Response To Dr. Michael Coe

[why me]

While I seriously doubt there is anyone who would believe me...I sincerely wish there was more support for the reality of the Book of Mormon than a few (little barley) grass seeds and some native current species some have massaged into full blown wine making grapes.

Me too. Then, I would could be comfortable with the knowledge that god exists. Then, begin to do always the right thing by choosing the right. No worries...no problems...and absolute knowledge that there is a god. I can then look forward to death and rejoice at the death of loved ones.

Edited August 18, 2011 by why me

[why me]

I apologize to the faithful believers that I can not do this any more. I can't keep banging my head trying to make Mormonism claims believable. Its not healthy. I just need to find a way to let go and move on.

Yes, it is unfortunate that the book of mormon can be proven absolutely true. It would greatly help myself through life if the book could be absolutely be proven true. Then, I would know that god exists and look forward to death and live my life as holy as possible. But then again, it would be nice if the bible could be proven absolutely true. But it hasn't been. Both books depend on faith or lack of faith. Sad, but such is the way it is. However, this is why we have 11 witnesses to the book of mormon. Do we believe the witnesses or do we disbelieve them? Were they in on a fraud or did they actually experience what they saw and felt with their hands---the book of mormon?

[why me]

I do believe that all members and nonmembers wish that the book of mormon can be proven absolutely true and we can put faith into the garbage can because we would have absolute knowledge that god exists.

Edited August 18, 2011 by why me

[morgan.deane]

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Edited August 18, 2011 by morgan.deane

[morgan.deane]

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Edited August 18, 2011 by morgan.deane

[morgan.deane]

Or suppose I'm reasonably well informed on Book of Mormon scholarship, having studied it for fifty years. Then someone who knew Mormons in Wyoming when he was a teenager, and read No Man Knows my History, and later actually met Thomas Ferguson, comes along, and on the basis of his reputation as an expert knowledge of Classic Mayan cultures that post-date the Book of Mormon account, he quite cheerfully dismisses the Book of Mormon using arguments that derive from Brodie, and are directed at the paradigm Tom Ferguson used between 1950 and 1975, surely the Golden Age of Book of Mormon New World scholarship. He praises the work of LDS archeologists, while brushing aside the work of LDS apologists, without seriously engaging any recent work, or demonstrating any noticeable expertise or insight into the Book of Mormon text. (Of course, Sorenson's recent work on evidence for biological transmissions got him to admit to the reality of pre-Columbian oceanic influence, whereas he had been able to brush of cultural evidence as "coincidence" and parallel invention.)

The real issue ought to be, how good is the opinion? How can it be tested, and what are the results?

Do we read in cultural context? as commended by any serious anthropologist, or 2 Nephi 25:1-5, do we insist that words mean what they mean, and if a text says "A chip off the old block," we ought to look for chips and blocks, preferably under a convenient lamp post where the light is good.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Well said. I've only studied the BoM for 15 years but you saved me the time of explaining in greater detail why I was underwhelmed with Coe.

Edited August 18, 2011 by morgan.deane

[why me]

From what I can tell, the Church doesn't convert a lot people who already have advanced degrees. Most of the scholars on Mormonscholarstestify, for example, were raised in the church from birth or at a very young age. This means they were not joining the Church based on an educated view of the world, or of anything else for that matter.

No surprise here. Educated people have a difficulty in believing in god because they tend to go along with darwin and evolution. To be a believing intellectual is not exactly popular at the moment. Educated people are full of agnostic thought and would have difficulty in joining any faith.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

To be clear, though, there are plenty of educated, faithful believers who accept Darwinian evolution, too.

[why me]

To be clear, though, there are plenty of educated, faithful believers who accept Darwinian evolution, too.

Why not? It is much easier for them to do so. Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion sold millions of copies and many readers believed his book of atheism. Much easier to do so.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Hoo boy. Not to derail us into yet another evolution thread, but ... suffice to say that there is simply no contradiction between organic evolution and the Gospel, and those who accept both do not do so because it is "easier", but rather because it fits the evidence better.

Quick! Back to Mesoamerica, or no one will get out of here alive!

[Ariarates]

Apologetic theories are like whack-a-moles

Since we're off-topic anyway: I had heard this term in American TV shows but I always thought they were talking about guacamoles...

