True Philosophical Defenses of Mormonism

[_lance peters]

The purpose of this thread is "true philosophical defenses of Mormonism," or have you forgotten? Philosophy requires the careful statement of conditions and conclusions.

A lot of people read Holy Writ carelessly, and are not prepared to discuss the consequences of improper attention to detail or grammar. Reading the Book of Mormon or the Bible with a kind of fairy faith provides very little information of real value. You might want to read some of the professional literature on the subject, and you could start with Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981/1982). When you have finished, try applying the same standards of analysis to both Bible and Book of Mormon. To do that, of course, you will have to temporarily put aside your hate and contempt for all things Mormon. Do you think that possible?

Robert, let me remind you that "the purpose of this thread is "true philosophical defenses of Mormonism," or have you forgotten? Philosophy requires the careful statement of conditions and conclusions". You do realize that not a single post you've made in this thread resembles anything even remotely similar to a "philosophical defense". If your posts in this thread are an example of what you consider to be "philosophical" then you are sorely mistaken. What you consider philosophy is really just you finding silly little snippets on FARMS and FAIRs website then posting them here in this thread followed or preceded by something to effect of "And this is why the Mormon church is true" <-----------------------That's not philosophy. If you want to argue philosophically then you must argue at a deeper level; presenting "pseudo-facts" followed by conclusions is meaningless.

[_Robert F Smith]

Robert F Smith said:
The purpose of this thread is "true philosophical defenses of Mormonism," or have you forgotten? Philosophy requires the careful statement of conditions and conclusions.

A lot of people read Holy Writ carelessly, and are not prepared to discuss the consequences of improper attention to detail or grammar. Reading the Book of Mormon or the Bible with a kind of fairy faith provides very little information of real value. You might want to read some of the professional literature on the subject, and you could start with Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981/1982). When you have finished, try applying the same standards of analysis to both Bible and Book of Mormon. To do that, of course, you will have to temporarily put aside your hate and contempt for all things Mormon. Do you think that possible?

Robert, let me remind you that "the purpose of this thread is "true philosophical defenses of Mormonism," or have you forgotten? Philosophy requires the careful statement of conditions and conclusions". You do realize that not a single post you've made in this thread resembles anything even remotely similar to a "philosophical defense". If your posts in this thread are an example of what you consider to be "philosophical" then you are sorely mistaken. What you consider philosophy is really just you finding silly little snippets on FARMS and FAIRs website then posting them here in this thread followed or preceded by something to effect of "And this is why the Mormon church is true" <-----------------------That's not philosophy. If you want to argue philosophically then you must argue at a deeper level; presenting "pseudo-facts" followed by conclusions is meaningless.

I guess that means that you didn't read my first post on this thread, which was wholly philosophical:

Robert F Smith said:
Exactly!!
But going down that rather large rabbit hole entails an even more impressive true philosophical defense of Momonism:
Several faithful Mormons have commented on just how “preposterous” the story of Joseph Smith obtaining the Book of Mormon is – aside from the preposterous contents of the book.

And yet, it is precisely the preposterous nature of the entire Book of Mormon episode which is the best secular argument for the authenticity of the Mormon Church. Why?
Because there are no gold plates to examine first-hand, no spectacles, no breastplate, no Sword of Laban – no reliquary. Indeed, for these reasons alone, it seems impossible or at least unlikely that the Book of Mormon could be true. At least with the Bible we have some sort of continuity with the ancient world, i.e., plenty of manuscripts, relics, and realia.

And yet, the very point at which the Bible and Book of Mormon are compared and the latter found wanting, the Achilles Heel of the Bible becomes apparent: The Bible cannot by itself affirm the reality of the Exodus, the Resurrection, or any other miraculous event, any more than the Odyssey can affirm the reality of Polyphemous. Matters of faith and reason intervene to raise questions about the likelihood of certain miraculous events.

