Et voila, a couple of hours after I guessed where Dan was going with his post, he announces the latest Interpreter article on scientific humility:
Abstract: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a unique perspective on truth. Our knowledge that Salvation likely involves participation in complex eternal activities requiring significantly more understanding than we currently possess naturally leads us to seek truth and, in addition, to seek an understanding of that truth. Under these circumstances, our inability to fully understand many truths, both revealed and discovered, can lead to confusion. A lack of complete understanding of accepted scientific truth generally leads the serious truth-seeker to enhanced investigative and educational efforts without doubting the ultimate veracity of the concept under investigation; we all believe in gravity, but no one completely understands it. In a similar manner, the fact that an individual is bothered by such an incompletely understood truth is rarely seen as reason to reject it; gravity bothers me a lot — were it not for gravity, I could fly. Unfortunately, an inability to fully understand some revealed truths all too often leads to rejection of that truth rather than an acceptance of one’s conceptual limitations and an enhanced effort at understanding the concept in question. Such an approach can be as disastrous (although often not as immediately disastrous) as disregard of the reality of gravity. Consideration of examples of both scientific and spiritual experience may lead to a more rational reaction to truths that we do not, and sometimes at our present level of understanding, simply cannot, completely comprehend.
10 years of regurgitating the same crap over and over every Friday without fail. Congratulations Interpreter!
Et voila, a couple of hours after I guessed where Dan was going with his post, he announces the latest Interpreter article on scientific humility:
Abstract: Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a unique perspective on truth. Our knowledge that Salvation likely involves participation in complex eternal activities requiring significantly more understanding than we currently possess naturally leads us to seek truth and, in addition, to seek an understanding of that truth. Under these circumstances, our inability to fully understand many truths, both revealed and discovered, can lead to confusion. A lack of complete understanding of accepted scientific truth generally leads the serious truth-seeker to enhanced investigative and educational efforts without doubting the ultimate veracity of the concept under investigation; we all believe in gravity, but no one completely understands it. In a similar manner, the fact that an individual is bothered by such an incompletely understood truth is rarely seen as reason to reject it; gravity bothers me a lot — were it not for gravity, I could fly. Unfortunately, an inability to fully understand some revealed truths all too often leads to rejection of that truth rather than an acceptance of one’s conceptual limitations and an enhanced effort at understanding the concept in question. Such an approach can be as disastrous (although often not as immediately disastrous) as disregard of the reality of gravity. Consideration of examples of both scientific and spiritual experience may lead to a more rational reaction to truths that we do not, and sometimes at our present level of understanding, simply cannot, completely comprehend.
10 years of regurgitating the same crap over and over every Friday without fail. Congratulations Interpreter!
It's the tired, old "god of the gaps" argument slightly inflected in an even more fallacious way. Whether there are unresolved or unresolvable questions in math and science has nothing to do at all with the accuracy of cultic stories of an ancient desert people. It's similarly unrelated to whether a 19th century frontier con man was actually the greatest prophet in world history.
Maybe it's just the awkward Patheos formatting, with interspersed ads, but I didn't see where the linked blog post by Peterson talked about English coastline. That's an interesting topic but I didn't see him raise it. Instead he seems to mention gravity and then focus on formal logic.
Peterson doesn't seem to be saying, "We can't be certain of this, so we should believe that." He seems instead to be saying, "Just because something isn't completely clear doesn't mean it's not true." To support this proposition he points to mathematical undecidability and the problem of quantum gravity. Some truths can never be proven, yet remain true. Gravity is real even though we know we don't understand it.
If this is Peterson's argument then I agree with some of it. Not even science—and not even pure math—offers certainty. So although it might be nice to stand on the epistemological high ground of only ever believing things that are certain, there is no ground there upon which to stand. It's not an immediate knock-down argument against religious beliefs to point out that they lack conclusive evidence or can appear ambiguous or inconsistent, because true things can also be like that.
