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LDS II: The Mormons

It's been years since I got a yellow card

Curtain rises. Scene: Nauvoo, Illinois, ca. 1840. JOSEPH SMITH (JS) stands looking speculatively around at the Mormons grubbing, scavenging, and hammering together shacks in the former town of Commerce.

Enter BULLY SHUXTER (BS), trotting and breathing noisily. He runs over to JS and stands gaping worshipfully up at him.

BS: Oh! Prophet Smith! This is such a nonner! I am so excited! I have a burning in my breast! Aw the sight of you!

(JS looks around to see who’s talking to him. Then he glances down and notices BS.)

JS (genially): Why howdy do, little feller! What can ye do fer me?

(Note: The actor playing JS must adopt a reasonably authentic dialect and manner of speaking. This will involve rolling together Mortimer Snerd, Foghorn P. Leghorn, and W. C. Fields. It won’t be easy.)

BS: Oh, Prophet! I can’t do more than be here in your holy presence! The blessed truth pours over me and cures my many ills!

JS (less genially): Waal that’s jest fine, my boy. But what I meant was, do yer tithe?

BS: Uh. Well, see, I get these pains in my learning curve. The Theory of Body Signals means I can’t hold down a job too good, but if I did, I, um, guess I’d tithe. If you insist, I mean.

JS (already fed up): Why tarnation it, ain’t you read what I said, I mean god said, in the Book of Yeehaw, chapter one? About sell all ye got and cough up, sucker?

BS: Oh! Prophet! I fear I never heard of that book! Izzit [crossing himself] in the BOM?

JS (smirking): No, but it will be purty soon. Ye kin take that fer gospel! Dang if I don’t feel a revelation comin’ on right now! [he begins to declaim; nearby Mormons doff their hats] Fill the pockets of the anointed one with silver, yay even unto gold! And it came to pass (I shore love the sound of them words!) that they all fell to filling, until the prophet couldn’t hardly waddle home!

BS (half prostrated with piety): Aw Prophet! I hear and bleeve!

Blackout. Lights come up to reveal BS in his room in his mother’s basement. He has fallen from his cot and sits up muzzily, shaking his head. It was all a dream.

BS (to audience): Yeah, it was all a dream! ‘N you can’t prove it wasn’t true! That’s my default and [shrieking] I’M STICKIN’ TO IT!

As he blows a wet and defiant razzbery, the curtain mercifully falls.
 
Slowvehicle said:
My Dear Mr. Baxter:

Do not, for even a moment, deceive yourself as to the transparency of your evasions.

I remain, straitly yours &ct.
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Your problem is, you seem to think I care about every little nitpick you dig up about why you feel the scriptures must be false. I don't.

bb
 
Billy Baxter said:
Your problem is, you seem to think I care about every little nitpick you dig up about why you feel the scriptures must be false. I don't.

bb
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Is it fair then to say your argument is that the complete lack of historical and archaeological support for the Book of Mormon is merely a "nitpick?"
 
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Billy Baxter said:
Your problem is, you seem to think I care about every little nitpick you dig up about why you feel the scriptures must be false. I don't.

bb
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Mr. Baxter:

The fact that the BoM is demonstrably ahistorical, demonstrably ageographical, and demonstrably (even farcically) incorrect in so very many details does not constitute "nitpick[sic]-ing", however much you desire to wish it into a cornfield.

You appear to be boasting of your intent not to respond, and you have boasted of your intent not to provide evidence.

I remain, supportably yours &ct.

ETA: ninja-ed, as is so often the case, by the inimitable JayUtah.
 
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Billy Baxter said:
Your problem is, you seem to think I care about every little nitpick you dig up about why you feel the scriptures must be false. I don't.



bb
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If you consider the entirety of archeology in the Americas and Middle East proving the historical claims of the Book of Mormon to be a pack of nonsense, combined with substantial DNA evidence contradicting the Book of Mormon to be a "nitpick" I'd love to know what you'd consider damning proof!
 
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Billy Baxter said:
I'm busy with my TOBS thread. Craig4 referred me to this thread and I came. I am participating here inbetween posting about TOBS.

bb
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You're not really "participating" though. You're bragging about how you don't care what evidence there is that contradicts the Book of Mormon's historical claims. You're bragging about being willfully ignorant while posting on a skepticism site. Doesn't that strike you as "trolling" behavior?

What are you looking to get out of this thread other than a chance to gloat about how you don't care about evidence?
 
