Simon Southerton's New Book

[Scott Lloyd]

56 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Autocorrect strikes again?

My fault this time. I think I confused it by misspelling “post” as “pist.”

[Scott Lloyd]

On 1/20/2020 at 1:21 PM, Kenngo1969 said:

If the Book of Mormon purports to say that Moroni was/is a real person, if he purported to appear to Joseph Smith as a resurrected being, and so on, then, whatever the deficiencies (real or perceived) in the historical record, in my mind, the "Inspired Fiction" theory creates more problems than it purports to solve.  According to the theory, it seems as though the Lord said, "Okay, what'm I gonna need to get this 'Restoration' thing off of the ground?  Well, first, I'll need a set of imaginary 'plates,' and then I'll need a holographic 'Angel Moroni' ..." and so on.

Notwithstanding their allegedly-'imaginary' nature, I certainly can relate well to many of the people in the Book of Mormon, much better than I would be able to if I thought they were simply fictional characters.

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/joseph-moroni-me/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/the-imperfect-book-of-mormon/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/spiritual-witness/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/encouragement-from-those-in-the-scriptures/

Yeah. The “inspired fiction” theory is more than a can of worms. It’s a 20 yard  dumpster full of them. 

I hear repeatedly that there is no harm in letting people harbor this false view. But there <is> harm to the extent they promulgate it and thereby mislead others, even as they deceive themselves. 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[Tacenda]

What do you all think about this guy raising money to find Zarahemla and sustain youth's testimonies?

https://zarahemla.site/?fbclid=IwAR34pPPalW-hQK_-LNfu5kmbZpUyEJoKVOxSUUocNsDCOZzsuOjRTTZ82LU

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

What do you all think about this guy raising money to find Zarahemla and sustain youth's testimonies?

https://zarahemla.site/?fbclid=IwAR34pPPalW-hQK_-LNfu5kmbZpUyEJoKVOxSUUocNsDCOZzsuOjRTTZ82LU

I would not support it.  He's proposing  a heartland model, which I think is far from the best guess as to the location of the BOM events.

Moreover, he wants to scan 10,000 (square) acres, which amounts to about 15.6 square miles.  He wants to scan a relatively tiny portion of a pretty unlikely general area (from the site: "The proposed location for the scanning of Zarahemla is on a bend in the Upper Mississippi River just before the Des Moines Rapids.").  The likelihood of correctly identifying the location of Zarahemla is extremely poor.  Surely the $200k he wants to raise could be spent on more worthwhile endeavors.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

I think it will backfire as far as kids’ testimonies and will just put money in May and others’ pockets. May is willing to use fraudulent artifacts and has been for years.  I don’t trust him at all. I am not impressed by people who trust him. 

[Calm]

The quote at the end from Elder Ballard is right on point. 
 

Here is it as text:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-should-latter-day-saints-beware-fraudulent-artifacts
 

Here is the talk with the quote:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2016/12/by-study-and-by-faith?lang=eng

Quote

As you teach your students and respond to their questions, let me warn you not to pass along faith-promoting or unsubstantiated rumors or outdated understandings and explanations of our doctrine and practices from the past. It is always wise to make it a practice to study the words of the living prophets and apostles; keep updated on current Church issues, policies, and statements through mormonnewsroom.org and LDS.org; and consult the works of recognized, thoughtful, and faithful LDS scholars to ensure you do not teach things that are untrue, out of date, or odd and quirky.

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

On 1/20/2020 at 12:21 PM, Kenngo1969 said:

If the Book of Mormon purports to say that Moroni was/is a real person, if he purported to appear to Joseph Smith as a resurrected being, and so on, then, whatever the deficiencies (real or perceived) in the historical record, in my mind, the "Inspired Fiction" theory creates more problems than it purports to solve.  According to the theory, it seems as though the Lord said, "Okay, what'm I gonna need to get this 'Restoration' thing off of the ground?  Well, first, I'll need a set of imaginary 'plates,' and then I'll need a holographic 'Angel Moroni' ..." and so on.

Notwithstanding their allegedly-'imaginary' nature, I certainly can relate well to many of the people in the Book of Mormon, much better than I would be able to if I thought they were simply fictional characters.

