The State of the Evidence

[Kevin Christensen]

1 hour ago, Monster said:

 

An observation is made and yes a theory is developed to explain it. But we do not bend evidence to continue to explain the observation and theory. We start at the beginning and if the evidence leads us to our original theory great if it does not we must change our theory. Apologetices never concedes any ground on their theroy. In the case of the BofM we have one persons word that it was translated from gold plates and is a history of the native Americans. So we have a book that might be a history of America. We have made an observation and now have a theory. So prove it. But the problem is you can not. In fact the evidence leans so much the other way that this theory no longer holds any weight. You must set it aside it if you want to get at the truth. Perhaps you can come back to it if more evidence comes forth, but you can not continue to demand that this theory is accepted truth.

So many critics of the church never set out to claim fraud, they went looking for truth. They were taught the theory and then looked at the evidence and had to conclude the theory was wrong. Yet so many still insist the theory is correct in spite of the evidence. This is why the concept of spiritual truth is so important to believers. It can trump any amount of evidence to the contrary, It can explain away the evidence and create a reality where none exists. But this is backwards also. Spiritual truth should confirm the evidence not ask you to ignore it.

I could accept subjective truth if I had ever experienced it to bring some kind of concise agreement on truth. Yet here I am with a multitude of religions using basically the same source material and arriving at different conclusions using subjective truth. With objective truth you tend to at least get a consensus of truth.

 

 

 

You've missed the point about how theory and observation are inextricably entwined from the start.  That's the point of the famous N. R. Hanson quotation about how the data are always "Theory-laden."   And the point about how “a network of theories and observations is always tested together. Any particular hypothesis can be maintained by rejecting or adjusting other auxiliary hypotheses.” (Ian Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion, 99).

Notice that James says:

Quote

Aren't you and Mr. Christensen the ones who misunderstand Kuhn and how his ideas should be applied?  The state of the evidence regarding the historicity of the book of mormon, be it external or internal, strongly argues against a historicity conclusion that you and Mr. Christensen need to reach despite the evidence.  Isn't your believing paradigm the one that needs to shift therefore?  Don't the supposed anomalies of dna, the lack of anthropological and archaeological evidence as well as the internal problems with dependency on the KJV, deutero-isaiah, etc. show that your believing paradigm should shift? 

I submit that if one merely allows for the possibility that the book of mormon is not historical, then looks at the evidence or lack thereof, the conclusion against historicity becomes obvious. It then becomes obvious that the believing paradigm of privileging a believing conclusion despite the evidence is the paradigm that needs revision. 

We get a dismissive rhetorical question, but not actual confrontation or demonstration that Robert or I misunderstand or misapply Kuhn.   Take Kuhn's points about anomaly: paradigms provide the background of expectation against which anomaly appears. Kuhn notes that the “more precise and far-reaching a paradigm is, the more sensitive an indicator it provides of anomaly and hence an occasion for paradigm change.”  (Kuhn, 65) Thus we need to pay close attention to background expectations, especially those background expectations held or attacked as if they were creeds.

It ought to follow that if one investigator has a different paradigm, a different set of background expectations, a different problem field (for example, did the Lehites enter a unpopulated continent, or one that already had millions people, living, at that time and place in small hamlets?), and therefore different standards of solution, something that seems a decisive anomaly for one, can seem completely acceptable and reasonable to another.   If we want to account for the travel time between Nephi and Zarahemla as 22 days for families with flocks traveling on foot, that becomes a constraint on geographic models.  Sometimes we have to change theory in light of data, and sometimes we have to re-examine data in light of theory.   Against my paradigm, that the Old World was already populated even before the Jaredites arrived, and that Lehi's group immediately began mixing with the locals, and indeed, the pressure to adopt local beliefs and culture was a consistent pressure on those who called themselves Nephites, and explains, therefore, why after 500 years, Benjamin, from a group who left Nephi and joined with Zarehemla could send out messengers for that his Kingdom should gather on "the morrow", that is, they were small.  And even then, demonstrably diverse, with tensions for division that showed up within a generation.  So for those of us who accept and expect cultural and genetic diversity, the DNA issue is not the decisive issue that it is for you.  It changes the significance of the observation because it changes both expectations and questions.  And so far, I have not heard any comments on the evidence that Margaret Barker provides that Isaiah 53 was written by Isaiah of Jerusalem, against her own use of the Three Isaiah hypothesis in The Older Testament, nor comments acknowledging that the none of the Deutero-Isaiah chapters that contain the strongest indicators of Exilic authorship appear in the Book of Mormon. If that is evidence of something, what does it mean?  Have you even read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? 

