What's the Latest on Archaeology Evidence for BoM?

[cdowis]

I think it's best if you and I just don't talk. You are 300 years late for the evolution argument.

You seem to be annoyed with my questions. Tell me specifically what I said that was "300 years late". The exact quote, please.

[Eldwynn]

You seem to be annoyed with my questions. Tell me specifically what I said that was "300 years late". The exact quote, please.

Obvious troll is obvious.

[Anijen]

Obvious troll is obvious.

cdowis has nearly 7000 posts he is not a troll.

and I think you skipped many of Kevin Christensen's fine points in his last post just my opinion.

[Eldwynn]

cdowis has nearly 7000 posts he is not a troll.

and I think you skipped many of Kevin Christensen's fine points in his last post just my opinion.

He's trolling hard. If he really wanted answers, he knows where to find them. He's just sticking his fingers in his ears (we all do it sometimes). Actually, a lot of posts proves my point.

I don't think I missed anything. What do you think? I saw his response as basically a defense of textual criticism. I don't think these questions can be answered by turning to what people many years ago wrote down.

[WalkerW]

I don't care what someone wrote down

Then you don't want to know whether the resurrection actually happened. You have to deal with the historical sources if you want to investigate a question of historicity.

- that can not be the primary evidence.

In order to investigate the historical question, you must engage the historical documents. You can't just ignore them.

because what makes my personal revelation better than yours?

Are you conflating personal feelings with personal revelation? I think Richard Swinburne's principle of credulity or Alvin Plantinga's properly basic beliefs are sound philosophical arguments in regards to personal experience.

I would need some sort of empirical proof.

Like what?

You on the other hand, need no empirical proof (it seems).

It depends what you mean. We are dealing with history, not physical science.

You seem to say that because the event shaped a culture, than that is all that matters.

You seem to be reading too much into what I've written. I have yet to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus. I've simply given a glimpse of what kinds of questions and variables must be taken into consideration.

Well, I can give plenty of stories that shaped cultures.

You're missing the point. Why did the claims of Christ's resurrection make an impact at all? Why, for example, did resurrection move from the circumference of Jewish belief to the center of this particular Jewish sect? Why the sudden shift? These are the types of questions you must begin asking when approaching culture and history.

Is it because they didn't shape "western" culture that you do not care about them?

See above.

Then again, I would think Roman Mythology equally shaped western culture as much as christian mythology, but that debate sounds off topic, and honestly boring to me.

Most certainly. See above.

I think this example summarizes the problem. I think that you think (what we do to avoid looking like we are putting words in others mouths) that because multiple people wrote that Mary was a virgin, she was indeed a virgin (not using your testimony for a second here). I know that it is impossible for a virgin to give birth, so I find it more likely that the story is just that- a story. A bit of folklore- or a mistranslation. I don't know if you would have issue with my interpretation.

Several things: (1) You know it is impossible for a virgin birth based on current science (which may or may not be the same in the following century), (2) You reject the possibility of miracles due to a naturalistic worldview and philosophy, (3) I'm not quite sure where I stand on the virgin birth as commonly understood. It isn't a central theme of the Gospels, whereas the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus is. The virgin birth is only mentioned briefly in Matthew and Luke.

then why can I not hold you to such a literal view of the Old testament, or all other scriptures?

Because that is not how history is done. That may be how fundamentalist theology is done, but I find it to be rather shallow. I don't take the story of Jonah or Job to be historical narratives. They aren't necessarily meant to be. However, New Testament scholarship holds that the Gospels are in fact ancient biographies. They were meant to be understood as history. This doesn't necessarily make them true, but one's approach to them compared to other biblical writings will be different due to their genre.

I have these same arguments with Christian fundamentalists. I find it ironic that I'm having it with an atheist.

On the other hand, if you DID agree with me, then can we not just do the same move for the ressurection, and everything else that I take issue with your religion?

Because to do so would be intellectually lazy.

To me, I only see it being done when it directly contrasts with science. It looks like cowardice to me :/

Really? I believe a man was crucified, laid in a tomb for three days, then came back to life. I don't hear about too many scientific experiments confirming things like that on a regular basis.

It looks like you don't know how history is done to me. It also looks like you don't know what I mean when I say Genesis 1-3 is a different literary genre than the Gospels.

[volgadon]

It also looks like you don't know what I mean when I say Genesis 1-3 is a different literary genre than the Gospels.

His 'they are LYING' argument is very lazy and disappointing. It really is a way to brush things off that he doesn't know how to discuss.

[cdowis]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Of course it is a troll.

