Radio Free Mormon Magic and Book of Mormon Translation

[Physics Guy]

It can't do much harm to pray for a miracle, even to do something of slight importance, as long as you can spare a moment to form the prayer.

It's not as though a real God would make someone else suffer grievously just so that I can find a parking space or whatever. If there is a loving God then that God knows what we all want and need, better than we ourselves know, and is doing the best possible job of balancing everyone's needs with whatever longer-term purposes the universe has. By no means is that God going to derail everything just because I use the right magic words while holding the right opinions on some undecidable propositions.

But on the off chance that nothing more important than my convenience is riding on whether or not I get that parking space or whatever, I can ask. It can't do any harm. And maybe God would tweak the universe a bit for me on that point.

So if a miracle does occur in answer to my prayer, it's not due to how powerful God is or to how much God loves me, but only due to the fluke circumstance that whether or not this particular event occurred had no significant effect on the rest of the universe. So God could afford to let my wish make this call, like a parent allowing a little kid to steer the car for a little while in a parking lot that happens to be empty for a few minutes.

I think it would still be reasonable enough to be grateful if it seems that a prayer has been answered, even if the prayer were for something trivial. If a little kid asks a billionaire philanthropist for a lollipop, and the billionaire gives them one just because they happen to have one handy and can spare the moment to hand it over before rushing off to cure malaria, the kid should still say, "Thank you."

[Kishkumen]

Every deception works by doing something that would normally be unlikely. Otherwise nobody would be deceived. So documents like the Book of Mormon don't come out of every farm every month, but within the range of human possibility unassisted by miracle there are tons of ways that Joseph Smith or confederates could have produced the Book of Mormon. Not being able to prove exactly which way was used, after all this time, and not identifying a way that would have been so childishly easy that nothing at all tricky or unusual would have been needed, is not being baffled by the Book of Mormon.

Indeed.

[Dr Exiled]

Yeah, the demand for the unbeliever to show how it was exactly done never seemed to be a good argument to me. It's a weak attempt at shifting the burden of proof in the face of mountains of evidence showing a 19th century production. Look to the present and future, brethren and mopologists. The past stopped helping the cause once all the facts were put online.

[Bought Yahoo]

I'm sorry Consig. I have little patience for podcasts. I tried to listen. But with no point developing I gave up.

[Shulem]

I'm sorry Consig. I have little patience for podcasts. I tried to listen. But with no point developing I gave up.

I don't understand

[dastardly stem]

Yep, exactly. I mean who cares how it came to be? Does it matter to anyone who already doesn't believe it's scripture? I don't think so. I mean at best there may be a person or two out there who has enjoyed it beyond those predisposed to treat it as scripture.

I think it has a cute story or two. It offers a decent thought or two...but for the most part it's hardly worth taking so seriously to even figure out where it came from if Joseph didn't write it. Or how he might have tricked his scribes. For all I know they were collaborating with him in its creation and they decided to add the story of a miraculous plates vision. Or he got it from someone else. Maybe he wrote it himself and figured out a good magic trick, as RFM suggests, with a hat. That hat was the distraction, or whatever.

I do enjoy how believers want all their claims to be taken seriously so badly that they turn the burden onto everyone else to prove them wrong, as if that leaves anyone with a point worth considering.

"well Joseph couldn't have written it. He wasn't very educated." They say.

"I mean the book exists and it demands an explanation because it's here, isn't it?" They say.

Every person who wrote a book surprised someone by their accomplishment. Some more surprising then others. And not one book out there demands an explanation other than someone wrote it.

[consiglieri]

I'm sorry Consig. I have little patience for podcasts. I tried to listen. But with no point developing I gave up.

I appreciate your giving it a shot

[Bought Yahoo]

I'm sorry Consig. I have little patience for podcasts. I tried to listen. But with no point developing I gave up.

I don't understand

HAH! Certainly not you; you combine malice with general inability to make a point. There are many here who can make a good point. Isn't that the best thing a critic can offer, rather than stumbling ramblings about a king's name?

[Bought Yahoo]

I'm sorry Consig. I have little patience for podcasts. I tried to listen. But with no point developing I gave up.

I appreciate your giving it a shot

Maybe you can give me the minute reference where you talk about Joseph Smith and his magick? I am interested in that, not about all your personal stuff.

[Shulem]

I don't understand

HAH! Certainly not you; you combine malice with general inability to make a point. There are many here who can make a good point. Isn't that the best thing a critic can offer, rather than stumbling ramblings about a king's name?

Listen up, pal. I will continue to ramble and ramble and Ramble On (Led Zeppelin), over and over, asking YOU and every other dumb Mormon, "What's the king's name?"

I will never stop doing it and love to watch you Mormon worms squirm.

You Mormons are just dumb, starting with you. Just look at you!