Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022x) Still Doesn’t Understand That He Has the Burden of Evidence (NOT PROOF!!) When Investigating Miracles
Kevin R. Henke
November 20, 2022
In Henke (2022bL): “A Lot of Gullible People Believe Lies”, I stated the following about Mormonism and the Book of Mormon:
“Even though the Mormons readily admit that Joseph Smith Jr. “miraculously” translated the Book of Mormon into English, they would argue that the original gold plates were an inerrant “history” finished by Moroni around the 5th century AD. The plates were then carefully preserved in the ground from the 5th to the 19th century until Joseph Smith Jr. recovered them. The Mormons would further argue that the “first known audience” of the Book of Mormon were the Jews that wrote the “history” on the golden plates and not the 19th century Americans. Joseph Smith Jr. merely found and translated this “history.” Supposedly, several eyewitnesses actually saw the original plates of the Book of Mormon that Moroni and others had written (Hinckley 1979). While Joseph Smith Jr. supposedly was able to translate the Book of Mormon into English through visions produced by magic seer stones, the Mormons would also point out that the books of the Bible also have a “miraculous order.” They would argue that the Holy Spirit “miraculously translated” Jesus’ Aramaic into perfect Greek for the original Gospels and that the writing of the Bible books often involved visions and not historical accounts, such as in Ezekiel and Revelation. Mormons would also claim that they have copies of Joseph Smith Jr.’s first English edition of the Book of Mormon. This is in contrast to the potentially corrupted copies of copies of copies … of Old and New Testament books dating centuries to perhaps even more than 1,000 years after the originals. Mormons then conclude that the chain of custody (Moroni directly to Joseph Smith Jr. and then directly to the public) and reliability of the Book of Mormon are far superior to what Christians and Jews could claim for the Bible. Although Mr. Lundahl and I recognize that the Book of Mormon is a fraudulent document and that Joseph Smith Jr.’s claims about its origin have no merit whatsoever, where’s Mr. Lundahl’s evidence that any book of the Bible is inerrant and totally trustworthy when all of the originals have been lost? Where’s Mr. Lundahl’s archeological and other evidence that Moses actually existed, wrote the Pentateuch and that our Hebrew manuscripts are exact copies of the originals when Tov (2001) and archeology books like Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) say otherwise? Because Joseph Smith Jr. and the Book of Mormon have deceived millions of people, why couldn’t the Bible?” [italics in original; my bold]
Lundahl (2022x) only responds to the bolded section of the above paragraph:
“Henke (2022bL) states: ‘Even though the Mormons readily admit that Joseph Smith Jr. “miraculously” translated the Book of Mormon into English, they would argue that the original gold plates were an inerrant “history” finished by Moroni around the 5th century AD. The plates were then carefully preserved in the ground from the 5th to the 19th century until Joseph Smith Jr. recovered them. The Mormons would further argue that the “first known audience” of the Book of Mormon were the Jews that wrote the “history” on the golden plates and not the 19th century Americans.’
Lundahl (2022x): ‘Inerrant is not the salient portion.
Recovered is.’
Henke (2022bL) states: ‘The plates were then carefully preserved in the ground from the 5th to the 19th century until Joseph Smith Jr. recovered them.’
Lundahl (2022x): ‘Yes. Not "history" then, but "lost and spectacularily recovered history" which is another thing.
And a genre which Mr. Henke has so far not demonstrated that Genesis 3 ever had.’
I’ve already demonstrated by citing examples from Carrier (2014, pp. 387-509) that identifying the supposed genre of a document is totally unreliable in determining whether it is history or a work of fiction pretending to be history (see Henke 2022kn and its links and references). As Carrier (2014, pp. 387-509) demonstrates, many works of fiction, such as the four Gospels of the New Testament, pretend to be history. Mr. Lundahl and millions of others fail to realize that they’re being deceived by these Bible books into thinking that the events described in them actually happened.
