True Philosophical Defenses of Mormonism

[_Robert F Smith]

Bob:

And you claimed our knowledge of the cosmos is infantile, yet you want to implicitly assume and wish we also would assume that the ancients knowledge is far more accurate and better than ours. Utterly unconvincing. You need to present evidence that any of the ancient civilizations (ESPECIALLY THE HEBREWS of the Bible) knew Relativity, or Quantum Physics, or were aware of black holes, time dilation etc. You claim OUR knowledge is meager......I see nothing even close to it in any ancient civilization. We are simply so far beyond them its not even comparable.

You apparently did not understand what I wrote. Please go back and reread. I did not say that "the ancients knowledge is far more accurate and better than ours," nor that Hebrews "knew Relativity, or Quantum Physics, or were aware of black holes, time dilation etc." Father Abraham certainly received revelation entailing very advanced concepts of astrophysics, but that did not make him an astrophysicist. I imagine that he was puzzled by the nature of that revelation -- just as you seem to be.

I SPECIFICALLY SAID ANCIENT HEBREWS, as in the Bible, as in the Book of Abraham which mimics the ancient Hebrews. I specified the culture. I already know OTHER great and mighty civilizations had SOME mathematics and meager understandings of the cosmos, but absolutely NOTHING like what we have now. They were all geocentric for instance. Stay on topic here and keep the context.

You clearly know nothing of ancient cultures and are thinking of a linear and progressive interpretation of history. History is rather (as Albright pointed out) oscillatory and unpredictable. They were not "all geocentric," and their knowledge of math and the cosmos was not as "meager" as you suppose, even though they did not have calculus or an understanding of modern physics.

PRECISELY. So, um, pray tell, why are you supposedly so impressed with the ancients of over dozens of centuries ago, if all it takes is one meager century to completely show us what imbeciles we are? Just where does that leave the Old Testament cultures? Totally irrelevant.

I suggested a proper sense of perspective, which you automatically rejected. I suggested that physicist Brian Greene brought a proper sense of perspective to the discussion of "modern" physics, and that it might be well for you and others to see what he had to say, and then reflect on it. If that is too much to ask, perhaps you'd like to get a brief summary at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJC4Rq7KOio.

[_Robert F Smith]

I'm not sure if you know how to read, so let me make myself as clear as possible:

THIS IS NOT MY EQUATION: "Your equation of 1 cubit = 7 handbreadths, and 7 days in a week = 1 cubit for each day, doesn't work mathematically. In addition, you will not be able to find a biblical scholar who will go along with your "1 cubit is one day!!!" With or without the exclamations."

In fact, I even sourced this material. I never stated the mathematics is/was/could be accurate, I merely posted the beliefs of the "Free Masons". Also, if no biblical scholar will accept the equation that IS NOT MINE, then so be it, because THIS IS A FREE MASON BELIEF.

Quite literally, I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry right now, your inability to read the "source material" of the comments that I've posted is, to say the least, quite baffling.

Again, THESE ARE THE BELIEFS OF THE FREE MASONS! WOW!!

Citing the beliefs of a freemason from long after the time of Joseph Smith is not only irrelevant, but the belief you cite does not even impinge on the meaning of the Book of Abraham concept in question. I quoted it for you. Perhaps you could discuss ways in which a more ancient freemasonic belief dealt with the same concept. We are talking about a cubit being applied to celestial time measure and to celestial mechanics.

[_Robert F Smith]

I am not one that cares a hoot about physical proof. But I do like to read history and happen to come across a book about Indian culture. It is not proof of the Book of Mormon. But it is a good history book in that it has first hand accounts of the beliefs and customs of the American Indians. I recommend it to Mormons and critics alike.

The History of the American Indians by James Adair 1775

You can get it from Kessinger Legacy Reprints - a photocopy - hard to read but well worth the effort.

An excellent and amazing book.

