Authors you might be familiar with: Valliant, Holland, Houellebecq, Dreher — Subjects you might be interested in: Genetic betrayal, Meganets, Modern Christianity — Plus the Three Witnesses
There's not a ton of scientific evidence in there, but to take one line in here literally, it seems like researchers think climate change is responsible for somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3's of the increase in fire severity/damage (and there's good evidence that it really is a factor)
“However, having read this book, it does seem like the simplest interpretation of all these claims is that the Witnesses saw what they claimed to see, with all of the amazing ramifications which derive from that fact.”
It pains me to say this, but Occam and simplicity are not always correct.
Imagine for a moment the perspective of say an educated Muslim and an educated materialist and think about how this sounds.
Religious people believing things considered by everyone else to be ridiculous is very, very common. I’m sure you have some doubts about a certain prophet taking joyrides on flying horses and reciting scripture directly from an angel, or the prophetic powers of any given psychic. Many people throughout history have taken their highly questionable, deeply held beliefs to an early grave by refusing to recant. In one sense it’s remarkable, but it’s not particularly rare.
In this case, the witnesses are actually one giant red herring. If a man claims to have found an ancient artifact of stupendous import then, naturally, “can we see it?” is the only rational response. “No, but trust these other people who will tell you they saw it” is not an acceptable approach to verification here.
Withholding claimed evidence is a giant red flag in any context. It’s an isolated demand for low expectations.
“Can we at least see some writings from the claimed unique language upon them?” Well, why can’t we? Smith did take some “charactors” to be verified by a scholar, who supposedly did verify them as legit, before ripping up his certification. But that’s another red herring in that if Smith had the goods and deity allowed him to display the characters once, why not more than once?
Alongside the plates was a steel sword of Middle Eastern provenance. That artifact would certainly prove interesting if verified.
If there was a verified bit of evidence about the existence of the plates and/or sword then we would be having a very different conversation. But there isn’t, and debating the trustworthiness of witnesses is a pointless sideshow in a framing that avoids the actual hard question.
Note that we are on totally naturalistic grounds here. It’s not a miracle to find artifacts. It would be a miracle if Smith could translate an unknown language, but we can’t even prove the fact of that language existing.
So the actual simplest explanation remains: “religious people made stuff up, because they can’t provide hard evidence that ought to be available to back their remarkable claims.”
Re fires, this short article may be of interest: https://web.archive.org/web/20240215095648/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/climate/wildfire-climate-change-urban-firestorm.html
There's not a ton of scientific evidence in there, but to take one line in here literally, it seems like researchers think climate change is responsible for somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3's of the increase in fire severity/damage (and there's good evidence that it really is a factor)
“However, having read this book, it does seem like the simplest interpretation of all these claims is that the Witnesses saw what they claimed to see, with all of the amazing ramifications which derive from that fact.”
It pains me to say this, but Occam and simplicity are not always correct.
Imagine for a moment the perspective of say an educated Muslim and an educated materialist and think about how this sounds.
Religious people believing things considered by everyone else to be ridiculous is very, very common. I’m sure you have some doubts about a certain prophet taking joyrides on flying horses and reciting scripture directly from an angel, or the prophetic powers of any given psychic. Many people throughout history have taken their highly questionable, deeply held beliefs to an early grave by refusing to recant. In one sense it’s remarkable, but it’s not particularly rare.
In this case, the witnesses are actually one giant red herring. If a man claims to have found an ancient artifact of stupendous import then, naturally, “can we see it?” is the only rational response. “No, but trust these other people who will tell you they saw it” is not an acceptable approach to verification here.
Withholding claimed evidence is a giant red flag in any context. It’s an isolated demand for low expectations.
“Can we at least see some writings from the claimed unique language upon them?” Well, why can’t we? Smith did take some “charactors” to be verified by a scholar, who supposedly did verify them as legit, before ripping up his certification. But that’s another red herring in that if Smith had the goods and deity allowed him to display the characters once, why not more than once?
Alongside the plates was a steel sword of Middle Eastern provenance. That artifact would certainly prove interesting if verified.
If there was a verified bit of evidence about the existence of the plates and/or sword then we would be having a very different conversation. But there isn’t, and debating the trustworthiness of witnesses is a pointless sideshow in a framing that avoids the actual hard question.
Note that we are on totally naturalistic grounds here. It’s not a miracle to find artifacts. It would be a miracle if Smith could translate an unknown language, but we can’t even prove the fact of that language existing.
So the actual simplest explanation remains: “religious people made stuff up, because they can’t provide hard evidence that ought to be available to back their remarkable claims.”