Mr. Lundahl also needs to deal with the absolutely fatal Knowledge Gap associated with Genesis (Henke 2022dp; Henke 2022iL), which is just as bad as the recovered history nonsense in the Book of Mormon. There is no reliable chain of custody between when Genesis was written and our earliest copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We don’t know who wrote Genesis and when. We don’t know how Genesis may have been altered from the time it was written until our earliest copies from copies of copies of copies of copies… With any document, skepticism is initially warranted until the claims in the document are confirmed with external evidence (Henke 2022dv; Henke 2022b). Thus, we simply can’t trust the claims in Genesis and Mr. Lundahl has the burden of evidence to demonstrate that somehow we can (Henke 2022br: “Lundahl (2022k) is Wrong. Mr. Lundahl Has the Burden of Evidence to Demonstrate that the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 Actually Existed”). He has utterly failed to do so.
Later in Lundahl (2022x), Mr. Lundahl attempts to address some issues raised in Henke (2022br):
“Mr. Henke fails to see where an argument is leading or fails to wish our readers to see it.
Henke (2022br): Lewis (1960, p. 162) summarizes the views of Hume:
‘A miracle is therefore the most improbable of all events. It is always more probable that the witnesses were lying or mistaken than that a miracle occurred.’
Mr. Henke rightly states that CSL summarised Hume. It does not follow that this is the actual case. If you pretend to make it on philosophical grounds, you need to make miracles actually impossible. Exclude anything from being which is not governed by processes described by laws of nature (those known or similar such). In doing so you deny freewill - see Harris - but also reason. If you pretend to do it on empirical grounds, as is apparent to anyone better acquainted than Hume was, you need to sift out stories basically on the ground of being miraculous, irrespectively of other proof, before the remainder give you a set or miracle free stories that you use for your induction. You recall "the expurgated version ... the one without the gannet" perhaps?
He wrongly pretends to find a distinction between evidence and proof. Evidence is the visible part of a proof.
Once more, Mr. Lundahl is being sloppy with his references. I’ve added the C.S. Lewis reference to the quotation from Lundahl (2022x) to distinguish it from Mr. Lundahl’s words. “Harris” is probably referring to my recommended reference, Harris (2010).
The words of Hume appear correct. We see absolutely no evidence of miracles, but lies and misinterpretations occur all the time as I pointed out in Henke (2022b) and my other essays. Again, I refuse to say that miracles are impossible (Henke 2022gw). However, Mr. Lundahl has the burden of evidence (NOT PROOF!!) to demonstrate that miracles actually occur. So far, he has failed to do so. Until a miracle can be demonstrated, the default position is skepticism and it’s most probable that a miraculous story is actually a lie or misinterpretation (Henke 2022dv; Henke 2022b).
In the above quotation, Lundahl (2022x) also refers to Sam Harris and presumably recommends that the reader look at the skeptical statements on free will in Harris (2010, pp. 102-112). I wonder if Mr. Lundahl had the motivation to look up and actually read that section of Harris (2010) before commenting on it and recommending it to our readers? I doubt it. Now, Harris’ views on free will may be wrong, but Mr. Lundahl’s (2022x) rambling and vain attempt to string together miracles, free will, and human reason is groundless. Mr. Lundahl’s views on human free will, rationality, and consciousness are definitely outdated and incorrect (Henke 2022kx).
Lundahl (2022x) is wrong when he states that evidence is “the visible part of a proof.” Evidence is not the same thing as proof in the scientific method. As I’ve stated many times before, “proof” means absolute certainty and that can’t be achieved when evaluating past events (Henke 2022ad; Henke 2022jf; Henke 2022jt; Albert 1986). No evidence is 100% certain. There’s always the possibility, however slight, that the evidence may have been misinterpreted or is a hoax.
References:
Albert, L.H. 1986. “’Scientific’ Creationism as a Pseudoscience”, Creation/Evolution Journal, v. 6, no. 2, pp. 25-34.
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts: The Free Press: New York, USA, 385pp.
Harris, S. 2010. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: Free Press: New York, N.Y., USA, 291pp.
Hinckley, G.B. 1979. Truth Restored: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 156pp.
Howe, E.D. 1834. Mormonism Unvailed: Or A Faithful Account of that Singular Imposition and Delusion, from its Rise to the Present Time, with Sketches of the Characters of its Propagators: Paintsville, Ohio, https://www.mormonismi.net/pdf/Mormonism_Unvailed_Howe.pdf (accessed September 6, 2022).
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.
Tov, E. 2001. Textural Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd revised ed., Fortress Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 456pp.