Monster claims that "But we do not bend evidence to continue to explain the observation and theory. We start at the beginning and if the evidence leads us to our original theory great if it does not we must change our theory. Apologetices [sic] never concedes any ground on their theroy.[sic]"

But one thing that is conspicuous is that apologetic involves different groups, skeptics with their theories, divided into atheists and Evangelical with different theories, traditional assumptions about continental geography versus limited geographies, including Mesoamerican versus North East, and the Maylay theory. 

He then says " Yet so many still insist the theory is correct in spite of the evidence."  Notice that he treats believing approaches as a monolithic, rather different theories and groups, each offering "a network of theories and observations" and that his high level abstraction of "the evidence" includes no discussion of things like the Aston's In the Footsteps of Lehi, or Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, or Larry Poulson's claim that the Grijalva is the only river in the Western Hemisphere that matches the description of the Sidon in the Book of Mormon compared to Medrum's claims about the Mississippi, which, unlike the Grijalva is not fordable, flows in the wrong direction, doesn't have literate cultures that rise and fall at the right times, a convenient explanation of the sights that Limhi's explorers would see, including an archeological site that was uninhabited in a location that they could have mistaken for Zarahemla, and so forth.  Notice that "the evidence" really means, "What my preferred authorities have considered and nothing that the opposition has considered." 

Canard asks " But what if the question is: what is the evidence that King Benjamin was anything more than a figment of Joseph's imagination combined with ideas he had heard at local sermons?"

How about this sort of thing?  http://ldsmag.com/article-1-1644/

Worth mentioning, or not?  If indeed we are the brave enough and bold enough and scientific enough to face the evidence and follow its conclusions to the bitter end, and let's suppose that Mormonism is not difficult, expensive, unpopular in the larger culture, time consuming, socially challenging, and restrictive, and let's also suppose that no scientist or scholar should be insulted by even the hint that such concerns might weigh in the balance.

It's interesting that the patterns in the arguments on opposing sides here were nicely described by a non-LDS observer, Massimo Introvegne in a Journal of Book of Mormon Studies essay a few decades ago:

Quote

We have mentioned earlier that—contrary to popular prejudice—Protestant fundamentalists, according to the most recent scholarly interpretations, are in fact deeply committed to Enlightenment concepts of “objective knowledge” and “truth.” Postmodern, anti-Enlightenment epistemology is favored by their liberal counterparts. Not so in the Mormon controversy. Liberals, to start with, are staunch defenders of the Enlightenment. Edward Ashment credits the Enlightenment with having “introduced a new morality of knowledge which is similar to that of today’s scholarly world.” He approvingly quotes Van Harvey to the effect that “the Enlightenment was what one scholar has called a “declaration of independence against every authority that rests on the dictatorial command: Obey, don’t think.'”²¹ Of course, very few historians would agree with such a caricature of pre-Enlightenment scholarship and with the idea that the world had to await the Enlightenment to see “standards of truth and honesty” prevail.²² This is, however, not the point. More crucial, in order to understand the peculiarities of the Mormon controversy, is that—unlike many Protestant modernists—Latter-day Saint liberals are persuaded that, thanks to Enlightenment rationalism, an objective concept of “science” and “truth” may allow them to reach factual, empirical, “scientific” conclusions on the Book of Mormon and its origins. Not surprisingly, the transition from a religious to this truly secularized perspective of history and knowledge has been described by David P. Wright as a “conversion experience.” He has offered a typical conversion narrative of how he “grew up a traditional Mormon,” in college “found that many of the traditional historical assumptions that [he] held did not make sense,” and finally “by the end of [his] graduate education” came “to own the critical framework.”²³

On the other hand, the late modernist and postmodernist position that knowledge is by no means objective and that “true,” universally valid historical conclusions could never be reached, is held by Latter-day Saint conservatives. One of the most articulate expositions of this point of view has been advanced by David Bohn, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Bohn—in a 1994 Sunstone article summing up his position—argues, quoting Jacques Derrida and other postmodernist luminaries, that historical conclusions are not “true” photographs of the reality but politically negotiated narratives. When liberal historians such as D. Michael Quinn use “professionalism as a defense,” Bohn retorts that they do not seem “to understand that these methodological claims of professional historiography are precisely what are in question.”²⁴ It would do no good, Bohn insists, to retreat to a moderate position where objectivists may argue that “they are only trying to approximate neutrality and objectivity.” No, “they miss the point altogether,” because “neutrality and objectivity cannot even be approximated.” Bohn denies that we could work “within some absolute universe”; we could only work “within agreed-upon universes whose boundaries and standards of measure are a product of history, defined by conventions which for one reason or another we decide to use.”²⁵

Bohn goes on to attack the Enlightenment paradigm, using the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer.²⁶ Similar arguments have been used against the same targets by Louis Midgley, a recently retired professor of political science at Brigham Young University,²⁷ and are largely presupposed in many of the essays by FARMS scholars criticizing Metcalfe’s New Approaches.²⁸ Interesting as it is, Bohn’s approach is not really typical of the position of FARMS on postmodernism. Most FARMS scholars, while remaining interested in postmodernist theories, would rather favor a more moderate approach. Conservative Latter-day Saints also often quote Peter Novick’s indictment of objectivism and positivism in American historiography.²⁹ Novick is representative of a whole school of theoretical historiography claiming that “objective truth” for the historian is an objectivistic prejudice, a “noble dream” never to be achieved. Interestingly, Novick addressed Latter-day Saint intellectuals at the 1988 Sunstone Symposium.

