The Problem Of Historicity

[Bikeemikey]

Other than just the huge archeological finds... The Shroud is a good one. Which is interesting, because if Jesus hadn't been raised, the shroud would still be in the ground, and not have an image on it.

Historical evidence can not verify any of the religious claims of the bible. It can support place names and that sort of thing.

But even if there are 100 documents that all sag they met Jesus in Jerusalem that only proves that someone named Jesus existed.

The only evidence that Jesus is the Christ is spiritual witness.

[ERayR]

Other than just the huge archeological finds... The Shroud is a good one. Which is interesting, because if Jesus hadn't been raised, the shroud would still be in the ground, and not have an image on it. 

 

You are assuming 1) the shroud was actually the burial cloth of Jesus and 2) everyone else also believes it is.

[mfbukowski]

Historically, the term agnostic, has described someone who does not know if there is a God. I wonder, if in these "enlightened" times, we might need to extend the term to include those who do not know if there is anything? "If I have senses they falsify the data, and I think I think, but maybe I am deluded."

In order to be deluded you have to think you can be and that there is some standard that can show what delusion is.  The presumption of just such a standard IS the delusion.  Only when you rid yourself of the delusion of objectivity of sense data can you really know God is as real as anything you can see and touch.

 

Even atheists see God as a possibility after they rid themselves of the delusion of correspondence.

 

That is a great mystery to me- why Christians support a correspondence theory when clearly there is no "objective" evidence for God so statements about Him could not possibly correspond to anything verifiable.  They are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

 

Correspondence theories of truth are actually antithetical to faith.  That's why guys like Dawkins are influential- and why their arguments are so vulnerable.  To attack Dawkins all you have to do is attack his theory of truth with something more sophisticated.  He is really kind of a simpleton, but curiously he accepts the same theory of truth as most Christians, which is why he is so damaging to their understanding of God.

Edited August 17, 2014 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

But even if there are 100 documents that all sag they met Jesus in Jerusalem that only proves that someone named Jesus existed.

 

Not even that.  Those accounts could be pious fiction.  Anybody can write anything

 

You don't really understand faith until you have doubted absolutely everything.  Being an atheist was actually my path to Christ.

[mfbukowski]

Other than just the huge archeological finds... The Shroud is a good one. Which is interesting, because if Jesus hadn't been raised, the shroud would still be in the ground, and not have an image on it. 

This is a perfect demonstration of the confusion generated by the belief that any objective evidence can prove anything about religion.

 

Clearly any atheist would use the exact same "data" to show that, since people do not rise from the dead, clearly the shroud must be a fake.

 

The data is the data- and you have one interpretation of the data and an atheist sees the opposite interpretation.

 

This entire argument is shows that any objective evidence can be interpreted either way, and hence can be used to prove anything! 

 

How could anyone possibly know what kind of imprint resurrection would cause?   Did they put shrouds on 100 corpses and then resurrect them, and show that the radiation burns (or whatever they are alleged to be) matches the radiation burns on the shroud, therefore the shroud proves Christ's resurrection?

 

I am just dumbfounded by this kind of logic- used by either side!

[Spammer]

Unless you're a pantheist, God is distinct from you and an object for contemplation and prayer.  Theists believe they experience God's presence through these means.  They focus on and interact with God as external object.  They associate whatever feelings and sensations they may have when experiencing and believe that those feelings and sensations correspond with God; they believe they are God-caused.  On what grounds do postmodernist, non-pantheist theists reject all correspondences except that one?

Edited August 17, 2014 by Spammer

[Spammer]

This entire argument is shows that any objective evidence can be interpreted either way, and hence can be used to prove anything! 

 

 

 

Yet, it seems your philosophy grants your spiritual experiences a special exception and allows the correspondence between them and God as external object, who, after all, is potential sense object to any theist, unless the Father and Son did not really appear to Joseph Smith in person as Joseph claimed.  Your philosophy rejects all correspondences based on sense data but allows a correspondence for subjective spiritual experiences since it's believed that they correspond to and verify the existence of God.  Yet, the same as sense data, the feelings and sensations associated with such subjective feelings, which are presumed to be God-caused by the person doing the experiencing, can be interpreted in different ways and can also be used to prove anything.

 

I'll ask again, correspondences based on sense data are rejected but correspondences based on internal sensations and feelings thought to correspond to God-as-external-object are allowed.  Why?  What are your grounds for granting this exception?