With no direct connection with the ancient world, the Book of Mormon would seem to be on an even more precarious basis. Yet, it is precisely that lack of likelihood which makes the favorable cumulative evidence from linguistics, philology, archeology, etc., impossible to ignore in our evaluation: If the Book of Mormon is fantasy, it is impossible for such evidence to exist!! At least that is the type of cumulative evidence which, under the canons of Bayesian probability, makes the Book of Mormon story probable, and therefore reasonable on entirely philosophical grounds.

You chose not to reply to any philosophical issues raised, but instead inserted an array of false statements about freemasonry, a subject which you clearly do not understand. I urged you to stick to scholarship, but you ignored my suggestion. You have always had the option of responding intelligently to any post I or others have made. You chose not to engage in a real discussion. Why?

[Guest]

Robert, explain to me how your "philosophical" thread is philosophical. Comparing your philosophical writing to the philosophical writing of someone like, say Ludwig Wittgenstein or his mentor Bertrand Russell, proves either: 1) Wittgenstein and Russell never wrote anything "philosophical"; 2) Robert never wrote anything "philosophical"; or 3) Robert has never read any philosophy, and therefore, given his inability to understand philosophy, he can't formulate substantive claims about Mormon Philosophy, let alone formulate a single philosophical argument in support, or contrary to, so-called Mormon Philosophy; and furthermore, given this implication, it is reasonable to assume that option '2' is also true.

So, Robert, which is it, 1, 2, or 3 therefore 2?

Now as for "false statements about freemasonry", please feel free to correct where you think I'm wrong. I mean I only have an extensive library of Freemasonry texts, texts from the mid-1700s to the late 1800s, this library alone is around 10 gigabytes of original book scans. I also have the entire Loeb Classical Library, 80% of all publications from the American Journal of Philology, and this is just the start. Overall, I have in my possession around 25 gigabytes of books from the mid-1700s to the late 1800s including subjects such as occult Christianity, esoteric and exoteric (yep, exoteric, if you don't know what it is, then I'm sorry, you need to read more) Chrisitianity, gnosticism, witch-craft. mysticism, alchemy, hermetic literature, and more. In fact, I find around 20 new book-scans per day, and after I download or manually scan these books into my computer, I then read these texts into a searchable database using DT Search (a forensic searching tool used by the FBI and CIA) so that, whenever an overzealous Mormon such as yourself decides to post something ridiculous about "how Mormonism is true because it matches Sumerian texts" I just enter into my little forensic search tool the key words of the subject at hand and then presto-chango Joseph Smith's "restored Gospel" magically shows up in either an occult Christianity book, Freemason text, or the in Loeb Classical Library (yes, translated in around 1929, however, it's fascinating that the so-called "true Mormon Gospel" can be dissected from the pages of these pagan and occult books).

So, when you state that I don't know what Freemasons believed in Joseph Smith's time, what do you mean? Please explain, because I'd very much like to know the source of your information concerning Freemasonry. You might ask yourself, "how did this Lance Peters get access to these books". Well the short answer is, I know how to use the internet better than most. Anyway, let me know if these original scans are wrong, I mean, maybe your original scans are more correct? Anyway, here's an example from these original scans, tell me if this rings a bell:

“The Magic Triangle of the Pagan Theosophties is the celebrated … (for diagram, see: http://www27.us.archive.org/stream/cihm ... 2_djvu.txt) … to which they ascribed extraordinary virtues, and which they figured in an equilateral triangle [as depicted in the diagram in the link listed above]. Number of letters 66 = 6 plus 6 = 12 = 3 x 4 – 6 plus 6 plus 7 = 18 = 9 [; i,e.,] 666. This combinations of letters if the Key of the Pentagram. The initial A is repeated in the single word five times and reproduced in the whole figure thirty times. which gives the elements and numbers of the two figures No. 5 and No. 6. The isolated A represents the Unity of the first principle, or of the Intellectual or Active Agent. The A united with the B represents the fecundation of the Binary by Unity. The R is the sign of the Ternary, b, because it hierographically represents the effusion that results form the union of two principles. The number of letters in the single word (11) adds on (Unity) of the Initiate to the denary of Pythagoras; and the whole number of all the letters added together is 66. Kabalistically 6 plus 6 forms the number 12, the number of a sqare whereof each side is the Ternary 3, and consequently the mystic quadrature of the Circle. The author of the Apocolypse that–of the Christian Kabala has made up the number of the Beast, that is to say of Idolatry, by adding 6 to the double senary (66–making 666) of the Abracadabra, which Kabalistically ( 6 plus 6 plus 6) gives 18, the number assigned to the Jarot to the hieroglyphic sign of the Night and of the Profane. The Moon with the towers, the Dog, the Wolf, and the Crab,–a mysterious and obscure number, the Kabalistic Key of which is 9, the number of initiation … On this subject the sacred Kabalist says: ‘Let him who has understanding (that is to say, the Key of the Kabalistic numbers) calculate the number of the Best, for it is the number of a Man, and this number is 666′. (Rev. xiii, 18). This is in fact the decade of Pythagoras multiplied by itself, and added to the sum of the triangular Pentacle of the Abracadabra; it is therefore the summary of all magic in the ancient world; the entire programme of the human genius, which the divine genius of the Gospel wish to absorb or supplant.”

Source: “Luciferinism or Satanism in English Freemasonry An Essay”; L. Fouquet, O.M.I; Part 2; Montreal Cadiuex & Dermoe, 1603 Rue Notre Dame, year 1898; pages 71 & 72

Oh, and look at that, this text proves that the mathematical system used by Freemasons is a very different form of math. I guess this means that once again, the Freemasons DID BELIEVE that the book of Ezequiel described the 'perfect cubit'. Oh yes, and as for your "nobody measured time using cubits", you might want to research the Freemasonry belief about the "gravity cubit", as it turns out, Freemasons believed that the cubit was a measure of time. If you speak to a Freemason today, I can almost guarantee you that they no longer believe the same things as they believed in the 1700s and 1800s. Freemasonry in 2012 is not the Freemasonry of Joseph Smith's day, and it's the Freemasonry of Joseph Smith's day that provides definitive proof that Mormonism is a fraud. So much for your academics.

Anyway, I look forward to learning more about the version of Freemasonry that you supposedly know better than I do, Thanks.

[_SteelHead]

Robert,
The problem is you work the process backwards. You have an immutable conclusion and then you force the facts, as poorly as the do, to fit.

As evidence, you stated that some of the narrative in the Book of Mormon is hyperbole. How much of the original narrative do I have to abandon as hyperbole to make the narrative contained therein fit with the actual observable facts?

To make the Jaredites fit as the Olmecs we would have to abandon:
Global flood
Tower of Babel
Jaredite Submarines
The western hemisphere vacant and preserved when the Jaredites arrive
among others

To make the Nephites fit in meso America we have to abandon:
The destruction of the Jaredites
Horses
Chariots
Steel swords
Silk
Lehi as the father of the American Indians
and a whole lot more

When abandoning a huge amount of the narrative as hyperbole to make the narrative fit as facts............ well how is that a philosophical defense?

If the Book of Mormon is fantasy, it is impossible for such evidence to exist!!

Is truly specious as the world is full of interesting statistical anomalies, strange coincidences and cultural parallels. I can provide the same type of linguistic and historical coincidences and parallels for Tolkien's elves being Jewish precursors. Did you ever read Dath J's Italy as the true setting for the Book of Mormon theory? It is a better philosophical argument than any you have yet proffered.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13858

This is the type of logic employed to offer cultural paralels between the Book of Mormon and meso america as evidence:

[_Philo Sofee]

LDS President John Taylor said that "The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being." (Taylor, An Examination into and an Elucidation of the Great Principle of the Mediation and Atonement of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co., 1882], 201).[

And Mormon scholar Brant Gardner has simply destroyed this myopic non-revelatory speculation of Taylor. Why spout the man's speculation when it serves your purpose but ignore the far more careful, realistic, and verifiable work of Gardner which has demonstrated without question that the "White God" MYTH in Mesoamerica has exactly nothing to do with any kind of Savior, let alone Jesus?[

Brant Gardner is a fine, well-trained anthropologist, and you would do well to read his detailed commentary on the Book of Mormon. I know and respect him. That doesn't mean that we agree on everything. Perhaps when you finish his commentary you will then tell me that you believe everything he says and spend your time defending the Book of Mormon the way he does. Hoo-Raa! And semper fi.