At this stage, an outside observer expecting conservative Latter-day Saints to adopt a fundamentalist view of truth, and liberal Latter-day Saints to adopt a postmodernist one, may easily claim that something should be wrong. The attitudes are in fact almost reversed. Historical truth is regarded as a mere social product by Latter-day Saint conservatives, while a rather naive sociology of knowledge claiming that historical-critical methodologies may indeed achieve “truth” lies behind the liberals’ attitude. The “love affair with Enlightenment science” of American fundamentalists described by Marsden does not find a counterpart among Latter-day Saint conservatives; conversely, Enlightenment’s claim for certainty and objectivity is still defended in the liberal camp. It is not surprising that liberals accuse “Mormon apologists” almost of cheating.

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1391&index=1

Santayana famously commented that those who fail to understand the past are condemned to repeat it.

Yep.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[mfbukowski]

Canard

You know when I am on trips or have a lot of time, I read a lot of philosophy.   Lately that's about all I read.

NONE of any of the philosophers I read speak of "facts" or any of these issues.

There is even now a problem called - not the death of God- but believe it or not- called "The Death of Man"

Some of these philosophers think that our concept of "man" as individual agents is irrelevant since we are organisms totally based on our programming by language and society and that this society of course creates science as a linguistic discipline, and that all thought and reality as we know it is socially constructed.

Essentially there IS no reality outside of the social construct, no evidence outside the social-linguistic construct, no perception outside the social linguistic construct, no nothing outside the social linguistic construct.

This is one of the major issues- about whether or not it can even be said that we are "individuals"  or "agents" in ANY sense of any possible way of thinking about it.

I am reading a book now called "Subjectivity After Wittgenstein" by a new and amazing scholar, Chantal Bax who tackles this problem.  I see it as an attempt to save individuality and agency and she gives some very convincing arguments

If anyone wants to read this stuff, I highly recommend it.

If you are looking for "evidence" for the Book of Mormon, I would suggest you first examine whether there is "evidence" for you being you- since you are programmed by the ideas of others, similarly to the idea that "evidence" for religious belief is possible.   

You grow up believing what you have been programmed to believe from the menu society has given you.  You like science?  Good then the illusion you follow is that there is objective "evidence" BEYOND what just plain works.  

Science is the study of what works- not of what is important.

Anyway, the book is available as a pdf, you can search for it, but here is a synopsis.  Great stuff for those seriously engaged in these issues

http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/subjectivity-after-wittgenstein-9781441144102/

Quote

 

About Subjectivity After Wittgenstein

Although Wittgenstein is often held co-responsible for the so-called death of man as it was pronounced in the course of the previous century, no detailed description of his alternative to the traditional or Cartesian account of human being has so far been available. By consulting several parts of Wittgenstein's later oeuvre, Subjectivity after Wittgenstein aims to fill this gap. However, it also contributes to the debate about the Cartesian subject and its demise by discussing the criticism that the rethinking of subjectivity received, for it has been argued that the anti-Cartesian turn in continental philosophy has lead to a loss of a centre for both ethics and politics. By further exploring the implications of the Wittgensteinian account of human being, this book makes it clear that a non-Cartesian view on the subject is not necessarily ethically and politically inert. Moreover, it argues that ethical and political arguments should not automatically take precedence in a debate about the nature of man.

Table of contents

1. Subjectivity, Wittgenstein and the Debate About the "Death of Man" \ 2. Wittgenstein And/As Philosophy: A Constructive Reading of Wittgenstein's Method \ 3. Inner and Outer, Self and Other: Wittgenstein's Post-Cartesian Subject \ Intermezzo: The Inner as a Locus of Morality: The Ethical (In)Adequacy of Post-Cartesian Subjectivity \ 4. Wittgenstein on Interiority and Religiosity \ Intermezzo: The Self as a Locus of Autonomy: The Political (In)Adequacy of Post-Cartesian Subjectivity \ 5. Wittgenstein on Community in On Certainty \ 6. Wittgensteinian Subjectivity and the Nature of Debate about the "Death of Man" \ Bibliography \ Index.

