Dogmatism vs Skepticism

Posted on by

Lately I’ve been reading Outline of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus. Sextus collects the arguments for Skepticism as practiced by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. Since the notion of “skepticism” seems to play some small role here, I thought it would be fun to take a look at what Sextus means by it.

Sextus situates skepticism as the only reasonable response to “dogmatism”. The dogmatists he has in mind are Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Aristotelianism (“the Peripatetics”).

He observes, firstly, that the dogmatists all contradict one another — if Stoicism is right, then Epicureanism must be false; if Epicureanism is right, then Aristotelianism must be wrong, etc. What are we to do when dogmatism contradicts dogmatism?

Sextus then observes that none of these positions is “self-evident”, because all of them requires “going beyond the appearances” by making claims about what is “nonevident”. In order to do make claims about what is nonevident, the dogmatist must always either make a circular argument that assumes what they purport to establish or commit themselves to an infinite regress. On this basis he concludes that it is not reasonable to make claims about reality one way or the other. Instead the Skeptic endeavors to live only according to the appearances, and be guided only by what is immediately evident to the senses.

A nice corollary of Sextus’s arguments is that one cannot be a naturalist and a skeptic, since the naturalist does make positive claims about the nature of reality. Naturalism and theism effectively cancel each other out.

The dialectic between dogmatism and skepticism stretches out across the whole history of philosophy. The re-discovery of Stoicism and Epicureanism during the Renaissance re-activated the ancient quarrels between competing dogmatisms (though with a different political dimension, since by this time Aristotelianism had become, thanks to Aquinas and subsequent theologians, the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, which its entrenched power structure).  So the quarrel between competing dogmatisms had a political dimension that it seemed to have lacked in antiquity. The revival of Skepticism, most notably (to my mind) with Montaigne, then leads to renewed efforts to establish dogmatism by refuting Skepticism. (This did not prevent some philosophers from attempting to integrate Christianity and skepticism, as Pierre Gassendi did.)

Descartes was, as we know, the most famous (or infamous) of attempts to refute skepticism. But as was pointed out even then, Descartes’ arguments do not avoid circularity. (I believe it was Antonin Artaud who first made this point in first, in his Objections to the Meditations. Descartes’ Reply is, to put it mildly, not convincing.)

The inconsistencies within Cartesian dogmatism led to multiple and contradicting attempts to repair it: Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Berkeley being the attempts that have since made it into the Canon (largely because they were all men). At the same time, Pierre Bayle is collecting the new Skepticism into what amounted to a new version of Outlines of Pyrrhonism for the modern era. Following on the heels of all of them, it fell to Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature to demolish all permutations of modern dogmatism by destroying their basis in Cartesianism.

Since then, the dialectic runs back and forth between competing dogmatisms and between dogmatism and skepticism. Kant was perhaps the first philosopher to even attempt a genuine via media between dogmatism and skepticism, but the fatal problems with Kant’s solution are well-known to most casual students of philosophy.

To this day it remains unclear whether there is a via media between dogmatism and skepticism. Some philosophers, including myself, think that the historical arc of pragmatism that runs from Hegel through Peirce and Dewey to Sellars should be understood as precisely an alternative to both dogmatism and skepticism. Others, of course, are not convinced. And so we have the persistence of both multiple forms of dogmatism — naturalism and theism alike — as well as new forms of skepticism.

Can a naturalist be a skeptic? Is skepticism more reasonable than any competing dogmatism? Is skepticism a viable philosophy as a way of life? Is pragmatism a dialectically stable alternative to dogmatism and to skepticism, or must it collapse into one or the other?

443 thoughts on “Dogmatism vs Skepticism”

  1. Alan Fox: Because the scientific method works?

    Senses are unreliable, but the scientific method does nothing but add to the sense-data. So, it “works” in what sense?

    Alan Fox: Where further do you suggest one could go?

    If it cannot go any further, then, again, it “works” in what sense?

  2. Erik: Senses are unreliable, but the scientific method does nothing but add to the sense-data. So, it “works” in what sense?

    To clarify: no one here is asserting that the senses are unreliable. Keiths is asserting that it is impossible to verify that the senses are reliable, hence we have no choice but to assume that they are. That’s his “Cartesian skepticism”.

