Dan Peterson: "Why I Can't Manage To Disbelieve"

[cinepro]

23 minutes ago, CountryBoy said:

That is not true.  That is like saying, "to show there are more good people than bad people in this world, one must first know all the good and bad conduct of every single person".

You tend to ignore the logical when it suits you, just like you either pretend to not understand analogies (or ignore them) when they prove your points invalid.

Anyone with any knowledge of human nature knows that the larger the conspiracy, the greater chance of its failure.  

This is not new information.  Hence the sayings:

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” 
― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

A secret remains a secret until you make someone promise never to reveal it. – Fausto Cercignani

Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. – Buddha

To keep your own secrets is wisdom; but to expect others to keep them is folly. – William Scott Downey, Proverbs

Apparently, you are the only person who doubts this concept.......

 

That's great and all, but that's not what he said.  This was the claim:

Even the smallest of possible conspiracies, those composed of a mere two people, tend to collapse under their own weight.

How do we know that small conspiracies "tend to collapse under their own weight"?   If someone said "I disagree.  Small conspiracies tend to remain hidden and never get found out", how would you prove the first claim over the second one?  What kind of data do you have about small conspiracies that remain hidden?  There isn't any data, because they remain hidden by definition.  In order to know what the actual "trend" is, we would need to know the ratio of exposed conspiracies to unexposed conspiracies.

 

Regarding your other point, I will just remind you that I said the exact same thing about large conspiracies in my post:

I agree that it is logical that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is to remain undiscovered.

So...thanks for reiterating what I said?

[UtahTexan]

6 minutes ago, cinepro said:

That's great and all, but that's not what he said.  This was the claim:

Even the smallest of possible conspiracies, those composed of a mere two people, tend to collapse under their own weight.

How do we know that small conspiracies "tend to collapse under their own weight"?   If someone said "I disagree.  Small conspiracies tend to remain hidden and never get found out", how would you prove the first claim over the second one?  What kind of data do you have about small conspiracies that remain hidden?  There isn't any data, because they remain hidden by definition.  In order to know what the actual "trend" is, we would need to know the ratio of exposed conspiracies to unexposed conspiracies.

 

Regarding your other point, I will just remind you that I said the exact same thing about large conspiracies in my post:

I agree that it is logical that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is to remain undiscovered.

So...thanks for reiterating what I said?

I gave the answer....secrets don't keep.  Been that way forever.

So your welcome.  You are also welcome for answering your question.  Case solved.  

 

[cinepro]

39 minutes ago, CountryBoy said:

I believe the saddest miracle is that they happen every day and you are unable to see them

I agree.  But the great thing is that people can learn to see the miracles in their everyday lives.  I've even developed a simple program to make this possible.  I've heard it works great, so if you give it a try and have any success, let me know:

============================================================================================================

Cinepro’s Six-Step Plan for Living the Miraculous Life™

 

Often times in Church, we discuss miracles. Some have expressed disappointment about a lack of miracles in their lives, when others seem to be doubly blessed in this regard. I therefore offer everyone this easy, six step program to increase the incidence of miracles in your life. As you find more and more miracles in your life, remember to share these experiences with fellow Church members, that they may be strengthened as well.

 

The six-step program is as follows:

1) Learn as little as possible about statistics and probability.  If you already know about such things, try to switch off that part of your brain when looking for miracles.

2) Learn as little as possible about the natural causes of things. Don’t study pathology, epidemiology, physics, engineering, history, or any other field that may promote a scientific, skeptical, or natural world-view. If you don’t know about physics, who’s to say cannonballs don’t float on the wings of angels?

3 ) Whenever you encounter something unusual and for which the cause isn’t clear, make up an explanation that fits your religious worldview (RW) and supports your particular view of God and His doings.

4) Search for secondhand (or thirdhand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand etc.) accounts of miracles that support your RW. Take them at face value, and use them to support your belief without question. Assume that all accounts that appear to describe “miracles” in religious literature are accurately and literally reported, if they support your RW. If they don’t support your RW, ignore or doubt them or attribute their origin to some negative, deceptive force.

5) If someone does something that is unusual and of mysterious origin, and they offer an explanation that supports your RW, take it at face value. There’s no harm in trusting someone who means well.

