How to Answer Questions about Church History

[Calm]

7 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

We cannot debate facts,....

Of course we can.  Facts don't live in a vacuum, jumping fully formed from the text the First Historian encounters it on.

"Facts" are claims and have providences, contradictions with other claims, etc.

Labeling something a "fact" doesn't magically elevate it above the human experience of bias, misinterpretation, mistakes in recording, etc.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Calm

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Of course we can.  Facts don't live in a vacuum, jumping fully formed from the text the First Historian encounters it on.

"Facts" are claims and have providences, contradictions with other claims, etc.

Labeling something a "fact" doesn't magically elevate it above the human experience of bias, misinterpretation, mistakes in recording, etc.

To quote David Byrne:

Quote

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

 

[SouthernMo]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Of course we can.  Facts don't live in a vacuum, jumping fully formed from the text the First Historian encounters it on.

"Facts" are claims and have providences, contradictions with other claims, etc.

Labeling something a "fact" doesn't magically elevate it above the human experience of bias, misinterpretation, mistakes in recording, etc.

I see what you are saying.

How would you define a fact?  Or, put slightly differently, is there anything you’d call a fact?

[hope_for_things]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And that is what religion is for!

That is what is missing here!  Religion is for you figuring out what is important in life, not historical facts.

What you are doing is opening up your hood and looking at the fuel injection system to figure out where you want to go on you next trip.

Yes your engine is important in getting you to your goal but the facts of what makes your engine work are not about where you WANT to go on your trip.

What you want out of life is not determined by Book of Mormon geography, yet there are things in the Book of Mormon that might help you discover what is important in life.

Two different questions.

I would agree that religion is in arena of meaning making.  But traditional religions don't have a monopoly on meaning making, and there are many secular avenues in this arena as well.  

But that is not what I interpret Steven Harper as saying.  He seems to be asserting that some core fundamental religious ideas are also historical facts based on his personal spiritual experience.  This is curious and I think contradictory to his other statement about not being able to prove the truth of Mormonism through historical inquiry.  It seems to me that he's claiming these truths are universally true based on spiritual experience, and that they are also off limits from historical inquiry.  Its the combination of both of those propositions that confuses me.  

[hope_for_things]

16 hours ago, Amulek said:

22 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Would you say that there is any way to accurately determine if Joseph Smith experienced a theophany from a factual and historical perspective? 

Doubtful. I mean, even if you had a bunch of other witnesses - all hiding in the bushes or something - at best you're going to get to the claim that he saw 'something.'

How you then go about demonstrating "from a factual and historical perspective" that that 'something' was actually God, however, is beyond me. 

You could if the theophany experience was a visitation in a tangible and physical sense.  But Joseph only described his experience as a vision.  Its trying to move a spiritual personal experience into a historical event that creates the problem.  

[Calm]

4 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

 

I’m just pointing out that when you spew a steam of consciousness and lump multiple questions together that have varying degrees of interrelatedness, it’s hard to have a meaningful conversation about one topic..

I find lumping a bunch of claims together without context or documentation generally results in a very biased and limited conversation that is more confused than meaningful.

You want to demonstrate a claim, take one at a time and provide documented context with references, preferably quotes, not paraphrases.

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

I see what you are saying.

How would you define a fact?  Or, put slightly differently, is there anything you’d call a fact?

I prefer using the term claim and providing documentation if I am attempting to persuade others to accept it.

I also wouldn't make assumption about how well read others are on the board unless you have been both around awhile and been paying attention.  You seem to think .Duncan is relatively uneducated or takes a black and white approach to the world.  I have seen little evidence for either over the years.  You lecturing him only makes you appear to be the one uninformed, jumping to conclusions, and if you do it for Duncan, why not for all those other topics you are examining?

Edited July 25, 2018 by Calm

[hope_for_things]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have no clue why you would take anybody's word for what the afterlife is like unless you have verified it by your own testimony.

You might was well go to a fortune teller to tell you your future and actually believe it.

I am always amazed at these questions.  It's like asking a medicine man what the temperature will be tomorrow.