Reviews

“"Wittgenstein is widely acknowledged to have mounted a sustained and, if successful, devastating challenge to the view of human subjectivity that belongs to the traditional discourse of European modernity: the broadly 'Cartesian' view of Man as a rational thinking subject. But at what cost? Can we make sense of concepts central to contemporary ethics and politics - concepts of rights, of autonomy, and of responsibility in particular - if we do not retain that conception. Rejecting it can seem tantamount to a rejection of those central concepts. In this important new study Chantal Bax offers a compelling account of why a Wittgensteinian understanding of the fundamental sociality of the human subject encourages rather than discourages us to engage with questions at the heart of our ethical and political lives." - Simon Glendinning, Reader in European Philosophy, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK” – 

“This scholarly book is certainly a notable contribution to the literature on Wittgenstein, particularly to W[ittgenstein]'s philosophical anthropology. I believe that no future discussion on the 'embodied and embedded self' from W's point of view should overlook it, at least among scholars in the continental tradition.” –  Laxminarayan Lenka, North-Eastern Hill University, India, Philosophy in Review

- See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/subjectivity-after-wittgenstein-9781441144102/#sthash.nKwH3huI.dpuf

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Gray]

On 7/1/2016 at 9:57 AM, rongo said:

Friendly CFR for a list of conservative scholars who believe in the supernatural (i.e., actual, predictive prophecy, reality of the resurrection, reality of OT and NT miracles, etc.) who are on record as accepting multiple authorship of Isaiah. I'm not going to browbeat you on the CFR, but I would be very surprised if anyone outside of the Church can be names who can be proven in print to meet all these criteria.

Bible scholars (even today) insist on multiple authorship for the very reasons that Sperry pointed out so long ago. 90%+ of which has to do with their difficulty in believing that Isaiah could have predicted and known about events after his time.

 

 

Granted, but to outsiders, Mormon theology sure accepts some pretty supernatural things . . .

Okay, I took this to another forum where I lurk. It's an Academic Biblical Studies hangout group. I asked for examples, and was given this one:

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, a Catholic Biblical commentary compiled by multiple Catholic scholars. Relevant quote from the book: 

 

Quote

The canonical book of Isaiah consists of 66 chapters, but it has long been recognised that chaps. 40-55 and 56-66 are collections that date from exilic and post-exilic times; → Deutero-Isaiah, 21:3, 50. Chapters 1-39 consist of several smaller collections, some of which are products of complex development. The authentic words of Isaiah are found mainly in chaps. 1-11 (largely from the days of Ahaz) and 28-32 (largely from the days of Hezekiah). Authentic words of Isaiah are also found among the "Oracles against the Nations" (chaps 13-25) and perhaps also in the historical appendix (chaps 36-39, taken from 2 Kgs 18:13-20:19). The "Apocalypse of Isaiah" (chaps 24-27) and the collection in chaps 34-35 date wholly from later periods.

They did note that there are still some ultra conservative scholars who try to argue that Isaiah was written by a single author. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Gray

[mfbukowski]

8 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

You've missed the point about how theory and observation are inextricably entwined from the start.  That's the point of the famous N. R. Hanson quotation about how the data are always "Theory-laden."   And the point about how “a network of theories and observations is always tested together. Any particular hypothesis can be maintained by rejecting or adjusting other auxiliary hypotheses.” (Ian Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion, 99).

Notice that James says:

We get a dismissive rhetorical question, but not actual confrontation or demonstration that Robert or I misunderstand or misapply Kuhn.   Take Kuhn's points about anomaly: paradigms provide the background of expectation against which anomaly appears. Kuhn notes that the “more precise and far-reaching a paradigm is, the more sensitive an indicator it provides of anomaly and hence an occasion for paradigm change.”  (Kuhn, 65) Thus we need to pay close attention to background expectations, especially those background expectations held or attacked as if they were creeds.

It ought to follow that if one investigator has a different paradigm, a different set of background expectations, a different problem field (for example, did the Lehites enter a unpopulated continent, or one that already had millions people, living, at that time and place in small hamlets?), and therefore different standards of solution, something that seems a decisive anomaly for one, can seem completely acceptable and reasonable to another.   If we want to account for the travel time between Nephi and Zarahemla as 22 days for families with flocks traveling on foot, that becomes a constraint on geographic models.  Sometimes we have to change theory in light of data, and sometimes we have to re-examine data in light of theory.   Against my paradigm, that the Old World was already populated even before the Jaredites arrived, and that Lehi's group immediately began mixing with the locals, and indeed, the pressure to adopt local beliefs and culture was a consistent pressure on those who called themselves Nephites, and explains, therefore, why after 500 years, Benjamin, from a group who left Nephi and joined with Zarehemla could send out messengers for that his Kingdom should gather on "the morrow", that is, they were small.  And even then, demonstrably diverse, with tensions for division that showed up within a generation.  So for those of us who accept and expect cultural and genetic diversity, the DNA issue is not the decisive issue that it is for you.  It changes the significance of the observation because it changes both expectations and questions.  And so far, I have not heard any comments on the evidence that Margaret Barker provides that Isaiah 53 was written by Isaiah of Jerusalem, against her own use of the Three Isaiah hypothesis in The Older Testament, nor comments acknowledging that the none of the Deutero-Isaiah chapters that contain the strongest indicators of Exilic authorship appear in the Book of Mormon. If that is evidence of something, what does it mean?  Have you even read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? 