6) As you find an increase in miracles in your life, find others who share your RW and share your experience with them. Publish your story in magazines and websites that cater to such people. Remember, they wouldn’t publish it if it weren’t true. When you share the story, be sure to speak slowly, with a low voice. Stare at the person or audience. Try and muster a tear, but don’t sob uncontrollably.

If you can decrease your ability to understand and explain things, and increase your ability to ascribe a religious and/or supernatural origin to these same events, you’re on your way to increasing the frequency of the occurrence of miracles in your life.

 

Millions of people have followed my program with success, with satisfied customers in every dispensation and every continent. Try it today!

Edited August 30, 2016 by cinepro

[cdowis]

Thank you for sharing your cynical view of life.  I find it in opposition to what I am taught in the scriptures.

[Atheist Mormon]

53 minutes ago, cdowis said:

OK, my mistake.  You really do know what we believe.  Divinity uses natural laws in the creation process, including gravity, evolution, etc.  Matter and natural laws are eternal.

"But why, dear fellow, is God necessary at all?"

He is similar to an artist.  He uses the materials and tools at hand, such as pigments, canvas, brushes, the principle of perspective, etc, to create his masterpiece.  Creation is the process of ORGANIZATION of materials in chaos.

The ability of raw matter to self-organize is very limited.

 

No, I don't entirely understand what you believe/how you believe under overwhelming evidence.....Far it be from me to patronize you or anyone else. All I can claim is I was there once, literally with my Mormon Brothers/Sisters. If creation Divinity uses the Creation process with natural laws then how come we don't see any evidence in any Scientific institutions? We see their input only in Churches where the faithful gather and support those ideas. 

you ask "But why, dear fellow, is God necessary at all?"    I say, "Not anymore"; Human evolution used religion/Supernatural faith as 'Crutch" to it's survival, now we are awakening with the cold hard facts that we don't need it anymore ( read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari) the best book written about Humans.....

Country boy writes...." I believe the saddest miracle is that they happen every day and you are unable to see the", why the heck I should attribute my life success to "Miracles"? I am very comfortable believe in myself rather than someone else dying for me...He didn't even have a courtesy for asking me....All of sudden he comes and asks his due.....

I'm sorry no one can collect a debt like that without producing a shred of evidence (well to my credit I looked for evidence five decades).

 

 

[UtahTexan]

5 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I agree.  But the great thing is that people can learn to see the miracles in their everyday lives.  I've even developed a simple program to make this possible.  I've heard it works great, so if you give it a try and have any success, let me know:

============================================================================================================

Cinepro’s Six-Step Plan for Living the Miraculous Life™

 

Often times in Church, we discuss miracles. Some have expressed disappointment about a lack of miracles in their lives, when others seem to be doubly blessed in this regard. I therefore offer everyone this easy, six step program to increase the incidence of miracles in your life. As you find more and more miracles in your life, remember to share these experiences with fellow Church members, that they may be strengthened as well.

 

The six-step program is as follows:

1) Learn as little as possible about statistics and probability.  If you already know about such things, try to switch off that part of your brain when looking for miracles.

2) Learn as little as possible about the natural causes of things. Don’t study pathology, epidemiology, physics, engineering, history, or any other field that may promote a scientific, skeptical, or natural world-view. If you don’t know about physics, who’s to say cannonballs don’t float on the wings of angels?

3 ) Whenever you encounter something unusual and for which the cause isn’t clear, make up an explanation that fits your religious worldview (RW) and supports your particular view of God and His doings.

4) Search for secondhand (or thirdhand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand etc.) accounts of miracles that support your RW. Take them at face value, and use them to support your belief without question. Assume that all accounts that appear to describe “miracles” in religious literature are accurately and literally reported, if they support your RW. If they don’t support your RW, ignore or doubt them or attribute their origin to some negative, deceptive force.

5) If someone does something that is unusual and of mysterious origin, and they offer an explanation that supports your RW, take it at face value. There’s no harm in trusting someone who means well.

6) As you find an increase in miracles in your life, find others who share your RW and share your experience with them. Publish your story in magazines and websites that cater to such people. Remember, they wouldn’t publish it if it weren’t true. When you share the story, be sure to speak slowly, with a low voice. Stare at the person or audience. Try and muster a tear, but don’t sob uncontrollably.

If you can decrease your ability to understand and explain things, and increase your ability to ascribe a religious and/or supernatural origin to these same events, you’re on your way to increasing the frequency of the occurrence of miracles in your life.

