Assessing the Evidence: A Case Study

[Kevin Christensen]

JK Williams wrote

Quote

After 40 years of study and prayer to try to make the Book of Mormon work, I can honestly say the one thing I am not is dismissive. As for the moundbuilders, in Joseph Smith's day it was common for people to believe the drumlins in western New York (such as the Hill Cumorah) were burial mounds constructed by ancient Americans. When you have many common legends of a "good" white race being destroyed by a "bad" brown one in early 19th-century America, it's on you to explain how it's just coincidental that these themes appear in a book that emerged at that exact time.

But you're right. 40 years of study and prayer led me to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century late-Protestant production that is exactly what you would expect to emerge from that milieu. I've spent a lot of time dealing with the evidence over the years, as you know, so I'm not going to rehash it. You asked for an explanation that fits, and this does. 

I've also been watching the notion that the Book of Mormon is "exactly what you would expect from that milieu" for more than 40 years.  One thing I keep noticing, whether from Alexander Campbell, or Brodie, or Silverberg, or the Roberts Study, or Vogel, or Palmer, or Metcalfe, or even the recent Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon is that such a simple picture runs into the problem that the picture in the Book of Mormon, when given a close and careful reading and contextualization, is considerably off.  It's easy to paint such a picture with broad strokes, but then, for those who take a bit more time and care, and try a different soil for the same seeds, the details don't fit.  The closer I look, the more off they get.  Consider "a 'good' white race being destroyed by a bad 'brown' one against the far from flattering picture of the Nephites that Jacob, a first generation immigrant, and historian of the initial division provides:

Quote

Now the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites; nevertheless, they were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.

14 But I, Jacob, shall not hereafter distinguish athem by these names, but I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings.

15 And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son.

16 Yea, and they also began to search much gold and silver, and began to be lifted up somewhat in pride. (Jacob 1)

Rather than races, we get political divisions emphasized rather than racial or strictly geneological divisions, and right after establishing those political divisions, we get into Nephite misbehavior that Jacob records on the spot and which eventually gets much worse. Rather than good white guys and bad Lamanites, we get this:

Quote

9 And notwithstanding this great abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue—

10 And after they had done this thing, they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies even unto death; and after they have done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts, because of the hardness of their hearts; and they do it for a token of bravery.

11 O my beloved son, how can a people like this, that are without civilization—

12 (And only a few years have passed away, and they were a civil and a delightsome people)

13 But O my son, how can a people like this, whose delight is in so much abomination—

14 How can we expect that God will stay his hand in judgment against us?

15 Behold, my heart cries: Wo unto this people. Come out in judgment, O God, and hide their sins, and wickedness, and abominations from before thy face! (Moroni 9)

And there is the problem of the colors being off.  Despite J.K.'s quotes around "brown" that color does not occur in the Book of Mormon, nor does the one we ought to expect in the early 19th century from people who had the language, culture and everyday contemporary social priority to distinguish white from both black and red.  We get "skin of blackness" exactly once, from Nephi, who is the only major author who was raised to adulthood in the Ancient Near east, and who therefore is, the only one who would or could or did use a common Ancient Near East expression as they might use it.  (A very detailed essay on this specific point, drawing on contemporary Assyrian records is coming from the Interpreter in the near future.) This is the same Nephi who warns that cultural blinders can have an effect on how things get understood by those who do not know that culture, which means that assuming that the Book of Mormon is best read as a 19th document rather than as an inspired translation of an ancient record can lead to trouble if the book is what it claims to be (See 2 Nephi 25:1-5).  Unless we check the text against the times and cultures it claims for itself, we will have no idea of what difference a cultural context might make.  I've reviewed several books and a great many authors who stumbled on that specific issue.  Indeed, the LDS have often misread the Book of Mormon based on their own cultural blinders.