Monster claims that "But we do not bend evidence to continue to explain the observation and theory. We start at the beginning and if the evidence leads us to our original theory great if it does not we must change our theory. Apologetices [sic] never concedes any ground on their theroy.[sic]"

But one thing that is conspicuous is that apologetic involves different groups, skeptics with their theories, divided into atheists and Evangelical with different theories, traditional assumptions about continental geography versus limited geographies, including Mesoamerican versus North East, and the Maylay theory. 

He then says " Yet so many still insist the theory is correct in spite of the evidence."  Notice that he treats believing approaches as a monolithic, rather different theories and groups, each offering "a network of theories and observations" and that his high level abstraction of "the evidence" includes no discussion of things like the Aston's In the Footsteps of Lehi, or Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, or Larry Poulson's claim that the Grijalva is the only river in the Western Hemisphere that matches the description of the Sidon in the Book of Mormon compared to Medrum's claims about the Mississippi, which, unlike the Grijalva is not fordable, flows in the wrong direction, doesn't have literate cultures that rise and fall at the right times, a convenient explanation of the sights that Limhi's explorers would see, including an archeological site that was uninhabited in a location that they could have mistaken for Zarahemla, and so forth.  Notice that "the evidence" really means, "What my preferred authorities have considered and nothing that the opposition has considered." 

Canard asks " But what if the question is: what is the evidence that King Benjamin was anything more than a figment of Joseph's imagination combined with ideas he had heard at local sermons?"

How about this sort of thing?  http://ldsmag.com/article-1-1644/

Worth mentioning, or not?  If indeed we are the brave enough and bold enough and scientific enough to face the evidence and follow its conclusions to the bitter end, and let's suppose that Mormonism is not difficult, expensive, unpopular in the larger culture, time consuming, socially challenging, and restrictive, and let's also suppose that no scientist or scholar should be insulted by even the hint that such concerns might weigh in the balance.

It's interesting that the patterns in the arguments on opposing sides here were nicely described by a non-LDS observer, Massimo Introvegne in a Journal of Book of Mormon Studies essay a few decades ago:

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1391&index=1

Santayana famously commented that those who fail to understand the past are condemned to repeat it.

Yep.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Dude

Your talent is wasted here!   Wonderful stuff

[Gray]

15 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

“It is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages. It is not a definitive work on ancient American agriculture or politics. It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, but only of particular groups of people.” 

The full article can be found at the Deseret News.

So, no, he did not say that it is not historical.

Glenn

He seemed to open the door to considering that the BOM may not be completely historically accurate, and has more value as a spiritual text than a history book (while still affirming that there were historical Nephites, of course).

Baby steps. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Gray

[Glenn101]

27 minutes ago, Gray said:

He seemed to open the door to considering that the BOM may not be completely historically accurate, and has more value as a spiritual text than a history book (while still affirming that there were historical Nephites, of course).

Baby steps. 

Maybe you need to ask him if that is what he meant. He is still alive and can clarify his comment.

 

Glenn

[Gray]

1 minute ago, Glenn101 said:

Maybe you need to ask him if that is what he meant. He is still alive and can clarify his comment.

 

Glenn

I'll do that at our next bi-weekly bowling tournament!

[Glenn101]

3 minutes ago, Gray said:

I'll do that at our next bi-weekly bowling tournament!

10-4

 

[strappinglad]

The Book of Mormon is not a history text in the same way that the Bible is not a history text and in the same way that most history texts are not the absolute complete and unbiased record of events. It is the record of events as seen and recorded by someone who was there and did their best to be accurate or it is the record of events heard or read about 100s  of years after they transpired. Mostly it is the latter as it is the edited version of a Coles Notes version of events. On occasion we are given a " fly on the wall " account of who said what to whom. The only way to get such is by second or third hand retelling. Heavens, even today with audio and video records we still cannot always come to the absolute truth of what transpired. Cue the Rodney King video and all the subsequent analysis.

[consiglieri]

27 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Maybe you need to ask him if that is what he meant. He is still alive and can clarify his comment.