[why me]

Several listeners have asked me to see if FAIR/FARMS would be willing to provide a response to my interview w/ Dr. Michael Coe.

http://mormonstories.org/?p=1880

Please let me know if anyone is interested. As always, the door is always open to FAIR/FARMS participants on my podcast.

The amazing thing about all this is: here we have a young guy with the name of Joseph Smith who starts a religious faith based on visions and gold plates. Gets 11 people to see the plates and has eight of them to touch the plates and has an angel come down from on high to present the plates to the witnesses. And now well over a hundred years later we are still debating as whether this guy Joseph Smith was a conartist or a prophet. That must say a lot about Joseph Smith and the lds church that was formed by him.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Since we're off-topic anyway: I had heard this term in American TV shows but I always thought they were talking about guacamoles...

Bahaha! Fantastic. Americans have the strangest accents. <3

[LeSellers]

Since we're off-topic anyway: I had heard this term in American TV shows but I always thought they were talking about guacamoles...

Not sure whether you are kidding or not, but ...

"Whack-a-Mole" is a game (usually in a "Penny Arcade") where the point is to hit the plastic mole (an underground-dwelling mammal) using a small club as he pops up from one of nine holes. It's supposed to be random so you do not know which hole will be the next one. (I suspect there may be sensors that determine where your club is, and the mole "goes" elsewhere.) If you hit him, you win the prize. But he doesn't stay exposed long enough for normal human reaction time to allow you to hit him. Just when you think you've got him, he drops back down and appears at another hole. I have never seen any one actually whack a mole. (But then, I find it uninteresting, so have not watched many games.)

We use the term in much the same way as when we say, "You've moved the goal posts", a reference to American football.

Lehi

[LeSellers]

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Edited August 19, 2011 by LeSellers

[LeSellers]

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Edited August 19, 2011 by LeSellers

[Xander]

Even if people are born into the church they must be converted/convinced.

Not really. People join the Church all the time for other reasons. Especially in poorer areas where people will say just about anything to become part of a social community. This iis true for all religions tough, not just Mormonism.

Curently in my ward there are businessmen, professors, IT professionals and a nuclear physicist thrown in for good measure.

So?

Time and time again I have seen people leave the church, not because of that peskly little historical factoid that they couldn't reconcile or because they suddenly had the blinders torn off as in the standard anti-mormon rationalizeamony. Usually it is because they were struggling with personal issues or had dysfunctional relationships with family who were LDS.

Yes, this happens too, and it is likely that these will be the examples you're aware of because they tend to travel through the usual grape vines. However, people leave the Church for intellectual reasons all the time and they do so in silence. Most people who have been baptized in the Church aren't active in any sense. Only 20% of Mormons on record in Chile and Brazil self-identify as Mormons. I'm not saying they all left for intellectual reasons, only that people leave all the time without making their reasons known. Its just that the juicy gossipy stuff tends to get passed around in the rumor mill, and it also serves the purpose of validating the usual presupposition that apostates are just lazy people who leave for stupid reasons. Well, some might, but many people join the Church for stupid reasons too.

I'm not buying what is being sold here.

I'm selling nothing. I'm stating a fact. The ignorant tend to be those who will most likely join the Church. Those who are super intellectuals in the Church, tend to be those who were conditioned from a very young age, to believe the Church is all it claims to be. They tend to be those who are also conditioned to avoid all critical information like the plague. It doesn't matter how much of an academic you are if you've been conditioned to reject all critical information about your faith.

[morgan.deane]

Not sure whether you are kidding or not, but ...

"Whack-a-Mole" is a game (usually in a "Penny Arcade") where the point is to hit the plastic mole (an underground-dwelling mammal) using a small club as he pops up from one of nine holes. It's supposed to be random so you do not know which hole will be the next one. (I suspect there may be sensors that determine where your club is, and the mole "goes" elsewhere.) If you hit him, you win the prize. But he doesn't stay exposed long enough for normal human reaction time to allow you to hit him. Just when you think you've got him, he drops back down and appears at another hole. I have never seen any one actually whack a mole. (But then, I find it uninteresting, so have not watched many games.)

We use the term in much the same way as when we say, "You've moved the goal posts", a reference to American football.