 

Millions of people have followed my program with success, with satisfied customers in every dispensation and every continent. Try it today!

Don't need your plan.  I see miracles daily.  I rejoice in them.  Miracles brought me back to the Church.  My life has been full of miracles...big and small.

 

[Nevo]

 

On 8/30/2016 at 10:47 AM, churchistrue said:

There are some things that a real mystery to me.  1. huge mystery: complexity, consistency, and genius of the text (keep in mind I love the Book of Mormon and deem it as scripture) 2. smaller mystery: the witnesses.

I don't have a plausible explanation of these.  But for me, that doesn't prove the traditional narrative is true.  It just proves we have a mystery on our hands.  

I too live with the mystery. I've made no secret of the fact that I am deeply skeptical of the historicity of the Book of Mormon. I regard Joseph Smith as the book's (un)likely author. I find most of the apologetic arguments for an ancient origin unconvincing. I don't consider the Jaredite storyline remotely plausible, and I don't think the Nephite storyline fares much better. I just don't buy it as a historical account.

And yet, as I've mentioned before, the manner of its coming forth and the events surrounding it, the text itself, its effect on the lives of millions—all of it is extraordinary. As Hardy has noted, "In every age there are individuals who claim revelations, some of which get committed to writing and eventually published, but very few of these texts come to be regarded by millions of believers as sacred and authoritative and then, through translations, gain readers and adherents beyond their cultures of origin." 

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Book of Mormon has changed millions of lives. I think of its profound influence on converts like Parley Pratt and Brigham Young and my own stepfather, who changed the course of their lives as a result of their contact with it. Or "arch-apostate" William McLellin, whose impassioned defense of the Book of Mormon near the end of his life still moves me:

Quote

I have set my seal that the book of Mormon is a true, divine record and it will require more evidence than I have ever seen to ever shake me relative to its purity. I have read many 'Exposes.' I have seen all their arguments. But my evidences are above them all! . . . when a man goes at the Book of M. he touches the apple of my eye. He fights against truth—against purity—against light—against the purist, or one of the truest, purist books on earth. I have more confidence in the Book of Mormon than any book of this wide earth! . . . 

When I first joined the church in 1831, soon I became acquainted with all the Smith family and the Whitmer family, and I heard all their testimonies, which agreed in the main points; and I believed them then and I believe them yet. . . . David Whitmer has lost his thumb of his right hand several years ago, and cannot write. And he would not be willing to write much to a man who fights the Book of M. which he knows to be true. I saw him June 1879, and heard him bear his solemn testimony to the truth of the book—as sincerely and solemnly as when he bore it to me in Paris, Ill. in July 1831. I believed him then and I still believe him. You seem to think that he and I ought to come out and tell something—some darkness relative to that book. We should lie if we did, for we know nothing against its credibility or divine truth.

— William E. McLellin to James T. Cobb, 14 August 1880, in The William E. McLellin Papers, 1854–1880, ed. Stan Larson and Samuel J. Passey (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2007), 521–523.

If Joseph Smith authored it, he somehow produced a work of remarkable spiritual power.

Then there's the book's complexity. Elizabeth Fenton, a perceptive non-Mormon reader of the Book of Mormon, recently observed that the Book of Mormon's "sprawling narrative, deep intertextuality, and at times dizzying rhetorical flourishes make it the sort of book one can read again and again, always seeing something new" ("Understanding the Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 25 [2016]: 38).

Summarizing the book, Hardy notes that it contains "more than a thousand years of history involving some two hundred named individuals and nearly a hundred distinct places," and features three major narrators. "These figures, in turn, claim to have based their accounts on dozens of preexisting records. The result is a complex mix that incorporates multiple genres ranging from straightforward narration to inserted sermons and letters to scriptural commentary and poetry. It requires considerable patience to work out all the details of chronology, geography, genealogy, and source records, but the Book of Mormon is remarkably consistent on all this. The chronology is handled virtually without glitches, despite several flashbacks and temporally overlapping narratives; there are only two potential geographical discrepancies (at Alma 51:26 and 53:6); and the narrators keep straight both the order and family connections among the twenty-six Nephite record keepers and forty-one Jaredite kings (including rival lines). The complexity is such that one would assume the author worked from charts and maps" (Understanding the Book of Mormon, 6–7).

