Believing in Mormonism requires believing in....

[_beastie]

You're problem here is not with logic, but with the semantic games you are playing. There is no claim of the use of "magic" rocks in the Church because the Church does not believe in magic as commonly understood. This is just a smarmy secularist verbal conceit, not a serious argument, and it assiduously avoids engaging precisely what LDS actually do understand Priesthood Power to be.

This is simply a dodge. I don't care what adjective you choose, the rock that Joseph Smith looked in to see buried treasure had some sort of "supernatural" power. This has very little to do with "what LDS actually do understand the Priesthood Power to be" because not even Joseph Smith claimed that he was using "the Priesthood Power" to see buried treasures with the rock.

Each one of your responses has carefully avoided the actual point I was making. No surprise there, of course.

No, you are not. You're logical argument is predicated upon personal and idiosyncratic definitions of terms that are not harmonizable with LDS understandings of the same terms and which you have provided no logical ground upon which to accept as correct.

Baloney. See above.

You want to divert the conversation SOLELY to Joseph Smith' use of the peep stone to translate the Book of Mormon, I'm guessing. But here's my point, although I doubt repeating it will do any good.

Joseph Smith used the same stone, same procedure, to "translate" the Book of Mormon as he did to see buried treasures under the ground. Logically, if you accept that that process worked to produce the Book of Mormon, then you must accept that it worked to see buried treasures, unless you want to call Joseph Smith a liar.

Beastie here retreats to the first refuge of a secularist liberal: the popularity test. No comment is necessary in refuting such nostrums, nostrums that have been discredited for thousands of years. across many great religious and philosophical systems.

Snore. Your political diatribes bore me. My point stands, and you actually agree with it. The belief that God requires passwords and secret handshakes to get into heaven is one that the vast majority of human beings would reject as ridiculous. The entire point of this thread is that to be a fully believing Mormon, one must embrace a variety of beliefs that the vast majority of human beings would view as ridiculous.

As I keep stating, apologists are acutely aware of this fact. That is why they are so defensive about their own intelligence and academic qualifications.

No, just sarcasm.

Just the inability to refute my point.

[_Coggins7]

Second, the author of the Book of Mormon - whoever that was - included information that portrayed exactly how nineteenth century New Englanders pictured ancient America, including Mesoamerica, where notable ruins had already been discovered. There was nothing new or radical in the Book of Mormon for the time period. If any of those became "hits", the credit is not due to the author of the Book of Mormon, but to nineteenth century conceptions about ancient America, some of which were right, and some of which were wrong.

Keep up the pose Beastie, keep up the pose. Many of the details of Mesoamerican culture, including metallurgy, the use of cement, intricate networks of roads and causeways, and the presence of highly Christian-like religious ideas, so Christian, in fact, that the Spanish felt the need to stamp it out as a Satanic counterfeit, was unknown to American historians and scientists at the time.

The fact of the matter remains, Beastie, that there is a mountain of plausible, if ambiguous evidence in Mesoamerica regarding the Book of Mormon, and the only reason deniers like yourself can maintain such a pose is precisely because so little is still understood about ancient Mesoamerican culture and society; so few known archaeological sites have ever actually been excavated (to say nothing of the unknown ones), and the languages are, for the most part, a black box. The critics may have a plausible counter-argument now, but it remains to be seen as the future unfolds and the textbooks have to be rewritten how strong those present arguments may turn out to be.

They may collapse like a house of cards, just as disbelief in the existence of Troy once did, or the utter ignorance of the existence of Ebla. People like you and the Signature Books cabal are way overstating their case, Beastie, and the cock sure pose of certainty in the face of what is really fragmentary and segmented historical reconstructions of what such ancient civilizations were really like.

Now you're backpedaling, as I already noted. My point was quite specific - that a massive Judeo-christian culture existed in ancient Mesoamerica and disappeared without a trace.

