Evidence for the Book of Abraham

[cdowis]

21 hours ago, edgoble123 said:

I have kind of wrapped up my research on the Book of Abraham, and I think I have kind of summarized my work in this following statement.

This summarizes all of my work, and this is the key of why there is a paradox.  Because the Symbols in Joseph Smith's materials don't match the content, because the symbols themselves are not information containers in the first place.  The fundamental linkage principle between symbol and content is still ancient but different.

https://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-fundamental-principles-of-joseph.html

The Fundamental Principles of Joseph Smith's Egyptian
I feel that I am wrapping up my research on this subject, and I wish to leave my blog and paper up for future researchers to profit by, should they choose to take it seriously.  And I want to document a few things as I come to a close in this research, so this will serve as sort of a summary of the most important points.

The fundamental principles of Joseph Smith's Egyptian are these:

One tiny question -->>  how does the EAG fit into this?  Clearly someone thought that the symbols contained some meaning  that related to the BOA.

Edited January 1, 2019 by cdowis

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, mikwut said:

I am very familiar with the early and late Wittgenstein. The only real discussion Wittgenstein gives about religion is from the paper you quoted, i.e. his, "Lectures on Religious Belief". But, you have to understand his Lectures on Religious Belief in the context of his Investigations and On Certainty.

When he is discussing Religious beliefs he indeed separates them, as you say, from science but he is also only talking about specific kinds of religious beliefs that are not verifiable. Such as I feel God's presence, I feel the holy spirit, etc... He is not talking about beliefs with a historical back story and evidence like the BoA has. Only beliefs that have no evidence. The BoA has evidence, it is not in the category that Ludwig speaks.

Given that we only have that one talk, how do we know how he'd respond? i.e. whether he think it should be analyzed with a scientific criteria or a religious one. I'd add that I think Mark tends to dismiss the more scientific aspects of religion. Again, I disagree with him on that point, but I think you're more or less just making my critique. One which is irrelevant because the elements you see as tied to verification he dismisses as important.

I don't want to put words in Mark's mouth as I know he dislikes that, but hypothetically a person who adopts a more Jamesian view of religion would argue that the religious content is akin to what you describe as God's presence and so forth. Now clearly Wittgenstein adopts a more mystic like conception of religion. What he's most interested in is what intrinsically is unverifiable. So if I have you right, you're arguing that much of Mormon religion simply isn't that but that Joseph explicitly tried to make Mormonism a material religion with real objects. The Book of Mormon might be unverifiable as a practical matter but it's not as a theoretical matter. (Assuming one buys into the materialist conception of real plates - not everyone does and I don't know if Mark does) The person who adopts a more Jamesian approach though would say that whether or not there were real plates - whether they were as Taves puts it spiritual plates more akin to what Wittgenstein sees as religions - doesn't matter. Thus for those people the religious aspect is this inner truth more akin to how the euracrist in Catholicism is the real body of Christ.

Put an other way, I agree completely with your critique but I think it fundamentally misses the approach to Mormonism Mark takes. It might be idiosyncratic but I think it does fit in with Wittgenstein. 

 

Edited January 1, 2019 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Given that we only have that one talk, how do we know how he'd respond? i.e. whether he think it should be analyzed with a scientific criteria or a religious one. I'd add that I think Mark tends to dismiss the more scientific aspects of religion. Again, I disagree with him on that point, but I think you're more or less just making my critique. One which is irrelevant because the elements you see as tied to verification he dismisses as important.

I don't want to put words in Mark's mouth as I know he dislikes that, but hypothetically a person who adopts a more Jamesian view of religion would argue that the religious content is akin to what you describe as God's presence and so forth. Now clearly Wittgenstein adopts a more mystic like conception of religion. What he's most interested in is what intrinsically is unverifiable. So if I have you right, you're arguing that much of Mormon religion simply isn't that but that Joseph explicitly tried to make Mormonism a material religion with real objects. The Book of Mormon might be unverifiable as a practical matter but it's not as a theoretical matter. (Assuming one buys into the materialist conception of real plates - not everyone does and I don't know if Mark does) The person who adopts a more Jamesian approach though would say that whether or not there were real plates - whether they were as Taves puts it spiritual plates more akin to what Wittgenstein sees as religions - doesn't matter. Thus for those people the religious aspect is this inner truth more akin to how the euracrist in Catholicism is the real body of Christ.

