If NAMIRS is dying, which LDS apologist responds to this...?

[Bedlamite]

...
Maybe it was a woulda; maybe it was a coulda; maybe it was a shoulda. And maybe the Nephites are a lie.

My conclusion is that they were (and still are) a lie. No "maybe"
about it.

Of course, if you and others decide to teach your kids and grandkids
that Nephites were NOT a lie, then I suppose you'll just have to accept
the inevitable consequences that go along with that decision.

Suppose for a moment that I am right in my conclusion. If that were
indeed the truth, how should I go about communicating that truth?
Should I preface my profession with "woulda... coulda...shoulda" ???

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...

I think that you mean authoritative speculation. There is a difference between information and speculation.

As I've mentioned elsewhere -- Craig Criddle is currently publishing
how the Book of Mormon could have come into being.

The first response he might expect from critics, would be to show
that he is wrong in any of the facts or assumptions he presents.

The more important response that he might eventually expect from
critics would be a counter-argument, showing why his conclusions
MUST be wrong -- and why even non-members of the Church
should agree that they are wrong.

I'll look forward to seeing those eventual apologetic responses. Perhaps
some of the first variety I just mentioned will indeed be valid. If so,
THAT will be an interesting topic for our further discussion -- correct?

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

If NAMIRS is dying, which LDS apologist responds to this:
http://mormonleaks.com/library/episode-03/

Even if his name is no longer on the Mormon Church membership
rolls, perhaps the logical person to refute this would be Dan Vogel.

He might actually do a more concise job of it than would Matt Roper.

UD

[_Mary]

I'd love to see Dan Vogel take this on...

[Guest]

UD,

Nice to have authoritative information that shows that the apologists have been less than accurate (and sometimes less than honest) in their attempts to refute the R-S theory (which I happen to think has a great deal of explanatory power).

I think that you mean authoritative speculation. There is a difference between information and speculation.

why me,

As an experienced professional scientist, I have learned to value greatly the explanatory power of a proffered hypothesis or theory. Once a theory or hypothesis is shown to be based on fact instead of feeling or faith, and after it has passed the the test of the possible (does not involve perpetual motion, for example) the next most important issue in evaluating hypotheses is their explanatory power. And Craig Criddle's hypotheses certainly do have explanatory power.

While the tools that Craig Criddle used in his analysis may not have been the best available, they were still adequate to allow him to construct a fairly detailed narrative or version of events consistent with the facts. This is something that believing Mormons cannot do without invoking magic.

And as you know, magic has no place in science. More importantly, magic has not place in reality. It cannot inform reality and cannot provide explanatory power in science - by definition.

That said, you should now understand that assertions made from a position of faith (as yours invariable seem to be) instead of fact, are simply not credible to credible people.

As to the difference between information and speculation, you have never shown me any evidence that you would recognize it if it bit you on the butt.

[_Mary]

I honestly don't understand why the multiple author theory of the Book of Mormon has so little a following. I appreciate the richness of the Joseph alone theory and why people hold to it, but I think there is 'credible' evidence out there that would point to other factors being at play. I wasn't impressed by Roper's essay. If the best he can do is to state that the Oberlin MS IS MF and on that basis to discredit the whole shebang then I just don't see that as good enough for now. I think the MormonLeaks website explains why that isn't good enough very well. I need to spend a couple more hours on the footnotes...to even begin to get a handle on what is out there...

[_robuchan]

A lot of people immediately reject this theory because of the conspiracy angle. Conspiracy theories are always difficult to prove, and unlikely due to the human nature of turning on your fellow conspirers.

But, Oliver was involved with multiple angelic visits. Sidney was involved with the Lord's visit in D&C 76.

If you don't believe these visits actually happened, then you either believe Joseph tricked Oliver and Sidney, or they were involved in some sort of conspiracy. Due to Oliver's involvement with multiple angelic visits, Book of Mormon translation, the divining rod incident etc, I strongly believe he and Joseph were in a conspiracy together. I think it's very likely that conspiracy extended to Sidney and possibly also extending to Emma, Hyrum, and David Whitmer. I think Martin Harris was not in on it, and was duped.

[_Uncle Dale]

[*]

...
As an experienced professional scientist, I have learned to value greatly the explanatory power of a proffered hypothesis or theory. Once a theory or hypothesis is shown to be based on fact instead of feeling or faith, and after it has passed the the test of the possible (does not involve perpetual motion, for example) the next most important issue in evaluating hypotheses is their explanatory power. And Craig Criddle's hypotheses certainly do have explanatory power.
...

Along with that I'd also add in predictive power.

A theory that fairly consistently predicts what future discoveries
will entail is a compelling explanation of things.

Every now and then we make a new historical discovery. It might
be something so simple as a line in an old diary or letter that
had not been previously transcribed. Or it might be a document
out of the public records, a newspaper article, or the fact that
two historical personages shared a common teacher, or ancestor,
or neighbor.