You trolled by asking us about Adam, and I answered your question with a question. The point is that neither of us have a satisfactory answer to give to the other person. I am annoyed by those who are smug and arrogant, and I pricked a big hole in that smugness that you display here.

We don't have all the answers, but neither do you. Your response was to tell us that it was a bad question, and that we are wrong. Your arrogance imploded upon itself.

[krose]

Let me ask cdowis once again...

Do you really think that evolution requires a human male and a human female, both born to non-humans as mutations, who must find each other to mate and create more humans?

[Eldwynn]

His 'they are LYING' argument is very lazy and disappointing. It really is a way to brush things off that he doesn't know how to discuss.

Oh please, you call me lazy and the next sentence you totally missed my point. My point is not that we can just brush it off- my point was that even if we could establish that person X REALLY wrote Y, and even meant Y in the literal sense (a task that seems nearly impossible to prove in my opinion, especially, like in the New testament, when the resurrection story probably wasn't even written by people who experienced it first hand), but we are still faced with the fact that X could have just been mistaken/misrepresenting/lying about Y.

Add the fact that we are talking about events that are supernatural in nature (IE the resurrection of a man, who was born of a virgin) I think it is safer to assume that the people writing it were mistaken. That seems leaps and bounds more reasonable than assuming laws of biology were somehow suspended.

This is granting the religious side the assumption that Jesus really existed, really preached that he was the son of god, etc. Without resorting to personal testimonies, you can't really establish it.

I understand what is being said about the Old testament being a different genre. However, I still don't find it to be relevant. I also don't think any honest person can seriously be convinced that because people believed something, and wrote about it in the past, that we have to take it so seriously. Why?

Maybe if you would stop calling me lazy and add something to the discussion, it could be a bit more meaningful.

[Eldwynn]

Let me ask cdowis once again...

Do you really think that evolution requires a human male and a human female, both born to non-humans as mutations, who must find each other to mate and create more humans?

We've pointed this out a total of three times. Pretty sure he is avoiding it. I actually typed up a detailed response to his objection, but realized I was wasting my time.

As he said earlier, we should start another thread to discuss biology. This is why I knew he was just trolling with his response and ignored it. He at first requested we move to another thread. I missed that request the first time through and answered it here- and then edited apologizing and saying we should take it somewhere else. Instead he responded in an immature manner and called me names.

This guy is trolling. If he had legitimate questions about the biology, I am sure he knows where to find them(I even linked an explanation of what geneticists mean by Y-adam and Mitochondrial eve, and he was unwilling to go read it, saying that the author should COME HERE (what?)). They certainly aren't on a message board in a thread where the focus is on the legitimacy of scripture.

[krose]

We've pointed this out a total of three times. Pretty sure he is avoiding it.

It appears to be one of those 'gotcha' lines like "if human came from apes then why are there still apes?"

[cdowis]

Let me ask cdowis once again...

Do you really think that evolution requires a human male and a human female, both born to non-humans as mutations, who must find each other to mate and create more humans?

I have no opinion on what evolution requires or does not require.

[Robert F. Smith]

We seem to be asking different questions actually. I want to know whether the ressurection of Jesus actually happened. I don't care what someone wrote down- that can not be the primary evidence. Nor can my personal feelings on the subject- because what makes my personal revelation better than yours? Neither of those would settle it. I would need some sort of empirical proof.

You on the other hand, need no empirical proof (it seems). You seem to say that because the event shaped a culture, than that is all that matters. Well, I can give plenty of stories that shaped cultures. Is it because they didn't shape "western" culture that you do not care about them? Then again, I would think Roman Mythology equally shaped western culture as much as christian mythology, but that debate sounds off topic, and honestly boring to me.

I think this example summarizes the problem. I think that you think (what we do to avoid looking like we are putting words in others mouths) that because multiple people wrote that Mary was a virgin, she was indeed a virgin (not using your testimony for a second here). I know that it is impossible for a virgin to give birth, so I find it more likely that the story is just that- a story. A bit of folklore- or a mistranslation. I don't know if you would have issue with my interpretation.

However, if you didn't, and you insist that Mary never had sex based on just what the authors wrote, then why can I not hold you to such a literal view of the Old testament, or all other scriptures? Because of who wrote it down!?

On the other hand, if you DID agree with me, then can we not just do the same move for the ressurection, and everything else that I take issue with your religion? Like... everything? When do you apply the "spin" and when do you not? To me, I only see it being done when it directly contrasts with science. It looks like cowardice to me :/

Eldwynn post #284

Oh of course. The existence of crazy other worlds makes a lot more sense that someone making it up.

