Gemli explains...

[Marcus]

Getting back to gemli, here is a response to him:

gemli: "But there's a book written by the Moonmen! It tells an extraordinary tale that can't be verified, but, uh, well, um, I believe it! And so do lots of other people who coincidentally spread out from one isolated community. They spread the word, and now there are Moonmens all over the world! Surely that means the story is true!"

Nobody here makes an argument that is even remotely analogous to your caricature. I'm unaware, in fact, of anybody anywhere who makes such an argument.

Hmm. Arguing one is 'unaware' really doesn't help, does it?

gemli: "Even though the Marsmen believe in an entirely different story, along with scores of other this-men or that-men claims, it means that when lots of people believe different absurd tales it makes all of them credible!"

Nor is this recognizable.

No, it's not to a mopologist, because DCP's version is that only his story is credible.

gemli: "And don't ask for "proof." No only is it insulting, it's indicative of a closed mind that refuses to accept stories that are built on circular evidence."

If I've offered a "circular argument" at any point, you should demonstrate that. I deny having ever done so.

Oh my. Every time a mopologist starts by saying 'i start by assuming my religious claims are true,' (like Muhlestein, DCP, etc.,) they are making a circular argument. This is DCP being incredibly facetious.

[Marcus]

And the best response ever to 'the witnesses':

gemli
DanielPeterson
a minute ago

What if the evidence consists of the very stories that require evidence? There are no golden plates, no angels, no gods or anything else that can be examined.
There is a story. Period, full stop.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 6404629741

[bolding added.]

[Marcus]

I know I am quoting gemli a lot, but wow, is he on a roll:

Talking pretty does not a reasonable case make.

It's not the mode of speech that determines the truth of a claim. It's evidence.

And when the evidence for spirit beings consists only of stories, one has to wonder why the spirit beings weren't shy back in the superstitious camera-free past, but are reluctant to appear today.

Naming "notable scholars" is not an argument. Notable scholars have no more evidence of spirit beings than do the uneducated yokels that they often appear to.

The study of religion is not a silly or disreputable field. But literal belief in religion is pointless, in that spirit beings can't be demonstrated to exist even though they are apparently clamoring for our attention.

What theists do for a living is not at issue. It's what they claim to believe about a spirit world that requires proof.

And given that they're had centuries to provide such proof, the lack of any convincing evidence should be an indication that there's no there there.

Smart people can sometimes believe dumb things if they suit their purposes or personalities.

I've engaged the arguments, but I haven't seen a shred of evidence for supernatural thingies that even begins to confirm their existence. If they're so eager to interact with all and sundry, why to they only appear to the suggestible and the woo-woo minded?

If Hitchens' arguments were "easily countered," I wonder why he makes theists break out in hives to this very day, several years after his mortal demise. Maybe there is a kind of life after death. Long live Hitchens.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 6404608701

[bolding added.]

Great responses. Gemli pulled out all the stops today.

[Marcus]

And finally...

Ergo Proctor Hocky Puck...

Because what-on-earth else can you say to a mopologist?!!!!!

I am dying over here.

[Philo Sofee]

And finally...

Ergo Proctor Hocky Puck...

Because what-on-earth else can you say to a mopologist?!!!!!

I am dying over here.

I can't wait to read what Gemli says after we all receive our Elohimhood and he can make comebacks as a God..... that is something seriously to look forward to.

[Moksha]

And finally...

Ergo Proctor Hocky Puck...

Because what-on-earth else can you say to a mopologist?!!!!!

LDS apologists are particularly vulnerable to Gemli's line of reasoning simply because they cannot give honest answers. A more honest Mormon could always admit that they cannot answer Gemli's quest for proof, but insist just the same that they will continue to believe.

[Doctor Scratch]

Some remarkably (or typically?) dishonest/disingenous material from Dr. Peterson, in response to Gemli:

gemli: "But golden plates are not observable and testable"
Actually, they were observed by between fifteen and twenty people, who, collectively speaking, left behind scores of accounts of what they had seen over the course of fully six decades.

But, you will respond, all we have from those witnesses are "stories." We don't have the plates.

And this is true. Just as we don't have the hanging gardens of Babylon or the body of the Emperor Justinian or the Battle of Agincourt or the corpse of the Caliph ‘Umar or Leif Ericson's longboat or the arrow that killed King Harold Godwinson at Hastings or any of a host of other historical structures and artifacts. All we have is acccounts of them. ("Stories," in your dismissive language.)

This is yet another reminder why DCP didn't engage with Philip Jenkins when Hamblin was getting his butt kicked: this was essentially the same argument that Hamblin tried to advance, and that Jenkins made mincemeat out of--i.e., that we shouldn't *expect* to find actual evidence for the Book of Mormon. Does DCP really want to argue or imply that the evidence for the reality of the Gold Plates is on a par with any of the other items he lists? And even of the "between 15 and 20 people"--how many of them *actually saw* the Gold Plates? Not saw a rectangular lump under a cloth, but actually saw and inspected the actual, real, authentic Gold Plates?

[Marcus]

And finally...

Because what-on-earth else can you say to a mopologist?!!!!!

LDS apologists are particularly vulnerable to Gemli's line of reasoning simply because they cannot give honest answers. A more honest Mormon could always admit that they cannot answer Gemli's quest for proof, but insist just the same that they will continue to believe.

That's a great point. Many times in the Jenkins-Hamblin debate Jenkins said he wasn't arguing against faith but rather against the specific position of mopologists that they could assert historicity with their vague assertions.

