James Tunney Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said: This is basically an iteration of a common place meme. Brant recently published a book called Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History. http://gregkofford.com/products/bofm-as-history Read it. It might help more than asking Dr, Jenkins what to think. In discussions about the Book of Mormon, it is also important to understand how ideology works, and how scholars travel in schools of like-minded individuals. Margaret Barker commented on Journals recently: http://christpantokrator.blogspot.com/2012/11/by-margaret-barker-what-do-i-say.html One of the things that I learned from Coe's essays and interviews on the Book of Mormon from Dialogue in 1973 to PBS decades later and to Dehlin a few years ago, is that being an expert in his own field doesn't translate to expertise on the Book of Mormon. Frankly, it was embarrassing. If you got hauled into court, would you be wise to trust your case to the objectivity of the prosecution? How would you feel if a judge threw out your lawyer, your evidence, your arguments, and the keys to your cell, on grounds that anyone arguing on your behalf was obviously not objective and should not be even heard. Jenkins is willing to play according to his rules, his judges, his arena, his readings, his definitions, his ball, his audience, etc. Kuhn observes that a paradigm amounts to a "group licensed way of seeing" and Jenkins insists on licencing where we can look, who can speak, and what there is to see. RT's recent blog essays illustrate to me what happens when you think ideology only happens to other people. I have to turn elsewhere to see this sort of thing, for instance: http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Geography/Models/Limited/Poulsen_2004 Or this: http://www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Lehi-Evidence-Journey-Bountiful/dp/0875798470 A few years back John Welch wrote about the nature of evidence: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1082&index=4 One of the things I learned on the playgrounds of Adelaide Elementary back in the 1960s is that anyone can dismiss anyone else's argument and evidence simply by saying, "So what?" But that is their choice and their problem. Over several decades of serious interest, I have seen a great deal that critics leave unaccounted for and unexplained. I have take close looks at several arguments against the Book of Mormon, and personally find them comparatively weak and shallow. This for instance: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1467&index=7 When I observed that the work of non-LDS Bible scholar had profound implications for the Book of Mormon, I sent a copy of my book to her. One of the after effects was this: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/BYUStudies/article/viewFile/7066/6715 FWIW Kevin Christensen Bethel Park, PA Don't you have something concrete to point to regarding book of mormon historicity? There is NHM in the old world that is a possibility, although it seems incredibly remote, to link the old world to the bofm. Is there anything in the new world that would do the same thing? Do I have to have a reading assignment or can you just tell me?
Kevin Christensen Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 2 hours ago, James Tunney said: Don't you have something concrete to point to regarding book of mormon historicity? There is NHM in the old world that is a possibility, although it seems incredibly remote, to link the old world to the bofm. Is there anything in the new world that would do the same thing? Do I have to have a reading assignment or can you just tell me? NHM is not a stand-alone possibility, but one element from a complex set of interrelated convergences. For concrete, there is this: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1110&index=61 And again, it's not a matter an an isolated bit, but convergence with a great many other interrelated details. Such as this: http://www.shields-research.org/General/SEHA/SEHA_Newsletter_122-2.PDF One thing life does is let people demonstrate what they really want to know. It's all spelled out in the parable of the sower. The same seeds can produce vastly different yields, all depending on soil and nuture. But put a good seed on a rock or among choaking weeds.. and not much happens. FWIW Kevin Christensen Bethel Park, PA 4
