Mike Reed Drops Bomb on Metal Plates

[_CaliforniaKid]

Chris Smith responded by pointing out that M. Reed's presentation ended....at 3:15. That's one hell of an Early Bird!

What was interesting about their departure was that there was a 15 minute break immediately following Mike's presentation. This would have been an opportunity for Roper to briefly share his source(s) with Mike. But I think the whole exchange was just so awkward and emotionally-charged that it's probably for the best that Roper didn't choose that moment to chat with Mike. I certainly don't blame anyone for leaving. There were a few minutes there when I wanted to leave, too.

[_Bond James Bond]

Where is Kerry Shirts and his camera when we need him?

[_Kishkumen]

Where is Kerry Shirts and his camera when we need him?

Amen, Bond.

[_Sophocles]

Mostly what I think we can expect from the MI folks
is a whole lot of hand-waving and smoke-spewing that we
know is their specialty. I imagine any response from them will involve some complicated but
entertaining mental gymnastics that would make
Reason stare. I mean,
even if they had some kind of argument, we know they prefer to simply
evade the obvious and focus on tangential irrelevancies. It's the mopologetic way:
deflect, devalue, denounce, decry, and then, as they showed at the conference, disappear.
It's the same thing with every issue: the critics use reason, interpreting evidence from
scholarly sources and the mopologists mimic the tools of science to construct
apologetic "arguments," the purpose of which is to make unsuspecting
believers feel more comfortable about exercising faith in nonsense.
Under no circumstances would I expect the apologists to
take on the issues head on.
That would go completely against their standard m.o. No, they need to dazzle the
faithful with something that appears clever, even if upon a closer examination
all the flaws in their argument become apparent. For that reason, I think they will
consider trying to be "funny" in whatever they print in response to Mike. Something
eerily similar to this post, perhaps.

What a pity, Equality - with a little more effort you could have got "head" (;=)

You know, I've always thought it fishy that Hamblin claimed that he had the cartoon character Butt-head in mind when he did this. It seems like such a strange insult. I think it's much more likely that he meant to encrypt the much more natural-sounding "Metcalf is a butthead" in his paper and he just screwed up and left out the "a." It's a common enough mistake--Neil Armstrong did the same thing. Turned out to be a lucky break for Hamblin though, because it allowed him to concoct the apology that he only meant to compare Metcalf with a cartoon character who happened to have a name that sounds like an insult. Peterson et al. immediately took up the cause to illuminate the wide chasm between the two--had Hamblin called Metcalf a butthead, that would be beyond reproach, of course. But what he actually did was no worse than comparing him to Elmer Fudd or Porky Pig, which as we all know is just harmless ribbing among scholars.

Besides, if he meant the character Butt-head, don't you think he would have foreseen the confusion? If calling someone a butthead is so much worse than calling him Butt-head, wouldn't he have chose a funnier, better-known character whose name didn't sound like an insult? Especially since Butt-head the character is actually hyphenated and doesn't lend itself well to an acrostic.

I'm trying to think of another character he could have used, but the exercise is only making it more clear to me how unlikely it is that his intent was to compare him to any cartoon character in the first place.

[_Blixa]

I'm surprised the Maxwell Institute actually allowed such a promoter of lies in their midst. What I mean by that is just because "some" of his thesis might have some validity, i.e. the fact that some LDS have conceded or stated the anti-mormon belief, that doesn't mean the overall point of the thesis is valid. It's absolutely not. His thesis makes us look stupid, and does so falsely.

That Mike Reed is so rude. He's making ldsfaqs look stupid. I'm sure we can all agree that's nearly an impossible task, but Mike, Promoter-of-Lies, with his slick anti-Mormon tongue, has managed to do it.

Someone should stop him.

KA

Thanks for bringing this embarrassing thread to my attention, KA. Ye gods and little fishes.

Keep him to Sunstone or whatever relative malarkey, not in the Faith.

ldsfaqs just convinced me of the necessity of presenting at seminars and conferences such as these. Thanks for the advice, buddy.

[_moksha]

In Gee's bizarre theory, somehow Mark Hoffman was able to plant numerous unrelated texts, time travel, and any other number of highly improbable to impossible things.

This no longer becomes improbable if one accepts the premise that the White Salamander was a co-conspirator enabling this time travel.

... if Gee would stop making up implausible nonsense in defense of apologetic arguments of yore.

Sort of like removing the Heart of Dixie from the South.

-

[_brade]

I'd forgotten this was on the horizon. I'm so glad to hear Mike finally presented this paper. I followed his MADB thread on this topic a few months ago and loved the research he offered in that thread. I hope I can get my hands on a copy of his paper. Fun stuff.

[_moksha]

Is it proper to have apologists on hand to critique scholarly presentations? Can you imagine Aquinas or Darwin having the Grand Inquisitioners in the audience looking for doctrinal purity rather than a greater understanding. Usually new information added to a subject simply deepens our understanding of that subject. Why not embrace this new information?

-

[_why me]

I thought that this was already public knowledge. I always had an understanding that the knowledge of plates being used for writing was already present during Joseph's time. It was just a question as to whether he would have heard about this knowledge. I don't see the problem here at all.

Also, isn't it amazing that when a critic presents something that seems to contradict something in church beliefs they get kudos and backslaps. But when Don presents an interesting paper on the KP, he gets moans and groans and criticism and disbeliefs.

This only confirms that people seek confirmation of their beliefs and not a critical understanding of knowledge.

[Guest]

To Gee's defense, I think his question was pretty clear. Mike, perhaps from some uneasiness of creating more conflict after Roper's exchange, simply had difficulty understanding Gee's question.

However, Gee's question was simply pathetic, and the implications of his question were shameful.

I don't know. When one attends a seminar and asks a question it may be good before asking that question to write that question down before asking it and to see if it makes any sense or if it is relavant. At least I do this. Nothing worse than to fumble around when one is asking a question.

However, people do just come out with questions that haven't been too thought out for whatever reason. I can not condemn someone for asking a question, even if that question was a little awkward. Asking a question shows courage.

A presenter should welcome all questions which are on topic. This creates good down time and shows audience interest.