Facsimile 3 Assessed and found fraudulent

[_sock puppet]

If you approached Champollion and told him that you would not accept any of his findings unless he could produce another Rosetta stone, that would not be considered rational, as there is no other Rosetta stone to speak of. And so, neither is this rational or called for. And the fact that you couch your badgering in these terms and hide them as if you are an academic asking me for more evidence is not a case for academic dismissal for lack of evidence, but is actually just artful dodging from where the evidence actually lies, and a hidden and artful ad-hominem in one fell swoop. Sorry. This is nothing of the sort of what you claim it to be.

That analogy doesn't quite hold water. What Lemmie is asking you to do would look more like this. Champollion claims he has deciphered Ancient Egyptian using the Rosetta stone. Skeptical, the scientific community asks for proof. He then translates heretofore non-deciphered texts, repeatedly. Also, individuals can take his discovery and replicate the translations for themselves.

Actually, still, the analogy is not perfect, because my hypothesis has nothing to do with suggesting a method of translation, but rather, I have identified the nature of what the Sensen characters have to do with the English text that they are lined up with. This is not something that is reproducible from the standpoint that I can go out and translate. It is that the more things that are reverse-engineered in the KEP exhibit these same types of pairings when more work is done in that area. So, if you want more evidence, then you will be patient enough for more work to be done on other parts of the KEP for that stuff to be brought out, to demonstrate the claim that I'm actually making. That is where the evidence of this exists, not in some imagined, magical new technique to translate text, which was never my claim. You don't irrationally demand something that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

And so, my advice to you would be, actually familiarize yourself with what I'm saying, and the scope of what my claims are, and stop asking for things that are outside the scope of what I am claiming, or stop making up caricatures of what you think I'm saying, and actually try to understand what I am actually saying. Its all on you to do that. I can do nothing for you. And there will continue to be a disconnect so long as you do not do that.

So what has the LDS church done in this regard in the last 50 years since the Sensen papyrus was found and turned over to it? Has it 'translated' the rest of the characters on that papyrus, to give the LDS more insights from Father Abraham?

[_Yahoo Bot]

Fact: Joseph Smith was a self-admitted, and duly convicted, glass looker and treasure hunter.

Not sure about that case. Doesn't have the trappings of a criminal trial, as it permitted affidavits, making it look more like an arraignment. If it were truly a conviction it would have been relatively easy to arrest and extradite him; that never happened.

Fact: Joseph Smith had sex with multiple females to whom he as not married.

If you reject polygamy as marriage, well yes.

Fact: Several of these females were minors, some of them only 14 or 15 years old.[/quote]

I've in the past read much Victorian-era literature. Very commonplace.

Fact: Extended passages found in the Book of Mormon were copied, word for word, from the King James version of the Bible known to be in the possession of the Smith family.[/quote]

As the New Testament is word-for-word a copy in places of dubious versions of the Hebrew Bible, and copies of myth texts. God quotes Himself.

Fact: The narrative for the "coming forth" of the Book of Mormon is fraught with internally inconsistent and wildly imaginative claims regarding non-existent golden plates, magical rocks, supernatural apparitions and other cult magic nonsense.[/quote]

I like the stuff in the Old Testament about talking donkeys, floating axe-heads, and the like.

Fact: There is not a shred of credible physical evidence in the New World (or the Old) to support the historicity of the Book of Mormon.[/quote]

Although I have been a consistent critic of the Sorenson model once I took time to read his works, I would disagree with you. There's about the same quality of evidence as for Troy.

Fact: There is overwhelming and internally consistent evidence, from multiple scientific disciplines that, time after time, directly contradicts and falsifies affirmative and falsifiable statements made in the Book of Mormon.[/quote]

That isn't the test for scripture, otherwise the Bible would fail.

Fact: No credible mainstream non-LDS scientist, in any discipline, publicly supports the Book of Mormon narrative.

Fact: Multiple credible mainstream scientists, from any number of disciplines, have considered the Book of Mormon and shown it to be fiction.[/quote]

I remember taking an upper division economics course from a quantitative economist who was a scientist, who joined the Church while a full professor at Cal, who would waste our time in class telling us how he came to find the Book of Mormon to be true. So, you're wrong, but I don't care too much about the point.

[b]Question: "serious thinker"?[/quote]

Your points rank about a 2 in a 1 to 10 scale of strength. Lots more could be said that I couldn't answer effectively.

[_Lemmie]

Ed, you asked to be taken seriously, so I'm bumping these 2 questions.

More badgering won't move the conversation forward.

Asking questions is not badgering, Mr. Goble. You presented your material, you asked for people to take you seriously, and that's what you are getting.

The only conclusion to be made then, is that you cannot answer the questions. Is it because your proposal is simply insupportable?

[_Themis]

That is where this is going. The internal evidence in the KEP shows that it is likely a reproduction in modern speech of an ancient document that existed like this.

Not sure what you mean, but the KEP supports Joseph's claims he is claiming to translate Egyptian language into English.

[_EdGoble]

That is where this is going. The internal evidence in the KEP shows that it is likely a reproduction in modern speech of an ancient document that existed like this.

Not sure what you mean, but the KEP supports Joseph's claims he is claiming to translate Egyptian language into English.

