Commentary: Discussion on Mormonism

[rcronk]

Perhaps we can look at this in terms of a computer. It has peripherals that provide the ability for input and output. It has a CPU and memory. So, if there's something out in reality that the computer detects, like my fingers hitting keys right now, it receives a hopefully accurate signal from the keyboard that goes through an interrupt into the CPU and eventually into memory somewhere. There could be a mistake in the keyboard that could detect a "M" when I really typed "W". That could be stored in memory and it would be incorrect. There could also be a problem with the CPU itself that could translate the correct "W" into an "@" and that would be stored in memory. So we have senses and we have a brain that interprets our sensory input. There are other peripherals that use a technique called DMA, where they can stuff information directly into memory without it having to go through the CPU, for example.

What I'm saying is that God can directly place information into "memory" that is not required to go through senses and reasoning - it's just there. And it is now possessed by the memory. We could validate the authenticity or truthfulness of the knowledge through something like public key encryption in the computer world and there is a hint of something like this in Mormon doctrine as far as validating authenticity goes.

It's been explained as being spirit to spirit, which leaves out the physical defect aspect of it.

I really don't know how it's done. That's just my best try at throwing out an example to convey how I think it might be done.

Because 10 people say they know something and they are deceived tells me about how people can be deceived. That's good information to know, but it doesn't give me knowledge about my own experience, it just gives me things to keep in mind to avoid being deceived as those people have been.

I agree to disagree with you on this.

You say that "There is no homunculus viewing a screen that transcends our brain and even if there were the problem would then just become recursive." In doing so, you've stated something that you cannot prove and then implied that if there's anything that you can't understand that it must not be able to exist - that human logic is perfect. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you.

 

[RandFan]

What I'm saying is that God can directly place information into "memory" that is not required to go through senses and reasoning - it's just there. And it is now possessed by the memory. We could validate the authenticity or truthfulness of the knowledge through something like public key encryption in the computer world and there is a hint of something like this in Mormon doctrine as far as validating authenticity goes.

A coded message would be great. This was an important point of the book Contact by Carl Sagan (see A message from God in pi). I know of no such hint in Mormonism. I'd gladly accept such a code.

It's been explained as being spirit to spirit, which leaves out the physical defect aspect of it.

But others have had these spirit manifestation and the message was different than yours. The people knew that they were right only it must be wrong because you know that you are right.

Because 10 people say they know something and they are deceived tells me about how people can be deceived. That's good information to know, but it doesn't give me knowledge about my own experience, it just gives me things to keep in mind to avoid being deceived as those people have been.

And how would you do that?

You say that "There is no homunculus viewing a screen that transcends our brain and even if there were the problem would then just become recursive." In doing so, you've stated something that you cannot prove and then implied that if there's anything that you can't understand that it must not be able to exist.

No, not at all. If we assume that there is another entity that is doing the perceiving then we have not explained anything. It's just saying "a miracle happens". Please to explain how this miracle happens? What about the spirit makes it perceptive? Why is it that the spirit is incapable of memory? Or, why is it that when specific parts of the brain are damaged the spirit loses memory? Why is it that when certain parts of the brain are damaged a person loses cognitive ability or dramatically changes personality?

Everything we know about an individual is directly related to the brain. We can study and understand these things from a scientific perspective. We don't need a homunculus (spirit) to explain memory, personality, cognitive function, perception, empathy, emotion, etc..

We are, demonstrably, our brain. I could bit by bit change your personality, take away your ability to store memories, change who you are fundamentally and I could do it all by changing your brain and not touching your spirit.

To say that the spirit holds the knowledge is at best contradictory to our understanding and at worst it tells us absolutely nothing.

 

[articulett]

Wow, I feel like faith makes people very confused about facts versus feelings-- and subjective notions and objective evidence.

When you "know" you love your kid... that actually corresponds with brain states we can see, and actions we can measure... and the only thing we can say that is true for everyone is "randfan appears to love his kid"-- But the stuff you know is not true for everyone. We can just say that rconk believes he knows that Joe Smith was a prophet just as other people believe they were abducted by aliens. Neither allows us to extrapolate your conclusion or theirs.

We do KNOW that people are deluded about this kind of stuff all the time. We don't know that there any gods or divine knowledge or prophets or magical gold plates or that your subjective experiences are worth diddley squat for understanding the truth. To me they are interesting in a scary sort of way... the way people can be so sure... and so wrong... like the hijackers.

Until someone can illustrate that faith or belief can bring actual knowledge in any manner, I will go with what has been proven-- faith, belief, confirmation bias, and confusing correlation with causation and opinion with fact are KNOWN ways that people fool themselves and others. So is pretending to know what the creator of the universe wants.

