TBM's: Killer blow to the Book of Mormon?

[_karl61]

Can you say that God moves slowly and that you can see his hand over time through things and instant things come from good or bad luck.

[_charity]

Stop right there, charity. I asked you why you keep saying that you can't prove a negative. Who is schooling you in burden of proof? Whoever it is, they're wrong and you are parroting them.

Actually, this came from my master's thesis training. When we did our studies, we graduate students had to always state the hypothesis in terms of identifying some phenomenon. We could never state we would fail to find something.

In the medical studies they used the null hypothesis, but that was a special case because all the subjects fit in the same limited box. You didn't go for a random sample. You tested all the peopple in the treatment condition.

[_The Nehor]

Because that is the critics' #1 problem. They keep saying that there is no such thing as a historic Book of Mormon. And what is their evidence? We haven't found any proof yet that there is one. Can't you see the flaw in that?

Why should anyone who is not Mormon believe that the Book of Mormon is historical? We haven't even gotten to the proving a positive part.

This is why the Book of Mormon is an archeological anomaly. It purports to be an ancient book. We have no physical evidence that it is what it claims to be. We have the testimony of people of it's truthfulness but all of these accounts are decidedly supernatural. Is this evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Depends on who you ask.

[_guy sajer]

Stop right there, charity. I asked you why you keep saying that you can't prove a negative. Who is schooling you in burden of proof? Whoever it is, they're wrong and you are parroting them.

Actually, this came from my master's thesis training. When we did our studies, we graduate students had to always state the hypothesis in terms of identifying some phenomenon. We could never state we would fail to find something.

In the medical studies they used the null hypothesis, but that was a special case because all the subjects fit in the same limited box. You didn't go for a random sample. You tested all the peopple in the treatment condition.

I don't follow you. Are you suggesting that there are times you don't use a null hypothesis?

[_guy sajer]

charity

You cannot prove a negative.

Why do you keep saying that?

Because that is the critics' #1 problem. They keep saying that there is no such thing as a historic Book of Mormon. And what is their evidence? We haven't found any proof yet that there is one. Can't you see the flaw in that?

And here's your miundestanding of how how scientific inquiry proceeds. We DON'T HAVE disprove the Book of Mormon, any more than we have to disprove the existence of leprechauns.

Also, we can test a number of separate hypotheses related to the Book of Mormon and from them form a pretty good comprehensive picture. It may not "prove" the Book of Mormon is false, but it comes pretty damn close.

You subscribe to the "fallacy of the magic bullet." This is the same fallacy political commentators make when arguing against various policy recommendations. They claim a policy won't work because it doesn't "solve" the problem. But that's not the question. The question is whether, at the magin, the policy solves certain aspects of the problem in a way that exceed its costs. No single policy will ever solve a major social or economic problem.

Similarly, whereas no single thing can necessarily "disprove" the Book of Mormon, several individual pieces of evidence can, at the margin, chip away at its veracity (and some of the chips are damned big chunks), leaving at the end, essentially, nothing or very little left.

[_Jason Bourne]

In another thread, charity, described various reasons why she thinks the critic's are not "winning", I suppose you could say, and she wrote about not seeing any "killer blows" to the Book of Abraham. I posed this question to charity in the existing thread but now I'm curious.

What would TBM's consider to be a "killer blow" to the Book of Mormon?

Some sort of direct proof that is was authored by someone other then Smith, someone such as Rigdon or someone else.

[_charity]

And here's your miundestanding of how how scientific inquiry proceeds. We DON'T HAVE disprove the Book of Mormon, any more than we have to disprove the existence of leprechauns.

Also, we can test a number of separate hypotheses related to the Book of Mormon and from them form a pretty good comprehensive picture. It may not "prove" the Book of Mormon is false, but it comes pretty damn close.

You subscribe to the "fallacy of the magic bullet." This is the same fallacy political commentators make when arguing against various policy recommendations. They claim a policy won't work because it doesn't "solve" the problem. But that's not the question. The question is whether, at the magin, the policy solves certain aspects of the problem in a way that exceed its costs. No single policy will ever solve a major social or economic problem.

Similarly, whereas no single thing can necessarily "disprove" the Book of Mormon, several individual pieces of evidence can, at the margin, chip away at its veracity (and some of the chips are damned big chunks), leaving at the end, essentially, nothing or very little left.

I would like to hear what you call chunks. I have read a lot of attempts to chip away, but nothing has stood up. Do you have something new?

[_Jersey Girl]

charity

Because that is the critics' #1 problem. They keep saying that there is no such thing as a historic Book of Mormon. And what is their evidence? We haven't found any proof yet that there is one. Can't you see the flaw in that?

Look again at what you wrote, charity. There is no possible way for a critic to claim there is "no such thing as a historic Book of Mormon." The Book of Mormon is very definitely historic. I have two on my book shelf. The book itself exists in history.

Some critics challenge the purported historical matter found in the Book of Mormon, it's "bringing forth", if you will, Joseph's role, etc.

No one challenges that the Book of Mormon is a historic piece of literature. It's contents as historical, are what's challenged.

Critics (who aren't specializing in one specific area) take the lack of evidence for it's internal historical content, authorship issues, Joseph's credibility, etc and form an overall picture. When the overall picture is examined, it leads them to conclude that the book is neither divine in nature nor internally historical in it's content.

Just my take.

[_Scottie]

I would like to hear what you call chunks. I have read a lot of attempts to chip away, but nothing has stood up. Do you have something new?

Sooo...horses=tapirs is a completely valid and legitimate counter-argument to the claim of no horses in Mesoamerica??

[_Jersey Girl]

In another thread, charity, described various reasons why she thinks the critic's are not "winning", I suppose you could say, and she wrote about not seeing any "killer blows" to the Book of Abraham. I posed this question to charity in the existing thread but now I'm curious.

What would TBM's consider to be a "killer blow" to the Book of Mormon?

Some sort of direct proof that is was authored by someone other then Smith, someone such as Rigdon or someone else.

Then brace yourself, Jason.