Humans teach a theory.

In science you verify it by objective experimental evidence

In religion it is verified by feelings in your heart that give you joy and give you purpose in life, just like Alma says.

How is listening to a church leader any different than listening to a fortune teller?  They are both claiming prophetic abilities and that seems very similar to me.  

As for how we verify feelings in our heart religiously, how is this not just confirmation bias at work?  What we feel about something does not tell us anything about that THING at all, it just tells us what we FEEL.  

 

[Duncan]

9 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I would agree that religion is in arena of meaning making.  But traditional religions don't have a monopoly on meaning making, and there are many secular avenues in this arena as well.  

But that is not what I interpret Steven Harper as saying.  He seems to be asserting that some core fundamental religious ideas are also historical facts based on his personal spiritual experience.  This is curious and I think contradictory to his other statement about not being able to prove the truth of Mormonism through historical inquiry.  It seems to me that he's claiming these truths are universally true based on spiritual experience, and that they are also off limits from historical inquiry.  Its the combination of both of those propositions that confuses me.  

I don't see Harper as confused or contradictory. He, to me, is saying what legions of historians have said in the past. Historians are "slaves to evidence". There is documented evidence that Joseph said he saw God and Jesus in 1820. In saying that though no one was there to see Joseph have his vision. I was told by my parents who I was named after,  I wasn't involved in any of it, i didn't see them decide on the name and all evidence leads me to believe them, but when they are gone people are free or believe me or not if I say to them this is what happened, because I knew and heard the testimony of the two people involved. I wasn't involved or anyone else in Joseph' 1820 vision, but we can read the testimonies of Joseph and what he said to others and are free to accept or not. So, Harper is saying historical inquiry is what people involved have written, said to others based on something they experienced. 

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

He said that we can learn things about history all day long, but we can't prove the church is true or untrue, he seems to be making contradictory claims from my vantage point. 

How would a historian go about proving that the church is true? Or Shamanism, or Neopaganism, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Gnosticism, or Catholicism, or Rastafarianism, for that matter?

If historians could prove which religion was true, don't you think they would have done so by now? 

 

[SouthernMo]

7 minutes ago, Calm said:

I prefer using the term claim and providing documentation if I am attempting to persuade others to accept it.

I also wouldn't make assumption about how well read others are on the board unless you have been both around awhile and been paying attention.  You seem to think .Duncan is relatively uneducated or takes a black and white approach to the world.  I have seen little evidence for either over the years.  You lecturing him only makes you appear to be the one uninformed, jumping to conclusions, and if you do it for Duncan, why not for all those other topics you are examining?

No, no. I don’t think @Duncan is generally uneducated. Quite the opposite!  Most people on this board are, and are open-minded. That’s why it’s shocking to me that doesn’t know of any instances in which general authorities have lied. He takes the opposite position [that a lie has never been told] in his claim that “I don't buy these claims the Church lied...”

But, your point is taken - I’m being harsh in my shock.

But back to my question of you - is there anything you accept as fact, and would be frustrated or confused as to why someone else wouldn’t accept it as fact?

[SouthernMo]

34 minutes ago, Duncan said:

it's 97 pages, give me time

Sure thing!  Took me a while to get through it. And - I’m not ignoring your other questions you posed; just sticking to one at a time.

[hope_for_things]

11 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You don't understand the difference between faith and science.  They are completely different categories of thought.  One is mediated by the Holy Spirit, the other through forensic or logical evidence.

Since hardly anyone is really qualified to address the actual secular issues of history, archeology, or theology of the Bible or Book of Mormon, nearly everyone depends upon mere unaided opinion in determining the truth or falsity of biblical or Book of Mormon claims.  A personal testimony is not evidence that something is true, except to the person having that testimony.

I think I understand the different between science and faith well and I agree they are different categories of thought.  I have a problem with people mixing the two categories together, which I believe is what Dr. Harper did in that interview.  I agree that personal testimony can't be evidence in a scholarly sense, but just in a personal subjective sense. 