I guess the only issue I have with the metaphorical sexed up interpretation of the scriptures, is how do you take anything literally in the scriptures at all? Using your own methods of interpretation, could I not just spin ANYTHING I wanted out of the scriptures? And if you respond that we should look to the prophets... well none of them have held such a metaphorical interpretation that I remember.

Given your unscientific preconceptions, only chaos, anarchy, and confusion of thought can result, and you will forever be in a tailspin of infinite regress on the possibility of knowing anything.

Most astronomers have no problem believing that there are around 600 billion galaxies with about 600 billion stars each, and that statistical likelihood alone would mean that there must be millions of habitable planets, many with various forms of life, some which are sentient and have been around much longer than humans. As a practical matter, any such civilization would seem "godlike" to us. Is that unreasonable? No. Is it provable? No. But it ought to give you pause that plenty of humanistic and atheistic scientists have no problem with such a concept, and the late Carl Sagan (Cornell Univ.) even designed space probes to communicate with aliens. Why would an atheist do that?

It is sad that your upbringing and education have not included the richness of allegorical or figurative interpretation, and that you are unaware that it is a very disciplined field of endeavor that discloses much hidden meaning in ancient texts.

Most scholars who examine the biblical creation texts see them as poetic, ritualistic, and deliberately repetitive. They do not typically consider them to be in any way scientific or historiographic.

Scholars entertain only three modes of the appearance of life on planet Earth: (1) Special Creation [which they usually reject out of hand], (2) Archebiosis-Spontaneous Generation of Life [followed by biological evolution], and (3) Transmission from elsewhere [meteorites, for example]. Scientists seriously consider only the last two. Were you well-verse in LDS theology, you would know that the third option is primary.

On the question of Jesus and the Resurrection, you are in the same boat as any other potential devotee of a religion: We may know that such historical personages existed (say the Buddha, for example), but it is difficult to know whether they in fact accomplished some spectacular claimed objective (say Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree). That is your personal quest: How to know anything for sure -- the problem of epistemology. It is finally up to you and you alone to determine what you find convincing. How you do it is the question. Can you satisfy yourself on any question? If so, how? What are the canons of knowing? Do you find that boring?

[cdowis]

This guy is trolling. If he had legitimate questions about the biology, I am sure he knows where to find them

Did you read my post above? What was the point of my question.

(I even linked an explanation of what geneticists mean by Y-adam and Mitochondrial eve, and he was unwilling to go read it, saying that the author should COME HERE (what?)). They certainly aren't on a message board in a thread where the focus is on the legitimacy of scripture.

I have alot of experience on message boards, I also have many years in the classroom in graduate classes.

I understand the difference between them.

I have a protocol that if someone answers a question by simply giving a link, that is lazy and unproductive. You need to take ownership of the answer -- EITHER bring the author here OR take ownership yourself of the material in the article, and give at least a summary of the salient points, and be prepared to respond to issues in the article.

If this discussion is to continue, it needs to be in another thread, and you need to be willing to take ownership of the answer. Not pass it on to someone else in a web link.

[volgadon]

Oh please, you call me lazy and the next sentence you totally missed my point. My point is not that we can just brush it off- my point was that even if we could establish that person X REALLY wrote Y, and even meant Y in the literal sense (a task that seems nearly impossible to prove in my opinion, especially, like in the New testament, when the resurrection story probably wasn't even written by people who experienced it first hand), but we are still faced with the fact that X could have just been mistaken/misrepresenting/lying about Y.

Add the fact that we are talking about events that are supernatural in nature (IE the resurrection of a man, who was born of a virgin) I think it is safer to assume that the people writing it were mistaken. That seems leaps and bounds more reasonable than assuming laws of biology were somehow suspended.

This is granting the religious side the assumption that Jesus really existed, really preached that he was the son of god, etc. Without resorting to personal testimonies, you can't really establish it.

I understand what is being said about the Old testament being a different genre. However, I still don't find it to be relevant. I also don't think any honest person can seriously be convinced that because people believed something, and wrote about it in the past, that we have to take it so seriously. Why?

Maybe if you would stop calling me lazy and add something to the discussion, it could be a bit more meaningful.

Good grief. I said that your argument is lazy and disappointing. You said you are pursuing a degree in neuro-biology, I believe, so I am not saying that you personally are lazy. The argument you employed is. There is a difference between lying and being mistaken. If the former, you need to show why it would be in their interest to lie.

We ought to take things seriously because people tend to write things for a reason.

[WalkerW]

We ought to take things seriously because people tend to write things for a reason.

Precisely. Investigating why the disciples believed that Jesus was raised from the dead or why they would possibly lie about it (and be able to pull the lie off) I find to be worthwhile historical questions.

