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Dan Peterson Takes on the "No Evidence At All for The Book of Mormon" Argument


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Posted
7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I Agree with Stargazer - that error is appearing more and more.   People think it sounds "intellectual" and then misuse it, displaying their ignorance for all to see.

A lot of that goes on with the language. Another example is use of “myself” in place of “I” or “me.” People do it because they don’t know what is proper grammar and they think it makes them sound formal or correct, not realizing that they are in actuality committing a grammatical error. 

Posted
6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Language is usage, however, not prescription. The error is now so prevalent that dictionaries acknowledge how the erroroneus usage is fast becoming acceptable. 

 

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes, entropy is a little hard to stop ;)

 

Heh. “Entropy” is a good word to characterize it. 

Posted (edited)

Any evidence for the actual plates to substantiate the BoM? Dr. Peterson does very well and I appreciate his work but the transmission based on claims and possible circumstantial and probable evidence still don't make a solid case. Let me phrase based on my own train of thought. Bart Ehrman wrote the book "Did Jesus Exist?". Can we apply the same methodology to the BoM? If so, I'm willing to listen. If not, then we reach nothing. 

ETA: I'm asking for much especially in consideration of the translation of the City of Enoch. Perhaps Hebrews 11:1 is a hindrance to me. Please be patient with me.

Edited by Damien the Leper
Posted
7 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Merriam-Webster does too much of that. That’s why I hate it and won’t use it, notwithstanding it generally appears first in Google searches for definitions. 

Well we need to remember that the Italian, French, Spanish, and Romanian languages  are really just HORRIBLE Latin, and English is horrible French mixed with horrible German.

It happens. ;)

 

Posted
3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Well we need to remember that the Italian, French, Spanish, and Romanian languages  are really just HORRIBLE Latin, and English is horrible French mixed with horrible German.

It happens. ;)

 

Maybe so.  But I think we can hinder if not halt the march toward linguistic anarchy by insisting on adherence to rules of grammar, punctuation, spelling, definitions, usage, etc. 

Posted
On 3/5/2021 at 11:20 AM, smac97 said:

Yep.  When it comes to things like The Book of Mormon, critics want to declare that there is no evidence for its claimed origins at all, but what they really mean is there is not sufficient evidence (in their minds), or that the evidence lacks probative weight, or that only certain types of evidence are allowed and others disallowed, and so on.

The way I see it, there is no evidence "at all" for the Book of Mormon in the same way that there is no evidence "at all" for the earth being flat. In a sense there is a some evidence of a flat earth, just as there is some evidence of a geocentric universe. The problem with this is that a heliocentric solar system in an expanding universe has a lot more evidence. But it isn't just that there is more evidence for this other theory--it's that the other theory is part of an interconnected understanding of the universe across multiple disciplines. Given a comprehensive understanding of everything we know and why, the proposition of the earth being flat raises so many more problems than it answers, the evidence in favor of the earth being flat isn't really evidence at all.

It's the same way with the Book of Mormon. The specially arranged showing of the plates to a handful of Joseph Smith's most loyal associates and to nobody else for the express purpose of proving their existence without subjecting them to public viewing or expert examination is evidence that he showed them something. Sure. But given how thoroughly anachronistic the actual text of the Book of Mormon is, any explanation is more likely than it being an accurate translation of an actual ancient manuscript. It's more likely that Joseph Smith made it up. It's more likely Sidney Rigdon made the plates out of tin. It's more likely that the angel was really an alien doing an anthropology experiment on Joseph Smith.  It's more likely that the devil conjured up the plates. But the story that there was a massive Christian civilization in America that made records in reformed Egyptian on metal plates over a period of 1,000 years? Given what we know about the world, that's just not possible.

Of course you can and undoubtedly do disagree with what I just said. But when people say there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon at all, that is what I think they are intending to imply.

Posted
On 3/6/2021 at 12:45 PM, Scott Lloyd said:

Maybe so.  But I think we can hinder if not halt the march toward linguistic anarchy by insisting on adherence to rules of grammar, punctuation, spelling, definitions, usage, etc. 

I read recently that a poster was chastised for how they spelled school.  Evidently, they placed the o's in the wrong order.  Keep up the battle Scott.

Posted
1 hour ago, california boy said:

I read recently that a poster was chastised for how they spelled school.  Evidently, they placed the o's in the wrong order.  Keep up the battle Scott.

CFR. 

Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

CFR. 

Sorry, that was just a joke.  I thought you would enjoy that.  Guess not.   I retract my post.

