Michael D. Coe, Mesoamericanist and Book of Mormon skeptic, recently died

[Dan Vogel]

5 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It isn't so much apologetic literature that he was unaware of, but he had not done a close reading of the BofM text and so made outlandish assumptions about its content.  I am claiming that a fair and impartial scholarly reading of the BofM text and a deliberate comparison with what he knew about Mesoamerican archeology would have at least given  him pause.  Instead, as you suggest, he took a cavalier approach.

I'm sure you think the apologists are the only ones who read the Book of Mormon without bias and represent Mesoamerican archaeology fairly. No doubt Coe's knowledge of the Book of Mormon wasn't great, but even apologists come to the text with assumptions and plausible interpretations to escape problems. It takes a certain kind of thinking to get the limited Tehuantepec theory to work. Apologists build their theories according to their needs and when critics don't see it the same way they accuse them of making assumptions and not reading close enough. Coe made the mistake of assuming a horse was a horse or steel was steel or northward was northward, etc. 

[Robert F. Smith]

9 minutes ago, Dan Vogel said:

I'm sure you think the apologists are the only ones who read the Book of Mormon without bias and represent Mesoamerican archaeology fairly.

Actually, I take the opposite tack:  Partisans from both sides often tend to overlook facts which go against their preconceptions.  Many so-called "apologists" are really just well-meaning yokels who are deeply suspicious of scholarship (maybe even considering it a diabolical plot).  Evangelical apologists are the most likely to take such a view.  They discount scholarship to the degree that they automatically disregard it when it interferes with their dearest preconceptions -- even when their preconceptions are not actually justified by Holy Writ (which they refuse to read carefully and accurately).  This is particularly sad when their misreadings are actually inimical to their own belief system.  Mike Coe certainly represented Mesoamerican archeology accurately and fairly.  He was not an anti-Mormon.  He just didn't care.  

In all my work in anthropology/archeololgy at UCLA and CSULB I got "A"s, and all from non-LDS professors.  When I wrote on Mesoamerican archeology/anthropology, they seemed to be under the impression that I represented the field fairly.  You can see one of my papers “The Role of Cyclical Fatalism Among the Maya,” 2012, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/74773355/Cyclic-Fatalism-Among-the-Maya , and at http://www.bmaf.org/node/386 . 

9 minutes ago, Dan Vogel said:

No doubt Coe's knowledge of the Book of Mormon wasn't great, but even apologists come to the text with assumptions and plausible interpretations to escape problems. It takes a certain kind of thinking to get the limited Tehuantepec theory to work. Apologists build their theories according to their needs and when critics don't see it the same way they accuse them of making assumptions and not reading close enough. Coe made the mistake of assuming a horse was a horse or steel was steel or northward was northward, etc. 

Everyone makes assumptions of some kind, and failure to reflect on those assumptions or biases can be fatal to an impartial analysis.  Scholarship is the great leveler in that it requires submission to peer review as part of a communal effort to advance a particular discipline.  No scholar functions alone, nor can he be contemptuous of his diachronic place in the stream of scholarly tradition.  The terms "apologist" and "critic" are thus pointedly anti-scholarly and bring discredit on the entire process of scholarly exchange of views.

[Meadowchik]

On 10/4/2019 at 4:16 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

You are here echoing everything I just said about the preposterous nature of the origins of the BofM, and the consequent reason for Coe never taking it seriously enough to use his own knowledge-base to analyze it.  I bolded your own admission of that.  That is the point I have repeatedly made.  Indeed, I am not insisting that Coe had to actually do a real, scientific analysis.  He was free not to do so, but it is unacceptable for him to try to pass off "a relatively shallow look" (as you put it) as the real thing.  That is not science, but just bias, pure and simple.

You can contrast Coe's diffident response to that of the late David Noel Freedman, the great Near Eastern scholar when discussing the Book of Mormon with me in early 1984:   https://www.quora.com/What-story-in-the-Bible-proves-the-validity-of-the-Book-of-Mormon/answer/Bob-Smith-3106.  He was not afraid to fully utilize his knowledge-base.

