GA Bruce Hafen: Galileo Strengthens Mormon Testimonies

[Guest]

https://www.faithisnotblind.org/blog/ho ... -testimony

True, it's not Hafen himself who wrote this article, but it is on his site Faith is Not Blind with his blessing and enthusiastic agreement.

So what's wrong here? Nothing really, except...... there is always an except......

The article is fine for showing scientific models are incomplete, we already knew that. And it is obviously true that when new knowledge comes about, we truly need to change our interpretation of what we thought we knew, i.e., update our knowledge. It is to the last paragraph which I have an issue or two.

Scientific modeling teaches us that when we discover gaps between what our idealization of the world predicts and what we observe, it is not something to cause us to deny or despair, but instead it is an invitation to deepen our understanding and construct new models that more accurately describe what we observe. Principles that we have already proven are not likely to be discarded, but rather subsumed into a larger theory with wider application to our lives. Brigham Young said, “Our religion is simply the truth” and it “embraces all truth that is revealed and that is unrevealed, whether religious, political, scientific, or philosophical.” When we encounter gaps between the ideal and reality, we don’t need to fear, but instead we can press forward to deepen our understanding and knowledge of the truth.

So, my issue is, I have used this scientific model as a basis of updating my knowledge concerning the Joseph Smith Papyri and the Book of Abraham. There most certainly are gaps between what Joseph Smith said and what Egyptologists say. I didn't despair, I then went to the apologists, and actually became one myself, emphasizing the Book of Abraham facsimiles. Then I learned as I studied that more and more the apologists appeared to me to be the ones with all the gaps, and appeared to me to be guessing more and more haphazardly, as they fished first for a theory that worked, then try another, and now another which contradicts the former ones, and when that was refuted come up with another, and when that was refuted....... so, Brigham Young simply doesn't come across as valid, since there are gaps in Mormonism, proof of which is when the current prophets discard what earlier ones had revelation, which later ones say were not revelation. And current Egyptologists still have not found much to agree with either in the Book of Abraham not any argument apologists have presented yet, in any of their theories. After so many tries and strikes, (in baseball you are only allowed three, apparently in apologetics you are allowed a dozen, but what to do when you still strike out after a dozen efforts?!) one realizes the model is faulty. But they are not adjusting to the current best model, namely, that Joseph Smith was simply wrong, and the apologists are too, thus negating more of Brigham Young.

By deepening my understanding and knowledge, and without fearing, I discovered the model of Mormonism and the Book of Abraham simply don't work at all. The model that does actually work? Joseph Smith made a mistake when claiming to translate the papyri and find the Book of Abraham, the Book of Joseph in the papyri. Joseph Smith was just wrong as flat earthers were earlier in history wrong, and still wrong today. The evidence is overwhelming on this and other issues. Models are fine, re-tuning them is even better with new knowledge. But discarding them also works when they just do not work in any fundamental way.

That is what the article leaves out. It generalizes a single scientific discovery for discussion, then it assumes this applies all throughout Mormonism as a religion in all generalities, otherwise, why the Brigham Young quote? It also works for and/or against religious claims and/or scholarly claims. In this instance, the model fails on issues dealing with the Egyptian papyri.

The article makes a fundamental assumption, which is a flaw. Take one example and then from that generalize in an entirely unrelated and different subject assuming that it is right for it as well. Sorry guys, no cigar there, but kudos for at least giving science on a basic level a good look, and more or less getting that single instance right and accurate.

[_GameOver]

Apostle? He’s been an emeritus 70 since 2010. Is that correct?

[_Physics Guy]

Principles that we have already proven are not likely to be discarded, but rather subsumed into a larger theory with wider application to our lives. ... When we encounter gaps between the ideal and reality, we don’t need to fear, but instead we can press forward to deepen our understanding and knowledge of the truth.

It's quite true that science is conservative. Tentative speculations have been shot down by single experiments but it is very rare for a well-established theory to be abandoned in response to a single decisive observation. It's almost impossible to make an experiment that watertight; it takes a lot to rule out all sources of error. If adverse evidence persists, however, scientists eventually do change the theory.

Sometimes the change is radical but sometimes it's a quick fix. Persistently unaccountable missing momentum and energy in a certain kind of radioactive decay prompted Enrico Fermi to postulate that a new type of virtually undetectible particle was carrying away the extra energy and momentum. The only positive evidence for this particle at that time was the missing energy and momentum, so this wasn't a compelling proposal, but conservation of energy and momentum were bedrock principles in physics and in those years we were discovering the existence of all kinds of new subatomic particles. So Fermi's suggestion that there could be one kind of new particle that was really hard to detect seemed perfectly plausible, and it was a quick and easy way to reconcile observation and theory.

After some years it was at length confirmed that Fermi's postulated neutrinos are actually real. Until then, Fermi's theory was considered plausible but it was not accepted as true just because it was a fix for the energy-momentum problem.

So, science and religion may both be unwilling to abandon old views over just one new piece of evidence. The impact of one piece of evidence may be small in both cases. Science, however, keeps on gathering evidence steadily, and as sufficient evidence accumulates science does change. Science is cautious and makes changes slowly but over a century it changes a lot. There are no sacred cows; executing a cow requires a long legal process but in principle any cow can be killed.

Some cows are harder than others to kill. Some principles are held strongly and it's hard to find really solid evidence against them. In this way some deep and broad religious principles, like the existence of God, might arguably be not too different in their robustness from basic scientific principles.

More specific details in science are definitely subject to change, though. Stonewalling for a hundred and fifty years over whether Joseph Smith translated the original writings of Abraham is not the kind of ideological conservatism that one finds in science.

[_Philo Sofee]

Apostle? He’s been an emeritus 70 since 2010. Is that correct?

Heck I dunno, I don't worry about keeping track. You are probably right.

[_Maksutov]

Bruce Hafen thinks he's an intellectual GA. He used to publish his thoughts in First Things every once in a while until Richard Neuhaus made it clear to him that no matter his handwaving and protestations, Mormons were a cult.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/200 ... -christian

Some have suggested that the LDS is a Christian derivative much as Christianity is a Jewish derivative, but that is surely wrong. The claim of Christianity is that its gospel of Jesus Christ is in thorough continuity with the Old Testament and historic Israel, that the Church is the New Israel, which means that it is the fulfillment of the promise that Israel would be “a light to the nations.” The Church condemned Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament, and she never presumed to rewrite or correct the Hebrew Scriptures on the basis of a new revelation. On the contrary, she insisted that the entirety of the old covenant bears witness to the new. While it is a Christian derivative, the LDS is, by way of sharpest contrast, in radical discontinuity with historic Christianity. The sacred stories and official teachings of the LDS could hardly be clearer about that. For missionary and public relations purposes, the LDS may present Mormonism as an “add-on,” a kind of Christianity-plus, but that is not the official narrative and doctrine.

A closer parallel might be with Islam. Islam is a derivative of Judaism and Christianity. Like Joseph Smith, Muhammad in the seventh century claimed new revelations and produced in the Qur’an a “corrected” version of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, presumably by divine dictation. Few dispute that Islam is a new and another religion, and Muslims do not claim to be Christian, although they profess a deep devotion to Jesus. Like Joseph Smith and his followers, they do claim to be the true children of Abraham. Christians in dialogue with Islam understand it to be an interreligious, not an ecumenical, dialogue. Ecumenical dialogue is dialogue between Christians. Dialogue with Mormons who represent official LDS teaching is interreligious dialogue.