Decent Post on Proof and Evidence at Sic et Non

[_stemelbow]

That's exactly what DCP said. When pressed you were unable to explain how to separate the "alleged" from its hit pieceness or articleness. If you've figured out how to do it now, do so, otherwise you cannot claim misrepresentation.

Please visit Kishkumen. he may deny it now, I don't know, but he did agree that DCP's "alleged" claim had to do with it being a "hit piece" or "smear" not with any piece being in existence at all.

[_stemelbow]

You keep reiterating this "avowed critic" thing, as if I was born this way and have never been any different.

huh. Avowed would indicate you are openly a critic. I think that's clear. It has nothing to do with whether you have always been a critic.

You also keep saying "even you" must acknowledge that Joseph Smith had some plates, as if you've scored a point.

I'm not saying it "as if" I've scored a point. its merely indicating that the evidence this whole testimony was meant to supply worked. Even you and avowed critic must conceded that Joseph Smith had plates, that appeared ancient to untrained eyes, and had writings on them. That's a start.

Not only do you not score points by claiming to have proven an undisputed issue,

The point scoring is not mine. You can't deny there were plates. That's a start.

you're still oblivious to how "Joseph showed some plates to a small group of his close friends and relatives" doesn't help Mormonism. It hurts it. It is consistent with standard operating procedure in a con game. I've said that many times, including in this thread.

So do you deny he had plates or not? It seems you are obfuscating again. It doesn't matter if in your estimation it helps or hurts Mormonism. The question is, did Joseph have ancient looking plates what had writings on them?

Stemelbow, please state with specificity what qualifications the Eight Witnesses, individually or collectively, had to determine what ancient metal plates would have looked like. (Hint: that the plates looked conveniently like what they assumed ancient plates would have looked like does not help you. Cf. the Kinderhook Plates.)

Are you denying that Joseph Smith had plates and that those plates were either ancient or made to look ancient tot he untrained eye. No more obfuscation, DJ(;

[_Buffalo]

That's exactly what DCP said. When pressed you were unable to explain how to separate the "alleged" from its hit pieceness or articleness. If you've figured out how to do it now, do so, otherwise you cannot claim misrepresentation.

Please visit Kishkumen. he may deny it now, I don't know, but he did agree that DCP's "alleged" claim had to do with it being a "hit piece" or "smear" not with any piece being in existence at all.

There is no way to demonstrate that from DCP's actual words. If you disagree, I invite you to prove me wrong. :)

[_Chap]

Kishkumen:

The problem appears to be that Stemelbow wants to say in effect that "professor of classics" and "slayer of the Minotaur" are both merely descriptive titles that are not question-begging in any way whatsoever.

I had no idea he saw professors as beings of such mythological and awesome status. Well, we do wear steel underpants to prevent our fans from stealing our virtue!

Time for a new avatar ...



Cool kilt there ...

[_Darth J]

Kishkumen:

The problem appears to be that Stemelbow wants to say in effect that "professor of classics" and "slayer of the Minotaur" are both merely descriptive titles that are not question-begging in any way whatsoever.

I had no idea he saw professors as beings of such mythological and awesome status. Well, we do wear steel underpants to prevent our fans from stealing our virtue!

[off topic] Kishkumen, did Theseus sneak a sword into the Labyrinth, or did he kill the Minotaur with his bare hands? I have read both. What is the official doctrine? I tend to believe that whatever Edith Hamilton said is true, but I can't remember which one she said. [/off topic]

[_Darth J]

You keep reiterating this "avowed critic" thing, as if I was born this way and have never been any different.

huh. Avowed would indicate you are openly a critic. I think that's clear. It has nothing to do with whether you have always been a critic.

I'm not saying it "as if" I've scored a point. its merely indicating that the evidence this whole testimony was meant to supply worked. Even you and avowed critic must conceded that Joseph Smith had plates, that appeared ancient to untrained eyes, and had writings on them. That's a start.

The point scoring is not mine. You can't deny there were plates. That's a start.

So do you deny he had plates or not? It seems you are obfuscating again. It doesn't matter if in your estimation it helps or hurts Mormonism. The question is, did Joseph have ancient looking plates what had writings on them?

Are you denying that Joseph Smith had plates and that those plates were either ancient or made to look ancient tot he untrained eye. No more obfuscation, DJ(;

Yes, Board Readers, stemelbow is serious. I have repeatedly stated in this thread it is an undisputed fact that Joseph Smith showed some plates to the Eight Witnesses, and that I think this hurts Mormonism instead of helping because it is consistent with a con game. And stemelbow still says I am obfuscating.

its merely indicating that the evidence this whole testimony was meant to supply worked.

It certainly did in your case, in Daniel Peterson's case, and in many others. You are trying to use the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses as circumstantial evidence that the Book of Mormon is true because you are buying into fallacious reasoning as intended. There is no foundation for the Eight Witnesses having any idea as to the authenticity of the object they were shown, so their testimony is not valid evidence. Additionally, you have to believe Joseph Smith's story to believe that the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses establishes anything. But if you believe Joseph Smith's story, you necessarily believe he had the golden plates, making the Eight Witnesses irrelevant.

If your only purpose is to show that "Joseph had some plates that had inscriptions on them," you don't purport to havea revelation from God about it, you don't get a small inner circle of relatives and close friends and take them off by themselves somewhere, and you don't write up a statement from them affirmatively stating a fact they could not have known (that Joseph Smith was the translator of the plates they were shown) and an opinion they were not qualified to give (that the plates they were shown were consistent with what ancient plates would look like). You just show the plates to whomever cares to see them.

[_RayAgostini]

Apparently even Dawkins has a more open mind than you do.

All you do is mock. It's your trademark, and that's why you cannot be taken seriously.