Eek! Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 (edited) On 6/5/2016 at 7:38 AM, James Tunney said: Section 19 of the D&C is another example of God's apparent use of deception in Joseph Smith's mind. In it God deceptively uses the term "endless" in order to promote certain behavior. The passage you're referring to in the early part of Section 19 is one of the most enlightened concepts Joseph Smith introduced in my opinion, as it opens wide the possibility that all those damnation threats in the scriptures are not the highest level of truth on the subject. By way of (inevitably imperfect but hopefully still useful) analogy, how would you communicate to your kid that he should not run out into the street when he starts to do so? Would you gently ask him to listen while you reasonably explained the statistical odds of being struck by a car and injured or killed, or would you put the fear of Dad into him by yelling "NO! You'll be hit by a car!"? Well it depends on the kid of course, but for most little kids, reasoning and gentleness are not going to produce the desired immediate and lasting effect nearly as reliably as a booming "NO! You'll be hit by a car!" from Dad. But "NO! You'll be hit by a car!" is not the highest level of truth on the subject of crossing streets. Section 19 tells us more mature kids that the prospect of literally "endless" punishment is not the highest level of truth on that subject either. Edited June 8, 2016 by Eek! 1
James Tunney Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 4 hours ago, Eek! said: The passage you're referring to in the early part of Section 19 is one of the most enlightened concepts Joseph Smith introduced in my opinion, as it opens wide the possibility that all those damnation threats in the scriptures are not the highest level of truth on the subject. By way of (inevitably imperfect but hopefully still useful) analogy, how would you communicate to your kid that he should not run out into the street when he starts to do so? Would you gently ask him to listen while you reasonably explained the statistical odds of being struck by a car and injured or killed, or would you put the fear of Dad into him by yelling "NO! You'll be hit by a car!"? Well it depends on the kid of course, but for most little kids, reasoning and gentleness are not going to produce the desired immediate and lasting effect nearly as reliably as a booming "NO! You'll be hit by a car!" from Dad. But "NO! You'll be hit by a car!" is not the highest level of truth on the subject of crossing streets. Section 19 tells us more mature kids that the prospect of literally "endless" punishment is not the highest level of truth on that subject either. It's still deception, right? So where else is there deception? Doesn't that erode trust? Doesn't it retard growth not knowing the truth? Also, I told my kids that they could be hit by a car if they run out into the street without looking and that worked. It taught them that we need to look both ways before we cross. The truth worked.
Teancum Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 On 6/6/2016 at 0:59 AM, mfbukowski said: So? Now you distort the idea of a test into "obscuring the truth?" So if a high school teacher does not give out the answers to a test he is now some kind of bad guy and lying to his students?? Or what? What's the point? Just throwing random eggs at cars for fun? Absurd. i thought your questions were better than that- now you are just grasping at straws as a drive-by to score points or something- I can't figure it out. A test is in no way "obscuring the truth" in any way that is morally or ethically relevant to anything. I have been thinking about your response to my post even though I already gave you one response. Odd that it generated such a reaction from you. Nothing I wrote was hostile nor critical. I just noted the facts of what LDS Doctrine teaches. God does obscure some knowledge and does test and try our faith. Further LDS scripture and leaders have said we will be intentionally tested by God to the limit of what we may be able to bear. So is this absurd just because my response contradicted your notions? Again odd that you would call my response grasping at straws and a drive by post. I can't figure out your response above either.