I got the impression from Dr. Harper that he's holding a personal faith position that is out of bounds for being informed by his scholarly explorations.  In other words, no matter what he learns through scholarly inquiry, he would still hold a position that the BoM is historical.  Now he didn't say this exactly, I'm inferring based on what he did say, but that is the impression I received.  I have a problem with this kind of position, I think its not an honest position to take for someone so well read.  

11 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The late UofU Professor Sterling McMurrin held the view that Mormon society or culture was a good thing, but he did not believe in the authenticity of the BofM or the Bible.  Yet he remained a member of the LDS Church all his life.

I think that you misinterpret Harper.  He is not opposed to studying historical evidences, no matter where that study may lead.  I find rather that it is precisely the anti-Mormons who are deeply fearful of studying secular history.  After all, the conclusions might upset their settled and poorly informed opinions.  Many of them want Mormonism to be false,  no matter what.  When that happens, there isn't much room for discussion.

I haven't really read much from McMurrin, but the more I hear about him the more he sounds like someone I would really identify with.  I'd like to understand Harper's position better, and I don't want to misinterpret him.   I agree that many ex-Mormons fall into the same dogmatic positions as believing Mormons.  

[hope_for_things]

5 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I think he's right in a sense.  It doesn't matter if the Church is true or not.  It matters if it works fro someone or not.  If it doesn't work for someone why does it matter if Joseph had a dream of God and Jesus nearly 200 years ago?  For one thing the religion has changed.  Some might take offense to that, but I don't see why anyone would.  It's changed.  I'd wonder if Joseph would even recognize it today, without the name attachment and all that.  For another thing what's true for one doesn't seem to true for another. So many people are much happier outside the Church then in it.  That'll always be the case.  The Church is conditional.  

I think the Church is making a mistake by treating life as either/or, black or white.  I mean I'm sure it helps it keep a strong loyal following.  But, it also prevents it from being inclusive.  It's a great set up for people socially.  But for those who can't fit, it's terribly painful, difficult and often brings anxiety and discomfort.  

I generally agree.  Although I think we often as humans have a very difficult time actually assessing what is good for us or what works for us.   We really aren't conditioned and trained for objective evaluation and critical thinking, so we often assume the status quo works best for us when there may be better choices out there.  

[SouthernMo]

36 minutes ago, Calm said:

Of course we can.  Facts don't live in a vacuum, jumping fully formed from the text the First Historian encounters it on.

"Facts" are claims and have providences, contradictions with other claims, etc.

Labeling something a "fact" doesn't magically elevate it above the human experience of bias, misinterpretation, mistakes in recording, etc.

I’m still thinking about this.

In one sense, there has to be agreement on a claim for it to be a fact, right?

But on the other hand, agreement on a claim doesn’t make it true, does it?  For example, if I attend a flat earth society meeting (yes - that’s a real group), and we agree on the claim that the earth isn’t sphereical, but flat, that still not might make it true.

So how does one establish an objective fact?  It sounds like a deep and philosophical question, but maybe I need a better perspective on that word to use it in a more productive way...

[Amulek]

26 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

You could if the theophany experience was a visitation in a tangible and physical sense.  But Joseph only described his experience as a vision.  Its trying to move a spiritual personal experience into a historical event that creates the problem.  

I don't think you really grasp the problem.

A tangible experience of a physical being in the sacred grove still doesn't prove that the church is true. 

My Protestant friends are happy to concede that Joseph had a real, physical experience when he went out to pray...only they believe that encounter wasn't with God but with an "angel of Light" (e.g., Satan). 