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/joseph-moroni-me/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/the-imperfect-book-of-mormon/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/spiritual-witness/

https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/encouragement-from-those-in-the-scriptures/

Here's the deal, though.

Since nothing you mention has any objective evidence whatsoever- no Zarahemla, no plates, angels or resurrected beings, no Nephites,  nothing you could use in court, no God behind it all,  for that matter, what's wrong with SEEING IT AS a story that teaches the best principles mankind has ever found, to be true precisely because the only possible evidence is what you feel in your heart anyway?

It's the same beliefs that possibly COULD HAVE HAPPENED, but the events actually happening is irrelevant to the value of accepting them for what they teach?

I am a ham radio operator but for the life of me I can't figure out how radio waves actually work or resonate with an antenna. However if I think of them as a light on a very dark night suddenly I understand how far of a 50 watt light bulb could be seen in total darkness, or if something rattles when a big truck goes by I can better understand how sound waves resonate with some objects, but not all. I understand frequency because I have seen bass guitar strings vibrating slowly and visibly, while higher-pitched strings must be plucked very hard to see any vibration at all.

But it is my brain that decodes those signals and to what I perceive is a high note or a low note. 

I accept the analogy but yet technically the analogy is a lie.

String vibrations do not produce high or low notes my brain does!

But those ideas that give me understanding are actually fictitious. Radio waves are not light waves or sound waves.

Is light a wave or a particle? It's both and not either of them, and largely depends on what the Observer expects to find.

We do not know what things "really are" but only what our minds present before us, after our brain decodes it all

But if you want to get technical even that last sentence is a lie. 

Like everything else it's a human brain making it all up as we go, and that brain is structured for survival and for finding God.

But is it seeing things as they really are?

Quarks?

String theory?

Columbus discovering America?

Evolution or creation?

It's all made up anyway. 

All the stories work for their intended purposes, and we survive and some folks actually find God.

That's the best we can have but it works just fine.

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 1/20/2020 at 12:58 PM, Scott Lloyd said:

Yeah. The “inspired fiction” theory is more than a can of worms. It’s a 20 yard  dumpster full of them. 

I hear repeatedly that there is no harm in letting people harbor this false view. But there <is> harm to the extent they promulgate it and thereby mislead others, even as they deceive themselves. 

The only problem is, the only evidence we have for what is "true" is in our hearts.

Can you see how they argue that it is we who are deceived?

Try to see these stories as others see them and not just accept them because you were raised that way. 

 Then you'll be seeing it as a convert sees it.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I think it will backfire as far as kids’ testimonies and will just put money in May and others’ pockets. May is willing to use fraudulent artifacts and has been for years.  I don’t trust him at all. I am not impressed by people who trust him. 

I was not aware of this.  Do you have citations about him doing this (I believe you, I'd just like to read up on him).

Thanks,

-Smac

EDIT TO ADD: I found this about Mr. (Wayne) May.  Also this.

Edited May 27, 2020 by smac97

[Calm]

Misuse of a claim:

http://www.bmaf.org/articles/distorts_facts_hill_cumorah__dahlem

May’s is the first book reviewed here:

https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/gardner-too-good-to-be-true.pdf

http://bmaf.org/node/631

He has videos where he talks about them, just do a search on his name and artifacts 

Let me know if you need more. I am hoping my bedtime will finally hit soon, so it may be awhile before I respond again. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

On 1/20/2020 at 10:48 AM, smac97 said:

I respect that position, but I think it is substantively incorrect.  

In my view, rejecting the BoM's historicity necessarily requires rejecting the BoM's status as scripture. I don't think that a coherent good faith argument can be made otherwise. In fact, I think the "Inspired Fiction" concept sets a faith-imperiling precedent.  If we reject The Book of Mormon as not having historicity, we reject it as scripture, because The Book of Mormon presents itself as historical, not as a fable.  If we reject The Book of Mormon for what it claims for itself, then we must also reject Joseph Smith, who likewise declared it to be an actual historical document recounting the lives of actual historical people.  

The "Inspired Fiction" folks are rejecting the words of God and the messengers of God, and they are encouraging others to do likewise.  Consider the following remarks by Elder Oaks (emphasis added):

I have yet to see the Inspired Fiction folks address this issue, which I believe is fatal to their proposal.  If The Book of Mormon can be rejected for what it claims to be, and instead construed as fiction, then so can Jesus Christ.