While theories about the Natives being descended from the Lost 10 Tribes and the Mound Builders were fairly common in Joseph Smith's day, that is not the theory of the Book of Mormon.  And this raises the point about how cultural expectations and a failure to read closely, or at all, can lead even Harold Bloom to claim in The American Religion that the Book of Mormon a manifestation of the Lost 10 Tribes myth/tradition.  Dan Vogel's Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon gathers together a wide array of different theories and origin points, none of which was Jerusalem and 600 BCE.  That particular time period and point of origin has become even more important since Nibley's discussion of "the Axial period" with the arrival of Margaret Barker, who, I notice, has a decidedly different take on the Book of Mormon than did Joseph Smith's Protestant contemporary and important critic, Alexander Campbell Jr. who titled his response "Delusions."  I do think that knowledge of those kinds of theories is important in understanding why the Latter-day Saints could misread the Book of Mormon on several relevant points without meaning that we are bound to their misunderstandings.  Larry Porter's FAIR presentation on the New World Book of Mormon geography shows how a specific setting accounts for many important details in the text (notably the account of Limhi's explorers) that those who think of Mound Builders and Joseph Smith's environment never bother to notice or explain.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

I still find Nibley's essay on the Book of Mormon as "Just Another Book?" in The Prophetic Book of Mormon, and John Gee's important "The Wrong Kind of Book" in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon as particularly telling in comparison to the "exactly what you would expect" argument.   Nibley records the ongoing shock and scandal of the Book of Mormon, and Gee uses the picture in View of the Hebrews, the Book of Pukie parody, and the Spaulding story to demonstrate exactly what was expected by Joseph's 19th century contemporaries, and just how far the Book of Mormon diverged from expectations.

Whenever I read studies by people who presume the Book of Mormon to be a typical or even fairly unusual 19th century document, I am reminded of Kuhn's remark that "In short, consciously or not, the decision to employ a particular piece of apparatus and to use it in a particular way carries an assumption that only certain sorts of circumstances will arise.” (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 59).  They might make some notable and interesting observations, but I consistently find that the things I find most interesting and persuasive simply do not show up.  And when something like the ability to explore the actual territory for Lehi's journey in the Arabian penninsula, or the recent LiDAR survey in Mesoamerica happens, we ought to expect major divergences from the picture in the Book of Mormon, rather than impressive consistency.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 12, 2022 by Kevin Christensen

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

These have all changed in the last hundred years to accomodate Postmodernism.

Tell your friend.   Religion cannot be proven right OR wrong by any of these ideas that work well for experimental science.   Religion ain't that.

Religion is more LIKE psychotherapy...

Religion ain't about "facts"

Wow. Stating it like that really gets to the heart of the matter. I have no problem with your approach to life or to your religion. You be you.

But if somebody's objective isn't to benefit from something "like psychotherapy," but rather is to learn a little bit about truth, facts, and reality, do you think the normative tools of rationality may be useful to achieving those goals?

[tagriffy]

18 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I've also been watching the notion that the Book of Mormon is "exactly what you would expect from that milieu" for more than 40 years.  One thing I keep noticing, whether from Alexander Campbell, or Brodie, or Silverberg, or the Roberts Study, or Vogel, or Palmer, or Metcalfe, or even the recent Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon is that such a simple picture runs into the problem that the picture in the Book of Mormon, when given a close and careful reading and contextualization, is considerably off.  It's easy to paint such a picture with broad strokes, but then, for those who take a bit more time and care, and try a different soil for the same seeds, the details don't fit.  The closer I look, the more off they get.  Consider "a 'good' white race being destroyed by a bad 'brown' one against the far from flattering picture of the Nephites that Jacob, a first generation immigrant, and historian of the initial division provides:

Hi Kevin! It is a pleasure to interact with your ideas again. But where to start? I don't exactly disagree with you, but I don't exactly agree with you either. I think I can make a useful comparison. Let's look at Star Trek. In the last couple years, I bought Blu-ray editions of the complete series of the original series and The Next Generation. I watched both these complete series in the order of the original airdates, and I had these thoughts about them that I didn't have watching the original series reruns as a kid and watching The Next Generation when it came out on television in my twenties. The thought was the original series was so sixties and The Next Generation was so nineties. They were, as jkwilliams said of the Book of Mormon, "exactly what you would expect from that milieu."

