faith? How can you make a leap of faith that uses as evidence the requirement to first make a leap of faith?

A leap of faith occurs in believing it possible enough to ask God and that such an action can result in an answer. I have faith that turning off the computer will make my wife happier, and making my wife happier is better than talking to Gervin right now. There is the possibility I am wrong, but I'll have faith that she means it when she sas she prefers I spend some time with her rather than you right now.

So, you take a leap of faith ["believing it possible enough to ask God and that such an action can result in an answer"] by praying Moroni's prayer, above. But how do have a faith in Christ as required? Is that a leap of faith? Which is the first leap of faith?

with apologies to SK/G

[LifeOnaPlate]

I asked

So, you take a leap of faith ["believing it possible enough to ask God and that such an action can result in an answer"] by praying Moroni's prayer, above. But how do have a faith in Christ as required? Is that a leap of faith? Which is the first leap of faith?

with apologies to SK/G

Since the Book of Mormon itself talks of eyewitness accounts of Christ, and defines what faith in him would entail, and discusses faith generally at great length, one has enough to go on by the end of the Book of Mormon to exercise faith to ask the questions. Faith in God/Christ are compounded here to be functionally the same being. When one prays to one, one prays to the other.

Or are you saying fulfilling the admonition is by definition impossible? I'm sorry, I don't follow, I guess. How would you try to get an unbelieving individual to take the Bible seriously, by the way, or to believe in prayer to God, without them first having some sort of faith that there is a God to whom they are praying? How do you answer the question?

[Gervin]

Since the Book of Mormon itself talks of eyewitness accounts of Christ, and defines what faith in him would entail, and discusses faith generally at great length, one has enough to go on by the end of the Book of Mormon to exercise faith to ask the questions Faith in God/Christ are compounded here to be functionally the same being. When one prays to one, one prays to the other Or are you saying fulfilling the admonition is by definition impossible?I'm sorry, I don't follow, I guess. How would you try to get an unbelieving individual to take the Bible seriously, by the way, or to believe in prayer to God, without them first having some sort of faith that there is a God to whom they are praying? How do you answer the question

A guy named Bob said (I guess) that he makes a leap of faith to believe in the Book of Mormon.

You said that "Extraordinary evidence is promised in Moroni 10:3-5. It has delivered for me ..."

I asked if the faith in Christ required by that scripture required a leap of faith? It's just yes/no. I'm only trying to figure out where this leap is made - first about Christ or first about the Book of Mormon?

[LifeOnaPlate]

You said that "Extraordinary evidence is promised in Moroni 10:3-5. It has delivered for me ..."

I asked if the faith in Christ required by that scripture required a leap of faith? It's just yes/no.

These are two different questions. I'll take them one by one.

It seems to me that faith in Christ, (in other words, a belief that he exists, and that he did certain things, and that he has made specific promises, and that he has the ability to fulfill them, and that he is trustworthy and will fulfill them-- and that this belief leads to action in the believer) then I would say yes, a leap of faith is required.

(When we get down to the brass tacks a leap of faith is required to believe all sorts of things. For example, a child is told that by turning a switch she can turn on a light. If the child believes this is so, and then acts upon this belief by turning the switch, the child's faith will be rewarded, so to speak.

I'm only trying to figure out where this leap is made - first about Christ or first about the Book of Mormon?

This is a false dichotomy, these things are not mutually exclusive. One can take a leap for both at once, no problem. One can take a leap for one and not the other, no problem. But taking a leap for the Book of Mormon specifically also entails a leap for the other, Jesus Christ, based on the claims of the book itself.

But you turned away my own question for you regarding a belief in God.

[Uncertain]

Hello Uncertain,

Thanks and thanks for reading my insanely long post. I have a few comments about what you have said here.

First let me start with something from here and one of your earlier posts. You said that you were a religious ?pluralist? rather than a religions ?exclusionist.? I consider myself a religious ?inclusivist.? While there certainly are religious experiences that may not come from God or may not fit into a ?from God to imperfect man? category within my inclusivist paradigm, I think a large volume of religious experience can fit. The presence of religious experiences that in the mind of the receiver point away from the CoJCoLDS as coming from God, can be real contacts with the divine filtered through imperfect humans. The obvious corollary of this is that my religious experiences can be labeled as such by non-LDS inclusivist (or pluralists for that matter).