Put an other way, I agree completely with your critique but I think it fundamentally misses the approach to Mormonism Mark takes. It might be idiosyncratic but I think it does fit in with Wittgenstein. 

 

I don't believe it

You got it right!! 

I buy every single word of that Wittgenstein quote and oddly I thought the same way about it even before I read Wittgenstein.

It is 90 % James and Dewey as well.

I honestly had the philosophy first and then found the church that fit it!

[mfbukowski]

 

On 12/30/2018 at 5:47 PM, clarkgoble said:

That's certainly true of the early Wittgenstein.  The later Wittgenstein's views are similar, but different in important ways. In his later works he says that as language religion is simply different from science. The positivist aspect of his early thought saw this as meaningless but in his later thought just saw them as having different criteria for meaning. That is the later Wittgenstein's main way of dealing with the positivist problem was to see verification as one type of language game in science and meaning as life guidance in religion as a different criteria. I think it's this sense that Mark is appealing to and thus why he keeps saying Dan doesn't understand the difference between science and religion. He's using that in the sense Wittgenstein said the same thing.

Now I personally disagree with both Mark and Wittgenstein here. This works, I think, only for the type of liberal religiosity that was common among educated Germans of the first half of the 20th century. But I do think that situates this thought rather well. This quote by Wittgenstein seems appropriate:

• Asking him is not enough. He will probably say he has no proof. But he has what you might call an unshakeable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary ground for belief but rather by regulating for in all his life (Wittgenstein (1972), ‘Lectures on Religious Belief’, 53)

Thus what Mark is appealing to with Wittgenstein is a rejection verificationism of any strong sense. His point about the religion vs. science divide that he thinks people are missing is this desire for verification. Again as a person who thinks verification is key to religious knowledge, I disagree fundamentally with him. However I think you're missing what his argument, particularly with Wittgenstein, is really about. This is also why he calls Wittgenstein pragmatic since this view of religion is fairly similar to William James'.

I'm anything but a Wittgenstein expert. So take what I say with a grain of salt. However I think Wittgenstein sees religious language as not being ordinary natural language. Now I'll grant you that the problem with what gets called "fundamentalism" or "literalism" is that it applies everyday talk to religious exegesis. But that's not what Wittgenstein does with religion.

Yeah you got it again exactly!  This is weird!!   

He doesn't get it and is pulling the usual Unmentionable board stuff he learned from stak and gadianton.

But God telling me - testimony- is MY unspeakable beetle!

I didn't even see the post cuz he didn't quote me.

Edited January 1, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, cdowis said:

Since you asked, the dream was a monk drawing/painting an illuminati on a manuscript.  I had the understanding that was the key to the translation.

I happened to call Tvedtnes at BYU and he immediately understood the meaning of the dream, based on his own research......... and the rest is history.

I then came up with the paradox to explain the translation, that if someone can resolve the paradox, they will hold the key to the translation process.  And the EAG is that key.  It is enormously ironic that Vogel had stumbled over this.  But was unable to understand what he had found and only supposed he had discredited JS, rather than confirming the process of translation.

But everyone went gaga over the missing scroll theory including Tvedtnes.  I made the prediction that my findings would remain buried until the missing scroll theory collapsed.  Again, Vogel is involved it its demise.

Yes as I have said, the boa should be regarded as a painting or work if art.

It is an aesthetic object combining visual art and poetry, not unlike an illuminated manuscript! Great analogy. And then the paradoxical paraconsistent logic. Perfect!

No that wasn't the artists intentions, but only critics would care

Edited January 1, 2019 by mfbukowski

[cdowis]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes as I have said, the boa should be regarded as a painting or work if art.

