Peterson: Still lying, still a coward

[_Buffalo]

I think he was probably being dishonest regarding the Watson letter fiasco, but I don't think that makes him a dishonest person in general. Occasionally he lies. Who doesn't?

Channel whyme much?

What is a liar other than a person, who when push comes to shove, will resort to a lie rather than admit they are in the wrong?

We are not talking about misleading a maniac with an axe in order to save life, or any of the other excuses usually brought forward in such a connection. Just plain cheating to win.

I'm trying to be nicer. ;)

[_Joey]

Now here is classic Peterson - after he, Hamblin and others insult and criticize this new convert asking the obvious question about the 1990 letter and Ogden fax, Provo has the gall to make this post today:

It's been roughly three days since Bob Oliverio last posted here, and I confess that that fact has slightly increased my suspicion that he was a troll of some sort. (It's still very possible, of course, that he wasn't. I myself don't post here every day; there is life -- very satisfying and productive life -- away from message boards.)

Provo is asinine!!!

[_Willy Law]

It's been roughly three days since Bob Oliverio last posted here, and I confess that that fact has slightly increased my suspicion that he was a troll of some sort.

Whatever helps you sleep at night Dr. Peterson

[_Doctor Scratch]

Bumping this, because Bob Oliverio has re-appeared. It's been very funny to watch the Mopologists resorting to magical/supernatural explanations for their revisionist theories:

I personally don't have a problem with Moroni traveling to New York as a lone wanderer or as a resurrected being. The basic need involved was to get the plates to Joseph Smith. Just how and when that occured doesn't matter that much.

If God wanted [Moroni] to get there, God would have provided for him. He could have met native tribes that would have helped him along the way. He may have been in a group that were migrating together. Just wanted to add some obvious and common sense to the argument here.

Yes, my working theory is that Moroni, who had roughly thirty-five years between the final battle and the burial of the plates, traveled from Mesoamerica to what is today called upstate New York. Why? Because the Lord guided him there. Why did the Lord guide him there? Because that's where Joseph Smith was going to be. Is the notion ridiculous? No.

Why not just say that the Lord teleported Moroni from central America to NY? Come on, guys--if you're going to go the supernatural route, why not go all out? Or, better yet: why not argue that the final battle did indeed take place in North America, but that Heavenly Father took away all the evidence as a means of testing faith?

[_Drifting]

Yes, my working theory is that Moroni, who had roughly thirty-five years between the final battle and the burial of the plates, traveled from Mesoamerica to what is today called upstate New York. Why? Because the Lord guided him there. Why did the Lord guide him there? Because that's where Joseph Smith was going to be. Is the notion ridiculous? No.

Doesn't DCP's working theory suggest Joseph didn't have a choice? Or was Moroni going on this journey on the off chance that at 14 years old Joseph would want to know?

Sounds like he believes in predestination to me...

[_Mortal Man]

Why not just say that the Lord teleported Moroni from central America to NY?

Hmmm... while this is certainly possible, I think a different picture emerges from a close reading of the text.

We know that there were a lot of plates and that they were very heavy; hence, quite a few pack animals would have been required to make the journey. The archaeological data suggest that Moroni employed every last horse he could find for this purpose. In addition to carrying the plates, the horses could have served as a valuable food source and, as Moroni grew older, he could have ground up their bones for calcium to stave off osteoporosis.

[_Morley]

Why not just say that the Lord teleported Moroni from central America to NY?

Hmmm... while this is certainly possible, I think a different picture emerges from a close reading of the text.

We know that there were a lot of plates and that they were very heavy; hence, quite a few pack animals would have been required to make the journey. The archaeological data suggest that Moroni employed every last horse he could find for this purpose. In addition to carrying the plates, the horses could have served as a valuable food source and, as Moroni grew older, he could have ground up their bones for calcium to stave off osteoporosis.

One deft stroke, two mysteries solved.

[_sock puppet]

Why not just say that the Lord teleported Moroni from central America to NY? Come on, guys--if you're going to go the supernatural route, why not go all out?