Not quite. It's simply easily contradicted. Take the translation itself and try to fit it with the falsifiable claims Joseph Smith made about it, and it is quickly over. If someone decides they want to make significant allowances to forget or second-guess those initial claims, that's their perogative, their personal, subjective perogative. 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Not quite. It's simply easily contradicted. Take the translation itself and try to fit it with the falsifiable claims Joseph Smith made about it, and it is quickly over.

Anyone may hold an apriori opinion about the BofM and act upon that negative opinion.  That is their prerogative.  That is not the same as a logical and scientific evaluation -- which you admit that Coe never made.  The danger for Coe was that, if he had actually done a real evaluation, it would not go so easy for him.  See my own evaluation:  “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” lecture, August 8, 2014, at the annual FAIRMORMON Conference, Provo, Utah, online at  http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf .

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

If someone decides they want to make significant allowances to forget or second-guess those initial claims, that's their perogative, their personal, subjective perogative. 

Yes, and for the third time that is exactly what I said:  It is the prerogative of anyone to completely disregard the BofM just based on its preposterous nature.  Of course.  What you don't seem to get is that it is not acceptable to pretend to evaluate scientifically and to ignore science in doing so.  Coe pretended, and that was dishonest.  He would have been more honest to have simply said that he didn't have time to evaluate something which is so obviously false before the fact.  He had the right of first refusal.  

[Stargazer]

On 9/30/2019 at 11:44 AM, JeremyOrbe-Smith said:

Man, Goble and Coe, this has been a depressing month. I had my disagreements with some of his scholarly conclusions, but I always appreciated his hard work, and found his books very informative. Very sad. Rest in peace, Mr. Coe. 

And now, Ginger Baker as well.  Sigh.

Yes, I know, he wasn't an archaeologist, but still, his drum work was amazing.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Stargazer

[Stargazer]

On 10/3/2019 at 3:18 PM, smac97 said:

The Book of Mormon is "dangerous" to the career of someone like Michael Coe.

Do you disagree?

Well, I don't, but then I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I guess that qualifies as that vaunted "confirmation bias" that some people are so worried about.

Coe's career is only in danger if he studies the Book of Mormon, and gets a testimony of it.  His goose is then cooked, if he dares to speak up about it.  He's safest if he hews to the skeptic line.  I wonder how much he values his career now?

[Stargazer]

On 10/4/2019 at 4:41 PM, doug1957 said:

The Tower of Babel Story.

I'm a temple recommend holding member of the Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter Day Saints and I am something of a skeptic on the Tower of Babel story. I think this is relevant to this topic because the timeline for this even is established in the Bible, not the Book of Mormon (BOM). So, relying on the Biblical timeline and applying it to the BOM sets us up for failure against modern science. I put it to you that the Tower of Babel story is 15,000 years old and was told around camp fires while roasting mammoth meat to the background sound of saber toothed tigers growling in the dark.

 

Archbishop Ussher's 4004 BC date for the Garden of Eden (or however he framed it) does not inspire me.  Archaelogical evidence puts human history back much further than that.  For all I know Adam and Eve were booted out of the Garden 50,000 years ago.  

On 10/4/2019 at 4:41 PM, doug1957 said:

This would explain why the same story or one that is eerily similar existed in the New World when Columbus arrived.

 

The Jaredites wouldn't explain it?

[Stargazer]

On 10/5/2019 at 8:42 PM, Bob Crockett said:

And then, I studied the writings of scientific writer Charles Mann.  He argued in his book 1491...

I've read and re-read that book! It's marvelous!

[Dan Vogel]

21 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So you are claiming that you only refer to published sources to indicate that this or that idea was "in the air"?  Joseph didn't read a thing.   Instead, Joseph merely heard people talking about things and absorbed it all in that way, then combined that with his creative imagination?  Sounds like "you want to have your cake and eat it too," Dan.  Try telling that to Grant Hardy, whose Reader's Guide makes that theory just plain silly.  We are talking about vast complexity and coherence in the BofM which would be inexplicable by that means.

You refer me to Kwaku? Really? Nevertheless you are mixing two different subjects here. Instead of admitting you misrepresented the critics' (and apologists') use of sources, you want to switch to the argument that the BofM is too complex for JS to have written it. That is a subjective judgement. You can't say what JS could or could not do. So? The BofM has complexity. How could it be any other way? I think it would have been far less complex if it had not been dictated and created the way it was. The book is in bad need of an editor. 

