Do You Have to Believe in Magic to Accept Joseph Smith? II

[Robert F. Smith]

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23 minutes ago tannerbarker said:
Oh I agree that my diatribe is not scholarship, it's a diatribe. I am aware that Shipps and Barker are Methodists, but both have definitely participated in apologetics, reinterpreting hard facts to make Mormonism remain palatable. Check their contributions to the symposium at the Library of Congress as examples. 

So, if a non-Mormon scholar reaches factual conclusions which happen to coincide with Mormonism, that is perforce "apologetics"?  That's dirty pool, Tanner.  Heads you win, tails I lose.  You like full-blown apriorism?

If so, you would likely say the same of non-Mormon scholar Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible (1984), 537, who was quite taken with the strong parallels adduced in comparison of the Apocalypse of Paul and Joseph’s obtaining the Book of Mormon (cited by Kevin Barney in FARMS Review of Books, 13/1 [2001], 16, in review of John Tvedtnes’ The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books [2000], 39,99-100, and Appendix I, who is in turn dependent upon an analysis by Steven Booras).

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23 minutes ago, tannerbarker said:
As for religion being indistinguishable from magic, I quite agree where they are used as explanations of natural phenomena. How can God be the logical terminus to an infinite regress Mr. Aquinas? Magic.

The problem with Thomism is that (although it is internally consistent and coherent) it is an illogical and absurd explanation of the natural world.  Why"  Because it posits an uncaused first cause (God), who is the only necessary being,  who creates everything from nothing, and who is therefore responsible for both good and evil.  No one else can be blamed.

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23 minutes ago, tannerbarker said:
Clarke's Third Law has the purpose of exploding magic as a valid explanation. You are quite right that we need to be consistent in our appraisals of magic, Clarke's Third Law is the reason that we should posit a natural explanation in all cases where a magical one seems warranted.

Which is exactly LDS theology.  That is, Mormonism is entirely naturalistic.  A "magical, miraculous" designation merely tells us that we don't understand the technology.

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23 minutes ago, tannerbarker said:
_-_Joseph_Smith_and_the_Making_of_a_Global_Religion.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_and_the_Recovery_of_Past_Worlds.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_Challenges_the_Theological_World.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_in_a_Personal_World.mp3 

Thanks.  I'll have a look see.

ETA:  This is a continuation of http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/69483-do-you-have-to-believe-in-magic-to-accept-joseph-smith/?tab=comments#comment-1209749948 .

 

[mfbukowski]

I think you have to understand that science is not designed to answer every questions humans have about their purpose in life or what makes them fulfilled

If that qualifies as "magic" then so be it

Science is like reading a recipe for a chocolate chip cookie.  It is how chocolate cookies are made.

The difference between reading a recipe and tasting the cookie is precisely the difference between science and direct experience of eating a cookie.  Does the recipe "correspond" to eating the cookie?  In some ways, sure, but is the whole experience- the whole reality of the cookie in the recipe?   Not by a long shot

If that difference is "magic" then so be it.

It is the itch of the mosquito bite, the smell of lilacs as opposed to roses, it is wet grass on bare feet and a spider crawling on your leg.   It is qualia- it is phenomenology, it is poetry.  It is the "raw feels" of being alive.

And that applies to the experience of a color as opposed to it's angstrom wave length, the sound of a trumpet compared to the sound of a harp and why some chocolate tastes "better" than others.  It's not really about preferences per se, it's more about why we would have preferences in the first place.

It's the difference between a dead animal and a sizzling steak on your plate, with all the fixins.   If that's magic, I am for it.

The world "as it is" is the taste of a chocolate chip cookie.  Reading the recipe is the scientific description of that.   No comparison.

Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.

Edited August 29, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Glenn101]

52 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

The world "as it is" is the taste of a chocolate chip cookie.  Reading the recipe is the scientific description of that.   No comparison.

