Comfortable ignorance and MD&D

[_MrStakhanovite]

Over at MD&D, armchair scholars and autodidactic geniuses are comparing notes about explicit and compelling examples of Book of Mormon names appearing in languages of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Things go smoothly for a time before Brandt Gardner shows up talking sense, and it isn’t before long that someone associates his fancy talkin’ with anti-Mormon discourse.

This whole enjoyable thread was a reminder to me on just how blissfully ignorant you can be when you never leave the confines of what is intellectually comfortable for you. I’ve had one linguistics course and it was pretty brutal, but when I read the OP I started to recall that the number of possible vocal sounds by humans is pretty limited by human anatomy, and that it is just a fact of life that languages that are completely unrelated are going to share some words with the same phonemes. I can’t imagine this ever crossed the mind of a mouth breathing goon like Log, before he tried to jump Cinepro’s case, doesn’t know a thing about linguistic anthropology, but has no problem posting as if he does.

Brandt provides a much clearer and forceful example than what I could ever hope to recall, but the reaction he gets is similar to the one I would have gotten, if I was allowed to participate there.

LDSToronto expressed some time ago his frustration with the regulars of MD&D, wondering why they couldn’t bother to educate themselves by reading a damn book now and then on a topic before trying to opine with an air of authority. He’s right, but he’s just another name to smear over there, and any advice he had to give would be dismissed before LDST could finish typing it.

I’d like to congratulate the mods at MD&D for creating a hotbed of anti-intellectual tribalism that has come to represent the face of Mormon Apologetics.

[_Fence Sitter]

This comment alone is sig line worthy.

Brant,

Your argument just doesn't make sense to me, but maybe I am too dumb to see it. I guess you assume thate the use of highly technical terms somehow strenghtens your argument, but I am not impressed.

Anyway, the antis favorite argument is that "it is just another coincidence" and any archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon would and could fall into that category. Sheum, for example, falls under that category.

I guess we are at a point where big words are a sure sign of anti Mormons like Brant Gardner.

[_harmony]

I’d like to congratulate the mods at MD&D for creating a hotbed of anti-intellectual tribalism that has come to represent the face of Mormon Apologetics.

A sad day this is.

[_Blixa]

Although Brant is clear and on the money with his explanation of false cognates, you don't even have to go that far to find problems with "Chief Lehi." White settlers transliterated native names into English; in other words, and leaving the big word out, they wrote/spelled what they thought they heard. They also routinely assigned names to natives, too. Thus, there are plenty of problems with "Chief Lehi" right out of the gate.

To be fair, Calmoriah pretty much hits this point in her response and Cinepro delineates how the term "Lemhi Shoshone" developed.

And yet, even with that AND the issue of false cognates...."OMG look at the hypothetical Akkadian/Sumerian/Hebrew/Reformed Egyptian parallels!!!!!"

[_3sheets2thewind]

Log is a doofus. I am convinced log is sockpuppet of jeffk or leeuniverse. Log has been registered for many years yet does not have many posts.

[_Dantana]

if I was allowed to participate there.

That's disappointing....that you can't/don't/won't post over there. Could you try another pen name, like Lephi maybe?.....that apparently fools em.

[_ludwigm]

White settlers transliterated native names into English; in other words, and leaving the big word out, they wrote/spelled what they thought they heard.

One of our writers, Géza Gárdonyi has created a Hungarian word, out of numbers. (He should have sit in a dark room for one week - eye infection, as I remember the story. Imagine a writer who can not read or write...)

beş (five in Turkish); öt (five in Hungarian); eighty; ten; deux (two in French)
After concatenating them - with the correct pronounciation in every language - it gives
"besötétítendő" = it [the room] should be darkened

And yet, even with that AND the issue of false cognates...."OMG look at the hypothetical Akkadian/Sumerian/Hebrew/Reformed Egyptian parallels!!!!!"

In the 19 century in Hungary there were self-styled scholars who proved by similar means that every celebrity of the human history was Hungarian.
For example *Tiglath-Pileser's name was really "téglát pazarol" (the meaning is brick wasting) because of his big royal palace...

English speakers can pronounce every vowel in any form they want, so that name-twisting method works better in that language.

_________________
*Tiglath-Pileser (from the Hebraic form of Akkadian: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, "my trust is in the son of Esharra", Classical Syriac: ܬܲܟܲܠܬܝܼ ܐܵܦܸܠ ܥܝܼܫܵܪܵܐ‎ Takaltyu ʾapel ʿyushara, Russian: Тиглатпаласар, Greek: Θεγλάθ-φελασάρ or Τιγλάθ-Πιλέσερ, Japan: ティグラト・ピレセル)

_________________
Please don't forget my credentials in
- contemporary Sumerian literature
- Assyrio-Babylonian philately

[_Kevin Graham]

Log is a doofus. I am convinced log is sockpuppet of jeffk or leeuniverse. Log has been registered for many years yet does not have many posts.

I don't think so. I was in the MAD chat room with him the other night and had a really good conversation for about a half hour. He was very sincere and not at all judgmental like the morons you listed above. He left the Church but came back, but I think he's still somewhat on the fence.

[_Aristotle Smith]

This is too bad. I hope the rumors that FARMS is set to take a crap on Gardner's work was just that, a rumor. But given its history, you can't really rule it out.

He seems to be one of the few apologists for whom apologetics is not some game, divorced from lived faith. He's genuinely concerned with actual data and incorporating it into his beliefs. His latest book acknowledged the critical issues surrounding the Book of Mormon, but then deals with the data and allows the data to shape his beliefs and understanding. I think he's a good example of a faithful Mormon following Anselm's project of faith seeking understanding. Far too often in Mopologetics the project seems to be "Protecting my faith with BS" or "Faith seeking my esoteric pet project only tangentially related to my faith."

[_zeezrom]

The term "armchair scholar" is sort of new for me. I appreciate you introducing me to it. While we're at it, can you help me understand what a cup holder sofa scholar might be?