[_Robert F Smith]

You have to understand something......it is far more impressive to apologists themselves to quote the ancient stuff than give any nod to obvious modern sources. If they lubricate their ideas with a source or two of ancient Akkadian or Egyptian, they pride themselves on being irrefutable scholars of antiquity, without even regarding the silliness of continuing to try and make the obvious ancient materials relevant. And they pooh pooh today's understandings and science because, of course, it's blatantly obvious for all to see that compared to the prattling dust eating cavemen of antiquity hanging out in the deserts and caves of Sinai, they know nothing compared to our vast understanding and knowledge. And, of course, tomorrow we shall learn more..... and of course in a hundred years what we know then will certainly dwarf what we know now. But one absolute fact is for ever certain and irrefutable. We will always know vastly more than the ancients could have even conceived of, let alone actually learned, considering their primitive cultures and worthless assumptions about what was and is real.

Your pseudonym, as you probably know, means "lover of wisdom," something which phiiosophers have longed for. We don't get there by casting aspersions far and wide, but by spending our time studying the great ones throughout human existence who have had that same aspiration. Substituting polemics for actually coming to grips with history and deep thought gets us nowhere. Dismissing the ancients as "the prattling dust eating cavemen of antiquity" is a sad commentary not on them, but on the one making such an absurd and false statement.

[_Robert F Smith]

Yes, you are correct. I guess this is where the Book of Mormon really does come into play:

Jacob 4:14 - "But behold, the [Mormon Apologists] were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness ... and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs [fail]; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble."

Searching for the roots of Mormonism by disregarding Free Masonry, or any other books/texts/beliefs available during Joseph Smith's time, is very much "looking beyond the mark".

I can't make head or tail of what you are saying here. It certainly has nothing to do with "True Philosophical Defenses of Mormonism," which is the subject of this thread, and it does not reply to the points I have made.

I am frequently stupified by some of the things which modern physicists say, not because they are wrong (no one really knows whether they are wrong, yet), but because it seems so odd and opposed to common sense. I am thinking for example of very serious suggestions that our seemingly solid, physical world and universe, and all of the living things on Earth, are (1) really only a hologram projected from the surface of the two dimensional event horizon (surface) of a black hole (see Brian Greene's description, above), or that (2) we are part of an illusory computer simulation run by our descendants -- see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121210132752.htm.

A sense of perspective is very helpful.

[Guest]

Sure, Themis,
I'll mention four:
In the Fall of 1969, while a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I was sitting at the living room table in our LDS Branch President's home examining his wife's introduction to cuneiform Akkadian (she was taking a class at the univ., while her husband was completing his PhD there). Anyhow, while looking over the list of cuneiform signs or characters, the transliterations, and translations, I noticed one sign which was transliterated as she'um, which was translated as "grain; barley." I immediately recognized that the same word occurred in the Book of Mormon, and quickly found it at Mosiah 9:9 in a list of food plants. I surmised that the generic term was applied to a form of grain (like Amaranth) not familiar to Joseph Smith, and that it was a carryover from the Jaredite period (the -um ending was lost centuries before Lehi, who would not likely have encountered that Mesopotamian term anyhow). There are many such direct linguistic parallels which Joseph could not have known.

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.ca/2008/12/sheum-in-book-of-mormon.html
http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.ca/2010/01/sheum-may-not-be-akkadian-after-all.html
http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4498

I agree with Chris that it is very problematic.

However, even more interesting are phenomena which are grouped in a system:
The short description of part of the Nephite weights & measures system in Alma 11 is an excellent example. Only within the past half-century have scholars discovered that (a) Classical Israelites used Egyptian hieratic numerals on their weights, and that (b) the Israelite weights are taken from the ancient Egyptian system of weights. You can read Bill Dever's description of this, and see the hieratic numerals, in Harper's Bible Dictionary (1985), 1128-1129, and tables B & C. The late Anson Rainey concluded from this and other evidence that professional Israelite scribes knew ancient Egyptian. Beyond that, we have the even more astonishing fact that the Book of Mormon limnah (Alma 11:10) reaches the same mathematical total as the Hebrew maneh. Note the tight phonemic similarity of those two key terms.

You would need to give much more detail in order for people not to suspect parallels that are coincidental.

You will note that the Tower of Babel story in the Bible includes the anachronistic word "Babel," which is late (scholars see it as a glosse on the text from the Exilic or Post-Exilic period). Ether 1:33 includes the same basic story, but does not include the word "Babel" (cf. Omni 22, Helaman 6:28).

hardly at all

Interesting, but then the story doesn't give much detail. The whole story is also just so unlikely anyways to be believable.