Ebla. Massive geological upheavals. War, revolution, pestilence, genocide. We do not understand most of the languages in that region of the world Beastie. For heaven's sake reattach yourself to a semblance of reality here and stop flailing in the wind for a flapping scrap of argument to hang your animosity of the Church on. It isn't there. You do not know that they disappeared without a trace, and no LDS apologist or scholar is claiming that they did. The Book of Mormon makes no such claim. This "without a trace" concept is the invention of critics of the Book of Mormon, not of the Book of Mormon or its supporters. The evidence for such a civilization may or may not be there (I say for the sake of argument) depending upon future discoveries (Mesoamerican archeology, given the very small number of known sites that have ever been excavated, in still in its infancy, and until the languages are deciphered to some adequate degree, and we begin to see what many of these people actually wrote and thought about themselves, the bare archaeological remains give us only the most cursory understanding of any society).

[_beastie]

Keep up the pose Beastie, keep up the pose. Many of the details of Mesoamerican culture, including metallurgy, the use of cement, intricate networks of roads and causeways, and the presence of highly Christian-like religious ideas, so Christian, in fact, that the Spanish felt the need to stamp it out as a Satanic counterfeit, was unknown to American historians and scientists at the time.

First, there is absolutely no evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time period. This is apologia 101. You are totally out of the loop. Sorenson desperately tried to cobble together supposed proofs of early metallurgy, but those references fall apart upon inspection. No reputable Mesoamerican scholar believes that ancient Mesoamerica practiced metallurgy during the Book of Mormon time period.

In regards to cement: the first point is that the Book of Mormon has it entirely backwards. Mesoamericans did not build cities out of cement due to lack of timber. They used UP the timber to create plaster to cover their buildings.

"And there being but little timber upon the face of the land, nevertheless the people who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement, in which they did dwell." (Helaman 3:7)

This verse clearly states that it was DUE to the lack of timber that the people constructed houses of cement. No, this is not what occurred in Mesoamerica, and, in fact, is the direct opposite of what occurred.

In addition, Solomon Spalding’s manuscript also mentions a similar practice:

The inside of the walls of the houses of the Ohons "were formed of clay, which was plastered over with a thin coat of lime" The chimney of their fireplaces were built of split timber on the inside "(with wet dirt or clay) of which they plaster, dirt or clay -- which compleatly covers & adheres to the timber & prevents the fire from having any operation upon it." (p. 23)

(citations obtained from this site:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SCIOTA/Bown04a.htm )

Now please cite the specific “highly Christian-like ideas” that existed in Mesoamerica. Please avoid references to ideas that are so generic that they could literally fit just about any religion.


The rest of your post is the common refrain of those cornered: there's just TOO MUCH we don't know about ancient Mesoamerica to draw any conclusions about anything!!! Go tell that to the people who have spent decades studying it.

by the way, the fact that you have been forced to this particular refuge (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) proves that you've been forced to concede my point. You hope I won't notice, but I do.

[_Coggins7]

Quote:
You're problem here is not with logic, but with the semantic games you are playing. There is no claim of the use of "magic" rocks in the Church because the Church does not believe in magic as commonly understood. This is just a smarmy secularist verbal conceit, not a serious argument, and it assiduously avoids engaging precisely what LDS actually do understand Priesthood Power to be.

This is simply a dodge. I don't care what adjective you choose, the rock that Joseph Smith looked in to see buried treasure had some sort of "supernatural" power. This has very little to do with "what LDS actually do understand the Priesthood Power to be" because not even Joseph Smith claimed that he was using "the Priesthood Power" to see buried treasures with the rock.

Each one of your responses has carefully avoided the actual point I was making. No surprise there, of course.

What we seem to have combined here is a farther marginal understanding of LDS doctrine and philosophy combined with a decided lack of ability to think critically, in a philosophical sense, and follow an argument though its pathways of logical connection.