Lehi

I like the version of whack a mole they had on Toy Story. Instead of moles they had little aliens popping out of an astronauts stomach. It took me three times to notice (my three year old is on a Toy Story kick), but it was good joke for adults that like the Alien movies.

[cdowis]

Ultimately, Coe doesn't represent critics, atheists, or anti-mormons on the Book of Mormon. He represents people with common sense.

It is truly ironic since Coe is very knowledgeable on history of the translation of the Mayan language. Note his comment on the Cracking Mayan program on PBS HERE

PETER MATHEWS (Epigrapher, La Trobe University): She presented the paper to Eric Thompson, and Eric Thompson said, "Oh Tanya, you know that can't possibly be true. There's no history in the inscriptions." And she said that the next morning she came back to work to be greeted by Eric Thompson who said, "You are absolutely right."

MICHAEL COE: Which is amazing for somebody like that who had been a lifelong opponent of the idea that this was history. And that was it. That just changed everything. We now knew that we were dealing with history on these monuments.

All the assumptions of the experts in the field were changed. He said that he went "weak in the knees" at the discovery.

He goes on:

MICHAEL COE: And, of course, the Soviet propaganda apparatus jumped on this and said, "Look, inspired by the wonders of Marxism-Leninism, this young scholar (Knorosov ) has done what none of the imperialist scholars in Britain or the United States or Germany could ever do. He's shown how the Maya wrote." And Thompson, a lifelong anti-communist, decided that this was a total fraud and that the world should be straightened out about this.

So, one of the greatest discoveries in mesoamerican history was discounted for political reasons. Coe knows this, he realizes the rejection by Thompson was based on ignorance, assumptions and politics. He literally wrote the book on it, "Breaking the Mayan Code".

Coe has no excuse for his treatment of the book delivered by an angel.

Edited August 18, 2011 by cdowis

[cdowis]

[del

Edited August 18, 2011 by cdowis

[mfbukowski]

Bahaha! Fantastic. Americans have the strangest accents. <3

You take the words icicles and lollypops. put them together, and the Brits come up with "ice lollies" and we come up with "popsicles".

"ice lollies"?

Now that is clear evidence of how demented these Brits are! That's just WRONG!

Edited August 18, 2011 by mfbukowski

[ldsfaqs]

That you actually believe this is pretty scary stuff.

I don't have to simply "think" it.... It's a published study.

You're the same guy who tried to tell me all apologists tell the truth whereas all critics lie and misrepresent the facts. When I proved otherwise, you went silent.

You did nothing of the sort. All anti's do lie, just because they might say something right once in awhile is nothing special. And LDS scholars do tell the truth all the time. The fact that they might make a normal human error once in awhile, is also nothing special. I had made this clear form the beginning, but you ignored it, and then pretended like I changed the goal posts. Further, we never actually talked really about any 'specific" subjects, and the brief one we did, I debunked your misrepresentation.

Maybe you should go back and read our discussion again, and understand this time?

From what I can tell, the Church doesn't convert a lot people who already have advanced degrees. Most of the scholars on Mormonscholarstestify, for example, were raised in the church from birth or at a very young age. This means they were not joining the Church based on an educated view of the world, or of anything else for that matter. The correlation - causation fallacy is immediately employed by apologists, as we're expected to believe that these folks are in Mormonism because of their advanced education, when the reality may very well be they're devout Mormons despite their advanced educations.

There are converts to the Church from all walks of life. Just because many of the ones Dr. Petersen nows to get them to write a testimony are often in the system he's already in, doesn't mean there aren't many outside of that system from all kinds of careers.

Plus, as someone else mentioned, you comment has nothing to do with my claim.

Of course often time people who are in their careers in the sciences might not join the Church as much as some others. They tend to be too busy for religion, or they already have their own and are to busy to look for another etc. There is a good reason IF your claim has any validity why people may not as much join later. Certainly has nothing to do with them thinking mormonism is "stupid" and clearly not true as you believe. Further, even if some such people did study it, they would likely still be too busy with their own lives to study it properly to judge it properly. They have a much more likelihood of sucking down anti-mormon lying propaganda, than actually studying what the Church actually is. Anti-mormon propaganda is "child" work, thus easy to swallow and believe.

