Daniel Peterson's Article on Book of Mormon in Deseret News

[_Simon Belmont]

You are comparing the fake swearing activities of an online poster who is on the pretend faculty of a make-believe university to one of God's chosen apostles who was canned for delivering false sermons at General Conferences of your own real 'one true' church? What does this say about Mormonism?

Actually, I didn't. If you look back a couple of posts, I'll bet you can discover who did.

[_sock puppet]

Simon, do you think it needs to be repeatedly brought up that Paul 'The Prevaricator' Dunn was a GA?

Paul Dunn is no longer a GA.

CamNC4Me remains a professor in good standing at Cassius University. A professor of ethics, no less.

Are you implying that regardless of Dunn's impact on the veritas of the Mormon gospel prior to his being defrocked (i.e., put out to pasture as emeritus), that veracity is now unmarred by Dunn's prevarications?

Are you trying to divorce the Church from even its relatively recent past? Do not its truth claims rely on an 'unbroken chain' back in time to JSJr and the claimed restoration directly from Jesus, Moroni, and Peter, James and John, among others?

I think a defender ought to embrace Mormonism's past, not heed BKP's 2011 admonition to "let it alone".

[_Simon Belmont]

I think a defender ought to embrace Mormonism's past, not heed BKP's 2011 admonition to "let it alone".

I do, but I fail to see how this applies to my question to His Majesty the Esteemed Dean Gadianton, O.B.E., of the Prestigious Cassius University.

[_sock puppet]

I think a defender ought to embrace Mormonism's past, not heed BKP's 2011 admonition to "let it alone".

I do, but I fail to see how this applies to my question to His Majesty the Esteemed Dean Gadianton, O.B.E., of the Prestigious Cassius University.

It seems you want to castigate an entire organization, Cassius U, by the behavior (which you think to be misbehavior) of one of its professors. That same type of inductive staining applies the GC pulpit prevarications by one of the Church's GAs to the Church. See now?

[_Simon Belmont]

Interesting chain of reasoning, SP. My earlier reply to Gadianton may clear up my position:

My point was the quality of professors at Cassius, not that [the University] agreed with everything they say or do. As a professor at Cassius, CamNC4Me in some ways is representative of said University --for one, he represents at least one professor there, and perhaps that is a commentary on the general hiring and retention guidelines which Cassius abides by. Nevertheless, I remember a young, bright professor getting the boot for much more mild (yet also unorthodox by Cassius standards) behavior. Has there been an accreditation committee review, or is Cassius intending to go the way of profit schools like Strayer and DeVry?

[_Darth J]

Interesting chain of reasoning, SP. My earlier reply to Gadianton may clear up my position:

My point was the quality of professors at Cassius, not that [the University] agreed with everything they say or do. As a professor at Cassius, CamNC4Me in some ways is representative of said University --for one, he represents at least one professor there, and perhaps that is a commentary on the general hiring and retention guidelines which Cassius abides by. Nevertheless, I remember a young, bright professor getting the boot for much more mild (yet also unorthodox by Cassius standards) behavior. Has there been an accreditation committee review, or is Cassius intending to go the way of profit schools like Strayer and DeVry?

Similarly, we can look at the quality of General Authorities in the LDS Church....starting with Paul H. Dunn and George P. Lee.

[_why me]

No, it's very powerful evidence that Joseph simply dictated from the Spalding Manuscript.

Don't tell Emma. She didn't see any manuscript. Neither did the other people present during the process.

[_why me]

Are you implying that regardless of Dunn's impact on the veritas of the Mormon gospel prior to his being defrocked (i.e., put out to pasture as emeritus), that veracity is now unmarred by Dunn's prevarications?

.

Here we are with Dunn again. Maybe you should listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxefPeKn_Rs

True, you haven't promised anything but ..he's dead. Move on.

[_brade]

Since I've sort of fallen into the devil's advocate role here, I'll do a quick run through your responses with an apologist hat on.

1. It's doctrinally rich

It's not doctrinally rich, and borrows from it's 19 century environment. In another thread they are taking about the lack of Joseph preaching from the Book of Mormon. All the doctrines that make Mormonism as a whole unique are not found in the Book of Mormon.

It has some unique things to say about God's relationship to law, God's nature, the atonement, free will, and faith. The question, of course, is whether those things count in favor of its being doctrinally rich, and whether doctrinal richness counts in favor of sufficient complexity.

2. Its vitally important as a second witness for the Savior Jesus Christ

This is not evidence or relevant for what they claim about the Book of Mormon.

I agree, I think we ought to set this aside.

3. It features hundreds of individual characters, many of them bearing quite uncommon names,
who belong to a multitude of groups, subgroups and small factions.