The fact of the matter yet remains, that "supernatural power" (I see you have no clarified the concept a bit, stepping back from the smarmy and pejorative "magic" used in the OP) and "magic" are terms that have conceptual connotations, as well as emotive value, for any audience and you have clearly chosen the low road over the higher, philosophical and scholarly one. It also yet remains that "magic" is a concept very far removed from LDS conceptions of "supernatural power", even when LDS make allowances for the existence of "magic" in the form of supernatural powers connected with or coincidental with certain practices by mortal human beings.

What you apparantly do not understand, and hence, have no credibility in analyzing, is that there is really no such thing as any power or influence that is not "natural". All miracles are natural, as are all forms of power or phenomena that are "super" or, perhaps, even better, "meta" natural. The descriptions of what Joseph experienced in his hat bear a not uncanny resemblance to what I'm doing at the present moment, typing on a keyboard and seeing text appear "magically" on a flat screen monitor connected to a computer that transmits electromagnetic impulses through copper wire and various electronic devices to the end that text, images, moving images, and sounds appear on my monitor, transferred, transformed, and transduced, from other forms forms of electromagnetic radiation that carry highly complex streams of information. It appears that its the lack of visible or obvious instrumentalities--circuits, wires, and cables, that causes you so much intellectual distress when dealing with the seer stone, the hat, and the Urim and Thummim.

Yet you have no problem with computers, satellite television, radio, radar, sonar, or laser communications. Interesting. Could this be, not really logical misgivings, but psychological presuppositions and prejudices regarding just what the universe might really be like?

Quote:
No, you are not. You're logical argument is predicated upon personal and idiosyncratic definitions of terms that are not harmonizable with LDS understandings of the same terms and which you have provided no logical ground upon which to accept as correct.



Baloney. See above.

Yes, see above. You are playing semantic games, not adducing a logical argument. When your specific definition of "magic" fails to explain what LDS mean by "supernatural" and "magic" and fails to describe LDS understandings of forces superseding those known on this particular plane of existence, your augment that we believe in "magic" ultimately becomes an argument with yourself, not with Mormons.

Joseph Smith used the same stone, same procedure, to "translate" the Book of Mormon as he did to see buried treasures under the ground. Logically, if you accept that that process worked to produce the Book of Mormon, then you must accept that it worked to see buried treasures, unless you want to call Joseph Smith a liar.

I see history, at least honest history, is not your forté Beastie. There is no evidence that Joseph ever used the stones to find buried treasure. All such claims are hearsay emanating from the nineteenth century which have been long ago exploded. Joseph used such stones to find other stones, and even to reveal to Josiah Stoal who he should marry, but there is no historical documentation to the effect that he used them to find treasure. He did help others dig for it a few times, of course, a common occurrence at the time, but there is no evidence of the use of seer stones in the process (except for the desire of Stoal to use it of such a purpose, to which Joseph apparently declined).

I said:

Beastie here retreats to the first refuge of a secularist liberal: the popularity test. No comment is necessary in refuting such nostrums, nostrums that have been discredited for thousands of years. across many great religious and philosophical systems.

Beastie remonstrates with:

Snore. Your political diatribes bore me. My point stands, and you actually agree with it. The belief that God requires passwords and secret handshakes to get into heaven is one that The entire point of this thread is that to be a fully believing Mormon, one must embrace a variety of beliefs that the vast majority of human beings would view as ridiculous.

As I keep stating, apologists are acutely aware of this fact. That is why they are so defensive about their own intelligence and academic qualifications.

This was not a political, but more a philosophical and psychological point. Beatie's argument style, far from being precisely logical, in any strict sense, is certainly interesting. She reiterates again her point that " the vast majority of human beings would reject as ridiculous", while failing to grasp the horns of two dilemmas that spray Raid on her ant hill: the fact that very many people in other times, cultures, and ages, would see nothing peculiar in such ritual motifs and symbology, and that the fact that the majority of people find something ridiculous has no logical relevance to whether or not that something is true or valuable.

[_beastie]

What we seem to have combined here is a farther marginal understanding of LDS doctrine and philosophy combined with a decided lack of ability to think critically, in a philosophical sense, and follow an argument though its pathways of logical connection.