Both series, individually and collectively are both pretty easy to paint in broad strokes. But as with your criticism of Campbell, Brodie, et al., the broader the brushstroke, the worse off it is going to get in the details, and will likely miss just radical these shows were for their time. In that sense I do agree with you. At the same time, the authors you cite weren't necessarily doing deep dives into the Book of Mormon. Campbell was writing a book review cum apologetic defense of his sect. Brodie was writing a biography of Joseph Smith. The Roberts Study and Vogel's Indian Origins were about looking at material lying behind the Book of Mormon. Palmer ... well, let's forget about Palmer. 🤪

I trust you are getting my point. If I were writing a review of the entire three year original series, or writing about Star Trek in the context of a biography of Gene Roddenberry, or writing about the science fiction material that lay behind the series, it surely would paint the series in broad brushstrokes that are surely going to be inaccurate when studying the series episode by episode in great detail. Looked at this way, your criticism comes off as "they didn't do what I wanted them to do."

Note I am not saying that such a criticism is wrong in and of itself. I too would love to see more work from my side of the aisle that focuses on close and careful readings and contextualization. Mark D. Thomas is a closer example to what I would like to see than Dan Vogel, for example. Or consider what you said of Gee's "The Wrong Kind of Book"--

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Gee uses the picture in View of the Hebrews, the Book of Pukie parody, and the Spaulding story to demonstrate exactly what was expected by Joseph's 19th century contemporaries, and just how far the Book of Mormon diverged from expectations.

Well, duh! Not having read the essay (yet), I suspect the only difference between Gee and I would be that he would see the divergence as evidence of historicity whereas I'd see them as evidence of Joseph's genius. Regardless, it is not the fact the divergences exist that matter so much a the meaning of the divergences. And it is more exploration of the meaning that I would like to see.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

But if somebody's objective isn't to benefit from something "like psychotherapy," but rather is to learn a little bit about truth, facts, and reality, do you think the normative tools of rationality may be useful to achieving those goals?

I keep telling you about postmodernism and it never sticks.

Those normative rules are no longer normative.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_philosophy#:~:text=Postmodernist philosophers in general argue,than being complete and certain.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

Of course postmodernism is a trend and different philosophers may differ 

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by mfbukowski

[PeaceKeeper]

"I guess we will find out"

 

When I'm going in circles and getting dizzy.

[Analytics]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I keep telling you about postmodernism and it never sticks.

Those normative rules are no longer normative.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_philosophy#:~:text=Postmodernist philosophers in general argue,than being complete and certain.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

Of course postmodernism is a trend and different philosophers may differ 

 

I wasn't addressing my post to a postmodern philosopher. I was addressing it to somebody who wants to better understand facts, truth, and reality.

In general, people are becoming less interested in philosophy. I wouldn't say that postmodernism is dead, but hopefully it will be checked into hospice soon. Quoting Steven Pinker:

"The humanities have yet to recover from the disaster of postmodernism, with its defiant obscurantism, self-refuting relativism, and suffocating political correctness. Many of its luminaries—Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, the Critical Theorists—are morose cultural pessimists who declare that modernity is odious, all statements are paradoxical, works of art are tools of oppression, liberal democracy is the same as fascism, and Western civilization is circling the drain." Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (p. 406)

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

I wasn't addressing my post to a postmodern philosopher. I was addressing it to somebody who wants to better understand facts, truth, and reality.

In general, people are becoming less interested in philosophy. I wouldn't say that postmodernism is dead, but hopefully it will be checked into hospice soon. Quoting Steven Pinker:

"The humanities have yet to recover from the disaster of postmodernism, with its defiant obscurantism, self-refuting relativism, and suffocating political correctness. Many of its luminaries—Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, the Critical Theorists—are morose cultural pessimists who declare that modernity is odious, all statements are paradoxical, works of art are tools of oppression, liberal democracy is the same as fascism, and Western civilization is circling the drain." Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now (p. 406)

Sorry.

Clearly the trend is in the other direction.

Is this talk more like psychotherapy or science?

You are barking up the wrong obelisk 

See reality, not what you think reality is.  Religion has a different purpose than what you think. 

Overcome the World and Find Rest

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/47nelson?lang=eng

Edited October 13, 2022 by mfbukowski

[Analytics]

16 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Sorry.

Clearly the trend is in the other direction.

Is this talk more like psychotherapy or science?

You are barking up the wrong obelisk 

See reality, not what you think reality is.  Religion has a different purpose than what you think. 

Overcome the World and Find Rest

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/47nelson?lang=eng

I know you think I'm a knuckle-dragging philosophical simpleton, but I reject postmodernism and side with enlightenment thinking and humanism. Being in the company of folks like Steven Pinker and Sean Carroll gives me some consolation.