 

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

To try to answer HfT more specifically, I don't believe you can learn that the BoM isn't true. I believe there are enough details in it and historical and archaeological evidence to support its veracity at least to some degree. HfT you always seem to be swayed by some recent scholarly opinion on matters of history. You tend to present scholarly opinions about scriptures and archaeology as facts as if you can "discover" that the BoM isn't true. I don't think you can. The same debate applies to the Bible as well. Been there, done that with you. The analogy with the story of Santa Claus is not really an accurate one. There is an obvious difference between folk lore and historical claims, but I think the analogy is somewhat useful. Nevertheless, parents playing Santa Claus realize the stories aren't factual, whereas Churches promoting scripture deeply believe them to be true. Religion is not a scientific endeavor for search for factual truths. Science is not based upon faith nor scriptural interpretation to try to gain understanding. There is far too much application of this type of reasoning to religion. While there is a certain amount of learning and reasoning in religion, ultimately, I believe religion is experiential. Trying to apply scholarly analysis to it with the idea of proofs, etc, is just bound to lead to disappointment.

Your position here is in some ways different than what Dr. Harper said.  He said you can't prove that the church is either true or untrue through historical inquiry, and I agree with that statement (speaking about pragmatic truth.)    But he also said that he knows the BoM is true through his personal spiritual experience, and I assume he means historical and that is my contention. 

For those that claim historicity for the BoM, then the tools of scholarship are the only tools that can be used to evaluate that claim.  Personal spiritual experience can tell us nothing about his claim of historicity.  By this measure the BoM fails the historicity test in my opinion and its not even close.  

If we keep religion in the category of the experiential, then Mormons need to quit crossing over and claiming things that are outside that category.  If the question is about historicity, then that is a question that can only be answered through scholarship and science.  

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

I would agree to an extent but remember how Christ says he is a door in John 10. A door, obviously, opens to something so we can see, experience something. What does Christ, Joseph's vision and the Book of Mormon  open to me and others? if God spoke to Joseph, appears to him, knows him by name, he can do all those things if I ask, and he wills it, to me. Remember what Joseph said to his parents, after the plates were shown to the 3 Witnesses,? In the words of his mother “When they returned to the house, it was between three and four o’clock. Mrs. Whitmer, Mr. Smith, and myself were sitting in a bedroom, myself on a bedside. When Joseph came in, he threw himself down beside me and exclaimed, ‘Father! Mother! You do not know how happy I am. The Lord has caused the plates to be shown to three more besides me. They have also seen an angel and will have to testify to the truth of what I have said, for they know for themselves that I do not go about to deceive the people. I do feel as though I was relieved of a dreadful burden which was almost too much for me to endure. But they will now have to bear a part, and it does rejoice my soul that I am not any longer to be entirely alone in the world.’ Smith, Lucy Mack.  The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother.Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor.  Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1996, p. 199.

What God is willing to share with one, he is willing to share with others so Joseph and these others aren't the sole witnesses. We all can be witnesses.

I would put all these things in the category of the mystical and the ineffable.  No tangible plates, no physical door.  Its all symbolic language about opening our eyes and receiving knowledge of things we are blind to.  Its about faith to move mountains (metaphorical mountains.)  These are powerful and meaningful life lessons.  The problem happens when people take them literally.  That is like the child taking the Santa story literally.  It doesn't work.  

[stemelbow]

18 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I generally agree.  Although I think we often as humans have a very difficult time actually assessing what is good for us or what works for us.   We really aren't conditioned and trained for objective evaluation and critical thinking, so we often assume the status quo works best for us when there may be better choices out there.  

Yes, if it isn't broke don't fix it.  It's probably harder for us to determine what's best for each other than ourselves though.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

Its not contradictory, these foundational events don't have the how and everything spelled out for us yet.Something I learned years ago in a class on the philosophy of History was the Prof. was saying a historian and their writing aren't interested in if God exists(they may be personally), they are interested in say what does Winston Churchill think about God? So, the historian will read everything Churchill said about the subject and write about it. What a historian won't write about is if God exists and Churchill was right about his beliefs. We shouldn't confuse the two. If the resurrection is real, then somehow there were physics and biology involved but I doubt a physicist or biologist would ever attempt to explain how Christ or anyone would be resurrected. That does not mean he wasn't resurrected but the how is unknown to us. No one but Joseph Smith was in the grove that day in 1820, no was there filming it. There have been books written on the inter play of History and Religion and how they work and don't work. Read more of this from Hugh Nibley https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1123&index=13 

edit to add. Right now I am reading a book on the Franco-Prussian Ward by a Prof.who at the time was at the US Naval College in Rhode Island. Anyways, that is a huge topic and it's part of an even larger topic of Bismarck's plan to unify Germany. He's saying what Bismarck and the French were doing and what they said and battles and what happened, he isn't saying should this or that have happened or it's right or wrong for this or that. If Bismarck or Francois Bazaine had any documented regrets he would point them out, but the author isn't saying what these others aren't saying.

