Fine-Tuning Argument vs Argument From Miracles

[Rhea]

Yes, we believe the evidence of John Smiths existence just as we believe Jesus existed. Did you treat Mormonism with the usual sceptism-method for plagarism from other (biblical) beliefs?

Did you really just see the question,
"so you all agree then that Mormonism is true. "

and you thought a truthful and honest answer was,
"Yes, we believe the evidence of John Smiths existence "


You think that is an honest and truthful response to whether Mormonism is true?

 

[Lion IRC]

We clearly have differing definitions of what “addressing” constitutes.

So you, Lion and Learner (and Lump) all agree then that Mormonism is true. After all, in the case of John Smith we have EVIDENCE from the time.

Mormons? LDS? Yeah, I think I've heard of them.

Are they the ones who believe in Adam and Eve and Noah and Melchizedek and Job and Abraham and Elijah and Samson and Delilah and Isaiah and Solomon and David and Eleazar and Jeconiah and Moses and Joseph and Mary and Jesus...?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

We clearly have differing definitions of what “addressing” constitutes.

So you, Lion and Learner (and Lump) all agree then that Mormonism is true. After all, in the case of John Smith we have EVIDENCE from the time.

Mormons? LDS? Yeah, I think I've heard of them.

Are they the ones who believe in Adam and Eve and Noah and Melchizedek and Job and Abraham and Elijah and Samson and Delilah and Isaiah and Solomon and David and Eleazar and Jeconiah and Moses and Joseph and Mary and Jesus...?

Add another dissembler to the list.

Just keep revealing your true selves boys. Drinks are on the house.

 

[Learner]

Do you believe the Golden Plates were written in Reformed Egyptian? That Joseph Smith translated them through the power of the Seer's Stone? That God himself directly oversaw the translation process, literally word for word? That because of this the Book of Mormon is the "Most correct book on the earth?" Do you believe the Witness of the Eight? Do you believe that once the Golden Plates had been translated God took them up into Heaven, explaining why we can't take a look at them for ourselves now? Do you believe that Joseph Smith performed miracles of the same magnitude as Jesus?

I maybe opened to it ... there could be some connection somewhere maybe. I am reminded of the bit where it says in the Christian bible; Satan can appear like an angel and so on. Creating new faiths no doubt - from the biblical viewpoint.
(Yes I know Mary had a visit from an angel)

We have much better "evidence" of all these things than exists about the Jesus mythology, yet historians do not accept these things as actual history any more than they accept Jesus walking on the water as actual history, or George Washington tossing a coin across the Potomac as actual history.

You don't mean the gold plates and miracles of course. Better evidence ( medium method for text) including photos of the time ... I agree.

 

[atrib]

Yes, we believe the evidence of John Smiths existence just as we believe Jesus existed. Did you treat Mormonism with the usual sceptism-method for plagarism from other (biblical) beliefs?

Did you really just see the question,
"so you all agree then that Mormonism is true. "

and you thought a truthful and honest answer was,
"Yes, we believe the evidence of John Smiths existence "


You think that is an honest and truthful response to whether Mormonism is true?

What else can they say? There are eyewitness accounts to Joseph Smith "decoding" magic gold tablets using the magic decoder stone he had "found". These people were tasked with recording the texts Smith was reading out, since Smith apparently either could not write, or did so poorly. The evidence that this happened is overwhelming, and the Christians can only wish they had this kind of evidence.

 

[atrib]

I am sort of opened to it ... there could be some connection somewhere maybe. I am reminded of the bit where it says in the Christian bible; Satan can appear like an angel and so on. Creating new faiths no doubt - from the biblical viewpoint.

How do you know the Gospels were not inspired by Satan? Or that the Book of Mormon was? You don't.

 

[Learner]

I am sort of opened to it ... there could be some connection somewhere maybe. I am reminded of the bit where it says in the Christian bible; Satan can appear like an angel and so on. Creating new faiths no doubt - from the biblical viewpoint.

How do you know the Gospels were not inspired by Satan? Or that the Book of Mormon was? You don't.

Good point... something to consider regarding the bible- That he (Satan) wouldn't want us to be his followers and stay clear from him, instructed by his own scripture, but we must love God instead. And the Book of Mormon, you are correct.. I don't know.

 

[Keith&Co.]

How do you know the Gospels were not inspired by Satan?

Or Gozer.
I like the Gozer scenario.

