there is information contained in the “fact” even if it is partly untrue, and even if the fact is somewhat unreliable — the exact reason given by Brodie for including stories that were completely false (e.g. Joseph Smith and the walking on water story). The issue is often just what is the information about.

It may be that Brodie gave too much weight to that story and indeed that is always the conundrum – how much weight to give any particular fact. However I maintain there still information contained in that fact although it may be infinitesimal. All I’m saying is that many apologists tend to focus on demonstrating why a single fact should not deter anyone from the church while ignoring the information, even the less plausible info contained therein.

I think it is a lifelong pursuit to dtermine how much weight to give the various facts of a narrative.

I like to stress true narratives. For example, there was a brother who had a vision of what would happen, prophesied to those in the company about it, and then, when they refused to listen, committed to going along and suffering with them in order to do what he could. That is a powerful narrative.

I like to replace defective narratives with true ones that stem from the same locus, and that teach better lessons.

What is interesting is that I practiced for fifteen years in a small town (Wichita Falls, Texas) and then moved to Plano. Was downtown for a while, and have been litigating for St. Paul Travelers the last 8-9 years. I loved small town practice. I find I really enjoy my life now as well, but I’m thinking towards what I should do when I hit 65-67 or thereabouts and need to transition.

I practiced law in Las Vegas, NV for 20 years, then moved to Alpine, Utah and practiced out of home for five years, then my oldest son graduated from law school and I opened a small firm (him, me and daughter in law part time) on main street Alpine. Loving a small town practice.

There is really nothing at stake in correcting the made up narrative as to my grandfather’s mission. You are right the journal is out there and in time it will self-correct, but myth making serves it’s own purposes–until it breaks down.

However, in your opinion are there narratives in our faith that are also fabricated and if so how should one approach those stories/fables with family, at church, privately, publicly (even internet)???…that is a highly pertinent question in my world…

Thank you for your condolences.

I’ve run across stories that are hard to slow down, people start embellishing them and they just keep growing.

However, they eventually age out and die, which is what will probably happen with the story you’ve talked about. That is about the only thing you can do with them.

BTW, where are you practicing law now?

Appreciate everyone’s thoughts.

Interesting thoughts Peter.

Now, you KNOW that sxark is going to say that in this case, Ford is the Lord’s annointed. It is just so faithless and apostate and degenerate for you to assume that Ford could have manufacturing flaws…

Plus, you can pray and there you’ll get an independent and objectively true validation that Ford is #1. Unless you don’t fast/read scriptures/pray/wait/endure to the end enough. But that’s your fault.

Is this the old “don’t ask your Chevy dealer if should buy a Ford” argument?

If there is an inherent manufacturing flaw in the Ford line you are considering, the Ford dealer is party with an invested interest in concealing that detail in order to sell their product. The Chevy dealer on the other hand would be motivated to embellish this flaw in order to steer you towards purchasing a Chevy product.

If the Ford line you are considering posseses a performance quality superior to it’s competing brands, the Ford dealer is likely going to embellish on this fact by promoting it’s value over the competetions inferiority. The Chevy dealer will be inclined to minimize the Fords superiority by either questioning the feature outright, or by suggesting that the performance disparity exceeds rational cost to benefit.

The above assumes that either party, the Ford or Chevy dealer, is motivated first to promote their products at the expense of objective analysis. Naturally we all have our bias, but the mode for determining which party to trust should have less to do with their alignment/product orientation, and more to do with the general merit of their arguments including the parties reputation for fairness and reasonable objectivity.

Since most members of the LDS Church are of the tribe of Ephriam, I would like to see more ‘narratives’ on the responsiblities associated with being a member of this tribe. And this would be in line with the 2 greatest problems the LDS Church faces today.

[1] The Church’s growth.
[2] The socio/psychological problems associated with growth.

And who is better qualified to discuss these issues? Heretics, Apostates and such or Believers and Leaders in the LDS faith? Where is Truth more likely to come from?

At the end of the day, it is still back to a person and God Very true.

BTW are you related to Thomas “Marsh.” And what year did you graduate from BYU law school? — all the Marsh’s in the U.S. before WWII are distantly related to each other, more or less. Generally less. I graduated in 1982.

This post was written some time ago, set to go active this morning. Just got back from my father’s funeral, which is why I haven’t commented sooner.

I tend to agree with jmb. There is no single fact that makes me believe or disbelieve the Church, the BofM, or anything else for that matter. There are very few things (if any) in this world that I absolutely believe or disbelieve in any field of study. I think things may be more or less likely. So when people get hung up on the witnesses, either prop or con, I think they’re missing the point. Even if the witnesses saw some gold plates exactly and literally as described, they don’t read reformed Egyptian. They don’t really have any way of knowing if the English words given to them (and us) as the Book of Mormon was related to the plates at all. So there is nothing that will actually prove or disprove the Book of Mormon.

At the end of the day, it is still back to a person and God. Either someone gets a “testimony” of the BofM from God, or he/she doesn’t.

I make this claim from an information theory perspective. From that perspective, it is keeping with the black and white view to assume that because a “fact” doesn’t fit the narrative it either must be true or false. Even if a “fact” only is “false” or unreliable, it still may contain information that should be incorporated in the probability distribution of the truthfulness of the narrative.

This falls under the rubric of inductive reasoning because it is a non-sequitar argument. Just because a “fact” is untrue, or partly untrue does not mean that we cannot infer things about the overall picture of the narrative, including what it means for the conjectures possibly taken for granted.

However, inductive reasoning is faulty logic, except for one case – bayesian inference. I believe that too often we dismiss and point out the fallacy of inductive reasoning and toss away “facts” that may not be reliable in that vein. But this is a waste of good information. The proper thing to do is to develop a “bayesian inference” model in our head that can allow us to incorporate the information still contained in the “fact.”

I make no claim that this is easy to do, and I don’t think that I do it perfectly either, but for me, my reading of church history follows this model. That is, a single fact is not what has dissuaded me from faith promoting history, but rather the amalgamation of a multitude of facts that contain information but may not, in and of themselves, be a final blow to the narrative, but cast serious doubt in such a way that I am inclined to alter my probability distribution of truthfulness of the narrative.