I’d want to see some or all of the points brought up here addressed. For example:
The detailed history and civilization described in the Book of Mormon does not correspond to anything found by archaeologists anywhere in the Americas. The Book of Mormon describes a civilization lasting for a thousand years, covering both North and South America, which was familiar with horses, elephants, cattle, sheep, wheat, barley, steel, wheeled vehicles, shipbuilding, sails, coins, and other elements of Old World culture. But no trace of any of these supposedly very common things has ever been found in the Americas of that period. Nor does the Book of Mormon mention many of the features of the civilizations which really did exist at that time in the Americas. The LDS church has spent millions of dollars over many years trying to prove through archaeological research that the Book of Mormon is an accurate historical record, but they have failed to produce any convincing pre-columbian archeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon story. In addition, whereas the Book of Mormon presents the picture of a relatively homogeneous people, with a single language and communication between distant parts of the Americas, the pre-columbian history of the Americas shows the opposite: widely disparate racial types (almost entirely east Asian—definitely not Semitic, as proven by recent DNA studies), and many unrelated native languages, none of which are even remotely related to Hebrew or Egyptian.
The source is overtly an ex-Mormon site. But if Mormon doctrine is what they say it is, and the archeology is what they say it is, then it woudn’t look good for Mormonism.
Many of of the claims in the quote aren’t true or are misleading.
There are about 60 things that the Book of Mormon claims to have existed in the New World in the designated timeframe, about 8 of which were known to exist in 1830. Between now and then, how many would you expect now to have been found? I’m going to put the rest of this on the next comment; estimate and then read the next one to see how close you were.
I know your prior is that “well, obviously religion isn’t true, so this is probably true,” but be a bit more careful.
Actually, while Mormons reading the book thought (and many still think) the book covers the whole continent, textual analysis shows otherwise. That is, basically looking at how many days journeys take (pdf), and so forth, narrows it down to about a 100x200 mile region. There are repeated hints in the text of other people living nearby. But we shouldn’t expect an in-depth discussion of other groups of people – this is a Mesoamerican tribal history, not a modern history.
And the answer to the above question is 35 have been found, along with 10 that are tentative. The second link is a long article; the first is a short summary.
And the answer to the above question is 35 have been found, along with 10 that are tentative. The second link is a long article; the first is a short summary.
Are you referring to my question? You may want to quote questions for clarity. Use ‘>’
Quoting a Mormon archaeologist. The link is in my next post. He doesn’t give the full list in the link but he gives ~20% of it. I will write him and ask for the full list.
To be frank, I would have been much more impressed if a young, ambitious non-Mormon anthropologist had used the Book of Mormon as a cheat sheet to make new discoveries in order to get tenure and fame. That would have been interesting. A religious believer reading his chosen “scripture” and retroactively adjusting his view of the historical record to match is not new. The other religions—the ones to which you did not choose to convert—do the same thing. You know they do.
A religious believer reading his chosen “scripture” and retroactively adjusting his view of the historical record to match is not new. The other religions—the ones to which you did not choose to convert—do the same thing. You know they do.
That is true, good point.
To be frank, I would have been much more impressed if a young, ambitious non-Mormon anthropologist had used the Book of Mormon as a cheat sheet to make new discoveries in order to get tenure and fame. That would have been interesting
It would. Keep in mind though that in the social sciences a lot of research is data-driven rather than hypothesis-driven. My economics professor was explaining last week that most recent good papers in economic history have come because someone got their hands on an interesting data set and then asked ‘what can I do with this?’, rather than thinking of a clever hypothesis and then looking for a data set to test it out.
Only slightly facetiously, why aren’t you studying to be an archeologist or geneticist then? If in your judgment there is a substantial gap in scientific knowledge and it isn’t being filled for whatever reasons, why aren’t you pursuing it?
I don’t think the animal or plant life claims are that important. Maybe they were evidence against before, but with new discoveries, their mention is neutral. It’s not like Smith was consciously defying an establishment when he said there was barley in the Americas. I’m also willing to accept that God or Smith might have taken license in translating these terms. The question of whether or not the Nephites had horses pales in comparison to the implication that modern genetics is wrong.