As Micheal Shermer (former evangelical; current atheist) notes, smart people are better at finding and propping up reasons for believing crazy things, but they sure aren't immune from them. The hijackers were all above average in education and the Heavens Gate crowd was web design literate. I suspect smarter people are just a lot less likely to conclude they can be fooled. That's why I really like James Randi. He can fool anyone-- which is damn humbling.

I can only shake my head at what some guys are sure they "know" and how much current information and actual factual evidence and understanding they lack.

How the book of Mormon came to be is a fact that is the same for everyone. That is true for all religions. The facts don't necessarily follow the stories about how the millions of assorted religions and sects came to be. The stories themselves are not likely to be factual at all. But you guys assume you know the truth behind the book of Mormon-- god inspired it, etc.-- and I think the evidence is pretty clear that a lot more prosaic explanation is likely--just like for all the religions you don't believe in. And even when you don't know where various religions or myths came from-- that doesn't mean you accept the story their believers tell you about it-- for obvious reasons. What is wrong with you guys? We live in a world where humans are absolutely known to make up this kind of stuff all the time! And the evidence does not support anything supernatural or divine going on.

 

[Elind]

My arguments have been against incorrect information. For example, many have said that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. I brought evidence that disproves that incorrect assertion. I never suggested that "it therefore" came from God – never, not once. The only purpose of bringing up that evidence was to correct the incorrect assertions being put forth. That's all.

I wish you would answer or clarify the above in italics. Do you or do you not believe that the plates/BoM came from God, even though you claim you never said so before? (let's not get too hung up on "therefore")

 

[Pixel42]

I assert that God can give knowledge - and the knowledge of its truthfulness - to a person without them having to interpret it at all - it is known inherently

You are talking about interpreting the knowledge you are given, and say that no interpretation is necessary. Fine. I am talking about interpreting the subjective experience that gives you that knowledge. Your interpretation of your subjective experience as God giving you knowledge may or may not be the correct one. That's the first question. How can you be sure you aren't just auto-suggesting yourself into neurochemical changes that produce the experience? How do you know it isn't Satan giving you this knowledge?

I am listening and I get what you are saying. I promise.

You clearly aren't, if you think I am talking about whether or not you need to interpret the knowledge you are given.

 

[articulett]

I think the underlying meme that makes some religions so scary is that if "faith" is good-- then extreme faith is better. So they tell themselves that if their faith can withstand all sorts of scrutiny and they can find reasons to explain away all objections, it must make it more "true" and more "reward worthy". I'm guessing that is what happens when you see seemingly intelligent people doing or believing or promoting crazy things and ideals.

It's so impervious. And I think it all rests on this inane notion that "faith" and "belief" is good. The evidence just doesn't show that it's good for anything except manipulating oneself and others. It discourages dissent and honest exploration and doubt-- as those are signs of "lesser faith"-- the thing most necessary for salvation according to the most mentally manipulative religions. Even if good comes from this, the whole notion is so scary--it can make men do some crazy things and justify it all the way. The overall potential and actual evil from such brainwashing is stomach turning... and the way in which it can be so impervious to rational discussion even more so.

If I wanted to know about the history of the BoM, I would look at the factual, scientific, evidence-- and not the subjective experience of those who "know" it's the word of "god".

 

[articulett]

A thing that really bugs me about all woo-- from truthers to religion to astrology...from those who think the moon landing was a hoax to
to creationists--is this notion that if science can't explain something (to their satisfaction anyhow), then that means their "guru" can. When has any guru (prophet, religious leader, woo book, conspiracy theorist) actually found useful, valuable, verifiable information before science?

If science can't explain something (and many people don't have the actual interest and education to even understand the explanation), that sure as hell doesn't mean it's supernatural. Everything that we have figured out that was once thought to be "mysterious" and "supernatural" has turned out to be far more prosaic and "natural"-- (but still cool.) And no gods helped in the process, I might add.

The truth may not be as "emotionally compelling", but it's far more useful. And I would just rather not understand something to believe something that isn't true.

 

[articulett]

Just more on Bill Maher and religion--Mormon and other

http://onegoodmovemedia.org/movies/0709/bm092107newrules.mov

from here: http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/ (posted today... I thought you'd enjoy it randfan). Plus it points out that 20 percent of those under 30 are rationalists. Good news for the future...

 

[rcronk]

RandFan - I can study and avoid the ways in which these people were deceived. I can not drink Vodka or take mind altering drugs, for example, and rely on the hallucinations I get afterward. I can look at descriptions of the thoughts and feelings they had to see what differences and similarities there are to my own experiences, etc. You are making a lot of assumptions about the spirit and what we consciously experience in situations. For example, you say that the spirit loses memory when the brain is damaged - could the spirit retain the memory while the physical consciousness just can't get to the memory any longer? I could bit by bit change the pixels on a screen and say that I'm changing the computer behind the scenes, but I'm not. I'm just distorting the view I have into the computer by breaking something that's more visible to me.