Tvedtnes proposed that the Book of the Dead was a mnemonic device == each symbol representing  a phrase or paragraph, a map of the entire text which could be repeated from memory.   These symbols were then used to create an independent text -- this Book of the Dead.  Over the centuries the actual purpose was lost until it came into the hands of the prophet. 

Anyway, Tvedtnes  then attempted to use the  GAEL to reproduce that background text of the BOA, and appeared to have been successful.

The waking dream now made sense and the paradox was resolved.

Edited January 1, 2019 by cdowis

[mikwut]

Hi Mark and Clark,

18 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

 

Yeah you got it again exactly!  This is weird!!   

He doesn't get it and is pulling the usual Unmentionable board stuff he learned from stak and gadianton.

But God telling me - testimony- is MY unspeakable beetle!

I didn't even see the post cuz he didn't quote me.

This is strange. I am a theist. I don't know why you would make a comment about me learning anything from Gadianton or Stak? They are both very respectable and I enjoy exchanging with each but most of my interactions with them are respectfully disagreeable.

Anyway. Neither of you have answered me. Calling the BoA art is fine. But why even discuss such a personal idea? I can't have anything to say about that. But it clearly is not what the early church or from what we can learn from the historical record believed or what Joseph Smith intended. There is a historical record. And I would like to know where James or Wittgenstein ever said that a historical record and facts understood from that record can just be ignored in the name of pragmatism. Neither of them dismissed empiricism or rationalism in the name of pragmatism. 

mikwut

Edited January 2, 2019 by mikwut

[clarkgoble]

20 minutes ago, mikwut said:

Anyway. Neither of you have answered me. Calling the BoA art is fine. But why even discuss such a personal idea?

As I said I completely disagree with that point of view of Marks. So my own view, at least epistemologically, is likely closer to your own. I just was pointing out where you were getting him wrong. I disagree with the kind of pragmatism Mark espouses precisely on the religious issue. I think what matters are the facts as we verify them. 

10 hours ago, cdowis said:

Anyway, Tvedtnes  then attempted to use the  GAEL to reproduce that background text of the BOA, and appeared to have been successful.

I've never heard this. I confess I'm skeptical. I think there may be something to a mnemonic theory, but I've never seen one fleshed out in a persuasive fashion.

[mikwut]

HI Clark,

Fair enough. I just see it as a gross distortion of pragmatism not one that tracks with certain pragmatic philosophers. I find that whole business as a distraction as well. Why not just say he thinks of the BoA as art? And then can be asked why and explain? Why does a certain philosopher need to justify that position, it can be held all on its own. But I think it allows for more complicated and difficult dialogue that has runaways down certain philosophers writings. The BoA is no more true or false no matter how few or how many philosophers could track with Mark's thought. I think Mark says that he points it out because  he found it in Mormonism first and then holy smokes that is the same as Dewey or Rorty or James. But I would retort it isn't.

mikwut

Edited January 2, 2019 by mikwut

[clarkgoble]

25 minutes ago, mikwut said:

Fair enough. I just see it as a gross distortion of pragmatism not one that tracks with certain pragmatic philosophers.

Certainly it's not terribly Peircean. It is quite Jamesian. Dewey is a bit more complicated but I'll not get into that debate. I primarily consider myself a Peircean although I have a strong continental and analytic background. I consider myself a pragmatist, but this really isn't the pragmatism I know and love. So to me this whole approach, whether James, Wittgenstein or Rorty, is ultimately irrelevant. I just think them wrong.

I should note that Peirce's own religious views are a bit odd and not something I share. However I think they largely arise out of his lack of religious experience of the sort I think necessary to validate certain beliefs. Peirce's conception of God is in certain ways more akin to a Buddhist perspective. 

25 minutes ago, mikwut said:

I find that whole business as a distraction as well. Why not just say he thinks of the BoA as art? And then can be asked why and explain? 

