Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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Gadianton
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Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

Post by Gadianton »

Over at SeN, they're plugging for a new paper that just went up at Interpreter -- presumably, to the horror of James Bond. The paper gets into the "word play" and literary mastery surrounding The Book of Mormon's Liahona. Unfortunately for the apologists, the celebration is cut short by Chapstick, who reminds them of a harsh reality: The Liahona is likely ripped off from The Late War. So, I guess Interpreter is really arguing that Gilbert Hunt is a literary genius. Fantastic!

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

Here is the comparison Chapstick draws:

http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/#liahona

It's a dead hit if there ever is one. So much is it for the apologists to comprehend, that it's this point wherein Midgley loses it and offers Interpreter 200$ to ban Chapstick. A few of the other apologists at least try and respond:
LB wrote:The Late War doesn't describe something very similar to the Liahona. It describes something entirely different, but uses familiar KJV language in doing so. There are no torpedos or explosive devices or clocks in the Book of Mormon, and the torpedos in The Late War did not function as compasses and did not have spindles (neither one nor two).
Sorry LB, not going to do. Sure, it's "familiar" enough to the KJV. Here is the sole hit for "curious works":
And to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass,
vs:
round ball of curious workmanship; and it was of fine brass. And within the ball were two spindles;
were made partly of brass and partly of iron, and were cunningly contrived with curious works, like unto a clock; and as it were a large ball.
Come on -- a brass ball of "curious works" with two clock spindles! "Smoking Gun!"

Literary borrowing aren't without adaption. This romantically depicted weapon found a new use as a magic compass. The poignant description is what Joseph Smith had set his eyes on, not the use case. What did the second spindle of the Liahona do? Nobody knows! If he were inventing it himself rather than borrowing, he'd have made it with just the single spindle to work like a compass. Here he is dictating, the words of Hunt burn in his imagination from his school days, he describes the mysterious device and he remembers the words well, and then, suddenly, "compass" just comes out and that's what he goes with. But he's left with an extra spindle.
DCP wrote:Plainly, the 1999-2000 HBO Family children's animated television series A Little Curious, which featured a narrator named "Bob the Ball," was also plagiarized from The Late War:
Perhaps DCP should take a second look at the similarities between the description of the torpedoes and the Liahona.

Sam LeFevered offers an incomprehensible attempt at parody. Not worth citing.
Jack wrote:Now, Chapstick, surely you're not suggesting that these ball-shaped torpedoes filled with enough black powder to blow a ship in two were the inspiration behind the Liahona--
Um, I believe it's the description of the torpedoes at issue here. I'll bet if I looked, the point is made at least 27 times within the Interpreter itself regarding literary adaption and borrowing. It would just be in a faith-promoting context rather than a critical one.

Shifting gears, here is Chapstick responding to a rant by Michael L.J.D:
Michael, “It's amazing how you and other critics of the Book of Mormon, hilariously surmise that although Joseph brought forth the book (amidst his poverty and persecutions), in only two months.”

Where have I ever said that Michael? Also, I’m not aware of any critic(s) that claim or surmise Joseph Smith brought forth the book in two months. You should familiarize yourself on what the “critics” actually say.
Nice catch, Chapstick!
BoL wrote:Easy. Lehi's dream is as deep and significant as any literature in the Bible or other sacred writing.
Lehi's dream is not very deep. If Michel Foucault were to have commented on "The Little Engine Who Could" it would've been really deep also.
Allan Wyatt wrote:Besides something "special" in the Book of Mormon, you ask for "unique teachings or doctrine" that it contains. I'm curious where you ever got the idea that it SHOULD contain unique teachings or doctrine.
Well, Allan, it was posited that Lehi's dream is wholly original and rivals anything else out there. I guess you disagree?
DCP wrote:How I wish that logic were a required course in both high school and college
Good Lord. If they did, we wouldn't have heard about Bob the Ball.

Michael L doubles down on his claims that Joseph Smith couldn't possibly made up such an impressive and difficult book. Chapstick repeatedly asks for an example, and finally Michael caves:
But the BEST source of discovering unique spiritual revelation from within the pages of the Book of Mormon is the personal revelatory insight you'll gain from the Spirit
In other words, all that depth is an illusion and it's really a subjective thing.

Well, there are more examples of Dan throwing insults, Sam being incomprehensible, and others being off topic. Anyway, I thought we could all use a reminder about the Late War / Book of Mormon connection. It would be hard to argue that the Book of Mormon is a literary masterpiece without also recognizing the greatness of the Late War.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

Post by Physics Guy »

Mormon apologists seem to like to write about "wordplay". It shouldn't be so hard to explode that whole line of argument for the Bible-code-like illusion it is, by picking a few random modern texts—say, the Declaration of Independence, a few pages of Dickens, and the screenplay of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—and showing, by the same methods that the Mormon apologists use, that these texts must all have been written originally by native Hebrew speakers from Nephi's day.