Please read Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker.

Or if you prefer videos:

 

[mfbukowski]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

In general, people are becoming less interested in philosophy. I wouldn't say that postmodernism is dead, but hopefully it will be checked into hospice soon. Quoting Steven Pinker:

Exactly 180° off!

Wittgenstein killed philosophy, showing that it is just jibberish; like a good doctor who frees the world from disease.

It is all linguistic confusion! 

And THAT IS the essence of postmodernism.

There is no "reality" that HUMANS CAN KNOW besides what humans can perceive and talk about.

The Great Secret is out!

And postmodernism gets that.  All humans are good at is talking.

Why do you think we waste our time here, all cobbling together our our personal truths?

Just showing up here shows that our reality is just words.   

Overcoming the world and creating our own is what godlings do, right?

And you want scientific evidence for how much God weighs if he has a body?

You are missing the boat.

Quick! You are naked!

 

 

[mfbukowski]

18 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I know you think I'm a knuckle-dragging philosophical simpleton, but I reject postmodernism and side with enlightenment thinking and humanism. Being in the company of folks like Steven Pinker and Sean Carroll gives me some consolation.

Please read Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker.

Or if you prefer videos:

 

If God is human, humanism is theology.

These are all words that show one side of it.

Words=Postmodernism 

Postmodernism is about knowing that all we talk about is words, paradigms, and points of view.

But thanks.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OUTSIDE OF HUMAN WORDS TO ANY OTHER ALLEGED REALITY

Religion is about the unspeakable

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

 

[jkwilliams]

21 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

JK Williams wrote

I've also been watching the notion that the Book of Mormon is "exactly what you would expect from that milieu" for more than 40 years.  One thing I keep noticing, whether from Alexander Campbell, or Brodie, or Silverberg, or the Roberts Study, or Vogel, or Palmer, or Metcalfe, or even the recent Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon is that such a simple picture runs into the problem that the picture in the Book of Mormon, when given a close and careful reading and contextualization, is considerably off.  It's easy to paint such a picture with broad strokes, but then, for those who take a bit more time and care, and try a different soil for the same seeds, the details don't fit.  The closer I look, the more off they get.  Consider "a 'good' white race being destroyed by a bad 'brown' one against the far from flattering picture of the Nephites that Jacob, a first generation immigrant, and historian of the initial division provides:

Rather than races, we get political divisions emphasized rather than racial or strictly geneological divisions, and right after establishing those political divisions, we get into Nephite misbehavior that Jacob records on the spot and which eventually gets much worse. Rather than good white guys and bad Lamanites, we get this:

And there is the problem of the colors being off.  Despite J.K.'s quotes around "brown" that color does not occur in the Book of Mormon, nor does the one we ought to expect in the early 19th century from people who had the language, culture and everyday contemporary social priority to distinguish white from both black and red.  We get "skin of blackness" exactly once, from Nephi, who is the only major author who was raised to adulthood in the Ancient Near east, and who therefore is, the only one who would or could or did use a common Ancient Near East expression as they might use it.  (A very detailed essay on this specific point, drawing on contemporary Assyrian records is coming from the Interpreter in the near future.) This is the same Nephi who warns that cultural blinders can have an effect on how things get understood by those who do not know that culture, which means that assuming that the Book of Mormon is best read as a 19th document rather than as an inspired translation of an ancient record can lead to trouble if the book is what it claims to be (See 2 Nephi 25:1-5).  Unless we check the text against the times and cultures it claims for itself, we will have no idea of what difference a cultural context might make.  I've reviewed several books and a great many authors who stumbled on that specific issue.  Indeed, the LDS have often misread the Book of Mormon based on their own cultural blinders.