The basic claim of the Book of Mormon is that Jews settled in the Americas, established a fairly large civilization, and most Amerinds are partially descended from them. It’s not like these are disputed, minority positions in academia; they aren’t even on the radar.
I have to say, to your great credit, you seem to be attempting to answer these questions in good faith so far. If you want to stay a Mormon in good standing, you should watch out! If you carry your honesty much further, it will do nothing but get you into trouble with your chosen faith. Remember, we can always check your statements with the local stake or with the Mormon church at large. Do you trust your church to be as rational as you might choose to be?
Religious doctrines have huge differences, or at least they seem so different to the believers as to result in persecution and terrorism and wars. The methods that big organized hierarchical religions employ to enforce conformity are...less so. There’s no uniformity without a text. There’s no text without a whole lot of big, obvious stupefying whoppers. In the context of organized religions, there are no stupefying whopping lies without otherwise brilliant apologists, performing amazing feats of logical contortion in order to justify and reconcile the stupid lies with which they are burdened.
By coming to LessWrong and courageously presenting himself as a believing Mormon and facing the criticism of his religion, calcsam is now at a crossroads. He can attempt to answer the criticism fairly and rationally. Or, he can defend the faith he has chosen, using the time-honored techniques of pipul and casuistry.
If calcsam wants to stay a member of the Mormon church in good standing, as authorized by the authorities in Salt Lake City, then he is on a leash held by those authorities. He is not at liberty to liberalize the doctrine, which might enable him (temporarily) to avoid facing the choice between fact and fiction. I hope he breaks from his leash. I don’t want the discussion on LessWrong to let him pretend he can lengthen that leash, when in fact he can’t. I don’t want to let him say that Mormon people are nice and decent (which I would concede, in plenty of instances—but not all) and therefore Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don’t want to let him say that Mormonism is just a general instruction to be nice to people. It’s not. I want him to feel choked by his own espoused doctrine. I didn’t choose it for him. I want him to want to be free of it. I want him to choose to be free of it.
the time-honored techniques of pipul and casuistry.
I don’t understand what you are saying here. Can you please elaborate? Since I do try and defend my faith you should be able to come up with examples of me doing whatever you are implying here, using those as examples would be helpful for me to understand what you see as wrong. I have reason to believe you have recently looked at a majority of my posts so you should be familiar with them, if not then any other example would be helpful.
As you must know, this was not a comment about you specifically at all. However, if the shoe fits, you can put it on if you want.
You’re speaking up on behalf of a religious organization of which you are a member. Your organization claims that a certain unchanging text from the past is extra-specially true and supports your particular organization. You are incapable of providing any remotely sensible reason why we should think this particular text is special in any way. You would really prefer to talk about why your particular text is internally consistent, and also consistent with what objective data shows. When faced with evidence that your text is not internally consistent, and does not reflect reality, you will retreat into increasingly strenuous logical silliness.
I’m not speaking so much about you personally as about your legions of predecessors and colleagues in all sorts of religions. I take you for one of a long, long, line. I don’t think you have anything new. They never do. Predict something in advance, on the public record, that actually comes true, then you will have my attention.
Where is it not internally consistent? Seriously, you aren’t the first person on Less Wrong even to claim internal contradictions in my faith but so far no one has given me anything.
remotely sensible reason why we should think this particular text is special in any way
You seem familiar with the normal sensible reasons of why you should think this particular text is special and have already discounted those reasons as being invalid.
increasingly strenuous logical silliness.
example of this please?
certain unchanging text
define unchanging? There have been numerous copy errors that have been fixed and some mismatches of names and other such things in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. Also, our canon is not closed but open so it is subject to additions at any time.
Predict something in advance, on the public record, that actually comes true
I have done my best to give examples of this having happened, even within the last 50 years. I have also gone on the public record with predictions for the future. I have also given a specific formula that can be used to receive answers about the truthfulness of anything I say.
Predict something in advance, on the public record, that actually comes true
I do not claim to be a prophet for anyone other then myself, so any prediction I were to make would just be a prediction based on my own understanding of things and thus highly likely to be wrong. I will go through the public talks of the current prophet and pull up something if you wish, most likely it will be of limited scope and therefore not impressive to you.
