More words in this context clearly means exhibiting a larger vocabulary...
On what do you base this conclusion? Have you compared the vocabulary used in the various lengths? Are you sure the increasing length is unambiguously associated with a larger vocabulary?
Mark Twain summed it up well, when he said “If I had more time, I’d write you a shorter letter.”
Certified genuis! Well, dang! When it comes to vocabulary, you're basically a savant. You probably found yourself thinking about how some of these words were super easy and obvious while taking the quiz. You totally destroyed this quiz. Congrats
On what do you base this conclusion? Have you compared the vocabulary used in the various lengths? Are you sure the increasing length is unambiguously associated with a larger vocabulary?
Mark Twain summed it up well, when he said “If I had more time, I’d write you a shorter letter.”
So, your first sentence doesn't support your conclusion because the context was exactly the "mere quantity of words."
Your second sentence, assuming you based it on sentence 1, implies "fewer words means more variety." If we generously assume more variety implies larger vocabulary (which it doesn't, necessarily), then sentence 2 is the exact opposite of your initial conclusion.
You could just retract if you want. Or, as the colloquial saying goes, to get out of a hole you dug for yourself, stop digging.
Certified genuis! Well, dang! When it comes to vocabulary, you're basically a savant. You probably found yourself thinking about how some of these words were super easy and obvious while taking the quiz. You totally destroyed this quiz. Congrats
Lol. I don't click on links you provide. And check your spelling.
Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, 'My New Order', which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.
Physics Guy wrote:First of all, listing a lot of pre-literate epics and boasting that the Book of Mormon is longer than them is like listing a lot of bicycles and boasting that a motorcycle is faster. Yeah, they're all two-wheelers, but only it has a motor. Only the Book of Mormon was written down and printed in mass after being dictated. As Morley points out, that's completely different from circulating orally over generations in a pre-literate culture.
What limits the length of a pre-literate oral performance is how much a performer can memorize word-for-word, and how long a piece audiences want to hear at one sitting. None of those limits has even the slightest effect on a text that is being dictated to a scribe for printing. So the comparison is worse than meaningless. The lengths of those oral epics so obviously have nothing whatever to do with how long a book Smith could have dictated, that only a dim or dishonest person could possibly mention them as evidence against Smith's composition of the Book of Mormon.
Morley called out the apex of the embarrassment, but down from there is plenty of bad stuff. MG was asked to present an example of the work he finds impressive and this is pure fail. It falls just behind the Dales and Ky R. It's the perfect example of why someone should never take Mopologetics serious in the least. A member in good standing would to well to look away and not get involved with such horrible argumentation. Anyone who was impressed with this argument deserves rounds and rounds of laughter at their expense. Absolutely amazing.
Earlier I said, “How wide the divide”. I think that when a theist is talking with a non theist this is going to be the outcome. Laughter on the part of the non theist.
You won’t see me laughing at you.
Your response fits in well with the type of response other theists (particularly those that might be referenced in the Judaeo Christian scripture including the Book of Mormon) have received from those that don’t believe in a personal God or in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There is a gap in understanding.
I believe many of the arguments and associated links I’ve provided in this thread are useful and have merit. But then again, I’m one of those that believes that there is a God that continues to interact with the world and its inhabitants.
Regards,
MG
Last edited by MG 2.0 on Sat Nov 18, 2023 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What I reckon they're really doing is not apologetics, but apologetics theatre. Whether they realise it or not, they're not actually even attempting to influence anyone with genuine doubts—not neutral never-Mormon seekers, not anti-Mormon critics, not wavering Mormons. What they're doing is going through motions, so that people who aren't even interested in thinking about whether the conservative Mormon story can really be true will be able to suppose that a good strong case can be made, and is being well made, for those other poor souls who are doubting.
The structure they build doesn't hold up to inspection at all, but to a glance from afar, it looks nice. It's a house made of paint, a Potemkin apology.
Any other explanation of Mormon apologists' activity that assumes that they seriously intend to convert sceptical non-believers requires us to assume a degree of psychological abnormality on the apologists' part that is ruled out by Occam's Razor.
What they are doing is clearly just trying to stop ordinary chapel-going Mormons worrying about what the critics are saying, and feeling that they ought to take a serious look at it one of these days. Just pray, pay, and obey, like Mom and Dad did, and raise your kids the same way, and everything will be fine.
You may have not intended to say this in the way that a believer might interpret it, but yes, to pray, pay tithing, and obey the commandments are integral (along with other things like study and learning, remaining free from sin, having faith in God, etc.) to retain one’s testimony.
It’s interesting that after one leaves the church these components of testimony are ridiculed and abandoned. One might expect that the distance between the believer and non believer would exponentially become wider.
MG wrote:Earlier I said, “How wide the divide”. I think that when a theist is talking with a non theist this is going to be the outcome. Laughter on the part of the non theist.
Physic's Guy is a theist. As I pointed out many times in this thread and you've forgotten, 99.9% of theists out there are laughing harder than I am at you.
The structure they build doesn't hold up to inspection at all, but to a glance from afar, it looks nice. It's a house made of paint, a Potemkin apology.
Would you look at Jesus’s resurrection in the same way?
If so, I would imagine this may ‘paint’ your views in such a way that belief in angels and plates fall into a similar category of belief.
MG wrote:Earlier I said, “How wide the divide”. I think that when a theist is talking with a non theist this is going to be the outcome. Laughter on the part of the non theist.
Physic's Guy is a theist. As I pointed out many times in this thread and you've forgotten, 99.9% of theists out there are laughing harder than I am at you.
I wasn’t aware that he was a believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I suppose it would be good to hear that directly from him.
Of course I realize that many theists do not believe in the message of the restoration. Many of them believing in the doctrines contained in the creeds that came out of original Christianity. Those beliefs and traditions in many cases disallow/inhibit them from looking at the restoration narrative with open eyes and a trusting heart.
Would you look at Jesus’s resurrection in the same way?
You're question misses the point, given PG didn't technically say anything about the plates. His point was about apologetics for the plates.
There are some pretty bad apologetics for the "empty tomb" as well, in fact, these arguments are paid close attention to by DCP, who then apes the same bad arguments for plates. I assume he does that in order to (hopefully) appeal to evangelicals.