Edited August 17, 2014 by Spammer

[Spammer]

I hope you murder a lot of fish.

 

We were looking for flounder, but only caught a couple of croakers.  The boys had never seen one and thought someone was flatulent when it started croaking.  We threw them back, so no fish murders on this trip.  Still fun, though!

[mfbukowski]

Yet, it seems your philosophy grants your spiritual experiences a special exception and allows the correspondence between them and God as external object, who, after all, is potential sense object to any theist, unless the Father and Son did not really appear to Joseph Smith in person as Joseph claimed.  Your philosophy rejects all correspondences based on sense data but allows a correspondence for subjective spiritual experiences since it's believed that they correspond to and verify the existence of God.  Yet, the same as sense data, the feelings and sensations associated with such subjective feelings, which are presumed to be God-caused by the person doing the experiencing, can be interpreted in different ways and can also be used to prove anything.

 

I'll ask again, correspondences based on sense data are rejected but correspondences based on internal sensations and feelings thought to correspond to God-as-external-object are allowed.  Why?  What are your grounds for granting this exception?

Not at all.  I don't think any of these statements are accurate about what I think.

 

The point is that all you can really be sure about is direct experience.  I do not experience history, nor do I experience evolution.  I do not experience quantum theory or three heavens, or God's physical body.   All of those are stories that are useful for their particular purposes.  All of those are constructions and interpretations of experience.  Some of them are my experiences and others are what others have said.  But guess what?  Hearsay is not admissible in court.  I only believe that Antarctica exists by hearsay because I have never been there

 

We experience the world directly- there is no definable differences between appearances and "reality".  Sense data does not "correspond" to reality it IS reality.  Yes sometimes we make mistakes about what we think we are seeing- mirages, optical illusions, etc.  Oh well.  Mistakes happen, nothing is absolutely certain.

 

Blue is blue.  We do not experience photons hitting our retinas.  That is a construction of science- an interpretation of experiments and a projection of what is believed.  That construction works well to explain other data, and has predictive value- but we cannot go out and look at a photon and watch it hit a retina and say "Yep- that theory corresponds to reality all right!"  We can't get outside the limitations of our senses to check to see if anything we see "corresponds" to whatever the somewhat mysterious inputs "really" are.

 

All we know is something like "I am having a blue experience" or a "pain experience" or a "wife experience" or "chair experience" etc etc.  We don't know anything outside of the experience.  You bump into a wall, you have a "bumping into a wall experience"

 

Think about observing stars in the sky.  Science itself tells us that what we are directly experiencing DOES NOT "correspond" to the "reality" of what is happening now- because the light entering our eyes might be thousands of years old.  Our experience of the stars does not "correspond" to their reality at all.

 

Their "reality" is unknowable.   And in the same glance at the sky, we are not seeing ANYTHING AT ALL that corresponds to  any reality whatsoever.  Think about it.  The light from one star may be 100 years old, from the next one, five thousand years old.  The location of those stars has changed- so what we are seeing is a composite of images, none of which "correspond" to an array which ever "really" existed.  Science admits, that of course.  So that is an example right there- Every other case is similar in principle, it's just that astronomy makes the case against "correspondence" more clear.

 

Clearly when you bump into a table, there is "something out there", and we see it and feel it.  But even calling it a "table" changes the raw experience into a linguistic event framed around its function in a context.  If you are camping and sitting on a stump, is the stump a "chair"?  One might use that word in that context and people would understand you.  So what does the word "chair" correspond to in the world of experience?  It could be whatever you are sitting on.

 

But direct experience is another thing.  If you feel pain, you feel pain.  It doesn't matter if it is "phantom" pain in a finger cut off years ago.  Blue is blue- and one does not ask if it is "really" blue except in special circumstances, like telling what color a car is in the dark.

 

Reminds me of that Moody Blues song from my hippie days  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Begins

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,

removes the colours from our sight.

Red is grey, and yellow, white,

but we decide which is right,

and which is an illusion.

So is red "really" grey and yellow "really" white?  Obviously that is a linguistic confusion and the song correctly points out that it is up to us to decide if we want to define that as an "illusion" or not

 

Spiritual experience is direct experience.  So are other experiences.  Imagine coming over the top of a hill and suddenly seeing a magnificent vista opening before you.  Almost involuntarily you say "How Beautiful"!   Or perhaps you say the same thing looking up at the night sky.

