LDS LDS---YIKES!

dzheremi said:

Because it's not up to any layman (someone not trained in the relevant fields) to evaluate claims relevant to the fields that the Mormon religion manipulates to keep its people believing that it's actually based in something real. That is why peer review is important: it takes the research or supposed research out of the hands of anyone who might approve of it for non-scientific reasons (e.g., religious narrative) and evaluates it according to the standard of the relevant field. The individual who looks at it without the requisite background/training, and even worse maybe with the inherent biases for/against it (e.g., religious narrative again), cannot be trusted to do that. You don't ask a random person to perform heart surgery, do you? All the sciences ought to be treated similarly.

Like in my case, I'm a linguist, so while I'm not saying I'm an authority on anything (because I'm not; I've been asked to fill in for adjunct professors sometimes, but please no one confuse me for an actual professor...hopefully my frequent typos and grammatical mistakes made here on CF rule that out ), I'm at least trained to evaluate claims relevant to my field. And when I do that with the linguistic Mormonism, as I have many times before on this board, they don't stand up to even minimal scrutiny.

I strongly suspect that the same would be true if we had instead a trained anthropologist, archaeologist, geographer, etc. here to evaluate Mormon claims. I can say that with some degree of confidence because, again, being trained in an academic field I know the proper process to go through to have your research scientifically vetted (it's how I got my degree in the first place; I wrote a thesis and defended it successfully before the board, which is roughly analogous to what happens to research papers submitted for publication, in that they too go through a process of review, correction, and resubmission), so it's really easy to tell when that hasn't been done, as is the case in the vast majority of Mormon publications. There's a reason why they're "internal", i.e., published by BYU and other organs of the Mormon religion. If they want to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, it is imperative that Mormon researchers actually operate according to the impartial, secular standards of the relevant fields. That they mostly don't do that is very telling.

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It is better to rely on God than science. Science can be wrong, but God never is.

dzheremi said:

Yep. I'm still agreeing with that. The actual Jesus does not give 'revelations' that contradict what He has given His apostles and disciples, as the BOM and Mormonism more generally definitely does. The true Christ has already warned us that there will be false messiahs and false christs. JS and his followers apparently did not heed this warning.



Because you're making things up as you like, and obviously you believe yourself.



We already dealt with this at the time, Peter. Why are you bringing it up now?



I don't care if they ring hollow to you or anyone. The scientific method and standard for publishing in academia don't change according to whether or not you personally believe in them. That was the entire point of my post.

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It would not matter if the scientific method and standard for publishing was observed to the highest levels of professionalism by non-Mormons, you would still not believe. That is my point.

He is the way said:

So why do you think LDS sources are not credible or verifiable? I believe they are both credible and verifiable.

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Did you not read your own source that I quoted? Here it is again.

BigDaddy4 said:

To quote your first source, this is how the lds views evidence:
Of course, scholarship does not replace spiritual witness as a source of testimony. As Elder B. H. Roberts (1857–1933) of the Seventy said: “The power of the Holy Ghost … must ever be the chief source of evidence for the Book of Mormon. All other evidence is secondary. … No arrangement of evidence, however skillfully ordered; no argument, however adroitly made, can ever take its place.”

IOW, testimony first, evidence... eh, whatever.

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Scholarship is not valued as highly as your testimony. I even bolded it for you. When you listen to false spirits and false prophets, your testimony is invalid. All the lds apologetics can come up with are "could be's", "possibly's", "may have's", and other non-factual, indefinite statements. That's not evidence!

He is the way said:

It is better to rely on God than science. Science can be wrong, but God never is.

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Science confirms what God has done and/or created. Can science confirm that God put millions of people on the North American continent to play out the fiction that is the BOM?

Peter1000 said:

It would not matter if the scientific method and standard for publishing was observed to the highest levels of professionalism by non-Mormons, you would still not believe. That is my point.

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Try us and find out! What do you have to lose?

You make statements like yours because you know you can't provide anything credible to validate the BOM fictional story.

BigDaddy4 said:

Did you not read your own source that I quoted? Here it is again.


Scholarship is not valued as highly as your testimony. I even bolded it for you. When you listen to false spirits and false prophets, your testimony is invalid. All the lds apologetics can come up with are "could be's", "possibly's", "may have's", and other non-factual, indefinite statements. That's not evidence!

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Yes the truth of all things are given to us through the Holy Ghost. However, there is factual verifiable evidence that Joseph Smith is not the actual author of the Book of Mormon. Did you read the whole article?

