Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Uncle Dale]

...
going soft on the S/R theory
...

Unless some additional historical evidence can be put forth, I
suggest that we shelve the old witness testimony and look at
texts. Once we have a consensus agreement on the structure
of the Book of Mormon text, and its correspondence to the
Book of Moses, Book of Commandments, etc., the S-R explanation
can be brought to bear upon the remainder of the Nephite record.

The last time I checked in with Craig Criddle, he was crediting
more than half of the non-biblical portion of the book to Cowdery
and Smith. I'd say THAT would be a more productive area of
investigation, if our goal is to actually destroy Mormonism.

Mormonism WITHOUT a Cowdery contribution is merely a benign
creation of the Christ-loving (but slightly deceptive) Joe Smith.

Mormomism WITH a Cowdery contribution is a conspiracy, carried
out by at least two early leaders who faked scripture, including
the addition of pre-existing sources.

THAT is 99% of the story. Exactly what those pre-existing sources
may have been, is but 1% of the story. Perhaps early Mormon
doctrine was indeed influenced by Sidney Rigdon. Perhaps the
latter part of Alma was indeed copied from Solomon Spalding. But
those items are minor footnotes, if a conspiracy was covered up.

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

Mormomism WITH a Cowdery contribution is a conspiracy, carried
out by at least two early leaders who faked scripture, including
the addition of pre-existing sources.

THAT is 99% of the story. Exactly what those pre-existing sources
may have been, is but 1% of the story. Perhaps early Mormon
doctrine was indeed influenced by Sidney Rigdon. Perhaps the
latter part of Alma was indeed copied from Solomon Spalding. But
those items are minor footnotes, if a conspiracy was covered up.

UD

Conspiracy theories are so nice. No evidence is evidence because all of the evidence was destroyed. Cowdery's "excommunication" was a sham to make the it all look good. As the reasoning goes, if Cowdery was a part of a conspiracy and was treated so unkindly by Joseph, he surely would have spilled the beans. So they cook up this scheme to have Oliver disenfranchised with him never backing down despite the ridicule that he might receive to allay any suspicions of a coverup. Brilliant.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

...he surely would have spilled the beans.
...

Perhaps so -- and his confession would have gone something
like this:

"I did not really meet Jesus Christ, face-to-face, on April 3, 1836;
nor did I ever see John the Baptist; nor Peter, James and John. I am
a heaven-daring liar, ready to spend eternity with Satan, as I so
justly deserve."

I don't suppose that most non-Mormons would be much bothered by
the discovery of such a confession. Our lives would simply go on as
before -- with perhaps a minor adjustment of the history books.

What non-Mormon actually believes that Cowdery was truthful in
making those grandiose religious professions? To us he was a liar.

UD

[_Roger]

Dan:

I could always write another one. But, seriously, I considered the theory before writing my biography and rejected it. Nothing new has come along to change that, and I'm still convinced that my reading of Mormon sources is correct.

I'll grant that it could be, although I don't think it is. What I don't understand is your seeming hostility to the mere possibility that anything more than a KJVB was used. Why is that notion met with such resistance? And why the need to turn Book of Mormon witnesses into infallible saints?

[_Roger]

Glenn:

Well, you are a diehard to be sure.

Or obstinate. Maybe both.

Even Dale seems to be going soft on the S/R theory right now.

And that is an illusion. Dale knows when further discussion is pointless because rational thought has gone out the window. I am slower to pick up on that. In such cases he merely attempts to find at least some shred of remaining rational commonality. He is also better at identifying such places. He must have a better microscope than I do.

And you seem to be abandoning the discussion and attempting to deflect it elsewhere.

Yes, because there is a massive amount of hypocrisy here. The truth is, as we have admitted ad nauseum, that S/R does indeed depend to a certain extent on speculation. (Won't that look great on someone's sig line!) But MY point is that so does virtually every other Book of Mormon production theory and it is IRRATIONAL to pick at the weaknesses of one theory while simultaneously IGNORING the weaknesses of the others. The Book of Mormon had to have come about IN SOME WAY. None of us knows for sure how it happened. ALL of us speculate. But those engaged in criticism of S/R on this (and many other--there is a history here) threads ALWAYS (and I rarely use that term) fail to recognize the weaknesses of their own theories and yet delight in pointing out the weaknesses of S/R.