After all, going to school at a young age and moving on to earn advanced degrees is something the Church highly encourages. If stats remain the same as they did ten years ago, then Utah has the highest level of education per capital. In which case, people are merely following Church counsel; following the LDS culture of what is expected of them. Obviously, those who are obedient tend to be more devout.

Other religions encourage education. Yes, likely not as doctrinally central as we do, but the fact is, is as someone who's gone through the process, Mormonism is actually "provable" by the preponderance of the evidence, thus an intellectual exercise. Other religions while having some degree of evidences etc., simply are lacking in huge respects, especially compared to mormonism. That's my view. Obviously you believe different, but only because you don't know any different and could care less about knowing anything different, but are well secure in your bigotry. Been there done that..... That's how I know for sure you're wrong.

[ldsfaqs]

When does one become a scholar? Good question, but since it seems to be an important point for you, I think you should answer it. To me it doesn't matter if one is a scholar when joining the Church, as this in and of itself says nothing about one's education on the essential matters that would weigh on an informed decision. Take Jonathan Adjimani as a perfect example. He came across missionaries 30 years ago, and he admittedly had no idea who they were and had never heard of the LDS Church. In short, he was entirely ignorant. So what does having a degree in biochemistry matter? It doesn't make his decision to join the LDS faith become an informed decision, as the principles of Mormonism aren't related to the principles of biochemistry.I'm guessing the LDS missionaries told him nothing about the history of the Church in Africa, or about how priesthood would not have been an option for him just a few years earlier. Had he known this, his chances of joining drop dramatically - I believe he never would have joined. The Church knows this too, which is why it is important for them to control the environments and prevent exposure to critical information which, in any other context, would be considered honest and the right thing to do. When making any kind of life-changing decision, a person should be informed of the cons along with the pros.

Coming from Ghana, where he received his education, his ignorance is hardly surprising. But it pretty much goes along with what I said. Those inclined to convert are those who know the least. The Church does whatever it can to make sure prospective converts are exposed to only one side of the story - their side. I suspect that most scholars who converted after becoming a scholar, converted awhile ago, long before the internet and exposure to critical information was readily available. I have yet to hear of a single middle-aged scholar who converted to the LDS faith in recent years. Not saying they don't exist, only saying that if they do, they are rare exceptions. I've seen people join the faith for no reason other than the fact that they just lost their family to a tragic accident, and they wanted so badly to believe the Mormon promise that they would be reunited as a family unit in the hereafter.Other's I've seen join because that is the only way the person they fell in love with would marry them. Some are scholars, some are not, but each case needs to be examined critically before one can conclude that "advanced education" had any role in their decision. I know enough LDS scholars to know they don't automatically have more knowledge about the things that would affect one's decision to convert, simply because they teach Arabic, Linguistics, Greek, English, Art, or whatever.

The Church uses the same tactics used by corporations seeking to expand their consumer base. And this makes sense because the LDS Church is essentially a corporation run by business people who employ the same types of marketing and PR strategists who were educated in the art of public persuasion, taught to engineer effective propaganda, psychological manipulation, etc. The same folks who sit in board rooms trying to design the next Super Bowl commercial that will use psychological techniques to sell a product, are the same kinds of experts who design Church videos or commercials, making sure they hit the right emotional themes, using just the right kind of tear-jerking music, etc. It is an art of manipulation.

Your statements here are complete malarkey devoid of reality and truth....

I would say a good HALF of converts to the Church are pretty well informed about various things, other religions, and even anti-mormonism.

Thus, your claim that the Church goes after the gullible and ignorant, and only such people join the Church is a complete lie and only another fantasy of your warped anti-mormon mind.

I spent YEARS in multiple religions before I first knew and then after 2 years in it joined the Church. And the only reason I joined the Church was because one it was the only one that actually fit the Bible in full and accurately so, and it was the only one that made common sense in many other ways, such as how it was structured to make better people, it's organization, it's ability to prevent corruption, it's ability to raise up righteous and well balanced men and women, etc. In other words, as a "True Church" should, it should be true scripturally true and accurate, as well as practically the best in quality. Mind body and spirit..... The best of all aspects. Although, I would like to make it better and incorporate "Shaolin" teachings, but, it's not absolutely necessary. The Church has enough programs to help people be temporally fit as they live the Gospel in full.