Some articles on this subject:

William Lane Craig, "The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus," New Testament Studies 31 (1985).

Gary R. Habermas, "Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection," Dialog: A Journal of Theology 45:3 (Fall 2006).

Larry W. Hurtado, "Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament," Journal of Religion 80:2 (2000).

These next three are meant to be read together:

N.T. Wright, "Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem," Sewanee Theological Review 41:2 (1998).

Wright, "Early Traditions and the Origins of Christianity," STR 41:2 (1998).

Wright, "The Resurrection and the Postmodern Dilemma," STR 41:2 (1998).

[Eldwynn]

Given your unscientific preconceptions, only chaos, anarchy, and confusion of thought can result, and you will forever be in a tailspin of infinite regress on the possibility of knowing anything.

Most astronomers have no problem believing that there are around 600 billion galaxies with about 600 billion stars each, and that statistical likelihood alone would mean that there must be millions of habitable planets, many with various forms of life, some which are sentient and have been around much longer than humans. As a practical matter, any such civilization would seem "godlike" to us. Is that unreasonable? No. Is it provable? No. But it ought to give you pause that plenty of humanistic and atheistic scientists have no problem with such a concept, and the late Carl Sagan (Cornell Univ.) even designed space probes to communicate with aliens. Why would an atheist do that?

It is sad that your upbringing and education have not included the richness of allegorical or figurative interpretation, and that you are unaware that it is a very disciplined field of endeavor that discloses much hidden meaning in ancient texts.

Most scholars who examine the biblical creation texts see them as poetic, ritualistic, and deliberately repetitive. They do not typically consider them to be in any way scientific or historiographic.

Scholars entertain only three modes of the appearance of life on planet Earth: (1) Special Creation [which they usually reject out of hand], (2) Archebiosis-Spontaneous Generation of Life [followed by biological evolution], and (3) Transmission from elsewhere [meteorites, for example]. Scientists seriously consider only the last two. Were you well-verse in LDS theology, you would know that the third option is primary.

On the question of Jesus and the Resurrection, you are in the same boat as any other potential devotee of a religion: We may know that such historical personages existed (say the Buddha, for example), but it is difficult to know whether they in fact accomplished some spectacular claimed objective (say Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree). That is your personal quest: How to know anything for sure -- the problem of epistemology. It is finally up to you and you alone to determine what you find convincing. How you do it is the question. Can you satisfy yourself on any question? If so, how? What are the canons of knowing? Do you find that boring?

I think you raise a few good points. I do not have a problem with using historical records to establish things that did or did not happen. Did Troy exist? Sure. Was there a soldier named Achilles? Sure. Was he a fierce warrior, that many respected that was extremely well in battle? Maybe a little exaggerated, but sure. Was he immortal except for his heal? Well given that this contradict what I know about modern biology, no- I don't care how many people wrote that Achilles was invincible. I wouldn't even change my mind if we found his remains, with an arrow through his heel, and not so much as a scar anywhere else on his body. It would take more than that.

Similarly, I have no issue with an astronomer saying life is possible/probable. Even intelligent life. However, if that astronomer goes as far to say that it disobeys the laws of physics, or can hear everything we say so we should start a religion after this inevitable life- I would smile and tell him that he needs more evidence than that.

If you think it likely that a man named Jesus not only existed at 0 AD, but they he was capable of breaking very firm laws of biology (two of them!), then you will need better than what the New Testament gives us (an account by people who never even met him).

Volgadon says we should take things seriously because people write things for a reason. I find it doubtful that the second hand account of the story of Jesus should be taken to supernatural extremes. I think that is the only reasonable position, unless you have better evidence that we can all examine. Especially when the people writing the stories did not have the tools to confirm it.

[WalkerW]

I think you raise a few good points. I do not have a problem with using historical records to establish things that did or did not happen. Did Troy exist? Sure. Was there a soldier named Achilles? Sure. Was he a fierce warrior, that many respected that was extremely well in battle? Maybe a little exaggerated, but sure. Was he immortal except for his heal? Well given that this contradict what I know about modern biology, no- I don't care how many people wrote that Achilles was invincible. I wouldn't even change my mind if we found his remains, with an arrow through his heel, and not so much as a scar anywhere else on his body. It would take more than that.

Similarly, I have no issue with an astronomer saying life is possible/probable. Even intelligent life. However, if that astronomer goes as far to say that it disobeys the laws of physics, or can hear everything we say so we should start a religion after this inevitable life- I would smile and tell him that he needs more evidence than that.