I agree. I've brought up the whole fictional point as well. Mark disagrees with that characterization. However at least a lot of art has propositional content and it seems undeniable that the Book of Abraham does as well. So surely that content can be analyzed along more traditional senses. But I think Mark's whole approach (and arguably the approach of those who take all scripture as fiction) is that all that matters is how it determines meaning in that Wittgenstein religious sense. I just think that pretty difficult to reconcile with what to me is Joseph's clear tendency to materialize such spiritual phenomena in terms of every day experience and common sense. So to my eyes, Joseph is going the exact opposite direction from Wittgenstein, at least religiously.

All that said, I do think Mark's views are helpful. Not everyone is quite the verifcationalist I am. Clearly many view religion as he does. I certainly do think that at least William James is very helpful for those in that perspective. I just ultimately disagree.

Edited January 2, 2019 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, mikwut said:

Hi Mark and Clark,

This is strange. I am a theist. I don't know why you would make a comment about me learning anything from Gadianton or Stak? They are both very respectable and I enjoy exchanging with each but most of my interactions with them are respectfully disagreeable.

Anyway. Neither of you have answered me. Calling the BoA art is fine. But why even discuss such a personal idea? I can't have anything to say about that. But it clearly is not what the early church or from what we can learn from the historical record believed or what Joseph Smith intended. There is a historical record. And I would like to know where James or Wittgenstein ever said that a historical record and facts understood from that record can just be ignored in the name of pragmatism. Neither of them dismissed empiricism or rationalism in the name of pragmatism. 

mikwut

I know you are a theist who defines God in terms of the experience of a loving presence, or that is my understanding.

I like that view and see it as similar to mine 

How does that experience of a loving presence result from history?

See the Rorty quote in my siggy and tell me if you see anything that might support theism even a little.

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by mfbukowski

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

As I said I completely disagree with that point of view of Marks. So my own view, at least epistemologically, is likely closer to your own. I just was pointing out where you were getting him wrong. I disagree with the kind of pragmatism Mark espouses precisely on the religious issue. I think what matters are the facts as we verify them. 

I've never heard this. I confess I'm skeptical. I think there may be something to a mnemonic theory, but I've never seen one fleshed out in a persuasive fashion.

I posted the two documents from Shield here on this forum somewhere last week.  I think in this thread or the other Abraham thread.

[clarkgoble]

18 minutes ago, cdowis said:

I posted the two documents from Shield here on this forum somewhere last week.  I think in this thread or the other Abraham thread.

Those were exceedingly vague, not an example of "reproduc[ing] that background text of the BOA" as I can see it. I thought you were referring to something he worked on prior to his recent death. After all by the 90's he'd largely abandoned the mnemonic theory and was following John Gee's missing papyri theory. 

Again I think there's something to be said for a mnemonic theory - particularly as one tied to the Art of Memory particularly in its Renaissance form that persisted into esoteric traditions like Masonry. It's just that as I said no one has really showed it could work thus far.

Edited January 2, 2019 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, mikwut said:

...Calling the BoA art is fine. But why even discuss such a personal idea? I can't have anything to say about that. But it clearly is not what the early church or from what we can learn from the historical record believed or what Joseph Smith intended. There is a historical record. And I would like to know where James or Wittgenstein ever said that a historical record and facts understood from that record can just be ignored in the name of pragmatism. Neither of them dismissed empiricism or rationalism in the name of pragmatism. 

Discussing testimonies and understanding what they communicate is what Mormons do. Those are personal experiences. Why object to such a conversation? Alma  32 is about what one finds subjectively "sweet"

Applying aesthetic theory to what I have learned from the BOA is an area I am exploring. I have studied a lot if aesthetic theory.

I am not interested in what Joseph or anyone else "intended" - ,I am interested in formulating my own views about the nature of God and my relationship with him.  nobody worries about Beethoven's intentions. They only worry about the quality of his music. No one worries about the history of Kant's life they only worry about his philosophy.

What some Scholars think about  what early Christians believed will not change my life. I know because I have tried it. I was an atheist for a long time studying philosophy. My personal story has a lot to do with that but it would be boring to you, probably.

Yes James was a radical empiricist who included the relationships between objects as subjects open to empirical study, including in some cases, religious experience. 