 

A popular refrain from the "Inspired Fiction" folks is that The Book of Mormon has value even if it is entirely fictional, just like the parables of Jesus need not be literally historical in order to have value.  However, I disagree with this comparison.   Parables have value irrespective of their historicity, I agree with that. However, Jesus Christ being the Son of God and Savior of the world only has value because of the historicity tied up with that declaration. Historicity matters when we consider various scriptural passages, such as this one: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Absent historicity, this passage has no salvific meaning or value. Without historicity, Jesus would be just another admirable fictional character, like Atticus Finch, or Samwise Gamgee, or Captain America. Jesus would be about as valuable to me as an imaginary life preserver would be to a drowning man.

In his article "Joseph Smith and the Historicity of the Book of Mormon" (published in the above volume), Kent P. Jackson asks, "what credibility could any of these sources have if the book is not historical?"  He goes on (emphasis added):

I think the Inspired Fiction folks have not really thought through the ramifications of their proposal.   The "fake but accurate," "I can reject what The Book of Mormon claims to be and what Joseph Smith represented it to be, but still accept it as scripture" type of reasoning is a fundamentally flawed line of reasoning. Elder Oaks aptly described it as "not only reject(ing) the concepts of faith and revelation that The Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship."

This is why I find advocacy of this approach problematic. Such advocates are steering others up a spiritual blind alley; a path, I think, which sooner or later will culminate in a crisis of faith and/or a rejection of The Book of Mormon. After all, one who rejects its historicity has already rejected a substantive, even vital, part of the book. Rejecting the rest of it would seem to be just a matter of time.  I think an affirmative denial of the book's historicity will, sooner or later, become fatal to a testimony of the book.

Ambivalence about historicity is perhaps possible, but affirmative denial is, I think, not compatible with an enduring and efficacious testimony of The Book of Mormon.

I think those who seek salvation, but who reject the messengers who bring it, are in serious error.  Nevertheless, as deeply flawed as their position is, I welcome such persons who buy into the "inspired fiction" meme in fellowship in the Church.  We are all of us working to improve our understanding of God and His plans for us.  It is not for me to withdraw or withhold fellowship from those who differ from me on this issue.  I also won't speculate as to their standing in the Church generally, and will instead leave such things to those who are in authority and have proper stewardship.

The "inspired fiction" approach to The Book of Mormon requires a rejection of The Book of Mormon for what it claims to be. To accept it on those grounds would be like saying "Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my Lord and Savior, even though I reject the idea that he ever actually existed." A fictional Christ does not work, and neither does a fictional Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

Earlier, I lauded this post, and I still do like it very much. But after re-reading it just now, I’m wondering how you can “respect” a position that “sets a faith-imperiling precedent.” I cannot in good conscience do so. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

The only problem is, the only evidence we have for what is "true" is in our hearts.

Can you see how they argue that it is we who are deceived?

Try to see these stories as others see them and not just accept them because you were raised that way. 

 Then you'll be seeing it as a convert sees it.

You are jumping to an unwarranted conclusion that I “just accept them because [I was] raised that way.” There’s no way you can know such a thing about me. 
 

And everyone who genuinely embraces the  restored gospel must ultimately be a convert, whether or not he or she was “raised that way.” 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[smac97]

40 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Earlier, I lauded this post, and I still do like it very much. But after re-reading it just now, I’m wondering how you can “respect” a position that “sets a faith-imperiling precedent.” I cannot in good conscience do so. 

I must allow for reasonable minds to disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.  I can respect a position and still find it substantially flawed.

Thanks,

-Smac

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

You are jumping to an unwarranted conclusion that I “just accept them because [I was] raised that way.” There’s no way you can know such a thing about me. 
 

And everyone who genuinely embraces the  restored gospel must ultimately be a convert, whether or not he or she was “raised that way.” 

I apologize for the way you interpreted that but it was a reasonable interpretation after looking at it again.

In my use of "we" and "they" I thought it was clear I was talking in the general way about "our side" and " their side"

I did not mean to make a comment about you personally, but I can see how you interpreted it that way. I meant "We all should try" to see it as converts do, and not make it personal.