Elind - I know that the Book of Mormon came from God through my subjective experiences and that has been supported through objective evidence like chiasmus, etc. People here have asserted false claims against the Book of Mormon and I have used other objective evidence to refute those claims. Wordprinting, for example, refutes the false claim that "Joseph Smith wrote it" and that's all it does. It doesn't prove anything else.

articulett - Making fun of people who have an opposing view doesn't help anything (e.g. Bill Maher). It only divides people. Anyone could come along and make fun of how silly they think abiogenesis is and how ironic it is that atheists and others currently rely on faith in it to explain their own existence but would that help anything? Or would it just further drive people apart?

 

[prewitt81]

I know that the Book of Mormon came from God through my subjective experiences and that has been supported through objective evidence like chiasmus, etc.

How does finding chiasmus support the claim that the BoM came from God?

ETA:

Wordprinting, for example, refutes the false claim that "Joseph Smith wrote it"

Wordprinting is an exact science?

 

[Marcus]

As far as your response to Marcus, the fact that your feelings were not induced the same way says nothing about whether the brain funciton that gave rise to the feeling was the same or not. These types of studies only show that it is possible to have similar (at least similar within our limits to describe them using language) experiences without god being involved. The expectation is that the brain is also capable of entering the same states without the external stimulus (drugs, electrodes, ets.). What's interesting is not so much the specific methods of triggering the experience, but merely that 1) the experience can be generated artifically (without god) and 2) the descriptions of such feelings are similar to the descriptions we get from those who have had religious experiences such as yourself.

What he said.

 

[Tanstaafl]

Wordprinting is an exact science?

Science is always exact when it supports religion. And mere guesswork when it doesn't.

 

[rcronk]

prewitt81 - Finding chiasmus, as one example, supports the fact that the Book of Mormon was written anciently using writing styles commonly used among the people around the time-frame when it was supposed to have been written. If it was written anciently and Joseph Smith couldn't translate ancient languages, etc. I don't think there is much that would prove directly that it originally came from or was translated by God, but there is supporting evidence. There is other archaeological and historic supporting evidence and I think I've linked to that already. Sorry, I should have chosen a less sure word than refute.

Tanstaafl - I used the wrong word - forgive me and please don't tar me with such a broad brush.

 

[prewitt81]

prewitt81 - Finding chiasmus, as one example, supports the fact that the Book of Mormon was written anciently using writing styles commonly used among the people around the time-frame when it was supposed to have been written.

How does it support the case? Could chiasmus not have been used by a modern author?

I have always found it interesting that the Book of Mormon sounds much like the Elizabethan English of the Bible. Is this proof that the BoM was, in fact, written in 1611, or that perhaps the author(s) were mimicking the language of the Bible, trying to make it sound more authoritative? (I'm not suggesting that these are the only two possibilities.)

 

[Tanstaafl]

I just did a google search on "wordprinting". I didn't go past the first page of results, but from what I saw there it appears that the only non-trivial use this unsubstantiated technique has had thus far is the Book of Mormon study. It doesn't look like it comes close to being established science.

Certainly doesn't mean its wrong, its premise is quite plausible, but it's far from proven.

 

[rcronk]

prewitt81 - This link says:

Chiasmus appears to have begun as a structural form which then developed into an intriguing rhetorical device which has been used sporadically in prose and poetry by many authors for nearly three thousand years. Nevertheless, the awareness of such a form, except in isolated cases, remained a part of the intellectual subconsciousness of modern Western Europe until frequent chiasmal passages were discovered in the Bible. Since that time in the mid-nineteenth century, there have been several reputed scholars, mostly theologians, who have published on the subject. Their works indicate that, although some chiasms appear in Greek, Latin and English, the form was originally Hebrews and dates at least to the eighth and tenth centuries B. C. in Isaiah and in the Psalms....

Based on the above, it's very unlikely that Joseph Smith would have known enough to put chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. If he paraphrased another source, the wordprinting should show that. If he copied from somewhere, the original record from where he copied should be found and compared, but it hasn't been found. His scribes say he didn't have any other books than the plates with him. Those who handled the plates say the writings on them were ancient looking and were not recognizable English or any other recognizable language that they understood - just ancient hieroglyphic-like characters.

