Intellectual wrecking crews

This reminded me of our LDS intellectuals who teach M2C and SITH.

Thomas Sowell

@ThomasSowell

·

1h

The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good.

More on M2C groupthink

I've often explained that I think everyone involved with Book of Mormon studies has good intentions.

Members of the M2C citation cartel promote M2C because they actually believe it and they want to use their evidence to persuade people to accept the Book of Mormon. 

And that's fine with me.

It's the same for those who promote all of the multiple working hypotheses, whether it's Baja, Panama, South America, Heartland, Malaysia, New York, or even the BYU fantasy map. For that matter, many critics are also well-intentioned. It's easy to be confused by the various claims, particularly when leading LDS scholars explicitly reject the teachings of the prophets.

My problem with the M2C citation cartel is they don't want Latter-day Saints to make informed decisions. It seems obvious by now that they know most Latter-day Saints prefer to accept the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah. 

But because they repudiate those teachings, they don't like anyone to focus on those teachings. They don't want Latter-day Saints to even know what the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah.

Incredibly, the efforts of the M2C citation cartel seeped into the groupthink among many Church historians as well. 

For example, see my latest installment of my review of Real vs. Rumor, here:

http://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2022/05/real-vs-rumor-part-4-loyalty-to.html

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I'm one of many who changed my mind about M2C after decades of accepting what the "experts" taught, including specifically Jack Welch (FARMS/Book of Mormon Central), Dan Peterson (FARMS/Interpreter), and Scott Gordon (FairLDS). They're all great people, faithful Latter-day Saints, etc., but they share a distrust of the ability of Latter-day Saints to make informed decisions.

They don't want people to make informed decisions. M2C thrives only in an environment of ignorance and control.

In fact, if you reject M2C in favor of the teachings of the prophets, M2Cers will accuse you of apostasy. It's awesome.

A much simpler, wholesome, and productive approach would be for everyone to lay out all the facts, state assumptions, inferences, and threads, and they explain hypotheses. With multiple working hypotheses, everyone could make informed decisions harmoniously. 

There is zero need for or utility in contention over these issues.

But the M2C citation cartel continues to refuse to adopt this model of multiple working hypotheses.

For years, the M2C citation cartel has downplayed the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah. They consistently refuse to inform Latter-day Saints about the evidence that corroborates those teachings. 

Because the "Heartlanders" still believe the teachings of the prophets, the M2C promoters have been trying to persuade people that the "Heartlanders" are motivated by a political agenda.

It's a ridiculous claim. Everyone who knows the "Heartlander" working hypothesis knows it is based on the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah, not on any political agenda. There are Heartlanders among the Latter-day Saints throughout the world. Non-American Latter-day Saint Heartlanders couldn't care less about American politics, but the M2C proponents don't care about that reality.

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At this point, the best we can do is continue to educate ourselves and those around us, encouraging them to make fully informed decisions. 

Ramps vs steps

According to the law of Moses, altars are supposed to have ramps, not stairs.

26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. (Exodus 20:26)

Recently, the discovery of an ancient Hebrew inscription, written on a lead plate and dating to the 14c BC, was published. This video discusses the significance of the find because it corroborates the Biblical account of Joshua.

https://youtu.be/wWlKg9g1IXs?t=860

One key to the discovery was the presence of a ramp, not stairs, leading to the altar.

This shows it was an Israelite site.

The divine name YHV from Mount Ebal, written in proto-alphabetic script.

 

14:20

remember in the torah it prescribed that this you could not have steps going up to the altar right it had to be a ramp

14:26

right and so a kosher altar had to be a ramp not steps now pagan

14:32

altars were always steps right so this is huge it's huge it's a ramp up to and

14:38

you have ash piles of only kosher animals i mean how much on the nose could you be and then for

14:45

so so that was you know it's it's a huge discovery but people know people here and i grew up in israel people didn't talk about this

14:52

people didn't know i mean this is probably one of the biggest discoveries in the land and people don't

14:58

know about it why why people won't know about this because

15:04

there's so much politics and so much oppression to this and he he speaks about this in his book

15:11

first of all uh it was with archaeologists if the if the whole

15:17

science of archaeology and and biblical history say that joshua never existed

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One reason scholars are skeptical that Nephites ever lived in Mesoamerica is that Mayan culture used steps, not ramps, for their altars. In North America, at least in Book of Mormon times, the ancient people built ramps.

Reaffirming the New York Cumorah

A few random thoughts related to the reason this blog continues to reaffirm the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, despite the opposition from the M2C citation cartel.

First, I posted a preliminary version of an article I'm going to post soon on academia.org. It's another example of how our modern LDS historians distort Church history to accommodate M2C.

Here's the link:

http://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2022/05/real-vs-rumor-part-3-historians-knowing.html

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Here are some relevant thoughts from Twitter.

Prof. Feynman

@ProfFeynman

Don't worry about who will be offended if you speak the truth. Think about who will be misled and deceived if you don't.

Thomas Sowell

@ThomasSowell

·

47m

One of the most pathetic—and dangerous—signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.

Orange Book 

@orangebook_

Spend less time convincing people who can't see your vision, and more time building the future with those who do.

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Related to this, there's a new post about the book Real vs. Rumor here:

Abortion and M2C

The recent leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion has made abortion a major topic in the news lately.*

When I was walking on the beach yesterday, I listened to a podcast that clarified the difference between the pro-life and pro-choice arguments. The analysis paralleled the difference between the M2C and NY1C arguments.

As always, I emphasize that I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm interested in the psychology behind belief and the types of arguments people make. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, M2C or NY1C, I encourage you to look at this comparison analytically and objectively.