TheSkepticChristian Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 (edited) 11 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said: NHM is not a stand-alone possibility, but one element from a complex set of interrelated convergences. For concrete, there is this: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1110&index=61 The Arabian evidence used to impress me, not anymore! NHM was found in an area of 15,000 ancient inscriptions! That area happens be in the "Eastward turn" toward "Bountiful". Not only that, I read Book of Mormon "Nahom" should actually be "Nachom" to fit the definition of "to be sorry". If true then that means all the evidence is gone. and why would a Tribe call itself after an ancient cemetery "to be sorry"? Edited June 8, 2016 by TheSkepticChristian
Gray Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 (edited) 3 hours ago, James Tunney said: It's still deception, right? So where else is there deception? Doesn't that erode trust? Doesn't it retard growth not knowing the truth? Also, I told my kids that they could be hit by a car if they run out into the street without looking and that worked. It taught them that we need to look both ways before we cross. The truth worked. That reminds of the "carefully worded denials" regarding the practice of polygamy. There was an idea that deception was acceptable if it was phrased in such a way that it was technically accurate under a special definition of the terms being used. Quote What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. He wasn't saying he didn't have multiple wives, only that he could find only one. Perhaps only one was present in the audience. But the intent was to create the impression that he was a monogamist. Just like the intent of "eternal punishment" is to create the impression that the punishment lasts forever. Edited June 8, 2016 by Gray 2
Eek! Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 (edited) 4 hours ago, James Tunney said: It's still deception, right? So where else is there deception? Doesn't that erode trust? Doesn't it retard growth not knowing the truth? Also, I told my kids that they could be hit by a car if they run out into the street without looking and that worked. It taught them that we need to look both ways before we cross. The truth worked. Your kids were mature/attentive enough to understand. One of mine wasn't and he got barked at by Dad. It worked. Did I create an exaggerated sense of dread in his mind associated with walking out into the street? You betcha. Did God intentionally deceive people about the severity of the punishment they could expect? It sounds like He did. Do you think his intentions were good or bad? I'm willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on what was evidently a judgment call. Obviously at this time you are not. People generally find what they are looking for. If you are looking for things to hold against God, you will find them. When you grow tired of that part of your mind sabotaging your happiness, which is your natural state, put it on the back burner and start looking for something better. Edited June 8, 2016 by Eek!
Brant Gardner Posted June 8, 2016 Posted June 8, 2016 18 hours ago, James Tunney said: Don't you have something concrete to point to regarding book of mormon historicity? The problem isn't one of evidence, the problem is actually in the assumption that there is such a thing as "something concrete to point to." For example, there is a document know as the histoire du Mechique which purports to be a history written by one of the first 12 Fathers sent to the New World. It is in the wrong language; and the only extant copy is about 200 years later. That means that although it has many of the right names it could have been created from other histories. I have never heard of the "something concrete" that allowed its historicity to be accepted. There are multiple converging arguments and it is the weight of the cumulative evidence that supports historicity. It is accepted, but I don't know of any one thing that could be used to demonstrate the reason it is accepted. It is, by the way, a very important document. 3
Brant Gardner Posted June 9, 2016 Posted June 9, 2016 On 6/7/2016 at 10:25 AM, James Tunney said: I appreciate your point of view. Have any of the current arguments been submitted to peer review in popular academic journals? Would you or any of your colleagues be willing to engage Dr. Jenkins and answer the questions posed to Dr. Hamblin last year? What is the evidence you have for historicity? Is it mere possible parallels? How probable are these parallels? What do outside academics say about these parallels? First, this particular topic is not welcome in secular journals. I suspect some of it is based on deserved reputation for shoddy scholarship in the past. Some is a continuing bias that I understand. What that means is that people actually have to do the work themselves to adequately judge rather than passing the issue on to someone else. As for Dr. Jenkins, he was offered a chance to review the arguments I have made, and he declined. I can only surmise that he had tired of the exchange by that time. The Greg Kofford Books website has my chapter on methodology publicly available. One of the aspects I note is that parallels is a poor methodology. Of course, comparisons are part and parcel of what archaeologists and anthropologists do, but there is a difference between controlled comparisons and parallelism that accepts surface similarities. In my case, I use some of the same ideas as would be used for the Histoire du Mechique, which is to correlate textual events with known events from a controlled place and controlled time. Controlled comparisons look for the non-random ways in which textual descriptions at a place and time in the text match up with similar conditions/events known for the target place and time. 2