So perhaps you can see why these objections really have very little to do with what is relevant to my views 

I am not a "Moplogist" I am a student of religion who sees potential in what Mormonism could be.

And yes I will repeat your favorite bit of what you regard as "nonsense", God told me to do so at the age of 31 after nearly finishing my masters in philosophy with training in some of the best secular universities in the country, and I am forever grateful for this nonsense.

But that is the boring nonsensical subjective story.

 

[mikwut]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Discussing testimonies and understanding what they communicate is what Mormons do. Those are personal experiences. Why object to such a conversation? Alma  32 is about what one finds subjectively "sweet"

Applying aesthetic theory to what I have learned from the BOA is an area I am exploring. I have studied a lot if aesthetic theory.

I am not interested in what Joseph or anyone else "intended" - ,I am interested in formulating my own views about the nature of God and my relationship with him.  nobody worries about Beethoven's intentions. They only worry about the quality of his music. No one worries about the history of Kant's life they only worry about his philosophy.

What some Scholars think about  what early Christians believed will not change my life. I know because I have tried it. I was an atheist for a long time studying philosophy. My personal story has a lot to do with that but it would be boring to you, probably.

Yes James was a radical empiricist who included the relationships between objects as subjects open to empirical study, including in some cases, religious experience. 

So perhaps you can see why these objections really have very little to do with what is relevant to my views 

I am not a "Moplogist" I am a student of religion who sees potential in what Mormonism could be.

And yes I will repeat your favorite bit of what you regard as "nonsense", God told me to do so at the age of 31 after nearly finishing my masters in philosophy with training in some of the best secular universities in the country, and I am forever grateful for this nonsense.

But that is the boring nonsensical subjective story.

 

Hi Mark,

Like I said to Clark I am a theist. I value truth. I read Widtsoe at age 16 and first became introduced to Jamesian pragmatism that Widtsoe, while at Harvard, became interested in. I am very familiar with the church history of how pragmatic arguments entered Mormon discourse. I see it as fitting for personal revelation and see the intrigue, and then living truths valued as pragmatically true. I do. Like I quoted, I see our experience as with something deeper and more interfused. I think most of your thought that I have read has much more relevance for a general theistic picture of the world. It is when specific historical backdrop is ignored and distorted that I have to push back. I learned to value truth as a Mormon. I left Mormonism for that reason, truth is to be valued. 

I don't believe God told you is nonsense. But it needs to be fleshed out deeper by you before it isn't lost in the morass of so many nuts, and conmen who also said that. Rather than your more warranted then others because of support from philosophers you studied. I have studied philosophy all my life and I am no more warranted. Why are you?  How does God tell you? How does this ability work in conjunction with our rational faculties. Was it in language? Can it bring empirical facts to your understanding? Did God tell you the history we seemingly understand is wrong? I think pragmatism has very strong arguments particularly with our concrete lived experience as humans. But it is impractical when it fights against empiricism rather than in conjunction with it. William Alston for example didn't shy from attempting to articulate this sense or this infusion from revelation. It isn't well you just don't get it. Our spiritual faculties are delicate, subtle, reverent and sublime. They are not faculties that tell us secret historical facts that our rational abilities cannot ascertain. They infuse in us the holy, the tremendous, the deep. But what Wittgenstein so often said in so many ways, as soon as you bring those fantastic intuitional spiritual senses from God to a natural table and propositions, say Joseph Smith, BoM, BoA, beer and cigarettes you have lost them. They diffuse like the wind. Their power and their haunting movements cease.

It is at that place, the ceasing, where religious distortion and con men thrive. Because the senses are so basic and fundamental to our beings, they are so delicate that they can easily be manipulated, much like our other faculties. I am in no way referring to you as a con man with this. I am just describing the delicacy of these movements of spirit.

mikwut 

Edited January 2, 2019 by mikwut

[clarkgoble]

18 minutes ago, mikwut said:

I read Widtsoe at age 16 and first became introduced to Jamesian pragmatism that Widtsoe, while at Harvard, became interested in. I am very familiar with the church history of how pragmatic arguments entered Mormon discourse.