 

Can you be mistaken about that?  How does that experience "correspond" to the description "beautiful"?  Is it true or false that the vista is "beautiful"?  What do the two experiences have in common that convince you that yes, after a rational analysis of the two vistas, I can correctly conclude that indeed they were "beautiful"?  Is a cathedral "beautiful"?  What does a building have in common with the face of a beautiful woman, a night sky, or a view of Grand Canyon?

 

Yet we do not doubt or analyze beauty, but we all know the experience.  The word doesn't really "correspond" to anything in particular which is "real" beyond the experience itself.

 

But I have personally experienced- as clearly as I have experienced "beauty" - a sensation of love filling my body and bringing me incalculable peace and knowing that that was a communication from an intelligence "outside" me which I call "God".   I have had fears and worries suddenly vanish coupled with that same kind of experience.  I have known to call people who were in trouble while I was not even thinking of them, coupled with that same kind of feeling of love and intelligence.

 

Once I was on a long bike ride, into mile 30 or so and suddenly became worried about an elderly sister in the ward, at the same time receiving that sure feeling that I was not making up the idea myself.   First I called the Relief Society president and she said "I was just thinking about her- I will go over there right now!"  She went, and the elderly lady had fallen and was trapped in her kitchen.  Help was summoned and after some time in the hospital, she was fine.

 

That sort of thing has happened more than once.

 

So what is that?  Is it "real"?  To me it is just as clear as knowing I love my wife or knowing a scene is "beautiful".  From these direct experiences, I conclude that God is as "real" as anything else, if not "more"

 

"God as external object"?  No not really.  God is not an object any more than beauty is an object, or any more than you are an object to me.  All I know about you is that there is some kind of responsive intelligence which responds to me.  You could be a ghost or an alien, or even a Protestant. 

 

God is an experience, just like talking to you is an experience.

 

Of course I don't like you quite as much, but you'll do for a good discussion.    If you ARE a you, that is, Mr Alien artificial intelligence, limited though it is.   

[mfbukowski]

We were looking for flounder, but only caught a couple of croakers.  The boys had never seen one and thought someone was flatulent when it started croaking.  We threw them back, so no fish murders on this trip.  Still fun, though!

So you didn't croak any croakers, huh? 

[Spammer]

What I have learned from life is that there is no such thing as an objective report about anything. It is all interpretation of data. That is where we differ. I believe there is never an objective description of "reality"- the very act of attempting that distorts "what really happened"

We cannot divorce ourselves from our own sense-data which colors everything- literally and figuratively. The distinction between appearances and "reality" is often very tenuous.

I answered your last post speaking about murdering fish. I did that for a reason. You will be killing fish, yet calling it "murder" makes one think. "Catching fish" is an innocuous activity, "murdering" them makes it a very different statement.

Which corresponds to reality is up for grabs depending on if you are a member of PETA or not.

 

I don't think I've been too clear.  I'm not discussing interpretation of sense data, I'm discussing our awareness of an object's existence - something that isn't us that is 'out there', external to us.  Unless your postmodernism is of the "we have no idea whether we're just brains in a vat", as in the Matrix, then I assume you acknowledge that the world exists and that there are objects in it (however we interpret the significance of those objects).  My comments in this thread have focused on the correspondence between our subjective awareness of an external object and the objective existence of that object. Do you allow for at least that kind of minimal correspondence between our inner experiences and external reality (the world of objects distinct from ourselves) or would you also deny any reality to that correspondence?

[mfbukowski]

I don't think I've been too clear.  I'm not discussing interpretation of sense data, I'm discussing our awareness of an object's existence - something that isn't us that is 'out there', external to us.  Unless your postmodernism is of the "we have no idea whether we're just brains in a vat", as in the Matrix, then I assume you acknowledge that the world exists and that there are objects in it (however we interpret the significance of those objects).  My comments in this thread have focused on the correspondence between our subjective awareness of an external object and the objective existence of that object. Do you allow for at least that kind of minimal correspondence between our inner experiences and external reality (the world of objects distinct from ourselves) or would you also deny any reality to that correspondence?

No brains in a vat.

 

There is another thing happening here and that is linguistic confusion.  What does "objective existence" mean??

 

Can you have non-objective existence?  Can you have "subjective existence"?  Do unicorns "exist"?  The word has a meaning and you could draw one, so in a sense they "exist".