Yes, S/R must stand on its own merits--and it does. But it does not stand in a vacuum.

I have had no discussion with mikwut or Dan about the stone thingy on this thread and do not intend to do so.

Of course not because doing so would highlight your differences and weaken the camaraderie you have going for you--the enemy of my enemy is my friend, sort of thing. But in reality, there is a radical difference in words appearing in the stone and words not appearing in the stone.

Mikwut made some points about the memory intervention/false memory ideas which you have not responded to except to complain.
Mikwut cited his sources and left the ball in your court.

And marg is doing quite well on that one. Memory studies are not my thing. And a hundred memory studies cannot convince me I really didn't accurately remember the names in a book I had read 20+ years ago.

You have not dealt with the problems I cited with the John Spalding contradictions also. And no, you don't have to. But a battle once joined and retreated from ..............

I am not opposed to looking at your point there. I think that is at least a reasonable criticism. But if I provide at least a rational response, would that make any difference? Would anything change?

[_marg]

marge, are you familiar with the research by Neisser and Harsch in 1992 concerning episodic memory? The day after the explosion of the Challenger, they asked students in an introductory psychology class to fill out a questionaire about where they were, what they were doing, etc when they heard of the crash.

Three years later, these same students were given the same questionaire with the added question of how confident they were with their memories. Of that group of 44 students 3 had perfect recall, thirty student had memories that contained accurate and inaccurate elements, and 11 had memories that were totally different than the ones they had the day after the accident.

Please don't bring up a study unless you are confident you know what you are talking about and how it correlates to the Conneaut witnesses. You Mikwut and Dan are very persistent with the notion that memory studies prove memory fallibility for the conneaut witnesses and therefore warrant justification of dismissing their affidavits. But unless you truly do have a study which can be applied legitimately you are wasting people's time... those reading and participating.

I did search and what that study you are referring is about is what is termed "flashbulb memories. I'll try to put up the url for a google book pertaining to this. The short of it that studies looking at "flashbulb memories" say nothing of the sort that you suggest in fact they conclude the opposite that memories are remarkably good and accurate for "flashbulb memories". I can understand Dale being annoyed with all this. It's taking up a lot of space in this thread, none of you are backing down, in fact Mikwut has entered to escalate..yet I don't see anyone getting into any sort of depth in discussion how any particular study correlates well with the conneaut witnesses to justify concluding some sort of memory weakness warranting complete dismissal of their statements.

Taken from: Affect and accuracy in recall: studies of "flashbulb" memories
By Eugene Winograd, Ulric Neisser

Do flashbulb memories differ from other types of emotional memories

Svenack Christianson

P 191 One field of research that is pertinent to the relationship between emotion and memory and that most consistently demonstrate high memory performance for negative emotionally arousing events is research on so-called “flashbulb memories” (see Brown & Kulik, 1977) Since the publication of the original study by Brown and Kulik numerous studies have shown an impressive concordance in subjects remembering of shocking national events such as assassinations and so forth. (see e.g. Bohannon, 1988 Christianson, 1989 Colgrone, 1999 Pillemer, 1984 Rubin & Kozin, 1984 Winograd & Killinger 1983,) Not only does such emotionally shocking news itself appear to be well preserved, but so to do the subjects memories of the specific detail associated with the circumstances under which they heard the news itself appear to be well preserved. In this comparison I will focus on how detailed and persistent these memories are over time. I will also discuss whether a special memory mechanism is involved in remembering flashbulb events as well as other types of emotional events. Before moving on with a discussion of flashbulb memories, I will briefly discuss research concerning memory for negative emotional events. In discussing this research I will use the term “negative emotional events “ to refer to scenes or experiences that have very unpleasant features and then have the potential to evoke strong negative emotional feelings in a victim or witness.

[_GlennThigpen]

And you seem to be abandoning the discussion and attempting to deflect it elsewhere.