I don't see that Peterson's argument really does much to uphold Mormon belief, though. Gödel's theorem only says that some things cannot be proven, not that nothing can be proven. If there is a formal system that is too weak to prove much of anything, then mathematicians will ignore that weak system and concern themselves with more interesting ones. Defending a dubious set of beliefs by appealing to Gödel is like trying to sell a ramshackle lemon of a car by saying that not even a brand-new Mercedes is perfect. Maybe you could sell a lightly-used Porsche that way, but you've got to have the Porsche. And the intellectual problems that people have with Mormonism aren't just a little scuffed paint.
The gravity point might be better, since gravity is quite real to everyone, and we know a lot about it, yet our understanding of it still has severe flaws. A difference I see between the theory of gravity and Mormon belief, though, is that there is no principle in physics so sacred that we will not abandon it to adopt a new theory. We strongly expect that most of our principles will survive the next revolution, not completely unchanged but still in recognisable form, but some of our basic ideas will surely just die, and we cannot say which ones these will be. Some points would be very hard to give up, but everything is on the table.
Mormonism has an open canon and claims continuing revelation, but would it be prepared to accept that Joseph Smith was a fraud? Whether or not he actually was, the possibility is by no means far-fetched. In the current state of evidence, orthodox LDS belief looks more like clinging to a preconceived certainty than like advancing a controversial hypothesis on a subject of ongoing research. So comparing Mormon and scientific treatments of uncertain propositions doesn't seem to me to favour Mormonism after all.
Maybe it's just the awkward Patheos formatting, with interspersed ads, but I didn't see where the linked blog post by Peterson talked about English coastline. That's an interesting topic but I didn't see him raise it. Instead he seems to mention gravity and then focus on formal logic.
Peterson doesn't seem to be saying, "We can't be certain of this, so we should believe that." He seems instead to be saying, "Just because something isn't completely clear doesn't mean it's not true." To support this proposition he points to mathematical undecidability and the problem of quantum gravity. Some truths can never be proven, yet remain true. Gravity is real even though we know we don't understand it.
If this is Peterson's argument then I agree with some of it. Not even science—and not even pure math—offers certainty. So although it might be nice to stand on the epistemological high ground of only ever believing things that are certain, there is no ground there upon which to stand. It's not an immediate knock-down argument against religious beliefs to point out that they lack conclusive evidence or can appear ambiguous or inconsistent, because true things can also be like that.
I don't see that Peterson's argument really does much to uphold Mormon belief, though. Gödel's theorem only says that some things cannot be proven, not that nothing can be proven. If there is a formal system that is too weak to prove much of anything, then mathematicians will ignore that weak system and concern themselves with more interesting ones. Defending a dubious set of beliefs by appealing to Gödel is like trying to sell a ramshackle lemon of a car by saying that not even a brand-new Mercedes is perfect. Maybe you could sell a lightly-used Porsche that way, but you've got to have the Porsche. And the intellectual problems that people have with Mormonism aren't just a little scuffed paint.
The gravity point might be better, since gravity is quite real to everyone, and we know a lot about it, yet our understanding of it still has severe flaws. A difference I see between the theory of gravity and Mormon belief, though, is that there is no principle in physics so sacred that we will not abandon it to adopt a new theory. We strongly expect that most of our principles will survive the next revolution, not completely unchanged but still in recognisable form, but some of our basic ideas will surely just die, and we cannot say which ones these will be. Some points would be very hard to give up, but everything is on the table.
Mormonism has an open canon and claims continuing revelation, but would it be prepared to accept that Joseph Smith was a fraud? Whether or not he actually was, the possibility is by no means far-fetched. In the current state of evidence, orthodox LDS belief looks more like clinging to a preconceived certainty than like advancing a controversial hypothesis on a subject of ongoing research. So comparing Mormon and scientific treatments of uncertain propositions doesn't seem to me to favour Mormonism after all.
