Oh look, AP’s gone and made another one. Sadomasochist.

So the possibility of a multiverse isn’t even a possibility for you? —Nonfactor on May 14, 2007 at 7:14 PM

As already pointed out, the multiverse doesn’t avoid the need for a First Cause—just pushes it further back. That infinite regression thing really can’t be ignored by serious thinkers.

And that name “God” is an incorrect attribution to these qualities (if such a thing existed it wouldn’t resemble the qualities of the monotheistic Gods put forth by religious people. —IBID: Nonfactor

To the contrary, 4000 years ago uneducated shepherd/philosophers ascribed these very attributes to their God. Moderately interesting at the very least, no?

Roark–it’s clear you don’t understand the point of commandments at all. “Restrictions” are liberating, not repressive.

By the definition of the word “commandment” that is untrue, and the only way you’d think any type of “commandment” is liberating is that you simply want it to be true. Someone could abstain from sex or drinking without being commanded to do so and it would make sense that the person who isn’t being commanded is more free than the person who abides by the commandments.

If you can’t understand that basic concept, then no wonder you have issues with religion and the church.

It’s not a basic concept at all it’s flat out delusion–you believe “commandments” make you more free and think anyone who doesn’t see this obviously has problems with religion. It isn’t a question about religion, it’s a question about language and whether or not you understand that any thing called a “commandment” does not make you more free.

If it was all a fraud, why involve 11 witnesses who could spill the beans?

Vanceone on May 15, 2007 at 2:17 AM

This definitely isn’t the best way to argue for why something is true. Why involve 11 people? Because you can get away with it. Because you know those people won’t rat you out. Et cetera. Simply because a lot of people believe something does not make it true, there needs to be tangible evidence supporting it, not hearsay.

Roark–it’s clear you don’t understand the point of commandments at all. “Restrictions” are liberating, not repressive. I don’t have premarital sex–and I don’t have to worry about STD’s, abortions, broken hearts as much, etc. I don’t drink–and my liver is fine, thank you. I don’t worry about DUI’s either. I enjoy full control of my senses. And I am not dependant on a drug to have a good time. And so forth. If you can’t understand that basic concept, then no wonder you have issues with religion and the church.

As for Grant Palmer, he relies on the strawman of the salamander forgeries for his ideas. Kind of like Hitchens trying to claim there’s no witnesses. Which, I note, you’ve STILL not addressed why Hitchens should be credible, when he made such a basic error. You try to claim I’m using a straw man, but I’m not. If he can’t attack Mormonism on our facts, but has to lie about them, then he’s not worth listening to, right? Just like Palmer’s “Golden Pot” nonsense.

And I really must laugh at your Ethan Smith thing. Have you even READ “View of the Hebrews?” To claim that is the sole source for the Book of Mormon is ludicrious. Besides, it doesn’t explain how the BoM gets sooo many details right, where View is wrong.

Yes, I use Fair, and Farms, and other sources. Are you implying they are not credible? You question their scholarship? What credentials do you have–they have several widely recognized scholars, and were instrumental with the Dead Sea Scrolls, for one thing. As for “independant sources”–do you rely on ICR and other hate sites? They are unbiased, for sure!

Frankly, you sound like a 9-11 truther, frantically trying to cherry pick stuff. If it was all a fraud, why involve 11 witnesses who could spill the beans? Why explicitly ignore the juicy stuff from View of the Hebrews, in favor of subtle plagarization? Why, if they copied so heavily from the Bible, did they make alleged childish mistakes yet ALSO do very intricate and detailed Hebraic poetic structures that are unequalled in almost any other source? How did they know stuff that wasn’t known by anyone back then, but is now?

This is my issue with Hitchens, to bring it back onto topic–why lie, if your argument is so airtight? Why are YOU, Roark, trying to trot out arguments that have been refuted hundreds of times before? You can bash LDS apologetics all you want, but you have to show it’s wrong or not plausible–not just wave your hand and dismiss it. That’s like the 9-11 truthers saying that the NIST report is irrelevant, because it was produced by the government, thus they are able to ignore the content.

You can slander Joseph Smith’s character all you want (but the fact you are relying on Grant Palmer should frighten you), yet you haven’t explained how Hitchens didn’t just attack a straw man.