However, if the shoe fits, you can put it on if you want.
I suffered a rather large drop in karma from one point being taken away from all my posts after responding to one of your posts and very shortly afterwards you make the previous post. I made an assumption of what had happened and if I was wrong then I am sorry for that assumption.
edit copy and past of the quotes was messed up. fixed it so they are in the right places.
For what its worth, I personally haven’t touched your karma on this site one way or the other.
I think you want to engage me in a discussion of the particulars of your specific faith. I had hoped to convey this in my prior post, but your faith is just one of many, many others vying for my attention. As it happens, I’ve looked at a bit of Mormon doctrine, and wasn’t impressed. I know that, right now, you want to jump up and talk about Mormon doctrine in great length. But think about it from my perspective! You represent only one of many, many sects, all vying for my time and attention. You seem like just the rest of them. Much more to the point—I’m not in the market for a new religion. I abandoned my old one a long time ago, and haven’t missed it.
Finally, with regard to the prophet point, you said:
I do not claim to be a prophet for anyone other then myself, so any prediction I were to make would just be a prediction based on my own understanding of things and thus highly likely to be wrong. I will go through the public talks of the current prophet and pull up something if you wish, most likely it will be of limited scope and therefore not impressive to you.
If you have nothing to say, then say nothing. Unless you have some real smoking gun, conclusively demonstrating the veracity of some claimed prophet, you should just forget about it.
For what its worth, I personally haven’t touched your karma on this site one way or the other.
Okay then, sorry for thinking it was you. I mostly get upset when that happens because whoever did it doesn’t take the time to tell me why I am wrong. This isn’t the first time it has happened.
I think you want to engage me in a discussion of the particulars of your specific faith.
Given the assumption that I had made and your other comments on the subject I was looking for a chance to explain myself and to force you to defend your claims against me (as I saw it) and my faith. If you claim it to be internally inconsistent then prove it to be, if it isn’t internally inconsistent then don’t claim it is.
Further, I do enjoy debating with people about the subject but also know it to be fairly pointless. For me, it is fun and when I have had a rough week or something surprisingly relaxing. I should clarify that debating with people that know what and why they believe in something is fun, most people don’t and that is just frustrating.
If you aren’t attacking me in specific and don’t enjoy such discussions then the only thing you have said that I would like explained is the internal inconsistency you see.
Unless you have some real smoking gun, conclusively demonstrating the veracity of some claimed prophet
What archaeological evidence should we expect to find if the Book of Mormon is true?
And what archaeological evidence should we expect to find if the Book of Mormon is not true?
I’d want to see some or all of the points brought up here addressed. For example:
The source is overtly an ex-Mormon site. But if Mormon doctrine is what they say it is, and the archeology is what they say it is, then it woudn’t look good for Mormonism.
Many of of the claims in the quote aren’t true or are misleading.
There are about 60 things that the Book of Mormon claims to have existed in the New World in the designated timeframe, about 8 of which were known to exist in 1830. Between now and then, how many would you expect now to have been found? I’m going to put the rest of this on the next comment; estimate and then read the next one to see how close you were.
I know your prior is that “well, obviously religion isn’t true, so this is probably true,” but be a bit more careful.
Here are the misleading points of the above quote.
The claim of elephants here is slightly misleading. Elephants are mentioned before the main 1000-year timeframe of the Book of Mormon, back in the 3rd millennium B.C. Discussion of mastodons or mammoths surviving that long.
Coins are not mentioned in the actual Book of Mormon text, it mentions a series of weights and measures.
Types of barley are in fact native to the Americas. (scroll down to foxtail barley and little barley)
Shipbuilding, horses
Actually, while Mormons reading the book thought (and many still think) the book covers the whole continent, textual analysis shows otherwise. That is, basically looking at how many days journeys take (pdf), and so forth, narrows it down to about a 100x200 mile region. There are repeated hints in the text of other people living nearby. But we shouldn’t expect an in-depth discussion of other groups of people – this is a Mesoamerican tribal history, not a modern history.
