Decent Post on Proof and Evidence at Sic et Non

[_Darth J]

I wonder why he didn't just show the plates to everyone, then.

Me too. Oh he said he wasn't supposed to.

Of course we only have his self-serving statement for that, but that doesn't explain why, since the objective was merely to prove that "he had plates."

So let's see his story is, at least at this point (remember the first vision hadn't been mentioned in writing at this point):

He was visited by an angel who revealed to him where to find plates which were engraven anciently.
He eventually bot the plates into his possession and eventually translated them into english.
he was told not to share the plates with just anyone.
People didn't beleive he had ancient plates or believe his story, at least in part.
Three witnesses were shown miraculous things to help confirm his story about ancient messengers and plates being translated.
Eight witnesses were shown the physical plates confirming he actually had plated that looked old and had writings on them.

In summary, you have to be predisposed to believing Joseph Smith's story before the testimony of the Eight Witnesses becomes relevant, but if you already believe his story, you don't need their statement.

Fast Forward 180 years and ol' DJ, in some effort to discredit the possibility of the witness testimony of being evidence of his story claims The testimony doesn't work because he could have shown everyone the plates;therefore, says he, the testimony does not in any way provide evidence of Joseph Smith' claim that he had plates.

Oh brother.

Seriously, reading your attempts to reword what other people have said is like watching a first-grader fumbling around, trying to make sense of the world. That isn't even close to the argument, nor does it indicate that you understand what the issue is. Joseph Smith, like all con men, relied on other people's gullibility and their susceptibility to fallacious thinking. Fast forward 182 years, and it's still working, as Stemelbow is demonstrating.

[_Kevin Graham]

Just before work this morning I posted Darth's and Kish's posts over at MAD, and surprisingly they haven't been removed. You guys should really comment in that thread because ther are a few people who actually seem willing to discuss this issue: http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/577 ... 1209123099

Pahoran and others are having a conniption fit as usual, and now Pahoran is attacking Kish's level of scholarly knowledge. Two of my responses have been removed without explanation. It is like the mods just hope I didn't notice or something. They don't want to thread-ban me because that would be too obvious that they cannot handle dissent from the only guy offering any. But they don't want my response to Pahoran to be seen either because it proves what a despicable character he and Schryver both are, so they sneak it out and hope no one notices.

[_static]

No. Joseph Smith did not merely claim "he had plates with engravings."

I certainly did not suggest that was his only claim.

Yes, you did. "Joseph claimed he had plates with engravings, no? Sure he did. Is there relevance here? Sure. he claimed it, no one can see them now. But we have witness from others that he did indeed have them."

Well, there you go, stemelbow. Darth J. has driven the final nail into your coffin. He definitely proved that your position was that this was Joseph Smith's only claim. (LOL!)

[_Darth J]

Yes, you did. "Joseph claimed he had plates with engravings, no? Sure he did. Is there relevance here? Sure. he claimed it, no one can see them now. But we have witness from others that he did indeed have them."

Well, there you go, stemelbow. Darth J. has driven the final nail into your coffin. He definitely proved that your position was that this was Joseph Smith's only claim. (LOL!)

Oh, good: the pathetic Mopologist rent boy is here. This must mean that he's going to substantively address the issues of this thread.

[_Darth J]

Just before work this morning I posted Darth's and Kish's posts over at MAD, and surprisingly they haven't been removed. You guys should really comment in that thread because ther are a few people who actually seem willing to discuss this issue: http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/577 ... 1209123099

Pahoran and others are having a conniption fit as usual, and now Pahoran is attacking Kish's level of scholarly knowledge. Two of my responses have been removed without explanation. It is like the mods just hope I didn't notice or something. They don't want to thread-ban me because that would be too obvious that they cannot handle dissent from the only guy offering any. But they don't want my response to Pahoran to be seen either because it proves what a despicable character he and Schryver both are, so they sneak it out and hope no one notices.

The "scholar" in question (prominent MDB participant, vocal Scratch disciple and cloying Graham sycophant "Kishkumen") is part of something called "Cassius University." This is, of course, in no sense a "university;" it is merely an online club with a pretentious name. I don't actually know how much he has to do with its activities, but he is happy to associate himself with it. And it is well-known on MDB that his in real life job is as a professor at a real university in the southern United States. Thus, his prestige becomes the guarantor of scholarly rigour for "Cassius University." http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/577 ... 1209123089

Cassius is a satire. More specifically, it is a satire of the "scholarship" that Mopologetics likes to pretend it is. But while Pahoran is clearly oblivious, it's more than that. I think it's more that in his Saturday's Warrior fantasy world, he has to give his existence importance by imagining that we're his opposite numbers on the cosmological battleground. The realization that we're making fun of him and don't taking him seriously at all must be too much for him to contemplate.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Just before work this morning I posted Darth's and Kish's posts over at MAD, and surprisingly they haven't been removed. You guys should really comment in that thread because ther are a few people who actually seem willing to discuss this issue: http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/577 ... 1209123099

Pahoran and others are having a conniption fit as usual, and now Pahoran is attacking Kish's level of scholarly knowledge. Two of my responses have been removed without explanation. It is like the mods just hope I didn't notice or something. They don't want to thread-ban me because that would be too obvious that they cannot handle dissent from the only guy offering any. But they don't want my response to Pahoran to be seen either because it proves what a despicable character he and Schryver both are, so they sneak it out and hope no one notices.