Edited by california boy
Posted
4 minutes ago, california boy said:

Sorry, that was just a joke.  I thought you would enjoy that.  Guess not.   I retract my post.

I knew it was just a joke. I was just yanking your chain. (I figured turnabout is fair play.)

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, california boy said:

I read recently that a poster was chastised for how they spelled school.  Evidently, they placed the o's in the wrong order.  Keep up the battle Scott.

I thynk we should goon back at least to middle english myself.(Blast, it won’t paste with the calligraphy)

Or Shakespeare:

Methinketh weth shouldst wend backeth at least to middleth english myself

Edited by Calm
Posted
1 hour ago, Calm said:

I thynk we should goon back at least to middle english myself.(Blast, it won’t paste with the calligraphy)

Or Shakespeare:

Methinketh weth shouldst wend backeth at least to middleth english myself

The eth is applied to verbs, not nouns. 

Posted
On 3/5/2021 at 3:47 PM, Stargazer said:

Neither. To beg the question is to assume the conclusion. IOW Circular reasoning. 

The common misuse is to understand BTQ as "raising the question." E.g. "Ahab is a comedian, which begs the question, is he truly funny?" The correct use is to replace "begs" with "raises".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question?wprov=sfla1

To beg a question is to assume a conclusion?  What conclusion would someone be assuming by begging a question?  A conclusion to what?

By knowing that I am a comedian you have arrived at the conclusion that I am funny otherwise you would not know that I am a comedian.  Do you have a question you are begging to ask me about this?

Posted

To be fair, there also also "evidences" against the Book of Mormon being what it claims. I think it would be an interesting endeavor if an honest comparison of the evidences for vs the evidences against.
For my part, i think it would resoundingly come on the side of evidences for. Nonetheless, it would be nice if somebody put a good one together. Probably already has been (links appreciated, I'm too lazy to look at the moment). I know there have been some sub-par one-sided ones in the past.
 

Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Ahab said:

To beg a question is to assume a conclusion?  What conclusion would someone be assuming by begging a question?  A conclusion to what?

Look it up.

https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Begging-the-Question.html#:~:text=The fallacy of begging the,called arguing in a circle.

Edited by mfbukowski
Posted
21 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 I was just yanking your chain. (I figured turnabout is fair play.)

Oh my.

Context kind sir, context!

Posted

 

On 3/5/2021 at 9:42 PM, Stargazer said:
On 3/5/2021 at 8:40 PM, mfbukowski said:

I Agree with Stargazer - that error is appearing more and more.   People think it sounds "intellectual" and then misuse it, displaying their ignorance for all to see.

Language is usage, however, not prescription. The error is now so prevalent that dictionaries acknowledge how the erroroneus usage is fast becoming acceptable. 

Allow both meanings and any cogdis will melt away. It's fine to use it only in the original way but adaptive to recognize emerging meaning. Like truth, which now has taken on another sense in expressions like "my truth", a sense closer to 'experience'.

Posted
19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Good link.  I liked this as an example of begging the question:  Thoughts are not part of the physical world, since thoughts are in their nature non-physical.

Reminded me of your infamous Rorty quote, which looks like another example of begging the question to me.

Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. (BTQ #1) The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  (BTQ #2) Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  (What is a statement like this called if not BTQ?  BTQ #3)  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot. (BTQ #4)

 

Posted (edited)
Quote

Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. 

Ahab,

So where do you go to find a mine or farm or a place of physical, independent existence of sentences?

Edited by Calm
Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Ahab,

So where do you go to find a mine or farm or a place of physical, independent existence of sentences?

Wherever one is.  The existence of those places is not based on sentences. We do use sentences sometimes to refer to places but we could find or build a farm or a mine without uttering or writing a word.

Edited by Ahab
Posted
21 hours ago, Nofear said:

To be fair, there also also "evidences" against the Book of Mormon being what it claims. I think it would be an interesting endeavor if an honest comparison of the evidences for vs the evidences against.
For my part, i think it would resoundingly come on the side of evidences for. Nonetheless, it would be nice if somebody put a good one together. Probably already has been (links appreciated, I'm too lazy to look at the moment). I know there have been some sub-par one-sided ones in the past.
 

Book of Mormon Central has created a new website called Evidence Central which is attempting to compile a comprehensive list of evidences supporting the Restoration, starting with the Book of Mormon. It is still very early in its development. Eventually they will have many hundreds of evidence articles.

https://evidencecentral.org/public

As for pro vs. con, I don't think anyone has done that in a comprehensive way. And, of course, just knowing what has been proposed is a different matter from actually evaluating the worth and ultimate value of each individual piece of evidence. 

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