You may want to adjust your priors of archaeology. The Huns didn’t leave any horse remains.
And the answer to the above question is 35 have been found, along with 10 that are tentative. The second link is a long article; the first is a short summary.
Are you referring to my question? You may want to quote questions for clarity. Use ‘>’
Which particular limited geography theory do you personally subscribe to?
Are 60 and 8 your own figures, independently counted, or are you quoting a Mormon authority?
Quoting a Mormon archaeologist. The link is in my next post. He doesn’t give the full list in the link but he gives ~20% of it. I will write him and ask for the full list.
I’m not in a hurry.
To be frank, I would have been much more impressed if a young, ambitious non-Mormon anthropologist had used the Book of Mormon as a cheat sheet to make new discoveries in order to get tenure and fame. That would have been interesting. A religious believer reading his chosen “scripture” and retroactively adjusting his view of the historical record to match is not new. The other religions—the ones to which you did not choose to convert—do the same thing. You know they do.
That is true, good point.
It would. Keep in mind though that in the social sciences a lot of research is data-driven rather than hypothesis-driven. My economics professor was explaining last week that most recent good papers in economic history have come because someone got their hands on an interesting data set and then asked ‘what can I do with this?’, rather than thinking of a clever hypothesis and then looking for a data set to test it out.
Only slightly facetiously, why aren’t you studying to be an archeologist or geneticist then? If in your judgment there is a substantial gap in scientific knowledge and it isn’t being filled for whatever reasons, why aren’t you pursuing it?
I don’t think the animal or plant life claims are that important. Maybe they were evidence against before, but with new discoveries, their mention is neutral. It’s not like Smith was consciously defying an establishment when he said there was barley in the Americas. I’m also willing to accept that God or Smith might have taken license in translating these terms. The question of whether or not the Nephites had horses pales in comparison to the implication that modern genetics is wrong.
The basic claim of the Book of Mormon is that Jews settled in the Americas, established a fairly large civilization, and most Amerinds are partially descended from them. It’s not like these are disputed, minority positions in academia; they aren’t even on the radar.
A slight technicality, they weren’t Jews (being from Judah) but Israelites (being Ephraim and Manasseh).
I have to say, to your great credit, you seem to be attempting to answer these questions in good faith so far. If you want to stay a Mormon in good standing, you should watch out! If you carry your honesty much further, it will do nothing but get you into trouble with your chosen faith. Remember, we can always check your statements with the local stake or with the Mormon church at large. Do you trust your church to be as rational as you might choose to be?
I don’t understand why you posted that paragraph.
Religious doctrines have huge differences, or at least they seem so different to the believers as to result in persecution and terrorism and wars. The methods that big organized hierarchical religions employ to enforce conformity are...less so. There’s no uniformity without a text. There’s no text without a whole lot of big, obvious stupefying whoppers. In the context of organized religions, there are no stupefying whopping lies without otherwise brilliant apologists, performing amazing feats of logical contortion in order to justify and reconcile the stupid lies with which they are burdened.
By coming to LessWrong and courageously presenting himself as a believing Mormon and facing the criticism of his religion, calcsam is now at a crossroads. He can attempt to answer the criticism fairly and rationally. Or, he can defend the faith he has chosen, using the time-honored techniques of pipul and casuistry.
If calcsam wants to stay a member of the Mormon church in good standing, as authorized by the authorities in Salt Lake City, then he is on a leash held by those authorities. He is not at liberty to liberalize the doctrine, which might enable him (temporarily) to avoid facing the choice between fact and fiction. I hope he breaks from his leash. I don’t want the discussion on LessWrong to let him pretend he can lengthen that leash, when in fact he can’t. I don’t want to let him say that Mormon people are nice and decent (which I would concede, in plenty of instances—but not all) and therefore Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don’t want to let him say that Mormonism is just a general instruction to be nice to people. It’s not. I want him to feel choked by his own espoused doctrine. I didn’t choose it for him. I want him to want to be free of it. I want him to choose to be free of it.