Actually, it doesn't. It supports the idea that he is claiming to "translate an alphabet" "as practiced by the ancients." There is nothing to suggest that he had any concept here other than reproducing what the ancients were doing with a certain "alphabet." There is no claim that this "alphabet" contained the text of the Book of abraham, at all. The only claim was that it was an "alphabet" like any other "alphabet." In other words, the indication here is that we ought to be finding what the context is here, to the ancients, about the types of things they used alphabets for, and to see if any of that matches with what is internally found in the KEP. This has nothing to do with finding the source of the text of the Book of Abraham and magically reproducing some way to extract that text from what is before us. The source of that text was lost to antiquity, and nothing short of pure revelation brought it forward to the modern day. Therefore, my hypothesis has nothing to do with some mechanical method of translating, but rather, identifying what is going on here with the evidence that is internally available in that text, coupled with identifying anciently what people thought of and how they used alphabets and seeing if there is a match here.

[_EdGoble]

Asking questions is not badgering, Mr. Goble. You presented your material, you asked for people to take you seriously, and that's what you are getting.

The only conclusion to be made then, is that you cannot answer the questions. Is it because your proposal is simply insupportable?

You can conclude amongst yourselves whatever you please according to whatever artificial rules you claim to impose on me. Its a free country. However, it doesn't hurt my feelings that you come to your own conclusions, as people do it all the time, and nothing has changed. Go right ahead. Or you can get serious and judge something on its own terms. One way or the other, you come to some type of conclusion. It doesn't hurt my feelings. Do what you must.

[_Lemmie]

Or you can get serious and judge something on its own terms.

It's been happening all through the thread, Mr. Goble. It's a mystery why you think questions about your work are an attack. Everyone encounters questions about their work. You answer the questions, or fall back and improve your research until you can, and occasionally, you realize your work is bad and you move on. What good researchers don't do is throw tantrums and refuse to answer questions.

[_EdGoble]

Or you can get serious and judge something on its own terms.

It's been happening all through the thread, Mr. Goble. It's a mystery why you think questions about your work are an attack. Everyone encounters questions about their work. You answer the questions, or fall back and improve your research until you can, and occasionally, you realize your work is bad and you move on. What good researchers don't do is throw tantrums and refuse to answer questions.

I am an expert in an area that you have done no work on. I have spent years on this particular area. In fact, nobody else has done any work on this particular area of the Book of Abraham, and therefore, not even other apologists are equipped to comment until they decide to actually understand the nature of what I have produced.

Therefore, you are not equipped to deal with it on its own terms until you know what I know about it. Have fun doing that, and then you will have a basis to judge it, on its terms. Otherwise, what you do is artificial and is a mockery of any kind of process to get to the bottom of an issue. The fact that I have produced what I have is the testament to my seriousness. The fact that you are just here to sucker punch me demonstrates that you are not the master of a martial art of any sort, metaphorically speaking, but are just here to see if you can get in on my defenses and say "yippee" when you think you have gotten in on me. It doesn't change the facts about the structure of my defenses. So you can choose to deal with it on its own terms, or you can continue to be what you are.

[_JLHPROF]

Fact: Joseph Smith was a self-admitted, and duly convicted, glass looker and treasure hunter.

So?

Fact: Joseph Smith had sex with multiple females to whom he as not married.

Females to whom he was not CIVILLY married. There was always a marriage.

Fact: Several of these females were minors, some of them only 14 or 15 years old.

"Minor" is a modern convention. No laws were broken. No societal taboos existed. And no proof of sexuality in those relationships has been confirmed.

Fact: Extended passages found in the Book of Mormon were copied, word for word, from the King James version of the Bible known to be in the possession of the Smith family.

So?

Fact: The narrative for the "coming forth" of the Book of Mormon is fraught with internally inconsistent and wildly imaginative claims regarding non-existent golden plates, magical rocks, supernatural apparitions and other cult magic nonsense.

Completely subjective. Nothing factual about that statement.

I think your "facts" are a bit more opinion that history.

[Guest]

I am an expert in an area that you have done no work on. I have spent years on this particular area. In fact, nobody else has done any work on this particular area of the Book of Abraham, and therefore, not even other apologists are equipped to comment until they decide to actually understand the nature of what I have produced.

Therefore, you are not equipped to deal with it on its own terms until you know what I know about it. Have fun doing that, and then you will have a basis to judge it, on its terms. Otherwise, what you do is artificial and is a mockery of any kind of process to get to the bottom of an issue. The fact that I have produced what I have is the testament to my seriousness. The fact that you are just here to sucker punch me demonstrates that you are not the master of a martial art of any sort, metaphorically speaking, but are just here to see if you can get in on my defenses and say "yippee" when you think you have gotten in on me. It doesn't change the facts about the structure of my defenses. So you can choose to deal with it on its own terms, or you can continue to be what you are.

Ed,

It is comments like this that are simply special pleading.

For example, we have a very sincere poster here (Nightlion) that sees religious figures in the mountains around him that support the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He has, I'll wager, spent much more time in his endeavor than have you in yours. Are we supposed to commit the same amount of time he has to looking at his mountains in order to question his conclusions? Given your argument above you will have to accept his arguments on the same basis you are asking everyone else to accept yours.

You have to be able to answer questions from people who have not spent the same time on your ideas as you have, if you expect people to actually take you seriously that is, since no one is going to do what you have done merely to be able to engage you in conversation.