It would require some knowledge of Hebrew, and maybe of some kind of Egyptian, though it probably wouldn't matter much what places and times the Egyptian came from. A smattering or two of any other ancient Middle Eastern languages would be a nice bonus. So that's a bit of a hurdle. I have none of that knowledge at all, so I'm not going to do this any time soon, myself.

For anyone who does happen to have some of that learning already, though, the task should be fun and easy. In fact it will be important to keep the task easy by remembering not to look too carefully at any details. You should be sure to ignore all vowels, and certain consonants will also be wild (dealer's choice). Anachronism won't be an issue because you will be assuming that the original Hebrew writers were prophets. The main difficulty in keeping the exercise fun may be in suppressing your instincts to check things, or even in forcing yourself to write things that you know are totally false just because they might sound plausible to non-experts. Remember it's in a good cause, and you can square things with your scholarly conscience by pointing out all the errors in an appendix.

Having to write a lot of obvious nonsense might still be painful, though, so it might be easier and more fun for someone who didn't know too much. If you're an expert yourself, maybe you could assign the job to a student? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's just what we need here.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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Physics Guy wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 9:30 am
Mormon apologists seem to like to write about "wordplay". It shouldn't be so hard to explode that whole line of argument for the Bible-code-like illusion it is, by picking a few random modern texts—say, the Declaration of Independence, a few pages of Dickens, and the screenplay of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—and showing, by the same methods that the Mormon apologists use, that these texts must all have been written originally by native Hebrew speakers from Nephi's day.

It would require some knowledge of Hebrew, and maybe of some kind of Egyptian, though it probably wouldn't matter much what places and times the Egyptian came from. A smattering or two of any other ancient Middle Eastern languages would be a nice bonus. So that's a bit of a hurdle. I have none of that knowledge at all, so I'm not going to do this any time soon, myself.

For anyone who does happen to have some of that learning already, though, the task should be fun and easy. In fact it will be important to keep the task easy by remembering not to look too carefully at any details. You should be sure to ignore all vowels, and certain consonants will also be wild (dealer's choice). Anachronism won't be an issue because you will be assuming that the original Hebrew writers were prophets. The main difficulty in keeping the exercise fun may be in suppressing your instincts to check things, or even in forcing yourself to write things that you know are totally false just because they might sound plausible to non-experts. Remember it's in a good cause, and you can square things with your scholarly conscience by pointing out all the errors in an appendix.

Having to write a lot of obvious nonsense might still be painful, though, so it might be easier and more fun for someone who didn't know too much. If you're an expert yourself, maybe you could assign the job to a student? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's just what we need here.
I think Messrs Carmack and Skousen have done this exercise except looking backwards to the magical Early Modern English times, mistakenly jumping to conclusions that aren't there. I guess religion clouds the mind at times. And these men are reasonably smart people.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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Gadianton wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 5:16 am

Lehi's dream is not very deep. If Michel Foucault were to have commented on "The Little Engine Who Could" it would've been really deep also.

......................

In other words, all that depth is an illusion and it's really a subjective thing.
Your first comment is an argument that I wish the apologists would lose but I don't see that happening any time soon. The Book of Mormon is wordy and choppy and definitely not profound. Yet we have these empty claims thrown out there all the time on how complex and deep the book is. But, as you point out, the same reasoning could be used to make pretty much anything into the finest literature, as long as enough dupes were convinced of it. I could go on and on about the word "is" and how rich and complex it is, perhaps using it as a basis for a religion. I'm sure "is" has a relation to Early Modern English somewhere. So, that's a start.

And the subjective is really all that it is. Moana was an 8 cow woman or was it 10 cows, simply because of P.R. The church becomes true due to hype and manipulating the target into believing that whatever the target felt after reading the dry as dust Book of Mormon was an answer from God. When I was on my mission, our fast talking AP was apparently boring a poor woman so much that she fell asleep. When the woman awoke, he said that she must have been overcome by the spirit to the point of sleep, and that was her answer! LOL.

But why couldn't this be what really happened, and not pure BS on the part of the AP? In a purely subjective world where the slightest possibility gains enormous power in the eyes of the beholding believer, anything is possible. It becomes dependent on good PR and appeals to popularity and authority, then the poor woman really did fall asleep due to the spirit and the silly becomes world class literature.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

Post by Gadianton »

Well, Dr. E, it seems the apologetic is shifting:
LB wrote:The central teaching of the Book of Mormon that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations. That teaching does not need to be unique to be vitally, pressingly, and crucially important. It is especially relevant in the 21st century when atheism and agnosticism are increasingly common and even dominant among many cultural elites in America and Europe.
Now we're back to saying the Book of Mormon is a repeat of the Bible. Nothing special. This additional witness is important because of all the atheists out there. Tell me, how many atheists have you heard of converting on account of the second witness from the Book of Mormon? "By golly, I didn't believe it when I read it in the Bible, but now that this other ancient book has come out and Jesus came from heaven and visited them also, it's really hard for me to question the existence of God!"