I can make up a bunch of new names. They present this as some kind of feat and then create a false example of Shakespeare never came up with that many. Here's a news flash. Shakespeare was never trying to, and used mostly names he already knew. As to multiple groups, I am not seeing to many.

Of course, the feat isn't merely that somebody made up new names. It's that somebody made up new names, groups, subgroups, and small factions and then told a long story using those names and categories and was sufficiently consistent in their use throughout the story.

4. It describes three migrations from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere.

Missing how this is evidence for, but I can see how it is good evidence against the Book of Mormon claims.

I think as evidence for this is supposed to speak to the breadth of the story, which, when mixed with the other variables, is supposed to speak to the complexity of the book.

5. It employs at least three distinct dating systems.

Are they saying no one could think of something like this. Interesting.

I don't think it's a fair characterization that they think no one could think of something like this. I think the idea is similar to what I said for number 4.

6. It was dictated within a remarkably short time, at high speed (roughly nine to 11 pages of
the English printed edition per day)

How is dictating 9-11 pages a day some amazing feat. We don't even know all that was going on or if an already prepared text was used. Here is a good post about this http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20902

This is an important thread that binds all the other variables together. The idea, I think, is that the book contains impressive complexity independent of how long it took to produce. If it took a few months to produce, then the complexity is more impressive; sufficiently so such that natural explanations should be called into question.

7. It's internally consistent.

8. It doesn't contradict itself.

These two are essentially the same, but I fail to see how they are all that consistent beyond human ability. Is Nephi never calling the Savior, Jesus Christ, before it was revealed to him part of that consistency. :)

The book may be contradictory in small and irrelevant details, details we might presume ancient authors would overlook, but on the whole it's as consistent as we could expect from the sort of historical work that it presumes to be.

9. It both presupposes and reflects a complicated geographical backdrop to its stories, involving scores of place names and topographical indicators.

10. Places maintain their proper relationships to each other even when they're mentioned only a few times over hundreds of pages.

These two are also essentially the same. Why is it that they argue how complicated the geography is till they actually can't find any areas that would fit that geography, and then argue it is to vague in it's descriptions. Which is it. LOL

This is an internal consistency claim. So the response to what you've said is that even if we cannot locate places from their descriptions in the book, the places mentioned in the book maintain and surprising consistency to one another throughout the story (given the short period of time the book was produced).

12. There are extended chiasms throughout the book.

This one has been dealt with multiple times. Most chiatic structures are simple, and the one big one they claims is actually fairly poor although I remember reading it at some apologetic sites and seeing just how good it was until I opened up the Book of Mormon to check. This should be expected naturally since it is common to many languages including English. We find it in other writings of Joseph, and the Bible is a Hebrew document Joseph was very fa,ilar with. It's also interesting to note that at least one prominent apologist argues that chiasms are not evidence for the Book of Mormon, and that any would not survive the translation process.

I'm not sure what to say in response to this one. An actual apologist might want to chime in here...

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[quote]13. The purported ancient authors sometimes quote from each other (e.g. in 1 Nephi 1:8 and Alma 36:22, passages dictated orally many days apart).
[/quote]

Doesn't seem like an impossible feat, and if they were using an already created story, no problem at all. 

Is there good evidence to suggest that they were using an already created story? Given the short production period for the book the internal consistency here counts in favor of its complexity.

14. It was published without significant revision.

LOL do I really need to comment on this.

What of the revisions are significant?

15. The person who published the book was a semiliterate young farmer with only a few weeks of formal education.

Although Joseph was more literate then they want to give him credit here, it was paid for by Martin Harris, and others were part of helping it get published and Oliver played an important role in both scribe(maybe pretend scribe) and revising mistakes afterwards. Some of which were whoppers.

[/quote]

Even if Joseph Smith had been more educated, it's doubtful he could have been educated enough to create a work as complex as the Book of Mormon is as short a time period. It's also doubtful that Joseph Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and others working together could have produced as work as complex as the Book of Mormon is as short a time period.

Stem, I've changed my mind about what I said in response to your response to the argument I posted. I do think I should revise the premises to explicitly say something about the supposed production time of the Book of Mormon. Thanks for pointing that out.

[_sock puppet]

Are you implying that regardless of Dunn's impact on the veritas of the Mormon gospel prior to his being defrocked (i.e., put out to pasture as emeritus), that veracity is now unmarred by Dunn's prevarications?

.

Here we are with Dunn again. Maybe you should listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxefPeKn_Rs

True, you haven't promised anything but ..he's dead. Move on.

Dead too is JSJr, and so too would be his hokey 19th Century fabricated religion if people like you would, as you say, Move on.