Is the Book of Mormon Divinely Inspired?

[Morley]

If you didn't come up with these examples yourself, you should cite your source. If you got it from Hanson, I give you credit for that much, as I didn't think you watched the video.

MG used an A.I. prompt to generate his list.

[Gadianton]

I guess he got me then. The first thing I did is I went to copilot and pasted in my question. The response wasn't very close to any of MG's points so I figured he was honest about it. Shows what good faith gets you these days.

[MG 2.0]

If you didn't come up with these examples yourself, you should cite your source. If you got it from Hanson, I give you credit for that much, as I didn't think you watched the video.

1. Ignoring or dismissing evidence that contradicts the Book of Mormon's claims, such as DNA evidence showing that Native Americans are not primarily descended from ancient Israelites.

Mainstream apologists ignore / dismiss by post-hoc redefining doctrine and then pressuring the Church to re-write the introduction. So this example is highly dishonest.

2. Using circular reasoning to defend the Book of Mormon, such as arguing that the book is true because it says it is true.

I'm not aware of Mormons doing this. This is what Mormons accuse Christians of doing with the Bible. Mormons believe you have to read/pray. So this example is highly dishonest.

3. Cherry-picking evidence that supports the Book of Mormon while ignoring evidence that contradicts it, such as focusing on a few parallels between the book and ancient American cultures while ignoring the many differences and anachronisms.

You'd have to give an example of this, otherwise it doesn't answer the question. It's a hypothetical example given to sound fair-minded, but without accepting any risk of ever achieving reality. Flat earthers would say the same thing: cherry-picking evidence for the flat earth while ignoring evidence for the round earth is bad. (too bad they aren't doing that!)

Several of these examples have this same problem: 5, 6, 8, and 9 all have this problem.

4. Misrepresenting or misunderstanding the views of critics of the Book of Mormon, such as claiming that all critics are anti-Mormon or biased against the LDS Church.

This is disjointed --- claiming critics are anti or biased isn't an example of misrepresenting their views. You can correctly frame their views and still think their motivation is biased. by the way, this is you, like, in every thread. The assumption that critics merely restate their biases. You just did it with Morley. Again.

7. Arguing that the Book of Mormon is historically accurate because it mentions things like horses and steel, despite the fact that there is no archaeological evidence to support these claims.

Another one that doesn't make sense, like you were taking notes too fast.

10. Assuming that any criticism of the Book of Mormon must be motivated by anti-Mormon sentiment, rather than by a genuine desire to understand the truth.

You've got yourself in the crosshairs with this one.

At the end of the debate the moderator asked each of the two persons in the debate to give what they believed to be the strongest argument against the Book of Mormon being what it purports to be and what members of the church believe it to be. Jacob’s response was the argument from atheism. If a person starts out with the belief in no God then the LDS Church along with every other church or religious belief system is ‘hocus pocus’ (his words, not mine).

In a conversation with an atheist it is very difficult to even find a particle of common ground. The atheist looks at the believer as being an irrational nit wit of some stripe no matter how good their arguments might be. Or not be.

As it was, in this video, we were able to observe a debate between two religionists who believe their church to be the ‘one true church’. It was much more interesting. As I said in my opening post, it’s either us or them (the Catholic Church).

That is, anyway, for those that believe in a divine creator. But of course for you it’s all rather hocus pocus.

That’s the major reason I don’t find you or your convoluted rhetorical arguments all that interesting. I already believe in God. You don’t. I find debates with religionists or God believers MUCH more interesting.

I hope all is well with you Gadianton and you are happy.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

If you didn't come up with these examples yourself, you should cite your source. If you got it from Hanson, I give you credit for that much, as I didn't think you watched the video.

MG used an A.I. prompt to generate his list.

Yes I did. Saves a LOT of time and effort. Of course it is necessary to go through and ‘check the boxes’ to see if there is any ‘hallucination’ going on or anything in the list I disagree with. There wasn’t.

I’d rather spend my limited time expressing the thoughts that A.I. cannot generate.

My own.

Speaking of time, I’ve invested a good chunk of my day on this thread. It’s been interesting to some extent but I think it’s time for me to bow out again. I need to practice time management in regards to time spent on a forum/board such as this.

I ain’t getting any younger and there are other things to think about and do other than being ‘on call’ here.

Until later.

Best wishes all.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

As someone who grew up in conservative Mormonism, and having deprogrammed myself, I realized years ago how Mormons think, and it’s “starting with bad information and doubling down on it.” The question posed in this thread’s title is an example of a badly worded premise, as it sets the stage for bad-faith mopologetics. To try to talk to MG is to try to explain that the sky is blue without realizing he can’t see color to begin with. It’s trying to explain walking to him, but he has no legs.

Most of us had to do real work to understand basic logical constructions; I feel like my own ability to understand symbolism, metaphor, and analogy, wasn’t as good as it could be as a result of the way religious thinking affected me, and I’ve had to do a lot of work just to get to where I am.