I think it takes a while for a convert to accept that there was actually a person named Nephi Etc, while life long members are taught from their earliest days that Nephi was as real a person as Michaelangelo, and never questioned it, and now do not understand people who I have never even seriously questioned the possibility that these stories are not historical, because that would be questioning the validity of their entire view of God and their purpose in life.

I am just suggesting that for me, their historicity is completely optional.

I take it on faith that the stories are historically accurate but I don't feel that I need to.

I had already deduced 80% of what the church teaches without ever reading the book of Mormon, and believing the principles was easy while accepting the entire ancient culture of the Book of Mormon peoples was another story, and seemed extraneous to the Doctrine.

Personal revelation is about seeing it our own way, without degrading is the beliefs of others as "false", while they themselves have testimonies that make it "true."

There's room enough for both sides as long as we have testimonies that there is a God who lives, and with whom we can communicate directly.

[Fair Dinkum]

WHAT EXACTLY separates reality from fiction?   What exactly, in other words, does the Book of Mormon need to provide to it's critics that could remove their charge that the book is a work of fiction?  If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon claims of being a historical document of a real people who literally lived and breathed on this earth, I have yet to see it.  There is a lot of speculation, theories and claims but nothing empirically testable or provable to support the Book of Mormon claims of being a history of an actual ancient civilization.

So the only remaining testament to its claims is FAITH.

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

I must allow for reasonable minds to disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.  I can respect a position and still find it substantially flawed.

Thanks,

-Smac

You can respect one’s right to hold a position without respecting the position itself. We often see this in the political arena. 
 

And some positions are more benign than others. One that “sets a faith-imperiling precedent” (and I agree with that descriptor regarding the “inspired fiction” theory) would be less than benign, in my opinion. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

WHAT EXACTLY separates reality from fiction?

I have a PhD in history. All texts are fiction.

Quote

So the only remaining testament to its claims is FAITH.

You're forgetting personal experience.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have a PhD in history. All texts are fiction.

You're forgetting personal experience.

Bless you! Someone gets it!

No text expresses things as they are, nor can they. They are all symbolic!

But I reserve the term fiction for deliberately crafted stories which are known by everyone to not even make the attempt to approximate reality. Lord of the Rings for example is fiction and hopefully everyone knows that.

[smac97]

.

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

No text expresses things as they are, nor can they. They are all symbolic!

As well as necessarily partial, incomplete, and constructed by each writer within his/her own perspectives and biases. The English word fiction arises from the past participle stem of Latin fingere: to shape or form, originally to form out of clay. The simple reality is that all accounts have been shaped in a person's mind first. Fair Dinkum and I would never compose identical accounts of 'reality', and our accounts would probably diverge even further the more 'religious' or 'spiritual' they were.

I sincerely wonder what portion of my life I could support with data that would convince Fair Dinkum that I'm telling the truth. It would be astonishingly small. For example, I positively know that my dinner last night consisted of potato soup with sourdough rye bread and fresh butter. Where are the data for that???

As I explained to a senior Jehovah's Witness years ago as a missionary, my job is not to convince people that I'm right. I share my inherently subjective experiences to invite people to seek for their own. The miracle is just how often this works!

I still remember my very first Sunday in a branch so remote that it didn't belong to a stake or district, and only one other member of the branch (a recent arrival like I was) had ever met missionaries, seen a General Conference session, etc. It was Fast Sunday, and the branch president began by sharing his testimony. I was excited to hear what it might sound like, expecting something quite different to what I'd heard from members before. My assumption at this point was that testimonies sound so similar for reasons of acculturation/socialisation.

But instead this man's testimony sounded exactly like mine. He'd had nearly identical experiences. What he shared was immediately familiar in outline and meaning if not in exact detail. It's all a miracle to me still. Every single time it happens.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

WHAT EXACTLY separates reality from fiction?   What exactly, in other words, does the Book of Mormon need to provide to it's critics that could remove their charge that the book is a work of fiction?  If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon claims of being a historical document of a real people who literally lived and breathed on this earth, I have yet to see it.  There is a lot of speculation, theories and claims but nothing empirically testable or provable to support the Book of Mormon claims of being a history of an actual ancient civilization.

So the only remaining testament to its claims is FAITH.