Some of the complexity is created by the observer. One thing humans are good at is creating complexity and order, even where there is none. Some of what the apologists see in the BofM is merely their own reflections. They create the complexity they see in the BofM (like chiasmus) and then declare it was intentionally written with that complexity. It appears complex and ordered until we look closer.

For example, JS invented more than 100 names, but most of them are one-timers that do not tax the memory. It's not such a great feat when you realize that he could also speak in tongues and create strange sounding words fairly quickly. He subsequently invented Adamic and Egyptian words as well a substitute names for the 1835 D&C. When you look closely at names of the Nephite Twelve you can see the pattern of fathers and sons and some of the names were influenced by the NT Twelve. 

But none of this has anything to do with my use of the comparative method. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

Archbishop Ussher's 4004 BC date for the Garden of Eden (or however he framed it) does not inspire me.  Archaelogical evidence puts human history back much further than that.  For all I know Adam and Eve were booted out of the Garden 50,000 years ago. 

W.W. Phelps quoted Joseph Smith, Jr, as follows:

"eternity, . . has been going on in this system, almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years [2.55 BILLION YEARS]: and to know at the same time, that... geologists and others are trying to prove that matter must have existed hundreds of thousands of years" Times and Seasons, 5:758 (Dec 25, 1844)

Brigham Young said:

Quote

. . . take, for instance, our geologists, and they tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years. They think, and they have good reason for their faith, that their researches and investigations enable them to demonstrate that this earth has been in existence as long as they assert it has. . . . In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true, but its leading principles are; they are facts--they are eternal; and to assert that the Lord made the earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. . . . How long it's been organized is not for me to say, and I do not care anything about it. As to the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant.  John A. Widtsoe, Discourses of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), pp. 258-259.

 

Quote

The Jaredites wouldn't explain it?

The Jaredites arrived in the New World no later than 3100 BC., and they had already experienced the Great Tower event (they never say "Tower of Babel," which is a late biblical glosse).

Edited October 6, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[Stargazer]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

W.W. Phelps quoted Joseph Smith, Jr, as follows:

"eternity, . . has been going on in this system, almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years [2.55 BILLION YEARS]: and to know at the same time, that... geologists and others are trying to prove that matter must have existed hundreds of thousands of years" Times and Seasons, 5:758 (Dec 25, 1844)

Brigham Young said:

The Jaredites arrived in the New World no later than 3100 BC., and they had already experienced the Great Tower event (they never say "Tower of Babel," which is a late biblical glosse).

Neat!

I cringe every time I hear a Latter-day Saint assert that Church doctrine agrees with Archbishop Ussher as to the age of the earth.  One of the most ridiculous books I ever read was "Science and Mormonism" by Cook and Cook.  I admit that I took it seriously when I read it the first time, but over time... omg.  There were some pretty outrageous claims in there.

[Robert F. Smith]

24 minutes ago, Dan Vogel said:

................. you are mixing two different subjects here. Instead of admitting you misrepresented the critics' (and apologists') use of sources, you want to switch to the argument that the BofM is too complex for JS to have written it. That is a subjective judgement. You can't say what JS could or could not do. So? The BofM has complexity. How could it be any other way? I think it would have been far less complex if it had not been dictated and created the way it was. .........................Some of the complexity is created by the observer. One thing humans are good at is creating complexity and order, even where there is none. Some of what the apologists see in the BofM is merely their own reflections. They create the complexity they see in the BofM (like chiasmus) and then declare it was intentionally written with that complexity. It appears complex and ordered until we look closer.

