Volcanoes: Proof of Truth

[_Daniel Peterson]

Then what you said earlier isn't entirely correct. You aren't "...entirely willing to reason about these matters on the basis of evidence." You already have your mind made up. You believe your position to be correct. You don't have an open mind, willing to reason on the basis of evidence.

Harmony, you don't know what you're talking about.

Everybody reasons and weighs evidence and evaluates data from within a paradigm. I'm not alone in that. It's inescapable.

I recommend Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

I know you don't like recommendations to read, but, well, sometimes reading can be helpful.

[_beastie]

I never said that volcanoes were "cumulative evidence." I described them as "a piece of a cumulative case." That's quite different.

How can this be even considered a "piece" of cumulative evidence?? There is an obvious natural source for the information, The Wonders of Nature. As I quoted on page one, it says:

"Darkness which may be felt.... vapours ... so thick as to prevent the rays of the sun from penetrating an extraordinary thick mist. ... no artificial light could be procured ... vapours would prevent lamps, etc. from burning. ... [T]he darkness lasted for three days." (p. 524)

Apologists are well aware of this information. I haven't even read Bushman's book, but easily found a reference to it therein. On page 123, he states that the Manchester Rental Library had a copy of Priest's book.

This is very common in Book of Mormon apologia. Apologists insist that because there is so much cumulative evidence, that the entire weight of evidence is significant. Yet each piece, when carefully analyzed, tends to be as weak as this one. If every link in your chain is weak, the entire chain is weak, no matter how long it is.

[_harmony]

Harmony, you don't know what you're talking about.

You say that a lot, yet you never support your allegation.

Everybody reasons and weighs evidence and evaluates data from within a paradigm. I'm not alone in that. It's inescapable.

Yes, and your paradigm is built on faith in certain things, right? So you are not open to evidence that contradicts that faith, right? So how can you say that you are "...entirely willing to reason about these matters on the basis of evidence," (emphasis mine) when plainly you are not willing to reason about anything that contradicts your particular faith paradigm.

Or are you still clinging to the hope that I don't know what I'm talking about, so you're going to show how your willingness to reason about evidence isn't tied to your particular faith-based paradigm?

[_JustMe]

GoodK

You had to gloat... didn't you.

I did, I did......! I absolutely LOVE it when actual and real references are presented for all to read instead of mere unsupported assertion as so many critics come up with as if their mere say so is the evidence.

[_JustMe]

harmony

when plainly you are not willing to reason about anything that contradicts your particular faith paradigm.

Harm..... I know many are going to take this as sheer arrogance on my part, and I can't help their misconception on that, however, I have read Dr. Peterson for decades...... and the writings in many, many cases are obviously totally against and contradicts Dr. Peterson's faith paradigm, and I have read him (to the tune of over thousands of pages now, YES, he has written that much!!!) actually engaging and reasoning through that massive material that contradicts his faith paradigm. (Have you bothered to read anything he has written in the Reviews?!) I will echo Dr. Peterson, sorry you really don't know what you are talking about.

[_beastie]

I did, I did......! I absolutely LOVE it when actual and real references are presented for all to read instead of mere unsupported assertion as so many critics come up with as if their mere say so is the evidence.

I don't believe you answered my previous question, unless I missed it. Would any of these eruptions account for destruction of 75,000 square mile region?

[_Ray A]

You do realize that there are believing LDS biblical scholars, don't you?

I'd like to know what sort of beliefs they really have. David Bokovoy has at times expressed some very non-literal ideas, and even seems inclined towards David Wright's position. There's nothing wrong with having faith, as I said before, as long as the person acknowldges there's no substantial basis in evidence for that faith. Hebrews 11 might be a primer for this. If there were, it would not be faith, it would be certainty. I would see it clearly, you would see it clearly, or at least there would be enough evidence so that we can agree on possibilities. I see little room for such compromise when one looks at the nature of 1st and 2nd Nephi, which fits a 19th century perspective far better than it does a 550 BC one. You do not agree with this, however, because of your faith, even though it's (19th century origins) a conclusion arrived at by the best scholars of the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha - the Book of Mormon fits that genre far better than it does as a genuine ancient text which explains 6th century BC reality.

With a faith approach, sure. People can have faith in just about anything they want, including the idea that aliens have landed and are really in control of the planet. Some do actually believe this.

Some do, yes.

And if you now lean to the position that I'm an irrationalist, completely ungrounded in reality, that's the way you'll view me, as well.

I never said that you're an "irrationalist". But if you said something like, "Look, I can't really see any substantial, supportive evidence for my belief that Christians lived in 550 BC, nor that Adam lived in Missouri, but I accept it on faith", there would be no problem (If that's your position, you haven't stated it clearly, and seem to be qualifying all the time). I don't have any problem with what Paul Osborne believes, and he really believes that people can live in the sun. I just say, fine Paul, believe what you want. Have you noticed that critics have a lot more respect for Paul, and for that matter Meldrum, than they do for apologists who actually try to prove that people can live in the sun? Or that Christians in 550 BC didn't miss a beat in quoting Christian scriptures centuries before they were even written? That's when ridicule starts. If Paul were to come here quoting articles in Scientific American and talking about "cumulative evidence" for people living in the sun, you can bet he's not going to get off scot free. He says he believes the prophets, literally, hemispheric model and all, and that the Book of Abraham came by revelation. He doesn't try to explain it all in scientific and rational terms, because it's his faith. Others have either lost that faith, or choose not to believe such things because to them they just don't add up.

