What makes all this interesting is the traditions about the priestly Ephod at the time of Christ. The Ephod had 12 stones (one for each tribe) but then two stones which were the Urim and Thummim. Josephus ties this to the priest’s prophetic ability. While scholars usually tie the Urim and Thummim to the use of lots as divinization (often two arrow like objects for yes/no) clearly Josephus has a different tradition. The Dead See Scrolls (4Q 164 Pesher Isaiah) talks about oracle divination with the twelve stones by means of the Urim and Thummim. Some scholars think this was illuminating each stone to represent a letter. (Although Hebrew had 22 letters but only 12 stones so it’s not clear how that worked) This illumination/flashing of the Urim and Thummim pops up in other texts although the meaning isn’t quite clear. (Some think it just flashes to indicate authority) The later rabbinical traditions see the divinization coming from light shine through the 12 stones and the tetragrammaton.

So it’s hardly exactly the same. The number of stones is different, yet there are some really interesting parallels between Ether 3’s U&T and the traditions from 1st century onwards. Again, those traditions are at odds with how the pre-second temple ephod/U&T is typically interpreted though. (Although most of that is speculative as well)

The seer stone was “just found”? Just like Joseph Smith, Jr., was transplanted from Vermont to Palmyra, New York, within walking distance of the Book of Mormon burial site, by the climate impact of the Tambora eruption in 1815? Just like the Liahona was “just found” outside Lehi’s tent one morning?

Prophets are embodied men. They have physical brains that receive revelatory voices and visions. A seer stone is no more physical than the physical brain through which a prophet receives revelations. It is just as physical as the metal plates on which the Book of Mormon text was inscribed. Joseph could not read the characters engraved on the plates, but their presence in the proximity of the translation work was apparently necessary for the translation process to go forward. If we accept the physical nature of the plates, why not the physical nature of the seer stone?

People who claim to know the chemical constitution of the seer stone from just looking at it are basing it on resemblance to other stones without its special claimed properties. I have seen no evidence that a chip from the stone has been subjected to x-ray backscatter analysis which would determine the signature of its chemical constituents. It is an item apparently made of silicon with trace amounts of other elements. But that also describes my smart phone, including its computer processor, its memory, its display screen, and its battery. My guess is that any American in 1829 would think a modern smart phone was just as “magical” as the Urim and Thummim.

The creation of loaves and fishes by Jesus, his healing of the sick, his walking on water, and his resurrection from death, all involved altering material things using divine power. Compared to those things, the ability of a physical object to do many of the things our smart phones can do, does not require much faith.

As Catholic and Theologian Stephen Webb has noted, Mormonism declares that there is not a radical distinction between the “divine” and the “material”. God himself is a material being, and he has often used material things to demonstrate his power. N.T. Wright’s discourse on the physical nature of resurrected humans has evoked a negative reaction from traditional Christians who have preserved a Gnostic belief in the utter difference between the material and the divine, a belief that was at the core of the Ptolemaic design for the cosmos, and is described in Dante’s Divine Comedy. If we feel uncomfortable with material objects that convey divine power, we need to grow up, because every priesthood holder is called to become precisely that when we lay our hands upon someone.

Again though it seems to me you’re missing the fundamental issues of what counts as evidence. It’s precisely there that I think people disagree. While I may be wrong, I think this whole issue of public v private evidence is something you’re avoiding.

To human sacrifice, I mean no one in this discussion is arguing human sacrifice. Again, to find an irrational argument says nothing about the particular arguments someone else may be using. So I don’t see the relevance. Again, there is a lot of irrational reasoning out there. On that I think we both agree.

As for why I think it rational to think these stones were used as a catalyst for Joseph, I think that’s fairly easy to do. I’ll write something up at my blog and provide a link. Then we can debate epistemology carefully and rigorously without distracting from the discussions at hand.

To what counts as rational, I think I already gave some examples. Mathematics and physics are the two classic examples. As to what counts as irrational, I’ll point to the arguments at most political blogs. (grin)

No one, for instance, is arguing human sacrifice

Ask Ignesh Kujur and Padam Sukku from the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, who in late 2011 allegedly offered the bodily organs of seven-year-old Lalita Tati, after killing her, to the Hindu goddess Durga on the belief that such action would bring them a better harvest. They were acting upon common belief in the region that the offering of the organs of young children to gods would improve harvests (and human sacrifice is not an uncommon practice in India). What about Awali in Uganda? He said in 2011 to undercover reporters who claimed that they were seeking success for a local construction project that the most powerful spell to bring success to a business was through child sacrifice. He is quoted as saying, “there are two ways of doing this. We can bury the child alive on your construction site” and the second way is really too graphic to include on this blog, but you get the idea. It can be inferred from your comment that you believe the idea that human sacrifice brings good harvests or business success to be bad reasoning, and therefore irrational, correct? Why would you consider this to be so? Why couldn’t it be said that the idea that human organ offerings to Durga improve crop yields is a rational idea? I’m sure that the practitioners of human sacrifice in India have all sorts of private evidence that this is the case.

Perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining how belief that a stone enabled Joseph Smith to correctly translate an unlearned foreign language is rational. You should probably also clarify whether or not you actually believe in the categories of “rational” and “irrational” and give me an example of what you consider to be an irrational belief.

No one, for instance, is arguing human sacrifice

Ask Ignesh Kujur and Padam Sukku from the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, who in late 2011 allegedly offered the bodily organs of seven-year-old Lalita Tati, after killing her, to the Hindu goddess Durga on the belief that such action would bring them a better harvest. They were acting upon common belief in the region that the offering of the organs of young children to gods would improve harvests (and human sacrifice is not an uncommon practice in India). What about Awali in Uganda? He said in 2011 to undercover reporters who claimed that they were seeking success for a local construction project that the most powerful spell to bring success to a business was through child sacrifice. He is quoted as saying, “there are two ways of doing this. We can bury the child alive on your construction site” and the second way is really too graphic to include on this blog, but you get the idea. It can be inferred from your comment that you believe the idea that human sacrifice brings good harvests or business success to be bad reasoning, and therefore irrational, correct? Why would you consider this to be so? Why couldn’t it be said that the idea that human organ offerings to Durga improve crop yields is a rational idea? I’m sure that the practitioners of human sacrifice in India have all sorts of private evidence that this is the case.

Perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining how belief that a stone enabled Joseph Smith to correctly translate an unlearned foreign language is rational. You should probably also clarify whether or not you actually believe in the categories of “rational” and “irrational” and give me an example of what you consider to be an irrational belief.

Now if you just want to say something trivial like physics tends to be done with more rationality than reasoning about the sacred I’d completely agree. However it seems you are trying to make a much stronger claim that seems far more problematic. Again, it seems to me that we all reason about ethics. It’s not at all clear to me that reasoning about the sacred is more problematic than reasoning about the sacred. Nor is it really tied to religious ontological questions. There are plenty of atheistic thinkers with a strong notion of the sacred, for instance.

It seems clear that simply identifying bad reasoning about the sacred does not tell us much about the sacred in general let alone particular considerations about the sacred. No one, for instance, is arguing human sacrifice. Bringing up examples of bad reasoning to tar an avenue of thinking is itself bad reasoning. (I could, for example, give lots of examples of horrible reasoning in freshman physics assignments, but would that really tell us much about physics?)

The fundamental epistemological issue is ultimately how we deal with private versus public evidence along with pluralism in reasoning. That’s a topic where people can disagree while both sides are rational.

But all this is getting a bit afield to the original post. While I certainly enjoy talking epistemology I don’t want to divert the discussion down a tangent.

Your definition of rational simply does not hold. Your are conflating our use of the word “rational” with the ideology of “rationalism.” The traditional definition of rational is simply thinking based on reason or logic. There are plenty of theological and philosophical logical arguments which ably defend the existence miracles and non-materialist (in a philosophical sense) views.

Now on to your challenge: “Why let a set of traditional irrational beliefs get in the way of trying to discover history and nature?”

If you are suggesting that historians set aside the questions of theological truth when describing religious movements or religious leaders, plenty of that has been done. If you are suggesting that the scientific method is incapable of evaluating systems of belief, I readily agree with you, as would Descartes. But that is not what you are suggesting.

What you are suggesting is that you can more fully understand, even on a personal level, the development of religion or religious figures by denying or ignoring the potential validity of their beliefs and practices. You can readily make an argument against religion and God for yourself by refusing to accept evidence that does not meet your self-limiting criteria. But individuals should not hide behind the historical or scientific methods, which are valid in their own sphere, or a misplaced belief in the absolute power of empiricism, while claiming to seek all truth.

Tell me your beliefs about how we happen to exist and I will explain how it is incredible. Perhaps I can save time by giving you a materialists definition of hydrogen: A colorless, odorless gas that if given enough time, becomes people. I think that is less credible than God assisting Joseph in receiving the text of the Book of Mormon. Others may disagree, but the very fact of our existence I consider incredible.

I am a believing Mormon (formerly atheist).

All belief systems are incredible. As we have to believe in something, we just pick one that either conforms to what we would like to believe, or seems to make the most sense.

I don’t see how believing in what has evidentiary support is incredible or irrational. It seems to be the opposite.