 

Glenn

Apostles do not clarify for lowly members.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, canard78 said:

....................................................................

The queation here is whether there is evidence that the historical events that those moral teachings and beliefs are based on, actually happened. 

No evidence other than experience is needed to say the application of King Benjamin's sermon, for example, is effective, I agree. 

Plenty of fiction exists which could be said to effectively bolster high moral and ethical lessons for us, but that does beg the question.

But what if the question is: what is the evidence that King Benjamin was anything more than a figment of Joseph's imagination combined with ideas he had heard at local sermons?

There are a few American parallels that can be drawn for both for and against, but there's nothing conclusive that establishes he existed. 

...............................................................................

We do not need "conclusive" arguments about such matters, and historical evidence never gives that to us in any case.  What we want to examine is whether there is plausible or convincing secular evidence for the existence of such a figure somewhere in the Americas in the second century B.C.  First, we want to see whether a literate civilization such as described in the BofM existed at some time and place in the Americas.  If not, that calls into serious question any sort of case for the BofM.  Second, we want to examine the internal characteristics of the text to see whether it contains authentic detailed claims.  Since non-Mormon experts agree that Benjamin's speech is structured in such a way that its contents fit the ancient Jewish feast of Autumn Ingathering (New Year/Tabernacles), in addition to being a standard coregency ritual, that fits the BofM claim that the Law of Moses was still being followed.  Then too there is a short excerpt from the Laws of Mosiah in Alma 11 depicting part of the weights & measures system, which contains stunningly accurate remnants of the Egypto-Israelite system -- only discovered by biblical archeologists in recent decades.  The proper mise-en-scène is not that difficult to establish.

 

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, strappinglad said:

Did the electromagnetic spectrum ( as we know it ) exist in the tenth century BC or the tenth century AD ? Was its existence dependent on the belief of anyone? Was there evidence for it available ? Only a tiny part of the spectrum was ' obvious ' and yet the rest was still there humming along without human knowledge, belief , or ability to discern . It was only when our ability to produce the instruments that could ' read ' the other parts of the spectrum arrived  that we began to accept its presence.

  The scriptures say that all things are spiritual. JS said that spirit is actually matter but very fine. Apparently our spiritual eyes can see spiritual things so to me there is no ' religious ' stuff and ' scientific ' stuff. There is just stuff we can currently see and stuff we can't yet. Just like the  electromagnetic spectrum visible in the 10th century BC and now. Perhaps , as mfb says , our language is not adequate to explain it. Computer programing languages were created to do certain tasks and most of us find such language pure gibberish . And yet some people ( can they be considered seers ? ) do comprehend them and try to ' translate ' them for us.

We have evolved through God's plan and direction to know what works for us to survive, not to know ultimate "reality". As we grow in instrumentation, we are still seeing with human eyes and human brains and human interpretations of what we call "data" to find out alleged "facts" which work so we can use those human perceptions to do things with them.

It seems we are examining "reality" and in one sense we are, we are examining the only reality we are built to understand.  But of course as humans we can't get outside our humanness to see anything beyond what we can see with eyes or instruments and how we interpret.  We will never see the colors of cosmic rays for example, because our eyes aren't built for that- why? because they are irrelevant to our lives and there was no evolutionary need to see them.  That is an analogy for all human experience.

So did "The Spectrum" exist in ancient times?  It becomes semantics.  Do we now see the "real" spectrum?  Do we know all that's out there that we could know if we were not human?

Is our idea of "the spectrum" all that is to be said about it?  Suppose it is!   Even so what would some other being be able to "say" using non-human language about the color of cosmic rays or radio waves?

[Robert F. Smith]

17 hours ago, Monster said:

The problem with evidence for the church is it is never arrived at through any kind of reliable scientific method. It is always done in a backward fashion. A conclusion is reached and then individuals mine what ever area they are trying to prove and look for evidences. That is not a reliable method to provide evidence in support of anything.

You do a great disservice to those who do good basic research, never knowing what the conclusion will be.  A number of us have done that by creating a critical text of the Book of Mormon, and we could not have foreseen the conclusions -- which are very helpful in evaluating the book.  I did the same through statistical analysis of the appearance of the "it came to pass" phrase, with very useful results.  The onus is really on those who merely assume the BofM to be pure fiction, and thus ignore any research of any kind -- having concluded before the fact that the BofM cannot be authentically historical.  McMurrin certainly did no scientific research whatsoever to conclude that one does not get books from angels.  Apriorism is not science.

Never does some outside researcher looking in to say the origins of Native Americans conclude through the evidence that they came form the middle east on a boat.

Some non-Mormon scholars have concluded that some Amerinds came to the New World by boat from both Asia and Europe. They did not do this in order to buttress the BofM (which was not even in their minds), but only in order to account for archeological evidence.