All things being equal, we might expect these sorts of discoveries,
when encountered, to add no more weight to one authorship
speculation than to some other guess at who wrote the book.

But perhaps "all things" are not equal -- because the authorship
theory that Craig Criddle proposes predicts that the types of
discoveries I just mentioned will point to Spalding, Rigdon, Pratt
or Cowdery, as having hitherto unknown connections to the
Book of Mormon text and/or its coming forth.

Each time I notice some new tidbit of early Mormonism discovered,
I look to see if it points to some particular person, as having an
involvement in the production of the Book of Mormon. If "all things"
truly were equal, we might expect such discoveries to favor no
particular early Mormon as a probable author/conspirator. But
that is not what I am seeing.

In Criddle's current unfolding of the Spalding-Rigdon authorship
explanation, he cites a couple of dozen new historical facts. Each
one, viewed alone and by itself, does not indicate much -- but
taken together, as a whole, they all tend to support the S-R thesis.

And Criddle predicts that most future discoveries pertaining to
Mormon origins and the earliest Mormons will follow this pattern.

I ask the professors of the Smith-did-it-all-by-himself authorship
theory to point out a dozen or so recent historical discoveries
that support their view of Mormon origins.

UD

[Bedlamite]

I'd love to see Dan Vogel take this on...

Well, if he did, then Dan might begin by saying that we
must give the early eye-witness testimony great weight
in our considerations. Any testimony which did not come
from a person who actually witnessed Joseph Smith
during the period he was doing "translation," must thus
be relegated to a "do not trust it very much" pile.

And -- if I'm paraphrasing Vogel correctly -- all the early
eye-witness testimony proves that Smith never took his
head out of his hat, while performing his "translation."

With his eyes securely blinded by the darkness of the hat, Mr.
Smith MUST have relied upon a stream-of-consciousness variety
of textual composition -- creating the Book of Mormon on
the fly, as he employed a wonderful imagination to compose
a new, complex and deeply meaningful literary composition.

Sounds pretty convincing -- right?

And, if we throw away Howe's 1834 "Conneaut witnesses"
as liars or dupes of D.P. Hurlbut -- then the entire S-R theory
collapses into a garbage pile of false accounts and unreasonable
speculation -- right?

There. I just did Dan's work for him.

Oh... but I might want to add in the words of one particular
old witness, cited in Vogel's five-volume set of documents:

Sandwich, Illinois.
May 22nd, 1879.
Editors, Herald:
When at Amboy a few days since, I learned from Mr. Michael Morse, brother-in-law of Joseph the Seer, (he having married a Miss Hale, sister to Sr. Emma), some valuable facts in respect to Joseph the Seer and his work. It should be published that Mr. Morse is not, and has never been a believer in the prophetic mission of Joseph.

He states that he first knew Joseph when he came to Harmony, Pa., an awkward, unlearned youth of about nineteen years of age. This was in 1825. Joseph then in the employ of a Mr. Stowell, a man of some wealth, of mature age, and an active professor of religion. Joseph and others were employed by him to dig for a silver deposit, said to have been made at some time long previous. Joseph and others of the company boarded at a Mr. Isaac Hale's, whose daughter Emma he subsequently married. He states that the sons of Mr. Hale seemed opposed to and at enmity with Joseph from the first, and took occasion[s] to annoy and vex him., and that at one of these times, when out fishing, Joseph threw off his coat and proposed to defend himself.

He states that Joseph told him that he found the gold plates, from whence it is claimed the Book of Mormon was translated, in a stone box. (Some of late have said that Joseph at first professed to have found them in an iron box.).

He further states that when Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon, he, (Morse), had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation.

The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating, word after word, while the scribe -- Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other, wrote it down.

Bro. Cadwell enquired as to whether Joseph was sufficiently intelligent and talented to compose and dictate of his own ability the matter written down by the scribes. To this Mr. Morse replied with decided emphasis, no. He said he then was not at all learned, yet was confident he had more learning than Joseph then had.

Bro. Cadwell enquired how he (Morse) accounted for Joseph's dictating the Book of Mormon in the manner he had described. To this he replied he did not know. He said it was a strange piece of work, and he had thought that Joseph might have found the writings of some good man and, committing them to memory, recited them to his scribes from time to time....

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL ... htm#061579

Ooops! Maybe we need to suppress that testimony, the next time
the Early Mormon Documents set gets reprinted, eh?

UD

[_robuchan]

How many people testified of seeing Joseph translate this way? Emma, Oliver, Martin Harris? Any others? How many times did Martin Harris see him? I'm only vaguely familiar with this, but I would guess Martin Harris only observed him less than a handful of times, and I bet each time was carefully set up by Joseph and Oliver.