Big time mormon scholar lands on SciForums to debate all comers,

W

WildBlueYonder

Guest
to set the record straight on the BoA & the BoM & otherwise verbally disembowel all infidels

http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/lostbook.htm
KERRY SHIRTS ON THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM VIDEO FROM I.R.R.
FAIR CONFERENCE, SALT LAKE CITY, 04/08/02.
[Transcribed by Marc A. Schindler 17/09/02. Transcriber’s note: ellipses ("…") do not represent gaps in data, but pauses in conversation. Verbal speech does not follow the same rules as written text, so pauses in speech which might be represented by periods or commas in written text have been represented by ellipses]
I’m Kerry Shirts. I’m a researcher with FAIR, the Foundation for Apologetics Information and Research. We have been apprised of a situation, of a new video out on the Book of Abraham, by Luke Wilson, and the Institute of Religious Research – the IRR. They have presented a new video on the Book of Abraham, trying to refute it and bury it once and for all, showing why it’s phony, and why the papyri, the Joseph Smith papyri, prove that Joseph Smith is a false prophet. And that’s their full intention; it’s an agenda-driven video, I believe.
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http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/ponderin.htm
Debating the Book of Abraham with a Professional Egyptologist
Dr. Castillos: http://www.geocities.com/martsego/comments.txt
I've read the apologetic remarks by several Mormon writers trying to justify Joseph Smith's version of the figures in the three facsimiles attached to the Book of Abraham which I tried to consider with an open mind, but after some thought I found them to be quite unconvincing. Kerry Shirts' long and elaborate essay on the canopic jars in Facsimile 1 does not at all deal with the main flaw in his Prophet's identification of these vases as idols when in fact they were meant to contain and preserve some of the internal organs of the deceased, for some obscure reason he prefers to write about their names as given in the Pearl of Great Price and that those names were not so strange after all, but if Joseph Smith was indeed a Prophet, he should have known the correct meaning and names of what they represented and there should be no confusion at all.
Kerry A. Shirts:
The main complaint appears to be the canopic jars cannot be what Joseph said they were because they must be something else, as if there is an exclusion principle at work. And because they are something that Joseph did not mention that proves Joseph is a false prophet.
http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/withhis.htm
Reviewing Charles Larson "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus", Institute for Religious Research, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1992.
Research by Kerry A. Shirts
There are so many things incorrect in this book that it is hard to wonder where to start. I'll examine it in several posts and not necessarily from page 1 to page 240 (counting the Index). Instead I'll just note problems that Larson has and we can examine and discuss them and bring them out as we go.
It has always fascinated me that the papyri brings out the worse in scholarship with anti-Mormons. Apparently they feel that it is safe to say just whatever pleases their fancy because there are so few who can check into it, and again there are so few who care less. Those of us who take it rather seriously however, do check into it and always find misconceptions with the anti view. Larson is certainly no exception.
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http://www.fairlds.org/
The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS (Mormon) doctrine, belief and practice.
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Some further background on Kerry and who he is and what he represents.

Kerry Shirts is a researcher with FAIR.

FAIR -

The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) was formed in late 1997 by a group of LDS defenders of the faith who frequented the America Online Mormonism message boards. In defending the Church against detractors there, this small group realized that they had no way of sharing their information with each other, much less the rest of the Church. As a result of this, FAIR was born. Incorporated as a non-profit organization in November 1997, the fledgling organization put up its first Web site in March 1998.

FAIR is staffed completely by students of the scriptures, ancient languages, early Christian history, early LDS history, and LDS doctrine and apologetics. Most all of the staff here at FAIR have been involved in online services and Internet-based LDS apologetics for many years. Many of our members are authors of currently-available apologetic publications.
 
WildBlueYonder. I have an IQ in excess of 150. I have an education from one of the premier Universities on the planet. I have more than five decades of life experience. But I have bugger all idea from your convoluted and poorly structured post what the hell you are blabbering about, and which side of the issue, whatever it is, you are positioned on.
If your intent was to preach only to the choir, you may well have suceeded. If you intended to educate and inform you have failed abyssmally.
 
Hey! Congrats you guys! I see you can find things on the internet, and have discovered a little about me. Now then, can you also show the same acumen with the scriptures? So far, you haven't done so.

Oh and for the honest and open record, I am simply not, by any means, a big time LDS scholar, whatever that is. I am an enthusiastic and well read hobbyist who enjoys learning. That's about it..........
 
Hi Kerry,

Welcome to sciforums.

I'd like to know why you have chosen to follow LDS rather than any other Christian variation. Would you share that with us please?

Cris
 
Certainly. I suspect largely because I was born LDS, and that's been my raising and culture, and besides, I really do believe in it. The ideology seems rather close to what I think the meaning of life is. On the other hand, I have also delved into much else that also seems to fit what I like, such as Kabbalah, Judaism, Gnosticism, etc., and I know there are some incompatibilities! GRIN! So, I just keep chuggin away and learning, and hopefully, ever expanding my knowledge and understanding............ Sometimes I am rather dogmatic in one area, and then in another, and the more I learn, the more I realize I just really don't know very doggone much........so, I keep learning! Or trying to anyway.
 
