The Book of Mormon: Man-Made or God-Given?

[_spotlight]

There you go again. Making stuff up. You don't know me. You don't know time/effort I've sacrificed/made in looking into these things we talk about on this board. To simply point the finger (notice I'm not stating specifically which one) and say that I am somehow ignorantly holding on to "nothing more than presumption" is an insult to my integrity and intelligence. But I will let it pass and simply show off your comment for what it is. Making stuff up about people you don't even know but think you can extrapolate their personal history and put it all in a nice tidy little package.

Nice.

Then it is your fault for failing to present the evidence that would show your position is based on anything other than presupposition.

You posted a YouTube video. I viewed it. I've read a good deal of science. I'm not a scientist, but I think that science is awesome. I taught science, albeit at the elementary level, during my teaching career. I have nothing but admiration for scientific endeavor. To the point of this thread, however, I am more interested in looking at the Book of Mormon at face value...how did it get here? If the secular/humanistic arguments don't hold water then we need to...if we're honest with ourselves...look at other alternatives. Including the "gift and power of God" option.

The evidence from that video disproves the book. Are you seriously suggesting that we need to consider the option that it came from god when the book supports ideas that are patently false? That makes no sense at all. It's as if the book were to teach us that the earth is flat based upon the teachings of angels revealing knowledge from god to the ancient inhabitants of America. It's absurd.

The science is interesting and needs to be reasoned with.

There is nothing to reason away. The science is solid. It disproves your myth and the book that declares it to be true.

But the Book of Mormon...at face value...needs to be explained. The five arguments against the Book of Mormon that Elder Callister brought up...and it's not like it's the first time we've seen them...I see as sorely lacking in explaining the Book of Mormon's origins.

Only to TBMs such as yourself. It doesn't seem remarkable at all to me. Especially in light of the fact that Joe tried to convince a mark that he had the power to find treasures with his rock by using it to pretend to be able to read a book with the cover closed. Sounds pretty close to the scam used to translate the Book of Mormon doesn't it? You think Jacob 5 is impressive? I'm honestly underwhelmed. Here is an example of something that I find impressive. Jacob 5 doesn't begin to register on the intelligence scale in comparison.

I was looking on this thread, as I've said, to see if there were any new twists and turns on these five arguments and/or the other content of Elder Callister's talk that I might find new or interesting, but that hasn't been the outcome. We've simply gone off on other little rabbit trails that are basically consuming bandwidth and time at this point. I mean, hey, once IHAQ throws in the "intellectually dishonest" card and Lemmie is throwing in her two cents without engaging in the actual conversation...par for the course... it's time to think about whether the thread is worth my continued time and effort and/or the time of others in reading along.

All you have is an argument from ignorance at best. If this is your evidence then it still amounts to nothing more than presumption. Your experiences as I've shown before cannot be used to substantiate anything as I explained before with the example of two TBMs with the same cancer. The testimony of 16 million has the same problem. What about the 16 million who didn't join the church that have the opposing testimony?

All you are accomplishing here is a pretty good demonstration of an inability to think on your part MG.

[_mentalgymnast]

Why does one in trying to read this thread have to wade through all the tiresome comments about Mentalgymnist.

My sentiments exactly.

So far it hasn't been overpoweringly cumbersome though. The conversation has continued up to this point...without too much interference...although I've mentioned a couple of 'bumps in the road' along the way.

Regards,
MG

[_Chap]

I don't know what you think you'll accomplish with the bare "yes it's true" response. People here want to see good evidence for your "yes it's true" claim and not easily manipulated emotional feelings that validate some preconceived notion. Seriously, I don't know why you post here.

It has not escaped me that my posting here can be a painful experience for some.

Painful? Hardly. Puzzling? Yes, deeply so.

I don't know why you want to going on exposing yourself as you do. You aren't likely to convince anybody who reads this board.

Are you expecting an extra nice planet in the afterlife as a reward for sheer dogged persistence in the face of obvious and repeated failure?

[_mentalgymnast]

All you are accomplishing here is a pretty good demonstration of an inability to think on your part MG.

Then we have nothing further to share/communicate with each other about on this topic. I realize that at some point we're going to part ways. This seems to be that juncture/place.

Regards,
MG

[_Themis]

I'm not anti-science. I am aware of the fact, however, that science hasn't always 'got it right'. I'm not anti-knowledge, with the caveat that I'm open to the knowledge and instruction that God might have to give.

That's the same lines we get from those who deny evolution and global warming.

[_I have a question]

If the secular/humanistic arguments don't hold water then we need to...if we're honest with ourselves...look at other alternatives. Including the "gift and power of God" option. The science is interesting and needs to be reasoned with. But the Book of Mormon...at face value...needs to be explained.

You're looking at this entirely backwards.
The starting point is to assess if the "God-Given" arguments hold water.
If they don't then, by default it's Man-Made.

So, the arguments for the Book of Mormon being God-Given, what are they?

I believe you have it backwards. We need to explain the Book of Mormon...as it is. Where did it come from? The five arguments that Elder Callister reviewed are thin and don't fully explain, at least in my opinion, the origins of the Book of Mormon. If the origins cannot be successfully/completely explained by naturalistic means then I think that...again, if we're honest with ourselves...we need to look at the "gift and power of God" option seriously. And then not prejudge God on the content of the Book of Mormon and whether that content may or may not conform with our understanding/conception of what scripture has to 'look like' in order to be acceptable...coming back to your comments in regards to King James Bible similarities, apparent anachronisms, etc.