    Meanwhile, Alan, Neil, and I are arguing about whether pragmatism is compatible with realism — they think that pragmatism requires giving up on realism, whereas I’m arguing for a version of pragmatic realism. My main argument for pragmatic realism is that it gives us a philosophically adequate solution to Sextus’ Dilemma of the Criterion. But the others don’t take Sextus as seriously as I do.

  3. Kantian Naturalist: Meanwhile, Alan, Neil, and I are arguing about whether pragmatism is compatible with realism — they think that pragmatism requires giving up on realism, whereas I’m arguing for a version of pragmatic realism.

    When scientists say that they are realists, they are mostly saying that they are pragmatists. So there is a sense in which realism and pragmatism are completely compatible, and even close to being the same thing.

    But realism within academic philosophy is something different. And that’s where I see it trying to claim too much.

    Realism that I accept: Our descriptions of reality and our scientific descriptions of reality are very good and useful.

    Realism that I reject: Our descriptions and scientific descriptions of reality are true, where “true” is said to be in a human-independent sense.

  4. Kantian Naturalist: To clarify: no one here is asserting that the senses are unreliable.

    Dennett, according to you, would reply, “I don’t know…” That’s what I was responding to. Lesser lights are lesser.

    Kantian Naturalist: My main argument for pragmatic realism is that it gives us a philosophically adequate solution to Sextus’ Dilemma of the Criterion.

    What’s the solution? You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.

  5. Neil Rickert: Realism that I accept: Our descriptions of reality and our scientific descriptions of reality are very good and useful.

    Realism that I reject: Our descriptions and scientific descriptions of reality are true, where “true” is said to be in a human-independent sense.

    That’s helpful. My contrast:

    Realism that I accept: our current best scientific explanations are better maps of underlying real patterns than their predecessors.

    Realism that I reject: there is a single correct description of reality that is accessible by finite human minds.

  6. keiths: Hotshoe was “the best of us”? KN, you display the worst judgment sometimes.

    She was nasty to you, but nice to him. That should explain it.

  7. Erik: She was nasty to you, but nice to him. That should explain it.

    Not altogether. She was highly biased, but in the PC (SJW) way, and so is he. Female, in the identity politics KN buys into. Ignorant, but said the “right things.”

    She was among the worst, in fact, but in some circles little matters but identity and having the right political beliefs.

    Glen Davidson

  8. Erik: Senses are unreliable, but the scientific method does nothing but add to the sense-data. So, it “works” in what sense?

    By supplementing with repeatable experiment, shared observation and measurement. It quantifies. And then testing explanatory models against reality. But such methods can only test reality.

    If it cannot go any further, then, again, it “works” in what sense?

    I may have misunderstood your point, which I took to be “there are other ways of knowing which science ignores” and my response meant to indicate that scientists do not prevent anyone from exploring other ways.

  9. GlenDavidson: She was among the worst, in fact, but in some circles little matters but identity and having the right political beliefs.

    That’s harsh Glen. We all have our character traits that make us more and sometimes less attractive to others. Why can’t we all just get along?

  10. Neil Rickert: Then you have missed the point.Maybe everybody misses the point.

    Measuring a temperature is perhaps engineering, though I don’t actually think that’s quite correct.

    However, thermometers do not grow on trees.Somebody had to invent a measurement system.

    The physicists chose the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water to anchor the measuring system at two points.That’s physics.And then they divided into 100 parts (for Celsius) between those.That’s mathematics, using the methods of evenly dividing a line as in geometry.

    IMO, measurement in a pure sense is language. Measurement is the translation of some aspect of some conceptualized or observed phenomenon into a common description that can be communicated and compared to other phenomenon.

    ETA: edited for clarity

  11. Kantian Naturalist: Realism that I accept: our current best scientific explanations are better maps of underlying real patterns than their predecessors.

    Realism that I reject: there is a single correct description of reality that is accessible by finite human minds.

    Fair enough. I can agree with that.

    I’ll note that “better than” is unavoidably a matter of opinion, in the sense that there is no accepted standard by which we can make that comparison.

  12. Alan Fox: That’s harsh Glen. We all have our character traits that make us more and sometimes less attractive to others. Why can’t we all just get along?

    Well, in the case of hotshoe, you can’t get along if you disagree with her unexamined prejudices.

    That’s the problem, actually.

    Glen Davidson

  13. Robin: IMO, measurement in a pure sense is language.

    IMO, “measurement in a pure sense” is an oxymoron. Measurement is a pragmatic means of constructing propositions which have intentionality — they are “about” the measured property. But measurement is very much pragmatic, so “pure” does not fit.

