Friday, July 27, 2018

Steve Smoot fights straw men

Steve Smoot responded to Rian Nelson on his blog. Because his original article attacked me, and he makes some wild claims here, I'm butting in to respond.

Brother Smoot's comments are in black, Rian's are in red, and mine are in blue.

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Rian,
“Please share with me why it seems so many people deride Rod and Jonathan and say they are as you describe, “so-called Heartland model for the geography of the Book of Mormon is built on a foundation of fraud. Fraudulent artifacts, fraudulent science, fraudulent theology, and fraudulent history secured in place by racist ethno-nationalism are the four cornerstones of Heartlanderism.”
The sources cited in footnote 1 make this abundantly clear.
At several points both Heartlanders like Meldrum have been refuted by mainstream LDS scholars. On DNA. On geography. On early Mormon history. On the authenticity of artifacts they (especially Meldrum) use as evidence for the Heartland. Again and again. And again and again they refuse to consider that the criticism they encounter is valid. They stop their ears and close their eyes and act as if nothing ever happened.
Heartlanderism is fraudulent. That’s a criticism I’ll publicly stand by and make until I see Meldrum discontinue his use of pseudo-science and forgeries.

The "sources" cited in footnote 1 are all citation cartel publications, featuring the circular reasoning and confirmation bias characteristic of the citation cartel. For anyone interested in another perspective, see my analyses of each of these articles on my blog.

There are fraudulent artifacts all over the world, including in Mesoamerica. Some are clearly forgeries, but others are controversial because experts disagree. Brother Smoot declines to acknowledge the nuances because of his M2C confirmation bias filter.

Contrary to Brother Smoot's assertion, I have not only considered the criticisms, but I have responded in detail. I continue to seek opportunities to engage with the M2C citation cartel, but so far they have refused a dialog; i.e., it is they, not me, who refuses to consider the criticisms of their work.

Everyone involved with Book of Mormon geography engages in confirmation bias, which is why the different sides read the same text and observe the same evidence yet interpret both so differently. Mainstream LDS scholars deserve no deference on these issues because they, too, are engaged in groupthink and confirmation bias. That’s why their work is not accepted outside of the narrow group of like-minded collaborators (the M2C citation cartel).

Issues of Mormon history strongly favor the New York Cumorah, but there is also evidence that supports M2C when viewed through the M2C confirmation bias filter. Anthropology, archaeology, geology and geography support the New York Cumorah and the Heartland model when viewed through those filters, but they also support M2C when viewed through an M2C filter, as well as Baja when viewed through the Baja filter, etc. The text can be interpreted to support everyone’s model when viewed through the respective filters. All of these factors are essentially a tie because of the psychology of confirmation bias.

The only element that does not fit the non-Heartland models is the consistent, persistent, and undisputed teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah. Those who seek to confirm their biases that Cumorah is not in New York have only one explanation: the prophets are wrong.

But the whole reason for having prophets is to break through confirmation bias.

In 3 Nephi the Lord taught that the only way to achieve unity in the Church is by heeding the prophets. Once everyone involved in the geography discussion heeds the prophets, unity will follow.
But not until then.

“I am especially troubled how you say they are racist for expressing their belief that this Unites States of America is an exceptional nation and we are under a covenant with God unlike any other nation in the world.”
It’s more than that. Heartlanders have said countries like Mexico or Guatemala positively cannot be the land of promise because they’re full of crime and corruption. I’ve heard this with my own two ears from Heartlanders. “How could a country like Mexico possibly be the land of promise with all the problems going on with it?”
The implicit (and sometimes explicit) conclusion is that those countries full of criminals (brown people) aren’t good enough to be the land of promise, unlike the good ole’ US of A (at least when it’s not being run by a secret Kenyan communist like Obama).

This is pure projection by Brother Smoot, leading him to create an imaginary straw man to attack. In the real world, no one has used a racial argument for the promised land of America. Heartlanders more than any other group focus on the Native Americans, the most repressed minority in the U.S.  and the only group specifically identified by the Lord as Lamanites.

Actual people living in the real world know where the promised land is. People in Mesoamerica seek refuge in the United States, not the other way around. The Lord established the Constitution of the U.S., not the constitution of the countries in Central America, which is one reason why the U.S. fulfills the prophecies of the great nation whose people “have been lifted up by the power of God above all other nations."

When Steve and the other M2C intellectuals choose to move to their promised land of Mesoamerica, they’ll have some credibility on this issue.

“Please address where you think I am wrong about this great nation the USA.”

I don’t have to do that. Just go ahead and read what Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had to say about the “great” USA in the Council of Fifty minutes.
But okay. I’ll say something.
You’re conflating the arbitrary and imaginary political borders drawn on maps by corrupt and powerful Gentiles with guns with the soil of the American continent. Church leaders since Joseph Smith have made it abundantly clear that all of North and South America are a part of the land of promise.

This, of course, is the fallacy of the ‘North and South America’ quotation that was referring to the northern and southern states, not the continents.

Yes, the physical “center place” of Zion is to be what is now Jackson County, Missouri. But it was the foretold New Jerusalem before the US acquired Missouri from the French in 1803, and will be after the United States, like the other kingdoms of this earth, have been smashed to pieces with the ascendency of the Kingdom of God upon Christ’s return.
It just so happens that the political state which controls the land prophesied as the New Jerusalem is the United States. But before that it was France. And before that, Spain. And before that, it belong to indigenous Indian peoples. Why is that somehow it’s the US that has special, divine privilege, and none of these other nations?

Neither Spain nor France nor England established a nation in North America. They had mere colonies. And it’s not a case of “it just so happens.” The Lord explicitly established the Constitution of the United States to fulfill his purposes. That’s why the U.S. has the special privilege and responsibility of hosting the restoration and providing the resources to share it with the world.

My point is you (like other Heartlanders) are saying the geo-political entity the United States of America has a special covenant or destiny. I reject those claims as misunderstanding the prophecies in the Book of Mormon and the teachings of Joseph Smith and other prophets, who affirm the entire continent is under the covenant of which you speak, not just the United States.

Brother Smoot here rejects D&C 101 and 109, purely because of his M2C dogma.

Hence my mentioning the racist ethno-nationalism of Heartlanderism, which mistakenly gives divine credence to the United States and its predominantly white leaders and population as opposed to the remnant of the house of Israel found scattered throughout Lehi’s seed in all of North and South America.

Brother Smoot is projecting again. Besides, most of Latin America is also “white” because they also descended from Europeans. They all speak European languages. To the extent that Lehi's seed is found throughout the Americas (even though it doesn't show up in the DNA), that has nothing to do with Book of Mormon geography because his descendants could have spread beginning shortly after the landing, wherever it was, around 596 BC. and for over two millennia since then.

That’s just the start of my many problems with Heartlanderism.

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