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The key distinction between the abortion arguments is this: One side can say exactly what they think and what they want. The other has to use the fog of argument, in this case the "laundry list" persuasion tactic, because it's a little embarrassing to say in public what their position is.

We have a similar situation with the Cumorah issue. One side can say exactly what they think; i.e., that the prophets were correct about the New York Cumorah. The other has to use the fog of argument (such as the laundry list) because it's a little embarrassing in LDS circles to openly declare that the prophets were wrong about the New York Cumorah.

Here's a summary table:

	Proud to declare publicly	Better to obscure with “laundry list”
Abortion arguments	I believe/think that life begins at conception and that life is sacred and shouldn’t be terminated for convenience.	I value my own life, freedom and choices over that of a potential life, something that could be or not be a life; i.e., a “maybe baby.”
Cumorah	The prophets were correct when they taught that the Hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is in western New York.	The prophets were wrong when they taught that the Hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is in western New York.

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People opposed to abortion (pro-life) can state their reasons clearly and in public. The pro-life argument goes like this: my religious belief or intuition says that life begins at conception, that life is sacred, and that life shouldn't be ended for any reason. 

It's a clean argument that people are proud to say in public, openly and without lots of rationales, explanations, etc. 

By contrast, those who favor abortion access (pro-choice) tend to skirt their real argument, which is: They value their own quality of life, including financial  and personal freedom and choices, over that of a merely potential life. But that sounds selfish.

Instead, they obscure the argument with rhetoric based on choice and freedom, using "laundry list" persuasion to avoid clarity. They hope that if they give 10 reasons, people are going to think, "You know, I don't know that much about this issue, but if there are 10 reasons... Ten reasons are way more than one. Way more than three. Even if I don't understand the reasons, I don't need to get into the details when there are 10 reasons."

Making an argument based on quantity is persuasive by itself; it doesn't matter whether any of the reasons have merit.

The laundry-list tactic is designed for weak arguments. But the pro-abortion people do not have a weak argument. They have a strong argument that has one weird quality: They don't want to say it in public.

Their argument is strong from a persuasion perspective. If they said their actual argument, favoring their personal freedom over what they consider potential life, we could say, "Oh, that's a pretty strong argument, even if I don't agree with it."

They also invoke particularly tragic and rare cases that generate understandable sympathy, then transpose those exceptional situations onto the far more common cases of personal convenience.

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The abortion debate is essentially a disagreement about assumptions.

To the Left, their starting assumption is this fetus might be a baby, and might not. It's a "maybe baby." They frame the debate as being over the value of the "maybe baby." If you think a fetus is something that could be, or might not be, a life, then you go the direction of why should I let my life be determined by something that's a maybe. 

On the other side, people think that conception produces life that is sacred.

Many people seek to balance the two interests by recognizing exceptions in exceptional situations.

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Similarly, the debate about Cumorah is a debate about assumptions. 

Those who accept the New York Cumorah (NY1C) assume the prophets told the truth. 

Those who reject the New York Cumorah in favor of M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) assume the prophets were wrong.

Thus, those who still believe what the prophets have taught about Cumorah (NY1C) can state their reasons clearly and in public. 

It's simple and clear: we know the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is in western New York because (i) Moroni told Joseph Smith about it the first time they met, (ii) Joseph, Oliver (Letter VII) and their successors reaffirmed that basic point, and (iii) the extrinsic evidence corroborates those teachings. 

By contrast, those who advocate M2C (or any other non-New York Cumorah) use the fog of argument, including laundry lists, to soften their repudiation of the teachings of the prophets. There are dozens of examples at FAIRLDS, Book of Mormon Central, the Interpreter, Meridian Magazine, the old FARMS database, etc.

For an LDS audience, outright rejection of the teachings of the prophets is generally unpersuasive. Knowing this, M2C proponents are clever enough to provide a laundry list of reasons, as we've seen many times on this blog. Some of them have even created numbered lists of reasons why Cumorah cannot be in New York, including the absence of volcanoes and the presence of snow. 

M2C promoters make convoluted, irrational arguments such as their claim that (i) because Joseph Smith was the nominal editor of the Times and Seasons in 1842, (ii) he must have approved of anonymous editorials that claimed ruins in Mesoamerica were left by the Nephites, (iii) which means that he must have implicitly (yet silently) rejected the New York Cumorah (iv) because New York is "too far" from Mesoamerica.

They usually ignore the historical and extrinsic evidence that supports the New York Cumorah, including the fact that Joseph's own brothers republished Letter VII both before and after those 1842 editorials. 

When they do address the NY1C evidence, they attribute it to a false tradition created by early Latter-day Saints who merely speculated about Cumorah. They say Joseph Smith passively adopted the false tradition. They say Lucy Mack Smith's memory was poor, or she was confused, or she incorporated false traditions. They say David Whitmer and Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery adopted the false tradition, and that Oliver Cowdery misreported what Moroni told Joseph Smith. They say Oliver misled people when, as Assistant President of the Church, he declared unambiguously that it was a fact that the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is in New York.  They say all of Joseph's contemporaries and successors who have ever addressed the topic were wrong.

Why?

Because they, the scholars, know better.

Hence, the M2C advocates resort to laundry-list arguments and other sophistry to persuade the Latter-day Saints to unknowingly reject the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah! 

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*Pro-choice activists claim the Supreme Court decision would deprive people of abortion rights, but that's a misleading tactic of thinking past the sale because the issue is really about who decides: the U.S. Supreme Court or the states. Reasonable people can disagree about that.

Abortion advocates know that people are more likely to respond emotionally to losing something than to potentially gaining something. Loss aversion is more persuasive, so framing it as "losing a right" is effective persuasion, but it's an analytical red herring.

And, of course, the leaked opinion was a draft that might not even be the final opinion of the Court, which means this could end up be a controversy about a hypothetical.