I haven’t slandered him once. Check your premises. Please let me know what is wrong with Grant Palmers work, I am unaware of anything and would be happy to know.

As for what I get from it; well, it’s certainly not like a Muslim veneration of Mohammed. We don’t worship Joseph Smith.

.

While members don’t PRAY to Joseph Smith, he is definitely worshipped which is one of the reasons why you have such an emotional response to any possibility of him being a fraud.

Matter of fact, I’d have lots more fun if I would just quit the church. No restrictions! But I’d not be happy.

Yes you would Vanceone, I promise. The human mind does not need restrictions in order to be happy, it needs freedom. The church dictates almost every action of your daily life from the food you eat and beverages you drink, to the movies you can watch, the books you can read, the friends you can allow yourself to hang out with, to the intimate details of your personal life that are not anybody’s business, etc….

You can slander Joseph Smith’s character all you want (but the fact you are relying on Grant Palmer should frighten you), yet you haven’t explained how Hitchens didn’t just attack a straw man.

I haven’t slandered him once. Check your premises. Please let me know what is wrong with Grant Palmers work, I am unaware of anything and would be happy to know.

There WERE witnesses to the plates, who never denied it. Hitchens plain lied there, so why should I believe anything he says? There’s lots of evidence of the Book of Mormon, which no rational explanation has been provided to refute, and if you were honest, you’d admit that.

You cry straw man and this is the biggest one. Just because these peoples names appear in th front of every Book of Mormon, does not A) mean they were telling the truth and B) make the Church true. I really don’t have time to get into, but time and time again members cherry pick early church testimony to fit a specific argument, yet when these same leaders leave the church BECAUSE of Joseph Smith it was always the “heretics” fault.

That’s the problem with attacking Joseph Smith–you have to provide another explanation for the BoM–

Easy. He and Oliver Cowdry made it up. They primarily plagiarized Ethan Smith’s “View of the Hebrews”, along with adding heavy doses of the Bible in for good measure (or for lack of clairvoyance perhaps?).

Finally

PS–Roark, trust me–DON’T start with the Kinderhook plates or the Book of Abraham. You simply don’t have a clue what you are talking about, I can already tell. No one with any clue even attempts to use the Kinderhook plates against the Church. So don’t bring out that here, unless you enjoy being slammed. Perhaps you should, you know, actually examine the answers already researched for these questions before you try to wave them around? I mean, it’s not like these tactics haven’t been tried before… or simple answers to them found, either.
Vanceone on May 14, 2007 at 8:55 PM

Hmmm, yes attack my character (once again). This is the standard Mormon response in these situaitons however, so I’m not surprised. I’m actually quite thrilled and contrary to your musings, actually would love for you to school me in my obviously ignorant ways! Who are your sources? FARMS? FAIR? Or are they actually independent sources outside church control? This should be interesting.

P.S. Although I’d love to respond again tonight, it is 4:15 in the morning here in Holland and I have to go to bed! So any response will not be until tomorrow. I apologize greatly.

I don’t think that science can really explain the reason behind anything. It is possible that there is no reason behind existence, but science would never be able to prove that because of the very nature of the pursuit of science.

That last part is very important to me. I think that too many people consider science to be a truth that needs to be uncovered, rather than a pursuit of explanations for an ever expanding set of observations.

Say you make an observation. You can’t explain it, and you would like to be able to explain it. You make a hypothesis as to why you think it is the way it is. Then you devise an experiment(s) to support your hypothesis. Once you have bolstered the argument of your hypothesis with experimental evidence, you are left with an observation of something else that explains the initial observation.

In the end, the best that a scientific inquiry can do is to explain an observation with another observation. This may be useful in predicting events when you can observe the latter but not yet the former. For example, you could predict a storm based on observed temperature fronts and other factors (mind you, I’m not a meteorologist). However, that hasn’t explained the root reason behind anything.

There are two possible endgames in the pursuit of science. One possible outcome is that science will deadend and be left with some observations that it never succeeds in explaining. The other possible outcome is that the pursuit of science will proceed forever, continuing to explain phenomena with other phenomena for which it has yet to find an explanation. In either case, we will always exist in a state where science has not explained everything. Therefore, it is always possible that reality as we observe but do not understand was created by some entity that we also do not understand. Religion cannot be invalidated by science.