If all religious claims stated in the realm of the subjective and metaphorical, then I would agree with you.  Its when things cross over into the testable world of science that I have a problem.  No scientific evidence has been brought to bear to support the idea of a human resurrection.  Or a theistic God entity.  Keep those claims in the category of metaphorical and spiritual, and we don't have a problem.   If this is how Dr. Harper thinks, then I'm find with it.  But I don't think that's what he was saying.  I think he wants to have things both ways, assert a historical BoM, and say that answer to prayer is evidence for that reality.  

[Duncan]

2 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I would put all these things in the category of the mystical and the ineffable.  No tangible plates, no physical door.  Its all symbolic language about opening our eyes and receiving knowledge of things we are blind to.  Its about faith to move mountains (metaphorical mountains.)  These are powerful and meaningful life lessons.  The problem happens when people take them literally.  That is like the child taking the Santa story literally.  It doesn't work.  

Obviously Christ is not a physical door but there were plates, as attested to by witnesses. I think that's the point of lessons though, to put them into action, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. Children get over the idea that Santa doesn't actually exist but the lessons of Christmas hopefully stay with you for your life

[hope_for_things]

43 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I don't see Harper as confused or contradictory. He, to me, is saying what legions of historians have said in the past. Historians are "slaves to evidence". There is documented evidence that Joseph said he saw God and Jesus in 1820. In saying that though no one was there to see Joseph have his vision. I was told by my parents who I was named after,  I wasn't involved in any of it, i didn't see them decide on the name and all evidence leads me to believe them, but when they are gone people are free or believe me or not if I say to them this is what happened, because I knew and heard the testimony of the two people involved. I wasn't involved or anyone else in Joseph' 1820 vision, but we can read the testimonies of Joseph and what he said to others and are free to accept or not. So, Harper is saying historical inquiry is what people involved have written, said to others based on something they experienced. 

If that is what he was saying then I completely agree and have no problem with it at all.  Historians that tell us the story of events based on what people said about those events, that sounds like responsible history as long as there is transparency and the intention of not presenting anything too one sided.  

[Jeanne]

To the OP...the worse thing you can do is tell someone..."you should have known this".

[Duncan]

2 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

If all religious claims stated in the realm of the subjective and metaphorical, then I would agree with you.  Its when things cross over into the testable world of science that I have a problem.  No scientific evidence has been brought to bear to support the idea of a human resurrection.  Or a theistic God entity.  Keep those claims in the category of metaphorical and spiritual, and we don't have a problem.   If this is how Dr. Harper thinks, then I'm find with it.  But I don't think that's what he was saying.  I think he wants to have things both ways, assert a historical BoM, and say that answer to prayer is evidence for that reality.  

you're confusing science and history though. Science is what is and what can happen, history is what was happening. You are aware there are endless debates about the reality of the BOM, maybe he thinks it happened and then prayed about it or as Moroni said, read it, think about it and pray to get an answer to it

[hope_for_things]

43 minutes ago, Amulek said:

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

He said that we can learn things about history all day long, but we can't prove the church is true or untrue, he seems to be making contradictory claims from my vantage point. 

How would a historian go about proving that the church is true? Or Shamanism, or Neopaganism, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Gnosticism, or Catholicism, or Rastafarianism, for that matter?

If historians could prove which religion was true, don't you think they would have done so by now? 

The contradiction is that he said he knows the BoM is true and I assume he meant historical.  If anyone has evidence that he holds a different opinion on the BoM, I would love to be corrected on that if he doesn't believe it is historical.  That would change position that he's presenting contradictory points.