The Stone Box

[_grindael]

What would they use a stone that is concave on top and flat on the bottom for? And since the plates were only 6" X 7" wide, how big was the box? Why would they even bother? Funny how only Mormons saw the remnants of the box and no one else, even though Jo had a pack of moneydiggers looking high and low for it. If it wasn't discovered for over 1600 years, why did it all of a sudden start to disintegrate after Jo pried up the top? And if he didn't replace the top and cover it up again, but left it open, why didn't the moneydiggers he was associated with find it?

[_Gorman]

Occam's Razor. Remember that when you're making s*** up.

Again. It looks as if you think I am arguing that this is in fact what happened. Occam's Razor would apply in that situation. I am arguing that this is a possibility. Occam's Razor has nothing to do with arguing for a possibility. I thought we already discussed the limitations of Occam's Razor.

1) What village was that so I can Internet-fact check you.

I can do better than give you a village name. -8.428874, -78.774174

You can even get a street view of the hill from the South side (Who would have though - street view in Peru). It looks like they have cleaned up the hill a bit. When I was there, it looked like the little unnamed suburb of Puente Viru was going to completely take over the hill. They also have what looks like a water tank on top. I don't recall that structure there at the time.

All I can say is that I visited an inactive member on the North side of the hill and he showed me the parts of his house he had used old adobe for. Yes, the blocks looked very old and were ill-formed and broken in parts, but he felt comfortable living in the house. He claimed that lots of the people were using the bricks. It is certainly possible that he was flat out lying to the gringos (I didn't personally dig into the hill), but there were pottery shards strewn all around the village. Thousands and thousands of them. I got the impression that the village was fairly new and that, yes, they were squatters on the land (illegally taking the land from the government), but there wasn't much government presence there. A far larger town was squatted up the highway. That was a big enough land grab that the government send in troops to kick them out, but they were unsuccessful.

If you go East-Northeast of those coordinates, you find the town of Viru. There is a very large, triangular hill on the Southeast side of the town. That is also a large Incan ruin that just looks like a hill. It has been used as a graveyard for I don't know how long (you can see the Tombs on the West side). I don't know why, but the government didn't seem to care to much about these adobe ruins. Maybe because they are still trying to get all the stone ones catalogued and preserved. Although, they did tend to care more when word of a major find in one of them spreads.

In that little valley, I would estimate that from the mountains to the coast there were 30 or so of these hills that were actually ruins. One in particular was an enormous complex of 20 or so sites. One was a long snake-like hill that ran on for miles and miles (the locals thought it was a burial after a great war). All of them were untouched by archeologists, as far as I could tell, except for one large complex on the hill. It had been partially restored and you could visit it, but there were no fences and no staff. You would just roam around and climb all over it. I don't know if that is still the case.

2) Other than being a crime beyond any comprehensible magnitude under Peruvian law if what you're saying is true, my analogy still stands that it's easier to make your own adobe bricks rather than to dig out a f*****g ancient Incan village, remove all the surrounding earth, and then disinter adobe bricks that would have to be reconditioned to be useful in order to re-stack them. Pulling them out of the ground or off some structure would destroy them.

The law was generally disregarded and not enforced, as I mentioned above.

I'm not sure where your experience of adobe bricks comes from, but it seems to be quite different than mine. Maybe you weren't ever in the extreme rural parts of the country. When I helped build walls and produce adobe bricks on two occasions, Bricks were reused all the time. I imagine it was not a very wise practice, but it was done regardless of its wisdom. I can say that in most instances, they were not walls that were directly part of their house, but part of the outer boundary of their house (courtyard). Maybe the risk was considered minimal?

Well, at least we know you're willing to fall on your sword to maintain face. Poor form, brother.

You seem to imagine a lot of things that provide you with some sort of mental relief from reality. I'm sorry. I can't disprove your imagination. I can only go off of what's been said. The facts are the facts, and your imaginative scenario is just that... Daydreaming.

All you've done in this exchange is show that you're willing to lie, not willing to investigate your own claims, make s*** up on the fly, and to essentially concede the point without coming right out and admitting Joseph Smith's story is utter horse****.

I'm not sure why you are so certain I am lying. I am not sure you are lying, even though my experience tells me that you might be. I have enough distrust in my own experience that I am willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Your absolute trust in your own experience and your own logic is what I classify as "trust in the arm of the flesh." In my opinion, this is by far the greatest predictor of who will leave the church when difficult information is found. It is not a perfect predictor, but I haven't found a better one.

Again, I am not trying to argue that the stone box was, in fact, recycled for use. I simply mentioned that it was a possibility that should be considered. In reality, I have never spent much time thinking about the stone box. If I were an unbeliever, I still wouldn't spend much time on it. I would think there are far better avenues of attack.

[_Gorman]

One has to wonder how many issues it would take for you to acknowledge that the overall story behind the production of the Book of Mormon is not 'reasonable" by any measure.

20
50
100?

At what point do you recognize that the rest of the world, those at all familiar with the claims made about how the Book of Mormon came about, see them as silly made up 19th nonsense? Start to finish, Joseph Smith story of how he got the Book of Mormon is simply a fairy tale held on to by only those for whom no amount of issues, large of small, would make a difference.