So from my original post, I claim that RE (Religious Experience) is a strong indicator that God exists, but that I do not lean so much upon my RE when suggesting that the CoJCoLDS is the church God would have folks with whom I dialogue join. For someone with no belief in God, I suggest that RE (mine and volumes of others) are sufficient reason to believe that God does in fact exist. If it is important abiogenesis and ?fine tuning? can be discussed (it was abiogenesis that lead to Anthony Flew ceasing to be an Atheist).

I would also agree REs would be a good reason to suppose God exists they may even be a good reason to subscribe various attributes to God (ie. God is loving, merciful etc.). The reason being this type of information is ubiquitous in religious experiences most religious experiences will include in the event the experiencing of God and the experience of God will be one of joy, love etc. This does provide support for such things as Gods existence and the attributes he possesses. The problem is when on the basis of a RE claims are made concerning more specific religious doctrines like for example what occurs in the afterlife and which religion has Gods authority. In such matters contrary to the more general attributes of God outlined above there is no consensus in what RE teaches. For example lots of different claims about the afterlife are supported by personal RE and yet in many cases they directly contradict each other (I can provide examples if you wish). So yes it may very well be appropriate to believe in God because of a personal RE but making more specific religious claims on this basis is far more problematic.

If a method X says both A and B are correct but A and B are mutually exclusive. Then if there does not exist some objective non-circular means to determine why method X got it wrong. Method X is not a reliable means to determine which of A and B are right or if either of them are right. If LDS epistemology (personal RE) does indeed state that mutually exclusive propositions are both correct (i.e. the afterlife is three degrees of glory in which we retain individuality versus say the afterlife is merging with a "higher power" in which individuality is lost). Then if there does not exist some objective non-circular means to determine why LDS epistemology got it wrong (one of the options must be wrong) then LDS epistemology is not a reliable means to determine the truth about the afterlife.

Here are some links to past debates on LDS epistemology:

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/35565-spiritual-experiences/page__st__120

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/37528-the-role-of-testimony-in-determining-truth/page__st__20

I address Blake's essay on post #24

I also discuss Blake's essay in this thread on post #31

Now this topic has been beaten to death as mentioned I personally find the lack of intersubjectivity verifiability to be problematic when arguing personal spiritual experiences are a reliable means to obtain universal religious truths. I am open to counter arguments if you think I have missed an important point.

From an acknowledgement that God exists, I think the evidence for the BOM is suggestive of supernatural origins. I think it is only the radical skeptic that can take the BOM and suggest that it is 50/50 or likely of naturalistic origins when all the pros and cons are weighed. So, if you believe in God, I think it is the most reasonable thing to conclude that the BOM is not of human origins.

Once at this point, I think it best to do two things. One, pray to know if the BOM is of God and if you (one) as an individual are called to be a LDS. Two, determine if absent this spiritual witness if you (one) should be a LDS while pursuing a spiritual confirmation. I was a LDS without a spiritual witness for quite some time, BUT the CoJCoLDS teaches that one should join as a product of a spiritual witness so I would not demand that absent this one should not stay outside the CoJCoLDS.

Actually I do think a personal spiritual experience may very well be a good reason to join a given church including the LDS church. But you can see the tension inherent in my position. I also think there are real problems with using personal spiritual experiences as strong support for specific religious claims. Can a person be LDS but at the same time be agnostic towards virtually all universal exclusive LDS truth claims? (i.e. exclusive claims to authority, specific teachings about the afterlife, specific teachings about what God views as moral (Word of Wisdom for example) ) So in my view yes it may be a good idea to join the LDS church (or any church) on the basis of a RE but it is not necessarily a good idea on the evidence provided by RE to believe specific universal truth claims made by the given church.

Now, as you can see from above, if one believes that there is a God, I do not think the EXTERNAL evidence is even. So when you said, ?Most LDS don't view the evidence as even because they include a spiritual witness as part of that evidence? that is not SOLELY my point. I believe that without powerful naturalistic assumptions the EXTERNAL evidence is not even, but is pro-BOM. I believe that INTERNAL evidence is valid evidence for an INDIVIDUALS decision. Thus with this combination of internal and external evidence I think few LDS think it is even. I only suggest it is even if one brings strong naturalistic presuppositions to the table.