BigDaddy4 said:

Science confirms what God has done and/or created. Can science confirm that God put millions of people on the North American continent to play out the fiction that is the BOM?

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Science can confirm that there were millions of people on the NA continent, the BOM confirms that some of them were here because God brought them here. What evidence would you accept that God brought them here?

You know that at the time of JS, the scientists believed that there were very few native Americans here in the Americas. That they had come from across the Bering Straight and slowly evolved into what we saw of the Indian nations in 1830. Thousands, maybe a few hundred thousand at the most. Living a rather lowly life, living in tents, eating off the land, no industry, no writings, broken language, no overall leadership, no belief in God etc., etc., etc.

So when JS says there were millions of American Indians that were a high civilization with governments and high industries, and cement building all over the land, and a high level of weapons of war, high level of writing, high level of artifice, a belief in God the true Spirit, etc., etc., etc. he was laughed to a scorn and thought to be a nut.

Well, as it turns out, he was right on all counts, and the so called expert scientists were all wrong on all points. So much for Ph.D means anything. Right?

The population figure of indigenous peoples of the Americas before the 1492 Spanish voyage of Christopher Columbus has proven difficult to establish. Scholars rely on archaeological data and written records from European settlers. Most scholars writing at the end of the 19th century estimated that the pre-Columbian population was as low as 10 million; by the end of the 20th century most scholars gravitated to a middle estimate of around 50 million, with some historians arguing for an estimate of 100 million or more.[1]

Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas - Wikipedia

BigDaddy4 said:

Try us and find out! What do you have to lose?

You make statements like yours because you know you can't provide anything credible to validate the BOM fictional story.

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I already have, many times to you.

See my post 247 for 1 on populations confirmed JS with non-Mormon Ph.D finality.

He is the way said:

Yes the truth of all things are given to us through the Holy Ghost.

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Then tell your holy ghost to put up or shut up and provide some factual evidence, some truth, as to the BOM claims. Otherwise, you've got nothing.

He is the way said:

However, there is factual verifiable evidence that Joseph Smith is not the actual author of the Book of Mormon.

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Please, provide this verifiable evidence.

He is the way said:

Did you read the whole article?

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No, there's only so much lds gibberish I can take in at a time. I stopped when it was dismissive of the need for actual evidence. If there is something you'd like to direct my attention to, please point it out.

Peter1000 said:

Science can confirm that there were millions of people on the NA continent, the BOM confirms that some of them were here because God brought them here. What evidence would you accept that God brought them here?

You know that at the time of JS, the scientists believed that there were very few native Americans here in the Americas. That they had come from across the Bering Straight and slowly evolved into what we saw of the Indian nations in 1830. Thousands, maybe a few hundred thousand at the most. Living a rather lowly life, living in tents, eating off the land, no industry, no writings, broken language, no overall leadership, no belief in God etc., etc., etc.

So when JS says there were millions of American Indians that were a high civilization with governments and high industries, and cement building all over the land, and a high level of weapons of war, high level of writing, high level of artifice, a belief in God the true Spirit, etc., etc., etc. he was laughed to a scorn and thought to be a nut.

Well, as it turns out, he was right on all counts, and the so called expert scientists were all wrong on all points. So much for Ph.D means anything. Right?

The population figure of indigenous peoples of the Americas before the 1492 Spanish voyage of Christopher Columbus has proven difficult to establish. Scholars rely on archaeological data and written records from European settlers. Most scholars writing at the end of the 19th century estimated that the pre-Columbian population was as low as 10 million; by the end of the 20th century most scholars gravitated to a middle estimate of around 50 million, with some historians arguing for an estimate of 100 million or more.[1]

Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas - Wikipedia

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Does not address my post in any way. This is you pointing out rabbit holes to distract from directly answering a question.

Peter1000 said:

I already have, many times to you.

See my post 247 for 1 on populations confirmed JS with non-Mormon Ph.D finality.

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You must have selective reading issues. None of what you posted is related to my post because

BigDaddy4 said:

you know you can't provide anything credible to validate the BOM fictional story.

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BigDaddy4 said:

Then tell your holy ghost to put up or shut up and provide some factual evidence, some truth, as to the BOM claims. Otherwise, you've got nothing.

Please, provide this verifiable evidence.

No, there's only so much lds gibberish I can take in at a time. I stopped when it was dismissive of the need for actual evidence. If there is something you'd like to direct my attention to, please point it out.

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If you would have read it you would have seen the verifiable evidence.

BigDaddy4 said:

Then tell your holy ghost to put up or shut up and provide some factual evidence, some truth, as to the BOM claims. Otherwise, you've got nothing.

