Chapstick owns the apologists on the Liahona

[Sledge]

Bumping for Sledge to link the article he mentioned. I'll definitely take a look at it.

- Doc

I hesitated because I don't generally like to just post links to long documents and ask people to read them. I find it frustrating when people ask it of me. I assumed (and still do) that you were aware of the apologetic responses.

The FAIR wiki has a very long document outlining the problems with comparing The Late War with the Book of Mormon.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ans ... e_Late_War

The CES reply is also noteworthy

https://canonizer.com/blog/ces-reply-ir ... -smacking/

And we mustn't forget about the Interpreter's great essay on the matter

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... of-Mormon/

[Sledge]

So do you reject all claims of parallels between the Book of Mormon and real ancient cultures?

I suppose that depends on whether any of the parallel objects explode. If one object explodes, and the other does not, they are clearly not the same object.

Do any of those arguments from similarity have any weight at all, in your eyes? The real ancient things were all clearly different in significant ways from their supposed analogs in the Book of Mormon, after all.

I believe there are reasonable similarities in form and function among ancient and modern things. An objects ability to explode is not a reasonable similarity to an object's inability to explode. What we look for is the degree of similarity. A torpedo and a compass have a very low degree of similarity. A chair and a sofa have a higher degree of similarity. Reasonable people, such as yourself, understand this.

I don't find those parallel arguments impressive, because I think it's quite easy to find similarities when you have the freedom to choose from many items on both sides of the equation and to define similarity in many ways. But the form of the argument is not just absurd, in my view. Things can be copied with adaptations. If the differences make sense as necessary adaptations to different circumstances, while the similarities have no obvious explanation except cultural continuity, then demonstrating the similarities is in principle valid evidence for cultural continuity, even in spite of the differences. If I find a restaurant with golden arches selling sushi and fries in Tokyo, I'm going to take that as evidence for American contact even though raw fish is not hamburger.

Exactly the same logic works for tracing modern sources of the Book of Mormon. It doesn't have to be a carbon copy to be drawn from a source.

Yes, I agree. But surely you can see that it is not asking much to suggest that a torpedo is not a carbon copy of a compass.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

You’re engaging in a false equivalency. They’re obviously talking about the language used to describe the two items. The language used to described the torpedoes was lifted to described the liahona.

% Doc

[Physics Guy]

It doesn't have to be a carbon copy to be drawn from a source.

Yes, I agree. But surely you can see that it is not asking much to suggest that a torpedo is not a carbon copy of a compass.

Nobody has suggested it is. As I believe you just agreed, being a carbon copy is irrelevant to being a source.

Everyone here seems to agree that Smith's Liahona and Hunt's torpedoes differ dramatically in the respect of explosiveness. Everyone also seems to agree, however, that human ideas or products can differ dramatically in some respects while demonstrating by their similarities in other respects that one has influenced the other.

So is there something I haven't understood in your argument about torpedoes and the Liahona? Why is it that you think the explosiveness of torpedoes completely outweighs the similarity of the two descriptions?

[Doctor Steuss]

Too bad the Liahona wasn’t tight like unto a dish.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’m fairly certain the apologists didn’t really think this one through. A ‘torpedo’ back when Joseph Smith would’ve read The Late War was basically a round floating mine:

http://49817097.weebly.com/torpedo.html

That was already illustrated, literally, from the link upthread, which Sledge refused to read or study with any intent. I don’t really know what else to say to someone who won’t read, and introduces a fallacious argument when what’s being said is plain.

edit: Here’s the gist of the linked apologetics:

... the parallels tell us absolutely nothing because they are most likely due to coincidence.

- Doc

[Sledge]

I’m fairly certain the apologists didn’t really think this one through. A ‘torpedo’ back when Joseph Smith would’ve read The Late War was basically a round floating mine:

http://49817097.weebly.com/torpedo.html

That was already illustrated, literally, from the link upthread, which Sledge refused to read or study with any intent. I dontreally know what else to say to someone who won’t read, and introduces a fallacious argument when what’s being said is plain.

- Doc

A round floating mine, you say?

What does that have to do with a compass? Oh, because they're both round? Did the Liahona float? Did the Liahona explode? This is grasping at straws. There are many things more important and troubling to discuss about Mormonism than some weak-ass parallels like these.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It’s not grasping at straws. It’s just recognizing what’s in front of your face. Why do you think the liahona was described as a round brass ball? Why were similar words used to described torpedos, as Joseph Smith would’ve known them to be (round), found in both the Late War and the Book of Mormon? Why couldn’t Joseph Smith use inspiration from the Late War passage to write the Book of Mormon, a plagiarism mosaic?

- Doc

[Gadianton]

It’s not grasping at straws. It’s just recognizing what’s in front of your face. Why do you think the liahona was described as a round brass ball? Why were similar words used to described torpedos, as Joseph Smith would’ve known them to be (round), found in both the Late War and the Book of Mormon? Why couldn’t Joseph Smith use inspiration from the Late War passage to write the Book of Mormon, a plagiarism mosaic?

- Doc

To put the thread in context, I just thought it was fun that Chapstick got a zinger across that the apologists were unable to deal with. Maybe out there somewhere, there's a paper that makes some good points. But, as was the case with Bill Hamblin and Jenkins, those points, should they really exist, never end up getting made. The point our latest visitor keeps repeating also came from LB on that thread. If that's a major point that gets made in the Interpreter papers or at FAIR, then I'm afraid their defense isn't very good. Presumably, if our anxious visitor really does know so much about the topic, then this point would be among the finest made within those papers linked to. If not, they why does this visitor not better represent what's in those papers, assuming they've got teeth?

[Sledge]

To put the thread in context, I just thought it was fun that Chapstick got a zinger across that the apologists were unable to deal with. Maybe out there somewhere, there's a paper that makes some good points. But, as was the case with Bill Hamblin and Jenkins, those points, should they really exist, never end up getting made. The point our latest visitor keeps repeating also came from LB on that thread. If that's a major point that gets made in the Interpreter papers or at FAIR, then I'm afraid their defense isn't very good.

What actually happened on Dan's blog was that "Chapstick" said something inane about torpedoes and got their ass handed to them by Kiwi and others because torpedoes are definitely not anything like compasses.

Presumably, if our anxious visitor really does know so much about the topic, then this point would be among the finest made within those papers linked to. If not, they why does this visitor not better represent what's in those papers, assuming they've got teeth?

Ooh, what else am I? Anxious? Nervous? Paranoid? This is a cute tactic, really.