When I was at BYU, I was able to take 2 non-LDS specific courses, World Religions, and History of Christianity for institute credit. Both teachers were former EV ministers. One was a Japanese guy who said his father had the largest Pentecostal (If I recall correctly) congregation in Japan at the time he was converting to Mormonism. This History guy downplayed the importance of the Book of Mormon in his conversion. The World guy was nearly hostile regarding the Book of Mormon. "I already knew about Jesus, I didn't need that..."

Both seemed to like unique Mormon teachings that break with creedal Christianity. Pre-existence, 3 degrees of glory, a bit more fairness in eternal judgement. Yet, none of this stuff is in the Book of Mormon at all. All unique Mormon doctrines taught in the missionary discussions have proof texts going back to the Bible, not the Book of Mormon. And that's because there isn't anything you can even take out of context to get there.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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Gadianton wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 6:35 pm
Well, Dr. E, it seems the apologetic is shifting:
LB wrote:The central teaching of the Book of Mormon that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations. That teaching does not need to be unique to be vitally, pressingly, and crucially important. It is especially relevant in the 21st century when atheism and agnosticism are increasingly common and even dominant among many cultural elites in America and Europe.
Now we're back to saying the Book of Mormon is a repeat of the Bible. Nothing special. This additional witness is important because of all the atheists out there. Tell me, how many atheists have you heard of converting on account of the second witness from the Book of Mormon? "By golly, I didn't believe it when I read it in the Bible, but now that this other ancient book has come out and Jesus came from heaven and visited them also, it's really hard for me to question the existence of God!"

When I was at BYU, I was able to take 2 non-LDS specific courses, World Religions, and History of Christianity for institute credit. Both teachers were former EV ministers. One was a Japanese guy who said his father had the largest Pentecostal (If I recall correctly) congregation in Japan at the time he was converting to Mormonism. This History guy downplayed the importance of the Book of Mormon in his conversion. The World guy was nearly hostile regarding the Book of Mormon. "I already knew about Jesus, I didn't need that..."

Both seemed to like unique Mormon teachings that break with creedal Christianity. Pre-existence, 3 degrees of glory, a bit more fairness in eternal judgement. Yet, none of this stuff is in the Book of Mormon at all. All unique Mormon doctrines taught in the missionary discussions have proof texts going back to the Bible, not the Book of Mormon. And that's because there isn't anything you can even take out of context to get there.
I agree that atheists aren't going to be impressed with another witness to a person they may think didn't even exist or existed but was probably a revolutionary that was killed by the ruling power at the time. So, how does cojcolds sell the church going forward in a world that is turning more atheist or agnostic or apathetic? The apologists will argue themselves into knots and won't be effective in the end. The one true church meme is no longer being pushed as far as I know. So, what is it? In my personal journey, I always clung to the one and only because without it, Mormonism was pretty empty. The monotonous repetition drove even the faithful to quiet resentment.

Nelson is trying to bring innovations to the cause. However, those are pretty empty as well. One cannot sell scheduling changes as "revelation." Maybe this is why he is turning to Paul Dunn type of fantastical stories?
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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I recall noticing and writing about the Liahona and The Late War back on MDB. I stand by the argument that the similarity is not coincidental.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

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Kishkumen wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 10:05 pm
I recall noticing and writing about the Liahona and The Late War back on MDB. I stand by the argument that the similarity is not coincidental.
I believe you discovered it, at least for our board. I wasn't able to go back and check, unfortunately.

It's interesting to learn that you feel that way. I wouldn't have bet one way or the other. At the very least, I would have bet you'd see the connection as far more striking than the connection to "Bob the Ball", and no, a high school course in logic wouldn't urge in favor of Bob.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

Post by Kishkumen »

Gadianton wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 12:19 am
Kishkumen wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 10:05 pm
I recall noticing and writing about the Liahona and The Late War back on MDB. I stand by the argument that the similarity is not coincidental.
I believe you discovered it, at least for our board. I wasn't able to go back and check, unfortunately.

It's interesting to learn that you feel that way. I wouldn't have bet one way or the other. At the very least, I would have bet you'd see the connection as far more striking than the connection to "Bob the Ball", and no, a high school course in logic wouldn't urge in favor of Bob.
Yes, as I said, I think the connection is not coincidental. The author of the Book of Mormon read and imitated The Late War, in my opinion.
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Re: Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

Post by drumdude »

The Interpreter - A Journal of "Squinting your Eyes and From the Right Angle This Feels Ancient" can't seem to acknowledge this giant bullseye! :lol:
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