The fact of the matter yet remains, that "supernatural power" (I see you have no clarified the concept a bit, stepping back from the smarmy and pejorative "magic" used in the OP) and "magic" are terms that have conceptual connotations, as well as emotive value, for any audience and you have clearly chosen the low road over the higher, philosophical and scholarly one. It also yet remains that "magic" is a concept very far removed from LDS conceptions of "supernatural power", even when LDS make allowances for the existence of "magic" in the form of supernatural powers connected with or coincidental with certain practices by mortal human beings.

What you apparantly do not understand, and hence, have no credibility in analyzing, is that there is really no such thing as any power or influence that is not "natural". All miracles are natural, as are all forms of power or phenomena that are "super" or, perhaps, even better, "meta" natural. The descriptions of what Joseph experienced in his hat bear a not uncanny resemblance to what I'm doing at the present moment, typing on a keyboard and seeing text appear "magically" on a flat screen monitor connected to a computer that transmits electromagnetic impulses through copper wire and various electronic devices to the end that text, images, moving images, and sounds appear on my monitor, transferred, transformed, and transduced, from other forms forms of electromagnetic radiation that carry highly complex streams of information. It appears that its the lack of visible or obvious instrumentalities--circuits, wires, and cables, that causes you so much intellectual distress when dealing with the seer stone, the hat, and the Urim and Thummim.

Yet you have no problem with computers, satellite television, radio, radar, sonar, or laser communications. Interesting. Could this be, not really logical misgivings, but psychological presuppositions and prejudices regarding just what the universe might really be like?

You are doing the exact same thing that MG did on the rock/hat thread. You are still, and yet, and likely will continue as long as the thread lives, diverting the conversation to something that you think you can refute. In other words, a classic strawman.

The argument is not whether or not things exist in this world that human beings in general or specific cannot, at present, fully explain. Of course they do. The point is that there is no evidence, in the history of this world, that magic/supernatural/priesthoodenhanced rocks exist. Rocks are rocks. There is zero evidence in the history of this world that you can “peep” in a rock and see ANYTHING other than the rock. The special stones won’t show you where other special stones are located. The special stones won’t show you where treasures are buried, and they won’t translate an ancient document for you.

This is the point of my thread. To be a fully believing Mormon, one must believe all sorts of things for which there exists ZERO evidence, and which, frankly, to use one of my favorite LDS phrases, “makes reason stare”.

Yes, see above. You are playing semantic games, not adducing a logical argument. When your specific definition of "magic" fails to explain what LDS mean by "supernatural" and "magic" and fails to describe LDS understandings of forces superseding those known on this particular plane of existence, your augment that we believe in "magic" ultimately becomes an argument with yourself, not with Mormons.

Once again. I do not care what adjective you use to describe the rock. You continue to attempt to divert attention.

I see history, at least honest history, is not your forté Beastie. There is no evidence that Joseph ever used the stones to find buried treasure. All such claims are hearsay emanating from the nineteenth century which have been long ago exploded. Joseph used such stones to find other stones, and even to reveal to Josiah Stoal who he should marry, but there is no historical documentation to the effect that he used them to find treasure. He did help others dig for it a few times, of course, a common occurrence at the time, but there is no evidence of the use of seer stones in the process (except for the desire of Stoal to use it of such a purpose, to which Joseph apparently declined).

Ah, finally, a response that actually addresses the point. While I disagree with you that good evidence exists that he did use the stone to find buried treasure, feel free to substitute “using a stone to find other stones or revealing to someone who they should marry.” It’s all equally idiotic.

This was not a political, but more a philosophical and psychological point. Beatie's argument style, far from being precisely logical, in any strict sense, is certainly interesting. She reiterates again her point that " the vast majority of human beings would reject as ridiculous", while failing to grasp the horns of two dilemmas that spray Raid on her ant hill: the fact that very many people in other times, cultures, and ages, would see nothing peculiar in such ritual motifs and symbology, and that the fact that the majority of people find something ridiculous has no logical relevance to whether or not that something is true or valuable.