Please, provide this verifiable evidence.

No, there's only so much lds gibberish I can take in at a time. I stopped when it was dismissive of the need for actual evidence. If there is something you'd like to direct my attention to, please point it out.

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The title page of the Book of Mormon declares that it was to come forth “by the gift and power of God.” Recent evidence and scholarship indicates that this is exactly what would have had to happen. In addition, the evidence indicates that the translation and dictation of the book were accomplished in roughly 63 working days—a torrid pace that, with neither rewrites nor corrections, produced nearly 8.5 pages (of our current English edition) daily.

Further, there is no evidence at all that Joseph Smith did any scholarly research, or even that he read very much, before the Book of Mormon appeared. In fact, he may not even have owned a Bible at the time of translation. Joseph Smith had spent the bulk of his time as a youth cutting trees, burning brush, clearing rocks, and plowing. He had received at most a few months of formal schooling. His mother later recalled that, even into his late teens, “he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children.”

His wife Emma reports that, in the late 1820s, Joseph “could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. … The larger part of this labor [of translation] was done [in] my presence and where I could see and know what was being done. … During no part of it did Joseph Smith have any [manuscripts] or book of any kind from which to read or dictate except the metalic [sic] plates which I knew he had.” “If,” she said, “he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.”

And, she added, writing to her son: “I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.”

In recent years, rigorous statistical analysis strongly indicates that neither Joseph Smith nor any of his known associates composed the English text of the Book of Mormon. In fact, research suggests that the book was written by numerous distinct authors.

And research shows that the book does not seem to fit the culture of early 19th-century America. There is little of the military romanticism of Joseph Smith’s America. Instead, we see grimly realistic portrayals of war’s devastation and suffering. And in the story of the Gadianton robbers we have a detailed, realistic portrayal of a prolonged guerrilla struggle—lacking any trace of fife and drum, uniforms, or parades—published well over a century before the guerrilla theorists of the 20th century put pens to paper.

From: https://bookofmormonfacts.com/book-of-mormon-mounting-evidence/

He is the way said:

If you would have read it you would have seen the verifiable evidence.

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Verifiable evidence as provided by mormon sources? Puh-lease, stop the parroting. Verifiable and credible evidence does not mean just quoting your church's unverified, non-credible sources.

He is the way said:

From: https://bookofmormonfacts.com/book-of-mormon-mounting-evidence/

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You just don't get it do you? Do you realize this source is quoting a different source? So you have an original source problem to start off with.

Did you even read this gibberish? It says things like "recent evidence and scholarship indicates" and "research suggests", yet provides no sources of where this evidence, scholarship, or research supposedly came from.

One of my favorites - "rigorous statistical analysis". Where is this analysis? Who conducted it?

It's things like this that diminish the credibility of any of your or the lds church's claims.

BigDaddy4 said:

Verifiable evidence as provided by mormon sources? Puh-lease, stop the parroting. Verifiable and credible evidence does not mean just quoting your church's unverified, non-credible sources.

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If you do not believe this evidence, prove it wrong.

He is the way said:

If you do not believe this evidence, prove it wrong.

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Still waiting for you to provide the evidence. Mormon articles quoting mormon sources does not make evidence. Dismissed as hearsay!

BigDaddy4 said:

You just don't get it do you? Do you realize this source is quoting a different source? So you have an original source problem to start off with.

Did you even read this gibberish? It says things like "recent evidence and scholarship indicates" and "research suggests", yet provides no sources of where this evidence, scholarship, or research supposedly came from.

One of my favorites - "rigorous statistical analysis". Where is this analysis? Who conducted it?

It's things like this that diminish the credibility of any of your or the lds church's claims.

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Joseph Smith: The World’s Greatest Guesser (A Bayesian Statistical Analysis of Positive and Negative Correspondences between the Book of Mormon and The Maya)

LOL. Imagine that, the "authors" of this "analysis" are lds! Is this the "research" or "scholarship" you are trying to use as credible? When you have something from an independent, non-lds resource, let me know. Otherwise, don't bother.

BigDaddy4 said:

LOL. Imagine that, the "authors" of this "analysis" are lds! Is this the "research" or "scholarship" you are trying to use as credible? When you have something from an independent, non-lds resource, let me know. Otherwise, don't bother.

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I think we've explained this one before.

For non-members, producing something that can be seen as defending the church is a significant risk, both because of anti-Mormon sentiment and because this same sentiment has forced pro-Mormon materials into the "fringes".

Hence why most of the material you'll see is from pro-Mormon sources as they don't have the same consequences to face.