Yes, because there is a massive amount of hypocrisy here. The truth is, as we have admitted ad nauseum, that S/R does indeed depend to a certain extent on speculation. (Won't that look great on someone's sig line!) But MY point is that so does virtually every other Book of Mormon production theory and it is IRRATIONAL to pick at the weaknesses of one theory while simultaneously IGNORING the weaknesses of the others. The Book of Mormon had to have come about IN SOME WAY. None of us knows for sure how it happened. ALL of us speculate. But those engaged in criticism of S/R on this (and many other--there is a history here) threads ALWAYS (and I rarely use that term) fail to recognize the weaknesses of their own theories and yet delight in pointing out the weaknesses of S/R.

Roger, I have repeatedly told you that I would be glad to discuss other theories in another thread. You accused me of avoidance, but I am merely trying to follow the rules of the board.
Rule number four for the Universal set states "Do not "derail" threads or otherwise insert commentary that has nothing to do with a thread's opening post."

Yes, S/R must stand on its own merits--and it does. But it does not stand in a vacuum.

Which is not relevant to anything.

You have not dealt with the problems I cited with the John Spalding contradictions also. And no, you don't have to. But a battle once joined and retreated from ..............

I am not opposed to looking at your point there. I think that is at least a reasonable criticism. But if I provide at least a rational response, would that make any difference? Would anything change?

Okay, let's go there. We can discuss what we consider to be rational as well as the evidence that supports claims of rationality.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

...
some shred of remaining rational commonality.
...

Suppose we were to gather together a couple of dozen
history students out of some university's history of American
religions classes and present them with a summary of this
MB thread. I mean a very, very short summary, that each
one of them could read in five minutes or less -- along with
a page-length synopsis of early Mormon history.

Having gathered and informed this group of scholars, we
then present them with three choices:

1. Joe Smith wrote the book
2. Solomon Spalding wrote the book
3. An unknown people called "Nephites" wrote the book.

My guess is that every one of them would choose #1 --
unless by some fluke we happened to include a Mormon.

Nobody who has only a cursory knowledge of early Mormonism
and its purported origins is likely to choose #2 --

I suppose that we simply must accept that fact, and devote
our attention to formulating a detailed description of the book
itself: of its story, characters, structure, message & language.

Once that task is accomplished, and the word-prints for Smith
and Cowdery are charted out across the non-biblical portions
of the text, there will be a number of blank portions left, with
the authorship analysis not pointing to Smith or to Cowdery.

I think that the S-R explanation will only begin to make sense
to the casual reader at THAT point in his/her investigation.

If we had THAT analysis published and ready for distribution
to our hypothetical religious history scholars, I believe that
it would then make sense to them, as additional evidence
explaining what pre-existing sources went into the volume.

In other words, we should flesh out the S-R claims, with all
the available testimony and supporting evidence, and then
consign the entire stack of source material to footnote status

Until we explain Smith's role in the book's production, the
natural tendency will be for non-Mormons to choose him as
the likely author -- that's an easy, non-complex choice.

So -- let them make that choice, and then provide those
scholars with additional source material that documents how
Smith cooperated with Cowdery to introduce pre-existing
literary/theological material into the text.

Earlier in this thread I offered up the possibility for 99.99%
of the book to have originated with Smith. But even that
possibility is rejected by the Smith-alone advocates, it seems

OK then -- we beat them at their own game, and provide an
even better historical reconstruction of Smith's role in the
book's compilation (saving S-R for footnote status).

That is the only way forward I can envision as workable --
and it takes into consideration Criddle's most recent studies,
which should be web-published in a few weeks.

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

Please don't bring up a study unless you are confident you know what you are talking about and how it correlates to the Conneaut witnesses. You Mikwut and Dan are very persistent with the notion that memory studies prove memory fallibility for the conneaut witnesses and therefore warrant justification of dismissing their affidavits. But unless you truly do have a study which can be applied legitimately you are wasting people's time... those reading and participating.

I did search and what that study you are referring is about is what is termed "flashbulb memories. I'll try to put up the url for a google book pertaining to this. The short of it that studies looking at "flashbulb memories" say nothing of the sort that you suggest in fact they conclude the opposite that memories are remarkably good and accurate for "flashbulb memories". I can understand Dale being annoyed with all this. It's taking up a lot of space in this thread, none of you are backing down, in fact Mikwut has entered to escalate..yet I don't see anyone getting into any sort of depth in discussion how any particular study correlates well with the conneaut witnesses to justify concluding some sort of memory weakness warranting complete dismissal of their statements.

