Peterson Misleading Again

[_antishock8]

Progressive Revelation ='s Making stuff up as you go.

Voila.

Former prophets and apostles have stated the location of the HC is in NY. Pish posh. It's just consensus. Pish posh.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Progressive Revelation ='s Making stuff up as you go.

Poor antishock8 has kindly offered the equation above as a nice example, albeit on a different topic, of what I just said about "the difference" being "not so much one of differing facts as one of differing worldviews and variant prior assumptions."

Even poor antishock8 has his occasional uses, I suppose.

[_Trevor]

Whereas I, by contrast, with my own fair amount of training in ancient history and languages, think it already does.

The difference between us, I suspect, is not so much one of differing facts as one of differing worldviews and variant prior assumptions. Unless and until your worldview and assumptions change, you will not see a scenario that makes sense to you.

Well, I am on relatively comparable grounds with you when it comes to such training, and I, of course, do not agree.

What do you suppose are the worldview and assumptions that keep me from accepting that there are plausible scenarios for an ancient Book of Mormon?

Is it that I do not take the promptings of the Spirit as evidence of the text's antiquity?

Is it that I do not trust the claims of Joseph Smith that the book is ancient? Or that I do not trust the competence of those who supposedly examined the plates to determine their antiquity?

There is a very good reason why the Phaistos Disc, for example, is considered by many to be a forgery. Some of these reasons overlap nicely with Book of Mormon problems with a couple of notable exceptions: we have the Phaistos Disc, and we can examine how its characters and form relate to other ancient scripts and inscribed materials with our own eyes.

Is it that I am suspicious that a translation with no extant source text might be a forgery or pseudepigraphic?

Is it that the lack of any close congener to the Book of Mormon either in literary, linguistic, or physical form in Ancient America makes me doubt that there are such things?

Does it boil down in your mind to whether I have a testimony or not? Whether I believe in God or not? Or do you think it is possible, as I claim, that there are very sound technical reasons why one would doubt the antiquity of the Book of Mormon and not accept that a plausible explanation for an ancient Book of Mormon has yet been proffered?

[_antishock8]

Dear Gentle Readers,

The morbidly obese dhimmidiot continues to obfuscate everything and anything to do with his cult. His Fatness would love to legitimize the idea that his prophets and apostles aren't inspired when it comes into conflict with his *cough* academic views and the *hack* academic views of the other paid apologists of the MI.

So, as far as serving one's purpose, not only does this charlatan continue to line his polyester pants with the cult's money, but serves as an excellent counter-example of lying, deceit, and passive-aggressive apologist behavior. Yes, the hardcore members will continue to hoist this Parcellsian figure upon their shoulders as he continues to foist his apostate views of the Mormon church on the faithful, but none of that really matters as long as the incorporated entity is ensured a nice revenue stream. Mr. Peterson is simply doing his job, which is sickening, frankly. What shame he has not the courage to strike out on a path of truth and morality, but remains securely ensconched as a soothsaying pied piper leading children to the river...

What a shame.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I only said "occasional uses."

Anybody who wants to claim that I suggested anything more than "occasional" will have a very, very hard case to make.

[_Mister Scratch]

Did you read the letter Bill Hamblin wrote to Michael Watson?

I believe I did.

You believe you did? Or you actually did? And, might we read a copy of it?

I don't remember it very precisely, but, as I recall, he expressed some concern about the letter from Brother Watson that the Tanners were brandishing. It certainly wasn't an example of "browbeating." And it wasn't overly long. I can promise anybody who wonders that, if my friend had attempted to "browbeat" the secretary to the First Presidency, I would have remembered that.

Feel free to select a different verb, then. "Scared"; "manipulated"; "persuaded"; "convinced"; "frightened." Etc. The point is that an apologist somehow talked the FP secretary into totally flipping on a doctrinal issue. I, for one, would be very very interested in reading Prof. Hamblin's letter.

[_Daniel Peterson]

What do you suppose are the worldview and assumptions that keep me from accepting that there are plausible scenarios for an ancient Book of Mormon?

I don't even know your name, let alone what your inmost thoughts, your fundamental worldview, your presuppositions, and your intellectual habits and extra-intellectual predispositions are. I merely expressed my "suspicion."

I think it obvious that predispositions, etc., affect the way people who are otherwise similarly placed and positioned view things. Otherwise, we would be unanimous on most matters, in religion and elsewhere.

The plain fact is that there are plenty of believing Latter-day Saints out there with training in matters related to antiquity (from schools like Oxford, the Catholic University of America, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Duke, UCLA, Berkeley, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Chicago, Yale, London, Brandeis, Stanford, etc.) who don't experience the same difficulty you do in picturing the Book of Mormon as ancient. Their training is roughly comparable to yours. They know the relevant facts as well as you do, and perhaps even better. What explains the difference? Unless you want to go down the path favored by several of the lesser lights here and simply dismiss them as dishonest and/or insane, it must reside in something like presuppositions, prior assumptions, and worldview.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You believe you did? Or you actually did?

It's been fifteen years.

I don't maintain the extensive files and "dossiers" that you do. I didn't realize, in the early nineties, that an obsessively hostile critic with a penchant for accumulating intelligence data on his targets would someday demand documentation for every dollar I've ever earned and every breath I've ever taken. (Not that I would have done much differently had I known it.)

I'm reasonably confident that I read the letter. Unless I'm mistaken, it was only part of a page long, and didn't seem particularly noteworthy.

And, might we read a copy of it?

You can always contact Professor Hamblin and ask.

[_Trevor]

I don't even know your name, let alone what your inmost thoughts, your fundamental worldview, your presuppositions, and your intellectual habits and extra-intellectual predispositions are. I merely expressed my "suspicion."

Well, I gave you a list of questions that sum up quite nicely why I do not, as of yet, accept the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, so now you know something about it.

The plain fact is that there are plenty of believing Latter-day Saints out there with training in matters related to antiquity (from schools like Oxford, the Catholic University of America, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Duke, UCLA, Berkeley, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Chicago, Yale, London, Brandeis, Stanford, etc.) who don't experience the same difficulty you do in picturing the Book of Mormon as ancient. Their training is roughly comparable to yours. They know the relevant facts as well as you do, and perhaps even better. What explains the difference? Unless you want to go down the path favored by several of the lesser lights here and simply dismiss them as dishonest and/or insane, it must reside in something like presuppositions, prior assumptions, and worldview.

Or maybe they have not really applied the same standards of evidence and argument to the question. It is, after all, perfectly possible. And, I think there are very understandable reasons why they might not. As far as I have been able to gather, some of the most fundamental questions about the origins of the text are taken as answered before they have even been adequately explored. In other words, the spiritual conviction that the Book of Mormon is ancient leads directly into finding suggestive evidences in the text to support that view. Given the scrutiny that is applied to some other purportedly ancient texts, it is entirely accurate to say that some crucial questions about the Book of Mormon remain unanswered. These questions are so fundamental as to justify, in my mind, withholding the conclusion that the book is in fact ancient.

I am not saying that it is completely pointless to proceed as though it is ancient and look for these suggestive evidences. But these secondary evidences are insufficient to inspire confidence in the book's antiquity, unless you have a spiritual conviction or a rather generous evidentiary standard, as long as these fundamental questions remain unanswered and under-explored.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Or maybe they have not really applied the same standards of evidence and argument to the question.

Maybe. But they don't seem to think so, and I don't think so.

So, if you do think so, that simply moves the question back a step: Why do you think so while others, equally well trained and at least equally well informed, don't?