Yes, it’s true, human beings continually demonstrate the ability to believe things that defy reason and logic, for which there is zero reliable evidence. So perhaps I should direct my comments to those human beings among us, as few as they may be, who actually value reason, logic, and reliable evidence, and shy away from embracing claims that have none of the above.

But it does appear you concede that being a fully believing Mormon requires believing various things that the majority of other human beings would find ridiculous. That was, after all, the point of my thread.

[_Coggins7]

First, there is absolutely no evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time period. This is apologia 101. You are totally out of the loop. Sorenson desperately tried to cobble together supposed proofs of early metallurgy, but those references fall apart upon inspection. No reputable Mesoamerican scholar believes that ancient Mesoamerica practiced metallurgy during the Book of Mormon time period.

In regards to cement: the first point is that the Book of Mormon has it entirely backwards. Mesoamericans did not build cities out of cement due to lack of timber. They used UP the timber to create plaster to cover their buildings.

Yes, keep up the hair splitting posing and posturing. Mesoamerican archeology is in its infancy. There is a vast quantity of data and information yet to be unearthed, and we shall see if, ultimately, there was no metallurgy during Book of Mormon times (a time spanning a thousand years across a number of cultures and and peoples). Neither you, nor anyone else, in a strictly scientific sense, has the slightest idea what there was or was not, in the case of metals, in Book of Mormon times. You have no knowledge except the lack of knowledge and dearth of evidence upon which to hang your hat here. You're entire argument rises and falls on an assumption that, for all intents and purposes, all the relevant data to be found in Mesoameica has already been found, and anything found in the future among the vast and yet unexcavated sites in Mesoamerica (let alone any as yet undiscovered sites) will only be filling in the gaps of present theory. Yet present theory is vastly incomplete and imprecise (as well as heavily laced with subjective biases of various kinds), and will have to make way for better understandings as further light and knowlege become available.

The danger for the critics is that the eggs, being all in one basket, the basket of "everything we need to know about Mesoamerican culture in Book of Mormon times is already known", may all fall out of the basket at one time, all of them being, well, in the basket.

You are hanging you're criticisms on a thin reed that may begin to break with the next dig. You just have no way to know.


Quote:
"And there being but little timber upon the face of the land, nevertheless the people who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement, in which they did dwell." (Helaman 3:7)

This verse clearly states that it was DUE to the lack of timber that the people constructed houses of cement. No, this is not what occurred in Mesoamerica, and, in fact, is the direct opposite of what occurred.

Neither you, nor anybody else, have a bloody freaking idea what actually happened in Mesoamerica (as a whole????) in any but a cursory, vague, and fragmented way. Cut the crap Pleeeeeeeeeeeease.

These kinds of claims to certainty regarding the complexities and developmental paths of long dead civilizations whose texts we cannot read and whose thoughts about themselves are lost to us is unfreakin' believable. Yet this is what Atheism and secularism do to a mind cut loose from its natural humility before the concept and reality of God: the human being does not loses his/her innate desire toward worship and veneration, but once God is removed from the human psych and heart, man begins, most usually to worship himself. This is what I call Anthropotheism, or, in modern parlance, secuaar humanism. This conceit allows us to arrogate to ourselves, though our Lord and Savior, reason, vast reams of knowledge we really do not possess and claims of certainly regarding what we do possess that are well in advance of what a reasoned analysis of our knowledge would really authorize us, in all intellectual honesty, to claim.

Beastie, like most secularists, is just trapped in her own thought world in which absence of evidence, at least when it coincides with her own agenda, is evidence of absence, and in which hypothesis and theories become facts and "knowledge", and vague generalities become detailed understandings, at least when useful for the cause.

Now please cite the specific “highly Christian-like ideas” that existed in Mesoamerica. Please avoid references to ideas that are so generic that they could literally fit just about any religion.

Do the homework yourself. You know the Spanish colonial soureces, I'm sure, and they are quite specific.