Continuing on with Mentalgymnast's analogy, the combination of problems can eventually cause someone to not purchase the car. But if you only look at the bad without considering the good, you will likely not purchase any car on the lot. If one has a few dents and is missing a window but has only 5,000 miles, the benefits may outweigh the deficits.

Yes, if there were thousands of pieces of evidence against Mormonism and no evidence for Mormonism, then the case may be a bit more clear. As it stands, there is some balance on each side. I have never really sat down and logically calculated which side has the edge over the other (I suspect the evidence against outweighs the evidence for), because I have chosen to add personal experience to the balance. From an outside view, this just simply looks like I have a hand on the scale and will never allow the negative evidence to sway me. This may be what it looks like from the outside, but in fact, I am just adding weight to both sides corresponding to what my personal experience dictates. As for now, the personal experience far outweighs any evidence against Mormonism. Those who do not allow personal experience in the balance of things could easily come to a different conclusion.

[_son of Ishmael]

One has to wonder how many issues it would take for you to acknowledge that the overall story behind the production of the Book of Mormon is not 'reasonable" by any measure.

20
50
100?

At what point do you recognize that the rest of the world, those at all familiar with the claims made about how the Book of Mormon came about, see them as silly made up 19th nonsense? Start to finish, Joseph Smith story of how he got the Book of Mormon is simply a fairy tale held on to by only those for whom no amount of issues, large of small, would make a difference.

Continuing on with Mentalgymnast's analogy, the combination of problems can eventually cause someone to not purchase the car. But if you only look at the bad without considering the good, you will likely not purchase any car on the lot. If one has a few dents and is missing a window but has only 5,000 miles, the benefits may outweigh the deficits.

Yes, if there were thousands of pieces of evidence against Mormonism and no evidence for Mormonism, then the case may be a bit more clear. As it stands, there is some balance on each side. I have never really sat down and logically calculated which side has the edge over the other (I suspect the evidence against outweighs the evidence for), because I have chosen to add personal experience to the balance. From an outside view, this just simply looks like I have a hand on the scale and will never allow the negative evidence to sway me. This may be what it looks like from the outside, but in fact, I am just adding weight to both sides corresponding to what my personal experience dictates. As for now, the personal experience far outweighs any evidence against Mormonism. Those who do not allow personal experience in the balance of things could easily come to a different conclusion.

"...the combination of problems can eventually cause someone to not purchase the car. But if you only look at the bad without considering the good, you will likely not purchase any car on the lot..."

None of the other cars on the lot claim to be the "one and only true car" as declared by God Almighty

[Guest]

Can I just ask a couple of questions here?

1)Have you ever visited that area of NY?

2)When do you imagine this might have happened? Timeframe?

3)What type of foundation are you suggesting that a farmer might have constructed using flat stones? Can you describe it?

1) No. It is possible that stones are abundant in that area. If that is the case, then a monkey wrench is officially thrown in the plausibility (though not possibility) of this thought experiment.

2) I think it could have plausibly happened sometime between then and now.

3) Again, I am not trying to argue that a foundation is what happened here. No one can really argue anything here except possibility. I assume stone foundations were used in the past. I assume there exist some buildings within some small distance from the hill. Therefore, there is a possibility. I imagine there might be all sorts of other things stones could be used for in that area (e.g. wells).

Doing a little quick Googling, it seems that limestone is very abundant in Wayne County, New York and was a very common material in building foundations in those days (it works very well for that).

The Hill Cumorrah is a glacial drumlin consisting entirely of gravel with a thin layer of soil on top. It seems unlikely that a farmer would climb a drumlin to look for building stones. He would only need to go to the nearest stream that had washed away the topsoil to find limestone that would fit his needs. I lived in an area with very similar geological features. The streambed of every running creek consisted of ledge after ledge of very flat limestone. Easy to harvest (and delightfully filled with crinoid fossils, by the way).

"A farmer took it." might not be the most logical assumption.

It also seems unlikely that a stone box, buried at the top of a hill and surround by tree roots would suddenly wash down the hill after resting there for over 1,500 years.

[_Chap]

It also seems unlikely that a stone box, buried at the top of a hill and surround by tree roots would suddenly wash down the hill after resting there for over 1,500 years.

So you're telling me that there's a chance that IT REALLY HAPPENED????

I mean, unlikely isn't the same as impossible ...

[_Quasimodo]

It also seems unlikely that a stone box, buried at the top of a hill and surround by tree roots would suddenly wash down the hill after resting there for over 1,500 years.

So you're telling me that there's a chance that IT REALLY HAPPENED????

I mean, unlikely isn't the same as impossible ...

Good Point! It's not impossible. We would have to engage an actuary with some spare time to figure the odds. My own, uneducated guess would be that it is slightly more likely than the Easter Bunny storing eggs in a stone box on Hill Camorrah for the upcoming celebrations.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[_I have a question]

I think we are barking up the wrong tree.

Clearly the box had the appearance of stone but had, in fact, been 3D printed from biodegradable material made to look like stone. This material could also have been made to look like gold, steel and horses.

[_Quasimodo]

I think we are barking up the wrong tree.

Clearly the box had the appearance of stone but had, in fact, been 3D printed from biodegradable material made to look like stone. This material could also have been made to look like gold, steel and horses.

Or tapirs.

Or llamas.

The fact, as you suggest, that a material could be engineered to withstand the millennia and then magically biodegrade 1,500 years later, could only point to the hand of God.

I'm calling the missionaries again.