It's the WHOLE that needs to be looked at, in my opinion. Explain the book as a whole.

Start, let's say, with Jacob chapter five. Why is it there? Why did Joseph and/or others go to the effort of constructing that chapter and placing it in the Book of Mormon? What about the intelligence/knowledge/creativity...or what have you, that go into that chapter? Go back and read it if you need to. It gets rather complex and there's some good stuff online that will help you with your understanding of the complexity and congruent behavior of that chapter. And that's just one place to start. Which one of the five arguments reviewed by Elder Callister allows for these 'complexities' and cohesive narratives in the Book of Mormon as an aggregate WHOLE?

Regards,
MG

You still have it wrong. Callister wants to pigeon hole the critical arguments into little packages he can control. For instance, the one where he outlines plagiarism he completely ignores the blatantly obvious and erroneous KJV content in the Book of Mormon. He's being intellectually dishonest by doing so. He's not considering that there may be more than five options, a combination of events. Nor is he considering another option - that some of the book is God-Given and some Man-Made. He's not genuinely attempting to explore the idea that the Book of Mormon could be man-made. He's trying to make sure his audience don't explore it.

Now, back to that evidence for it being God-Given that you and Brother Callister seem so shy about....

[_spotlight]

Then we have nothing further to share/communicate with each other about on this topic. I realize that at some point we're going to part ways. This seems to be that juncture/place.

Translation: Just like Z, MG is incapable of addressing the argument.

[_Xenophon]

Obviously, Elder Callister is not going to go all out 'full blown' in regards to any one of these five arguments and/or a few others that could be mentioned. I wouldn't expect him to. If you would care to further elaborate on one of the five arguments against the Book of Mormon that you see as the overall 'winner' and 'killer' of the Book of Mormon's claims of divine origin...go for it. I've just not seen...as I've looked at these arguments in depth over the years...reason to 'bet the farm' on any one of them.

MG, sorry that you aren't feeling tip-top, hopefully you will be back to your runs soon.

I think we could go back and forth all day to no avail on this one. I trust you when you say you have looked at full fledged arguments presented from a critical point of view. If you didn't find any of them convincing, I doubt highly that I will be able to sway your opinion. Really my only contention is that it seems a bit silly to suggest Elder Callister tackled the authorship question when he took (at best) no more than a cursory glance at the arguments and compiled them in the manner he did. Also, by elaborating on 1 of the 5 points he made, I would kind of being lending credence to his mischaracterizations... not a great place to be in.

If you are looking for one singular "killer" of the Book of Mormon's divinity I think you will always come up short (perhaps this is the intent). It was not by one thing that I decided the truth claims of the church weren't true. It was death by a thousand paper-cuts. Each piece adding up and adding up until I could no longer agree with the thoughts that I had when I got baptized.

For the record, I think Palmer's examination and theory on authorship of the Book of Mormon seems more than reasonable. I doubt he got everything correct, history is a slippery bugger like that sometimes. I think it also helps that he has such a firm testimony of Christ, it helps him to avoid the charge of doing it just because he doesn't believe.

ETA: I see, just a few posts back, IHAQ did an excellent job highlighting why the way this argument was presented reads as rather disingenuous.

[_Themis]

I also notice you avoided my other post which deals with questions you asked about.

Could you refer me to that post? I move around doing different things during the day and I apparently missed it. I didn't intentionally avoid your post...unless I felt it wasn't worth responding to.

Anyway, I'd be happy to look at the post you're referring to. Copy and paste would work.

Thanks,
MG

1, 2, a little bit of 3, and maybe a little bit of 5. Joseph was a magician. Not the card trick or rabbit out of a hat type. Joseph like many others tried to convince people he had special powers to see things on a rock inside his hat. It's basically the same thing as the crystal ball. He was successful enough to convince a man to pay him to search for treasure. A treasure he never found(from what I understand it was because of a guardian spirit protecting the treasure ), and while the man continued to believe he could see things, his family did not and had Joseph arrested. The article you posted was horrible and simple minded. It lacked facts and reasonable logic. In many ways it is the old you cannot show exactly how it was done so it must be magic. Magicians today do it for entertainment, but in the past they did it to gain power, resources, women, and followers. All of which Joseph did.

Also, I have asked for a little detail of this complexity but so far have not been given anything in the past. Everything we see in the Book of Mormon are ideas that were already out there. The backbone of the Book of Mormon story is from a popular idea then, that has been debunked long before our time.

[_zerinus]

What substantial argument does Brother Callister put forward as "evidence" for concluding the Book of Mormon can only be God-Given?

He is not trying to. His objective is to demolish the arguments of the critics against it. When all the arguments of the critics against it are destroyed, the truth of the authorship claim of the Book of Mormon is established by default.

If I wrote a book; and I had a whole bunch of critics who claimed that I was lying, and I hadn’t written it myself; the burden of proof would be on them to establish their case. If they failed, then my claim to the authorship of it is established by default. The same applies to the Book of Mormon.