T

he rest of your post is the common refrain of those cornered: there's just TOO MUCH we don't know about ancient Mesoamerica to draw any conclusions about anything!!! Go tell that to the people who have spent decades studying it.

Not impressive. All this does is paper over the quite disconcerting fact that there's just TOO MUCH we don't know about ancient Mesoamerica to draw any conclusions about much that went on, culturally, religiously, and developmentally, to draw cock sure conclusions about texts such as the Book of Mormon. You're use of "anything" is just the typical critic's cop out. No one is saying we can't draw conclusions, but we should be very, very careful that our conclusions are tentative and open to change as new evidence becomes available, not the cock sure conclusions of an earlier generations of Egyptologists, for example, about the pyramids that were most definitely wrong (theses were nothing more than 'tombs").

by the way, the fact that you have been forced to this particular refuge (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) proves that you've been forced to concede my point. You hope I won't notice, but I do.

Using Scratch's tactic of claiming victory after actually running away from every salient point won't help your argument here. The fact persists: the critics have all there eggs in one basket, the basket of absence of evidence in a young discipline that is not hard science and in which the vast majority of information has yet to be explored and unearthed.

You have no response to this point except to claim that I've claimed that given the dynamics of the situation, we can't draw conclusions about anything. Of course, neither I nor any other apologist is making such a claim. It is you who are claiming cock sure certainty in the face of vast gulf of data still unknown and reflecting the overwhelming body of the record of ancient Mesoamerican civilization, as well as making claims regarding what is known that make huge leaps of inference from generalities to specifics that cannot possibly be anything more than bare speculation given the dearth of detailed knowledge in these areas.

Your' position is as a gatekeeper of orthodoxy, not a scientific seeker of truth. That is as it is because of your overriding need to deligitimize the Church, not a disinterested search for greater understanding.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

You are doing the exact same thing that MG did on the rock/hat thread. You are still, and yet, and likely will continue as long as the thread lives, diverting the conversation to something that you think you can refute. In other words, a classic strawman.

Since you cannot demonstrate that your definition of "magic" or "supernatural" can be harmonized with LDS understandings of the same terms, you have no basis upon which to critique the LDS understanding, unless you believe that such terms are fungible across any and all belief systems. There are no "magic" anythings in the Church. We do not accept that term as one descriptive of "supernatural".

The argument is not whether or not things exist in this world that human beings in general or specific cannot, at present, fully explain. Of course they do. The point is that there is no evidence, in the history of this world, that magic/supernatural/priesthoodenhanced rocks exist.

Finally, the inevitable retreat to positivist empiricism. Now, there is no evidence of this based upon precisely what? That's right Beastie, in the whole history of the world, and all the billions of human beings who have existed in it across a vast concourse of cultures, civilizations, nations, and personal lives lived, you have not any idea whatever what you are talking about, who has experienced what, or what "evidence" there might be or might have been spread out across that unfathomable plane of human experience. Case closed.

Rocks are rocks.

Ah yes, the pouting certainty of the Anthopotheist. Yet some rocks may be more than rocks. And some words may be more than mere words. And some actions may have moral and ethical consequences. And some persons may have greater than mere mortal insight and perception. You see Beastie, you just don't know...

The rest are merely the same old Dawkins/Sagan/Dennet tropisms that assume nothing can exist beyond human's own mortal perceptual noses; the religion of metaphysical materialism.

[_beastie]

Yes, keep up the hair splitting posing and posturing. Mesoamerican archeology is in its infancy. There is a vast quantity of data and information yet to be unearthed, and we shall see if, ultimately, there was no metallurgy during Book of Mormon times (a time spanning a thousand years across a number of cultures and and peoples). Neither you, nor anyone else, in a strictly scientific sense, has the slightest idea what there was or was not, in the case of metals, in Book of Mormon times. You have no knowledge except the lack of knowledge and dearth of evidence upon which to hang your hat here. You're entire argument rises and falls on an assumption that, for all intents and purposes, all the relevant data to be found in Mesoameica has already been found, and anything found in the future among the vast and yet unexcavated sites in Mesoamerica (let alone any as yet undiscovered sites) will only be filling in the gaps of present theory. Yet present theory is vastly incomplete and imprecise (as well as heavily laced with subjective biases of various kinds), and will have to make way for better understandings as further light and knowlege become available.