[Marcus]

Some remarkably (or typically?) dishonest/disingenous material from Dr. Peterson, in response to Gemli:

gemli: "But golden plates are not observable and testable"
Actually, they were observed by between fifteen and twenty people, who, collectively speaking, left behind scores of accounts of what they had seen over the course of fully six decades.

But, you will respond, all we have from those witnesses are "stories." We don't have the plates.

And this is true. Just as we don't have the hanging gardens of Babylon or the body of the Emperor Justinian or the Battle of Agincourt or the corpse of the Caliph ‘Umar or Leif Ericson's longboat or the arrow that killed King Harold Godwinson at Hastings or any of a host of other historical structures and artifacts. All we have is acccounts of them. ("Stories," in your dismissive language.)

This is yet another reminder why DCP didn't engage with Philip Jenkins when Hamblin was getting his butt kicked: this was essentially the same argument that Hamblin tried to advance, and that Jenkins made mincemeat out of--i.e., that we shouldn't *expect* to find actual evidence for the Book of Mormon. Does DCP really want to argue or imply that the evidence for the reality of the Gold Plates is on a par with any of the other items he lists? And even of the "between 15 and 20 people"--how many of them *actually saw* the Gold Plates? Not saw a rectangular lump under a cloth, but actually saw and inspected the actual, real, authentic Gold Plates?

Exactly, Doctor Scratch. Jenkins' words continue to resonate:

...By far [this mopologist's] weakest spot concerns his use of far-fetched and wildly unconvincing analogies, which instantly destroy the credibility of his arguments – more on that shortly. This may all reflect the fact that Book of Mormon apologists really never engage with mainstream scholars. Virtually no mainstream academic takes his cause seriously enough to be worth arguing with, so an apologist never has an opportunity to test his/her arguments in that setting.

To over-simplify, Neal suggests that there really is remarkably little credible, concrete evidence for many aspects of the Old Testament story, so we have no better or worse grounds to accept the literal truth of that narrative than we do the Book of Mormon. There are two main rhetorical points at issue here.

1. When apologists have totally failed to supply any objective, credible evidence for any detail in the Book of Mormon, as requested repeatedly, they regularly throw up a smoke screen about an unconnected topic. So, no, the menu item here is neither goose nor gander, it’s wild goose, as in chase. Or maybe red herring is the better metaphor. Delicious, perhaps, but irrelevant.

2. The other rhetorical tactic is basically, no, he can’t produce a word of concrete evidence for the Book of Mormon, but (he claims) the same issues apply to the Bible as well! Christian claims depend just as much on faith as does the Book of Mormon! This has the rhetorical bonus of trying to divert the discussion from the Book of Mormon, where his views are completely untenable and indefensible, and off to the Bible, where the real, serious literature is immense. This art of diversion and obfuscation is a principal goal of “Ancient Book of Mormon Studies” if not its chief raison d’etre....

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench?s=Oranges

[the blue bolding is mine, to highlight how Jenkins words from 2015 still perfectly describe mopologetic attempts, almost a decade later.]

[Marcus]

Quoted from Scratch's post:

gemli: "But golden plates are not observable and testable"
Actually, they were observed by between fifteen and twenty people, who, collectively speaking, left behind scores of accounts of what they had seen over the course of fully six decades.

But, you will respond, all we have from those witnesses are "stories." We don't have the plates.

And this is true. Just as we don't have the hanging gardens of Babylon or the body of the Emperor Justinian or the Battle of Agincourt or the corpse of the Caliph ‘Umar or Leif Ericson's longboat or the arrow that killed King Harold Godwinson at Hastings or any of a host of other historical structures and artifacts. All we have is acccounts of them. ("Stories," in your dismissive language.)

Jenkins decimated this exact argument about "stories" 9 years ago. He was responding to Rappleye, but his response fits pretty well here:

Now let’s look at how exactly “similar” things are for the Book of Mormon and Pre-Columbian America:

We have no documented facts – none, not a single one – that confirm or vaguely point to the existence of any, any, peoples, nations, languages, places, or ethnicities in the New World that are described in Joseph Smith’s book. None – not now, not ever, never. Tell me again about your “myriad of subtle, circumstantial details that converge between the text and the external data”? Never mind a myriad, just give me one credible data point. Try not to giggle when you do so.

And “the text,” you say? In the context of the Book of Mormon, would that be a wholly unprovenanced document that emerged in 1830, not even in an ancient language, and which is more or less universally regarded as entirely lacking in authentic historical content? You mean that text? (“Unprovenanced” is the most charitable word I can find right now).

Go ahead, tell me that Reformed Egyptian is an authentic ancient language, and use any reputable Egyptologist you like to support that claim. I double dare you.

Also note the jaw-droppingly silly tactic here: comparing finding archaeological evidence for a single event, like the Exodus, which would have happened in a very short period of time (assuming it occurred) with seeking evidence for the supposed presence of a nation or community over a millennium. The archaeological footprint of a specific event is utterly and totally different from that of a community, nation, tribe or city over such a long period. And if the Exodus/Wilderness story is true, then it mainly involves nomadic societies, quite different from the settled cities alleged in the Book of Mormon. Is that not all too obvious to be worth spelling out? Not, obviously, to Book of Mormon apologists.

Night and day, black and white, apples and oranges.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench?s=Oranges

[again, color added by me, to emphasize the response to DCP's argument]