    Measurement is the translation of some aspect of some conceptualized or observed phenomenon into a common description that can be communicated and compared to other phenomenon.

    In science, we often see the method of measuring come first, and then the concept is invented later as a kind of idealization of what is being measured.

  14. Neil Rickert: IMO, “measurement in a pure sense” is an oxymoron.Measurement is a pragmatic means of constructing propositions which have intentionality — they are “about” the measured property.But measurement is very much pragmatic, so “pure” does not fit.

    In science, we often see the method of measuring come first, and then the concept is invented later as a kind of idealization of what is being measured.

    I think your getting ahead of yourself here, Neil. Back in our history, people used to use their hands and arms to measure the width of something purely to determine its width relative to some other object (say, determine if something will fit through a door or into a given space). In that sense I see it as no different than language; simply coming up with some commonality about an object to be able to then communicate that commonality to someone else. Whatever else the measure might be used for…say comparison to other measures or as a basis for making another object of a similar measure…would then be the practical application of measurement.

    In other words, I do not see “measurement” in and of itself as science, though it is clearly used in science. I don’t see “measurement” in and of itself as math, though clearly the data garnered from measuring (i.e., the “measurements”) can be used in a variety of maths. I don’t see “measurement” in and of itself as engineering or architecture, though neither one of those disciplines would really exist without it.

  15. Robin: Back in our history, people used to use their hands and arms to measure the width of something purely to determine its width relative to some other object (say, determine if something will fit through a door or into a given space).

    Back then, they did not call it science.

    If you look at the laws of electricity and magnetism, you will find that they are pretty much abstract formulations of the way that we measure electrical phenomena. And, by the way, it took a lot of effort and experimentation to come up with ways of measuring electrical phenomena.

    Newtons laws of motion are, in effect, an extension of older traditional measuring methods, so as to allow us to now measure a force of friction and a force of air resistance (to mention two examples). If we had used Newton’s laws only with the forces traditionally measured, we would not have found Newton’s mechanics to be particularly useful.

    In other words, I do not see “measurement” in and of itself as science, though it is clearly used in science.

    Without measurement, there would be no science.

    I don’t see “measurement” in and of itself as math, though clearly the data garnered from measuring (i.e., the “measurements”) can be used in a variety of maths.

    You are missing the same things that Erik missed. It isn’t the measurement or the data that is mathematical. It is the systematic way that we measure, which amounts to a structure that we have build. And the mathematics is in the study of that structure.

    Classical geometry (Euclidean geometry, ruler-compass geometry) is, to a large extent, a logical exploration of the consequences of using a portable measuring rod in a systematic manner. And, of course, arithmetic and traditional algebra are a logical exploration of the consequences of our systematic counting practices.

  16. Alan Fox: We all have our character traits that make us more and sometimes less attractive to others. Why can’t we all just get along?

    You mean, why can’t all just follow the rules?

    There are too many people here who have absolutely no interest in trying to get along. Too bad they can’t be weeded out.

  17. The Illusion of Doubt

    The Illusion of Doubt shows that radical scepticism is an illusion generated by a Cartesian picture of our evidential situation – the view that my epistemic grounds in both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ cases must be the same, and consists in information about an inner mental realm of experience from which I must try to work my way out to what goes on ‘out there’ in the external world. It is this picture which issues both a standing invitation to radical scepticism and ensures that there is no way of getting out of it while agreeing to the sceptic’s terms. What we therefore need to do is not try to answer the sceptical problem ‘directly’, but rather to undermine the assumptions that it depends on. These are among the most ingrained in contemporary epistemology. They include the notion that radical scepticism can be motivated by the ‘closure’ principle for knowledge, that the ‘Indistinguishability Argument’ renders the Cartesian conception compulsory, that the ‘new evil genius thesis’ is coherent, and the demand for a ‘global validation’ of our epistemic practices makes sense. Once these dogmas are undermined, the path is clear for a ‘realism without empiricism’ that allows us to re-establish unmediated contact with the objects and persons in our environment which an illusion of doubt had threatened to put forever beyond our cognitive grasp.

  22. The book was just published in January, which explains why none of us had run across it before.

  23. keiths:

    No, the correspondence theory of truth, like many other philosophical theories, is an attempt at capturing and formalizing a pre-existing intuitive idea. There’s nothing new about the intuitive idea that true statements correspond to actual states of affairs. The only (relatively) new thing is the attempt to capture that idea precisely and analyze it further.