The complexity of the Book of Mormon is not necessarily evidence of its antiquity, but it is difficult to see how Joseph Smith, unprepared as he was, could have managed it. Fawn Brodie conveys the sheer audacity of it: "Joseph Smith took the whole Western Hemisphere as the setting for his book and a thousand years of history for his plot. Never having written a line of fiction, he laid out for himself a task that would have given the most experienced novelist pause." Yet, she acknowledged, the book's "structure shows elaborate design, its narrative is spun coherently, and it demonstrates throughout a unity of purpose" (No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, 2nd ed. [New York: Knopf, 1971], 49, 69).

What sort of person, absent a sense of divine mission, sets out to write a new Bible? Who has that kind of confidence?

The Catholic sociologist Thomas F. O'Dea was also struck by the book's "intellectuality," which he found in its "recognition of currents of thought other than and antagonistic to its own point of view, and especially in its awareness of current skepticism and rationalism" (The Mormons [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press], 30).

I think historian Daniel Walker Howe's appraisal is also worth quoting:

Quote

True or not, the Book of Mormon is a powerful epic written on a grand scale with a host of characters, a narrative of human struggle and conflict, of divine intervention, heroic good and atrocious evil, of prophecy, morality, and law. Its narrative structure is complex. The idiom is that of the King James Version, which most Americans assumed to be appropriate for a divine revelation. Although it contains elements that suggest the environment of New York in the 1820s (for example, episodes paralleling the Masonic/Antimasonic controversy), the dominant themes are biblical, prophetic, and patriarchal, not democratic or optimistic. It tells a tragic story, of a people who, though possessed of the true faith, fail in the end. Yet it does not convey a message of despair; God's will cannot ultimately be frustrated. The Book of Mormon should rank among the great achievements of American literature, but it has never been accorded the status it deserves, since Mormons deny Joseph Smith's authorship, and non-Mormons, dismissing the work as a fraud, have been more likely to ridicule than read it.

— Daniel Walker Howe, What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 314.

So I'm at a loss. The Book of Mormon reads like fiction to me, yet I have a hard time believing that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were lying about their experiences. Oliver especially—who, among other things, donated a year's wages to the project, wrote nearly 460 pages of manuscript in longhand, then produced a second complete copy (never receiving any remuneration for his labors and sometimes going without food), and then, after it was all done, undertook a 1,000-mile trek on foot in the dead of winter to take the Book of Mormon to the Indians.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Nevo

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, CountryBoy said:

I believe the saddest miracle is that they happen every day and you are unable to see them

I spoke to a fellow just today- not a member of our church, he was Catholic.

He lived a hard life, smoked, drank, did drugs, etc etc.  Eventually his kidneys gave up, but he lived with kidney failure for 15 years and resisted dialysis heavily.  He said he would rather have died than do dialysis.  He made a pilgrimage to a site where Mary had allegedly appeared.   Nothing.

He went into the hospital, finally, insisting still that he would never ever have dialysis.  A nurse came in to talk to him.  He was Hispanic and so was she, and spoke to him in Spanish.   He said that she was beautiful.  She spoke to him about a half hour, explaining all the details of dialysis, how it worked, what the procedures would be, the physical effects on the body in great detail.

He still refused to do dialysis.   He thought long and hard about what she had told him.   After an hour or two, he changed his mind.  He decided to tell her that thanks to her persuasive conversation, he would agree to allow dialysis.   He called the nurse to tell her.  Another nurse came into the room.   He asked her where the first nurse was, so he could thank her for helping him decide to stay alive.  It had only been an hour or so since the conversation.  He described her to the other nurse

"No sir I am sorry- no one like that works here- all the nurses here are Filipinas!"

He was convinced that he finally got his apparition.  

Regardless of how we judge his "evidence" none of us are in any position to tell him that was NOT a miracle!

 

 

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, cinepro said:

In order for that statement to be tested, we would need to know how many conspiracies are discovered vs. undiscovered.  I don't think that's the case (unless someone has ever done a comprehensive survey asking people if they have ever been part of a conspiracy, how many people were in that conspiracy, and was it ever discovered?)

I agree that it is logical that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is to remain undiscovered. But I don't think we can say with confidence that something wasn't a conspiracy just because it remained undiscovered.   I don't generally agree with "conspiracy theories", but it is possible to overreach in stating the degree to which they are or aren't possible.

Sometimes I am forced to agree with you. The fact that many conspiracies have have imploded under their own weight does not mean that all of them have.