Neither you nor Gardner are required to accept the statement of Pres. Taylor. However, before you reject the notion, at least read the professional literature on the subject. That is why I cited it for you.

I have been reading in Gardner's commentary, (there is a LOT of writing in that set of commentaries to read eh?!) and am well aware of the literature dealing with the "white god" in Mesoamerica. It's not a white god. It is no savior figure. Give it up. To quote Taylor from the late 1800's is totally useless to establish anything about Mesoamerica, let alone Quetzalcoatl. I strongly believe that.

[Guest]

--Rethunk the way I want to state this, see below---

[_SteelHead]

If one of the Tolkien races is a precursor of the Jews it was the Elves. Due to the tight correlation between Sindarian names and the Jewish language it is impossible for them to not have existed.


I guess my problem is with this:

due to the tight correlations between the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican archeology, it is impossible for them not to have existed

There are no tight correlations for either of the above cases, or correlation is not causation. Take your pick.

[_moksha]

If one of the Tolkien races is a precursor of the Jews it was the Elves. Due to the tight correlation between Sindarian names and the Jewish language it is impossible for them to not have existed.

Add to that Tolkien's usage of old Norse and Germanic stories and names, then we are drawn to the inescapable conclusion that we are true by virtue of recognizing a blond Jesus.

Are any of you descended from the tribe of Bombadil?

[_LittleNipper]

[ Think past your emotions. The fact is that native Christians were almost unheard of in that area of the world until the Koren War. There was a sizable conversion in a relatively short period of time. And yes --- prior to the late sixties /early seventies, protestant nations were noted for a large middle class. Most Roman Catholic countries had rich and poor. The Irish and Italians didn't come to America in the millions because things were great for them in the "Old" country.

Uh, a lot of Irish came because of a famine. You're not suggesting Catholicism was to blame for the famine, are you?

You're not suggesting that they actually owned that land, are you?

[_Themis]

One assumes the parallels selected should be of high quality and that they be convincing to any reasonable person.

They are of course of much higher value then those that are not. Reasonable can be very subjective. I know some can be very reasonable and smart on many issues like Donald Trump, while at the same time is very unreasonable on things like where Obama was born and what religion he belongs to.

That sets the bar pretty high. Furthermore, legitimate parallels are actually difficult to find. That is what scholarship is all about.

You hit the nail on the head with the use of legitimate. Many parallels can be made that are not legitimate.

As to the unlikely nature of the Brass Plates and Gold Plates (I don't believe that they have been ignored), perhaps you noticed above that I used the improbability of the larger Book of Mormon story (finding of the plates, and the contents of the Book of Mormon itself) as the key to its best philosophical defense, i.e., the mere existence of the Bible seems more probable due to its having been transmitted through time, while the Book of Mormon seems quite improbable.

My reference to the plates has to do with the amount of text being put onto a small amount of plates, as well as we don't see any examples of this.

There is only one problem: Since the Book of Mormon contains far too many verifiable marks of authenticity, its very improbable nature becomes a defense of the miracles it contains as well as the miracle of its coming forth, and therefore also makes miracles in the Bible more plausible and probable.

Of course, if you are unaware of those verifiable marks of authenticity, and wish to reject them automatically, you will not be influenced by this line of argument.

Like some others here, I would also be interested in what these verifiable marks of authenticity are. I am aware of many claims from Fair or Farms, but they usually don't work out. An example would be Quetzalcoatl. You even have a problem of convincing some apologists, one of whom is one of the most knowledgeable in the apologetic community on Meso-America.