mentalgymnast wrote:This is an interesting thread. So was this one:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11656&hilit=criddle+craig+spauldingAnd this one:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12026&hilit=criddle+craig+spauldingAnd this:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9793&hilit=criddle+craig+spauldingAnd many others that could be searched out as "blasts from the past". Thomas Murphy, then Southerton, then Vogel, then others. Every time something new comes along to make a splash in regards to trashing the angel and the gold plates it causes a feeding frenzy. First it was the LONG, but very interesting threads with Uncle Dale and Roger. Then when Criddle and Jockers were the new kids on the block it seemed as though they were the harbingers of something that would lead to the destruction of the Book of Mormon and everyone around here got hot in the pants. Ben McGuire came along and put them in a defensive position and things kind of fizzled out from what I observed. Now we have this current "ground breaking" discovery that's making waves. Ben McGuire has already stepped up again and responded to Chris and Duane Johnson and caused them to reconsider and recalabrate their position here and there. It will be interesting to see where this particular "flash in the pan" goes.
From the OP it sounded like the Book of Mormon was going to self implode without delay.
News of the Book of Mormon's demise may be a bit pre-mature, but who knows? It will be interesting to see where things shake out this time around.
Some have mentioned the silver bullet. Maybe this time you've actually found it?
Regards,
MG
Obviously, you have read this thread very carefully, which is why you said the above even though numerous posters have acknowledged that some people are going to continue believing in the Book of Mormon irrespective of the status of the evidence. And long experience suggests that the LDS Church and its apologists will continue to cite specious claims as evidence of the Book of Mormon's authenticity.
A great case in point is yourself.
"But there's some complex chiasmus in the Book of Mormon if you manipulate the text enough!" The purported complex chiasmus in the Book of Mormon has been addressed many, many times in threads in which you have participated, and it doesn't have anything in particular to do with
Late War, but you still couldn't help yourself from bringing it up. And may I suggest that if you are hanging the existence of a vast, advanced thousand-year civilization on manipulating the text of one chapter in a rambling, prolix book to look like an intended complex chiastic structure, maybe forensics isn't your thing.
Anyhow, back to
Late War and what has actually been said in this thread. Instead of attributing positions to Kishkumen---the OP---that he did not take, perhaps you would like to explain whether the LDS Church and its defenders should continue to tout the cognate accusative as evidence of the Book of Mormon's historicity. Since an author in early 19th-century New York could not possibly have included that in a pseudo-biblical historical narrative, like the Church and its apologists have insisted.
Or maybe it is just a general eternal principle that when a group of antagonists burn people alive, the victims' cries will ascend to heaven to condemn the antagonists at the last day. Thus, the Lord inspired both Gilbert J. Hunt and Alma the Younger to share this spiritual truth with us.
What you're doing, mentalgymnast, is a reiteration of Jeffrey Holland's "and yet it still stands" fallacious appeal to popularity (not that the Book of Mormon actually is popular in the grand scheme of things). The Book of Mormon does indeed still stand, in that there are people who continue to believe in it. People also continue to believe in homeopathy, astrology, the Urantia Book, and Scientology. Likewise, after Charles Ponzi was exposed as a con man, there were still people holding onto their receipts for investing in his scheme, confident that all the evidence was wrong and they would realize the spectacular profits he had promised.
In other words, your observation about the Book of Mormon's "demise" is merely an observation about the irrationality of human behavior, not about the Book of Mormon's truth value. But please feel free to continue talking about the many Hebraisms that were unknown in Joseph Smith's time and place, and would not be incorporated into a pseudo-historical narrative created in 1820's New York. That is, unless you'd like to agree that Russell M. Nelson, among others, is a charlatan.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31774