 

"Existence" is an abstract category which is of no use whatsoever.  You bump into things, you experience things, you say sentences and we know what we are talking about.

 

What is "existence"? Yes you can look it up in a dictionary- so what?  Does God write dictionaries?  Are dictionaries infallible?

 

It's like the question "Why does something exist instead of nothing?"  To me that is an absurd question which is unanswerable.  We have the word "why" and we have the word "exist" and the idea of "nothing" and we put those words together into a sentence that has no meaning whatsoever.

 

To me, even this line of thought is a category mistake.

[mfbukowski]

I don't think I've been too clear.  I'm not discussing interpretation of sense data, I'm discussing our awareness of an object's existence - something that isn't us that is 'out there', external to us.  Unless your postmodernism is of the "we have no idea whether we're just brains in a vat", as in the Matrix, then I assume you acknowledge that the world exists and that there are objects in it (however we interpret the significance of those objects).  My comments in this thread have focused on the correspondence between our subjective awareness of an external object and the objective existence of that object. Do you allow for at least that kind of minimal correspondence between our inner experiences and external reality (the world of objects distinct from ourselves) or would you also deny any reality to that correspondence?

If you don't know "things are out there" you are mentally ill.

 

What they ARE is what you experience.  Putting into words is another matter- that is where the problem arises.  Nietzsche says there are no "facts" just interpretations (of experience)

 

So we have experiences and interpret them in words.  Some descriptions work better than others to get different jobs accomplished.  Scientific descriptions of experience are vary good for practical matters like sending rockets to the moon and building bridges.

 

Religious descriptions help us have a peaceful and meaningful life.  Moral discussions serve the same purpose.  "Murder is wrong" is a proposition which helps make life pleasant for everyone and gives us a peaceful society so we can have a nice life.  It is "true" because it works.

 

"God loves me" is a similar kind of proposition.  It means that I have experienced a sense of love coming from "out there" somewhere, and I attribute it to "God".  That feeling makes my life pleasant and gives my life meaning.  I put together other ideas out of scriptures and other sources and put together a world view which makes sense to me.

 

That's about the best we can do with any of this.  But no one can do better and to think so is an illusion.

 

I know someone will come back saying that I am a horrible person because I think God is not "objective".  When you show me a photograph taken by a space ship of God's body, you will be right.  Otherwise, no, his "existence" is not "objective".

 

The Kingdom of heaven is not of this world- it exists in your heart.

 

He is just as real as anything else in this uncertain world.

[danielwoods]

Historical evidence can not verify any of the religious claims of the bible. It can support place names and that sort of thing.

But even if there are 100 documents that all sag they met Jesus in Jerusalem that only proves that someone named Jesus existed.

The only evidence that Jesus is the Christ is spiritual witness.

 

Didn't say that historical evidence can do any verifying. I agree all it can do is support one position or another. It can also provide negative support for a position as well. IF no one had talked to a man name Jesus, or there were no documents or cities or places that correspond to the alleged historical document, then it's actual claims of historicity would be questionable. 

 

You are assuming 1) the shroud was actually the burial cloth of Jesus and 2) everyone else also believes it is.

 

No. I'm not assuming anything. I am saying that the Shroud is a good example of historical evidence that supports the claims made in the Bible, because it fits the story, and is a unique ancient cloth. 

 

This is a perfect demonstration of the confusion generated by the belief that any objective evidence can prove anything about religion.

 

Clearly any atheist would use the exact same "data" to show that, since people do not rise from the dead, clearly the shroud must be a fake.

 

The data is the data- and you have one interpretation of the data and an atheist sees the opposite interpretation.

 

This entire argument is shows that any objective evidence can be interpreted either way, and hence can be used to prove anything! 

 

How could anyone possibly know what kind of imprint resurrection would cause?   Did they put shrouds on 100 corpses and then resurrect them, and show that the radiation burns (or whatever they are alleged to be) matches the radiation burns on the shroud, therefore the shroud proves Christ's resurrection?

 

I am just dumbfounded by this kind of logic- used by either side!

 

Atheists (or rather believers and non-believers alike) have tried for years to figure out what caused the image on the shroud. Since it has no burn marks on it (aside from the fire it was in), yet it has a negative image on it, reproducing such has proven to be rather impossible and even harder to explain given how old it is. 