    KN:

    I have grave doubts as to how “intuitive” that idea is.

    Seriously? You don’t think you could have a conversation like the following with practically anyone?

    Bob: Read this sentence aloud.

    Betty: “The keys are on the kitchen table.”

    Bob: Is that sentence true?

    Betty: Let me see. (Walks to the kitchen.) Yes, I can see that the keys are on the kitchen table. That sentence is true.

    Bob: What would make that sentence false?

    Betty: If the keys weren’t in fact on the kitchen table. If someone had tossed them on the floor, for example.

    KN:

    The history of philosophy and science is a graveyard of ideas that seemed “intuitive” at the time.

    You’re conflating “intuitive” with “correct”. Intuitive/counterintuitive is a separate dichotomy from correct/incorrect. Isn’t that obvious?

  25. Incidentally, if either of you are mostly interested in Schonbaumsfeld’s take on skepticism and epistemic closure (and Dretske), but don’t want to fork over all that money for her book, her discussion of that stuff (the first chapter of her book) can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/12964302/The_Default_View_of_Perceptual_Reasons_and_Closure-Based_Sceptical_Arguments

    ETA: Actually, it looks like a couple other chapters can be found on her academia.edu page as well.

  26. walto,

    Thanks walto.

    So I won’t be buying the book.

    You don’t like it when I say something critical of philosophy. But it is because of this kind of argument, that I am critical of philosophy.

  27. Neil Rickert,

    You’re welcome, Neil. I don’t know which “kind of argument” you are referring to there, so I don’t know whether to agree with you or not. I will say, though, that I don’t entirely buy Prof. Schonbaumsfeld’s (Wittgensteinian) critique of Dretske.

  28. walto,

    I was a bit vague.

    My comment wasn’t specifically at Schonbaumsfeld, but at that whole way of doing philosophy that is encompassed in the argument. And, to some extent, she is opposing that.

    To me, it is too much like arguing over the plot of an elaborate story, instead of looking into whether the story is even relevant.

  29. Neil Rickert: You are missing the same things that Erik missed. It isn’t the measurement or the data that is mathematical. It is the systematic way that we measure, which amounts to a structure that we have build. And the mathematics is in the study of that structure.

    Where did I miss that? I never said measurement was mathematical. I said measurement was engineering, while measurement system was mathematical. Review my posts in this thread about it:

    Erik: Is measurement mathematics or is it really physics? You know, subject to the shape of the tool and all that, whereas math is beyond that, transcendent to physical limitations of measurement. I’d even suggest worse – measurement is engineering, subject to the understanding how to position the ruler, steadiness of hands etc.

    Erik: Granted that a “measurement system” (a mathematical thing) must be invented (as in thought up), but this alone doesn’t measure anything. Additionally, measurement tools, such as a thermometer which you mention, must be invented (as in manufactured), which makes it all an engineering problem.

    I never missed your point, while you missed mine by a mile. And you are missing your own point too, if you even have one.

  30. Erik: I never said measurement was mathematical. I said measurement was engineering, while measurement system was mathematical.

    But the measurement system is not mathematical. At most, it is partly mathematical (the systematic aspect). But the mathematical aspect is not why there can be measuring.

    You could have measuring without any mathematics, and that’s probably a good description of what perception is doing.

  31. How skeptical would you be if someone raised someone from the dead right in front of you?
    You can imagine the scenario any way you want…
    What would you do?
    How many people who were the witnesses of this event would be skeptical?

    Give me a ballpark figure..

  32. I imagine it as.month old corpse, crawling with maggots, reincarnated while being studied by a dozen medical examiners and live streamed around the world.

    I would expect the witnessed might go home and re-examine their lives.

  35. J-Mac:
    petrushka,
    4 days dead in warm climate…
    What would you expect?

    I demand maggots and a thorough autopsy. Witnessed by hundreds. I believe you said I could imagine it my way.

    But I don’t have to be that harsh. A few well documented cases of leg regrowth under medical observation would be sufficient to cause a rethink of reality.

    But be aware that miracle claims are automatically suspect. Houdini made an elephant disappear in front of a live audience.

    I would be more impressed by something more useful, like peace between Jews a d Arabs, or universal disappearance of cancer.