 

Glenn

[UtahTexan]

10 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I spoke to a fellow just today- not a member of our church, he was Catholic.

He lived a hard life, smoked, drank, did drugs, etc etc.  Eventually his kidneys gave up, but he lived with kidney failure for 15 years and resisted dialysis heavily.  He said he would rather have died than do dialysis.  He made a pilgrimage to a site where Mary had allegedly appeared.   Nothing.

He went into the hospital, finally, insisting still that he would never ever have dialysis.  A nurse came in to talk to him.  He was Hispanic and so was she, and spoke to him in Spanish.   He said that she was beautiful.  She spoke to him about a half hour, explaining all the details of dialysis, how it worked, what the procedures would be, the physical effects on the body in great detail.

He still refused to do dialysis.   He thought long and hard about what she had told him.   After an hour or two, he changed his mind.  He decided to tell her that thanks to her persuasive conversation, he would agree to allow dialysis.   He called the nurse to tell her.  Another nurse came into the room.   He asked her where the first nurse was, so he could thank her for helping him decide to stay alive.  It had only been an hour or so since the conversation.  He described her to the other nurse

"No sir I am sorry- no one like that works here- all the nurses here are Filipinas!"

He was convinced that he finally got his apparition.  

Regardless of how we judge his "evidence" none of us are in any position to tell him that was NOT a miracle!

 

 

I am amazed at folks who feel the need to explain away miracles......how truly sad!

[Cold Steel]

First, Dan missed one possibility. It's well known that extraterrestrials used to appear to people as angels, giants, Nephilum. What if Joseph Smith was visited by ETs in the form of an angel and received the plates from them? Or two, perhaps he found the plates while digging for neighbors? In other words, he actually found New World artifacts and built up an elaborate story to explain them. Unable to actually translate the plates, he concocted the Book of Mormon with the help of Sidney Rigdon and published it. He later melted the plates down and used the money to try to publish the record. 

Me, I like the ET theory. The angel story is soooooo unbelievable. I mean really, angels! Aliens are so...now. 

 

[cdowis]

2 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

No, I don't entirely understand what you believe/how you believe under overwhelming evidence.....Far it be from me to patronize you or anyone else. All I can claim is I was there once, literally with my Mormon Brothers/Sisters. If creation Divinity uses the Creation process with natural laws then how come we don't see any evidence in any Scientific institutions?

I do not understand your question.  God uses natural laws, and you ask why we don't see natural laws in the creation process?  I think your atheism has clouded your mind.

We see their input only in Churches where the faithful gather and support those ideas. 

What are you talking about?

you ask "But why, dear fellow, is God necessary at all?"    I say, "Not anymore"; Human evolution used religion/Supernatural faith as 'Crutch" to it's survival, now we are awakening with the cold hard facts that we don't need it anymore ( read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari) the best book written about Humans.....

Too busy.  Why don't you open  a thread and give us the highlights.  You suggested it, so tell us the pertinent points yourself.  I have other uses or my  time.

Country boy writes...." I believe the saddest miracle is that they happen every day and you are unable to see the", why the heck I should attribute my life success to "Miracles"?

I am not countryboy.  Why are you asking me?  Your atheism is clouding your mind, and you don't even know to whom you are speaking.  Wake up!

I am very comfortable believe in myself rather than someone else dying for me...He didn't even have a courtesy for asking me....All of sudden he comes and asks his due.....

I really don't care.

I'm sorry no one can collect a debt like that without producing a shred of evidence (well to my credit I looked for evidence five decades).

Best of luck to you.

 

 

 

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Even the smallest of possible conspiracies, those composed of a mere two people, tend to collapse under their own weight.  You propose a far larger one that, somehow, managed to hold up. 

Oh I am not sure this is historically accurate at all.   There are plenty of conspiracies that have been far more complex and have withstood an awful lot of scrutiny.

and heck just think about the ones we don't know about yet!  

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Even the smallest of possible conspiracies, those composed of a mere two people, tend to collapse under their own weight.  You propose a far larger one that, somehow, managed to hold up. 

Oh I am not sure this is historically accurate at all.   There are plenty of conspiracies that have been far more complex and have withstood an awful lot of scrutiny.

and heck just think about the ones we don't know about yet!  

[Calm]

6 hours ago, cinepro said:

  The only theory that fully explains everything is Gellar's own theory. 

