Oh Coggins! As well as big avatars you like big words too ... "the essential epistemologically nihilistic nature of religious truth claims". One would almost think for a moment that we were going to do philosophy. I prefer plain talk (I am a plain sort of chap). So you will have to come down to my level to talk about this.
On such serious subjects, I prefer a dialog utilizing as much of the full range and flavor of the English language as possible, with all its powers of description and nuance brought to bear upon the matters at hand. I also like plane talk but, well, some of that depend, no doubt, upon definitions and personal predilections, to which I may or may not be amenable.
Two ways to answer you:
There is plenty of evidence that Arabs, Tibetans and even Utahns (assuming for the moment you are one) are in themselves equally good witnesses of facts on which people notoriously can agree - such as the time and date of a solar eclipse they have observed, allowing for different time-zones. So as a starting point, and in the absence of evidence that they are deliberately lying they are to be entitled treated with equal attention when they report on some other thing they say they have observed, such as the assurance given to them by unknown and (to others) imperceptible means of some particular fact about an alleged after-life, or what some supposed god wants us to do. Unfortunately, when we attend to them carefully we find that they say about the after-life or their deity does not match up, and even conflicts strongly. Now in the case of the eclipse, we can unconfuse ourselves easily: there are consequences we can check in the here and now of an eclipse having been observed as claimed, (e.g. the speed of the earth's rotation would have had to vary in certain ways to make it possible), so by checking on these consequences we can decide whether the Arab, the Tibetan or the Utahn is to be believed. For propositions about the afterlife, or about God's wishes, no such 'here-and-now' consequences seem to follow. Frankly, if there are any such observable 'here and now' consequences, it is up to you to show me what they are, since you are (apparently) the one that claims they exist. There is strong evidence that they do NOT exist in that sincere religious people seem quite unable to find any ground to settle their differences.
I think that the obvious problem with this analogy is that common, empirical phenomena such as eclipses, the phases of the Moon, or the fact that the Sun will rise at such and such a time tomorrow morning are precisely that: common empirical phenomena that we should not expect any differing views upon. Nor do such phenomena have any bearing upon the great questions of human existence, such as where we came from, what the meaning of existence is, if any, what happens to us after we die, is there a God, is there an eternal spirit that survives death etc. In other words, upon the great questions of the human condition and its meaning, why would you expect some kind of easy and obvious agreement? I see no reason to expect that different cultures and peoples and individuals within them should agree upon these things in the first instance. The difference between us is that, whereas you throw up your hands in the face of heterodoxy in religious beliefs (which is why I pointed out your epistemological nihilism on the matter) and claim that since many religious beliefs are at variance, none deserve any further inspection, I see an epistemological challenge that the Restored Gospel is well and able to meet.
Your reliance on empirical and observable data as a foil against religious truth claims fails on a number of levels, all of which I won't go into here because the big words and long sentences will likely confuse you. Suffice it to say, even in the natural sciences, there are a number of beliefs and well established theories that are in flux and open to alteration and even to being superseded by other concepts as new data are discovered. This means, of course, that just observing empirical phenomena per se neither confirms falsifies many kinds of empirical claims on the face of it. The empirical world can be quite a bit more complex and layered than that, as can spiritual things.
Further, the Restored Gospel does, indeed, provide a thorough epistemological window through which one may apprehend the truth of the claims made. One need not, if one does not wish to, continue on having no way to differentiate between the claims of the Dalai Lama, Osama Bin Laden, and Gordon B. Hinckley. This, however, may require, before the final breakthrough is made, some deep, critical, imaginative, and serious reflection, something you have already indicated has little palatability for you. It is also the case that your problems with religious truth claims extend, by implicit analogy, to a number of other non-obvious, non-empirical areas of human understanding, such as politics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and just about any study within the humanities you could think of. Things in these areas are contentious and controversial precisely because we cannot observe, quantify, and provide direct empirical support for many of their primary claims. In political and social theory, even when we have empirical data on certain things, disagreement still arises upon how that data is to be interpreted. If you are for just giving up on religion on the basis that its claims are not directly verifiable empirically, you would seem to be for giving up on just about every other aspect of human striving for knowledge and seeking to understand the world not on the level of Bacteriology or mechanical engineering.
Also, to be briefer, it is a matter of obvious fact that religious propositions are not generally adopted by people after a neutral process of evaluation, in the same way that the FDA tests a new drug.
Another baseless bare assertion supported by no evidence that is by no means an obvious fact. Re your own epistemology, what is your empirical basis for making such a claim?
People actively practice and claim belief in Islam largely when their parents taught it to them as children, and not otherwise; the same goes for Christianity, in all its variety, Buddhism and Hinduism, animism and all the rest. That is persuasive evidence that an individual's claim to know a religious 'truth' is mostly a matter of early conditioning as a child, and their later embedding in a supportive social network of people who agree with them and practice the same way of life. It is not on that basis likely to depend on external and verifiable facts. Those who make claims to the contrary bear the burden of proof. (Since conversion operates in multiple directions, it can prove nothing significant about validity, quite apart from the fact that conversion, especially of the uneducated, appears to be more of a social than an intellectual process).
I think that you should have caught some of the obvious philosophical problems with this analysis before you posted it chap. For one thing, in many, many cases, conversion to and from various religions occurs well into adulthood. It's not at all obvious that childhood and social conditioning have any overarching hold on human beings such that it suffocates or stifles any further intellectual inquiry or prevents alternative ways of seeing the world, especially in modern western societies (else, how do you explain the Sixties, in which a mass exodus away from traditional values and religious norms occurred among a large cohort of a generation only barely removed from there parents culture in time and environment?).