On the Bible side of things, Christianity has come to terms with the unlikelihood there was a universal flood, the dearth of evidence for the children of Israel in Egypt, etc. The vast spectrum of Christian belief and practice allows for adherents to decide how they want to reconcile that. At one end are the Bible literalists who simply dismiss the science. And the other you find intellectuals and liberals who take the Bible as instructive and allegorical, but not literal.

The problem with the Book of Mormon is that there is only a very narrow spectrum of acceptable interpretation. The book is taken as scripture by only one religious tradition, the majority church of which dominates all the others. And within that church the only acceptable interpretation is still that the Book of Mormon's historical allegations are to be taken at face value. There is no room for interpreting it as any sort of fiction or metaphor.

That puts believers between a rock and a hard place. They can't muster enough secular knowledge to turn the tide of the relevant investigatory fields, yet they can't remain in good standing unless they accept the historical claims of the Book of Mormon.
 
It's interesting to me how LDS hammers home the idea that the BoM is factually accurate, complete with specifics locations and dates.

But when pressed about the inconsistencies, suddenly that supposed factual accuracy isn't all that important, complete with "ho-hum" handwaves.
 
Billy Baxter said:
Craig4 invited me.

bb
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What do you call a statement by someone that, although fundamentally based in fact, by omission of important detail misleads? What do you call it if the omission seems deliberate?

The important detail you omitted, Billy Baxter, is that you invited others to take their questions of you about Mormonism to an appropriate thread and that you would follow. They did; you did. The only part left for you to do is actually discuss with some candor the topics you said you'd address.
 
Craig4 said:
I bumped this thread and steered you toward it because you seemed to want to talk about Mormonism and you got suspended twice for derailing threads in that direction.
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And now they're refusing to engage in discussion of Mormonism when offered a thread started for that explicit purpose. Weird.

Perhaps the next time they detail a thread with Mormon meandering we can ask the mods to merge the offending posts with this thread.
 
I think it's pretty clear that Billy Baxter has absolutely no interest in forming a reasonable conclusion on this issue. He just wants his existing beliefs to feel validated.

Billy, if I'm wrong on this, feel free to correct me.
 
I Am The Scum said:
I think it's pretty clear that Billy Baxter has absolutely no interest in forming a reasonable conclusion on this issue. He just wants his existing beliefs to feel validated.
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It's difficult to know how he expects his approach to be validated among skeptics. The normal method of advocating the faith is the catechism that involves reading the Book of Mormon and eliciting the psychosomatic confirmation. Skeptics naturally aren't going to be convinced by that. But I've seen no codified method of teaching the faith that puts any substance behind the church's allegations of fact.

My memory may be poor, but I seem to recall editions of the Book of Mormon several decades ago had photo plates of Machu Picchu and other archaeological sites. While it wasn't directly claimed that these were Book of Mormon sites (and we now know for a fact they aren't), it seemed to want to argue that there were facts that supported the authenticity of the book. Now of course I think all the illustrations you find are the Arnold Friberg paintings. But the point I'm making is that the church at one time seemed to want to say officially that archaeological evidence supported their claims. Now not so much.

To me that's always been the problem with some religions. They want to argue that there's a factual basis for their claims, and some measure of intellectual appeal. Until, of course, there isn't. Then they want to pretend none of those things matters, or ever did. The last clause is the issue. If we have Mormons saying, "We don't bother with such nitpicky details," the problem is that at one time you did. When your assessment of the value of archaeology hinges solely on whether it supports your predetermined belief, skeptics won't grant you much quarter.

IMHO the Mormon Church needed to have come out decades ago and revised its interpretation of the history and geography of the Book of Mormon and not rested so much on the notion that these were actual peoples, times, and places. I think, in order to retain followers, the church will eventually have to concede this. But it's better to concede it early rather than cling to demonstrably false beliefs about ancient history until it's inescapably embarrassing. The Land of Nephi, or whatever, doesn't need to actually exist for the moral tales in the book to have a beneficial impact.

Perhaps the Parker and Stone translation of The Book of Mormon says it best: "There's no such place as Salt Lake City -- it's just a metaphor." Sadly the way the church is run today there's no room for interpreting the Book of Mormon's setting metaphorically.

But if the question is whether Billy Baxter is prepared to argue the authenticity of the Book of Mormon in the way skeptics approach it, I think his silence is our answer.
 
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