I don’t understand what you are saying here. Can you please elaborate? Since I do try and defend my faith you should be able to come up with examples of me doing whatever you are implying here, using those as examples would be helpful for me to understand what you see as wrong. I have reason to believe you have recently looked at a majority of my posts so you should be familiar with them, if not then any other example would be helpful.
As you must know, this was not a comment about you specifically at all. However, if the shoe fits, you can put it on if you want.
You’re speaking up on behalf of a religious organization of which you are a member. Your organization claims that a certain unchanging text from the past is extra-specially true and supports your particular organization. You are incapable of providing any remotely sensible reason why we should think this particular text is special in any way. You would really prefer to talk about why your particular text is internally consistent, and also consistent with what objective data shows. When faced with evidence that your text is not internally consistent, and does not reflect reality, you will retreat into increasingly strenuous logical silliness.
I’m not speaking so much about you personally as about your legions of predecessors and colleagues in all sorts of religions. I take you for one of a long, long, line. I don’t think you have anything new. They never do. Predict something in advance, on the public record, that actually comes true, then you will have my attention.
Where is it not internally consistent? Seriously, you aren’t the first person on Less Wrong even to claim internal contradictions in my faith but so far no one has given me anything.
You seem familiar with the normal sensible reasons of why you should think this particular text is special and have already discounted those reasons as being invalid.
example of this please?
define unchanging? There have been numerous copy errors that have been fixed and some mismatches of names and other such things in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. Also, our canon is not closed but open so it is subject to additions at any time.
I have done my best to give examples of this having happened, even within the last 50 years. I have also gone on the public record with predictions for the future. I have also given a specific formula that can be used to receive answers about the truthfulness of anything I say.
I do not claim to be a prophet for anyone other then myself, so any prediction I were to make would just be a prediction based on my own understanding of things and thus highly likely to be wrong. I will go through the public talks of the current prophet and pull up something if you wish, most likely it will be of limited scope and therefore not impressive to you.
I suffered a rather large drop in karma from one point being taken away from all my posts after responding to one of your posts and very shortly afterwards you make the previous post. I made an assumption of what had happened and if I was wrong then I am sorry for that assumption.
edit copy and past of the quotes was messed up. fixed it so they are in the right places.
For what its worth, I personally haven’t touched your karma on this site one way or the other.
I think you want to engage me in a discussion of the particulars of your specific faith. I had hoped to convey this in my prior post, but your faith is just one of many, many others vying for my attention. As it happens, I’ve looked at a bit of Mormon doctrine, and wasn’t impressed. I know that, right now, you want to jump up and talk about Mormon doctrine in great length. But think about it from my perspective! You represent only one of many, many sects, all vying for my time and attention. You seem like just the rest of them. Much more to the point—I’m not in the market for a new religion. I abandoned my old one a long time ago, and haven’t missed it.
Finally, with regard to the prophet point, you said:
If you have nothing to say, then say nothing. Unless you have some real smoking gun, conclusively demonstrating the veracity of some claimed prophet, you should just forget about it.
Okay then, sorry for thinking it was you. I mostly get upset when that happens because whoever did it doesn’t take the time to tell me why I am wrong. This isn’t the first time it has happened.
Given the assumption that I had made and your other comments on the subject I was looking for a chance to explain myself and to force you to defend your claims against me (as I saw it) and my faith. If you claim it to be internally inconsistent then prove it to be, if it isn’t internally inconsistent then don’t claim it is.
Further, I do enjoy debating with people about the subject but also know it to be fairly pointless. For me, it is fun and when I have had a rough week or something surprisingly relaxing. I should clarify that debating with people that know what and why they believe in something is fun, most people don’t and that is just frustrating.
If you aren’t attacking me in specific and don’t enjoy such discussions then the only thing you have said that I would like explained is the internal inconsistency you see.
What would count as a real smoking gun, for you?
I fail to see why him being honest will get him into trouble being that one of the basic beliefs of the LDS Church is honesty.
The claim is that it is perfectly rational and that, even if there currently is not, there will be answers for everything.
It seems silly to say this, but Costanza probably believes that Mormonism, as a claim, is nigh-impossible.
Not this one.