Is the Book of Mormon Divinely Inspired?

[I Have Questions]

Nobody on this board will be able to put forward evidence of any amount, of any veracity, that will change a believers mind about the Book of Mormon. The issue isn’t the evidence, it’s the source of the evidence that’s an impenetrable barrier. Humans generally adopt information that’s given from people and sources they know, like, and trust. It’s why Apostles go to great lengths to convince members that anyone who disagrees with the Church’s view on something is an untrustworthy source. It’s why the Church encourages members to shun people that leave the Church, and to view them as people who want to sin etc.

It’s why the Tanners were vilified, yet their information has been shown to be correct. People now believe stuff like the seer stone, not because the Tanners provided the evidence many years ago, it’s because a source they know, like, and trust (the Church) is now giving them the exact same evidence.

The issue isn’t the evidence, it’s the source of the evidence that matters.

Were the Church to evolve into a position that the Book of Mormon is non historical, believers would evolve their belief to fit that narrative.

[Res Ipsa]

Here is some food for thought, an incident from the town I grew up in: https://www.historylink.org/File/5136

Thousands of people observed the same mysterious phenomenon over a wide geographical area. They were absolutely sincere. But they were also wrong. They were all simply noticing something that was not new — they had just never noticed it before.

Expectations can heavily influence what people think they see. Note that this incident spread like a disease, from one small town in NW Washington to Vancouver in the north and Portland in the south.

There are other examples: the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, Portugal. Many group visions of the Virgin Mary.

Heck, I personally witnessed a man who clipped off part of a rose by clipping only its shadow. I saw it happen. I’ll never deny that I saw it happen. So did several hundred other people, none of whom I knew. Independent witnesses.

Very cool, Teller. But it doesn’t take a skilled magician to trick us into seeing something that did not happen. Our brains can do it all on their own.

[Physics Guy]

an incident from the town I grew up in: https://www.historylink.org/File/5136

A fascinating bit of history. Everybody suddenly noticed that an awful lot of car windshields were getting tiny chips in them. Nobody was even wrong about that. An awful lot of their windshields really did have little chips in them somewhere, if you looked closely. And there also really was a lot of coal grit around in the air and on the ground, and there really had been H-bomb tests, there really are cosmic rays, and so on.

In fact those little chips and pits in the windshields had just always been there. They're probably still there today, and we just don't notice, though maybe windshield glass has gotten harder since the 1950s. The idea that the phenomenon was new was just wrong.

The mistake in the windshield-pitting hysteria was just one of framing. The elements of fact were all real, but the framing was wrong. People suddenly identified windshield pitting as a thing to be noticed. They drew a frame around the phenomenon and demanded that it be part of a story, with some single new cause to explain it. They imagined a play in which window chipping would be one of the main characters, with just a few other roles, in three acts.

The human brain is always looking for simple stories like that in the world. Clearly it's a survival trait, because often enough the patterns really are there, close enough to be useful. Science wouldn't exist without this human obsession with simple patterns.

The other lesson I learn from this episode, though, is that all these people had been living with little dings in their windshields for years, without ever focusing on it as a noteworthy phenomenon, if they even noticed it at all. As well as identifying salient patterns, our brains are good at ignoring things. In fact the two traits work together. We could never see any simple patterns if we didn't ignore most of the world.

As I've learned from the linguist in my family, one of the most basic stages in language learning by human infants is learning to ignore differences in sounds that are not important in the particular language they hear. By a very early age in a linguistic environment, children hear only a digitised version of the sounds people make, with everything interpreted as one phoneme or another. This is what makes it so difficult to pronounce a foreign language correctly or to understand it clearly when it is spoken quickly or against background noise. You literally don't hear what you're supposed to hear, because your brain is digitising everything wrong.

Years before I started seriously learning German I played a board game (Settlers of Catan) with some German-speaking friends. The game was originally German, this particular set was in German, and we were using a lot of German words. Or in my case, trying to use them. It was hard trying to trade with people for clay, because when I tried to say Lehm, they all laughed. It just sounded like "lame" to me, but to them what I said was not at all the same word. They'd say, "No, no, it's 'lame'," as far as I could tell, so I'd repeat "lame," and they'd laugh. I still have trouble with German aspirated vowels. I can sort of hear that they're a bit different, and I try to stretch the sound a bit to make them right, but it's one of the giveaways in my accent. To a native German speaker, the vowels with and without the "h" are as different as "a" and "o". When I try to focus on the distinction, though, my brain is fighting itself, because being a native speaker of English means that my brain actively ignores the distinction. It's like being colour blind.

Ignoring the irrelevant is an essential part of pattern recognition. Changing what you ignore can change what pattern you see. For some reason these issues fascinate me. So I liked reading this story.