I'll confess my ignorance here. I hadn't known Widstoe was a pragmatist although I knew B. H. Roberts frequently quoted James. I knew William Chamberlain was partially exposed to the pragmatists when he was getting his degree. While I've not really studied his thought too much, I believe he studied with Royce for some time. (Royce was deeply influenced by Peirce but also Hegelian in various ways - although arguably the later Peirce was as well) But alas my knowledge of Royce is pretty limited to. I know while he was influenced by James he didn't really fit as closely to that style of pragmatism. Chamberlain I believe brought back a lot of pragmatic ideas. Was that what you were referring to? 

I actually didn't think there was much pragmatism in Mormon thought. Even the Roberts quotes are pretty superficial. And, as I said, I hadn't even known of Widstoe. That's really fascinating. You know any good studies on this?

23 minutes ago, mikwut said:

Our spiritual faculties are delicate, subtle, reverent and sublime. They are not faculties that tell us secret historical facts that our rational abilities cannot ascertain. They infuse in us the holy, the tremendous, the deep.

I'm not sure I could agree with that. Certainly that is the experience of many. (More or less that's Peirce's view for instance) But I don't think one could say that spiritual facilities can only relate the more mystical aspect of religion.

A question. Since you consider yourself a theist and not something more abstract along the deist lines, that implies a personal God. But how could one know of a personal God unless our spiritual faculties were able to tell us of such a thing. Doesn't your very theism undermine your claims here?

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, mikwut said:

Hi Mark,

Like I said to Clark I am a theist. I value truth. I read Widtsoe at age 16 and first became introduced to Jamesian pragmatism that Widtsoe, while at Harvard, became interested in. I am very familiar with the church history of how pragmatic arguments entered Mormon discourse. I see it as fitting for personal revelation and see the intrigue, and then living truths valued as pragmatically true. I do. Like I quoted, I see our experience as with something deeper and more interfused. I think most of your thought that I have read has much more relevance for a general theistic picture of the world. It is when specific historical backdrop is ignored and distorted that I have to push back. I learned to value truth as a Mormon. I left Mormonism for that reason, truth is to be valued. 

I don't believe God told you is nonsense. But it needs to be fleshed out deeper by you before it isn't lost in the morass of so many nuts, and conmen who also said that. Rather than your more warranted then others because of support from philosophers you studied. I have studied philosophy all my life and I am no more warranted. Why are you?  How does God tell you? How does this ability work in conjunction with our rational faculties. Was it in language? Can it bring empirical facts to your understanding? Did God tell you the history we seemingly understand is wrong? I think pragmatism has very strong arguments particularly with our concrete lived experience as humans. But it is impractical when it fights against empiricism rather than in conjunction with it. William Alston for example didn't shy from attempting to articulate this sense or this infusion from revelation. It isn't well you just don't get it. Our spiritual faculties are delicate, subtle, reverent and sublime. They are not faculties that tell us secret historical facts that our rational abilities cannot ascertain. They infuse in us the holy, the tremendous, the deep. But what Wittgenstein so often said in so many ways, as soon as you bring those fantastic intuitional spiritual senses from God to a natural table and propositions, say Joseph Smith, BoM, BoA, beer and cigarettes you have lost them. They diffuse like the wind. Their power and their haunting movements cease.

It is at that place, the ceasing, where religious distortion and con men thrive. Because the senses are so basic and fundamental to our beings, they are so delicate that they can easily be manipulated, much like our other faculties. I am in no way referring to you as a con man with this. I am just describing the delicacy of these movements of spirit.

mikwut 

Well for me truth is undefinable. I am a deflationist regarding truth, and as far history is concerned I like to spell it his-story. It is the memories of old men.

I am a social constructivist as well. I haven't enough faith to take anyone's word for anything, I must prove it for myself. For me, believing history is very naive.

And that is where nuts and con men come in. Those are for the naive who find fake history relevant to religious or moral belief. But all hisory is fake in one degree or other. It's the memories of old men. 