The god of the mopologist is not that powerful. Superhuman powers? yes. But the god of the mopologists is a minimalist in his use of that power, so it is only interjected by their god to the minimal extent that the mopologists cannot explain something away rationally. Then add just a little dose of the superhuman power from the god of the mopologists. After all, the mopologists have never seen any manifestation of their god's superhuman or supernatural powers, but they have seen the power of reason. So when trying to understand how something occurred, the mopologist first assumes no intervention from the god of the mopologists, and only if there is some aspect that doesn't square with nature and reason, add a pinch of god's superhuman power, like inspiring Moroni to make that trek across continent, alone and hucking all those heavy gold plates. Of course, they'd never question why their god didn't let Moroni bury the plates in MesoAmerica, and then inspire the Smith ancestry to have migrated to MesoAmerica to find the plates. The mopologists know that didn't happen, after all JSJr dug them up in New York.

What I don't understand is why elohim/jehovah would waste Moroni's time with those extraordinary supernatural visitations to JSJr, instead of using the minimalist-use-of-power theory that the mopologists ascribe to elohim/jehovah and just guide JSJr to the gold plates on the hill using his little brown seer stone. Silly elohim/jehovah. Going to all that trouble with Moroni, having him appear repeatedly, once as a salamander or giant white toad and bitch-slapping JSJr, when had elohim/jehovah consulted DCP, Hamblin, et al (handy as they were then in the pre-existence with Them), they could have just guided JSJr to the plates in the hill, with his brown seer stone.

Or, better yet: why not argue that the final battle did indeed take place in North America, but that Heavenly Father took away all the evidence as a means of testing faith?

Too much supernatural effort by elohim/jehovah to do it that way. Besides, not elohim/jehovah's style. They didn't do that to obliterate all evidences remaining from Biblical places.

But hey, it makes for quite the colorful personalities, elohim/jehovah, transporting dinosaur bones here from other planets (or supernaturally fabricating them with a poof), and then obliterating all remnants of the Nephites, et al, just to play an archaeological hoax on mankind. What pranksters, elohim/jehovah. It must be something for TBMs to look forward to when they are gods of their own worlds they make, populate them in polygamous harems of goddesses, and figure out their own hoaxes to confuse and confound their spirit children.

[_Kishkumen]

Why not just say that the Lord teleported Moroni from central America to NY? Come on, guys--if you're going to go the supernatural route, why not go all out? Or, better yet: why not argue that the final battle did indeed take place in North America, but that Heavenly Father took away all the evidence as a means of testing faith?

Thucydides argued that Homer had exaggerated the length of the Trojan War. Why? Because in his day a ten-year war no longer seemed plausible. In the past, people had just assumed that men of the heroic age were capable of warring for ten years. For some reason, people started, perhaps in the 5th century in Greece, to demand that their myths be plausible. This was the real birth of apologetics: the quest to make the miraculous plausible.

[_Chap]

Thucydides argued that Homer had exaggerated the length of the Trojan War. Why? Because in his day a ten-year war no longer seemed plausible. In the past, people had just assumed that men of the heroic age were capable of warring for ten years.

Firstly, I have no expectation that you are wrong in this contention. But:

1. In his Peloponnesian War, chapter one, Thucydides said:

Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they obtained on their arrival- and a victory there must have been, or the fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built- there is no indication of their whole force having been employed; on the contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind. If they had brought plenty of supplies with them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field, since they could hold their own against them with the division on service. In short, if they had stuck to the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them less time and less trouble. But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.

That does not seem to suggest that he doubted that hostilities did last for ten years - merely that he thought it was not a continuous high-intensity operation.

2. He cannot have been under the impression that a war could in general not last that long, since the Peloponnesian war, which he chronicled, lasted from 431 to 404 BC. Or maybe you just meant he was skeptical about the ability of the society Homer describes to run a war for that long?

I'd be grateful for your comments.