I am fine with this; part of my own philosophy is in matters such as the above it just doesn't matter. That is suppose you are wrong and the BOM is false God will in no way hold this against you. I think God recognizes that different honest sincere seekers after truth can legitimately arrive at different conclusions at least when it comes to religious claims. Now that being said my own view of the external evidence for the BOM is almost entirely agnostic. In other words I don't know quite what to think.

In my mind the impetuous to be a religious pluralist comes from the recognition that RE of similar external appearance point to different religions each of which has some exclusivist claims (and folks often claim there REs include exclusivist components). However, from where are you specifically coming? Do you have an individual pluralist RE (what I call INTERNAL evidence for God ?and internal evidence for religious pluralism)? Do you have an individual RE that points to a specific religion, but you cannot embrace exclusivist paradigms because you respect the individual REs of other folks? Do you believe there are EXTERNAL evidences for religions pluralism (or you religion within a religiously plural framework)?

The reason I am a religious pluralist is twofold. First there does not seem to be an objective and reliable means to obtain universal supernatural truths. Most religious claims are fundamentally supported by an appeal to authority. That is an authority (i.e. Buddha, Joseph Smith, Mohammad) will claim usually on the basis of personal religious experience something to be universally true. And it is up to us to determine which competing versions of "truth" we will accept. Now self consistency and coherence can eliminate some fraction of truth claims but by no means all of them. The LDS solution to this problem is RE, pray and ask God who is correct but as I have argued this is not a satisfactory solution. So what then are we left with how are we to obtain reliable information concerning religious matters?

Religious pluralism solves this problem to a great extent that is go with the religion (or no religion) that makes the most sense to you and helps you be the best person possible if that is LDS great if not also great. God for whatever reason just doesn't care that you find and follow the "one true church". If God did care I think it likely he would provide some means to identify which of the many competing truth claims represents how things really are. So I find the lack of a reliable means to identify "true" religious claims to be a good argument for religious pluralism.

Second I think there are strong arguments in favor of religious pluralism and against religious exclusivity/inclusivity. I don't intend to outline them here (this would make an already large post into a gigantic post) but I at least find them compelling. If you are interested I could start a new thread.

To give you some background I am born and raised in the LDS church I think it is a wonderful institution that produces on the whole great human beings. About a year ago I was really struggling with this issue of RE as I was pondering the issue the thought came to my mind. Maybe God just doesn't care that we find and follow the "one true church" assuming of course there is such a thing. Maybe any church can be "true" as long as it accomplishes those goals for our personal progress God wants us to achieve and there is no "one true church" all churches are as true as the impact they have in their members lives. I immediately felt what I would call the influence of the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of my thought. Now I do not use this RE as strong evidence for religious pluralism. But I think it illustrated at least to me that REs are truly not consistent I honestly and sincerely felt what I interpret as the divine communicated something to me that is directly contradictory to a fundamental LDS claim.

I have not followed recent LDS Epistemological discussions on this board. I assume you have been pointed to Ostler?s FAIR and Sunstone presentation from a little over a year ago.

See my links above, I am familiar with Blake's essay assuming of course we are talking about the same one .

All the Best,

Uncertain

[Bic Pentameter]

Personally I buy the pious fraud motive theory. I think it's sound and logical.

Robuchan, Nibley's "The Book of Mormon: True or False?" would be a good read, and I think seriously challenges your position. Read it in full here: http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/bom/nibley_bomtf.htm

Here is relevant portion:

The book starts out with a colophon telling us whose hand wrote it, what his sources were, and what it is about; the author boasts of his pious parents and good education, explaining that his background was an equal mixture of Egyptian and Jewish, and then moves into this history establishing time, place, and background; the situation at Jerusalem and the reaction of Nephi's father to it, his misgivings, his prayers, a manifestation that came to him in the desert as he traveled on business and sent him back post-haste "to his own house at Jerusalem," where he has a great apocalyptic vision.