But who made the chocolate chop cookie?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I think you have to understand that science is not designed to answer every questions humans have about their purpose in life or what makes them fulfilled

If that qualifies as "magic" then so be it

Science is like reading a recipe for a chocolate chip cookie.  It is how chocolate cookies are made.

The difference between reading a recipe and tasting the cookie is precisely the difference between science and direct experience of eating a cookie.  Does the recipe "correspond" to eating the cookie?  In some ways, sure, but is the whole experience- the whole reality of the cookie in the recipe?   Not by a long shot

If that difference is "magic" then so be it.

It is the itch of the mosquito bite, the smell of lilacs as opposed to roses, it is wet grass on bare feet and a spider crawling on your leg.   It is qualia- it is phenomenology, it is poetry.  It is the "raw feels" of being alive.

And that applies to the experience of a color as opposed to it's angstrom wave length, the sound of a trumpet compared to the sound of a harp and why some chocolate tastes "better" than others.  It's not really about preferences per se, it's more about why we would have preferences in the first place.

It's the difference between a dead animal and a sizzling steak on your plate, with all the fixins.   If that's magic, I am for it.

The world "as it is" is the taste of a chocolate chip cookie.  Reading the recipe is the scientific description of that.   No comparison.

Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.

Yes, and many scholars say that religion is not a set of principles and doctrines, but rather belief-in-action:  Visiting the orphan, widow, and prisoner, as well as feeding and clothing the poor, healing the sick, comforting the broken-hearted, etc.  Tacenda will probably now call us to repentance for wasting our time on this board instead of working the local soup kitchen, or heading down to Houston, Texas, and she might just be right.

[Robert F. Smith]

49 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

But who made the chocolate chop cookie?

An intelligent designer.

[deli_llama]

Many thanks @Robert F. Smith for pulling this discussion over to this area and letting it continue. I was a bit bummed it was shut down.

I have been slowly making my way through a new book I picked up with this topic (or close enough) on my mind,  Jason A. Josephson-Storm's The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences? I am not far enough along to intelligently sum it up, but in case anyone is interested, from the description: 

A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm argues that as broad cultural history goes, this narrative is wrong, as attempts to suppress magic have failed more often than they have succeeded. Even the human sciences have been more enchanted than is commonly supposed. But that raises the question: How did a magical, spiritualist, mesmerized Europe ever convince itself that it was disenchanted?

Josephson-Storm traces the history of the myth of disenchantment in the births of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the myth of mythless modernity formed at the very time that Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. Indeed, Josephson-Storm argues, these disciplines’ founding figures were not only aware of, but profoundly enmeshed in, the occult milieu; and it was specifically in response to this burgeoning culture of spirits and magic that they produced notions of a disenchanted world.  

By providing a novel history of the human sciences and their connection to esotericism, The Myth of Disenchantment dispatches with most widely held accounts of modernity and its break from the premodern past.

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

But who made the chocolate chop cookie?

Don't worry about who made it, just experience the cookie!  I can always tell who made the cookies, not just from the taste, but from the whole experience of the cookie. Not just who made it, but also somethings about the one that made it. Thanks Granny! Thanks Honey!

Pardon the interruption, and please carry on with the topic and cookies.  

[Pete Ahlstrom]

Didn't Joseph believe in magic or at least did so when the book of mormon was produced? He had a jupiter talisman on him when he died. He led seer stone treasure hunts and thought there was treasure in Salem MA. He used a seer stone extensively in his early career and seer stones are a part of the book of mormon and the d&c. So, I think it is safe to say that Joseph himself believed in magic or the supernatural. Thus, if Joseph believed in such, maybe one must believe in these things too in order to fully accept Joseph Smith.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and many scholars say that religion is not a set of principles and doctrines, but rather belief-in-action:  Visiting the orphan, widow, and prisoner, as well as feeding and clothing the poor, healing the sick, comforting the broken-hearted, etc.  Tacenda will probably now call us to repentance for wasting our time on this board instead of working the local soup kitchen, or heading down to Houston, Texas, and she might just be right.

