zerinus wrote:honorentheos wrote:zerinus -
Knowledge is justified, true belief. Since we're wiki-ing our philosophy, simple.
Thank you! I accept that as a good definition of "knowledge," or what it means to "know" something.So, let's get you back to justified, true belief regarding the Book of Mormon as it is, was, and is to come.
I'm interested in seeing you demonstrate the truth-value of your proposition, "The Book of Mormon is true." Show us what you got.
I have the testimony of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. That means that I know by the power of the Holy Ghost, or by a personal revelation from God to myself that it is true. By "true" I mean all of the following:- It is true history.
- It was revealed by an angel.
- It was translated by the power of God.
- It teaches correct doctrine.
- It is scripture.
- It is the word of God.
Let's try and organize this discussion a little bit.
If we take your first ordered item, "The Book of Mormon is true history", IHAQ may consent to us deconstructing his counter-postulate and stating, "The Book of Mormon is not true history."
Since the two postulates can’t both have the truth-value of being true, and we’ve accepted that knowledge requires justification of one’s belief, perhaps we can look at what one relies on to do the heavy lifting?
Your postulate is carried, in your own words, by this:
I know by the power of the Holy Ghost, or by a personal revelation from God to myself that it is true.Your justification for your belief (in order to determine if it is true and therefore qualifies as actual knowledge) appears to be a feeling that you subjectively experienced. Ok.
The counter-proposition that the Book of Mormon is not true history includes:
Claims that the New World peoples had technologies and cultural artifacts not found in the archeological record. This includes weapons, armaments, metallurgy of a type not found in the Americas before the European discoveries. It includes crops, construction practices, population sizes, militaries of a size not seen in the old world outside of China, domesticed animals, a monetary system…all of which are not attested in the historical record.
It also describes Jaredite submarines, the introduction of the honey bee, magic glowing rocks. It proclaims Christianity was a major religion in the Americas before Christ was even born though neither Judaism or Christian beliefs are evidence in the anthropological surveys of past American cultures.
It does, on the other hand, include many cultural beliefs about the native americans popular in the 19th century that have been proven wrong. It includes theological arguments and proposes resolutions for these problems that were common to the time of Joseph Smith. It takes 19th century theories about the archeological record and codifies them into a narrative claimed to be authentitic. But since these theories have been overturned it appears completely justified to see their presence in the Book of Mormon as evidence of 19th century origin.
If justification is required for a belief to also be reasonably considered true, and for a person to be able to claim knowledge, it seems the counter-postulate, “the Book of Mormon is not true history” is the reasonable one with a truth-value of “true”.
Your counter argument, zerinus?