I haven't a clue what you are saying.

The first sentence confuses reality with literature.

The second sentence sounds in favor of the BOM.

The third sounds against it.

The fourth wants to experimentally test history, which is a little hard.

The last affirms faith

Is that what you wanted to say ?

Edited May 28, 2020 by mfbukowski

[smac97]

17 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

WHAT EXACTLY separates reality from fiction?  

Evidence.

Quote

What exactly, in other words, does the Book of Mormon need to provide to it's critics that could remove their charge that the book is a work of fiction? 

Evidence (principally spiritual evidence).

Quote

If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon claims of being a historical document of a real people who literally lived and breathed on this earth, I have yet to see it. 

I encourage you to re-think your position here.

By way of analogy: Years ago in law school I was involved in an advocacy competition.  The subject matter under discussion was a wiretapping statute, and a civil lawsuit in which a plaintiff was suing (civilly, not criminally) a defendant about a purported wiretapping incident.  The statutory (legal) scheme and the fact pattern the students were given were presented in such a way as to allow students assigned to either position some decent wiggle room.  That is, both sides had some pretty solid factual and legal arguments in support of their side and in opposition to the other side. 

I was assigned to present oral argument for the defendant.  The venue was an a fictitious appellate court, with three law professors acting as the judges. Alas, I was new to the whole "law" gig, which was reflected in my "go for broke" argument strategy.  That is, I crafted a take-no-prisoners approach to the facts and the law.  I spoke as if the facts all lined up in favor of the defendant, as did all the conclusions of law.  At the time, I figured this would come across as a bold, confident strategy.  It . . . didn't.  After the first two minutes or so, I could tell that I had lost all three "judges," one of whom was my advocacy professor.  At one point she even frowned, leaned back, and shook her head a little.

After I presented my case, the panel of "judges" provided a little feedback.  It was pretty bad.  My advocacy teacher said something like this: "Spencer, you presented a well-researched position.  You obviously knew both the law and the facts.  And some of the points you raised were very good.  But fundamentally, what you did here was misguided.  This wiretapping case is inherently divisive.  There are some points of law and fact that support the plaintiff's position, and some that support the defendant's.  You, however, took a no-middle-ground, my-way-or-the-highway approach.  Your argument presupposes that there is no factual or legal support for the plaintiff's position, and you tried to sell that to three judges who are very well-versed in both the law and the facts.  It is fine to advocate your position, but you can't do so by misrepresenting the merits of the other side's position by pretending that there are no merits.  Of course there are.  In so doing, you lost credibility.  You need to address the substance of and evidence for the opposing viewpoint, not pretend such things don't exist."

Unsurprisingly, I did not advance out of the first round. 

It was, frankly, a pretty humiliating, as in humbling, experience.  My professor was temperate in her remarks.  She was trying to help me. not embarass me or shut me down.  And more to the point, she was quite right.  By speaking as if the opposing viewpoint was devoid of factual and legal and evidentiary support, I was resorting to . . . I think the best word would be "chicanery" ("the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose").  I thought it was bold and assertive, when in reality it came across as (and actually was) dishonest and evasive.

In the ensuing years, I have had many, many additional experiences that have sharpened and refined the lesson I learned that day.  In my experience, judges are - in the main - pretty smart and informed.  They fully expect litigants to play it straight, both as to the factual underpinnings of the dispute, the body of evidence submitted to the court by both sides, and the application of legal authorities (statutes, case law, procedural/evidentiary rules, etc.).  Attorneys who act as I did, who are bombastic and evasive, who in essence misrepresent adverse points of law or fact or evidence by pretending they don't exist, really end up hurting their own position.  They end up damaging their own credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of the judge.  The judge well and truly wants both sides to advocate their positions, but to do so with candor and frankness.  That often includes acknowledging the weaknesses in your own position, and also the strengths and merits of the opposing side.