In other words, Dan, you are claiming that virtually all of biblical scholarship is imaginary:  chiasmus, parallelism, poetry, archeology, etc., is all imaginary, with no basis in fact.  You have never been able to demonstrate that nihilistic value, which is nothing more than an incoherent response to a fact-based analysis.  Non-LDS scholars just don't share that irresponsible view.  Why, for example, would Margaret Barker state re the Book of Mormon, “This revelation to Joseph Smith is the ancient wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE.”   Similarly, non-Mormon scholar Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible (1984), 537, was quite taken with the strong parallels he adduced in comparison of the Apocalypse of Paul and the story of Joseph’s obtaining the Book of Mormon -- cited by Kevin Barney in FARMS Review of Books, 13/1 (2001):16.  In his comments on King Benjamin's address, your colleague Brent Metcalfe not only admits the complex structure of the address, but even claims that the revival camp-meeting format which he claims it follows actually was taken from the ancient biblical Feast of Tabernacles format.  So too, Mark D. Thomas has repeatedly found deep, complex structure in the BofM, publishing widely on that fact (including a volume edited by Metcalfe).  Indeed, in your and Metcalfe's "Editors' Introduction" to your American Apocrypha,  ix, you say that there are visions and sermons of "beauty and brilliance" in the BofM, in a variety of literary genres, including "parables, poetry, hyperbole, psalms, historical verisimilitude," etc.  Ignoring all that won't make it go away, Dan.  Did you really read Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon?  Why are you playing fast and loose?

24 minutes ago, Dan Vogel said:

For example, JS invented more than 100 names, but most of them are one-timers that do not tax the memory. It's not such a great feat when you realize that he could also speak in tongues and create strange sounding words fairly quickly. He subsequently invented Adamic and Egyptian words as well a substitute names for the 1835 D&C. When you look closely at names of the Nephite Twelve you can see the pattern of fathers and sons and some of the names were influenced by the NT Twelve. 

But none of this has anything to do with my use of the comparative method. 

Denial with no more than a deft wave of your hand?  Is that your imaginary version of scholarship, Dan?  Had you bothered to consult the Book of Mormon Onomasticon  (https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page ), you would see that there is substance to those names.  But, don't confuse you with facts, right?

[blueglass]

My dream would be to conduct a 3 way interview with Michael Coe, Jared Diamond, and Gareth Lowe.  Perhaps some day in the future we can upload all of the available writings, journals,  books, photos, video, newspaper articles and create AI representations which can co-participate in complex interviews  or debates on these topics.  Then we could compile lists of most recent discoveries which confirm or dispute the findings of others to clarify the picture of the ancient past, anthropology, culture,  theology. 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by blueglass

[Ahab]

On 10/5/2019 at 2:02 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

If that satisfies you, fine.  However, that old noggin you got must be good for something other than just faith-based emotion.  In fact, D&C 88:118 says "seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith."  Pres Dallin Oaks said:

A well balanced man uses all available sources of knowledge.
 

My noggin as you call it is what my spirit uses to control and function through my body,   When we learn anything we learn on a spiritual level  Even scientific analysis is accomplished through our spirit and we still need a way to know what is true.

[smac97]

13 hours ago, blueglass said:

My dream would be to conduct a 3 way interview with Michael Coe, Jared Diamond, and Gareth Lowe. 

Only if they were familiar with the text of The Book of Mormon and at least some of the substantive scholarship about whether it fits into a Mesoamerican setting.

Jared Diamond appears to have no particular training in or experience with the text/scholarship.  And we already know that Coe was largely ignorant of the text/scholarship.

Gareth Lowe died in 2004, but at least he was familiar with both fields of inquiry (Mesoamerica and the BOM text/scholarship).

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 7, 2019 by smac97

[Dan Vogel]

Robert, Still no acknowledgement of your straw man character of the comparative method. Instead, you go off on the complexity issue just as I knew you would.

 

But it’s just another opportunity for misrepresentation and fallacy.

 

In other words, Dan, you are claiming that virtually all of biblical scholarship is imaginary:

  chiasmus, parallelism, poetry, archeology, etc., is all imaginary, with no basis in fact.

 

I made no such statement. I gave chiasmus as an example of how scholars can see complexity where there is none, but I didn’t say that all chiasmus, either in the BofM or Bible, is illusory. Thousands of chiasms have been proposed by apologists, which motivated Welch to invent some rules that even his chiasms break. The tighter the chiasm, the more one can argue for intentionality; the looser, the less so. Much of the chiasm constructed from the BofM is loose and subjective.

 

Why, for example, would Margaret Barker state re the Book of Mormon, “This revelation to Joseph Smith is the ancient wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE.” Similarly, non-Mormon scholar Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible (1984), 537, was quite taken with the strong parallels he adduced in comparison of the Apocalypse of Paul and the story of Joseph’s obtaining the Book of Mormon -- cited by Kevin Barney in FARMS Review of Books, 13/1 (2001):16.

