Making Covenants

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MG 2.0
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by MG 2.0 »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:07 pm
Shulem wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:51 pm



Nibley was a Goddamn liar!

:evil:
Hmm…OK. That is one opinion, I guess.

Regards,
MG
Did you ever collaborate with Hugh Nibley on any projects, etc.?

Did you have any personal conversations with him on a personal level?

If so, what was your takeaway?

Regards,
MG
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malkie
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by malkie »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:06 pm
malkie wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:46 pm

I have not read anything of Nibley since the early 1970, and could not, from memory, even tell you what I did or did not read then. So my knowledge on this subject is effectively zero.

But what you quoted does not, to my mind, supply evidence. Someone draws parallels - great, if you believe it.

Here is the best help I can give you on this:

Nobody - including me - needs to present hard evidence which would demonstrate that the Abraham of the Old Testament could not have spent time in Egypt unless they are making such an assertion.

My position is that anyone asserting that there was an Abraham who satisfied the 3 bullet points I provided is on the hook to provide the "hard evidence" you seek to support that assertion.
So we’re either back to ground zero or don’t really have a solid incontrovertible baseline to even start from. Right?

Flip sides of the coin always seem to come into play.

Dang. Everything always comes back to faith…and cumulative experiences (including spiritual) and little ‘ah hah!’ evidences along the way.

It’s the cumulative experience(s) in my life that permit me to put Abraham on the map of real possibilities along with other Old Testament prophets. That then comes into play with covenantal relationships that can be made with God, etc.

But to each his own, I guess.

1970’s huh? I graduated from high school in 1975.

Side note: I guess I should read more Nibley…but I probably will not get around to it. I never did catch the ‘Nibley bug’. Probably should have. Spent too much time reading Sunstone/Dialogue. I wonder how many folks around here were at one time Nibleyites. I doubt the younger generation has in many cases even heard his name unless it was in connection with the big brouhaha that his daughter put out there years ago.

Regards,
MG
At "ground zero", in the absence of "hard evidence", it's not a coin toss. There is a baseline.

I really don't know how often or in how many ways this point needs to be made. The starting point in the absence of evidence is to reject the assertion: that which is asserted without evidence may be rejected without evidence". Furthermore, if there is evidence of some sort, it make sense (at least to me) to accept possibilities or probabilities according to the strength of the available evidence. Suppositions, and "parallels", and "what ifs" cannot take the place of evidence.

You are asking me for hard evidence to support a position that I'm not taking, all the while providing no hard evidence for the position that you are taking. I'm sure that you must see the difference in terms of strength of argument, right?

Here is my subjective view, based on what you are saying:
What I'm seeing, in effect, is that your religious life is built on a foundation of possibilities, with each successive layer being another set of possibilities. I don't know what makes them "real" in your eyes, but I think it's worthwhile noting that you don't claim strong probabilities, instead of possibilities. I can only assume that that is because the preponderance of "hard evidence" does not support doing so.

I would call that a weak and unstable structure.

You may, of course, tell me if I'm wrong, and why.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:05 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:07 pm


Hmm…OK. That is one opinion, I guess.

Regards,
MG
Did you ever collaborate with Hugh Nibley on any projects, etc.?

Did you have any personal conversations with him on a personal level?

If so, what was your takeaway?

Regards,
MG
I read his autobiography and posted my observations on a thread that’s on the old board. His son compiled all the talking points from Nibley’s journals. One of the bits that stood out was Nibley’s account of bumping into Hitler, like literally brushing past him. That was just one of many obvious lies he told about what he did, where he was at, etc. He played fast and loose with the truth. Which, as you would know, is par for course for Mormon men.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Gadianton
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by Gadianton »

So Nibley was just spouting BS?
Yes, pure BS. I read a lot of Nibley back in the day, and I quit reading him entirely when I began to read real Bible scholarship. (Not something I pursued for very long, but long enough to realize Nibley was a fraud)

Nibley is famous for his footnotes, but the real test is how frequently does your work appear in footnotes of other scholarship? Who is using your work to take the ball farther? Nibley isn't quoted by anybody. In the real world of scholarship, Nibley might have had equal or higher intelligence than many of his peers, but he didn't produce solid work that is standing the test of time outside of Mormon apologetics.

And even inside Mormon apologetics, Nibley might have been the guy to get the ball rolling for Mormon apologetics, but not even apologists heavily quote from his work because it's too dicey.

Symmachus, a real philologist, can go on and on correcting Nibley's bad calls when it comes to his esoteric language connections. That was his gimmick, because very few people in the Church will know enough about ancient languages to be able to tell if he's pulling a fast one. His sideshow was dazzling displays of ad-libbing on the genealogy of ancient words. But then it turns out, that's all it was; a side show.
honorentheos
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by honorentheos »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:06 pm
So we’re either back to ground zero or don’t really have a solid incontrovertible baseline to even start from. Right?

Flip sides of the coin always seem to come into play.

Dang. Everything always comes back to faith…and cumulative experiences (including spiritual) and little ‘ah hah!’ evidences along the way.
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Shulem
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by Shulem »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:05 pm
Did you ever collaborate with Hugh Nibley on any projects, etc.?

Did you have any personal conversations with him on a personal level?

No & No.

