Is Mormonism so bad?

[Meadowchik]

Obligatory reminder of the response I received from Carrier, when I asked him his opinion of this in May 2019:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/josep ... t-guesser/

He said:

That's totally crank. Indeed, I suspect it's satire. Or else quite the Poe.

If it really is meant seriously, it's defect is the same as all Christian Bayesianism: they assign the wrong values to the facts they list. For example, Smith's knowledge of volcanism has no actual connection with Mesoamerican history. So assigning it a "strong correspondence" factor is a joke. Which has me wondering if we are supposed to take this seriously.

Of course this is about a different Bayesian analysis not his own.

Personally, I don't have the time to look at either yet, having my studies and a house full of children with my husband stuck abroad. But one thing I can say with certainty about mathematics is that an analysis is only as good as the model. A poorly constructed model can be worse than useless even if the numerical calculations are correct.

ETA: working link

[mentalgymnast]

This is not at all unique. Judaism's esoteric materials going way back into hoary antiquity at least to the beginning of the actual text of Genesis sometime around 500 B.C. teach the exact same thing, and continue to teach these ideas. They have taught this through the millenia and while sometimes their more spiritual teachings have gone underground away from the public (which Mormons would interpret as possible apostasy, but I no longer see it that way), it has always re-surfaced. There is nothing you have said that is not also found in Judaism, and most especially in the Kabbalah and it's various and sundry texts dating from at least 300 B.C. And these texts and their ideas certainly use and accept the materials from the books of Enoch, Daniel, and Ezekiel, further demonstrating the ideas were far earlier than their actual publishing time getting those ideas out.

Or zoroastrianism, or Islam, or Hinduism, or...

That is one of the most myopic comments I've seen in a long while. MG prefers a Western American/human centric religion constrained by 19th century thought lacking any sort of viable, recognized spiritual philosophical or esoteric tradition whose defining characteristic is orthopraxy, and claims it's the most expansive belief system available.

Wow.

I think you may be misunderstanding me. If the LDS church is true then what I’ve said is true. The doctrines taught therein are all inclusive. Joseph said that we are more than happy to let others worship how, who, and what they may. Brigham taught that Mormonism takes truth from whatever source it may come. We worship a God who IS God. The creator of the heavens and earth and all things in that are part and parcel of those creations. Including religions that are man made or those that have partial truths. They’re all part of one great whole of creation/being. What you’re doing is placing Mormonism within the same framework/context of other religions. If you’re right (the church is man made, no God), then I concede...I’m wrong. But if I’m right (restoration narrative is true) then the LDS church is the most expansive, with its doctrinal framework, of any other religious system that worships a God in whose image we are created.

Just out of interest, can you name another religious system that makes claims of ‘all encompassing truth’ and also worships a creator in whose image we are created?

And the system is in existence today and has at least equal or greater footing than the LDS church? The only examples I can think of are some other Christian churches, but they have missing pieces in their doctrine/theology. Thus, the restoration.

Rather than suffering from myopia I see the the church’s position as being farsighted and looking through a viewfinder with settings attuned to eternity rather than just the here and now. Truthfully, I see your position, and those that agree with you, as being extremely myopic.

You literally see only that which is in front of your nose.

Regards,
MG

[mentalgymnast]

Messiahs happen. What’s hard to believe?

That he’s the one who actually resurrected.

Regards,
MG

[Kishkumen]

I haven’t read Carrier and I probably won’t, but one possible explanation for his odd take on the existence of Jesus is that he got seduced by the Bayesian illusion in much the same way that certain Mormon apologists have been.

There’s nothing wrong with Bayesian inference—it’s a two-line theorem that only relies on arithmetic so there hardly could be anything wrong with it. But some insufficiently numerate people seem to get the idea that it’s a magic wand that can reliably deliver surprising results which must be accepted—because they have numbers!—even in defiance of plain common sense.

To some that’s the whole point of Bayes, that it forces you to see past your preconceptions and recognize surprising truths (about likelihoods, anyway). Seeing past preconceptions is good, of course, but there’s just a limit to how much magic can come from a two-line theorem. Used without understanding, all that Bayes does is put impressively rigorous-looking numbers onto vague assumptions: garbage in, garbage out. Bayes won’t spin straw into gold.

If you have solid and unambiguous evidence then you hardly need Bayes to make your case. If what you have instead is a bunch of iffy arguments then the magic of multiplication can let you kid yourself that it all somehow adds up—or rather multiplies out—to a strong case. Unfortunately, though, it isn’t that easy. The more factors you try to multiply together, the more sensitive your conclusions become to even slight tendencies on your part to over- or underestimate probabilities, or to overlook possible alternatives.

If you think you’ve somehow wielded the magic of Bayes to extract strong conclusions from lousy data, then what has almost certainly actually happened is that you’ve done it wrong. Carrier wouldn’t be the first or last not to realize this and think instead that he has found in Bayes a magical mathematical substitute for careful thinking.

That sounds very persuasive to me. I would guess you have nailed it, but then, of course, there was a better than even chance I would agree with someone whose depiction matches my own biases.

[honorentheos]

I think you may be misunderstanding me. If the LDS church is true then what I’ve said is true.

That's fascinating.