    See the book, Lathe of Heaven, for how wish fulfillment works out.

  36. J-Mac: How skeptical would you be if someone raised someone from the dead right in front of you?

    Depends. If they collapse in front of my eyes, I proceed to check their pulse and breathing and I discover the person’s heart has stopped and they’re not breathing, but I immediately perform CPR and they regain autonomous breathing, heart-beat and consciousness. Then what just happened? Does that count as resurrection? Was it a miracle? I’m skeptical of that. In fact I would believe quite strongly that something entirely natural took place.

    Suppose instead you tell me you took a walk on the beach and found a washed-up corpse, clearly in a late and smelly-stage of decomposition with the skin dissolving and eels coming out of the corpse’s orifices, yet suddenly that corpse seems to transform into a healthy, fully awake and bodily intact human person again, before your eyes, then I’m going to call bullshit on that. Put it this way: your mere say-so isn’t sufficient evidence for the belief that the event, as you describe it, happened. If you hand me a book where it says this happened, and it says in the book that hundreds of people witnessed this too, then I’m not going to believe that either. If the book is a collection of copied and reinterpreted stories assembled over centuries, more than 2000 years ago, so much the less believable does it make it.

    If you tell me I can go interview the hundreds of people who witnessed the event, that would still not be enough to convince me. Why? Because professional stage magicians having performed similarly miraculous feats using simple deception, combined with vulnerable, desperate-to-believe human psychology, tells me there’s much more likely to be a better and more mundane explanation.

    People decieve themselves, mostly entirely unintentionally.
    People can be deliberately decieved, even when they don’t want to.

    Those two facts makes claims of such “miraculous” events extremely suspect.

    For such a story to make headway towards plausibility to me, It would have to be performed under tightly controlled conditions, preferrably and if possible under double-blind protocols, overseen by people I trust and who have experience with professional stage magic, deception, misdirection, illusionism and the like. For example the James Randi test. If a “miracle performer” of some sort can successfully pass that test, or a similar one by another group or organization, that would go a long way towards convincing me.
    The next step would be repeatability.

    That’s what it would take. “There’s this old book and lots of people believe it” won’t do it, sorry.

  37. If I started seeing magical angel creatures descent from the heavens, I would rush to the ER and demand to see a neurologist, get blood checked for drugs and possibly get my brain scanned.

  38. Twelve otherwise unimpeachable men signed a declaration that they saw Joseph Smith’s golden tablets. Anyone wo isn’t a Mormon has just refused to accept irrefutable evidence.

  39. Rumraket: If I started seeing magical angel creatures descent from the heavens, I would rush to the ER and demand to see a neurologist, get blood checked for drugs and possibly get my brain scanned.

    And if they found little angel images in the brain scan?

  41. Rumraket,

    This is what “true scepticism” is all about…no matter what evidence presented…it has to be rejected… Well it is a bias scepticism though…because you don’t have one piece of evidence how life originated on its own and yet you are sceptical about life being restored…

  42. keiths:
    Right over J-Mac’s head.

    keiths:
    Right over J-Mac’s head.

    Why don’t provide the evidence that swayed your scepticism about life originating on its own (which no doubt you must’ve had) and convinced you that life can come from no living matter…
    Don’t overwhelm us with too much evidence how no living matter can become alive!!! Oh no, no, no… Just few or even one will do…

    I’m all ears…

  43. petrushka: Twelve otherwise unimpeachable men signed a declaration that they saw Joseph Smith’s golden tablets.

    That could be pretty good evidence that twelve men signed a declaration. But it is very weak evidence for the existence of golden tablets.

  44. Neil Rickert: Back then, they did not call it science.

    Right. I wasn’t talking about science; I was talking about measurement. I don’t think measurement of itself is science. I think people started measuring things for practical purposes long before they started to analyze relationships or hypothesize explanations for given phenomenon.

    If you look at the laws of electricity and magnetism, you will find that they are pretty much abstract formulations of the way that we measure electrical phenomena. And, by the way, it took a lot of effort and experimentation to come up with ways of measuring electrical phenomena.

    All quite true.

    Newtons laws of motion are, in effect, an extension of older traditional measuring methods, so as to allow us to now measure a force of friction and a force of air resistance (to mention two examples). If we had used Newton’s laws only with the forces traditionally measured, we would not have found Newton’s mechanics to be particularly useful.

    Again, I completely agree with this. But as above, I don’t think this addresses what I was getting at.

