Yes, but it also signals that MG realizes that those apologetic lies have been debunked and that some new outrageous excuse is needed, such as a serialization of a fictional story to gain readership for the Times and Seasons. Even outrageous excuses are sufficient as long as a snoring membership buys into it.
Of course MG also knows the Book of Moses was first canonized along with the Book of Abraham in 1880 by President Taylor. Smith never canonized it but published the chapters in the Evening and Morning Star and Times and Seasons as revelations from God. Do you suppose MG considers them fictional stories too? I can easily imagine Joseph Smith excommunicating MG for his apostate views and for publicly making a mockery of what Smith claimed was true.
I move that MG's name be stricken from the records of the Church and he be cast out!
MG does not tie the idea of "midrash or riff" as being the result of intentionally lying and dismissing the Holy Spirit. There is no way in hell MG is ever going to confess that Joseph was lying!
I think conceding that the Book of Abraham was BS is tantamount to admitting that Joseph Smith made the whole translation business up as a way to bamboozle his followers.
Dan Vogel would consider this a pious fraud because the end result was better than no one understanding the papyri at all, and it added to the world's Sci-Fi and Fantasy collection at that time.
Oh, I see. Joseph Smith's musings were a prerunner to Battefield Earth. Makes much more sense now. BS begets BS!
"Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving god, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs." Sam Harris
The approach taken of asking questions in that blog apparently is one exemplified as, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
In my own experience when trying legal cases to a jury, the jurors resist being told by lawyers what they should do before they have heard the evidence and come to that same conclusion on their own. Only after they see the light on their own is it persuasive to then vocalize that conclusion. You can bludgeon them with a club, but you cannot make them agree with you. Show them the way, and they will follow--tell them where to go, and they'll usually do the opposite.
Fair enough. I would love to see MG answer each of the six (6) questions you posed above with 1-3 paragraph explanations.
Do you think our Book of Mormon horse will drink?
Ah, I see what you did there. Subtle. Yes, my folly was using a horse. So, it properly reduces to, "Do you think our Book of Mormon tapir will drink?"
"Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving god, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs." Sam Harris