 

I agree with you that data is data, and the interpretation of data is where disagreement arrises. 

[mfbukowski]

Didn't say that historical evidence can do any verifying. I agree all it can do is support one position or another. It can also provide negative support for a position as well. IF no one had talked to a man name Jesus, or there were no documents or cities or places that correspond to the alleged historical document, then it's actual claims of historicity would be questionable. 

 

 

No. I'm not assuming anything. I am saying that the Shroud is a good example of historical evidence that supports the claims made in the Bible, because it fits the story, and is a unique ancient cloth. 

 

 

Atheists (or rather believers and non-believers alike) have tried for years to figure out what caused the image on the shroud. Since it has no burn marks on it (aside from the fire it was in), yet it has a negative image on it, reproducing such has proven to be rather impossible and even harder to explain given how old it is. 

 

I agree with you that data is data, and the interpretation of data is where disagreement arrises. 

And it is therefore useless for "historical verification" of religion.

 

You are assuming that the stories about Jesus are true.  Not a good argument.  If you have a doubt that Jesus existed, stories that he did just move the same problem back a level.

 

Now the problem is believing the stories.

 

I believe that there was a real person Jesus who was the Son of God and died for our sins etc- just that stories which are allegedly "historic" cannot possibly help a skeptic's disbelief.  I know that from personal direct experience myself.

 

I used to think all those stories were foolishness, but have had spiritual experiences which "confirm" to my satisfaction that all those "stories" "really happened".  Is it foolishness to believe my experiences over imaginary stories which can never be verified and might as well be about a planet in some other galaxy?

 

Not for a minute.  I will take my own experiences over fiction any day.

 

People say that it is wrong to call the Book of Mormon "fiction".  First of all, I don't think it is fiction.

 

But the bottom line is that I would rather believe my own spiritual experiences than someone else's silly stories which I personally see as "fiction"

 

It is not that the Book of Mormon is "fiction" it is the "historical evidence" which is fiction.

Edited August 18, 2014 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Do you allow for at least that kind of minimal correspondence between our inner experiences and external reality (the world of objects distinct from ourselves) or would you also deny any reality to that correspondence?

I am repeating this for a reason because it is so CRYSTAL clear to me and so hard for people to understand and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.  You are not the only one.

 

WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT A WORLD OF OBJECTS DISTINCT FROM OURSELVES.

 

WE CANNOT KNOW ABOUT SUCH A WORLD BECAUSE KNOWING ABOUT IT MAKES SUCH A WORLD NOT DISTINCT FROM OURSELVES BY DEFINITION

 

We cannot get outside ourselves and say - "Oh - look! there is a world I cannot experience just over there" BECAUSE TO DO SO WOULD BE TO EXPERIENCE IT!

 

And if we cannot know about it, certainly we cannot see if it "corresponds" to anything we DO know about.

 

We cannot know about what we cannot know about!!!

 

So the question doesn't even make sense!

 

Is that clear at all?

 

I know it is a major paradigm shift with how one sees reality, but it is as clear as can be once you see that.  The position becomes indisputable.  That's why virtually all philosophers of this generation hold something like this position

 

Edit:

Richard Rorty puts this much better than I have:

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

 

Edited August 18, 2014 by mfbukowski

[danielwoods]

And it is therefore useless for "historical verification" of religion.

 

You are assuming that the stories about Jesus are true.  Not a good argument.  If you have a doubt that Jesus existed, stories that he did just move the same problem back a level.

 

Now the problem is believing the stories.

 

I believe that there was a real person Jesus who was the Son of God and died for our sins etc- just that stories which are allegedly "historic" cannot possibly help a skeptic's disbelief.  I know that from personal direct experience myself.

 

I used to think all those stories were foolishness, but have had spiritual experiences which "confirm" to my satisfaction that all those "stories" "really happened".  Is it foolishness to believe my experiences over imaginary stories which can never be verified and might as well be about a planet in some other galaxy?

 

Not for a minute.  I will take my own experiences over fiction any day.

 

People say that it is wrong to call the Book of Mormon "fiction".  First of all, I don't think it is fiction.

 

But the bottom line is that I would rather believe my own spiritual experiences than someone else's silly stories which I personally see as "fiction"

 

It is not that the Book of Mormon is "fiction" it is the "historical evidence" which is fiction.

 

 

You use these words as if they are universal, like "useless" and "fiction" and yet other peoples experience leads us to our own. So, clearly they aren't useless are they? 