That was the point of DCP's blog post - it's not "so patently obvious". What you are is a pseudoskeptic:

Wow, strong words, Ray. Let's look at an example of something I posted a while ago in response to you and see if it's consistent with being a pseudoskeptic:

Instead of taking two quotes talking about different things, maybe it would be helpful if you took one of my several statements where I said, like Buffalo, that I do not claim to know that space aliens don't exist, but I have not seen convincing proof to make me believe that they have visited the Earth. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17043&p=421222&hilit=agnostic#p421222

Hmm. That doesn't look very much like a pseudoskeptic. Let's see if there's another example of something I have said that looks like pseudoskepticism:

I would like to believe that there is some kind of intelligence in the universe that could reasonably be called "God," and this is related to my feeling that I would like to believe that we don't simply cease to exist when we die. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13757&hilit=agnostic

Nope, that's not quite doing it, either. Okay, maybe this?

I'm not really sure where I am now as far as metaphysics go. I think there is a God, and I think he has a particular relationship with the human race. I hope there is life after death. I can't offer a rational explanation right now for why I think those things. I think that Jesus of Nazareth has a unique place in humanity, and I still think he in some way bridged the gap between humanity and God---although I feel that he died for "sin" in the general sense of mankind's separation from God, not for "sins." And I think that God could care less what religion a person follows. If there is a God that has some special purpose for humanity, then I think whatever salvation is, it is individual, not institutional. I do not believe that rituals are relevant to whatever salvation is. I don't believe that a just and rational God---the only kind you would want to be with anyway---lives in a tree fort and you need to know the password and the secret handshake to get in. I'm probably leaning gnostic right now, except that I am also leaning heavily that experiencing life itself is the secret knowledge. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13596&p=335723&hilit=agnostic#p335723

Oh, I guess not. You know, Ray, it looks exactly like you're on a fanatical jihad about nothing, and you're making things up and arbitrarily throwing labels around when people say things you don't like. How ironic that you are doing so in a thread discussing the meaning and analysis of what evidence is.

I don't know who you think you're kidding, but it's not me. Yourself, maybe?

Three examples of hundreds that could be given:

That's a really profound way of looking at things. You know, I have maintained for some time now that the Loch Ness Monster killed JFK, and then faked Elvis' death but really abducted him in a flying saucer. Some of the people I talk to take issue with certain aspects of my claims, but I just advise them to put the difficult parts on the shelf and wait patiently for the day when a cogent reason to believe any of this arises.

Whoops! Did I make it seem as if "put it on the shelf" can be used to justify belief in absolutely anything? Silly me!

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3 ... 91#p587991

The aforementioned are not attacked because they are Mormon. They are attacked because they are f*****g morons.

It is simply coincidental that in addition to being f*****g morons, they have a certain brand loyalty to the modern corporate re-imagining of Joseph's magic polygamy cult.

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3 ... 07#p585407

And, as far as all the scientific evidences for or against a great flood is concerned, I will just state that there are a lot of PHD's in various sciences who would disagree with you if you try to assert that their was no such event!

See: Crank

Christ would disagree with you also, by the way!

See: Begging the question

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3 ... 12#p579012

Jihad, anyone?

The real irony here is that the NAMI and DCP are being criticised for, I'll let Scratch state it:

So I propose a kind of "compendium" of problematic material from FARMS and FAIR. Perhaps, as a group, we could go through all of the FARMS and FAIR documents and list all of the ad hominem attacks, nastiness, calls for viciousness, and so forth.

Yet dogma and mockery exists here in spades. You don't have an open mind at all, even if you claim to, because in spite of what you say, what you are speaks much louder. Perhaps you're fooling those who readily fall for your spin. I'm not even going to go into the alien/UFO subject on this board ever again because you have tainted it with pure mockery. (On my earlier UFO thread you were unable to demonstrate that you'd even read the most basic literature on the subject.)

But have fun anyway. It's just terribly sad to see (supposedly) brighter minds like Kish and a few others lap up your dogma, your mockery, and your never-ending Jihads against anything you disagree with, or anyone who disagrees with you (the "cranks", of course).

I won't be wasting anymore time on this subject here, so you can run free and keep the spin spinning. My first day off, and it's not going to be spent watching the ego-driven "Darth Show".

[_Chap]

If your only purpose is to show that "Joseph had some plates that had inscriptions on them," you don't purport to havea revelation from God about it, you don't get a small inner circle of relatives and close friends and take them off by themselves somewhere, and you don't write up a statement from them affirmatively stating a fact they could not have known (that Joseph Smith was the translator of the plates they were shown) and an opinion they were not qualified to give (that the plates they were shown were consistent with what ancient plates would look like). You just show the plates to whomever cares to see them.

Of course God couldn't have allowed Joseph to show the plates to people, particularly scholars or archeologists. Had he done so, God would not have been pleased, since that would have meant that people had been given pretty well infallible evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and God wants people to be able to exercise faith, which can't be done if the evidence is completely convincing.

That's why instead he allowed the eight witnesses to see the plates, so we could read their solemn deposition, which ought to convince us, as should the testimony of the three witnesses ... oh, wait a minute ...

[_Kishkumen]

My position is simple and clear: no organ connected to the LDS Church or receiving support from the LDS Church should publish attacks on members of the LDS Church in good standing.

I don't see how that is a hypocritical request on my part.

[_RayAgostini]

My position is simple and clear: no organ connected to the LDS Church or receiving support from the LDS Church should publish attacks on members of the LDS Church in good standing.

I don't see how that is a hypocritical request on my part.

With the mockery and attacks that occur here on Mormons (in good standing, too - see Darth J as an example), it looks extremely hypocritical.