If you think it likely that a man named Jesus not only existed at 0 AD, but they he was capable of breaking very firm laws of biology (two of them!), then you will need better than what the New Testament gives us (an account by people who never even met him).

Volgadon says we should take things seriously because people write things for a reason. I find it doubtful that the second hand account of the story of Jesus should be taken to supernatural extremes. I think that is the only reasonable position, unless you have better evidence that we can all examine. Especially when the people writing the stories did not have the tools to confirm it.

I fully admit that the greatest argument against the resurrection is "when was the last time you saw someone raised from the dead?"

[WalkerW]

For those interested, see Peter Harrison's (Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford)

on Science and Religion.

[Kevin Christensen]

I don't think this begins to answer my objection.

I'm responding to the attitude you expressed post 279. "A few things I know for sure though that just don't jive with a belief in god. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years. Migrating from Africa, living incredibly short lives, and struggling with disease famine and war. Our hunter-gatherer years weren't particularly romantic. After this 250,000 years of struggling and suffering, the creator of the Universe, 6000 years ago, decides to FINALLY intervene, and he does so in Israel? The bible doesn't jive with anthropology."

I've just been pointing out that the logic that grants such decisive significance to anthropological data absolutely requires a highly questionable interpretation of Genesis. You treat the Bible as uninterpreted data that speaks for itself, thanks to an unexamined, unquestioned, and ideologically conditioned approach.

What you are doing, is using textual methods to determine if an event actually took place, or an opinion was held.

Not at all. I'm point out that your reading of the Bible in this case is naive. And therefore, that conclusions and interpretations based on that interpretation are unstable.

And for the record, close reading and careful contextualization of the Bible is simply a way of doing science. Scholarship, archeology, linguistics, etc. Of putting to the test and therefore, at risk, things like the naive reading upon which your conclusion--"the bible doesn't jive"--completely depends.

This doesn't even begin to establish whether they actually happened fully the way they were described.

Of course it doesn't. I wasn't trying to establish what happened before beginning to understand the description in context in the first place. A presentist, fundamentalist reading comes nowhere close to accounting what is being described in the first place.

Let's start with events in scripture.

Even if we found other documents showing that Jesus indeed survived death and was resurrected, this doesn't make it anymore plausible that it actually happened.

Notice the abrupt change of subject. Blurring response to me with different issues.

It just makes it more plausible that the two authors got it from the same source. You can hardly say that the bible offers any evidence whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected, anymore than I can say that the Iliad proves Achilles was immortal except for his heel. It doesn't settle it one way or the other.

Walker's references, N.T. Wright on the resurrection narratives in context are excellent and to the point. Nibley's essay on the 40 Day Ministry makes a similar point.

The way apologists paint the Book of Mormon has the same problems, by the way.

Another change of subject. Using the emotionally loaded word "apologist" and the ideologically-laden descriptor "paints".

If you hold that Joseph Smith did not actually translate the actual plates from their language, but merely saw the ideas in his head, then there are a large number of errors he could have made(an apologist opinion I see all the time, especially when talking about the BOA).

Now moving from the Book of Mormon to translation theories, the mortaring of disconnected issues with the judgmental word "merely", followed by "apologist opinion" and yet another change of subject to the Book of Abraham. Dazzling. Dancing about like boiling water on a hot pancake griddle.

Maybe Lehi and his family fled from China- not Israel. Joseph Smith could have merely got the wording wrong. Who are you to say?

Now, back, but not to the Bible and Genesis, but to Lehi, and an argument built on the notion that if Joseph Smith got anything wrong, then he could just as easily get everything wrong.

On that specific topic, I have tested the text personally. The text we have says "Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, and mentions Jeremiah." Getting from there to China is not just one error. Also, I tested the content of the Book of Mormon against a reconstruction of religious life in Jerusalem in 600 BCE reconstructed from sources not available to Joseph Smith. See Paradigms Regained, and my other essays on Margaret Barker. Others have tested many other details provided in the text against not only Jerusalem, but the trip to the Valley of Lemuel, a setting for the broken bow story, Nahom, the empty quarter, and Bountiful. See a detailed discussion in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem. Getting all of that right, having it fit specific cultural details, as well specific geographic locations, while working from an original that described events in China would be quite a trick.

How did he do it? In answer, of course, more griddle-dancing, another change of subject.

Furthermore, with opinions, it is even harder. I could link a talk about Gordon B Hinkley (and many other prophets) referencing Noah's Ark, and try to point out that there is no way that the story is factual.

In your discussion of "no way" you would, of course, include fair discussion this stuff from BYU's Duane Jeffery, on the implications of the Black Sea hypothesis.