LA County sent a bunch of fire fighters and rescue experts - they drove their own equipment because there was no other way to get the necessary trucks etc there except to drive them  

That must have been quite a caravan.

[mfbukowski]

7 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

Didn't Joseph believe in magic or at least did so when the book of mormon was produced? He had a jupiter talisman on him when he died. He led seer stone treasure hunts and thought there was treasure in Salem MA. He used a seer stone extensively in his early career and seer stones are a part of the book of mormon and the d&c. So, I think it is safe to say that Joseph himself believed in magic or the supernatural. Thus, if Joseph believed in such, maybe one must believe in these things too in order to fully accept Joseph Smith.

Joseph believed in the supernatural?

Oh gosh.  Religious believers thinking there is more to life than what can be scientifically proven?

Oh dear- are you serious?  Are you actually saying that religious believers believe in things they hope for but cannot see?

Absolutely shocking!!   Spirits and such?   Not possible!

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

But who made the chocolate chop cookie?

[Robert F. Smith]

4 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

Didn't Joseph believe in magic or at least did so when the book of mormon was produced? He had a jupiter talisman on him when he died. He led seer stone treasure hunts and thought there was treasure in Salem MA. He used a seer stone extensively in his early career and seer stones are a part of the book of mormon and the d&c. So, I think it is safe to say that Joseph himself believed in magic or the supernatural. Thus, if Joseph believed in such, maybe one must believe in these things too in order to fully accept Joseph Smith.

It might help, Pete, if we can first figure out what "magic" is and how it relates to religion.  You might want to go back and read this thread (and its precursor), in which some very good pointers are provided in working through that puzzle.  And while you are doing that, listen to the magical Barcarolle in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-K8JFIIhxs .

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

He had a jupiter talisman on him when he died.

On that one item....

Unlikely he had the Jupiter Talisman on him at time of death or at all.  It was not listed in Joseph's personal effects and didn't show up until the son of the man Emma married (Bidamon) was trying to sell it, claiming he had been given the valuable family heirloom by his father who got it from Emma, iirc.  No one else reported its existence even though Bidamon swore Emma was always showing it at interviews, etc.

If it was so important, why wouldn't Emma have given it to one of hers and Joseph's children instead of her stepson?

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Occultism_and_magic/Jupiter_talisman

"

In 1984, Anderson located and published the itemized list of the contents of Joseph Smith's pockets at his death. The list was originally published in 1885 in Iowa by James W. Woods, Smith's lawyer, who collected the prophet's personal effects after the Martyrdom. The contents from the published 1885 printing are as follows:

Received, Nauvoo, Illinois, July 2, 1844, of James W. Woods, one hundred and thirty- five dollars and fifty cents in gold and silver and receipt for shroud, one gold finger ring, one gold pen and pencil case, one penknife, one pair of tweezers, one silk and one leather purse, one small pocket wallet containing a note of John P. Green for $50, and a receipt of Heber C. Kimball for a note of hand on Ellen M. Saunders for one thousand dollars, as the property of Joseph Smith. - Emma Smith.[4]:558[6]

No Talisman or item like it is listed. It could not be mistaken for a coin or even a "Masonic Jewel" as Durham first thought. Anderson described the Talisman as being “an inch-and-a-half in diameter and covered with symbols and a prayer on one side and square of sixteen Hebrew characters on the other.”[4]:541 Significant is the fact that no associate of Joseph Smith has ever mentioned anything like this medallion. There are no interviews that ever record Emma mentioning any such item as attested to by Charles Bidamon, though he claimed she often spoke of it."

[cdowis]

 

 

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It might help, Pete, if we can first figure out what "magic" is and how it relates to religion.  

"Quantum mechanics is indistinguishable from magic"

Does that help?

[Glenn101]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Chocolate and chocolate chip cookies are too good to have been designed and made by Satan. Had he done so, he would have kept them all for himself.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Glenn101
Spwlling

[Glenn101]

11 minutes ago, cdowis said:

 

 

"Quantum mechanics is indistinguishable from magic"

Does that help?

