What was the motive of H. P. Blavatsky in "apporting" letters from "Mahatmas"? What was the motive of George Adamski in producing photos of "flying saucers"? What was the motive of the people who claimed to see the Miracle of Fatima? What is the motive of the people who claim to have daily visions of Mary at Medjugorje? What was the motive of the people who created the Urantia Book?
All of these people claimed to have experiences that are questioned by those who are not loyal members of their movements.
What is your motive for basing your evaluation on a motive?
What was the motive of H. P. Blavatsky in "apporting" letters from "Mahatmas"? What was the motive of George Adamski in producing photos of "flying saucers"? What was the motive of the people who claimed to see the Miracle of Fatima? What is the motive of the people who claim to have daily visions of Mary at Medjugorje? What was the motive of the people who created the Urantia Book?
All of these people claimed to have experiences that are questioned by those who are not loyal members of their movements.
What is your motive for basing your evaluation on a motive?
Those are excellent questions. It requires having broader knowledge of such phenomena in order to see that the kind of claim Mormonism is making is not sui generis. Sure the precise content is somewhat unique, but the nature of the claim is pretty standard.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
What was the motive of H. P. Blavatsky in "apporting" letters from "Mahatmas"? What was the motive of George Adamski in producing photos of "flying saucers"? What was the motive of the people who claimed to see the Miracle of Fatima? What is the motive of the people who claim to have daily visions of Mary at Medjugorje? What was the motive of the people who created the Urantia Book?
All of these people claimed to have experiences that are questioned by those who are not loyal members of their movements.
What is your motive for basing your evaluation on a motive?
Those are excellent questions. It requires having broader knowledge of such phenomena in order to see that the kind of claim Mormonism is making is not sui generis. Sure the precise content is somewhat unique, but the nature of the claim is pretty standard.
They certainly are excellent questions.
And no doubt the partisans of those groups would be capable of mounting exactly the kind of agonisingly time-consuming defences of their beliefs that we see hagoth7 mounting on this board.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Chap wrote:And no doubt the partisans of those groups would be capable of mounting exactly the kind of agonisingly time-consuming defences of their beliefs that we see hagoth7 mounting on this board.
LOL. Yes. It is important to him, so he will invest a great deal of time in justifying his chosen position.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Kishkumen wrote:Those are excellent questions. It requires having broader knowledge of such phenomena in order to see that the kind of claim Mormonism is making is not sui generis. Sure the precise content is somewhat unique, but the nature of the claim is pretty standard.
Amen. In my experience, it's rare for an apologist to even conceive of the idea of comparing the claims of Mormonism with the claims of other obscure religions in a rigorous way. My mother in law is a Harvard-trained historian and is active in the Mormon history community. During a conversation about Book of Mormon historicity, I asked her if she'd ever thought of reading other purportedly ancient religious texts (e.g. the Urintia Book) to see if they had as many parallels with known history as those she saw in the Book of Mormon. Not only was she unaware that any such books existed in the first place, she was baffled by the whole idea of investigating other texts that make similar claims as a way of testing her "hits."
This seems to be a part of a larger issue that Mormons have with forming a robust intellectual baseline against which to judge the claims of the religion. This is what the "known or potential error rate" guideline of the Daubert standard is getting at--unless you know what typically occurs in similar cases, you really don't have any idea if something you observe is "significant" or not. By closing themselves off to information that could damage one's faith, Mormons effectively set their baseline expectations for significance so low as to be meaningless in discerning signal from noise, like testing for an earthquake on a storm-tossed fishing boat.
Thanks for expanding my knowledge, brotherjake. I remember dipping into the works of Swedenbourg and Urantia on my mission. After my mission I read portions of Oahspe. I have to hand it to Joseph Smith, the guy knew his Bible well, and did a remarkable job of composing a text that the unlettered person might mistake for an ancient work of scripture. Oahspe and Urantia are a little too distant from Biblical myth and style to be as effective. It may be third rate literature, but the Book of Mormon was pretty effective at its task.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
brotherjake wrote: Amen. In my experience, it's rare for an apologist to even conceive of the idea of comparing the claims of Mormonism with the claims of other obscure religions in a rigorous way. My mother in law is a Harvard-trained historian and is active in the Mormon history community. During a conversation about Book of Mormon historicity, I asked her if she'd ever thought of reading other purportedly ancient religious texts (e.g. the Urintia Book) to see if they had as many parallels with known history as those she saw in the Book of Mormon. Not only was she unaware that any such books existed in the first place, she was baffled by the whole idea of investigating other texts that make similar claims as a way of testing her "hits."
This seems to be a part of a larger issue that Mormons have with forming a robust intellectual baseline against which to judge the claims of the religion. This is what the "known or potential error rate" guideline of the Daubert standard is getting at--unless you know what typically occurs in similar cases, you really don't have any idea if something you observe is "significant" or not. By closing themselves off to information that could damage one's faith, Mormons effectively set their baseline expectations for significance so low as to be meaningless in discerning signal from noise, like testing for an earthquake on a storm-tossed fishing boat.
Not to mention the fact that hits for the Book of Mormon are not evidence that any particular branch of Mormonism is God's chosen offshoot. Maybe the Whitmerites had it right with their The Nephite Record along with the Book of Commandments.
The SLC branch members on one hand point out they are the most numerous descendant of Joseph Smith's legacy as if numbers are proof of God's favor but immediately dismiss their insignificant membership levels as compared to major religions because, well you just can't have everyone in God's "chosen" club. Funny how the line for deciding who God favors and who he doesn't just happens to coincide with the number of SLC branch Mormons.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
Kishkumen wrote:Thanks for expanding my knowledge, brotherjake. I remember dipping into the works of Swedenbourg and Urantia on my mission. After my mission I read portions of Oahspe. I have to hand it to Joseph Smith, the guy knew his Bible well, and did a remarkable job of composing a text that the unlettered person might mistake for an ancient work of scripture. Oahspe and Urantia are a little too distant from Biblical myth and style to be as effective. It may be third rate literature, but the Book of Mormon was pretty effective at its task.
Thanks for the insight on Urantia, Kish--I've never looked at it, and it's interesting to hear feedback from someone who has. I should probably pick a better (i.e. more similar to the Book of Mormon) specimen of pseudopigrapha when bringing up that point in the future. Any suggestions for works that would make a better comparison?
Fence Sitter wrote:Not to mention the fact that hits for the Book of Mormon are not evidence that any particular branch of Mormonism is God's chosen offshoot. Maybe the Whitmerites had it right with their The Nephite Record along with the Book of Commandments.
The Salt Lake City branch members on one hand point out they are the most numerous descendant of Joseph Smith's legacy as if numbers are proof of God's favor but immediately dismiss their insignificant membership levels as compared to major religions because, well you just can't have everyone in God's "chosen" club.
It is weird to see apologetic efforts to buoy the LDS branch of Mormonism as being more legitimate than the others. I had another conversation with MIL about this--when I asked why she thought the LDS sect of the Brighamite branch was the one true, one true church, her argument basically boiled down to size. Like you pointed out, we're the biggest, so we must be the truest.
Funny how the line for deciding who God favors and who he doesn't just happens to coincide with the number of Salt Lake City branch Mormons.