With this context, you will understand why your statement of "If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon ... I have yet to see it" elicited a mild eyeroll from me.  It is an unserious claim.  You of course can dispute the merits of what "the Church or its apologists have put forward," but you cannot credibly declare, in this venue, that they have not put forward anything at all ("I have yet to see it").  This is particularly so now, in 2020.  As I have said previously:

Quote

Never in the history of the world has John Q {Churchmember} been so well-situated to give the Church's claims a "fair hearing."  The Church's website is a treasure trove of information.  The Maxwell Institute has huge amounts of content.  The Intepreter Foundation.  FAIR.  FARMS.  Book of Mormon Central.  Pearl of Great Price Central.  Jeff Lindsay.  Daniel Peterson.  John Welch.  Hugh Nibley.  Matthew Roper.  Matthew Brown.  Brant Gardner.  Terryl Givens.  Richard Bushman.  Don Bradley.  John Tvedtnes.  Lou Midgley.  Bill Hamblin.  John Gee.  Kerry Muehlstein.  Armand Mauss.  Royal Skousen.  Richard Turley.  Michael Ash.  Kevin Barney.  Barry Bickmore. S. Kent Brown.  Brian Hales.   Dozens, even hundreds, of books exploring the doctrines and history of the Church.

And yet here you are, claiming "If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon ... I have yet to see it."

Quote

There is a lot of speculation, theories and claims but nothing empirically testable or provable to support the Book of Mormon claims of being a history of an actual ancient civilization.

I quite disagree.  There is substantial evidence in support of the Church's position.  Again, you aren't doing your position any favors by pretending such evidence does not exist at all.

Quote

So the only remaining testament to its claims is FAITH.

Well, no.  I think that if someone is interested in The Book of Mormon, their primary focus should be seeking a spiritual witness of it.  Ancillary evidences are nevertheless helpful.  I like these comments by Daniel Peterson:

Quote

Of course, scholarship does not replace spiritual witness as a source of testimony. As Elder B. H. Roberts (1857–1933) of the Seventy said: “The power of the Holy Ghost … must ever be the chief source of evidence for the Book of Mormon. All other evidence is secondary. … No arrangement of evidence, however skillfully ordered; no argument, however adroitly made, can ever take its place.”

Yet scholarship has a definite place even in spiritual matters. The Lord said in an 1829 revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery, “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost” (D&C 8:2; emphasis added). In 1832 the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). As one writer observed: “What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.” 

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 28, 2020 by smac97

[Tacenda]

Sorry if this changes the subject. Wondering what people think of this book, "Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon" (UNC Press, 2020).

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

As well as necessarily partial, incomplete, and constructed by each writer within his/her own perspectives and biases. The English word fiction arises from the past participle stem of Latin fingere: to shape or form, originally to form out of clay. The simple reality is that all accounts have been shaped in a person's mind first. Fair Dinkum and I would never compose identical accounts of 'reality', and our accounts would probably diverge even further the more 'religious' or 'spiritual' they were...

 

...But instead this man's testimony sounded exactly like mine. He'd had nearly identical experiences. What he shared was immediately familiar in outline and meaning if not in exact detail. It's all a miracle to me still. Every single time it happens.

I am having that same experience right now!!

I had absolutely no idea we would agree so totally on these points, that through our mental states we organize our individual worlds, a metaphor for how our Human God organizes our communal world through His, and in a small way, our shared intelligence. We are all sparks of the Son's intelligence.

Ultimately this was the insight that caused me, at least intellectually, join this wonderful confederation of souls led by The Word, Jesus Christ.

The revelation confirming this idea, was of course the final cause of the decision 

Edited May 28, 2020 by mfbukowski

[Kevin Christensen]

21 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

WHAT EXACTLY separates reality from fiction?   What exactly, in other words, does the Book of Mormon need to provide to it's critics that could remove their charge that the book is a work of fiction?  If there is anything that the church or its apologist's have put forward to date that supports the Book of Mormon claims of being a historical document of a real people who literally lived and breathed on this earth, I have yet to see it.  There is a lot of speculation, theories and claims but nothing empirically testable or provable to support the Book of Mormon claims of being a history of an actual ancient civilization.

So the only remaining testament to its claims is FAITH.

One of the quotes in my recent essay:

Quote

We should no longer naively expect that statements about a given epoch or complex of events in the past “correspond” to some pre-existent body of “raw facts.” For we should recognize that what constitutes the facts themselves is the problem that the historian, like the artist, has tried to solve in the choice of the metaphor by which he orders his world, past, present, and future. Hayden V. White, “The Burden of History,” History and Theory 5.2 (1966), 131, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/pb-assets/assets/14682303/1BurdenofHistory1966-1526389876757.pdf.

