Elder Gilbert Interview with Peggy Fletcher Stack

[Limnor]

It’s not about whether God can use a stone. It’s that the same stone was used for treasure digging and came up empty. That makes the translation claim look less like revelation and more… Well, shady. At minimum, that probably deserves a little more than a shrug.

[Limnor]

Let me put it this way. In military intel terms (since that’s my background), delivery systems matter.

If a high-level intelligence brief arrived written in crayon, through a previously unreliable channel, from someone with a history of treasure claims, I wouldn’t say, “The device is neutral.” I’d say the transmission affects the reliability assessment.

[MG 2.0]

It’s not about whether God can use a stone. It’s that the same stone was used for treasure digging and came up empty. That makes the translation claim look less like revelation and more… Well, shady. At minimum, that probably deserves a little more than a shrug.

This looks like confirmation bias. One use of the stone that may have failed being used as evidence against another claimed use (translation). Making that inference is not 100% reliable...is it?

same stone + past failure ⇒ present claim is shady. Huh?

I think you purposefully ignored and/or looked past most of what I said in my previous post.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

same stone + past failure ⇒ present claim is shady.

Yes.

[Limnor]

This looks like confirmation bias.

It would be confirmation bias if I were ignoring disconfirming evidence. But in this case, it was encountering additional historical information that reduces confidence.

[MG 2.0]

This looks like confirmation bias.

It would be confirmation bias if I were ignoring disconfirming evidence. But in this case, it was encountering additional historical information that reduces confidence.

I agree that "additional historical information" can clearly lower confidence, but I think the evidential picture around Joseph’s seer stone is more mixed than your framing allows.

Interestingly, some early sources dis not see "money digger" as an automatic disqualifier from a divine calling as you apparently do. In fact, they explicitly acknowledged the practice and saw it as not an unreasonable, even morally preferable, way of seeking income given his family's poverty. Your formulaic cause and effect one way ticket to 'fraud' has more moving parts than you are allowing for.

From what I'm hearing you say and the fact you are ignoring much of what I've said it appears, at least to me, you are suggesting that a stone based medium is automatically analogous to 'crayon scribbles' from a clown source.

You purposefully leave out the fact that believing and critical treatments alike recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period, working day after day without notes, and that witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat.

At this point, Limnor, I see no reason to take you seriously.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

It would be confirmation bias if I were ignoring disconfirming evidence. But in this case, it was encountering additional historical information that reduces confidence.

I agree that "additional historical information" can clearly lower confidence, but I think the evidential picture around Joseph’s seer stone is more mixed than your framing allows.

Interestingly, some early sources dis not see "money digger" as an automatic disqualifier from a divine calling as you apparently do. In fact, they explicitly acknowledged the practice and saw it as not an unreasonable, even morally preferable, way of seeking income given his family's poverty. Your formulaic cause and effect one way ticket to 'fraud' has more moving parts than you are allowing for.

From what I'm hearing you say and the fact you are ignoring much of what I've said it appears, at least to me, you are suggesting that a stone based medium is automatically analogous to 'crayon scribbles' from a clown source.

You purposefully leave out the fact that believing and critical treatments alike recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period, working day after day without notes, and that witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat.

At this point, Limnor, I see no reason to take you seriously.

Regards,
MG

Pretty sure I’ve written several lengthy threads about how I believe he and his group wrote the book, but no worries—please do ignore me. I’ll try to carry on somehow. I’ll be over here continuing to adjust my priors.

[MG 2.0]

I agree that "additional historical information" can clearly lower confidence, but I think the evidential picture around Joseph’s seer stone is more mixed than your framing allows.

Interestingly, some early sources dis not see "money digger" as an automatic disqualifier from a divine calling as you apparently do. In fact, they explicitly acknowledged the practice and saw it as not an unreasonable, even morally preferable, way of seeking income given his family's poverty. Your formulaic cause and effect one way ticket to 'fraud' has more moving parts than you are allowing for.

From what I'm hearing you say and the fact you are ignoring much of what I've said it appears, at least to me, you are suggesting that a stone based medium is automatically analogous to 'crayon scribbles' from a clown source.

You purposefully leave out the fact that believing and critical treatments alike recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period, working day after day without notes, and that witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat.

At this point, Limnor, I see no reason to take you seriously.

Regards,
MG

Pretty sure I’ve written several lengthy threads about how I believe he and his group wrote the book, but no worries—please do ignore me. I’ll try to carry on somehow. I’ll be over here continuing to adjust my priors.

Take care.
MG

[drumdude]

You purposefully leave out the fact that believing and critical treatments alike recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period, working day after day without notes, and that witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat.

MG, you do realize that the church admitting to the rock in a hat is a relatively recent phenomenon, right? Because, much like multiple differing accounts of the first vision, the rock in the hat was incredibly embarrassing.

I’m not that old and I still remember the primary depiction of Joseph as a real translator staring at the plates, translating word by word from the whole text as a real translator would do.



You’re older than me, have you simply forgotten this?

[malkie]

You purposefully leave out the fact that believing and critical treatments alike recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period, working day after day without notes, and that witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat.

drumdude may have deliberately left out the several claims that MG makes, but I suspect that, like me, many do not believe that "the fact" MG refers to is indeed fact.

There are "critical treatments" that do not "recognize that Joseph dictated a lengthy, internally complex text over a relatively short period", nor accept that he was "working day after day without notes", nor that "witnesses consistently describe a stable procedure with the stone in the hat". Each of the quoted assertions is disputed, and (in my opinion) solid reasons have been given for not accepting them as "facts".

Several eyewitness statements disagree about the details of the translation process. And at the very least, the fact that there was no disinterested observer checking on what Joseph was doing 24/7 makes room for a wide variety of non-faith promoting activities to take place.

Edit: to be more direct.