I’m not trying to advocate religion, but I do criticize those scientists who claim to use science to invalidate it. It’s just bad science to do so.

In retrospect, this doesn’t have much to do with the clip presented, only the generic subject matter to which it pertains (DOH!). For the record, I don’t think Hannity or Hitchens makes a very compelling argument here.

JayHaw Phrenzie on May 14, 2007 at 8:57 PM

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I set em up, you knock em down Jayhaw, haha.

alpha males do enjoy preferential sexual selection,

This is what Mr. Smith got out of it. That and never having to work in an honest trade a day in his life after his religion was founded.

Add to that the power of mindless drones following your every whim simply because you are the “prophet of god”.

Joseph Smith got what every religious and cult leader have always got.

Sex, Money and Power.

As for what I get from it; well, it’s certainly not like a Muslim veneration of Mohammed. We don’t worship Joseph Smith. Matter of fact, I’d have lots more fun if I would just quit the church. No restrictions! But I’d not be happy.

Perhaps you and other Atheists might consider that religion is supposed to be a way of life, a way that has the potential to provide happiness. It can and has been twisted, sure, but I’m happy because of my faith, not in spite of it. I’m not brainwashed either.

Roark, it seems to me you are a bit mistaken. You can slander Joseph Smith’s character all you want (but the fact you are relying on Grant Palmer should frighten you), yet you haven’t explained how Hitchens didn’t just attack a straw man. There WERE witnesses to the plates, who never denied it. Hitchens plain lied there, so why should I believe anything he says? There’s lots of evidence of the Book of Mormon, which no rational explanation has been provided to refute, and if you were honest, you’d admit that.

That’s the problem with attacking Joseph Smith–you have to provide another explanation for the BoM–that FULLY explains it, not just “well, if a blue moon happened on a tuesday in June while halley’s comet hit Shanghai, THIS could have happened!!” as so many attempts seem to be. It hasn’t been done yet.

Yes, alpha males do enjoy preferential sexual selection, that’s for sure;).

After they were translated, they were taken to wherever the ark of the covenant is, presumably–leaving us to rely on faith. And honestly, if I showed you the plates, and you held them yourself, what would it matter? Would you believe? And how would you know that the purported translation is correct? Just the physical plates wouldn’t, I fear, mean a whole lot.

Kinderhook Plates- We still have them, along with Joseph Smith’s bogus translation of them.

Book of Abraham- Luckily for us, there are scholars who can read Eygptian who live in America these days, unlike in the 1830′s. You know what they say? The fascimilles don’t match up. Those translations are bogus too.

Two pieces of physical evidence we have, not in the Ark of the Coveneant or wherever.

jdpaz on May 14, 2007 at 1:09 PM

Thanks for the compliment! Actually, “brilliant” may have been too strong you’re right. After all he did in fact fail to prove that God doesn’t exist unequivocally like you and the Times were hoping for, haha. Still a great and thought provoking book though. I recommend it highly and would even buy one for you if I had the dime. I swear!

Vanceone on May 14, 2007 at 6:54 PM

Vanceone you really don’t want to go there do you? C’mon man!? I think we’ve clashed on Mormonism before here, but you are totally leaving yourself open with statements like that. And no I’m not a “hateful anti-mormon” either. I’m and ex-mormon who used to believe; however when the contradictions started piling up I was forced to painfully jump ship. Let me just say this; Hitchens is dead on and is not slandering Joseph Smith. You assume that he is merely speculating about him, but he is not.
Read:
No Man Knows My History- Fawn Brodie
An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins- Grant H. Palmer
Studies of the Book of Mormon- B.H. Roberts
By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus- Charles M. Larsen

These will give you a more accurate understanding about who Joseph Smith was, I assure you.

*shrugs* After they were translated, they were taken to wherever the ark of the covenant is

That big warehouse in the end of Raider’s of the Lost Ark?

Damn, we’ll never find them, now.

Please forgive me, if I was challenging the mythology of Mormonism, I find other religous origins, uncredible as well, but in Mormonism, Scientology and Islam, the direct connection between what is revealed by the creator and what benfits the person receiving the revelation are stunning.

