FAIRMormon tonight: “Understanding and Defending The History of The Mormon Church”

[drumdude]

You're Invited!
Please join us for our FREE Virtual Conference: "Understanding and Defending The History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

Our Virtual Conference is October 11th and 12th (starts tonight at 7pm MDT) with our keynote speaker, Matt McBride, who will be speaking on Saints Volume 4. The John Taylor award will also be presented. This conference will be streamed for FREE via FAIR’s YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/live/SUM8WO2up5U

Please keep in mind that due to this conference being a “virtual” conference, in-person attendance is not permitted. We appreciate your understanding. The conference will be available to watch through the weekend in case you aren’t able to watch it live.

Find more information for the Virtual Conference here.
Although FAIR is streaming this conference for free, donations are accepted and do help us continue to be able to provide events like this for free and to help us keep the work going to accomplish FAIR’s mission of defending the gospel and strengthening testimonies. If you are able, you can find a few different ways to donate here.

We look forward to having you join us!

It’s weird that FairMormon always waits until the very last second to announce these.

[Tom]

Brother Hales plans to deliver a presentation titled “Artificial Intelligence Predicts the Skills Needed to Dictate the Book of Mormon.” I am not making this up (see here). Here is the abstract:

A consistent weakness of naturalistic theories attempting to explain the origin of the Book of Mormon is how they oversimplify the number, diversity, and depth of skills Joseph Smith demonstrated while dictating the word stream in 1829. For example, many theorists identify parallels between the content of the Book of Mormon and known publications (e.g., View of the Hebrews, The Late War, etc.) or events in Joseph’s life experiences (e.g., Dan Vogel’s Making of a Prophet), affirming that the parallels explain his ability to produce the entire book. A recent hypothesis alleges that learning to memorize outlines with their subject headings and then recounting them in real-time to a scribe (“laying down heads”) could explain how Joseph completed the dictation in less than three months. The overall inadequacy of these and other naturalistic explanations is apparent when contextualized to all the skills an orator would need to dictate long, complex, and refined narratives. This reality is illustrated as online Artificial Intelligence programs predict the skills needed to produce a book-length manuscript with the literary characteristics of the Book of Mormon (e.g., 269,320 words, 77 storylines, 207 characters, 149 geographical locations, 63 religious discourses comprising over 87,000 words, 170 original proper nouns, etc.). The A.I.-generated predictions include more numerous, specialized, and intense literary skills than those found in any popular naturalistic theory. Those lists of needed abilities can also be compared to historical descriptions of Joseph Smith’s 1829 skillset to ascertain whether or not history supports his possession at that time.

I think it would really grab the audience if Brother Hales used the persona of Max Headroom to deliver his paper.



Speaking of Brother Hales, I’ve just learned that he and his spouse “will be entering the MTC on October 28th as full-time missionaries assigned to the Utah, Salt Lake City Headquarters mission to work with Rick Turley on the new Joseph Smith biography.” I am not making this up. I wonder what type of reeducation he’ll receive in the MTC and whether he’ll stay in one of the MTC basement suites.

[I Have Questions]

It’s interesting, I put the question “What are the skills needed to produce a book-length manuscript with the literary characteristics of the Book of Mormon?” and got…

Creating a manuscript with the literary characteristics of the Book of Mormon involves a blend of creative storytelling, theological depth, historical awareness, and a profound respect for the sacred and spiritual dimensions of the text.

Joseph Smith had those things by all accounts. So yes, A.I. suggests Joseph Smith possessed the skills required to produce the Book of Mormon without divine assistance.

Hales neglects to mention The Pilgrims Progress as a potential source material that Joseph Smith used to generate content from. Which is no surprise because the parallels are so striking as to be unable to dismiss as coincidence.

Nor does Hales seem to acknowledge the KJV Bible plagiarism which refutes the claims made about what the Book of Mormon is, specifically.