At some point you would think the evidence against something to be compelling enough that people would have to at least acknowledge their case is weak and accept the more predominant evidence regardless of what it means to their current world view. But humans have a long history of fighting against updated information and clinging tenaciously to past conceptions regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

This final highlighted phrase describes those who reject the BofM to a T.  Seldom, if ever, do they consider evidence to the contrary.

 

[ERayR]

18 hours ago, Monster said:

At some point you would think the evidence against something to be compelling enough that people would have to at least acknowledge their case is weak and accept the more predominant evidence regardless of what it means to their current world view. But humans have a long history of fighting against updated information and clinging tenaciously to past conceptions regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

The evidence against what something, the false assumptions proffered by the critics?

 

[Kevin Christensen]

10 hours ago, canard78 said:

I think you know that this thread is about something else. I know you prefer to talk about moral beliefs, but that's not the question here. 

The queation here is whether there is evidence that the historical events that those moral teachings and beliefs are based on, actually happened. 

No evidence other than experience is needed to say the application of King Benjamin's sermon, for example, is effective, I agree. 

But what if the question is: what is the evidence that King Benjamin was anything more than a figment of Joseph's imagination combined with ideas he had heard at local sermons?

There are a few American parallels that can be drawn for both for and against, but there's nothing conclusive that establishes he existed. 

I know your answer to would probably be: "who cares."

Even if you don't, others do. I do.

Particularly in regard to the question, "what is the evidence that King Benjamin was anything more than a figment of Joseph's imagination combined with ideas he had heard at local sermons?" my response is here, published several years ago:

http://ldsmag.com/article-1-1644/

It evidence that I think deserves at least a mention as interesting, complex, and deserving acknowledgement as relevant to the question.

Just making sure it is not overlooked in the general hubbub.

Best,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[Jeanne]

5 hours ago, consiglieri said:

Actually, I think President Nelson is trying to have it both ways.

He is aware there is no New World archeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon.  He may even be aware that the Book of Mormon sounds an awful lot like a product of 19th Century America.

And yet, he believes it is "true" and that it really happened to "real people."

So what does he do?

He says on the one hand that it is about "real people," and on the other it is not a history "textbook."

Now, everybody knows the Book of Mormon is not a history textbook, so why bother saying it?

It is because he is creating a straw man of what the Book of Mormon is not in order to justify the fact that there is no archeological evidence in support of its historicity.

All the while still saying it is about "real people" in order to continue to argue that it is, in fact, historical.

The whole purpose of this segment of his talk seems to me an apologetic exercise in explaining how the Book of Mormon can be historical with little to no evidence in support of its historicity.

I agree with you after reading it over again.  I am just a plain,unscholared woman..but I don't know how real people can live in any kind of history that is not real.

[strappinglad]

If the spirit world is as JS says, on this earth, and consists of life somewhat similar to this one, with buildings etc. , then we might reasonably assume some other dimension exists, otherwise they would be tripping over us and visa versa. Can spirit beings see mortal ones? Mortal ones on rare occasions have seen spirit ones. What about resurrected beings? Can they see both types at the same time ? Is it not all ' reality ' in the same sense that rational numbers and irrational numbers are both infinite in their separate realms but yet still part of the complex number system ?

[consiglieri]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

I agree with you after reading it over again.  I am just a plain,unscholared woman..but I don't know how real people can live in any kind of history that is not real.

The same kind of "target shrinking" is going on not only with "what the Book of Mormon is not," but also the definition of doctrine.

Recently Elder Christofferson, among others, has championed the idea that doctrine is only that which is spoken by the unified voice of not just the prophet; not just the first presidency; but the first presidency AND the Quorum of the 12.

This maneuver effectively shrinks the definition of doctrine down to something that is less susceptible of being hit by a problematic arrow.

Unfortunately, the result of all this target shrinking is to make the LDS Church stand for less and less. 

By the time President Nelson is done boiling the Book of Mormon down to its essential elements, it is a bland extra-Biblical Christian text, which begs the question of why it is even needed.

And by the time Elder Christofferson is done boiling  doctrine down by saying it must be unanimous, Mormonism has little to offer beyond mainstream fundamental Protestantism.

Most swords, like this one, have two sides.

[Jeanne]

19 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

The same kind of "target shrinking" is going on not only with "what the Book of Mormon is not," but also the definition of doctrine.

Recently Elder Christofferson, among others, has championed the idea that doctrine is only that which is spoken by the unified voice of not just the prophet; not just the first presidency; but the first presidency AND the Quorum of the 12.

This maneuver effectively shrinks the definition of doctrine down to something that is less susceptible of being hit by a problematic arrow.

