DCP claims no one has refuted LDS archeological evidence in the past 3 decades

[Moksha]

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

Gemli more than holds his own, even when sprayed with a barrage of insults by Mormonism's heaviest sprayers.

[drumdude]

DCP on the burden of proof:

gemli:. "It's up to those who claim something is true to demonstrate its truth, if they want to be taken seriously. Until that time, the null hypothesis says that there is no truth to a claim until it is demonstrated to be true."

But, as I've pointed out to you innumerable times (even just today), the answers to the biggest questions are not susceptible of universally convincing and definitive "proof" -- neither on your side of them nor on mine.

gemli: "It is the one making the claim of someone or something's existence who has the burden of proof."

Every single time you've made this assertion in the past -- every single time! -- I've challenged your use of the term "proof," I've denied any such "burden," and I've asked you to explain, in your cosmos of atoms and the void, where such a "burden" is to be derived.

gemli: "There is not a scintilla of evidence that does not consist of a story in a book."

Your contempt for the discipline of historiography is well known and abundantly documented here. But there is also non-historiographical evidence that you've refused to consider

gemli: "because it would be up to you to prove a positive claim of life after death."

I'm under no such obligation. As I've pointed out to you on innumerable prior occasions. And, as I've also pointed out to you, there is no clear place in your world of atoms and the void where any obligation would arise. It can't be deduced from stratigraphy, astrophysics, plant ecology, dissecting frogs, or even from the Queen of Sciences, entomology.

DCP loves to play these pedantic word games with gemli. Gemli rightly tries to explain over and over to DCP the concept of burden of proof, and DCP plays a philosophical word game saying proof can’t exist for anything ever.

DCP is completely ignoring the common sense argument that gemli is making. That those who make extraordinary claims should provide extraordinary evidence.

None of the Mormon evidence is even slightly convincing to unbiased non-Mormons. Even most academic Mormons wouldn’t stake their reputation on it. Unless they’ve decided to become professional shills.

[Dr Exiled]

This just in ...

Non-Mormon experts won't engage because they just want to sin.

[drumdude]

Here’s what a real Mormon academic looks like. One who is 100 times the man DCP could ever hope to be:

February 17, 1994

Dear Bishop Reeder:

I received with sadness and frustration your letter notifying me that a disciplinary council will be held against me for apostasy. It grieved me that I was about to be pushed out of my spiritual and cultural home for my honest and sincere scholarly thought and expression which were motivated by my care for the Church.

The foregoing chronology has alluded to some of my reservations for meeting with you as part of a Church investigation of my scholarship and ideas. I want to add to these and make clearer my view why I think such investigations are improper, morally questionable, and even destructive to the Church.

First of all, scholarship is not some sort of sin, a “failing of the flesh,” which an individual recognizes to be an error and which that individual considers to be a blemish to his or her personal integrity. Scholarship, rather, is a constructive activity and is one of the purest expressions of a person’s character. Scholarship involves a failing of the flesh, paradoxically, only when one is not forthright with his or her conclusions, when one holds back evidence, when one dissembles about his or her views in the face of social–or ecclesiastical–pressure. To express one’s views, especially when they fly in the face of tradition, in other words, is hardly a sin but rather a virtue. Because Church disciplinary proceedings treat scholarship as if it were sinful, and even employ along the way the polemical myth that sin is what is responsible for a scholar’s unorthodox views, the proceedings are an attack on the individual’s integrity.