Gozer the Gozerian was defeated but not destroyed. Gozer then sent minions to Earth to
1) destroy all records of his defeat
2) marginalize the religions of anyone that opposed Gozer
3) Invent a new religion (or three, or three thousand), which seemed real and powerful (propped up by miracles Gozerians cast in the new god's name), but ultimately posed no threat to Gozer's eventual return.
Maybe one of the demons listed in someone's scripture is the last surviving reference to the god who defeated Gozer the last time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

instructed by his own scripture, but we must love God

But a number of religious schisms exist between people who insist they worship the same God, but bitch that the other guy worships God in the wrong way.
What if they're all incorrect? What if the Devil put JUST ENOUGH truth in the Bible to draw your trust, but enough error or outright lie that you'll never speak the right prayers or make the right sacrifices?
Or what if Jesus doesn't fit the prophecies for the Messiah? He doesn't. Maybe the whole thing's a con job and when you show up in the afterlife, God will have no choice but to point out that you HAD all the clues, and still fell for the imposter....

 

[Atheos]

Do you believe the Golden Plates were written in Reformed Egyptian? That Joseph Smith translated them through the power of the Seer's Stone? That God himself directly oversaw the translation process, literally word for word? That because of this the Book of Mormon is the "Most correct book on the earth?" Do you believe the Witness of the Eight? Do you believe that once the Golden Plates had been translated God took them up into Heaven, explaining why we can't take a look at them for ourselves now? Do you believe that Joseph Smith performed miracles of the same magnitude as Jesus?

I maybe opened to it ... there could be some connection somewhere maybe. I am reminded of the bit where it says in the Christian bible; Satan can appear like an angel and so on. Creating new faiths no doubt - from the biblical viewpoint.
(Yes I know Mary had a visit from an angel)

We have much better "evidence" of all these things than exists about the Jesus mythology, yet historians do not accept these things as actual history any more than they accept Jesus walking on the water as actual history, or George Washington tossing a coin across the Potomac as actual history.

You don't mean the gold plates and miracles of course. Better evidence ( medium method for text) including photos of the time ... I agree.

Yes I do mean the gold plates and miracles "of course." We have named, signed witnesses (the Witness of the Eight) who swear that they saw the golden plates and handled them. For the Jesus myth we have anonymous documents that didn't appear until decades after the alleged events happened and appeared 1500 miles away from where they supposedly happened. "A long time ago in a place far, far away, there once was a magic Jew named Jesus."

The miracles wrought by Joseph Smith were clearly chronicled, again by named writers who claim to have witnessed them. Not anonymous documents written by people who never identify themselves and never claim to have met Jesus themselves, nor claim to have met anyone who talked directly to Jesus.

The "evidence" for the Mormon claims is better than the evidence for the Jesus myths by many orders of magnitude on all accounts. In spite of this indisputable fact historians still are certain that the Mormon claims are pure mythology.

That's the problem I have with these long-winded diatribes. Lumpenproletariat dismisses all of this with irrelevant sharpshooter fallacies and then just turns around and repeats the same debunked claims again and again. It doesn't matter how many words he uses to perfume the skunk or how many times he sprays it, it's still going to be a skunk.

 

[Learner]

Well the problem is imo.. if one of them were actually true, you would by your post, still see all religions and theiir individual claims in the same way. Perhaps pitching them against each other, in a manner of speaking, may reveal the most consistent of the diffrent religious scriptures (EDIT: actually Lumpen has). Although obviously - you may still not accept the one that is more consistent as true, but you would know that the other religious scriptures - not being so consistent, is more likely to be far less-true, or at least having less weight.

 

[Rhea]

That’s the issue as you see it?

**IF** something were true **THEN** you **PREDICT** an action from Atheos?

If, then, I guess?

That is such a weird way to interpret the world.

 

[Learner]

Interpreting faiths.

I am using this PC, which I know about in the world without interpreting, for example.

 

[atrib]

I am sort of opened to it ... there could be some connection somewhere maybe. I am reminded of the bit where it says in the Christian bible; Satan can appear like an angel and so on. Creating new faiths no doubt - from the biblical viewpoint.

How do you know the Gospels were not inspired by Satan? Or that the Book of Mormon was? You don't.

Good point... something to consider regarding the bible- That he (Satan) wouldn't want us to be his followers and stay clear from him, instructed by his own scripture, but we must love God instead. And the Book of Mormon, you are correct.. I don't know.

