.

[Shulem]

Kishy and Philo?

Whatever floats your boats!!

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

That was awesome.

[Ed1]

.

[Shulem]

That was awesome.

Was it now. You also value (1) Dishonesty and (2) Contention and (3) misuse of evidence and boldface and pure lies about evidence.
That stuff was awesome was it. Then I invite you also to never contact me again, neither on this thread, neither on this site, nor privately either.

It's hard to say which is more stupid coming from the idiotic Egyptian interpretations of Joseph Smith. Which is worse?

1) A BLACK "Sun" disk called Flos-isis in Smith's phony Egyptian Alphabet

2) A white man's head atop the body of a BLACK man in Facsimile No. 1

[Themis]

Don't ever contact me again, either on this site, or in private. Thank you

Really? Over react much. I have always treated you fairly.

[Themis]

Oh, Themis, you've been a bad, bad, bad boy! Look what you've done! You pissed off Ed1 and now he's never gonna talk to you again.

Shame on you, Themis.

At this point, I think he was looking to take offense to get out of engaging some good points people have brought up. I won't lose any sleep over it.

[Themis]

It's hard to say which is more stupid coming from the idiotic Egyptian interpretations of Joseph Smith. Which is worse?

1) A BLACK "Sun" disk called Flos-isis in Smith's phony Egyptian Alphabet

2) A white man's head atop the body of a BLACK man in Facsimile No. 1

It appears this problem has really set Ed off.

[Lem]

[passage 1]
Critics, on the other hand, who claim that current science is sufficient, and that future science will never show anything different than what it shows now, and that current science is sufficient to debunk the claims of the prophet, have an over-confidence in the current state of science, and a over-confidence that a possibility that they reject could never come back to bite them. But the history of science itself bears out that science overturns itself regularly.

And here we come to a screeching halt. I have never met an adult, lds 'critic' or otherwise, who believes "future science will never show anything different than it shows now." This is just tribal nonsense to ascribe this thought process to your religion's 'critics.'

[passage 2]
Therefore, a believing attitude in Joseph Smith’s claims, or at the very least, humility about the possibility of his claims (even if there isn’t belief involved) are the only good stances to take.

Nope. Not true at all. If that's your position, great. State it as such, or maybe add a testimony section to your paper, but ascribing nonsense to critics that no adult reasonably believes results in a sufficient argument that "a believing attitude" or even "humility about ..." possibilities are "the only good stances."

Nope. Not true at all. If that's your position, great. State it as such, or maybe add a testimony section to your paper, but ascribing nonsense to critics that no adult reasonably believes results in a sufficient argument that "a believing attitude" or even "humility about ..." possibilities are "the only good stances."

Let me know if the new wording is something that you like better. Thanks.

Okay, I took a look. Here is your new version, below, as compared to the two passages above. As far as I can tell, the words in blue from passage 1 above were removed, the words in green in the two updated passages below were added:

[updated passage 1']
Critics, on the other hand, who claim that current science is sufficient, and that future science will never show anything different than what it shows now, and that current science is sufficient to debunk the claims of the prophet, have an over-confidence in the current state of science. But the history of science itseif bears out that science overturns itself regularly, and may well go in a direction they don’t expect.

And the second part:

[updated passage 2']
Yes, that doesn’t mean that it has to go in the direction of Joseph Smith’s claims, but believers continue to have that expectation. Therefore, a believing attitude in Joseph Smith’s claims, or at the very least, humility about the possibility of his claims (even if there isn’t belief involved) are the only good stances to take, from this point of view where one can end up benefiting from a potential truth. The attitude that doesn’t even allow for an admission that a possibility that they do not believe in does indeed have a chance of actually being true in the end does not seem to be an attitude of humility.

Those that will not consider that exclude themselves from the benefits of the potential of truth going in that direction. If that results ultimately in a loss of privileges in the afterlife, and they are willing to risk that, then that is their risk to take, of course.

No, there is no change in my assessment of the passages, it seems that all you did was rearrange the order a little. The new wording not only still has the same problems, but you seem to have added what amounts to a very odd threat in your reference to readers taking the "risk" of "a loss of privileges in the afterlife," if they don't engage in what you personally and inaccurately define as "an attitude of humility," which you base on your incorrect assumptions about what people might think about current and future science findings.

Passage 1, in particular, still has the very large problem that you still seem to think that there are adults who believe that "future science will never show anything different than it shows now."

It is still extremely inappropriate to ascribe this unrealistic thought process to your religion's 'critics,' not only because it is not true, but also because it is unnecessarily condescending. You want people to read your paper with an open mind; attacking their intelligence and making vague threats is not the way to do that.

[Shulem]

Those that will not consider that exclude themselves from the benefits of the potential of truth going in that direction. If that results ultimately in a loss of privileges in the afterlife, and they are willing to risk that, then that is their risk to take, of course.

It is still extremely inappropriate to ascribe this unrealistic thought process to your religion's 'critics,' not only because it is not true, but also because it is unnecessarily condescending. You want people to read your paper with an open mind; attacking their intelligence and making vague threats is not the way to do that.

And we all know what "loss of privileges" entail. Oh poor me, I won't get to see Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ because I'm stuck down in the lower kingdom with apostates burning and wishing that I had believed brother Ed's paper about Smith's silly Egyptian Grammar. Woe is me!

Well, guess what. I'll just consider it a privilege that I don't have to spend my time with a racist murderous god who loves to torture his children like a bully plucking legs off of a spider just to watch it suffer. And Jesus? No thanks. Don't need his so-called sacrifice to appease an angry murderous god's need to make his favorite son suffer because all the other kids are so bad.

And finally, what privileges are lost? Right, no boners down there in the lower kingdom. OMFG. Give me a break.

[Chap]

May I mention a point that naturally occurs to an innocent bystander who has never been a member of the CoJCoLDS?

When Ed1 speaks of the risks of eternal disadvantages that might follow from not having a 'believing attitude' as one's default option in approaching the religious claims of Joseph Smith, he seems to be writing in a universe where the only real alternatives available are ultimately:

(a) Belief in the doctrinal claims of the CoJCoLDS, with the possibility of the eternal benefits it promises.
(b) Atheism or at the least agnosticism, that regards the loss of possible eternal benefits as a negligible risk.

But there are out there a vast variety of different religious claims, some of which are in open conflict with one another, most claiming to be the only sure route to a happy eternity. Some of these conflicts are between groups that would identify themselves as Christian (Southern Baptists vs. Roman Catholics in the USA) and others between other religions (Hinduism vs. Islam in South Asia). Some are between Christians and non-Christians (Coptic Christianity and Islam in Egypt).

The 'My religion vs. Science that could be different tomorrow, so why risk an unhappy eternity by rejecting my religion' stuff makes no sense in a world where the same argument could be put by a large number of conflicting religions.

Now if you were to find the religion that promised the most appalling eternal punishment for not believing in it, Ed1's approach might be applied to say that this is the most prudent choice for belief. Or is there to be some kind of trade-off between the relative plausibility of any given religion, and the penalties alleged for not believing in it? God only knows (but which god?).