;)
MG 2.0
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by MG 2.0 »

malkie wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:12 pm

Here is my subjective view, based on what you are saying:
What I'm seeing, in effect, is that your religious life is built on a foundation of possibilities, with each successive layer being another set of possibilities. I don't know what makes them "real" in your eyes, but I think it's worthwhile noting that you don't claim strong probabilities, instead of possibilities. I can only assume that that is because the preponderance of "hard evidence" does not support doing so.

I would call that a weak and unstable structure.

You may, of course, tell me if I'm wrong, and why.
Good post, malkie. And some ‘not so bad’ analysis. 🙂

Without going into a lot of detail in regards to my cumulative experience and thought over the years, let me say that the ONE over riding possibility/probability that I’ve accepted as an axiom is that, for me, the evidence seems to allow for and even demonstrate the existence of a creator God. All else flows from that. The best I can tell is that the reverse holds true for you, more or less.

So we both have a starting point in our deliberations that then come after our beginning axiom of belief/non belief.

Religion then is something that I look at with open eyes. Knowing that it is not improbable that a loving God would intervene in the world to reveal His truth.

In turn I then look at the restoration narrative as BIG. Bigger than competing narratives which try and explain ‘purpose’ for living and purpose to come in a hoped for existence beyond the grave. Again, the reverse, I assume, is true for you. You’re looking at a smaller set of possibilities as a simple result of having excluded God from the narrative. And that being because you haven’t found a ‘picture’ of God that meets your expectations from all angles.

And I can empathize with that.

So yes, the probabilities and possibilities that I view are a result of an initial acceptance of a prime mover.

Regards,
MG
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malkie
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by malkie »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:07 pm
malkie wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:12 pm

Here is my subjective view, based on what you are saying:
What I'm seeing, in effect, is that your religious life is built on a foundation of possibilities, with each successive layer being another set of possibilities. I don't know what makes them "real" in your eyes, but I think it's worthwhile noting that you don't claim strong probabilities, instead of possibilities. I can only assume that that is because the preponderance of "hard evidence" does not support doing so.

I would call that a weak and unstable structure.

You may, of course, tell me if I'm wrong, and why.
Good post, malkie. And some ‘not so bad’ analysis. 🙂

Without going into a lot of detail in regards to my cumulative experience and thought over the years, let me say that the ONE over riding possibility/probability that I’ve accepted as an axiom is that, for me, the evidence seems to allow for and even demonstrate the existence of a creator God. All else flows from that. The best I can tell is that the reverse holds true for you, more or less.

So we both have a starting point in our deliberations that then come after our beginning axiom of belief/non belief.

Religion then is something that I look at with open eyes. Knowing that it is not improbable that a loving God would intervene in the world to reveal His truth.

In turn I then look at the restoration narrative as BIG. Bigger than competing narratives which try and explain ‘purpose’ for living and purpose to come in a hoped for existence beyond the grave. Again, the reverse, I assume, is true for you. You’re looking at a smaller set of possibilities as a simple result of having excluded God from the narrative. And that being because you haven’t found a ‘picture’ of God that meets your expectations from all angles.

And I can empathize with that.

So yes, the probabilities and possibilities that I view are a result of an initial acceptance of a prime mover.

Regards,
MG
You commented on the easy part.

There's another part of my comment - the part you said nothing about - the one in which I responded to this:
MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:06 pm
So we’re either back to ground zero or don’t really have a solid incontrovertible baseline to even start from. Right?

Flip sides of the coin always seem to come into play.

Dang. Everything always comes back to faith…and cumulative experiences (including spiritual) and little ‘ah hah!’ evidences along the way.

It’s the cumulative experience(s) in my life that permit me to put Abraham on the map of real possibilities along with other Old Testament prophets. That then comes into play with covenantal relationships that can be made with God, etc.

But to each his own, I guess.
:
malkie wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:12 pm
At "ground zero", in the absence of "hard evidence", it's not a coin toss. There is a baseline.

I really don't know how often or in how many ways this point needs to be made. The starting point in the absence of evidence is to reject the assertion: that which is asserted without evidence may be rejected without evidence". Furthermore, if there is evidence of some sort, it make sense (at least to me) to accept possibilities or probabilities according to the strength of the available evidence. Suppositions, and "parallels", and "what ifs" cannot take the place of evidence.

You are asking me for hard evidence to support a position that I'm not taking, all the while providing no hard evidence for the position that you are taking. I'm sure that you must see the difference in terms of strength of argument, right?
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honorentheos
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by honorentheos »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:07 pm
Religion then is something that I look at with open eyes. Knowing that it is not improbable that a loving God would intervene in the world to reveal His truth.
What?

With all due respect, this is as contrary to how you present as a statement could be.
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malkie
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Re: Making Covenants

Post by malkie »

honorentheos wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:45 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:07 pm
Religion then is something that I look at with open eyes. Knowing that it is not improbable that a loving God would intervene in the world to reveal His truth.
What?

With all due respect, this is as contrary to how you present as a statement could be.
But it's conditional on the (undemonstrated) existence of an (undemonstrated) loving god.

You just have to accept a lack of evidence + some good feelings as equivalent to "not improbable" and then you're all set to go.

Easy-peasy! Millions of people have done it! So can you.

Edit: grammar :(
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