While theories about the Natives being descended from the Lost 10 Tribes and the Mound Builders were fairly common in Joseph Smith's day, that is not the theory of the Book of Mormon.  And this raises the point about how cultural expectations and a failure to read closely, or at all, can lead even Harold Bloom to claim in The American Religion that the Book of Mormon a manifestation of the Lost 10 Tribes myth/tradition.  Dan Vogel's Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon gathers together a wide array of different theories and origin points, none of which was Jerusalem and 600 BCE.  That particular time period and point of origin has become even more important since Nibley's discussion of "the Axial period" with the arrival of Margaret Barker, who, I notice, has a decidedly different take on the Book of Mormon than did Joseph Smith's Protestant contemporary and important critic, Alexander Campbell Jr. who titled his response "Delusions."  I do think that knowledge of those kinds of theories is important in understanding why the Latter-day Saints could misread the Book of Mormon on several relevant points without meaning that we are bound to their misunderstandings.  Larry Porter's FAIR presentation on the New World Book of Mormon geography shows how a specific setting accounts for many important details in the text (notably the account of Limhi's explorers) that those who think of Mound Builders and Joseph Smith's environment never bother to notice or explain.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

I still find Nibley's essay on the Book of Mormon as "Just Another Book?" in The Prophetic Book of Mormon, and John Gee's important "The Wrong Kind of Book" in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon as particularly telling in comparison to the "exactly what you would expect" argument.   Nibley records the ongoing shock and scandal of the Book of Mormon, and Gee uses the picture in View of the Hebrews, the Book of Pukie parody, and the Spaulding story to demonstrate exactly what was expected by Joseph's 19th century contemporaries, and just how far the Book of Mormon diverged from expectations.

Whenever I read studies by people who presume the Book of Mormon to be a typical or even fairly unusual 19th century document, I am reminded of Kuhn's remark that "In short, consciously or not, the decision to employ a particular piece of apparatus and to use it in a particular way carries an assumption that only certain sorts of circumstances will arise.” (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 59).  They might make some notable and interesting observations, but I consistently find that the things I find most interesting and persuasive simply do not show up.  And when something like the ability to explore the actual territory for Lehi's journey in the Arabian penninsula, or the recent LiDAR survey in Mesoamerica happens, we ought to expect major divergences from the picture in the Book of Mormon, rather than impressive consistency.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

I wasn't going to continue in this thread, but a couple of thoughts:

1. It's interesting that so much effort goes into showing the differences between bog-standard moundbuilder mythology and the Book of Mormon, while equal effort is made to ignore the giant chasm of differences between what we know about ancient America and what the Book of Mormon describes. Most scholars--at least those who don't need Mormonism to be true or false--use the Book of Mormon not to get a better understanding of ancient America but because it helps us understand what was going on in frontier America during the Second Great Awakening; they do so because the text is a much better match with the latter than the former. Apologists will scoff that these scholars are looking at it superficially and not taking the Book of Mormon seriously. As you noted, several scholars have looked at it in depth and taken it seriously, but you reject them in favor of Hugh Nibley and John Gee, as is your prerogative. However, arguing that it's "the wrong kind of book" is like saying that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" obviously don't spring from the same postwar "Red Scare" era because they are such different films. Again, there's a reason most scholars don't take the Book of Mormon seriously as an ancient text: it is textually and thematically dependent on a  specifically American, Protestant/Restorationist, 19th-century understanding of the King James Version of the Bible. And forgive me for not finding "impressive consistency" between Book of Mormon claims and known geography and history. 

2. (Disclaimer: Kuhn was on my reading list when I took my oral exams for my Master's Degree.) I have tried to figure out how your paradigm differs from the prevailing apologetic one, but I don't see much of a difference. You seem to be saying that we're reading the text wrong because of our expectations, but it seems to me that your reading depends equally on your expectations.

And no, I'm not being dismissive. Once upon a time I thought the "hits" were impressive, too. Not so much anymore. Carry on.

[Analytics]

21 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

If God is human, humanism is theology.

Therefore, if humanism isn't theology, God isn't human. Modus tollens.

21 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

These are all words that show one side of it.

Words=Postmodernism 

Postmodernism is about knowing that all we talk about is words, paradigms, and points of view.