I have never failed to see what a founder or a leader gets out of a religion and it is clear why they benefit from continuing it, I never understood the propensity of the sheep to follow these leaders.

I’m certain that HotAir is not the place for a discussion of Mormonism, but I brought it up to just show that it’s important to keep the facts straight. Religion DOES have evidence on it’s side too, despite Hitchens (and perhaps Allah’s) protestations to the contrary.

One thing that this discussion brings to mind is that God doesn’t present proof to everyone, only a few. Why? Because men have to have an opportunity to believe or disbelieve on their own. Sure, God could go appear in His temple and have a receiving line for everyone and anyone to go see, but to what point? This life isn’t for God’s benefit, it’s for ours. How would we develop faith, courage, etc if we had such an easy answer all the time? How would we have free will, even?

No, there is provided lots of evidence, but not proof (or at least readily accessible proof, without cost). We are to have a choice, and decide for ourselves. I will say that I believe a man CAN have proof, but it’s an individual proof, not something that can be pointed out as “lookee here, 100% guarenteed proof!”

I would love to see them for myself.

So, are you saying that the basis of Mormonism is not translated words on buried golden plates that were only seen by Joseph Smith? Reference your source, please.

JayHaw Phrenzie on May 14, 2007 at 7:25 PM

Sure, I agree that the Book of Mormon was translated from gold plates–but the part about “only seen by Joseph Smith” is completely, utterly, dead wrong. Just like Christ was seen by lots of people after he was resurrected, so too have a fair number of people seen the plates. In fact, some of them swore legal statements, which have been printed with every single copy of the Book of Mormon since it was first published.

Many of the things that Mormonism has were seen by more than just Joseph Smith, you know. Including visions. And since many of these witnesses later left the church and were disaffected, they had every reason to expose any fraud. They never, ever denied their visions, or experiences, or anything–despite all the reason in the world to do so.
Here is one of the statements of witnesses–a time when 8 men held the plates and leafed through them and everything. No mysticism, no hallucination, no nothing.

That statement is inside every copy of the Book of Mormon. If Hitchens knows nothing about it, then he’s not qualified to say anything about Mormons–and makes me doubt his qualifications to speak on anything else regarding religion.

So the possibility of a multiverse isn’t even a possibility for you?

I am intrigued by the concept of a Multiverse, for example, one theory is that “our” universe was created by a blackhole from another univers, in effect, overloading and causing the big bang.

However, this does not answer th question of Origin, as eacj successive “layer” of the Multiverseor the MultiVerse itself would still need an origin.

I have trouble with the concept of “always existed”. Whether you are talking about God, a Universe, A MultiVerse or whatever. My finite mind requires an origin.

Vanceone on May 14, 2007 at 6:54 PM

So, are you saying that the basis of Mormonism is not translated words on buried golden plates that were only seen by Joseph Smith? Reference your source, please.

The infinite universe is disallowed by the impossibility of an infinite regression of events into the past.

So the possibility of a multiverse isn’t even a possibility for you?

The necessary attributes of the First Cause have already been discussed above. We tend to call the entity with these attributes, God.

jdpaz on May 14, 2007 at 7:01 PM

And that name “God” is an incorrect attribution to these qualities (if such a thing existed it wouldn’t resemble the qualities of the monotheistic Gods put forth by religious people.

Blacklake didn’t do very well in logic or math class…both of with are non-physical and yet are true and useful to describe the physical world as well as non-material propositions.

Ah, I finally parsed that. “Both of which” you meant. It looked to me like there was something more wrong with that statement than a simple typo.

Actually, neither logic nor math directly describe the physical world. They are tools that are useful in producing a wide variety of statements about the physical world, particularly in the case of the latter (assuming you believe the two things are exclusive; Russell and Quine might have something to say about that). But mathematics and logic, in the abstract, are both stipulative systems. And when it comes to correlating them directly with the physical, both have points of failure (like baskets full of imaginary numbers of fruit, or bivalent truth statements about the dispositions of quanta).

The necessary attributes of the First Cause have already been discussed above. We tend to call the entity with these attributes, God.