The coastline was a joke by me to highlight him constantly pulling in things unrelated to Mormonism to defend belief in Mormonism.
If this was a trial, and Mormonism was DCP’s defendant, the rules of evidence would exclude most of the tricks he’s trying to pull.
The testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses would not be allowed either. Because they’re not still alive for us to cross examine them and determine their credibility.
Maybe it's just the awkward Patheos formatting, with interspersed ads, but I didn't see where the linked blog post by Peterson talked about English coastline. That's an interesting topic but I didn't see him raise it. Instead he seems to mention gravity and then focus on formal logic.
Peterson doesn't seem to be saying, "We can't be certain of this, so we should believe that." He seems instead to be saying, "Just because something isn't completely clear doesn't mean it's not true." To support this proposition he points to mathematical undecidability and the problem of quantum gravity. Some truths can never be proven, yet remain true. Gravity is real even though we know we don't understand it.
If this is Peterson's argument then I agree with some of it. Not even science—and not even pure math—offers certainty. So although it might be nice to stand on the epistemological high ground of only ever believing things that are certain, there is no ground there upon which to stand. It's not an immediate knock-down argument against religious beliefs to point out that they lack conclusive evidence or can appear ambiguous or inconsistent, because true things can also be like that.
I don't see that Peterson's argument really does much to uphold Mormon belief, though. Gödel's theorem only says that some things cannot be proven, not that nothing can be proven. If there is a formal system that is too weak to prove much of anything, then mathematicians will ignore that weak system and concern themselves with more interesting ones. Defending a dubious set of beliefs by appealing to Gödel is like trying to sell a ramshackle lemon of a car by saying that not even a brand-new Mercedes is perfect. Maybe you could sell a lightly-used Porsche that way, but you've got to have the Porsche. And the intellectual problems that people have with Mormonism aren't just a little scuffed paint.
The gravity point might be better, since gravity is quite real to everyone, and we know a lot about it, yet our understanding of it still has severe flaws. A difference I see between the theory of gravity and Mormon belief, though, is that there is no principle in physics so sacred that we will not abandon it to adopt a new theory. We strongly expect that most of our principles will survive the next revolution, not completely unchanged but still in recognisable form, but some of our basic ideas will surely just die, and we cannot say which ones these will be. Some points would be very hard to give up, but everything is on the table.
Mormonism has an open canon and claims continuing revelation, but would it be prepared to accept that Joseph Smith was a fraud? Whether or not he actually was, the possibility is by no means far-fetched. In the current state of evidence, orthodox LDS belief looks more like clinging to a preconceived certainty than like advancing a controversial hypothesis on a subject of ongoing research. So comparing Mormon and scientific treatments of uncertain propositions doesn't seem to me to favour Mormonism after all.
The coastline was a joke by me to highlight him constantly pulling in things unrelated to Mormonism to defend belief in Mormonism.
If this was a trial, and Mormonism was DCP’s defendant, the rules of evidence would exclude most of the tricks he’s trying to pull.
The testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses would not be allowed either. Because they’re not still alive for us to cross examine them and determine their credibility.
That’s not as clear cut as you think it is. There are at least two possible exceptions to the hearsay rule that could possibly apply. And because no one’s Liberty or property would be at stake, there may be no right to cross examination.
Under your argument, virtually all historical records would be rendered completely irrelevant.
he/him
“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time so that my children can live in peace.” — Thomas Paine
The coastline was a joke by me to highlight him constantly pulling in things unrelated to Mormonism to defend belief in Mormonism.
If this was a trial, and Mormonism was DCP’s defendant, the rules of evidence would exclude most of the tricks he’s trying to pull.
The testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses would not be allowed either. Because they’re not still alive for us to cross examine them and determine their credibility.
That’s not as clear cut as you think it is. There are at least two possible exceptions to the hearsay rule that could possibly apply. And because no one’s Liberty or property would be at stake, there may be no right to cross examination.