Have you ever discussed childhood events with siblings, and who did what for which reason?

I suggest you re-read James' Radical Empiricism, and Varieties.

I also disagree with your reading of Wittgenstein, but I do not value arguments from authority either

Regarding my spiritual experiences, I don't discuss them except to say they give me absolute certainty of being real. 

Certainty here is a psychological state, nothing more or less . I do not accept a correspondence theory of Truth - again, also see Rorty, below.

God knows he has to hit me upside the head with a 2x4 before I believe anything. And he has

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Regarding spiritual knowledge being affected by scholarly knowledge- do LDS folks know they are not related to each other?

I think they do.

Elder Oaks:

Quote

 

When we seek the truth about religion, we should use spiritual methods appropriate for that search....

We live in a time of greatly expanded and disseminated information. But not all of this information is true. We need to be cautious as we seek truth and choose sources for that search. We should not consider secular prominence or authority as qualified sources of truth. We should be cautious about relying on information or advice offered by entertainment stars, prominent athletes, or anonymous internet sources. Expertise in one field should not be taken as expertise on truth in other subjects.

We should also be cautious about the motivation of the one who provides information. That is why the scriptures warn us against priestcraft (see 2 Nephi 26:29). If the source is anonymous or unknown, the information may also be suspect.

Our personal decisions should be based on information from sources that are qualified on the subject and free from selfish motivations.

I.

When we seek the truth about religion, we should use spiritual methods appropriate for that search: prayer, the witness of the Holy Ghost, and study of the scriptures and the words of modern prophets. I am always sad when I hear of one who reports a loss of religious faith because of secular teachings. Those who once had spiritual vision can suffer from self-inflicted spiritual blindness. As President Henry B. Eyring said, “Their problem does not lie in what they think they see; it lies in what they cannot yet see.”1

The methods of science lead us to what we call scientific truth. But “scientific truth” is not the whole of life. Those who do not learn “by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118) limit their understanding of truth to what they can verify by scientific means. That puts artificial limits on their pursuit of truth.

President James E. Faust said: “Those who have been [baptized] put their eternal soul at risk by carelessly pursuing only the secular source of learning. We believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the fulness of the gospel of Christ, which gospel is the essence of truth and eternal enlightenment.”2

We find true and enduring joy by coming to know and acting upon the truth about who we are, the meaning of mortal life, and where we are going when we die. Those truths cannot be learned by scientific or secular methods.

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/10/truth-and-the-plan?lang=eng

If this is the case, why does anyone continue questioning the BOA?

I get roundly criticized by people who tell me "But MORMONS don't believe in your idea of separate spheres of knowledge!!"

I beg to differ....

[cdowis]

13 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Those were exceedingly vague, not an example of "reproduc[ing] that background text of the BOA" as I can see it. I thought you were referring to something he worked on prior to his recent death. After all by the 90's he'd largely abandoned the mnemonic theory and was following John Gee's missing papyri theory. 

As I mentioned.  Gee, our premier Egyptologist,, dazzled everyone with an easy fix and Tvedtnes moved onto  other things.

Again I think there's something to be said for a mnemonic theory - particularly as one tied to the Art of Memory particularly in its Renaissance form that persisted into esoteric traditions like Masonry. It's just that as I said no one has really showed it could work thus far.

Also I read somewhere that the Egyptians enjoyed playing games with  texts and this dual text fits very well in that tradition, a prime example of those text games.  The BOA text was  forgotten after several centuries and only the BOD and its variants remained,

With the paradox, it now makes sense  "it is but it isn't."

Just another crazy idea, easily dismissed.

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by cdowis

[clarkgoble]

25 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Regarding spiritual knowledge being affected by scholarly knowledge- do LDS folks know they are not related to each other?

I think they do.

Elder Oaks:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/10/truth-and-the-plan?lang=eng

If this is the case, why does anyone continue questioning the BOA?

I get roundly criticized by people who tell me "But MORMONS don't believe in your idea of separate spheres of knowledge!!"