Hamba Tuhan Posted June 9, 2016 Posted June 9, 2016 On 04/06/2016 at 1:36 PM, James Tunney said: I've walked across the room at least thousands of time without my legs giving way and I've seen the sun rise many, many times. As a result I have confidence in these facts even though there is a remote possibility that they won't follow the past. Excellent. So now you should understand faithful Latter-day Saints. 2
Hamba Tuhan Posted June 9, 2016 Posted June 9, 2016 On 05/06/2016 at 2:31 PM, mfbukowski said: This is what is so remarkable about the gospel. By living its precepts one gains new insights and intelligence. When one does not live the gospel, these insights cease. One can never know that unless he lives it, and learns it for himself. Precisely! 'For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath'. 2
carbon dioxide Posted August 5, 2016 Posted August 5, 2016 On 6/3/2016 at 8:49 PM, James Tunney said: I don't find any reason to privilege Joseph Smith or today's leaders over anyone else. So, faith, or assuming someone is correct or assuming the best mormon view of its history or anyone's history is simply not possible. I think mormons are great people but they dont get a free pass. Faith requires one to assume a conclusion prior to getting evidence when it should be the other way around. Too much trusting behavior causes too much mischief, too much fraud. Show me some evidence and I will give it a fair hearing. If the purpose of life to achieve a state of knowledge based on evidence, then the whole purpose of this life is wasted and redundant. We gained far more knowledge in the premortal world than we will ever achieve here and all that knowledge came from evidence that we could clearly see. Steven Hawkings is pretty smart on black holes as a man but anyone of those spirits who is living in the premortal world right now would find his current knowledge on black holes to be pathetic. Why? Because they have billions of years to learn things and see things in real time and all the evidences before their eyes. Believing in something based on evidence is easy and cheap. Anyone can do that. The Lord is not impressed with anyone who believes something to be true after having evidence provided for them. So God provided this time to do something far more impressive and important. To see if we will believe and trust God without having evidence. That takes courage and what God finds far more impressive. Trying to make mortal life an exercise in going back to what the premortal world was like misses the entire point of mortality.
James Tunney Posted August 5, 2016 Posted August 5, 2016 59 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said: If the purpose of life to achieve a state of knowledge based on evidence, then the whole purpose of this life is wasted and redundant. We gained far more knowledge in the premortal world than we will ever achieve here and all that knowledge came from evidence that we could clearly see. Steven Hawkings is pretty smart on black holes as a man but anyone of those spirits who is living in the premortal world right now would find his current knowledge on black holes to be pathetic. Why? Because they have billions of years to learn things and see things in real time and all the evidences before their eyes. Believing in something based on evidence is easy and cheap. Anyone can do that. The Lord is not impressed with anyone who believes something to be true after having evidence provided for them. So God provided this time to do something far more impressive and important. To see if we will believe and trust God without having evidence. That takes courage and what God finds far more impressive. Trying to make mortal life an exercise in going back to what the premortal world was like misses the entire point of mortality. It's humans though that tell you what God supposedly says, how we are to believe and how we are to act. Don't you find that troubling? If God wanted to, he could speak to us all at the same time and let his Will be known in a way that is beyond dispute. Instead, we get magicians who tell us that it is too sacred to tell us of their supposed encounters with the divine. Also, I think you are assuming your conclusion that there is a God as you define him. How do you know how he thinks or how we were prior to this existence? Why is religion so dependent on circular reasoning?
