Interpreter apologists wrestle with Nephi’s transoceanic vessel

[Kishkumen]

Word studies are a serious part of my overall studies. That increases the overall effect and understanding which is something you don't get. But I've done far more than just that; I have Book of Mormon threads on this board that demonstrate a working knowledge of the Book of Mormon and Smith's motives for what he said.

OK, OK. I am glad that word studies are only the groundwork for what you will show. That is what I would hope, and so why you think I don’t “get it” is odd. I want more and that is exactly what I am getting at.

Your understanding of Smith’s alleged motives are where I think you get into trouble. That is where your emotions and prejudices get the better of you, and you are not alone there. I think most people get it wrong to one degree or another. It is so much easier to think that someone must be a stereotypical bad guy to engage in these highly unusual activities. So you spew out the usual stuff about money, sex, power, and con men. That is where you are highly tedious. You are happy with the usual pat answers to difficult questions because all you really care about is unmasking the bad guy like you are in a Scooby-Doo episode.

LOL.

I am 100% honest with myself. I don't lie to myself or others. All I care about is the honest to goodness truth.

I believe that you believe that.

That is irrelevant. My scholarship is what counts. Adding material up in a reasonable and logical manner is what matters. Assumptions presented are always backed with something to show for it.

Your heavy bias will skew your interpretation just as the heavy bias of an apologist skews their interpretation. I can see you didn’t bother to think about the Tacitus quote. It’s a good one, and Tacitus is one of the greatest writers in history.

I expect accuracy and scholarship in my own work as well as that of the apologists. From you it seems I only get abstract doubletalk while you avoid the concrete facts. That seems to be the way you do things. Explain things away with dreamy ideas and abstract thoughts that have little bearing on the mechanics of what is actually happening.

LOL! You are too easily satisfied with your first impression of what the facts are. I still think that the nuts and bolts stuff you do is worthwhile, but I find your interpretations half assed.

[Kishkumen]

IF you want to understand the Book of Mormon which Smith created you have to get into his mindset and approach it from the point of view that he was a liar, cheat, thief, and all those other nasty things we know about him. You CANNOT comprehend and understand the Book of Mormon and the motives behind it by reading it from a faithful point of view.

A prejudice looking to affirm what it already assumes is not scholarship.

[Kishkumen]

Yeah, I'd like to see where he is coming from. My last comment was trying to spit back at him where I think he is going with his push back on the fantasy Book of Mormon text. His response wasn't helpful. He says he had a spiritual experience with the text. I did too. He then says it is obviously a 19th century invention and so does he think it is inspired fiction that should be revered religiously? If so, just say so. I don't agree with that but I guess one can get inspiration from anywhere. I have a magic penny that might just have the secrets of the universe or not. Who knows?

Do you really want to see where I am coming from? I don’t think you actually do. What you are doing here is affirming how “cool” and “smart” you are by wisecracking about magic pennies and crap. You want to feel smart and superior to other people whom you deem to be deluded and stupid for believing in magic pennies and magic underwear, who have spiritual experiences with “fiction”! You don’t come out and say it, but I think a lot of this is about feeling dumb for having had a “spiritual experience” in response to “fiction,” and so now as long as you can say you woke up and now you know better, you won’t feel so badly. Much of what goes on on this board boils down exactly to that.

[Kishkumen]

I think it's immoral to defend Joseph Smith (or not condemn his actions) when knowing he was lying in order to make money and usurp power over others. It was a big con game and there is no justification for it. Smith's lying and debauchery cannot be justified for any reason.

I think it is cute that you get so worked up over what some dude did 200 years ago as though he did it to spite you personally. Joseph Smith is a historical topic. A literary topic. Immoral? Give it a rest. Immoral is insisting that someone must do what you say because of what Joseph Smith did two centuries ago. And there are too many people, including you, who seem happy to manipulate others in just that way.

If you choose to have a spiritual life, you do so in the present, not in the past. It may be your present reaction to the past, but it will never be in reference to what actually happened in the past. Apologists want you to see the past in a way that serves their church in the present, and polemicists like you want exactly the same thing in reverse. But none of you are really interested in understanding the past on its own terms.