All this and more in the first seven verses of the Book of Mormon. The writer knows exactly what he is going to say and wastes no time in saying it. Throughout the book we get the impression that it really is what its authors claim it to be, a highly condensed account from much fuller records. We can imagine our young rustic getting off to this flying start, but can we imagine him keeping up the pace for ten pages? For 588 pages the story never drags, the author never hesitates or wanders, he is never at a loss. What is really amazing is that he never contradicts himself.

Long ago Friedrich Blass laid down rules for testing any document for forgery. Let us paraphrase these as rules to be followed by a successful forger and consider whether Joseph paid any attention to any of them.

1. Keep out of the range of unsympathetic critics. There is, Blass insists, no such thing as a clever forgery. No forger can escape detection if somebody really wants to expose him; all the great forgeries discovered to date have been crudely executed (for example, the Piltdown skull), depending for their success on the enthusiastic support of the public or the experts. The Book of Mormon has enjoyed no such support. From the day it appeared, important persons at the urgent demand of an impatient public did everything they could to show it a forgery. And Joseph Smith, far from keeping it out of the hands of unsympathetic critics, did everything he could to put it into those hands. Surely this is not the way of a deceiver.

2. Keep your document as short as possible. The longer a forgery is the more easily it may be exposed, the danger increasing geometrically with the length of the writing. By the time he had gone ten pages, the author of the Book of Mormon knew only too well what a dangerous game he was playing if it was a hoax; yet he carries on undismayed for six hundred pages.

3. Above all, don't write a historical document! They are by far the easiest of all to expose, being full of "things too trifling, too inconspicuous, and too troublesome" for the forger to check up on.

4. After you have perpetrated your forgery, go into retirement or disappear completely. For vanity, according to Blass, is the Achilles' heel of every forger. A forger is not only a cheat but also a show-off, attempting to put one over on society; he cannot resist the temptation to enjoy his triumph, and if he remains in circulation, inevitably he gives himself away. Joseph Smith ignored any opportunity of taking credit for the Book of Mormon- he took only the responsibility for it.

5. Always leave an escape door open. Be vague and general, philosophize and moralize. Religious immunity has been the refuge of most eminent forgers in the past, beautiful thoughts and pious allegories, deep interpretations of scriptures, mystic communication to the initiated few, these are safe grounds for the pia fraus ("pious fraud"). But the Book of Mormon never uses them. It does not even exploit the convenient philological loophole of being a translation: as an inspired translation it claims all the authority and responsibility of the original.

Granted that any explanation is preferable to Joseph Smith's, where is any explanation? The chances against such a book ever coming into existence are astronomical: Who would write it? Why? Trouble, danger, and unpopularity are promised its defenders in the book itself. Did someone else write it so that Joseph Smith could take all the credit? Did Smith, knowing it was somebody else's fraud, claim authorship so that he could take all the blame?

The work involved in producing the thing was staggering, the danger terrifying; long before publication time the newspapers and clergy were howling for blood. Who would want to go on with such a suicidal project? All that trouble and danger just to fool people? But the author of this book is not trying to fool anybody: he claims no religious immunity, makes no effort to mystify, employs no rhetorical or allegorical license.

There are other things to consider too, such as the youth and inexperience of Smith when (regardless of who the author might be) he took sole responsibility for the Book of Mormon. Faced with a point-blank challenge by the learned world, any impostor would have collapsed in an instant, but Joseph Smith never weakened though the opposition quickly mounted to a roar of national indignation. Then there were the witnesses, real men who, though leaving the Church for various real or imagined offenses, never altered or retracted their testimonies of what they had seen and heard.

The fact that only one version of the Book of Mormon was ever published and that Joseph Smith's attitude toward it never changed is also significant. After copyrighting it in the spring of 1829, he had a year to think it over before publication and yield sensibly to social pressure; after that he had the rest of his life to correct his youthful indiscretion; years later, an important public figure and a skillful writer, knowing that his book was a fraud, knowing the horrible risk he ran on every page of it, and knowing how hopelessly naive he had been when he wrote it, he should at least have soft-pedaled the Book of Mormon theme. Instead he insisted to the end of his life that it was the truest book on earth, and that a man could get nearer to God by observing its precepts than in any other way.

I am Bic Pentameter.