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/134-27-45.pdf

You would of course agree with me, and say that the prophets knew that to, and were only using it as a metaphor. It's a win-win, that only depends on one thing- our personal opinion.

Actually, I don't agree with you about the Noah story. I definitely disagree with some prophets and a 1998 Ensign essay on the topic, but I see it as secondary in any case. And in debates of this sort, I think it best to recognize how personal opinions are formed and weighed. At length, see my "Paradigms Crossed" in RBBM 7:2, and things like the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth, along with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

They certainly aren't going to come out and say one way or the other. The church treads lightly around conversations like that now days. So how can I evaluate (and others) whether or not these prophets really do speak for god, and when they are merely giving their opinion?

"Merely" again. Such questions can be both asked and explored at length (as I and others have done in print), or, as here, used as rhetorical ploys.

Modern example: Why should I listen to the first presidency on issues like gay-marriage, and assume that it is the opinion of God?

Another change of subject, demonstrating more griddle dancing, rather than focus.

As LDS, if we actually read and listen, we soon learn that we never have to assume that Church leaders are nothing more nor less than God's sock puppets. But if I assume and expect their humanity, then by definition, I should not assume that any imperfection automatically rules out the presence of inspiration. And I can find out for myself.

After all, you claim that I could not listen to the first presidency message on evolution in 1925, because clearly it was mere opinion back then.

Again, you bring up something I have not mentioned as though I did. But for the record, all First Presidency messages on the topic are available for consideration, authorship is known, cultural contexts known, and both individual preferences and overall general patterns very clear.

Do the prophets speak for god or not? If they don't, then why don't more members treat them like the pope? Accepting what they want, and rejecting the rest?

The underlying assumption here seems to me, "all or nothing", absolute certainly, certified by undeniable evidence and authority, or intellectual anarchy. Interesting to compare with early stages of the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth.

Your view paints a religion that is so very different than the one I grew up in. One where we can disagree with scriptures (after all, you are just misinterpreting the law of chastity, clearly Joseph smith didn't *mean* it etc.) In fact, the religion you are painting says nothing at all to me.

For the record, modern science and history are very different than the one I grew up in. But that is a part of growing up. And I notice you end with more changes of subject, taking us from my initial comments concerning the possibilities of Genesis and the archeological record, you bring us around to chastity and knee-jerk uncertainty.

You know, in my biology classes in second grade, I learned nothing about the Krebs cycle? Can you believe it? We just drew a circle for cell membrane, and another for a nucleus, and that was about it. Why should I believe a science that changes, and has unresolved controversies, different opinions, colorful history...

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Eldwynn]

You know, in my biology classes in second grade, I learned nothing about the Krebs cycle? Can you believe it? We just drew a circle for cell membrane, and another for a nucleus, and that was about it. Why should I believe a science that changes, and has unresolved controversies, different opinions, colorful history...

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Of all the things you wrote, this is the only thing I felt was worth responding to. I think half your post was attacking me for my rhetoric (the chastity thing wasn't a change of subject, but just an example of the point!) etc. Maybe I will go back later and respond to other bits that had any substance, but this paragraph certainly had substance.

I think you falsely compare the changing of science to the change of religious beliefs. I view most Christian changes in religious beliefs as very different from the way Mormon doctrine changes. The pope decides that evolution is okay- and that is that. The pope decides that god created the universe as outlined in the big bang theory, and that's that. In Mormonism, it's a little different, where the change is believed to be literally directly from god (ending of polygamy, and ending of the priesthood ban for blacks). Of course, I may be wrong about the catholic comparison- I know very little about Christian sects outside of the LDS church I was brought up in (and the LDS church I was raised in is rather different from the one I see being portrayed on this message board at times).

Contrast this with science. There is not really an "authority" on what science is and is not. The standard for what is correct and what is not is entirely based on the evidence. Empirical evidence. The kind that EVERYONE has to be able to theoretically do themselves, and get the same results. This is in stark contrast with at least the LDS church. If a 14 year old boy, after praying about homosexuality, claimed that god came down and talked to him, and revealed that marriage between two men is not against his will; I doubt any changes would follow. However, if that same hypothetical boy designed an experiment showing we were missing a step in the Krebb cycle, Science would consider the results, repeat them, and have to explain it.

They are entirely different. To say otherwise shows you are purposely being dishonest, or don't even understand the basics of how science progresses.

Edit:

For what its worth, I didn't learn about the Krebbs cycle in second grade either. What kind of crazy school did you go to?