 

My, how quickly you change the subject. What does this have to do with complexity? This is the very comparative method you were decrying. And you say I’m incoherent?  

 

In his comments on King Benjamin's address, your colleague Brent Metcalfe not only admits the complex structure of the address, but even claims that the revival camp-meeting format which he claims it follows actually was taken from the ancient biblical Feast of Tabernacles format.

  So too, Mark D. Thomas has repeatedly found deep, complex structure in the BofM, publishing widely on that fact (including a volume edited by Metcalfe).  Indeed, in your and Metcalfe's "Editors' Introduction" to your American Apocrypha,  ix, you say that there are visions and sermons of "beauty and brilliance" in the BofM, in a variety of literary genres, including "parables, poetry, hyperbole, psalms, historical verisimilitude," etc.  Ignoring all that won't make it go away, Dan.

 

And I said in my previous post to you that some complexity is expected but that not all of it was intended by the author, but that some of it has been invented by the scholars who impose their complexity onto the text, like chiasmus. The argument-from-complexity isn’t all what it seems when examined more carefully.

 

Did you really read Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon?

  Why are you playing fast and loose?

 

Hardy’s approach is better for showing connections but still subjective when used to argue that such complexity was beyond JS’s abilities.

 

Denial with no more than a deft wave of your hand?  Is that your imaginary version of scholarship, Dan?  Had you bothered to consult the Book of Mormon Onomasticon  (https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page ), you would see that there is substance to those names.  But, don't confuse you with facts, right?

 

Again, we are dealing with the comparative method, not complexity. The name game has been played on both sides of the debate, but neither side can win.

 

The presence of historical and literary anachronisms are decisive in dating the BofM and deciding which parallels are given priority.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Ahab said:

My noggin as you call it is what my spirit uses to control and function through my body,   When we learn anything we learn on a spiritual level  Even scientific analysis is accomplished through our spirit and we still need a way to know what is true.

Somehow, I just don't think that will wash.

[blarsen]

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Neat!

I cringe every time I hear a Latter-day Saint assert that Church doctrine agrees with Archbishop Ussher as to the age of the earth.  One of the most ridiculous books I ever read was "Science and Mormonism" by Cook and Cook.  I admit that I took it seriously when I read it the first time, but over time... omg.  There were some pretty outrageous claims in there.

When I read/scanned that book so many years ago, I couldn't believe Cook could have written it.  I doubt he had ever read Brigham's assessment of the science of geology, after meeting and some discussion with John Wesley Powell, as I recall.

[Robert F. Smith]

18 hours ago, blueglass said:

My dream would be to conduct a 3 way interview with Michael Coe, Jared Diamond, and Gareth Lowe.  Perhaps some day in the future we can upload all of the available writings, journals,  books, photos, video, newspaper articles and create AI representations which can co-participate in complex interviews  or debates on these topics.  Then we could compile lists of most recent discoveries which confirm or dispute the findings of others to clarify the picture of the ancient past, anthropology, culture,  theology. 

Good idea.  After all, artificial intelligence (AI) will be smarter than humans in ten years, and it won't bring the emotions of fear and ego to the table that humans do, thus making it possible to have interesting interchanges among various disciplines on such touchy subjects as America and the Book of Mormon.

What policy change will be necessary when robots begin demanding baptism?

[blueglass]

5 hours ago, smac97 said:

Only if they were familiar with the text of The Book of Mormon and at least some of the substantive scholarship about whether it fits into a Mesoamerican setting.

Jared Diamond appears to have no particular training in or experience with the text/scholarship.  And we already know that Coe was largely ignorant of the text/scholarship.

Gareth Lowe died in 2004, but at least he was familiar with both fields of inquiry (Mesoamerica and the BOM text/scholarship).

Thanks,

-Smac

Yes it has always frustrated me how few people read carefully the book of Mormon.  Not sure if Jared Diamond has read the book, maybe someone could invite him to BYU to give a speech or spend a day drafting a project to work on? He's in his 80's though.

 

[OGHoosier]

With respect, Mr. Vogel, as it stands Robert appears to have addressed what you propose with regard to comparative theory. You even quoted it yourself.