    Without measurement, there would be no science.

    Totally agree, but measurement certainly existed quite well without science.

    You are missing the same things that Erik missed. It isn’t the measurement or the data that is mathematical. It is the systematic way that we measure, which amounts to a structure that we have build. And the mathematics is in the study of that structure.

    I’m not missing that at all. I’m saying that the systematic way we measure came much later than the concept of measuring things at all. Science didn’t start measurement; measuring things was done for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before any systematic scientific approach was first conceived.

    Classical geometry (Euclidean geometry, ruler-compass geometry) is, to a large extent, a logical exploration of the consequences of using a portable measuring rod in a systematic manner. And, of course, arithmetic and traditional algebra are a logical exploration of the consequences of our systematic counting practices.

    Quite so. Again, I’m not arguing your point about the complex approach to measurement in science; I was simply noting that measurement, when first developed, can be more accurately thought of in terms of language and not as either math or science.

  46. petrushka:
    Twelve otherwise unimpeachable men signed a declaration that they saw Joseph Smith’s golden tablets. Anyone wo isn’t a Mormon has just refused to accept irrefutable evidence.

    And that’s so much better than keeping the tablets around so that they can be seen and examined.

    After all, the tablets could be faked.

    Glen Davidson

  47. As a matter of fact most people today would be sceptical about someone being raised from the dead even if all the evidence to prove it was provided just as it was the case in Jesus time… To make my point clearer, some could acknowledge the fact of resurrection but would not act accordingly to the miracle witnessed by them just as it was the case in time of Jesus…

    The essential question is “why”?

    Here is an example as to why some acknowledged that Jesus performed many signs or miracles and yet refused to act accordingly…

    Jesus just resurrected Lazarus:

    John 11:44-48

    “44The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a headcloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them. 45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.”

    So many no doubt acknowledged that Jesus performed many miracles… Some of them they witness themselves and other were witnessed by thousands…
    They didn’t even question that Jesus resurrected someone from the dead as it wasn’t the first time he did it. He had resurrected 2 other people before Lazarus.

    So why would they refuse to act accordingly and even decide to kill Jesus?

    Here is a clue:

    “48If we ( the Pharisees and Sadducees let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation”

    So those religious, educated men did not reject the first hand eyewitness testimony about Jesus miracle of resurrection of Lazarus. But they rejected to act upon it or put faith in Jesus, because they were more concerned about their positions in the society and authority they had the they were about God.

    Isn’t it the same today?

    Many people today are more concerned about their positions, their jobs, their funding, money or their questionable lifestyle rather then the truth…

    Scientist who have high positions and respect of the many in society try to protect it at any cost… Just like the Sadducees in Jesus time who decided to kill Jesus because his resurrections from the dead were massive blows to their own belief system based on that resurrections were not possible. Isn’t it any different today? All you have to do is look at this blog or many similar ones…. People try to defend their beliefs whether there is any evidence for it or none as long as they convince themselves and mislead others into what they want to be true and not the actual truth….

  48. Glen:

    And that’s so much better than keeping the tablets around so that they can be seen and examined.

    After all, the tablets could be faked.

    Yes, and by returning the plates to the appropriately-named angel Moroni, Smith proved their authenticity. After all, God’s angel wouldn’t have accepted fakes.

    Take that, skeptics!

  49. J-Mac:
    As a matter of fact most people today would be sceptical about someone being raised from the dead even if all the evidence to prove it was provided just as it was the case in Jesus time… To make my point clearer, some could acknowledge the fact of resurrection but would not act accordingly to the miracle witnessed by them just as it was the case in time of Jesus…

    Well, I don’t know about most people, but I became highly skeptical of this account after a number of years of hearing it related in church and reading it on my own because I became aware that it sounds like something said by Donald Trump and related by Sean Spicer. It did take a while for me to become skeptical; at first blush it seems like a pretty authoritative story. But one day (I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime around 20 years ago or so), it dawned on me that John 11: 44 – 53 must have been totally made up. There’s no way the author could know any of that particular account. It had to be embellished. The fact that the early part related the raising of someone from the dead with no actual details didn’t help matters of course…

  50. J-Mac,

    Just for fun, could you explain to us why you are not a Mormon (assuming you aren’t)? Twelve men signed that affidavit, after all.

    If the results are, um, interesting enough, I may ask about other religions as well.

Leave a Reply