The danger for the critics is that the eggs, being all in one basket, the basket of "everything we need to know about Mesoamerican culture in Book of Mormon times is already known", may all fall out of the basket at one time, all of them being, well, in the basket.

You are hanging you're criticisms on a thin reed that may begin to break with the next dig. You just have no way to know.

Just to reassure me that you’re not talking out of a lower body orifice, please cite for me the books you’ve read about ancient Mesoamerica that enable you to make such an assertion with such confidence.

There is a difference between knowing “everything” there is to know about ancient Mesoamerica and saying “that all the discovery has been done” (where have we heard that before) and asserting that enough is known about ancient Mesoamerica to determine that no massive Judeo-Christian civilization once thrived there.

If you’re anything like the MADdites, however, I trust this distinction will escape you.

These kinds of claims to certainty regarding the complexities and developmental paths of long dead civilizations whose texts we cannot read and whose thoughts about themselves are lost to us is unfreakin' believable. Yet this is what Atheism and secularism do to a mind cut loose from its natural humility before the concept and reality of God: the human being does not loses his/her innate desire toward worship and veneration, but once God is removed from the human psych and heart, man begins, most usually to worship himself. This is what I call Anthropotheism, or, in modern parlance, secuaar humanism. This conceit allows us to arrogate to ourselves, though our Lord and Savior, reason, vast reams of knowledge we really do not possess and claims of certainly regarding what we do possess that are well in advance of what a reasoned analysis of our knowledge would really authorize us, in all intellectual honesty, to claim.

Beastie, like most secularists, is just trapped in her own thought world in which absence of evidence, at least when it coincides with her own agenda, is evidence of absence, and in which hypothesis and theories become facts and "knowledge", and vague generalities become detailed understandings, at least when useful for the cause.

Oh, I love this. You’ve slid all the way down the slippery slope to cdowis’ favorite cliché: archaeologists don’t know nuttin. They just look at a bunch of rubble and BS.

Again, just to reassure me you’re not talking out of your (you know where) please cite the books you’ve read on the subject of the science of archaeology that enables you to make such an assertion with confidence.

Do the homework yourself. You know the Spanish colonial soureces, I'm sure, and they are quite specific.

You’ve got to be kidding me. You make an assertion, and then tell ME to back it up. What universe does THIS tactic work in??? Oh, I know, coggie’s own private universe.

No, coggins, it doesn’t work that way. You made the assertion. You back it up.

Otherwise we may conclude that you are talking about of your (you know where).

The rest of your post is just more of the same.

[_Coggins7]

There is a difference between knowing “everything” there is to know about ancient Mesoamerica and saying “that all the discovery has been done” (where have we heard that before) and asserting that enough is known about ancient Mesoamerica to determine that no massive Judeo-Christian civilization once thrived there.

This is pure clap trap. You cannot possibly know that enough is known when the vast majority of known archaeological sites in Latin America have never so much as had a shovel put to them. You have no frame of reference or baseline from which to adjudge that enough is known when you have know way of knowing what "enough" actually is. The very next dig could begin to modify or overturn present theories regarding Mesoamerican societies and there history and development. Further, apparently inconsistencies may disappear because Book of Mormon cultures developed technologically and culturally along a different trajectory with surrounding cultures, and Book of Mormon cultures attributes were not necessarily diffused substantively into those cultures. There are any number of possibilities, all of which are easily plausible and which make your claims of certainty appear to be what they really are--tendentious gaming of the evidence.

[_GoodK]

This is pure clap trap...

Twice in one week? Coggins, I thought you were taking time off.
Glad to see you back, bud. :)