But thanks.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OUTSIDE OF HUMAN WORDS TO ANY OTHER ALLEGED REALITY

If you actually took a walk outside and got hit by a car, that wouldn't be alleged reality. That would be reality. Full stop. I care about real things that affected our ancestors long before they spoke words.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Analytics

[mfbukowski]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

I wasn't going to continue in this thread, but a couple of thoughts:

1. It's interesting that so much effort goes into showing the differences between bog-standard moundbuilder mythology and the Book of Mormon, while equal effort is made to ignore the giant chasm of differences between what we know about ancient America and what the Book of Mormon describes. Most scholars--at least those who don't need Mormonism to be true or false--use the Book of Mormon not to get a better understanding of ancient America but because it helps us understand what was going on in frontier America during the Second Great Awakening; they do so because the text is a much better match with the latter than the former. Apologists will scoff that these scholars are looking at it superficially and not taking the Book of Mormon seriously. As you noted, several scholars have looked at it in depth and taken it seriously, but you reject them in favor of Hugh Nibley and John Gee, as is your prerogative. However, arguing that it's "the wrong kind of book" is like saying that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" obviously don't spring from the same postwar "Red Scare" era because they are such different films. Again, there's a reason most scholars don't take the Book of Mormon seriously as an ancient text: it is textually and thematically dependent on a  specifically American, Protestant/Restorationist, 19th-century understanding of the King James Version of the Bible. And forgive me for not finding "impressive consistency" between Book of Mormon claims and known geography and history. 

2. (Disclaimer: Kuhn was on my reading list when I took my oral exams for my Master's Degree.) I have tried to figure out how your paradigm differs from the prevailing apologetic one, but I don't see much of a difference. You seem to be saying that we're reading the text wrong because of our expectations, but it seems to me that your reading depends equally on your expectations.

And no, I'm not being dismissive. Once upon a time I thought the "hits" were impressive, too. Not so much anymore. Carry on.

No, thanks for a return to reason. Pinker makes my blood boil.

And Rorty does the same for others.

Please carry on

 

 

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

No, thanks for a return to reason. Pinker makes my blood boil.

And Rorty does the same for others.

Please carry on

 

This particular thread is about "evidence." It goes without saying that you think evidence and reason are irrelevant. 

[mfbukowski]

6 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

This particular thread is about "evidence." It goes without saying that you think evidence and reason are irrelevant. 

Nice try. Tell me how Rorty would handle that to make sure you understand my position on the use of those words

Edited October 13, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Therefore, if humanism isn't theology, God isn't human. Modus tollens.

If you actually took a walk outside and got hit by a car, that wouldn't be alleged reality. That would be reality. Full stop. I care about real things that affected our ancestors long before they spoke words.

 

Oh my.  Again?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

[jkwilliams]

38 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Therefore, if humanism isn't theology, God isn't human. Modus tollens.

If you actually took a walk outside and got hit by a car, that wouldn't be alleged reality. That would be reality. Full stop. I care about real things that affected our ancestors long before they spoke words.

I've heard it said that religious belief is like falling in love, which is a matter of the heart, not of "reason," "evidence," or "logic." To insist on a rational basis for religious belief is a "category error." In a sense, this is correct in that we fall in love with whomever we fall in love with. But it isn't an entirely reason-less, evidence-free choice. Say you've fallen in love with a beautiful woman who shares your goals, your faith, your aspirations. But then you find out she's actually a man who has a history of defrauding men out of their life savings by pretending to be a woman. Following "postmodern" (I'm using that word loosely) logic, pointing out that "she" has a penis is a category error, as it's an assertion of "fact" that has no place in determining whom to love and how. And besides, nothing is real outside our own minds, so no one can say it actually is a penis; it's just our flawed perception of “reality” making us believe it's a penis. Also, who are we to say that marrying a man who will defraud you doesn't "work" on some level? It certainly works for the guy pretending to be a woman. It can't be considered fraud because it's a purely emotional decision separate from naive notions of reason and logic. Obviously, the right path is to continue with the pretend woman and lose all your money.

Edited October 13, 2022 by jkwilliams

[Analytics]

16 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I've heard it said that religious belief is like falling in love, which is a matter of the heart, not of "reason," "evidence," or "logic." To insist on a rational basis for religious belief is a "category error." In a sense, this is correct in that we fall in love with whomever we fall in love with. But it isn't an entirely reason-less, evidence-free choice. Say you've fallen in love with a beautiful woman who shares your goals, your faith, your aspirations. But then you find out she's actually a man who has a history of defrauding men out of their life savings by pretending to be a woman. Following "postmodern" (I'm using that word loosely) logic, pointing out that "she" has a penis is a category error, as it's an assertion of "fact" that has no place in determining whom to love and how. And besides, nothing is real outside our own minds, so no one can say it actually is a penis; it's just our flawed perception of reality making us believe it's a penis. Also, who are we to say that marrying a man who will defraud you doesn't "work" on some level? It certainly works for the guy pretending to be a woman. It can't be considered fraud because it's a purely emotional decision separate from naive notions of reason and logic. Obviously, the right path is to continue with the pretend woman and lose all your money.