Genuine, honest to goodness, logical fallacies and dishonest debate techniques are taught as reasonable ways to reach conclusions. Having a good-faith conversation with a Mormon who asks if the Book of Mormon is divinely inspired is almost impossible because actual ‘illogics’ and false information are taught to them as reason and fact. To top it all off, the way atheists and non-religious people are discussed in church makes them out to be completely unreliable and evil people who are partly or wholly interested in their spiritual destruction.

The only way these people can realize these inanity of their thinking is to risk everything they’ve ever known.

It might suck to hear, but these people are beyond reach. It’s painful, it’s mean, it’s hurtful, it’s callous. It’s not something I want to say. My entire community of people that I knew prior to deprogramming myself are people I cared about. My literal parents. My brother. Almost all of the friends I made in church.

I don’t want to say they are unreachable. I don’t want to say it’s not worth it.

But it literally is not. It’s a burden that we can’t carry, to try to be reasonable and rational and play the game answering questions like the one in the title.

It’s the pain I feel every single day at losing people who meant the world to me because they think and operate in inherently dysfunctional and hurtful ways because that’s what they are taught is healthy.

It’s the trouble I have in feeling normal around the new social groups I built for myself, that I struggled to build for myself, as a result of the religious abuse and emotional trauma we endured from growing up in a high-control environment.

These are people who want leopards to eat their face. They eat, sleep, and breathe the idea that leopards eating their face is right, just, and desirable.

And the only way the majority of these people will ever actually wake up to that fact is by letting the leopard do what it will do, and maybe afterward being there for them, if you happen to have the energy to do it, is the way to go. Until then, I don’t play their “F”-“F” games, nor do I debate their larping and lore any more. There’s no point.

- Doc

It's obvious this came from deep inside you, and I can completely relate to those feelings. It's not that there aren't plenty of people in this world who learned how to 'be' in this completely dysfunctional way, but Mormons seem to have the corner on it when it comes to generationally and regionally pervasive influence.

Thank you for this post. It will be re-read many, many times.

[drumdude]

I think to be a little more charitable to MG, he has said in the past he experienced unbelief, or atheism, or something to that effect.

He does have legs, he does know what it’s like to walk. He just chooses not to.

Family pressures, culture, how one was raised, fear of death - these are powerful motivators. I don’t blame MG for staying in Mormonism one bit. And he lately always acknowledges that different people see things differently. That’s pretty magnanimous.

[Gadianton]

Yes I did. Saves a LOT of time and effort.

Wasting other people's time isn't the same thing as saving time for yourself.

[Marcus]

I think to be a little more charitable to MG, he has said in the past he experienced unbelief, or atheism, or something to that effect.

He does have legs, he does know what it’s like to walk. He just chooses not to.

Family pressures, culture, how one was raised, fear of death - these are powerful motivators. I don’t blame MG for staying in Mormonism one bit. And he lately always acknowledges that different people see things differently. That’s pretty magnanimous.

Except that he eventually and inevitably adds that it's a defect in others that leads them to see things differently than the superior way he sees things. He's cleaned up a couple layers of rhetoric but the underlying disdain is still evident. And obviously still unwarranted, but he adamantly insists otherwise. RI put in a valiant effort in mg's last thread trying to get this across to him. It's worth a read, just to see RI's solid effort!! But to no avail. Why? See Doc's post.

[I Have Questions]

To Marcus’s point about MG 2.0’s disdain for others, and his belief that he’s superior…

Yes I did. Saves a LOT of time and effort.

Wasting other people's time isn't the same thing as saving time for yourself.

He’s telling you, overtly but maybe unwittingly, that you and your questions are not worth his time and his effort.

[I Have Questions]

In the following article, Jacob Hansen exhorts his fellow Mormons to vote for Donald Trump.

With Trumps warts fully recognized, I would like to attempt to frame him in a more complete context (without justifying his flaws) so you can make an informed choice and feel fully justified in making it.

https://jacobhansen-11950.medium.com/el ... 7700c719ba

If you don’t like either candidate please choose policy over personality for the sake of your fellow Americans whose lives are far more affected by things like banning the oil industry, or a war in Syria than by Trump making an insensitive or stupid comment on Twitter.

One wonders if MG 2.0 is similarly impressed by Jacob Hansen on this topic and followed his exhortation to vote Trump.

Hansen also tried to mitigate the murder of George Floyd. By blaming Floyd.

I think there probably is a case for criminal negligence, especially when you consider that Chauvin kept his knee on his neck after he went unresponsive. However, what many don't realize is that one of the officers on video express that they think this may be a case of "excited delirium." This is a situation in which a suspect begins to act extremely erratically and unless subdued may go into cardiac arrest. In such situations officers are told to cuff the suspect and hold them until medical help arrives. They even have a training document showing how to hold such a person.

https://www.thesouthpawblog.com/post/ge ... s-murdered

If you want to fully understand how uninformed Hansen is, I encourage you to research the term “excited delirium” and would point you in the direction of Jon Ronson’s podcast series “Things Fell Apart” - Series 2 Episode 1 it’s a worthy 34 minute listen.