I saw that, Kevin. I saw, too, that Dan Peterson has posted what must be, like, the sixth or seventh thread where he bleats about how he's "so awful!" because of the JP Holding thing. He can't seem to grasp what it was that he did wrong. He always wants to reframe it in terms of him endangering Holding's life and family (which is certainly part of it), but he fails time and time again to include the most critical detail: which is that you *told* him and Pahoran both about this problem, and they did nothing about it.

[_Kishkumen]

I would say the testimony was given to persuade people that he did have plates. That they appeared to be ancient is perhaps something, but not near enough to convince that the plates were ancient. Plates could have been made to look old. That the testimony reports that doesn't discount that the thrust of it is to confirm they saw plates with engravings.

If that is what you think, stem, then I feel a touch badly for you, unless you really do believe he was capable of translating an ancient Book of Mormon from plates that he simply ordered from the local coppersmith, in which case you are basically admitting that he was deceiving these poor fellows, since he wanted them to attest to their ancient appearance. You are in a bad tangle that can't be undone by your wishing to take the single claim out of the context that Joseph purposely situated it in. Joseph got these fellows to attest to the plates' ancient appearance in a text wherein they also affirmed that he translated the same plates. The connection between those two claims in inseparable.

[_EAllusion]

I think Darth J's post is dealing with a notion of evidence as it exists in a legal context rather than its more broad sense. There are perfectly respectable theories of what constitutes evidence that would count Book of Mormon witness testimony as evidence of the reality of ancient plates. It wouldn't be particularly good evidence for the reasons Darth points out, but it would be evidence.

Take a Bayesian definition of evidence:

P(h|e) = P(h) * ( P(e|h) / P(e) )

P(h) is the probability that the hypothesis is true given only the background information. This is often referred to as the prior probability. P(h|e) is the probability that h is true given the the observations under analysis. P(e|h) is the probability we'd see the observations given the hypothesis. And P(e) is the unconditional probability of the observations alone. Because P(h|e) is going to be > P(h) in this case, we can say it counts as evidence support. Evidence is any e where P(h|e) is > P(h).

Granted the witness testimony doesn't add all that much confirmation and the prior probability is quite low, but on this definition of evidential support it qualifies. Witnesses saying they had some sort of physical contact with something plate like is expected given the faithful version events moreso than if it were to occur just randomly. So the theory has received a little bit of confirmation.

Now suppose we add in the comparative principle I mentioned in my first post. Are their any other hypotheses that better account for the witness testimony? I bet you say yes.

See the issue?

It think this is all pretty trivial at the end of the day. The quality of the case of Mormonism doesn't really depend on technical distinctions in what constitutes evidence and it is no coup for the apologist or great fault for the critic to allow their to be some evidence for Mormonism. At the end of the day it's terribly uncompelling no matter the distinction.

[Guest]

Pahoran and others are having a conniption fit as usual, and now Pahoran is attacking Kish's level of scholarly knowledge. Two of my responses have been removed without explanation.

Hey, Kevin. I went over there hoping for a stiff challenge from Pahoran but all I got was some nonsense about MCB's writings, which I suppose he is bringing into the discussion in order to show that he has no sense of humor or ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. All I can say at this point is that you did me a great service in posting that JP Holding "review" he wrote, since it proved once and for all that he is the one who lacks the requisite chops or seriousness to discuss much of anything, or even the good sense to know that he has tarnished the reputation of the LDS Church, BYU, and Elder Maxwell by faking it badly. JP dealt him a sound thrashing. I don't waste my time with people like that, and he didn't give me anything to respond to in any case.

[_RayAgostini]

These eight people had absolutely no way of knowing that Joseph Smith, Jr. was "the translator of this work." They had no way to authenticate that the plates were what Joseph Smith told them the plates were. They had no way to determine if the engravings were a real ancient language. They had no way of comparing the engravings to the Book of Mormon and determining that the latter was a translation of the former. They also had no qualifications to determine what plates "of ancient work" would look like, and did not explain how they arrived at that conclusion independent of Joseph Smith telling them a story about the plates.

An analysis of the Three Witnesses might prove a bit more difficult, as you noted previously, and the same level of skepticism is more difficult to maintain there.

Then they heard the voice of God, and. Joseph reported it exactly as the witnesses remembered it. The Lord said: "These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear."6 As the vision closed, Joseph went and found Martin. The two men knelt in prayer, and the same revelation was repeated for them. Then they all returned to the house, as Lucy described.

Richard Lloyd Anderson, Book of Mormon Witnesses.

So it wasn't a case of "Joseph's Razor". It wasn't Joseph "who told them what to say", but the angel. Of course, if you don't believe in angels and miracles, that can easily be swept aside as evidence. In fact, you can throw out the whole New Testament too.