What has Gellar done that has not been fully explained?

[UtahTexan]

10 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Oh I am not sure this is historically accurate at all.   There are plenty of conspiracies that have been far more complex and have withstood an awful lot of scrutiny.

and heck just think about the ones we don't know about yet!  

can you name them?

 

[Teancum]

33 minutes ago, CountryBoy said:

can you name them?

 

The ones we don't know about? Nope.  

[UtahTexan]

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

The ones we don't know about? Nope.  

how about the ones you claimed existed?

[Honorentheos]

Yikes this thread blew up. I've read through enough responses and questions I would need to take a part time job as MDDB poster to reply directly to each that quoted something I said or replied to something I said. Instead this will have to do.

Regarding the conspiracy question - I don't think the original conspiracy actually survived. The witnesses ended their natural lives at extreme odds with Smith, who managed to be chased by the law out of every state he ever lived in for reasons that, once one stops assuming its all Satan-driven persecution, looks an awful lot like people were unhappy with his scheming behavior. In the end, he was lynched for it. The observation of Joseph's life looks more like a series of imploding cavitation bubbles that rebuild from what they were only to collapse over again and again.

The follow-up question – why didn’t they take the money and fame we assume they would have gained had they acknowledged it was all a great fraud? – is one that seems to be lost in history. We have unreliable accounts and evidence that Cowdery may have in fact done that on a small scale while Whitmer used his role as a witness to the Book of Mormon to lead a different group. Harris seems to be the Donald Trump of early Mormonism so one finds quotes attributed to him that range so far and wide it’s hard to know what he really said, meant, or believed.

Anyway. The evidence for a conspiracy, no matter how flimsy it may seem, still remains more consistent with the external evidence the Book of Mormon narrative not matching with it’s claimed ancient context such that, as Dr. Peterson is fond of quoting from Conan Doyle, it’s the probable option on the table not removed by what contradicts the evidence. I think it’s very easy to miss that more valid use of the Sherlock Holmes principle.

As to the hat translation, let’s look at the evidence. We have accounts of this being what others observed, much of it from the time when Smith was not working with Cowdery. But we also have accounts that paint this occurring in a lot of strange ways. At face value, it would demand a strict translation for the text, which theory is difficult to support when one looks to the text itself. And despite how poorly received the Late War evidence may be among those in favor of ancient authorship, it clearly shows one can create apparent Hebraisms by attempting to sound Biblical. Thus making the more demanding claims for strict translation less compelling.

So, do we need to assume that what we read today was actually composed while Joseph had his face in a hat? I’d argue there is no compelling evidence for this, and evidence the contradicts the reliability that what we read was actually produced in the manner claimed by many of the witnesses who tell us this was how it was produced. My alternative scenario – it was used as a prop, but the actual production was pretty mundane. Smith talking, Cowdery writing. Probably some discussion.

Were there real plates? The single piece of evidence that suggests this is necessary to account for is the witness of the eight witnesses. I'm not inclined to feel compelled to say they had actually plates they believed were ancient or not. I'm not sure what Smith kept under the cloth, if it was something else as reported in accounts such as this -

Quote

"An anecdote touching this subject used to be related by William T. Hussey and Azel Vandruver. They were notorious wags, and were intimately acquainted with Smith. They called as his friends at his residence, and strongly importuned him for an inspection of the "golden book," offering to take upon themselves the risk of the death-penalty denounced. Of course, the request could not be complied with; but they were permitted to go to the chest with its owner, and see where the thing was, and observe its shape and size, concealed under a piece of thick canvas. Smith, with his accustomed solemnity of demeanor, positively persisting in his refusal to uncover it, Hussey became impetuous, and (suiting his action to his word) ejaculated, 'Egad! I'll see the critter, live or die!' And stripping off the cover, A LARGE TILE-BRICK was exhibited. But Smith's fertile imagination was equal to the emergency. He claimed that his friends had been sold by a trick of his; and 'treating' with the customary whisky hospitalities, the affair ended in good-nature." -Pomeroy Tucker, the Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism, pgs 31-32

 

Martin Harris is reported to have claimed the eight witnesses never saw the plates, but he's also the Donald Trump of early Mormonism as noted above. Vogal notes that the weight to size ratio is consistent with tin. So who knows. Could be Smith had tin tiles of some kind, could be not. What really was under the cloth is a mystery. I guess it fails to be a necessary question to answer definitvely, IMO. The evidence is all over the place.