Actually the creation ex nihilo advocates should be eager advocates of quantum mechanics, as that theory has particles popping into existence from nothing, if I understand that little bit correctly. Admittedly I do not understand anything about quantum mechanics. It is all magic to me.

Glenn

[cdowis]

20 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

 Admittedly I do not understand anything about quantum mechanics.

You are in good company.

"It is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics"  Richard Feynman

I use this quote whenever someone touts science as being superior to religion.  Just mention "spooky interaction at a distance" and they roll over and play dead.

Edited August 30, 2017 by cdowis

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, deli_llama said:

A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm argues that as broad cultural history goes, this narrative is wrong, as attempts to suppress magic have failed more often than they have succeeded

This seems correct. It's true commitment to formal religion has decreased in Europe (even when people self-identify it's more often a kind of social or historical identity rather than what we'd call a true religious belief). However the rate of what we'd call superstitions seems to remain high. Further many have noted how elements humans once attributed to religion or religious leaders now gets transferred to the state. While it's completely understandable why atheists object to calling statism or other movements religious, there are strong similarities likely tied to basic structures of human cognition. That's why so many evolutionary psychologists studying religion typically say that most trappings of religion are either by products of certain faculties of cognition. (Say attribution of spirits to privileging false positives over false negatives during the days when humans had to worry about predators - a false positive costs little. A false negative means you're eaten and can't pass your genes along any more.)

It's well known that civilization and government develop hand in hand with religion to the point that they become divorced only relatively recently. It's also well known that when rule of law becomes stable and people can trust it, religion tends to decline. (The US is the exception although there are also many other exceptional elements to the US such as high crime that may affect religiosity) Because of this a major thesis in evolutionary psychology is that as government becomes sufficiently stable, people naturally shift their religious behaviors to that. The thesis is that this more than anything else explains the rise of the Nones or atheists. Religion then becomes a quaint trapping of the past tied to culture and treated accordingly. Much like castles or armor of centuries past.

Now as a theist I clearly don't fully embrace this. Yet I think there are almost certainly elements that are true and do explain a lot.

In this view magic and religion really can't be separated. They're fundamentally the same phenomena. We might shift alliances of particularly formal religions or metaphysical beliefs. Much like there are Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and others in different parts of the world. Yet the religious/magical drive is part and parcel of human cognition. It's an evolved part of our very nature. 

For the theist who believes there's actually some level of enchantment in the world, then of course evolution would select for that. Further humans would note that some behaviors, like prayer, simply work.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, cdowis said:

You are in good company.

"It is safe to say that nobody understands quantum mechanics"  Richard Feynman

I use this quote whenever someone touts science as being superior to religion.  Just mention "spooky interaction at a distance" and they roll over and play dead.

It's worth noting that Feynman said this as part of his advocating a position called instrumentalism in science. Most scientists aren't instrumentalists. It was a somewhat popular movement around the time Feynman came of age partially popularized by John Dewey. (Although his position was more sophisticated) Among scientists who've studied philosophy it tends to not be a very popular position. These days the two main positions are either the ever popular scientific realism or what are called deflationary accounts. Kit Fine and Bran Van Fraasen are recent popularizer of that broad type of empiricism. In certain ways it keeps certain useful elements of instrumentalism. While deflationists (or constructive empiricists for the more narrow school following Van Fraasen) are sometimes disparaged as instrumentalists it's actually instrumentalists whom they attack. Effectively Van Fraasen in the 80's started rehabilitating non-realist views of science after instrumentalism fell into such disapproval.

Which is a long name dropping kind of way of saying I wouldn't take Feynman too seriously on this point. His instrumentalism was largely due to having a very anti-philosophical bias. That in turn largely arose because he was forced at MIT to take a philosophy class and he unfortunately was put into a class on Whitehead which he found complete nonsense. He carried his disparagement of science with him through life. However the cosmos got the ultimate revenge as his son became a philosophy professor.