Anyway, your judgments are classic anti-mormon and Atheistic judgments of religion and mormonism, thus devoid of actual truth and fact. I know, been there done that. It's wrong and false on many levels.

You haven't been here long so I will make this a warning: never call or imply another poster a liar if you want to stay in a thread.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Minos

[ldsfaqs]

I'm sure it is reassuring for you to conclude that the only way I am …”able to come up with such an explanation counter to Mormonism is by ignoring a great many important details as well as misrepresenting Mormonism in many important respects”...and who knows perhaps you are right.

Mormonism is a religion. It makes claims regarding its reality. Those claims are either true or false. Throughout our lives, each of us take what we are taught through our various contacts with the church and interpret the information, accepting, rejecting, molding, sifting and filtering what we learn and eventually come to an understanding of what we believe Mormonism to actually be. In a way we each form our own brand of Mormonism base on our own individual experience within Mormonism. ( I think that point is an obvious conclusion based on the wide degree of variation in beliefs demonstrated on this board alone) Weekly, as we attend church, seminary, institute etc, we are able to compare what we believe Mormonism to be with what we are taught through correlated lessons what the church wants us to believe Mormonism to be.

So yes, my understanding of what Mormonism is although influenced by what I was taught ultimately was interpreted by myself… to form “My Religion”.

But isn’t this what we all do in order to make the Mormon dogma both acceptable and believable? But then we discover something new that does not conform with our understanding of what Mormonism is. What then? Some choose to ignore, other redefine, some successfully resolve…while some (like me) cannot successfully reconcile this new information and must reinvent their understanding of their religion. When I did this…the only way to make sense of my reality was to come to the realization…sadly I might add…that Mormonism was not what it claimed to be.

So what exactly have I misrepresented? What important details have I ignored?

That your not the first to go through such challenges.....

Some of us have went back putting away our judgment in order to find out the actual truth of the various issues are, and guess what, every anti-mormon conclusion be it by ex-LDS or never-LDS is nothing but the same perversion and ignorance of all the facts, and lacking in wisdom and judgment. Every single issue is like this, no matter what it is. Off the top of my head the only "real" issue anti's have on us is that a few mormons in history uttered some human racist or seeming racist or ethno-centrist comments. The other might be that some were human a time or two some other ways. That's about it. Every doctrine, history, etc. we are criticized on is perverted in some form by the anti's, whether it's calling Joseph a pedophile, or Adam/God and all the rest.

See, when I went back, and I compared Mormonism and Anti-mormonism side by side. I saw how the anti's took things out of context, omitted things, etc. etc. in order to falsely portray something the most negative and "evil" they could. Of course any "sane" person wouldn't belong to such a religion the way anti's portray things. But, one who is wise discovers that the way anti's portray things is not the truth, but a perversion of it.

The Church ends up being exactly what it claims to be..... It's an amazing knowledge, a miracle had because of ones Faith. Not "belief" (as you should know in mormonism Faith isn't really "belief"). Faith in action, patience, humility, etc.

[ldsfaqs]

My original reaction to the podcast was similar to the other reactions posted here. "Boy, he hasn't kept up with the latest research!" I thought.

But my next thought was "Why should he?" Or how could he? Is he supposed to address every apologetic theory put forth to defend the Book of Mormon? Apologetic theories are like whack-a-moles, and even if he were able to debunk every single one, fifty others would spring up in their places. The only (relatively) stable factor in this is the text of the Book of Mormon itself.

For example, let's take "horses". There are two apologetic lines of thought on this:

1. The word "horse" in the BoM usually refers to another creature like a Tapir or Llama

2. The word "horse" in the BoM is referring to a horse; there were horses here and we just haven't found them yet (or we have found them but the discovery isn't well known, but it will soon be...)

........

Horses HAVE BEEN FOUND (at the right time) as you sort of mention, it is only that the scientific community hasn't yet changed their paradigm, being apparently ignorant of the evidences, and thus making critical mistakes when horse bones are found, as well the research is still ongoing.

There are other evidences of horses in the right time period that Ash doesn't go into, wall paintings, toys, other picture related evidences, etc.

Edited August 18, 2011 by ldsfaqs