Lastly, just because someone thinks only the LGT is valid and those who believe in the HMT are poorly informed doesn’t remove the point that was ironically made regarding critics having competing theories. Sorry, smac. There are multiple theories among the believers. Regarding where the Book of Mormon occurred, strict translation v. loose translation, the Skousen I don’t yet know what is his position theory but rumors include ghost committees of translators, there’s those who think the Book of Mormon is perfect and never been modified except for a grammar change here or there, those who believe the headings are as scriptural as the text compared to those who completely disagree and cringe when the headings are quoted…it’s not exactly a uniform opinion on your side of this, either.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Honorentheos

[Malc]

19 hours ago, cdowis said:

One tiny question.  Can you explain the translation or transcription process using the stone in the hat?  We know that JS buried his head in the hat and was reading for hours at a time.  When he came back to translation, he did not need help in knowing where he stopped.

What exactly was in that hat?  A stone, but what was JS reading from -- a manuscript?  If so, how did he turn the pages and see it.  Perhaps there were a table and lantern in the hat, or a window where he could read.  Tell us, in your scenario, how he accomplished this feat.

Tell us about that amazing hat and what it contained to make this possible.

I'm not sure that there were sufficient controls on the transcript and the process that this question of how he knew where he stopped needs to be asked. As far as I know, there was no "chain of custody" that would verify the connection between Joseph's dictation and the document sent to the printer.

One hypothesis that I've come across is that, except when there was a close observer of the process, Joseph was not actually dictating anything related to the document that was eventually used to typeset the book. That document need not even have been in the same room as Joseph and his scribe.

Even when there was a close observer, did that person check that the scribe was writing exactly what Joseph had been saying? How long did they observe and check? Did they check later that everything that they heard was indeed contained in the printed book?

At the end of each transcription session, did someone check where the translation stopped, and check again the next day to ensure that it resumed at the correct place? If that person could remember (or record) from one day to the next what the starting and stopping places were, is there any reason that Joseph could not have done the same?

All sorts of possibilities that I'm sure I have not come anywhere close to exhausting them.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Malc
to correct a typo

[cinepro]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

The ones we don't know about? Nope.  

He doesn't get it.

[Kenngo1969]

10 hours ago, cinepro said:

That's great and all, but that's not what he said.  This was the claim:

Even the smallest of possible conspiracies, those composed of a mere two people, tend to collapse under their own weight.

How do we know that small conspiracies "tend to collapse under their own weight"?   If someone said "I disagree.  Small conspiracies tend to remain hidden and never get found out", how would you prove the first claim over the second one?  What kind of data do you have about small conspiracies that remain hidden?  There isn't any data, because they remain hidden by definition.  In order to know what the actual "trend" is, we would need to know the ratio of exposed conspiracies to unexposed conspiracies.

 

Regarding your other point, I will just remind you that I said the exact same thing about large conspiracies in my post:

I agree that it is logical that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is to remain undiscovered.

So...thanks for reiterating what I said?

You're right.  Mea maxima culpa.  I don't have any data.  My observation is based on simple human nature: If the cost of maintaining the secret/conspiracy (whether that cost be personal or social, emotional or fiscal; whether that cost entails being ensnared in the civil and/or the criminal justice systems, respectively; et cetera) becomes higher than the cost of revealing it, then it is likely to collapse.  Taking suspicious spouses out of the equation, adultery wouldn't disrupt nearly as many marriages if neither of the "conspirators" ever came clean; taking suspicious whistle-blowers out of the equation, financial fraud wouldn't impact nearly as many investors, businesses (or quasi-businesses or ersatz businesses), or industries if none of the conspirators ever came clean; and so on.  

None of the prosecutors I've known (and I've known a few) would ever say, "Meh! Forget conspiracy!  That's small potatoes!  I don't need that!"   Rather (for better or for worse) they use conspiracy charges as leverage to help them go full-force after their real targets.  If they really want Bugsy, but they lack evidence that they know Whitey can help them get against Bugsy, they're not above telling Whitey, "Here's the deal: I've got you dead-to-rights on conspiracy right now.  If you testify (or otherwise help me) to convict Bugsy, I'll give a walk on the conspiracy charge."  I still have no data (so sue me!), but simple common sense tells me that far, far more people are nailed on (or at least charged with, initially) conspiracy-to-commit charges (and other inchoate crimes) than are ever nailed for the actual crimes themselves.