Edited August 30, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Actually the creation ex nihilo advocates should be eager advocates of quantum mechanics, as that theory has particles popping into existence from nothing, if I understand that little bit correctly. Admittedly I do not understand anything about quantum mechanics. It is all magic to me.

It's not really quite like that. Things have to be conserved over time although in short time periods those can break down somewhat. It all makes sense once you do the math but until then it's pretty hard to understand. Ontologically though it's nothing like creation ex nihilo. Quantum Mechanics gets tricky since in quantum electrodynamics you have what are called virtual particles that mediate interactions between particles. Mathematically the way you deal with this is by integrating over all possible paths something could take. At a certain point one starts to ask whether such things are merely mathematical artifacts or whether they are "real" in some sense. (And if so what sense).

However since we don't have a full theory of quantum gravity that really works in a satisfactory way, and since there's lots of phenomena we can't really explain satisfactorily yet (dark matter, dark energy) it's probably not worth wasting time on such questions since QM is an incomplete theory. It's like trying to draw ontological points from Newtonian Mechanics. You could do it but since the theory is ultimately wrong one probably shouldn't.

Edited August 30, 2017 by clarkgoble

[cdowis]

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Which is a long name dropping kind of way of saying I wouldn't take Feynman too seriously on this point. His instrumentalism was largely due to having a very anti-philosophical bias. That in turn largely arose because he was forced at MIT to take a philosophy class and he unfortunately was put into a class on Whitehead which he found complete nonsense. 

Having made an attempt to comprehend your  post, I am afraid it only reinforces my respect for him.  It  appears that we are, in this case, in agreement.

"Which is the greater miracle, a stone that speaks, or a philosopher who is able to stop speaking."

"The philosopher == an individual who has made a career of making mountains out of mole hills."  (cdowis)

Edited August 30, 2017 by cdowis

[clarkgoble]

22 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Having made an attempt to comprehend your  post, I am afraid it only reinforces my respect for him.  It  appears that we are, in this case, in agreement.

"Which is the greater miracle, a stone that speaks, or a philosopher who is able to stop speaking."

"The philosopher == an individual who has made a career of making mountains out of mole hills."  (cdowis)

LOL. Some truth to that. Although I did provide links to the articles that explained what I was saying. Basically Feynman's view is held by very, very few who've investigated the issue including physicists. The main reason to think we don't know is because we don't have a complete theory. Feynman's a bit of a hero to most young physicists (myself included at the time) but in this case his views are popular for the wrong reasons. In the same way that unfortunately some young physicists adopt his misogyny. 

Edited August 30, 2017 by clarkgoble

[cdowis]

24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

The main reason to think we don't know is because we don't have a complete theory.

Profound! Brilliant.

 Only a philosopher would intone the obvious, and make it sound as an undiscovered law of the universe.  
Speak stones, speak!  Say something to shut this guy up.

(hope you have a sense of humor)

Edited August 30, 2017 by cdowis

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It might help, Pete, if we can first figure out what "magic" is and how it relates to religion.  You might want to go back and read this thread (and its precursor), in which some very good pointers are provided in working through that puzzle.  And while you are doing that, listen to the magical Barcarolle in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-K8JFIIhxs .

 

It's always in the definitions!

[clarkgoble]

34 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Profound! Brilliant.

 Only a philosopher would intone the obvious, and make it sound as an undiscovered law of the universe.  
Speak stones, speak!  Say something to shut this guy up.

(hope you have a sense of humor)

LOL. I do. 

But note this is different from the point Feynman makes in many places (most famously in his Lectures of Physics). There Feynman just thinks it's mysterious and not worth thinking about "why" questions. 

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

However since we don't have a full theory of quantum gravity that really works in a satisfactory way, and since there's lots of phenomena we can't really explain satisfactorily yet (dark matter, dark energy) it's probably not worth wasting time on such questions since QM is an incomplete theory. It's like trying to draw ontological points from Newtonian Mechanics. You could do it but since the theory is ultimately wrong one probably shouldn't.

Yep, sounds like magic to me. Thanks for your information.

Glenn