God and Satan are merely labels. Satan could be calling himself God, and you would have no way to know the difference. It's not like God and/or Satan is someone you can meet or hang out with in real life.

If you are willing to believe the Bible stories as being true, you must also believe the Mormon stories to be true, since the Mormon stories are supported by better quality evidence.

 

[Learner]

Good point... something to consider regarding the bible- That he (Satan) wouldn't want us to be his followers and stay clear from him, instructed by his own scripture, but we must love God instead. And the Book of Mormon, you are correct.. I don't know.

God and Satan are merely labels. Satan could be calling himself God, and you would have no way to know the difference. It's not like God and/or Satan is someone you can meet or hang out with in real life.

That is an idea. I would have to ponder on what would be the fail-safes for such a thing (if it was God).

If you are willing to believe the Bible stories as being true, you must also believe the Mormon stories to be true, since the Mormon stories are supported by better quality evidence.

It would be conflicting believing both obviously. I think there is a slight issue, the better-evidence seems to be based on a later-date-of-origin (for lack of better words) i.e. the newest of religions along-side newer developments equals better evidence. If we put in the origins of the Moonies that was founded in 1954. That should also apply... being better evidence (of a later date) than the Mormons.

 

[atrib]

That is an idea. I would have to ponder on what would be the fail-safes for such a thing (if it was God).

If you are willing to believe the Bible stories as being true, you must also believe the Mormon stories to be true, since the Mormon stories are supported by better quality evidence.

It would be conflicting believing both obviously. I think there is a slight issue, the better-evidence seems to be based on a later-date-of-origin (for lack of better words) i.e. the newest of religions along-side newer developments equals better evidence. If we put in the origins of the Moonies that was founded in 1954. That should also apply... being better evidence (of a later date) than the Mormons.

Better evidence in that we have named eyewitness testimony attesting to the existence of the "magic plates" and the "decoding" process used by Joseph Smith to allegedly translate the word of God from these plates. We know Joseph Smith and the eyewitnesses existed and were real people in history. We have no such evidence for the existence of Jesus and many of the related characters that appear in the Gospels. And the Gospels, at best, are compilations of oral traditions of unknown origin and unknown authorship that would have been in existence for many decades before they were written down.

I'm not saying that there is sufficient evidence to attribute divine origin to the work of Joseph Smith. Far from it. Smith was a known criminal who had been convicted of fraud before he came up with the idea of starting his own religion to scam people. But even with all that, the evidence supporting Smith's work and the Mormon faith is of much higher quality than the evidence supporting the Christian Gospels. As such, if you claim to believe the Gospels to be the word of God based on available evidence (as Lumpy does), then you logically must also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

 

[Atheos]

Well the problem is imo.. if one of them were actually true, you would by your post, still see all religions and theiir individual claims in the same way. Perhaps pitching them against each other, in a manner of speaking, may reveal the most consistent of the diffrent religious scriptures (EDIT: actually Lumpen has). Although obviously - you may still not accept the one that is more consistent as true, but you would know that the other religious scriptures - not being so consistent, is more likely to be far less-true, or at least having less weight.

"If one of them were actually true?" That is the very core subject under discussion here. I am a bit offended that you have already tried and found me guilty of not being willing to accept the truth when to date I haven't been given the chance. Show me some actual and objective evidence that one religion is clearly true and the others are false and at least give me a chance.

But don't ply me with odds games or hide behind the fog of thousands of years of lost writings, incomplete history and obvious pious fraud. If a god existed and used miracles such as were described in the Jesus myths to prove it existed there is no reason it could not continue to do so for all time. Unless of course it ran out of power, or died or grew bored messing with humanity and moved on to a more interesting planet with decently intelligent life forms.

There is absolutely nothing about the christian bible or about the Jesus myths that makes it smack of being "more true" than other scriptures. This very same Lumpenproletariat to which you have appealed freely admits that the gospel writers made up the genealogies and the virgin birth narratives, perhaps many other things. So we're reading fantastic stories concocted by known liars who have not one piece of evidence to back up their fantastic claims and we're supposed to just swallow it whole? C'mon. This is insanity. For every wise saying in the Bible there's a verse where this loving god commits an atrocity such as killing 70,000 innocent bystanders to punish David for conducting a census. For every noble thought expressed in its most lofty passages there's a reference to men pissing against a wall. The entire flood myth, the Tower of Babel, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan -- all bullshit. So much of the claims written in the bible have been thoroughly debunked the only miracle remaining is that such a large contingency of people continue to cling to it.