[I Have Questions]

Why did Joseph have to be present for the witnesses to see what it was he wanted them to see?

[I Have Questions]

Another story:

In 2010, Aaron Scheerhoorn was stabbed to death outside of a Houston nightclub. The attack was merciless, with Scheerhoorn crying out "Help me! He's killing me!" as he was stabbed numerous times. A crowd witnessed the attack, and upon questioning by detectives, six different eyewitnesses identified Lydell Grant as the murderer.

At trial, the six eyewitnesses testified that they had seen Grant murder Scheerhoorn. For violent crimes, any eyewitness is a luxury for the prosecution; six fingering the same defendant is extraordinarily rare. Despite having an alibi, and despite the prosecution having no physical evidence tying him to the crime (which was unusual given the bloody nature of the attack), Grant was quickly found guilty and ultimately sentenced to life in prison. As any lawyer knows, few things sway a jury like eyewitness testimony.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... you-really

Since the day he was arrested, Grant steadfastly maintained his innocence. From his maximum-security prison in Gatesville, Texas, he sent dozens of letters to defense attorneys in an attempt to have his case reevaluated, but most went unanswered. Years passed; soon Grant found himself imprisoned for nearly a decade.

Everything changed in 2019 when a new DNA testing method analyzed samples from underneath Scheerhoorn's fingernails, clearing Grant and instead implicating another man, Jermarico Carter, who later confessed to the murder. A writ of habeas corpus was filed bringing to light the new DNA evidence, and Grant was quickly released from prison.

Unfortunately, Grant's story is not unique. Data from the Innocence Project (an organization committed to exonerating individuals wrongly convicted of crimes) show that more than 375 individuals have been exonerated with new DNA evidence. Twenty-one of those individuals had been sentenced to death and served time on death row. Importantly, the overwhelming majority of convictions overturned through DNA testing were originally based on eyewitness testimony.

…reports suggest that all of the eyewitnesses to Scheerhoorn's murder were manipulated in some way either before or after their identification of Grant. Three reported that the detective told them that they had picked the same person that other people had. Two other eyewitnesses discussed their selection with each another and confirmed each other’s memory. The last eyewitness claimed that the detective stated “good job” following their identification of Grant. This type of manipulation can lead not only to incorrect identifications, but also more confidence in eyewitnesses that their memory is correct

See my signature line.

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that simple confirming comments such as these have dramatic effects on eyewitnesses’ testimony. Not only do such statements inflate eyewitnesses’ confidence in the accuracy of their identification, but they lead them to falsely remember having been that confident all along.

As a result, witnesses who have received confirmatory feedback provide testimony that is highly persuasive to jurors.

https://theconversation.com/6-eyewitnes ... eup-134767

You see this confirming behaviour by parents every time a child gets up and bears their testimony about the Book of Mormon (or the Church). It’s a form of (unwitting?) brainwashing so that in later life the young adult (falsely) remembers having a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.

[Valo]

You get your information from COINTELPRO and are saying something isn't scientifically accurate?

Yes Marcus please get your information from a reliable source like QAnon or Catturd on a reliable site like Elon Musk’s X (formerly branded less successfully as Twitter).

Please keep listening to mainstream narrative. Your government never lies to you. Your institutions are pure. Your leaders are honest. Your science is filled with the most righteous, and you live in a country.

[Valo]

But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof. 19 For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; 20 For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. 21 And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. 22 And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. 23 Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. 24 Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! 25 Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well! 26 Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost!

[Philo Sofee]

Nobody on this board will be able to put forward evidence of any amount, of any veracity, that will change a believers mind about the Book of Mormon. The issue isn’t the evidence, it’s the source of the evidence that’s an impenetrable barrier. Humans generally adopt information that’s given from people and sources they know, like, and trust. It’s why Apostles go to great lengths to convince members that anyone who disagrees with the Church’s view on something is an untrustworthy source. It’s why the Church encourages members to shun people that leave the Church, and to view them as people who want to sin etc.

It’s why the Tanners were vilified, yet their information has been shown to be correct. People now believe stuff like the seer stone, not because the Tanners provided the evidence many years ago, it’s because a source they know, like, and trust (the Church) is now giving them the exact same evidence.

The issue isn’t the evidence, it’s the source of the evidence that matters.

Were the Church to evolve into a position that the Book of Mormon is non historical, believers would evolve their belief to fit that narrative.

A deeply profound point!

[drumdude]

you live in a country.

I can’t wait to live on Elon’s Mars colony.

[ceeboo]

But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof. 19 For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; 20 For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. 21 And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. 22 And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. 23 Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. 24 Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! 25 Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well! 26 Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost!

Is this from the Book of Mormon?