I'm going back to a piece you wrote in a Review editorial in 1992 (all bold highlighting is mine):

Professor Robinson is correct when he reports the scriptural teaching to be that "genuine faith is belief in the absence of evidence or even belief that contradicts the evidence." "Let no man deceive himself," wrote Paul. "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians 3:18-19). "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). As every reader of the Bible should know, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1; compare Ether 12:6). "Faith," Alma taught the impoverished Zoramites, "is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21). In this life, "we walk by faith, not by sight" (1 Corinthians 5:7). This is a truth recognized by most, if not all, serious religious thinkers. "Philosophical theology," says Mortimer Adler, "may carry one's mind to the edge of religious belief, but that is the near edge of a chasm that can only be crossed to the far edge by a leap of faith that transcends reason."164 And salvation is to be obtained only on the chasm's far side. God removed the sins of Enos in the Book of Mormon "because of [his] faith in Christ, whom [he had] never before heard nor seen" (Enos 1:8). When the brother of Jared saw the pre-mortal Savior, "he had faith no longer, for he knew, nothing doubting" (Ether 3:19). "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But can faith sometimes actually contradict the available evidence? Certainly it can. And, often, it should. Apart from human questions, concerns, and interpretations, "evidence," as such, does not exist.165 Its recognition depends upon human minds. Its marshalling into arguments is inevitably the act of human personalities that may or may not be stable or disinterested or competent, personalities inescapably immersed in the assumptions of a given time and place. What counts as relevant data and conclusive reasoning varies, within limits, according to many factors, including cultural prejudice and personal psychology. This is true even of fields like mathematics and logic, to say nothing of areas less susceptible to definitive demonstration like philosophy, religion, and history.166 It is only with great care and with appropriate humility that we should identify and weigh the data on the most important questions. In Shakespeare's great play, part of Othello's problem is that, confronted with apparent "evidence," he surrenders his intuitively certain knowledge of Desdemona's character. Tragically, he learns only too late that the "evidence" had misrepresented reality, and that Iago, the "friend" who had simply put the "facts" together and let them speak for themselves, was neither unbiased nor honest. Thus, under certain circumstances it may be rational and entirely right to believe against the seeming "evidence."

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=review&id=78

This particular quote, for me, perhaps more than anything else, stuck out in your editorials over the years. I consider it blind faith, since it encourages people to go not only beyond, but contrary to evidence. I consider it almost reckless, but if you're going to believe, to be a true believer, it's not a position that I would mock, as part of the faith spectrum. I, personally, am just not able to hold on to such a "reckless" position, even if it means re-interpreting my faith in a more liberal sense, or even abandoning it altogether.

So you accept D&C 117 that Adam-Ondi-Aman was in Missouri, where Adam dwelt, where he sacrificed, and where Joseph Smith also said outside of revelation that he dwelt?

I have no particular problem with it.

As I said before, because your faith supercedes reason and knowledge in something most people would not accept. Maybe you should have added, "and I believe it" (that Adam dwelt in Missouri), but I wonder if this strains your own "belief threshold"?

I understand better now. It really hinges on faith. I don't mock your faith, but it's difficult to place too much emphasis on the evidences "people of faith" present, realising that no logical "stumbling block" can overcome that faith, not even if every biblical scholar, past or present, disagrees with such a "faith" assessment. I suppose it would be correct to say that you're one of those "overcome by faith".

I think I've demonstrated over the years that I'm entirely willing to reason about these matters on the basis of evidence. I think you once recognized that.

But you've already made it very clear, from the 1992 editorial I quoted above, that you are prepared to jettison evidence when it conflicts with your personal faith. I am not prepared to do that. And I don't believe David Wright was prepared to do that either.

So you tell me, what's the basic difference between David Wright's approach, and yours? Why is he excommunicated, and you remain a central figure in Mormon apologetics? Is it because of relying on reason and evidence, or just faith?

[_Blixa]

Quite an interesting and provocative post, Ray. A really worthwhile read.

[_harmony]

harmony

when plainly you are not willing to reason about anything that contradicts your particular faith paradigm.

Harm..... I know many are going to take this as sheer arrogance on my part, and I can't help their misconception on that, however, I have read Dr. Peterson for decades...... and the writings in many, many cases are obviously totally against and contradicts Dr. Peterson's faith paradigm, and I have read him (to the tune of over thousands of pages now, YES, he has written that much!!!) actually engaging and reasoning through that massive material that contradicts his faith paradigm. (Have you bothered to read anything he has written in the Reviews?!) I will echo Dr. Peterson, sorry you really don't know what you are talking about.

You also don't support your allegation, other than to say you've read this, that, and the other, and you're impressed with it. Well, then show your cards: show where Daniel moves outside his own faith paradigm... and actually balances the evidence, whatever it may be, against his faith paradigm. Because all I've ever seen him do is approach all evidence (whatever it may be) from within his faith paradigm.

So until you show otherwise, your post is just hot air, JM.

Ray says what I was trying to get across much better than I. Read his post.

[_JustMe]

Ray A

when one looks at the nature of 1st and 2nd Nephi, which fits a 19th century perspective far better than it does a 550 BC one. You do not agree with this, however, because of your faith, even though it's (19th century origins) a conclusion arrived at by the best scholars of the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha - the Book of Mormon fits that genre far better than it does as a genuine ancient text which explains 6th century BC reality.

I profoundly disagree. I think there is stunning evidence showing the genre of the Book of Mormon fits far stronger in the 600 B.C. setting than the 19th century setting.