This is another way of saying that a person's paradigm (that is, the metaphors by which they order their world, the wine bottle that holds what they count good wine) determines what they count as facts.   It's not that we LDS don't have lots of evidence to consider of various kinds.  Jack Welch wrote a very good essay on that sort of thing, the nature and effects of a range of kinds of evidence, called "The Power of Evidence in Nurturing Faith" in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon.  What happens in practice is that everyone has the power to devalue another's evidence by simply saying "So what?  I'm not impressed."  Like Trump simply labeling anything he doesn't like, or wants to hear as "Fake news!"  He never bothers demonstrating the case.  Applying the label is enough. 

From my perspective things like the following point to significant evidence, inviting "cause to believe": In the Footsteps of Lehi, and Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, and Larry Poulson's presentation on New World geography, and Mormon's Codex, and various literary forms, ritual patterns, elaborate interconnected correspondences, a Geologist looks at the Book of Mormon, Mesoamerican cylinder seals with characters corresponding to the Anthon transcript, a seal that apparently belonged to Mulek, son of Zedekiah, Barker's First Temple theology, Matthew Bowen's work on onamastic word play, various elaborate ritual and chiastic patterns in Mosiah 1-5, the San Bartelo murals contemporary with the Benjamin coronation that show a coronation on a tower, the kinds of things anyone can see in the recent National Geographic special on Disney + on Mesomamerican Lidar surveys, remnants of Hebrew in Uto-Aztecan languages, Brant Gardner on Gaddiantons and Mesoamerican history, and witnesses and et cetera.   How did Joseph Smith do all of that?  "Somehow."

I remember listening to John Dehlin and Michael Coe talking about how the lack of brass helmets and iron arrowheads disproved the Book of Mormon, not considering that neither is mentioned in the Book of Mormon.  From my perspective, that lack of mention seriously undermines what for them is "cause to disbelieve."

"What about horses?  Or a saddle with Nephi's name engraved on it?"  Now that would be something.  And never mind that the text never describes anyone riding a horse, or mentioning saddles.  Kuhn says paradigm debate always involves deciding "Which problems are more significant to have solved?"  I see the rise and fall of two civilizations in the right place and time, complete with apt geography, rivers, volcanos, languages, a narrow strip of wilderness that extends from the east sea to the west sea, and much more, as significant problems to have solved for believers than horses. Skeptics seldom, if ever, acknowledge, let alone explain them.  What about DNA?  There is a difference in considering what Brent Metcalfe and Southerton expect and what patent-holding DNA scientists expect.  And which problems are more sigificant to have solved? 

Alma 32 nicely distinguishes between evidence that would coerce belief in a once and for all, universal, irresitable thump, and evidence that provides an inviting "cause to believe."   The problem with the former is that it would also bring infinite accountability while removing any personal agency.  If I am holding out for a God who prefers to coerce my unwilling submission, that is the only kind of God I will ever find, and when I do, it may not be particularly pleasant.  Such a thing might be more than a little Lovecraftian rather than loving.  Alma sees faith, operating on partial knowledge and ongoing experiement and fruitfulness, without absolute certainty, as preferable.  This is convenient because that is how science works.

Quote

Paradigms differ in more than substance. for they are directed not only to nature but also back upon the science that produced them. They are the source of the methods, problem-field. and standards of solution accepted by any mature scientific community at any given time.  (Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 103)

In exploring how all this works, he eventually has this:

Quote

The issue is which paradigm should in the future guide research on problems many of which neither competitor can yet claim to resolve completely. A decision between alternate ways of practicing science is called for, and in the circumstances that decision must be based less on past achievement than on future promise . . . . A decision of that kind can only be made on faith. (Kuhn, 157-158)

Some people have faith that secular explanations are good enough, especially since the Mormons don't offer coercive proof.   Me, I can settle for a God that invites me with all sorts of things.

The values that science employs to evaluate paradigms are the same as those that Alma 32 puts forward as potentially supporting faith.  Testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness (what you see on the inside of faith that you'd never see on the outside), simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited May 28, 2020 by Kevin Christensen
typo