EdGoble wrote: I'm sure that you are familiar with the Mormon concept. And yes, you are not forced to make any choice. You can make any choice you please and you are never forced by any evidence of any kind to choose to suspend judgement of facts. You people may claim that you are forced by some sort of evidence into a certain position, but that would be a pure statement of falsehood.
If a trained and recognized Egyptologist comes up with completely different translations than Joseph Smith, I *am* forced by that evidence to be suspicious of Smith. That is not a "pure statement of falsehood", Ed. Not in this universe. That's recognizing the authority of qualified people. The Rosetta stone wasn't discovered yesterday.
Yes, "you people"--we are the ones who ask questions, find answers and make things work in this world. We don't stand around with our fingers up our, er, noses, coming up with more and more elaborate stories to try to excuse ourselves from admitting error. We don't use circular reasoning and special pleading and endless redefinitions and a host of other fallacies that are somehow redeemed from their absurdity by being in the service of the peculiar and clearly outdated mythology of one's ancestral tribe. Mormonism is a wonderful source of traditions and identity but fails as a competitor with secular knowledge. Best to not fight that battle.
EdGoble wrote: You people may claim that you are forced by some sort of evidence into a certain position, but that would be a pure statement of falsehood. You choose the epistemology by which you judge value, and you also choose to be swayed by something.
I don't understand this. Can you give me an example of some belief I might choose (outside of religion, of course) that evidence does not influence?
EdGoble wrote: You people may claim that you are forced by some sort of evidence into a certain position, but that would be a pure statement of falsehood. You choose the epistemology by which you judge value, and you also choose to be swayed by something.
I am forced to believe, because of evidence, that I will not be able to hold my breath for more than a half hour, tomorrow morning after breakfast.
Themis wrote:Your problem is not with me. It is with a hypothesis that has no evidence. You cannot even get believing members to really accept you have something here. There is no evidence the people preparing the papyri ever intended to add some other meaning to it, and no reason to. If they wanted a Book of Abraham story recorded they would have written one and thrown it in. If you cannot convince those who want to believe in Joseph, then how much evidence do you really have. I'm open minded but it is clear this is no more then speculation/possibility making. I know you hope to get more and good luck to you.
Thanks for that, but it remains to be seen how many Mormons my information will be helpful to. The feedback I get is mixed, as expected. Some give high amounts of praise. Others are just ho hum. And so, it is what it is. If I have helped some to not turn away from the Church, because my ideas are more plausible than say, Missing Papyrus theory, then all the stuff I have gone through will have been worth it, because I sacrificed my time and effort and went through a lot of heartache and personal sacrifice in the rescuing of the one that may have been otherwise separated from the ninety and nine. In a way, this is a rescue effort as much as any type of effort in reactivation. I just feel a call toward the far more complex cases, so to speak. I can speak to a bitter apostate and communicate to them in ways that a regular Chapel Mormon could never do, because I share a fundamental thing in common with you all, and that is, I've had my own faith crisis and reconstruction. All Mormons, whether post Mormon or reconstructed-faith Mormon have been through that, and can relate on that level. The difference between me and most is that it happened to me in 1986, and I've had 30 years of reconstruction of faith. For most people, especially Millennials, it happened just relatively recently.
And how many are just humoring. I'm not a bitter apostate. I still attend on occasion and have no problem associating with members and even defending the church on some claims. Why is it such a common tale from LDS defenders that they went through their own faith crisis as though this makes a better case for the church.
EdGoble wrote:I'm sure that you are familiar with the Mormon concept. And yes, you are not forced to make any choice. You can make any choice you please and you are never forced by any evidence of any kind to choose to suspend judgement of facts. You people may claim that you are forced by some sort of evidence into a certain position, but that would be a pure statement of falsehood. You choose the epistemology by which you judge value, and you also choose to be swayed by something. This much is all objectively true regardless of coming from Mormonism.
I cannot believe Joseph's claims as true anymore then I can choose to believe the earth is 6000 years old. I would always know in my mind what the evidence or lack thereof is pointing to. I think one has much more of a choice to believe when the evidence is more vague. Kinds like intelligent alien life out there in the universe. I like to believe there is, but I know the evidence is not clear. I choose the epistemology that is much more objective then internal feelings/sensations and thoughts we then interpret with our world view in mind. Too much evidence of people making some terrible choices and wacky beliefs based on a very subjective experiences.
Maksutov wrote:If a trained and recognized Egyptologist comes up with completely different translations than Joseph Smith, I *am* forced by that evidence to be suspicious of Smith. That is not a "pure statement of falsehood", Ed. Not in this universe. That's recognizing the authority of qualified people. The Rosetta stone wasn't discovered yesterday.
And we have many trained Egyptologists to rely on. In fact it is even better because some of these trained are active LDS believers. They confirm what the other experts are saying.
grindael wrote:This is pure gobbledegook. You could not explain this coherently to anyone if you tried. It's all jargon that has no meaning whatsover in relation to the KEP.
Nice. Thanks so much for the in-depth analysis.
He is very knowledgeable about these issues, but can be rather blunt. I haven't seen any relation to the KEP either. At least not such that has evidence showing a dual meaning, legend, cipher, etc is actually going on from an ancient source. The simplest explanation is Joseph attaching meaning to different parts of the papyri to come up with a Book of Abraham story that we know today do not match up at all with the Egyptian translations of it.
Morley wrote:I am forced to believe, because of evidence, that I will not be able to hold my breath for more than a half hour, tomorrow morning after breakfast.
I believe I can safely say I will not get close to 5 min. Maybe not even 1 min.
EG wrote: You people may claim that you are forced by some sort of evidence into a certain position, but that would be a pure statement of falsehood. You choose the epistemology by which you judge value, and you also choose to be swayed by something.
That's as close to a self-description as I have ever seen from you, Ed.