I beg to differ....

That's not an argument for separate spheres but incomplete knowledge in one sphere.

[the narrator]

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

If this is the case, why does anyone continue questioning the BOA?

I get roundly criticized by people who tell me "But MORMONS don't believe in your idea of separate spheres of knowledge!!"

I beg to differ....

Because Latter-day Saints and LDS leaders frequently (if not consistently) merge the two spheres to claim that secular truths can be known through religious experience--ie., praying to know that the BofM is ancient history.

The most common criticism of my chapter in Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics (you can read and early draft here) by both apologists and postmormon Dehlinites was of me arguing for the different spheres of knowledge and how one has no intrinsic bearing on the other.

[stemelbow]

9 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Because Latter-day Saints and LDS leaders frequently (if not consistently) merge the two spheres to claim that secular truths can be known through religious experience--ie., praying to know that the BofM is ancient history.

The most common criticism of my chapter in Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics (you can read and early draft here) by both apologists and postmormon Dehlinites was of me arguing for the different spheres of knowledge and how one has no intrinsic bearing on the other.

Where can we see these common criticisms?  Have you received them personally or are they found somewhere?  

I'm interested in your book, though, from what I see.  I"m curious by your categorizing "postmormon Dehlinites"?  Is that your original or has that been used elsewhere?  

[the narrator]

17 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Where can we see these common criticisms?  Have you received them personally or are they found somewhere?

Some personally, some published. Steve Densley's (IMO incredibly weak) review for the Interpreter is one, where his criticisms are mostly a variation of him bemoaning my claim that secular apologetic scholarship has no direct bearing on religious claims. (Ironically, on the flipside, Dehlin and many of his acolytes have called me an apologist for the same reason.)

23 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I"m curious by your categorizing "postmormon Dehlinites"?  Is that your original or has that been used elsewhere?

I dunno. It's a variation of a category that friends and I have for those who take a new-atheist-like approach to Mormonism after reading the CES Letter or listening to 600+ hours of Mormon Stories episodes. Makes sense that the criticism come from both sides, since, as I sometimes joke, the CES Letter-inspired faith crises tend to transition black and white believing Mormons to white and black disbelieving postmormons.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

That's not an argument for separate spheres but incomplete knowledge in one sphere.

Disagree.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

It's a variation of a category that friends and I have for those who take a new-atheist-like approach to Mormonism after reading the CES Letter or listening to 600+ hours of Mormon Stories episodes. Makes sense that the criticism come from both sides, since, as I sometimes joke, the CES Letter-inspired faith crises tend to transition black and white believing Mormons to white and black disbelieving postmormons.

This is so true. And I tend to agree with you it's characteristic of those who move into the broadly New Atheist camp. Further many of these people are, like New Atheists, fueled still by a certain evangelistic mindset. It's quite fascinating. It's also interesting that their mindset tends to still see Mormon thought only through that black and white mindset even as they criticize it. Southerton's DNA criticism is a great example of this we've discussed here recently. I get Southerton losing his testimony over DNA. I don't get all his attacks assuming that only a McConkie like interpretation of the Book of Mormon characterizes Mormon thought.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Some personally, some published. Steve Densley's (IMO incredibly weak) review for the Interpreter is one, where his criticisms are mostly a variation of him bemoaning my claim that secular apologetic scholarship has no direct bearing on religious claims.

The Interpreter has had some very crappy poorly written reviews that largely just take works to task for being too secular or too confusing. I was surprised at the feedback I got in the comments when I defended Adam Miller's work in To Be Learned is Good since I thought it a pretty benign straightforward claim.

Don't get me wrong. I really like the Interpreter. But the people who have done too many of the reviews honestly aren't really able to evaluate the books they're reading and typically don't even try to understand the arguments.

I think there are some places one can critique works. I just am not seeing those types of criticisms though. I wish people would drop this weird insecurity over secularization and just deal with the arguments. Criticisms of the former only work if you engage the latter.

Edited January 2, 2019 by clarkgoble