As for Elizabethan style, there are various ideas about why that would be. It was the language of scripture at the time. I really haven't seen anything definitive. There are so many interesting things to note about the Book of Mormon though:

It is interesting to note, however, that in some cases the Book of Mormon departs from the KJV rendering in precisely the same places where other ancient manuscripts depart from the KJV. - link

There are parts of the Book of Mormon translation of a few Isaiah chapters that include information that wasn't in the KJV of the Bible but were in the Septuagint (and the Dead Sea Scrolls too) which was translated in 1851 - 21 years after Joseph Smith translated and published the Book of Mormon. - link

 

[Elind]

Elind - I know that the Book of Mormon came from God through my subjective experiences and that has been supported through objective evidence like chiasmus, etc. People here have asserted false claims against the Book of Mormon and I have used other objective evidence to refute those claims. Wordprinting, for example, refutes the false claim that "Joseph Smith wrote it" and that's all it does. It doesn't prove anything else.

We have already explained that "wordprinting" proves nothing except that Joseph Smith was a plagiarizer (as proven by other than wordprinting).

Chiasmus proves nothing at all except that possibly the plagiarized texts follow that principle, or that the whole concept can be manipulated, like numerology, to appear to be what it is not.

What is the point of all these "proofs" if they don't prove anything that you already know?

Are you of the opinion that they will somehow prove, indirectly, the existence of a god to those who have already come to the conclusion, through much more rational thought, that there is no god?

 

[RandFan]

RandFan - I can study and avoid the ways in which these people were deceived.

Can you study and avoid the ways in which other religious people or members of cults are decieved?

• Prayer.
• Adherence to rules.
• Strict requirements for attending church and other church activities.
• Involvement in good works?

BTW, these are very similiar to ideological control. Dicipline and a mind to doing what the leader deems good is a very powerful method. You can easily get someone to die for a cause or do irrational things. See Stalin's purges, Mao's Cultural Revolutions, Nazis, Jim Jones, Catholic Church, etc., etc..

I could bit by bit change the pixels on a screen and say that I'm changing the computer behind the scenes, but I'm not.

The brain is simply not analougus to a computer monitor. If you change the screen the data is still on the hard drive.

People who have permanant memory loss can't ever retrieve the data.

 

[rcronk]

Elind - I don't follow your logic. Let me take a different tack by explaining what I understand your theory to be:

Theory: Joseph Smith plagiarized the Book of Mormon from Solomon Spaulding's "Manuscript Story" or Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews."

Issues: Since we have the text from "Manuscript Story", "View of the Hebrews", and the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon doesn't have direct copying in it from these other works that I'm aware of, Joseph must have paraphrased or made up the text loosely based on the stories of these other books. In fact:

The only known [Spaulding] manuscript was lost from 1839 until its discovery in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1884. It was promptly published by both the Latter-day Saints and Reorganized Latter Day Saint churches to refute the theory of some critics that it had served as an original source document for the Book of Mormon, supposedly supplied to Joseph Smith by Sidney Rigdon. - link

So, he didn't directly copy it. But he also couldn't have paraphrased or come up with a story loosely based on these other books or his word prints would be all over the work if he had done that. Since, according to word printing (or stylometry, used and refined since 1964), Joseph didn't write the Book of Mormon, he would have to directly copy it from some other unknown work. What work is that? And in that work, how do individual characters within that work have different word prints from each other too? The original copied work would have to be written by multiple people. A simpler explanation is that the Book of Mormon is what it says it is - a translation of an ancient work written by multiple people.

Did I get your theory right? If so, what is this other work that he directly copied from that was actually written by multiple people? You said the plagiarism was "proven by other than word printing". Which book did he plagiarize? Where is this proof of which you speak? Remember that we have the exact text of all three books mentioned before and no direct copying happened between the three.

RandFan - Yes. I can study how other cults are deceived. I can study what things they get addicted to and avoid that addiction. I don't agree that your list is a list of causes of deception. In my own life, I have found, rather, that the deception comes from sin. As I've worked through a lot of this over the years, I learn what deceives and what doesn't - what ends up false and what ends up true. Experience with these things is what I rely on and it's working miracles in my own life in changing me from selfish to generous, from impatient, to patient, from miserable to happy, from addicted to free, from dishonest to honest, from afraid to peaceful.

In the example, the monitor was the brain, the hard drive or memory is the spirit. If I damage the screen, you'll never be able to see the true "memory" behind the screen unless the screen is fixed or replaced.

 

[Elind]

Elind - I don't follow your logic. Let me take a different tack by explaining what I understand your theory to be:



snip


Did I get your theory right?

Actually you changed the subject and the issue. You have me at a disadvantage, because I have to become an expert on the BoM not to mention innumerable other writings to even attempt to discuss this further with you, beyond what I understand others have said, who have spent more time on this.

This is a bit like a Creationist who recites some obscure technical reference to DNA, or blood or eyes, and then expects to win an argument that is irrelevant to the larger issue.

I have already asked you, and you have so far avoided answering, what the point of this word analysis is? Either Joseph Smith wrote the book based on his own readings, or someone else did and he parroted it. In the final analysis what is proven?

You say he didn't write it. Tell me exactly why that is so critical to you?