I totally agree, but my actual point is much more modest than that. Remembering the context of this, another poster said his goal was to discover and embrace literal facts, truth, and reality. That's different than wanting to choose the religion that will provide the most effective psychotherapy. For people who happen to reject Rorty's postmodern pragmaticism and instead embraces Pinker's reason and science, I recommend the books I listed.

[smac97]

On 10/12/2022 at 12:28 PM, jkwilliams said:

Quote

Way too facile for me.  And devoid of evidence.

I knew you were going to say I was merely "waving it off." After 40 years of study and prayer to try to make the Book of Mormon work, I can honestly say the one thing I am not is dismissive. As for the moundbuilders, in Joseph Smith's day it was common for people to believe the drumlins in western New York (such as the Hill Cumorah) were burial mounds constructed by ancient Americans. When you have many common legends of a "good" white race being destroyed by a "bad" brown one in early 19th-century America, it's on you to explain how it's just coincidental that these themes appear in a book that emerged at that exact time.

But you're right. 40 years of study and prayer led me to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century late-Protestant production that is exactly what you would expect to emerge from that milieu. I've spent a lot of time dealing with the evidence over the years, as you know, so I'm not going to rehash it. You asked for an explanation that fits, and this does. 

Fair enough.  You were summing up and stating conclusions, not marshaling evidence and presenting arguments.  I apologize for the mischaracterization of your statement.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 13, 2022 by smac97

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Fair enough.  You were summing up and stating conclusions, not marshaling evidence and presenting arguments.  I apologize for the mischaracterization of your statement.

Thanks,

-Smac

Again, what would be the point of rehashing what you and I have been talking about all these years? You make it sound wrong for me to not engage in such a rehash, but I don’t see the point. 

[jkwilliams]

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I totally agree, but my actual point is much more modest than that. Remembering the context of this, another poster said his goal was to discover and embrace literal facts, truth, and reality. That's different than wanting to choose the religion that will provide the most effective psychotherapy. For people who happen to reject Rorty's postmodern pragmaticism and instead embraces Pinker's reason and science, I recommend the books I listed.

I'm not really much of an empiricist. I agree with the postmoderns that "truth" is elusive and contingent, but I reject the idea that we cannot come to any reasonable, "good enough" conclusions about anything. There's a reason we don't leave the house by walking out a second-story window, and it isn't a category error to conclude that a particular ideology is rooted in 19th-century ideas, not ancient American ones. 

[mfbukowski]

32 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I'm not really much of an empiricist. I agree with the postmoderns that "truth" is elusive and contingent, but I reject the idea that we cannot come to any reasonable, "good enough" conclusions about anything. There's a reason we don't leave the house by walking out a second-story window, and it isn't a category error to conclude that a particular ideology is rooted in 19th-century ideas, not ancient American ones. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

And on the way down they would still have indescribable experiences that science cannot probe

Broken toes still hurt, but there's not much you can say about them

THAT is reality

Edited October 13, 2022 by mfbukowski

[jkwilliams]

Just now, mfbukowski said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

And on the way down they would still have indescribable experiences.

Broken toes still hurt, but there's not much you can say about them

Nice try.

[Analytics]

46 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I'm not really much of an empiricist. I agree with the postmoderns that "truth" is elusive and contingent, but I reject the idea that we cannot come to any reasonable, "good enough" conclusions about anything. There's a reason we don't leave the house by walking out a second-story window, and it isn't a category error to conclude that a particular ideology is rooted in 19th-century ideas, not ancient American ones. 

To clarify, when I say I'm an empiricist I don't me to imply I think empiricism provides final answers to deep philosophical problems. To me, such problems are about as interesting as what it really feels like to be a bat.

Rather, what I mean is that I'm in Pinker's camp that in terms of making the world a better place, what works is humanism, science, and reason. In other words, enlightenment thinking. And at its root, science is based on methodological empiricism and has shown that naturalism and realism best describe reality. 

When discussing whether "personal truths" are merely "just words" I'd rather turn to psycholinguistics than philosophy.