[Kevin Christensen]

Of all the things you wrote, this is the only thing I felt was worth responding to. I think half your post was attacking me for my rhetoric (the chastity thing wasn't a change of subject, but just an example of the point!) etc. Maybe I will go back later and respond to other bits that had any substance, but this paragraph certainly had substance.

For clarity, I'm not attacking you personally, but positivism. You might also want think about where you might be on the Perry Scheme.

I think you falsely compare the changing of science to the change of religious beliefs.

I've compared them extensively, in print, favoring especially Ian Barbour's Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion. It's a book of remarkable clarity and insight. Out of print, but easily found via bookfinder.com. And see, for instance, my "Paradigms Crossed," or "Truth and Method."

I view most Christian changes in religious beliefs as very different from the way Mormon doctrine changes. The pope decides that evolution is okay- and that is that. The pope decides that god created the universe as outlined in the big bang theory, and that's that. In Mormonism, it's a little different, where the change is believed to be literally directly from god (ending of polygamy, and ending of the priesthood ban for blacks).

Religious beliefs is a fairly fluffy term. And I see Mormon religious beliefs and formal Mormon doctrine as overlapping categories, the former being quite large and varied, the latter being far more limited the formal definitions in 3 Nephi than pop culture views acknowledge.

I notice that here on the one side we have various Popes issuing statements on cosmology. Your examples on the LDS side have to do with changes in practice, not doctrine, particularly not doctrine as defined formally in 3 Nephi.

I gather that the idea here has to do with certainty and authority. The changing of what had been thought to be unchanging truth. I build my own expectations on the picture established in D&C 1:24-28

these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.

And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;

And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;

And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;

And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.

My expectations are that God is involved in an ongoing process in which I should expect human error at times, and that revelation is conditioned upon the LDS leaders making relevant inquiries.

I do not expect LDS beliefs to be static and unchanging. I don't confuse growth in understanding with doctrinal contradiction. I don't confuse peripheral LDS understanding with the central doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end, which by formal definition is doctrine of Christ. I read the Changing World of Mormonism years ago, and even in the years since, I notice that the doctrine of Christ remains unchanged.

SNIP

Contrast this with science. There is not really an "authority" on what science is and is not. The standard for what is correct and what is not is entirely based on the evidence. Empirical evidence.

In case you have not noticed yet, this is where I disagree with you.

As N.R. Hansen famously observed, "All data is theory laden." There is no uninterpreted evidence, therefore no conclusion is or can be "entirely" based on evidence. Theories, methods, procedures, information gathering and analysis, tests, trials, etc., all presume that only certain sorts of circumstances will occur, certain things to be measured, certain interpretive frameworks applied. All data is selected, all is contextualized in according to a particular worldview, all data is viewed from temporally limited perspectives, viewed through limited senses and limited aparatus, and all is subjectively evaluated by human interpreters.

Data can and should function as a constraint on what we believe. The best constraints on what to believe are, according to Kuhn, puzzle generation and solution, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence of explanation, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. But they function as constraints, not determiners, as values to weigh. And there are no rules for applying them. Which means that someone who comes along with a different context can change what seemed obvious to everyone before. I've just been reading in Feyerband's Against Method, the story of how everyone knew that the earth could not be moving because anyone could go to the top of a high tower and drop a rock, and see that it fell straight. Everyone could perform the experiment independently and come to the same conclusion because until Galileo, everyone assumed that if the earth was moving, it would move out from under the rock as it fell.

The kind that EVERYONE has to be able to theoretically do themselves, and get the same results.

Joseph Smith noticed that "the different teachers of religion understood the same passage of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible." Jesus observed of that planting the same seeds in different soil leads to radically different harvests, and that we have to understand that parable in order to know all parables.

They recognized that in important areas, people do not get the same results. And that the context you set up for and via your comparisons is important to the results. As an English major, I do notice the choice of metaphor here:

This is in stark contrast with at least the LDS church. If a 14 year old boy, after praying about homosexuality, claimed that god came down and talked to him, and revealed that marriage between two men is not against his will; I doubt any changes would follow. However, if that same hypothetical boy designed an experiment showing we were missing a step in the Krebb cycle, Science would consider the results, repeat them, and have to explain it.

They are entirely different.