Further, as with any epistemological relativist, you're going to have to follow your main argument here out to its logical conclusion, which means in essence that your going to have to extend it from religion per se to every other contentious or controversial human intellectual endeavor having anything whatever to do with the purpose, meaning, and negotiation of human existence, including politics, political philosophy, philosophy, psychology, moral philosophy and ethics, history, etc., and make the same claims in a consistent manner. What we will then have is a claim that most of what we believe and hold to as human beings, in any and every area beyond the hard and natural sciences, at least where bare and obvious empirical facts can be known with a high degree of certainty (the boiling point of water, for example), is primarily the construct of early childhood conditioning and social enculturation continually reinforced by the social group into which one has been socialized throughout life.
In essence then, all the great questions of the human condition are essentially matters of childhood conditioning, socialization, and peer group support, and can be summarily dispensed with a matters of serous reflection. The main problem for anyone holding such a view is that if it is true, than everything the holder of such a view himself believes about the beliefs and philosophies of others; that is, everything he believes about his own beliefs, must itself be a part of this overarching social and epistemological theory of values and belief. It then follows that nothing he says about the beliefs of others, outside of a narrow channel within which we can all agree that what we see under the microscope is a Diatom and not a copy of Shakespears's
Hamlet, can itself be anything but a perspective grounded in his parents having "taught it to them as children" and as being the result of "early conditioning as a child, and their later embedding in a supportive social network of people who agree with them and practice the same way of life".
In other words, laying aside any and all pedestrian and obvious empirical facts over which you and I could not disagree, based upon your own epistemological criteria, there is no reason for me to take either your views of religion or your interpretations of what the limits and prerogatives of science are, any more seriously than you or I should take the pronouncements of Joseph Smith, The Pope, Benny Hinn, Yasser Afafat, or Rasputin. Why? Because clearly, according to your own criteria, all of our perceptions of matters other than bare, obvious empirical facts, are a product of childhood conditioning, indoctrination, and cultural socialization, and hence, completely arbitrary and relative. Your own views on theses subjects then, must be just as arbitrary and socially constructed as mine, or Gorden B. Hinckley's.
Unless, of course, you have discovered a template, or grand intellectual filter, through which you have risen above the cultural conditioning and childhood indoctrination of the rest of us.
To make it more obvious why this demand for an answer to the 'how can we tell you are right or wrong' is so important, consider this little playlet:
Joseph Smith '... and so, Helen, that is why you should become one of my wives; as the Prophet of God I assure you that he has commanded it, and by obeying His call you will assure not only your salvation, but that of your whole family'
Helen Mar Kimball 'Goodness Mr Smith, I am flattered and grateful for your proposition and your careful explanation. But you see I am only a fourteen year old girl in a somewhat undeveloped bit of 19th century America, and it is difficult for me to know whether I would indeed be making the right decision in agreeing. You see I have to take account of the fact that a fourteen year old like me is often over influenced by what her parents tell her, and by what male authority figures like you tell me. If I make the wrong decision, the consequences in this life and the next could be grave. So let's pull right back on this one and take it from the top - how can I tell that what you say is right or wrong'
Joseph Smith: Well Helen, you can pray and God will tell you.
HMK: But didn't you pray about sending those men to Toronto to sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon? And when they came back empty-handed you said the revelation could have been of the devil. How can I know MY revelation is not of the devil, if you as a prophet of God can be deceived like that?'
Joseph Smith: 'As the Prophet of God I can give you the assurance you need.'
HMK: 'Mr Smith, I don't think you were listening to me. On your own witness, you can speak untruth in the name of revelation too. So how do I know your assurance is reliable?'
And so on ... it is not surprising, is it, that unlike you Joseph Smith evidently thought it would be a very good idea to have a group of people solemnly assure everybody that his gold plates, the core of his claim to prophethood, had really been seen and physically examined (before the angel took them away of course)? In the end, he felt that the claim to public checkability was essential. I wonder why you don't.
I don't by the way see anything to attract me in your axioms, apart from the idea that reason is a very good guide in trying to decide what is true or not. You have a better way? I generally try to do without axioms in any case, so don't expect me to offer you any alternatives.
Oh, and no more chapel talk, please.
[/quote]
You might have made mention that the source for your assertions regarding the selling of the copyright is David Whitmer, from his Address To All Believers In Christ, a document written after his alienation and excommunication from the Church, during which time he claimed himself to have received revelations in contradiction to those of Joseph Smith and for whom he had sever personal animosity. You also fail to mention that on at least one occasion, after receiving such revelations, both he and Hiram Page repented of their participation in these activities and admitted that they were "not in accordance with the order of the gospel church." Whitmer, indeed, later stated that these were "errors in doctrine, which the Lord has since shown me, and which errors I have confessed and repented of."
You also fail to mention that in the fifty years Whitmer remained outside the Church, he never once denied the divine nature of the Book of Mormon.
There is no coorborating source that I know of, other than Whitemer's address, for this claim regarding Joseph's statements regarding the trip to Canada.
You also fail to mention that a 14 year old girl marrying a much older man was a common practice in the 19th Century, and in centuries before that time, and would not have been looked upon in the same manner we would look upon that today from our own cultural perspective.
Loran