Taken from: Affect and accuracy in recall: studies of "flashbulb" memories
By Eugene Winograd, Ulric Neisser

Do flashbulb memories differ from other types of emotional memories

Svenack Christianson

P 191 One field of research that is pertinent to the relationship between emotion and memory and that most consistently demonstrate high memory performance for negative emotionally arousing events is research on so-called “flashbulb memories” (see Brown & Kulik, 1977) Since the publication of the original study by Brown and Kulik numerous studies have shown an impressive concordance in subjects remembering of shocking national events such as assassinations and so forth. (see e.g. Bohannon, 1988 Christianson, 1989 Colgrone, 1999 Pillemer, 1984 Rubin & Kozin, 1984 Winograd & Killinger 1983,) Not only does such emotionally shocking news itself appear to be well preserved, but so to do the subjects memories of the specific detail associated with the circumstances under which they heard the news itself appear to be well preserved. In this comparison I will focus on how detailed and persistent these memories are over time. I will also discuss whether a special memory mechanism is involved in remembering flashbulb events as well as other types of emotional events. Before moving on with a discussion of flashbulb memories, I will briefly discuss research concerning memory for negative emotional events. In discussing this research I will use the term “negative emotional events “ to refer to scenes or experiences that have very unpleasant features and then have the potential to evoke strong negative emotional feelings in a victim or witness.

Marg, did you read that review? The very url that you gave me took me to the very study I was citing. The study uses empirical data to bolster its findings. There also is an article there by Steen Larsen where he keeps a diary of startling events then tries to remember them several months later. He was surprised at just how many mistakes that he made in that relatively short period of time. These findings, and others are in contradiction to your source and have been replicated in other similar types of studies where the initial set of questions were posed very shortly after the event. The results then were compared with responses taken three years down the pike with no updates in between.
Another, later study was done by Jennifer M. Talarico and David C. Rubin in a paper titled "Confidence, not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories". It was done in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Buildings. The significance of some of these studies is that everyday memory was also tested in conjunction with the flashbulb memories and similar deterioration was noted.

What is the significance to the Conneaut witnesses? Twenty years plus. Twenty years without any visual cues. There may have been some sporadic discussion of Spalding's work for Hurlbut to have gotten wind of it, but none of the statements of the witnesses mention ever discussing the work in the intervening years. Then there was intervention elements that were present. The subject of the mounds seemingly was an ongoing topic, revived by suhc works as Ethan Smiths "View of the Hebrews" and newspaper articles such as the one cited by Dale.
The possibility for memory distortion and confabulation in those witnesses is very real. It cannot be proven, but should not be dismissed summarily. It provides plausible alternate answers to otherwise contradictory statements.

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

...
some shred of remaining rational commonality.
...

Suppose we were to gather together a couple of dozen
history students out of some university's history of American
religions classes and present them with a summary of this
MB thread. I mean a very, very short summary, that each
one of them could read in five minutes or less -- along with
a page-length synopsis of early Mormon history.

Having gathered and informed this group of scholars, we
then present them with three choices:

1. Joe Smith wrote the book
2. Solomon Spalding wrote the book
3. An unknown people called "Nephites" wrote the book.


UD

First of all, a short synopsis of this thread would probably just send an uninitiated student over the edge into complete insanity. It also would provide no solid framework with which to make a judgement. The Mormon history needs to be eliminated so as not to arouse any bias one way or the other. What I would suggest is that we take 172 pages from the Book of Mormon, starting with 1 Nephi and remove the preface, title, etc. Round up all the writings that we can of Joseph Smith's up to maybe 1832. Take the Oberlin Manuscript also. Select fifty graduate students that have extensive studies in American Literature and who know little or nothing about the LDS church. Ask them to read all of the manuscripts carefully, as many times as they would wish. Identify who authored the Oberlin manuscript and who, by name only, authored the Joseph Smith papers. Then ask them was the Nephi book written by:

1. Joseph Smith
2. Solomon Spalding
3. Some other author.

Then, who do you think they would pick?

Glenn