[IHAQ]

I think you may be misunderstanding me. If the LDS church is true then what I’ve said is true. The doctrines taught therein are all inclusive. Joseph said that we are more than happy to let others worship how, who, and what they may. Brigham taught that Mormonism takes truth from whatever source it may come. We worship a God who IS God. The creator of the heavens and earth and all things in that are part and parcel of those creations. Including religions that are man made or those that have partial truths. They’re all part of one great whole of creation/being. What you’re doing is placing Mormonism within the same framework/context of other religions. If you’re right (the church is man made, no God), then I concede...I’m wrong. But if I’m right (restoration narrative is true) then the LDS church is the most expansive, with its doctrinal framework, of any other religious system that worships a God in whose image we are created.

Just out of interest, can you name another religious system that makes claims of ‘all encompassing truth’ and also worships a creator in whose image we are created?

And the system is in existence today and has at least equal or greater footing than the LDS church? The only examples I can think of are some other Christian churches, but they have missing pieces in their doctrine/theology. Thus, the restoration.

Rather than suffering from myopia I see the the church’s position as being farsighted and looking through a viewfinder with settings attuned to eternity rather than just the here and now. Truthfully, I see your position, and those that agree with you, as being extremely myopic.

You literally see only that which is in front of your nose.

Regards,
MG

For the thread - either, the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the Gospel Or there is/are additional Gospel truth/s to be found elsewhere outside of Mormonism. One cannot (in all intellectual honesty) hold both positions simultaneously as they are mutually exclusive. One cannot have one's cake, and eat it.

[honorentheos]

When MG posits that if he is right, then what he believes to be true is true, one shouldn't feel obligated to post a reply. That's a mad man ranting on the street corner, convinced of his own rightness because he lacks the capacity to get outside of the preference he holds for his own opinions.

But then he has also become satellite to some book or other recently that has spun him off into claims those who do not agree with his opinion are myopic and have their viewfinder focused poorly.

I don't know how many times over numerous threads a board member has pointed out to MG he has his ladder placed on the branch he is sawing, that his reasoning is circular, or that he is locked in a Mormon-based worldview he asserts as universal. There aren't many more ways to express it that haven't been tried. So, I guess that's about as far as the conversation will ever make it.

[dastardly stem]

On Carrier, I don't feel obligated to defend him or his work. But I will acknowledge it doesn't appear to me anyone has taken him seriously. If we say he's being really ignorant and foolish to argue something like if the miraculous things said about Jesus likely didn't happen that means Jesus didn't live at all, then it appears the problem is with those who are misrepresenting his position and work. My biggest hang-up in defending his work is it's been a couple of years since I've looked into his position and in a lazy, accept the easily consumed product kind of way, I think he made some really interesting points and observations. My simplistic take is it doesn't matter at all if Jesus lived, actually--if history can uncover his life in a possible way. My concern would be is the story told about him in any sense true? It certainly doesn't look like much more than an amalgamation of many sources and considerations. If so, that really renders the magical narrative told about him as likely untrue.

The point here is, and I think Carrier readily acknowledges it, as I recall, there is little distinction between thinking there was likely a person who lived named Jesus who was perhaps a charismatic teacher who gained a following, but the magical stuff told about him didn't really happen, and thinking the myths developed about a Jesus, included a creation of a Jesus figure--meaning the guy never really lived anyway. The thing is, of course some guy lived and of course some guy named Jesus lived. But if the story told about him is nothing near what happened to anyone named Jesus, then who was he? Whose life are we discussing? That seems like a different issue than naming a number of other people who had their life stories enhanced and made-up. To me the question of whether there was an actual jewish teacher named Jesus and he is the one who was said to be a savior-god, doesn't really matter. Whose life would we need to verify in order to fulfill the burden of the claim? Some random Jewish guy named Jesus? Or some random Jewish guy named Jesus who had a mother named Mary, who was a virgin at the time of his birth, a guy who spit upon a deaf and blind person to heal them and was killed by crucifixion? A guy who taught others names Peter, James, John, Simon etc? It doesn't seem like any of those elements are verifiable. If so, what's the point? He might as well have been a made up person.

[dastardly stem]

I think you may be misunderstanding me. If the LDS church is true then what I’ve said is true.

That's fascinating.

Had the same reaction when I saw that.

[dastardly stem]

Obligatory reminder of the response I received from Carrier, when I asked him his opinion of this in May 2019:

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/josep ... -the-maya/

He said:

That's totally crank. Indeed, I suspect it's satire. Or else quite the Poe.

If it really is meant seriously, it's defect is the same as all Christian Bayesianism: they assign the wrong values to the facts they list. For example, Smith's knowledge of volcanism has no actual connection with Mesoamerican history. So assigning it a "strong correspondence" factor is a joke. Which has me wondering if we are supposed to take this seriously.

Of course this is about a different Bayesian analysis not his own.

Personally, I don't have the time to look at either yet, having my studies and a house full of children with my husband stuck abroad. But one thing I can say with certainty about mathematics is that an analysis is only as good as the model. A poorly constructed model can be worse than useless even if the numerical calculations are correct.

The link you gave isn't working for me. But I recall that piece from interpreter and found it a bit goofy. Thanks for sharing. Interesting response.