If there is a difference between me and you it's that I am willing to be convinced against my will of the truth of a religion, and I apply exactly the same level of critical skepticism to the claims of every one of them. Are you willing to apply the same level of critical skepticism to the claims of your own religion that you apply to all others? You don't have to answer to me, it's a question you must answer for yourself. I will only say that if you are not willing to do so then you are not deserving of the appellation "Learner."

 

[Learner]

Better evidence in that we have named eyewitness testimony attesting to the existence of the "magic plates" and the "decoding" process used by Joseph Smith to allegedly translate the word of God from these plates. We know Joseph Smith and the eyewitnesses existed and were real people in history. We have no such evidence for the existence of Jesus and many of the related characters that appear in the Gospels. And the Gospels, at best, are compilations of oral traditions of unknown origin and unknown authorship that would have been in existence for many decades before they were written down.

Yes it does seem better, considering the 2000 years difference. Strangley if it is what you think with the oral tradition... I would go along with the underlined which more or less corroborates with Lumpy's posts - the Gospels at least in this regard, is IN agreement to theistic claims that the Gospels weren't "invented" long after Jesus's believed death. Decades before... would be during the very times of Christ.

I'm not saying that there is sufficient evidence to attribute divine origin to the work of Joseph Smith. Far from it. Smith was a known criminal who had been convicted of fraud before he came up with the idea of starting his own religion to scam people. But even with all that, the evidence supporting Smith's work and the Mormon faith is of much higher quality than the evidence supporting the Christian Gospels. As such, if you claim to believe the Gospels to be the word of God based on available evidence (as Lumpy does), then you logically must also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

That would be technically than logically ... which means someone can't believe in two different words of God that aren't much harmonious to each other. Not forgetting the scams you mentioned - affecting the credibility of J.Smith.

 

[atrib]

Better evidence in that we have named eyewitness testimony attesting to the existence of the "magic plates" and the "decoding" process used by Joseph Smith to allegedly translate the word of God from these plates. We know Joseph Smith and the eyewitnesses existed and were real people in history. We have no such evidence for the existence of Jesus and many of the related characters that appear in the Gospels. And the Gospels, at best, are compilations of oral traditions of unknown origin and unknown authorship that would have been in existence for many decades before they were written down.

Yes it does seem better, considering the 2000 years difference. Strangley if it is what you think with the oral tradition... I would go along with the underlined which more or less corroborates with Lumpy's posts - the Gospels at least in this regard, is IN agreement to theistic claims that the Gospels weren't "invented" long after Jesus's believed death. Decades before... would be during the very times of Christ.

You missed the point. By a mile or more. An event that is supported by the testimony of named eyewitnesses is usually considered more reliable than hearsay of unknown origin.

I'm not saying that there is sufficient evidence to attribute divine origin to the work of Joseph Smith. Far from it. Smith was a known criminal who had been convicted of fraud before he came up with the idea of starting his own religion to scam people. But even with all that, the evidence supporting Smith's work and the Mormon faith is of much higher quality than the evidence supporting the Christian Gospels. As such, if you claim to believe the Gospels to be the word of God based on available evidence (as Lumpy does), then you logically must also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

That would be technically than logically ... which means someone can't believe in two different words of God that aren't much harmonious to each other. Not forgetting the scams you mentioned - affecting the credibility of J.Smith.

Joseph Smith allegedly performed miracles, and this is supported by eyewitness testimony. We have no obvious reason to believe these eyewitnesses were lying. This constitutes better quality evidence than the hearsay of unknown origin that alleges Jesus performed miracles. Yet you believe the Jesus stories but apparently not the Joseph Smith stories.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Joseph Smith allegedly performed miracles, and this is supported by eyewitness testimony. We have no obvious reason to believe these eyewitnesses were lying. This constitutes better quality evidence than the hearsay of unknown origin that alleges Jesus performed miracles. Yet you believe the Jesus stories but apparently not the Joseph Smith stories.

And for the exact same reason: he just wants to. Which is why this entire dross of a thread--and every one like them (and there have been thousands)--is so bizarre. Why these cult members need to keep convincing themselves that there is a rational basis to their clearly irrational beliefs escapes me. That's the very essence of cult "faith" after all.

Other than they are deprogramming and can't handle coming out of the cognitively dissonant state they've been living in all these years. They sure as shit aren't posting any walls of text for us.