DiscussMormonism.com

Quasimodo wrote:

I have a question wrote: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.

You know you're better off not calling the missionaries and instead putting a clause in your last will and testament that you are to be posthumously dunked into Mormonism.

Best if both worlds...literally!

Gorman wrote:
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.

There is always a cost benefit analyst when purchasing a vehicle, however that was not the point of my analogy. My point was that MG was dismissing the stone box as unimportant, as if there was nothing else to see or consider. He wasn't supplying a reasonable (or ever far fetched like some here) explanation as to why no one can find the box, he simply dismissed it as unimportant.

MG wrote: I looked at it years back and found it interesting but, well, that was about it.

Obviously if the only issue one could find with the production of the Book of Mormon would be the lack of any physical evidence of the stone box, it wouldn't be a big deal.

"Hey look we don't have the stone box but we have the actual plates and we can compare what is on the plates to what Joseph Smith translated, we have proof that Joseph Smith was capable of running at full speed for an hour with 60-100 pounds of weight while being chased through a forest, we have found the lost 116 pages and can confirm they were translated from parts of the plates and we can see the evidence that evil men actually tried to change what was originally on those pages, we have evidence that Joseph Smith actually found buried treasure when he was working as a treasure hunter, we have found other instances where metal plates were written on in large quantities in the western hemisphere, we have found other artifacts of steel bows and swords in the Americas, we have found evidence that American civilizations between 600 B.C. and 400 A.D used devices like a Urim and Thummim, we have also found a brass ball type device in the ruins of an ancient American civilization of exceedingly fine workmanship that could've been some type of compass."

If we could say all that and more, then a facile dismissal of a stone box would be acceptable. Since we cannot say any of that, the missing stone box remains just one more reason to reject what is already an unbelievable story, the evidence against which must be considered in totality.

There isn't "some balance on each side". The evidence is overwhelmingly against Mormonism. It suffers from all of the same criticisms that mainstream Christianity does while at the same time is subject to the scrutiny of a recently written extensive historical record, scientific analysis of claims like ancient American cities peopled by descendents of the middle east, anachronism in the Book of Mormon, and implausible claims and stories from Joseph Smith like the gold plates in a stone box.

There is a reason the church is trying to reinterpret its own past and distance itself from things like seer stones and magic spectacles set in breastplates. Not even its own leaders believe in the use of those things any more. I was a member for more that 40 years before I even discovered the church still possesses the seer stones Joseph Smith used.

I have a question wrote:

You know you're better off not calling the missionaries and instead putting a clause in your last will and testament that you are to be posthumously dunked into Mormonism.

Best if both worlds...literally!

This thread is full of good points! In fact, I might not even need to put it in my will. My name is a matter of record and I'm certain I will get my turn.

Young Priesthood holder: "Excuse me, Sir. Isn't Quasimodo a fictional character, created by Victor Hugo to explore the variance between human physical beauty and human spiritual beauty?"

Official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Dunker: "Shut up and take your dunking!"

Edited because I just couldn't help myself.

Gorman wrote:

Tobin wrote:Hilarious. Gorman, seriously, the idea that some farmer would haul rocks miles is rather absurd when they likely had materials much closer at hand. And like you said, you shouldn't believe it and no-one else should either.

I said nothing about miles. I imagine for a scenario like this to make sense, the farmer would have to be on property neighboring the hill or otherwise very close.

I'm not sure why everyone thinks this is such a big deal. I am not trying to defend this position. I am just stating that absolutely refusing that it could ever happen is foolish.

If that is your theory, then it should be easy to track down the stones. However, I think we'll find the truth is that someone tripped over the stone box in the middle of the night and carted it off to use in the Erie Canal.

You guys are killing me, especially Dr. Cam. Thanks for the entertainment everyone. I hope the newer members realize Dr. Cam is just passionate about his beliefs and it isn't personal.

The points Dr. Cam raises about the reclaimed cement slab industry are significant. I do have one point to make in case it hasn't been made yet. The people in Peru see these ruins every day, but in Cumorah, we have a farm boy who says he got a gold Bible from an angel on a hill. Since most people won't believe the story, not many even qualify for thinking: oh boy, I'm gonna break out the wheelbarrow and rush up that yonder mountain and get me the cement slabs from the box housing that gold Bible and magic rock Joe has and build me a fence with it. Out of the dupes who believed Smith, given the fear of eyes burning out from witnessing the urim and thummin, it just might seem a little ill-advised if not totally sacrilegious to rush up and salvage the freaking cement that held the sacred relics just to fix a fence. I think we're left with a handful of folks who a) believe the stone box exists b) believe it should be OK to bust it up for fence mending c) believe it's worth their time to search for it, before we even get to d) face the economics of reclaiming concrete slabs, which is kind of a show stopper.