Quote

So you are claiming that you only refer to published sources to indicate that this or that idea was "in the air"?  Joseph didn't read a thing.   Instead, Joseph merely heard people talking about things and absorbed it all in that way, then combined that with his creative imagination?  Sounds like "you want to have your cake and eat it too," Dan.  Try telling that to Grant Hardy, whose Reader's Guide makes that theory just plain silly.  We are talking about vast complexity and coherence in the BofM which would be inexplicable by that means.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-XC05DHH2w .

Obviously this has a polemical tone, but is that not the gist of your argument? Joseph didn’t have to read the works cited, they were just representative of more widely available concepts which he co-opted in the composition of the Book of Mormon. If so, the whole complexity argument is Robert’s response to your assertions, not an attempt to avoid them. Furthermore, distilling the argument down to the word “complexity” does injustice to the actual arguments. What we are talking about is not just well-written prose but specific cultural parallels and patterns. In my sight the environmental origins argument has trouble accounting for those things without requiring Joseph to directly contact them in book form or through the literati. It is for this reason that I question whether or not Robert really has to apologize for anything.

10 hours ago, Dan Vogel said:

And I said in my previous post to you that some complexity is expected but that not all of it was intended by the author, but that some of it has been invented by the scholars who impose their complexity onto the text, like chiasmus. The argument-from-complexity isn’t all what it seems when examined more carefully.

These apologists are subject matter experts. If these alleged apologetic Narcissuses are merely seeing their own reflection in the BoM, then why should I assume that you are not gazing at your own? Every time you chide Robert for subjectivity, you indict yourself. Furthermore, Robert has demonstrated that apologists aren’t alone in seeing these things, so the whole argument is rendered moot. The argument that “some complexity is to be expected but not all of it was intended by the author” is a dangerous path to tread. How do you know it was accidental? How do you know which is which? Furthermore, as Robert pointed out, this renders much of biblical scholarship vulnerable to abject dismissal by implication. That’s the natural conclusion of your argument.

10 hours ago, Dan Vogel said:

My, how quickly you change the subject. What does this have to do with complexity? This is the very comparative method you were decrying. And you say I’m incoherent?  

In this you establish a strawman. You here imply that Robert has attacked the comparative method as a concept, when he has only critiqued your application of it.

[Stargazer]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Good idea.  After all, artificial intelligence (AI) will be smarter than humans in ten years, and it won't bring the emotions of fear and ego to the table that humans do, thus making it possible to have interesting interchanges among various disciplines on such touchy subjects as America and the Book of Mormon.

What policy change will be necessary when robots begin demanding baptism?

Have you read Orson Scott Card's Ender series?  In that book, an artificial intelligence, named Jane, is created inadvertantly (only Ender himself and one other know of her), and achieves self-awareness and true sentience.  I've not read all the books, and I doubt she asks for baptism at any point, but Card's description of Jane's genesis actually sounds like LDS theology.  Jane's "self" seems to be a human spirit inhabiting a widespread communications network, and the complexity of the network drew her "self" from... somewhere.  Card doesn't say where.  But I'd guess he would say Jane was one of Heavenly Father's children.

[Dan Vogel]

OGHoosier,

 

With respect, Mr. Vogel, as it stands Robert appears to have addressed what you propose with regard to comparative theory. You even quoted it yourself.

 

I think you are confused. You need to go back to my first post, which was in response to what Robert said:

 

What is worse, demanding that Joseph Smith must have read virtually every book in the Harvard College Library ultimately makes no sense at all.  Yet that is exactly what we must do to accommodate the claims of Dan Vogel and others who imagine that anything published anywhere must have been immediately available to Joseph Smith.

 

This isn’t just a simple matter of misrepresenting my position, it’s a straw-man argument. Robert knows better; he uses the comparative method himself to defend the BofM as an ancient document.

 

Obviously this has a polemical tone, but is that not the gist of your argument? Joseph didn’t have to read the works cited, they were just representative of more widely available concepts which he co-opted in the composition of the Book of Mormon. If so, the whole complexity argument is Robert’s response to your assertions, not an attempt to avoid them. Furthermore, distilling the argument down to the word “complexity” does injustice to the actual arguments. What we are talking about is not just well-written prose but specific cultural parallels and patterns.

