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5 minutes ago, smac97 said:

ICANN shows the mailing address for the domain's registrant is "Cheshire, GB."

Let the comparisons to the CES Letter commence!

Thanks,

-Smac

Except this one is a pro-Book of Mormon site.

A lot of links to https://evidencecentral.org/evidence/symbolic-time
and https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/nephis-good-inclusio/

Plus Fair etc.

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6 hours ago, Nofear said:

What do we know about the authors of this?

https://www.showyourshelf.com/

I just skimmed the email, but I got a notice about it from FAIR. I thought they were reccomending it, but I'd have to check my computer email to make sure.

 

Edit:  Here is what the email said:

Quote
Over the past few years, there seems to have been an influx of long lists of faith-challenging questions. Many have shared their lists of doubts and the sheer size of each list can give the impression that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ does not have a leg to stand on and that it takes “mental gymnastics” to even attempt to answer each question.

The initial response has largely been an influx of long answers to these long lists of questions. These responses have been excellent, but should we limit ourselves to this defensive approach?

Several years ago, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said:

 
In making our case for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, I believe God intends us to find and use the evidence He has given—reasons, if you will—which affirm the truthfulness of His work.

Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence—we still need that spiritual confirmation in the heart... —but not to seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief when it is available is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position and deny us a unique, persuasive vocabulary in the latter-day arena of religious investigation and sectarian debate. Thus armed with so much evidence... we ought to be more assertive than we sometimes are in defending our testimony of truth.
- The Greatness of the Evidence (2017)
 
 

Evidences for the restored gospel are continually being discovered and shared in a variety of places such as FAIR, The Interpreter Foundation, Evidence Central and elsewhere. “Show Your Shelf” is an ongoing compilation of faith-affirming questions, mostly emerging from the study of this scholarly work, and demonstrates that there are long lists of questions in both directions.

 

 

As Elder Holland says, our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence, so any long list of faith-affirming questions does not need to be “successful” or “better” than any faith-challenging list. Many may believe there are perfectly adequate answers to endless faith-affirming questions, in the same way many others believe there are perfectly adequate answers to endless faith-challenging questions. Similarly, while endless faith-affirming questions may be uninteresting or unconvincing to many, they can effectively illustrate how many others find endless faith-challenging questions equally uninteresting or unconvincing.

The 500 questions on the shelf are not attributed to any individual or group but aim to represent the collective mind of faithful Latter-day Saints.

Show your shelf by adding your questions to the list.

Anonymous

The editor is a faithful member of the church with an interest in research and philosophy.

Watch for a faith-affirming “Show Your Shelf” question in upcoming copies of the newsletter.

 

Edited by Rain
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On 10/21/2022 at 1:19 PM, tagriffy said:

I don't know anything about the author(s), but the site itself is superficial at best.

Really. My first notice of this site was in a FAIR newsletter dated Oct 15. Nearly two weeks later I have been on the site most days and have gotten through the first fifty questions of the 500 listed. Many of the questions are not new to me, but some are and I found them quite intriguing. The "further reading" aspect given in associated links is very good and takes you to excellent scholarly resources in Book of Mormon Central, the Religious Studies Center, etc. These are all well-sourced, and take a fair amount of time to consider. Thus my only getting through 50 questions in two weeks (coupled with my natural disposition to slothfulness generally). I am much impressed with the content and appreciative of the effort that has gone toward making this substantial resource possible. I also like the idea it espouses of taking the opportunity to, in a positive manner, go on the offensive with our faith claims in the face of critics rather than always being "just" apologists.  

It seems to me that you give it short shrift, but then again perhaps I should be happy that we have a genuine polymath on this board! 🙂

Edited by Derl Sanderson
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2 hours ago, Derl Sanderson said:

Really. My first notice of this site was in a FAIR newsletter dated Oct 15. Nearly two weeks later I have been on the site most days and have gotten through the first fifty questions of the 500 listed. Many of the questions are not new to me, but some are and I found them quite intriguing. The "further reading" aspect given in associated links is very good and takes you to excellent scholarly resources in Book of Mormon Central, the Religious Studies Center, etc. These are all well-sourced, and take a fair amount of time to consider. Thus my only getting through 50 questions in two weeks (coupled with my natural disposition to slothfulness generally). I am much impressed with the content and appreciative of the effort that has gone toward making this substantial resource possible. I also like the idea it espouses of taking the opportunity to, in a positive manner, go on the offensive with our faith claims in the face of critics rather than always being "just" apologists.  

It seems to me that you give it short shrift, but then again perhaps I should be happy that we have a genuine polymath on this board! 🙂

I call it superficial because even if the answers prove spot on, they don't prove anything. Let's take a few examples:

Quote

Unless he was inspired, how could 23-year-old Joseph Smith dictate all 269,510 words of the Book of Mormon without any notes? Read more…

Presumably "inspired" means "divinely inspired." Exactly how does the ability to dictate 269,510 words show divine inspiration? By that argument, Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) and King (It, The Stand) must be especially touched by divine inspiration.

Quote

Unless he was inspired, how could Joseph Smith achieve such incredible and complex internal consistency while dictating the Book of Mormon

Again, how exactly does this show divine inspiration? The novels cited above also show incredible and complex internal consistency.

Quote

How did Joseph Smith sustain a blistering pace of dictating the whole Book of Mormon in around 60 working days?

Um, because he didn't have a 9 to 5 job to worry about? I've been on vacation for almost two weeks. In that time I completed 3045 words of a 7990 word essay (a portion of which had to be completely rewritten because I forgot to save it), wrote another 5276 word essay, and I'm working a third essay that has 2157 words so far. That's not counting all the stuff I've written on this board. Amazing what can be done when you don't have much else to worry about!

More to the point, how does the speed of the work actually show anything? For that matter, what does it show?

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