Scott Gordon finally gets it

[_bcspace]

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.

If you're happy believing six impossible things before breakfast, don't let me spoil your breaky.

You are notoriously devoid of examples.

There is actually evidence against the geocentric model.

Which is why I referred to the example.

Then what's the connection?

[_Ray A]

You are notoriously devoid of examples.

Perhaps because I've learned that you're notoriously devoid of comprehending a logical argument.

[_bcspace]

You are notoriously devoid of examples.

Perhaps because I've learned that you're notoriously devoid of comprehending a logical argument.

It's because you are incapable of logic in the first place. For example, you have yet to tie your geocentric attempt to the issue of the Church.

[_harmony]

It's because you are incapable of logic in the first place. For example, you have yet to tie your geocentric attempt to the issue of the Church.

Can we ever get through a thread by actually sticking to the subject?

[_Ray A]

It's because you are incapable of logic in the first place. For example, you have yet to tie your geocentric attempt to the issue of the Church.

The Church wasn't the issue. The Book of Mormon was the issue. Here was your original question:

Where is the argument against the Church's own claim that the Book of Mormon is historical? None such exists that would carry any scientific weight.

Did you not read where I formerly referred to David Wright's work, for example? Yet, ostrich-like you ask, "where is the evidence?" Would you read it? Have you read it? Have you read the Metcalfe volume? Or even the FARMS reply?

Your use of "scientific weight" is nebulous. Wright is a biblical scholar who made some very persuasive arguments against Book of Mormon historicity. So failing John Vedtnes doing so, maybe you'd like to rebut his thesis. But don't ask fatuous questions if you haven't studied the evidence against Book of Mormon historicity.

[_bcspace]

It's because you are incapable of logic in the first place. For example, you have yet to tie your geocentric attempt to the issue of the Church.

The Church wasn't the issue. The Book of Mormon was the issue.

Upon which the Church rests. I knew what you were referring to, I was just wondering if you had the guts to say it.

Where is the argument against the Church's own claim that the Book of Mormon is historical? None such exists that would carry any scientific weight.

Did you not read where I formerly referred to David Wright's work, for example? Yet, ostrich-like you ask, "where is the evidence?" Would you read it? Have you read it? Have you read the Metcalfe volume? Or even the FARMS reply?

If you have an argument, make it. If you think the work has made a case, then make it here.

Your use of "scientific weight" is nebulous. Wright is a biblical scholar who made some very persuasive arguments against Book of Mormon historicity. So failing John Vedtnes doing so, maybe you'd like to rebut his thesis. But don't ask fatuous questions if you haven't studied the evidence against Book of Mormon historicity.

If there is no historical evidence for names/places/events in the, as many critics argue, then there is no argument against the Book of Mormon as no scientist will tell you that no evidence for is evidence against.

[_Ray A]

Upon which the Church rests. I knew what you were referring to, I was just wondering if you had the guts to say it.

Nothing to do with "guts", just accuracy.

If you have an argument, make it. If you think the work has made a case, then make it here.

Wright already made it 16 years ago. Sorry, but I'm not inclined to spell out what you can read for yourself.

If there is no historical evidence for names/places/events in the, as many critics argue, then there is no argument against the Book of Mormon as no scientist will tell you that no evidence for is evidence against.

I get it. We can now demand that Encyclopedia Britannica include an entry stating that the Book of Mormon is history, that Nephi, Lehi, Mosiah, Alma, The Brother of Jared were all real people, because no one ever proved they didn't exist.

C-l-a-s-s-i-c!

[_collegeterrace]

Oh

my


god.


This is a great day!

I just love to see Mormons take it in the shorts. Especially apologists.

Ray, "...like Custard's last stand..." spot on mate. Spot damned on.

Mo'pologists last stand.

Bye bye Danny.

[_Sethbag]

So more than anything else, I'm upset with myself, for waiting for so long before I did my DD on the church. On the other hand, I probably wasn't equipped to do it till maybe my mid-twenties anyways. And I certainly wasn't capable of doing it when I was 8 years old...

If I'd done the DD you're talking about (ie: reading more about early Mormon history from a variety of sources, not just the lesson manuals and whatnot promoted by the church) in my early 20s, I think the result would have been that I would have assumed that the church was true and that somehow the stuff I was reading was somehow suspect. If I had accepted that it was likely really true, I would have found ways around it disproving the prophetic nature of Joseph Smith by the kinds of mental gymnastics people like Richard Bushman engage in. Barring that, I would have dismissed it as not important to my salvation.

It took a very long time for the chinks in the armor of my faith, which before, during, and for years after my mission was absolute, to grow large enough for serious and reasonably objective engagement with the evidence to have been possible. To someone with an absolute testimony of the truthfulness of the church, evidence that it's not really true must unavoidably either A) not be what it seems, or B) not mean what it seems to mean, or C) be something the Lord will unfold for us in the hereafter. It actually being evidence of the church's non-truthiness is simply not an option.

And this really explains the apologists, actually. They're still at this point. It really doesn't matter to someone like Bushman what he knows about Joseph Smith. He believes Joseph Smith was a real prophet of a God who actually exists, so those three rules automatically apply.

[_Sethbag]

Yet no one has shown what is wrong with Sorenson's or even Larry Poulson's proposed geography. It quite literally fits the text. These have been dismissed by critics (and sometimes accepted by members) without even trying to analyze them.

Have you read Glenn Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night and Lord of the Silent Kingdom? Modern-day Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, the Arab lands, etc. match his book's geography strikingly well, wouldn't you say?

Given a very small number of, and vagueness of pieces of "data" from the book which describe the geography of some parts of the Book of Mormon, combined with the willingness to redefine and "reinterpret" some terms, should allow any number of possible sites on Earth to be mapped into the Book of Mormon space. A resourceful and eager fan of Tolkien's could probably find a place that resembles Gondor and Mordor, too.

The real problem is not that the proposed geographies don't fit in sufficiently well with the text of the Book of Mormon, it's as Beastie says, the text of the Book of Mormon doesn't fit in with what we know of the people who actually lived in those geographies. I like the Michael Coe's statement about the Book of Mormon fit with Mesoamerican archeology: where are the actors? Where are the people who credibly fit in with the peoples described in the Book of Mormon?