[Dr Exiled]

Yeah, I'd like to see where he is coming from. My last comment was trying to spit back at him where I think he is going with his push back on the fantasy Book of Mormon text. His response wasn't helpful. He says he had a spiritual experience with the text. I did too. He then says it is obviously a 19th century invention and so does he think it is inspired fiction that should be revered religiously? If so, just say so. I don't agree with that but I guess one can get inspiration from anywhere. I have a magic penny that might just have the secrets of the universe or not. Who knows?

Do you really want to see where I am coming from? I don’t think you actually do. What you are doing here is affirming how “cool” and “smart” you are by wisecracking about magic pennies and crap. You want to feel smart and superior to other people whom you deem to be deluded and stupid for believing in magic pennies and magic underwear, who have spiritual experiences with “fiction”! You don’t come out and say it, but I think a lot of this is about feeling dumb for having had a “spiritual experience” in response to “fiction,” and so now as long as you can say you woke up and now you know better, you won’t feel so badly. Much of what goes on on this board boils down exactly to that.

Then enlighten us professor. Show us where you are really coming from.

[Kishkumen]

I understand Kish to be frustrated at the amount of dogpiling on the Book of Mormon here, as well as the fact that we're all repeating the same criticisms of the Book of Mormon that have been made online for almost two decades now.

To that, all I can say is that not everyone has been exposed to criticism of the Book of Mormon for as long as Kish has. It's still worth discussing and guiding new people to the evidence. And there are still new and important discussions to be had about it.

Everyone needs a place to vent and a subject to vent about. And I guess that makes all of this good. It can get old at times, however. What does get me is the half-sincere perhaps self-deluded gestures at gaining a better understanding that are buried in so much prejudiced rhetoric that they are hard to take seriously.

[Kishkumen]

Then enlighten us professor. Show us where you are really coming from.

That’s not a sincere response, Exiled. I laughed at your first pseudo-invitation because it is clear you are not reading what I am writing. Not really. You are seeing the words, but you consistently react to them in a way that tells me you either don’t understand them or you really don’t want to. My guess is that you really don’t want to because you are not here for the purpose of understanding what I am saying. That’s OK. Let’s just not go through the pretense that you are. I consistently tell you where I am coming from. You keep coming back with questions that are either already answered or irrelevant.

ETA: Stak got it almost immediately. He saw no need to attack what I was saying because he understood that what I was doing was not a challenge of any kind to his personal beliefs. He is comfortable and confident of where he is, and he is genuinely curious to understand more.

[Moksha]

What is more, the text he produced had a major Unique Selling Point for his readers, in that it was "'The Bible part 2: what happened in America".

Is there a stone box with plates yet to be unearthed in Australia?

[Moksha]

We should stop dwelling on the fact or fiction question, regardless of what the church or Joseph Smith says or said about it, and go beyond that issue, trying to get at the spirituality of the text? It is obviously fiction and so don't throw the baby out with the bathwater? There is worth in a work of fiction that was sold and is being sold to the public as actually having happened?

I think Kish is gaslighting. He's confusing and evasive. I can't follow him, can you?

I think he is talking about pulling ideas out of a fictional work that can make us better people.

Kishkumen might even be arguing that Smith was helping God through creating similar sounding stories with a bit of youthful derring-do and ultra-violence.

[Dr Exiled]

Then enlighten us professor. Show us where you are really coming from.

That’s not a sincere response, Exiled. I laughed at your first pseudo-invitation because it is clear you are not reading what I am writing. Not really. You are seeing the words, but you consistently react to them in a way that tells me you either don’t understand them or you really don’t want to. My guess is that you really don’t want to because you are not here for the purpose of understanding what I am saying. That’s OK. Let’s just not go through the pretense that you are. I consistently tell you where I am coming from. You keep coming back with questions that are either already answered or irrelevant.

ETA: Stak got it almost immediately. He saw no need to attack what I was saying because he understood that what I was doing was not a challenge of any kind to his personal beliefs. He is comfortable and confident of where he is, and he is genuinely curious to understand more.

Maybe one day others here and I will have the hidden knowledge you possess. We can only hope.