[mfbukowski]

You use these words as if they are universal, like "useless" and "fiction" and yet other peoples experience leads us to our own. So, clearly they aren't useless are they? 

I never said it didnt

But as you seem to imply, what is important is that we do get our own

[Bikeemikey]

Not even that. Those accounts could be pious fiction. Anybody can write anything

You don't really understand faith until you have doubted absolutely everything. Being an atheist was actually my path to Christ.

To true! Rather than proves I should have used the phrases "increased evidence for".

[danielwoods]

I never said it didnt

But as you seem to imply, what is important is that we do get our own

 

I think both are important. One leads to another. 

 

History and testimonies from the past, or other people are not useless. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have our own. 

[mfbukowski]

I think both are important. One leads to another.

History and testimonies from the past, or other people are not useless. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have our own.

Nope.

That's the whole point. I don't care about them because I don't believe any of it. They are all myths and legends to me.

And yet I have a testimony because God told me, not some old crumbling parchment.

Edited August 18, 2014 by mfbukowski

[danielwoods]

Nope.

That's the whole point. I don't care about them because I don't believe any of it. They are all myths and legends to me.

And yet I have a testimony because God told me, not some old crumbling parchment.

 

And yet your journey to this belief in and testimony didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened as a direct result of other people. Either other people in the past leaving their written testimony or other people in the present talking to you about their experience. 

[USU78]

Nope.

That's the whole point. I don't care about them because I don't believe any of it. They are all myths and legends to me.

And yet I have a testimony because God told me, not some old crumbling parchment.

 

Which is why one worships G-d and not some book . . . to worship the latter is bibliolatry.

[Gazza]

You brush over the book of Abraham like it's no big deal.  The fact alone that Joseph pretended to translate documents that were later found (after the discovery of the rosetta stone) to be something completely different just conforms his previous reputation as a con-man.  http://mormonismdisproved.blogspot.com/2010/12/book-of-abraham-fraud-explained.html

 

Morover, there are archaeloloical fallacies, anthropological fallacies, and biological fallacies that disprove the BOM--

 

Three Strikes, You're Out!--The Quick and Dirty Case Against Mormonism

Kyle J. Gerkin

The Mormon religion was built on a 19th century American-Christian foundation. Thus, Mormons share many Christian convictions, such as a belief in the divinity of Jesus, and a reverence for the Christian Bible as a sacred text. To be sure, Mormon doctrine has enough theological peculiarities to put it outside of the pale of what many would consider "orthodox" or "mainstream" Christianity, but perhaps not more so than dozens of other Christian sects. In any case, due to its Christian basis, the same general arguments can be made against Mormonism as can be offered in opposition to Christianity. However, Mormonism has one particularly unique feature, which sets it apart, and opens it to the charge of demonstrable falsehood: The Book of Mormon (BoM).

Mormonism's founder and first "prophet," Joseph Smith, was purportedly visited by an angel named Moroni on the night of September 21, 1823 in Palmyra, New York.[1] Moroni informed Joseph that he was chosen to do God's work, and directed him to unearth a set of "golden plates" from a nearby hill. Upon the plates was recorded an ancient history of the American Indians. Apparently due to a lack of purity, Joseph was not allowed to recover the plates until four years later, at which point he began to "translate" them. According to Joseph, they were written in a hieroglyphic language known as "reformed Egyptian." His method of "translation" was to stare into a set of "seer stones"; an action which was followed by the appearance of the text in Joseph's mind, conveniently translated into King James-style English. Joseph could then dictate to his scribe who sat on the other side of a curtain, behind which the scribe was forbidden to peek.[2] In this way, the BoM was produced. After the book was published in 1830, the plates were whisked away to heaven by the angel Moroni.

 

Please do not put large amounts of cut & paste on our board. Reduced to Fair Use.

[ERayR]

You brush over the book of Abraham like it's no big deal.  The fact alone that Joseph pretended to translate documents that were later found (after the discovery of the rosetta stone) to be something completely different just conforms his previous reputation as a con-man.  

 

Morover, there are archaeloloical fallacies, anthropological fallacies, and biological fallacies that disprove the BOM--

 

Three Strikes, You're Out!--The Quick and Dirty Case Against Mormonism

 

May I call you Schultz?  Like Schultz (hogans Hero's) your post shows you "know understand nothinggggg".