[cdowis]

9 hours ago, Malc said:

All sorts of possibilities that I'm sure I have not come anywhere close to exhausting them.

As I remember, an analysis by Skouson strongly indicates from the original manuscript that it was indeed a result of dictation, rather than continuous writing sessions.  There are additional spacing between individual groups of a fixed number of words.  Every six words if I remember correctly.  So, according to your theory, alot of effort would have been made to fake that it was a dictation.

Hopefully someone here can fill in the exact details but the original manuscript was clearly the result of a dictation.

Edited August 31, 2016 by cdowis

[hope_for_things]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

There is another philosopher named Thomas Nagel who has extensively studied physicalism, the idea that ideas and experiences are "nothing more" than physical reactions in the brain

The problem is that any physical description cannot be made identical LOGICALLY to assertions about experience.

The assertion "Bukowski is having reaction xyz at location abc in his brain" is NOT logically equivalent to "Bukowski thinks the landscape is beautiful"

There is always something LEFT OUT- and not included in the physical statement which is contained in the statement describing the state of consciousness- the experience.

Beauty IS NOT a chemical reaction- it is a state of consciousness.  Science objectively may see reactions CORRELATED with the experience but the correlation is not the experience.

Social sciences are not regarded by chemists and physicists as "real science" because they are so based on "subjective definitions"

I think I get what you're saying, the reality that we experience, even the physical nature of things are all in our mind.  Is this philosophy similar to the theory by some physicists that we may be living in a simulated reality, that it would be impossible to distinguish a simulated reality from an actual reality?

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

They appear to you to be integral because you have been conditioned by your culture.  They are not.  Many in humanity are still "brainwashed" into thinking this way.  Once you understand that we organize reality from matter unorganized the insight comes like a flash and you cannot go back.  The whole world changes.

On this part, I think you're missing the point I'm making about science being integral with our perspectives on the world around us.  What I'm basically saying is that its impossible for any of us to divorce our perspective from the influence of science.  It's like saying we are a product of our culture and our environment, and that culture and environment is saturated by scientific things.  Its like Paul's statement about looking through a glass darkly, but that dark glass has been crafted in a factory through the means of science.  

For you to say that you're able to look at spirituality separate from science sounds to me like self deception, because in the process of thinking this way, everything you're using, the tools you're typing on, the delivery of the food to your mouth, the very world around all of us has been so heavily influenced by the discoveries of science that I don't it's even possible to have a thought experiment without bringing these perspectives and world views into the picture, and all of these perspectives are immeasurably influenced by science.  

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

I think I get what you're saying, the reality that we experience, even the physical nature of things are all in our mind.  Is this philosophy similar to the theory by some physicists that we may be living in a simulated reality, that it would be impossible to distinguish a simulated reality from an actual reality?

On this part, I think you're missing the point I'm making about science being integral with our perspectives on the world around us.  What I'm basically saying is that its impossible for any of us to divorce our perspective from the influence of science.  It's like saying we are a product of our culture and our environment, and that culture and environment is saturated by scientific things.  Its like Paul's statement about looking through a glass darkly, but that dark glass has been crafted in a factory through the means of science.  

For you to say that you're able to look at spirituality separate from science sounds to me like self deception, because in the process of thinking this way, everything you're using, the tools you're typing on, the delivery of the food to your mouth, the very world around all of us has been so heavily influenced by the discoveries of science that I don't it's even possible to have a thought experiment without bringing these perspectives and world views into the picture, and all of these perspectives are immeasurably influenced by science.  

 

Once you see it, the world changes. It's not the way you describe it, it's not "the matrix".

It is the total opposite of self-deception. It is seeing reality for what it is. Even your Matrix analogy is still the bifurcation of reality. It is still seeing something out there. It still makes a differentiation between what is out there and what is in your mind. There is no such differentiation. Science is as much of a construction as anything else. It is the construction of many Minds together agreeing on their experiences but at the bottom line is still about human experience in the mind. Multiple Minds yes but still the human mind.

You are projecting your understanding of reality on to what you think mine is. My perception of reality is much different than yours. Mine agrees with Rorty, James, Habermas, Dewey, Wittgenstein Heidegger and the boys. You are still with Aristotle and Descartes

 

Edited August 31, 2016 by mfbukowski