 

Robert wanted to quietly change the subject, so I noted it. I entered this discussion to correct his misrepresentation of my position, and not just mine but anyone using the comparative method. Although I have addressed his complexity arguments, they are irrelevant to the use of parallel sources. Complexity would be used like Brian Hales to argue against impromptu creation of the text. Robert, and now you, is mixing things and creating a non sequitur.

 

In my sight the environmental origins argument has trouble accounting for those things without requiring Joseph to directly contact them in book form or through the literati. It is for this reason that I question whether or not Robert really has to apologize for anything.

 

Apologetic evidences don’t excuse Robert’s straw-man approach to my use of 19th Century parallels.

 

 

These apologists are subject matter experts. If these alleged apologetic Narcissuses are merely seeing their own reflection in the BoM, then why should I assume that you are not gazing at your own? Every time you chide Robert for subjectivity, you indict yourself.

 

I’m not the one arguing complexity. The subjectivity I was talking about was seeing complexity, chiasmus being an example. With the loose chiasms, authorial intent is a problem. My point was that some of the complexity is in the eye of the beholder, and that it is a subjective judgment to say that JS could not produce a complex document.

 

Furthermore, Robert has demonstrated that apologists aren’t alone in seeing these things, so the whole argument is rendered moot. The argument that “some complexity is to be expected but not all of it was intended by the author” is a dangerous path to tread. How do you know it was accidental?

 

Not my burden to prove it was accidental. Your question assumes the complexity is in the text just waiting to be discovered. Taking chiasmus as an example, some apologists believe they have discovered thousands of chiasms. According to Welch, the complexity they think they see in the text is illusory. They are seeing their own reflections. These chiasms are not there, accidental or otherwise.

 

How do you know which is which? Furthermore, as Robert pointed out, this renders much of biblical scholarship vulnerable to abject dismissal by implication. That’s the natural conclusion of your argument.

 

That’s a good question for you. That’s the question I’m asking you about complexity. I’m not sure what biblical scholarship has to do with this.

 

In this you establish a strawman. You here imply that Robert has attacked the comparative method as a concept, when he has only critiqued your application of it.

 

No, I’m implying that he is hypocritical in his criticism of my use of the comparative method. My use of the comparative method is not different than what the apologists have done with ancient parallels. Robert never made that argument, but instead as you have noted changed the subject and began trying to argue against what he perceived as my true position.

 

[Meadowchik]

On 10/6/2019 at 7:11 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Anyone may hold an apriori opinion about the BofM and act upon that negative opinion.  That is their prerogative.  That is not the same as a logical and scientific evaluation -- which you admit that Coe never made.  The danger for Coe was that, if he had actually done a real evaluation, it would not go so easy for him.  See my own evaluation:  “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” lecture, August 8, 2014, at the annual FAIRMORMON Conference, Provo, Utah, online at  http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf .

Yes, and for the third time that is exactly what I said:  It is the prerogative of anyone to completely disregard the BofM just based on its preposterous nature.  Of course.  What you don't seem to get is that it is not acceptable to pretend to evaluate scientifically and to ignore science in doing so.  Coe pretended, and that was dishonest.  He would have been more honest to have simply said that he didn't have time to evaluate something which is so obviously false before the fact.  He had the right of first refusal.  

What I am saying is that there are no scientific grounds to evaluate the Book of Mormon deeply for evidence of historicity. The scientific process can be completed at the very initial stages. That early rejection is not unscientific.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

What I am saying is that there are no scientific grounds to evaluate the Book of Mormon deeply for evidence of historicity. The scientific process can be completed at the very initial stages. That early rejection is not unscientific.

Sorry, but that's not science.  Science is not easy, and it cannot "be completed in the very initial stages."  Apriori rejection is always unscientific.  That is not to say that there are not police and prosecutors who charge and convict innocent people of crimes they did not commit.  Happens all the time.  Assumptions are made off the cuff and there seems to be no real need for a scientific investigation -- such as checking the skin and clothes for gunshot residue (GSR), no need to examine DNA found at the scene, etc.  Not being confused by the facts certainly can move an investigation along more quickly.  But, then, oops.  Twenty years later the guy gets released after demonstrating he was wrongly convicted.  Everyone feels sorry for the guy, and then they all go along and get on with their lives as though nothing bad had really happened.

Making it up as you go isn't really the same as science.  Science is rigorous and logical, based on fact, not fancy.