Where and where did I ever claim that they were the same? The thing that brought me into this thread in the first place has been your claim that a simple contrast between modern day anthropology and a naive reading of Genesis settles the question of the existence of God, and therefore, any possible validity to the LDS faith. But for the record, this is what I have published on science and religion (Truth and Method in FR 16:1):

Ninian Smart observes that "it is not scientific simply to begin with assumptions that would make a rival theory false before the evidence is properly examined."115 Science defined as a method can be applied to any subject. Why not religion? (See Alma 32.) Science defined as a generally accepted body of knowledge does run into difficulty in developing an overall consensus on particular religious traditions because "between competing religious traditions there seem to be few common assumptions and less clear-cut common data than there are between competing scientific traditions. . . . In particular, religion lacks the lower-level laws which are characteristic of science. The terms of such laws are relatively close to observations, their theoretical components are not in dispute, and they are relatively vulnerable to falsification by counter-instances."116 In summary, Barbour explains:

Each of the "subjective" features of science . . . is more evident in the case of religion: (1) the influence of interpretation on data, (2) the resistance of comprehensive theories to falsification, and (3) the absence of rules for choice among paradigms. Each of the corresponding "objective" features of science is less evident in the case of religion: (1) the presence of common data on which disputants can agree, (2) the cumulative effect of evidence for or against a theory, and (3) the existence of criteria which are not paradigm-dependent. It is clear that in all three respects religion is a more "subjective" enterprise than science. But in each case there is a difference of degree—not an absolute contrast between an "objective" science and a "subjective" religion.117

And when it comes to the authority of a 14 year old boy, Joseph Smith's productions provide all sorts of situations far more easily testable than your hypothetical youth with ideas about same sex marriage. Indeed, if I know from the start that I cannot bring God into the laboratory, why start and end argument with situation that cannot be brought into a laboratory. On the other hand, I'm not helpless. I can look at studies of the effects that same sex marriage has had in the social laboratory of Scandinavia over the past twenty years or so. And with respect to another 14 year old's claims, I can check to see whether the Book of Mormon descriptions of Jerusalem 600 BCE fits with Barker's reconstructions, or whether the descriptions of the Sidon uniquely fit the Grijalva, or whether living the principles in the book help me in my personal life. And whether a naive presentist-positivist reading of Genesis is better than one based on the best science and scholarship available.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[WalkerW]

You know, in my biology classes in second grade, I learned nothing about the Krebs cycle? Can you believe it? We just drew a circle for cell membrane, and another for a nucleus, and that was about it. Why should I believe a science that changes, and has unresolved controversies, different opinions, colorful history...

The more carefully [historians of science] study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that those once current views of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today. Given these alternatives, the historian must choose the latter. Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes it difficult to see scientific development as a process of accretion. (Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1996 [1962]: 2-3)

[Stargazer]

Copper tools and weapons do not date to BCE. I have no idea where these extremely early dates come from. Besides, "steel" and "iron" are also unfounded claims in the BoM text, leaving "indestructible evidence" (tailings) behind; when we add the Jaredite "millions" who were also purported miners we have to ask, "Where is the physical evidence of mining"? There is literally NONE whatsoever....

As far as the unfounded claims of steel and iron in the Book of Mormon are concerned, I don't think these are as unfounded as you (or others with similar inclinations) might think.

As far as steel objects produced in a Bessemer Converter are concerned, this is clearly nonsense. In the sense of carbon-hardened iron, however, steel was contemporaneous and pre-contemporaneous with Lehi, and Laban's sword was clearly made of it.

The "steel" of Nephi's bow, however, isn't likely to have been made of hardened iron. Ever try to bend a steel bow? I don't think Nephi, for alll of him being portrayed as pretty buff in Friberg's paintings, could pull such a bow. The problem with the word "steel" is that its an English word that historically has been used for other purposes than just hardened iron.

In the King James version of the Bible we have the following for 2 Sam. 22:35:

35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

There's your bow of steel that Nephi used. He broke his, too. In fact, a bow of steel is simply a bow strengthened by resilient materials so it is very strong and can drive an arrow a long way. The word steel does not necessarily mean what you think it does (with apologies to Enigo Montoya).

As far as the rest of the steel in the Book of Mormon is concerned, lack of evidence of any steelmaking does not provide evidence of absence. For example, nobody would have believed that an obscure African people on Lake Victoria could have been producing medium-carbon steel as far back as 2000 years ago, but they were. This was steel of such high quality that it wasn't duplicated by European metallurgy until the Siemens and Bessemer processes in the 1850's. This was discovered back around 1978ish, which was about 50 years after they had stopped making their own steel because they could buy it readily. Now, if the Haya people of Tanzania could make advanced steel products that far back, what stops the Nephites from having found a process for doing something similar, even if something not so advanced?

Just because people are ancient doesn't make them stupid.

This was new to me: I was amazed about the Haya people and their steel.

I steel myself for your reply.

[Calm]

(with apologies to Enigo Montoya).

Inigo...you owe him another apology.

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0003786/