And I insist on representing that I do not, by any means represent FAIR at all. I am rather independently researching right now from their materials. Yes, I helped found it, and have participated in many of their symposiums, and have written a bit for them. But I am not and do not represent nor speak for FAIR. ALL information, conclusions, research, etc. I do, is simply my own for now.

Thanks,
Best,
kerry
 
Kerry Shirts said:
And I insist on representing that I do not, by any means represent FAIR at all. I am rather independently researching right now from their materials. Yes, I helped found it, and have participated in many of their symposiums, and have written a bit for them. But I am not and do not represent nor speak for FAIR. ALL information, conclusions, research, etc. I do, is simply my own for now.

Thanks,
Best,
kerry
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2 words, “Plausible deniability”
 
Kerry Shirts said:
Hey! Congrats you guys! I see you can find things on the internet, and have discovered a little about me. Now then, can you also show the same acumen with the scriptures? So far, you haven't done so.
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nice, open with an insult, then a challenge & another insult
Oh and for the honest and open record, I am simply not, by any means, a big time LDS scholar, whatever that is. I am an enthusiastic and well read hobbyist who enjoys learning. That's about it..........
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So, then you’re an amateur like us?
 
Cris said:
Some further background on Kerry and who he is and what he represents.

Kerry Shirts is a researcher with FAIR.

FAIR -

The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) was formed in late 1997 by a group of LDS defenders of the faith who frequented the America Online Mormonism message boards. In defending the Church against detractors there, this small group realized that they had no way of sharing their information with each other, much less the rest of the Church. As a result of this, FAIR was born. Incorporated as a non-profit organization in November 1997, the fledgling organization put up its first Web site in March 1998.

FAIR is staffed completely by students of the scriptures, ancient languages, early Christian history, early LDS history, and LDS doctrine and apologetics. Most all of the staff here at FAIR have been involved in online services and Internet-based LDS apologetics for many years. Many of our members are authors of currently-available apologetic publications.
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well at least they call it what it should be called - apologetics. i guess when you cant come up with facts to support your god, you can at least come up with excuses and justifications for it. pretty sweet.
 
WBY:
So, then you’re an amateur like us?
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But of course.......... an amateur though, determined to understand as well as I can, and read as much as I can in a myriad subjects relating to issues that fascinate me.........
 
charles cure said:
well at least they call it what it should be called - apologetics. i guess when you cant come up with facts to support your god, you can at least come up with excuses and justifications for it. pretty sweet.
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here's a small lesson in english, I guess greek loan words throw you off :D
from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics
Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Someone who engages in apologetics is called an apologist or an "apologete". The term comes from the Greek word apologia ( απολογια ), meaning defense of a position against an attack. When John Henry Newman entitled his spiritual autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua in 1864, he was playing upon both connotations. Early uses of the term include Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates from his trial) and some works of early Christian apologists, such as St. Justin Martyr's two Apologies addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
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WildBlueYonder said:
here's a small lesson in english, I guess greek loan words throw you off :D
from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics


Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Someone who engages in apologetics is called an apologist or an "apologete". The term comes from the Greek word apologia ( απολογια ), meaning defense of a position against an attack
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how is that not what i thought it was?
its someone defending a position against an attack or a perceived attack. the problem here is that the only way to defend something that has no factual basis or observable data to back it up is with excuses, justifications, imaginary scenarios, and creative speculation. i think ive got it but thanks for the "english lesson" or whatever the fuck it was you thought you were doing. i was making a pun sort of, too bad you missed it.
 
The title of the thread was enticing enough and now that I am here, I am disappointed. Probably my fault for setting my own expectations that a sholarly 'believer' was going show some evidence in a science forum.
 
Well, Mr. Shirts, perhaps you can explain how there seems to be no evidence of a Christian culture among native South Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Also, why was Jesus a Jew and not a Mormon?
 
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But of course.......... an amateur though, determined to understand as well as I can, and read as much as I can in a myriad subjects relating to issues that fascinate me.........

Do any of those subjects include the real world?
 
Certainly. I suspect largely because I was born LDS, and that's been my raising and culture, and besides, I really do believe in it. The ideology seems rather close to what I think the meaning of life is.
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The above statement clearly shows the influence of the circumstances in which the personality of an individual is conditioned by society.

I almost hear the same explanation each time I ask: “Why you chose [Put any religion here] of all the available faiths in the entire world?”
Certainly. I suspect largely because I was born [Put any religion here], and that's been my raising and culture, and besides, I really do believe in it. The ideology seems rather close to what I think the meaning of life is.
 
spidergoat said:
Well, Mr. Shirts, perhaps you can explain how there seems to be no evidence of a Christian culture among native South Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Also, why was Jesus a Jew and not a Mormon?
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you wont get an answer to this. guaranteed.
 
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