Kevin Christensen Posted August 5, 2016 Posted August 5, 2016 Regarding the problem of circular reasoning: “Paradigms provide scientists not only with a map but also with some of the directions essential for map-making.” Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 109. "Paradigms differ in more than substance, for they are directed not only to nature but also back upon the science that produced them. They are the source of the methods, problem-field, and standards of solution accepted by any mature scientific community at any given time." The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 103. "To the extent . . . that two scientific schools disagree about what is a problem and what is a solution, they will inevitably talk through each other when debating the relative merits of their respective paradigms. In the partially circular arguments that regularly result, each paradigm will be shown to satisfy more or less the criteria that it dictates for itself and to fall short of a few of those dictated by its opponent." Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 109-10. There are viable ways of dealing with circular reasoning (Kuhn describes them), but working from a position of positivism is not one of them. It is a notorious offender in this regard. Quote Positivism commonly provides the worldview of those who deny the Book of Mormon historical status; this does not mean that all such historians fall under the category of revisionists, but this view is the dominant strain of history that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, just when positivism was being challenged in philosophy, literary criticism, and historiography. But “worldviews tend to pass unnoticed,”9 so before examining the textual claims of the Mosiah-first proponents, we must bring their worldview into focus. Positivism is just one version of modernity. Built into the modern worldview is what Huston Smith calls scientism, with two corollaries: (1) the scientific method is the only valid way to acquire knowledge, and (2) what science examines (material reality) is the fundamental reality. (These are parodies of science, so scientism as an ideology is not to be confused with science.) “These two corollaries are seldom voiced, for once they are brought to attention it is not difficult to see that they are arbitrary. Unsupported by facts, they are at best philosophical assumptions and at worst only opinions.”10 These assumptions are metaphysical presuppositions rather than being based on evidence (for they must be assumed before the researcher can define what counts as evidence). So consider the irony that the materialist claims only to deal with a material reality, precluding all supernaturalism, while making a metaphysical declaration. If we assume that material reality is the only reality, we have already excluded religious claims based on divine revelation. The result is that positivists decide by fiat that any supernatural assertions are false. This is the circumstance that Smith lays out as a condemnation of today’s university—that its professors too often begin with the assumption that religion is false. See Alan Goff, http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1458&index=3 I discussed the issue of " If God wanted to, he could speak to us all at the same time and let his Will be known in a way that is beyond dispute" in my review of Riskas: Quote Despite his chronic complaints about the toxic effects that such authoritarian parenting and religious instruction can cause, Riskas asks why God does not “use his putative power to more directly, efficiently, and tellingly to accomplish his alleged purposes and promote the required and necessary knowledge of his existence as theologically conceived?”38 And why, he asks “the absence of divine intervention by notably and consistently stopping or even significantly reducing or eliminating and/or at least explaining, through personal revelation, this god’s specific reasons for allowing such human and natural evil.”39 Later he asks rhetorically, “Wouldn’t he unquestionably and irrefutably, beyond all doubt, establish up front – through demonstration, coherent explanation, and facilitated understanding, – god’s [Page 129]and his [Christ’s] existence and divinity, god’s gospel, and god’s mind and will and word once and for all to all mankind?”40 Why, Riskas seems to be asking – without realizing either the fact or the implications – why does God not behave like a suppressive, authoritarian, controlling parent of the sort that he himself rebelled against during the 1960s? A parent, a society, or a religion that behaves that way, Riskas says, is toxic, and a God who does not behave that way somehow demonstrates non-existence. Imagine living in a universe, or for that matter with a parent, for whom efficiency and not love was the first and great value upon which all else stands, before which every other concern must be compromised. In a conflict of values, freedom and love bow to efficiency. Does that sound like paradise? From my perspective, his system deconstructs. I don't find it troubling that "humans though that tell you what God supposedly says" any more than I find it troubling that other humans tell me that there is no God. The reason for this is that I have my own extensive range of diverse experiences and diverse authorities to draw upon. FWIW Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA 2
Monster Posted August 14, 2016 Posted August 14, 2016 Faith is just an mechanism used for lack of evidence. Trying to claim science as in developing a hypothesis requires faith is a red herring. I may develop a hypothesis and after time and a fair amount of resources prove my hypothosis. There is no amount of time, resources, or money that will ever prove the Book of Mormon valid or that Joseph had a direct line of communication to God. It irks me when people equate faith that the sun will rise in the morning as faith in Joseph being a prophet. They are not remotely the same. And I should not have to explain the difference.
JLHPROF Posted August 14, 2016 Posted August 14, 2016 28 minutes ago, Monster said: Faith is just an mechanism used for lack of evidence. Not exactly. Faith is the ability to see evidences BEFORE proof is given. Believing firmly that a hypothesis will turn out to be true based on things observed is faith. It is an incorrect definition of faith to say that faith operates without evidence. 2
Jeanne Posted August 14, 2016 Posted August 14, 2016 It is good that they are getting these types of books in. But what about non LDS scholars who have also studied the history of mormonism.?
mfbukowski Posted August 14, 2016 Posted August 14, 2016 In religious matters, why have faith in reason?
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