A similar anachronism is left out of Book of Abraham 5:10-11 -- the names of the four rivers in Genesis 2:11-14, which biblical scholars see as a glosse on the text.

Again the Book of Abraham does not give much detail so not having them mentioned is not very persuasive, and lets face facts, the evidence against Joseph with the Book of Abraham really is to great. It really is the smoking gun against the church on it's own without looking at all the evidence.

[_Franktalk]

I might as well add my two cents.

If we are to from a philosophical point of view to examine the Book of Mormon or the current state of Mormonism we must understand what Mormonism is. This is a big problem. From my viewpoint most Mormons overreach in what they think the church represents. I also think that the church avoids those doctrines that might cause difficulty in obtaining new converts. So exactly what are we to analyze? Now having said that we could view the Mormon church as it relates to the fallen church and use scripture as our guide. That would be one approach. Maybe some help on direction is needed.

[_Tobin]

I might as well add my two cents.

If we are to from a philosophical point of view to examine the Book of Mormon or the current state of Mormonism we must understand what Mormonism is. This is a big problem. From my viewpoint most Mormons overreach in what they think the church represents. I also think that the church avoids those doctrines that might cause difficulty in obtaining new converts. So exactly what are we to analyze? Now having said that we could view the Mormon church as it relates to the fallen church and use scripture as our guide. That would be one approach. Maybe some help on direction is needed.

Yeah, that is right. The Church is merely an association of like-minded believers and nothing more. It is a man-made organization and suffers from all the problems and fallibilities of men. The Kingdom of God (or Church of God) is an entirely separate animal and one should seek God and to be a member of that. I don't mind associating with the members of the Mormon Church, but I have no illusions about it.

[_Philo Sofee]

You have to understand something......it is far more impressive to apologists themselves to quote the ancient stuff than give any nod to obvious modern sources. If they lubricate their ideas with a source or two of ancient Akkadian or Egyptian, they pride themselves on being irrefutable scholars of antiquity, without even regarding the silliness of continuing to try and make the obvious ancient materials relevant. And they pooh pooh today's understandings and science because, of course, it's blatantly obvious for all to see that compared to the prattling dust eating cavemen of antiquity hanging out in the deserts and caves of Sinai, they know nothing compared to our vast understanding and knowledge. And, of course, tomorrow we shall learn more..... and of course in a hundred years what we know then will certainly dwarf what we know now. But one absolute fact is for ever certain and irrefutable. We will always know vastly more than the ancients could have even conceived of, let alone actually learned, considering their primitive cultures and worthless assumptions about what was and is real.

Your pseudonym, as you probably know, means "lover of wisdom," something which phiiosophers have longed for. We don't get there by casting aspersions far and wide, but by spending our time studying the great ones throughout human existence who have had that same aspiration. Substituting polemics for actually coming to grips with history and deep thought gets us nowhere. Dismissing the ancients as "the prattling dust eating cavemen of antiquity" is a sad commentary not on them, but on the one making such an absurd and false statement.

The so-called "great ones" you wish us to understand were shephards, goat herders, and animal sacrificers, in Old Testament Israel Bob. Whatever version of reality they supposedly understood we have so far eclipsed that it has relegated their geocentric view to irrelevance. I am not so much casting aspersion as merely noting their view of reality. Kill animals to appease a supposed angry God. What version of reality today does that ring true with? Their understanding of the Cosmos is truly not ours. I see no point in going backwards in time for trying to understand reality for our day. Again, we have surpassed anything of their "reality" they might have passed down.

[_Franktalk]

The so-called "great ones" you wish us to understand were shephards, goat herders, and animal sacrificers, in Old Testament Israel Bob. Whatever version of reality they supposedly understood we have so far eclipsed that it has relegated their geocentric view to irrelevance. I am not so much casting aspersion as merely noting their view of reality. Kill animals to appease a supposed angry God. What version of reality today does that ring true with? Their understanding of the Cosmos is truly not ours. I see no point in going backwards in time for trying to understand reality for our day. Again, we have surpassed anything of their "reality" they might have passed down.

If that is the way you feel then why do you waste your time posting here? After all you will just get a bunch of quotes from sheep herders.

I actually like the sayings of those sheep herders. So much better than the modern dribble that comes from the learned. But U can always drop the language and seek modern speak. :)