Under your argument, virtually all historical records would be rendered completely irrelevant.
Most historical claims don’t determine your eternal salvation, even for religious believers. The claim of the Book of Mormon that DCP is defending is that not only did Nephi exist, but your eternal soul depends on you believing Nephi existed.
No one is going around saying if you don’t believe in Aristotle because all we have are hearsay accounts of him, you’ll be damned to eternal punishment.
But families are broken up every day because the parents are so distraught that their kids no longer believe the Book of Mormon is historical and that the LDS church is true.
The contents of the Book of Mormon disprove the Book of Mormon. Included within its pages is wording and grammar lifted directly from a KJV Bible. That alone disproves the claim that it's a record lifted from ancient gold plates, inscribed in the Americas more than 1,000 years ago. Regardless of any logical equivalents Peterson cares to throw in to distract his lazy learner readership.
FAIR attempts to wave this problem away with...
We can’t very well appeal to similarities between the Book of Mormon and the King James Bible because it is very evident that Joseph Smith used the KJV in translating Old Testament passages. Sidney Sperry postulated that the Prophet used the KJV while translating Bible verses; and, when the translation substantially agreed with our Bible, the Prophet used the King James English.4 Dr. Sperry believed that if the record on the plates differed too greatly with the KJV, the prophet would dictate the change. Although there are many minor changes, the Prophet’s translation was heavily dependent upon the King James Bible.
However, that explanation of Joseph referring to the KJV for content when (in the process of translating) it became clear what the Book of Mormon content was going to be, doesn't jibe with the current narrative of how the translation happened - single words projected onto a rock in a hat. FAIR still needs to pretend that Joseph did a translation in the traditional sense, by reading the actual gold plates. Skousen is dealing with the anachronism by inventing a Ghost Committee, who pre-translated the plates (why did they even need to do that when they had Nephi,Moroni and Mormon on hand to tell them what it said verbatim?) before the words were projected onto the rock in the hat.
There are simply too many smoking guns to take the Book of Mormon seriously as a real record of an ancient people. Book of Mormon apologetics has descended into farce, and Peterson's blog post is embarrassing.
The contents of the Book of Mormon disprove the Book of Mormon. Included within its pages is wording and grammar lifted directly from a KJV Bible. That alone disproves the claim that it's a record lifted from ancient gold plates, inscribed in the Americas more than 1,000 years ago. Regardless of any logical equivalents Peterson cares to throw in to distract his lazy learner readership.
FAIR attempts to wave this problem away with...
We can’t very well appeal to similarities between the Book of Mormon and the King James Bible because it is very evident that Joseph Smith used the KJV in translating Old Testament passages. Sidney Sperry postulated that the Prophet used the KJV while translating Bible verses; and, when the translation substantially agreed with our Bible, the Prophet used the King James English.4 Dr. Sperry believed that if the record on the plates differed too greatly with the KJV, the prophet would dictate the change. Although there are many minor changes, the Prophet’s translation was heavily dependent upon the King James Bible.
However, that explanation of Joseph referring to the KJV for content when (in the process of translating) it became clear what the Book of Mormon content was going to be, doesn't jibe with the current narrative of how the translation happened - single words projected onto a rock in a hat. FAIR still needs to pretend that Joseph did a translation in the traditional sense, by reading the actual gold plates. Skousen is dealing with the anachronism by inventing a Ghost Committee, who pre-translated the plates (why did they even need to do that when they had Nephi,Moroni and Mormon on hand to tell them what it said verbatim?) before the words were projected onto the rock in the hat.
There are simply too many smoking guns to take the Book of Mormon seriously as a real record of an ancient people. Book of Mormon apologetics has descended into farce, and Peterson's blog post is embarrassing.
If what FAIR claims were true, it might explain how Joseph came to start copying from the KJV each time. But where did he find the indication of where he was to stop? And where would the minor changes come from during a copied part?
How would all of this fit in with the official account?
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