Unfortunately, the result of all this target shrinking is to make the LDS Church stand for less and less. 

By the time President Nelson is done boiling the Book of Mormon down to its essential elements, it is a bland extra-Biblical Christian text, which begs the question of why it is even needed.

And by the time Elder Christofferson is done boiling  doctrine down by saying it must be unanimous, Mormonism has little to offer beyond mainstream fundamental Protestantism.

Most swords, like this one, have two sides.

I agree that the mormon church is beginning to look like all the other churches.  Everything is changing or a feeling of "backing down" on some core beliefs.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

I agree with you after reading it over again.  I am just a plain,unscholared woman..but I don't know how real people can live in any kind of history that is not real.

Real people live.

"History" is subject to interpretation and who writes it.  "History" does not always represent what we might call "reality".  Were Zeus and Apollo real people?  Were they mythic or legendary?  Did Jesus really live and is every story told about him "history"?

Did George Washington really throw a silver dollar across the Potomac or chop down the cherry tree and say "I cannot tell a lie"?

I hope that helps you see the difference.   I am sure you have stories in your own family with people who are VERY real to you - and yet the stories may or may not have really happened the way the story says they did.

Was Moses "real"?  Was there a "real" Exodus?

Suppose King Benjamin's name in the BOM was not "Benjamin" at all since that is an English word.  Does that mean that "Benjamin" did not live because his name is a translation?  What is the right name in reformed Egyptian- a lost language?

No one can tell what happened in many instances even in recent history.  There are many unsolved historical questions about "real people" and much speculation.  Look at the Kennedy assassination for example!

Edited July 5, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Jeanne]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Real people live.

"History" is subject to interpretation and who writes it.  "History" does not always represent what we might call "reality".  Were Zeus and Apollo real people?  Were they mythic or legendary?  Did Jesus really live and is every story told about him "history"?

Did George Washington really throw a silver dollar across the Potomac or chop down the cherry tree and say "I cannot tell a lie"?

I hope that helps you see the difference.   I am sure you have stories in your own family with people who are VERY real to you - and yet the stories may or may not have really happened the way the story says they did.

Point taken..but that being said, my familie's history is not the foundation of any church or brings about exaltation or serious consequences.

[mfbukowski]

45 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

The same kind of "target shrinking" is going on not only with "what the Book of Mormon is not," but also the definition of doctrine.

Recently Elder Christofferson, among others, has championed the idea that doctrine is only that which is spoken by the unified voice of not just the prophet; not just the first presidency; but the first presidency AND the Quorum of the 12.

This maneuver effectively shrinks the definition of doctrine down to something that is less susceptible of being hit by a problematic arrow.

Unfortunately, the result of all this target shrinking is to make the LDS Church stand for less and less. 

By the time President Nelson is done boiling the Book of Mormon down to its essential elements, it is a bland extra-Biblical Christian text, which begs the question of why it is even needed.

And by the time Elder Christofferson is done boiling  doctrine down by saying it must be unanimous, Mormonism has little to offer beyond mainstream fundamental Protestantism.

Most swords, like this one, have two sides.

Clearly this is a total misrepresentation of LDS doctrine

What other Christian group believes the Father is embodied and that we can become Gods?  Or in sealing families together forever?  Or in work for the dead and temples in general?

That the Melchizadek priesthood is restored and that the fall was fortunate, and that we all pre-existed and that ex-nihilo creation is a misrepresentation of the eternal nature of matter?  That spirit is actually material, but "more refined"??

You are right that something is shrinking here, but it's not Mormonism.

Edited July 5, 2016 by mfbukowski

[consiglieri]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

 

You are right that something is shrinking here, but it's not Mormonism.

My "hands" are not shrinking, if that's what you meant. 

 

 

[consiglieri]

29 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

 

Did George Washington really throw a silver dollar across the Potomac or chop down the cherry tree and say "I cannot tell a lie"?

 

No, George Washington did not chop down a cherry tree.

The point is that George Washington never said that he did.

That was a story made up after the fact by Parson Weems, if I recall.

Now, if George Washington himself claimed that he chopped down a cherry tree when he did not, that would be a problem indeed.

It would throw into doubt his credibility about everything he else he claimed.

The same problem regarding his credibility would have ensued if George Washington had given multiple inconsistent and sometimes contradictory stories about how he chopped down the cherry tree . . . 

 

[Calm]

President Nelson said the same exact thing over 20 years ago:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng&clang=ase

Don't by this is some sort of manuvuering to make the Church more acceptable instead of something he has fully believed all along.

If someone wants to learn history or science in a modern sense, one has better avenues than attempting to learn it from people who didn't even have the same concept of those fields that we do.  If one wants to learn the gospel told by people who were intent on living it, then the Book of Mormon is ideal.