Before we continue our descent into sophmorish name calling and ridicule, let's take a break and summarize.

Multiple people here seemed to claim that if we cannot find the 'stone box' on the Hill Cumorah today, then the logic is watertight that there could have never been such an object on that Hill, ever.

I claimed that the logic is by no means watertight and listed the first example that came to my head - the stone may have been harvested.

We then spent a few pages discussing that example. Some claimed that the incentive to harvest such stone is never warranted. I seem to have finally established the fact that such incentive can take place, although, it looks as if useful stone may be much more common in that area than I assumed, so the example may not be as probable as I first thought.

I am happy to live with the fact that the particular example I proposed is not as probable as I first assumed, if we have also established the fact that the logic is not nearly as water-tight as initially proposed.

I'm not sure if I have the endurance to bring up the three or four other possible examples currently in my head and spend pages discussing them as well. I can say one thing. I am surprised at the fervor with which this particular ground is defended. I wouldn't have assumed that at first. Now I am mostly curious as to why this particular issue is such a beloved one.

Gorman wrote:Before we continue our descent into sophmorish name calling and ridicule, let's take a break and summarize.

Multiple people here seemed to claim that if we cannot find the 'stone box' on the Hill Cumorah today, then the logic is watertight that there could have never been such an object on that Hill, ever.

I claimed that the logic is by no means watertight and listed the first example that came to my head - the stone may have been harvested.

We then spent a few pages discussing that example. Some claimed that the incentive to harvest such stone is never warranted. I seem to have finally established the fact that such incentive can take place, although, it looks as if useful stone may be much more common in that area than I assumed, so the example may not be as probable as I first thought.

I am happy to live with the fact that the particular example I proposed is not as probable as I first assumed, if we have also established the fact that the logic is not nearly as water-tight as initially proposed.

I'm not sure if I have the endurance to bring up the three or four other possible examples currently in my head and spend pages discussing them as well. I can say one thing. I am surprised at the fervor with which this particular ground is defended. I wouldn't have assumed that at first. Now I am mostly curious as to why this particular issue is such a beloved one.

Hi Gorman. I appreciate your civility! That should be more common here than it is.

I think the reason most people here are interested in your proposals is that it seems you are using them as a possible defence for Joseph Smith' gold plate story. People (such as myself) are eager to point out that a missing stone box is more likely to point to no gold plates than a farmer using the stones for whatever purpose or a storm washing them off the hill.

The reality is that apologetic explanations of these sorts of things is usually right on the border of improbability and complete impossibility.

I think you get an A for effort because of the scenarios you have submitted, but I (and many others) think the most logical and rational reason for no box being found is that no box ever existed.

Gadianton wrote:I hope the newer members realize Dr. Cam is just passionate about his beliefs and it isn't personal.

Maybe this is it. I may be mistaken in my assumption that a passionate defense over this issue means the issue is important. It may just be a passion to defend in general.

Fence Sitter wrote:There isn't "some balance on each side". The evidence is overwhelmingly against Mormonism.

I believe Gorman has said the evidence against the Book of Mormon is greater then the evidence for. His idea of balance I believe is his confidence of his interpretations of what he is calling here personal experience, or more accurately spiritual experience. I would also call this the testimony wall we see with many religions, and some non-religious beliefs. What he cannot do is show why he and a few select people in the LDS church can get reliable interpretations of these experiences, but no one else can. It also doesn't address why some who were in his boat no longer think the spiritual experience is reliable for these kinds of truth claims.

Quasimodo wrote:I think the reason most people here are interested in your proposals is that it seems you are using them as a possible defence for Joseph Smith' gold plate story. People (such as myself) are eager to point out that a missing stone box is more likely to point to no gold plates than a farmer using the stones for whatever purpose or a storm washing them off the hill.

I tend to agree here. Strictly between the two scenarios, no gold plates is the more likely.

Quasimodo wrote:The reality is that apologetic explanations of these sorts of things is usually right on the border of improbability and complete impossibility.

That may be true, but I think the issue isn't between which is more likely. Maybe I can try to explain from a believer's perspective (if you have been a believer, you are probably already familiar with this). If I have had spiritual experiences that I accept as from a god which points to a Mormon Theology, then events in Mormonism do not have to be likely, they only have to be possible to some threshold.

If I only allow for evidence which would be permissible in a court of law, it is probable that Mormonism fails. It is also probable that Theism fails. If I accept evidence of a spiritual nature, then the entire equation changes.

Yes, people who believe such things can look like they are ignoring all negative evidence and concentrating only on the highly improbable positives, but it could also be the case that people experience convincing spiritual experiences and any small collection of negative evidence simply doesn't change their mind about whether those spiritual experiences are trustworthy or not.