Another objection I have is that these proceedings are a matter of killing the messenger for the message. In my articles I discussed evidence that suggests that some traditional understandings of Mormon history and scripture are in need of revision. The sorts of difficulties I discussed are real. Many scholars have recognized them. And many members of the Church have accepted nontraditional solutions to them similar to mine. The questions and evidence cannot be pushed out of view or made innocuous by disciplinary actions. It is necessary for these issues to be talked about openly and the discussion should go forth without threat of punishment. Punishment especially should be avoided when scholars, such as I, have tried to be constructive. I have had no desire whatsoever to injure our–my!–religious tradition and community. My only desire has been to be honest with regard to the evidence as I have seen it and suggest how this may be viewed positively within our tradition. I would urge you to reread my articles with an eye open to my positive assertions and solutions. You may not accept them, but a positive and constructive attitude is there.

https://www.lds-Mormon.com/dpw-shtml/

[Rivendale]

What? I thought this was what believers did. Why would Stephen Smoot be amused by this? I mean do they have to be mutually exclusive?

The see-sawing one witnesses among naturalistic critics of the Book of Mormon between "country bumpkin Joe Smith tricked the local superstitious yokels with some extemporaneous yarn-spinning" and "devious mastermind and cunning genius Joseph Smith carefully plotted his intricate story and text through years of rehearsal and Professor Moriarty-esque manipulation of Martin Harris" truly never ceases to amuse me.

[drumdude]

The same see-sawing that depicted Joseph studiously translating in LDS artwork for decades. The Joseph who was able to read Egyptian papyrus, study and rework the King James translation. Only to be reduced to an illiterate barely conscious imbecile who is just reading words off a rock with no comprehension at all. To produce a more miraculous Book of Mormon origin story.

[Rivendale]

The same see-sawing that depicted Joseph studiously translating in LDS artwork for decades. The Joseph who was able to read Egyptian papyrus, study and rework the King James translation. Only to be reduced to an illiterate barely conscious imbecile who is just reading words off a rock with no comprehension at all. To produce a more miraculous Book of Mormon origin story.

Martin did see Deer Jesus. Evidence for being a rube?

Stephen goes on

"Joseph Smith was an evil genius who perfected the text of the Book of Mormon through a masterful, intricate exercise of intellectual willpower and religious imagination and also a money-digging huckster rube who was just coming up with this embarrassing nonsense on the fly as he tricked superstitious idiots like Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery who were also cunning, devious co-conspirators."

– Every anti-Mormon since 1829.

[dastardly stem]

The sad end of it for Smoot is, it doesn't matter if Joseph was a doofus or a genius, they still haven't been able to interest scholars in relevant fields with their 'scholarship". It all appears to be nothing more than faith claims restated and asserted to be scholarly.

[Dr Exiled]

They are probably tired of other academics laughing at them for believing the nonsense. So, they pretend that they have something to laugh at. It's easy to do when one is busy pretending or lying to oneself that one's belief system is valid.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What? I thought this was what believers did. Why would Stephen Smoot be amused by this? I mean do they have to be mutually exclusive?

The see-sawing one witnesses among naturalistic critics of the Book of Mormon between "country bumpkin Joe Smith tricked the local superstitious yokels with some extemporaneous yarn-spinning" and "devious mastermind and cunning genius Joseph Smith carefully plotted his intricate story and text through years of rehearsal and Professor Moriarty-esque manipulation of Martin Harris" truly never ceases to amuse me.

“… they enjoy the wordplay and gamesmanship of wriggling out of philosophical and scientific strangleholds, but the long-term damage they do to Mormon reasoning is significant.” Nice straw man, Smoot. He reveals his cynical contempt for the “country bumpkin” and “yokels”; obviously he hasn’t spent much time around them because, man, there are a LOT of clever and genius-y rural folks who have built all sorts of fiefdoms and, in some cases, empires. Why can’t Joseph Smith be both? BY was both. There’s no reason why a person can’t be a wordsmith and at the same time exhibit poor grammar and writing ability.

eta: I mean, ****, we just had a verifiable idiot ascend to the Presidency, with the aid of enablers. No reason to doubt Joseph Smith or BY weren’t amoral sociopaths aided by people around them, and as result they created a sort of mafia state with a side of sex cult. But were they philosophical geniuses? Nah. They just ad hoc’d whatever they needed in the moment to keep their followers interested.

- Doc