Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

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consiglieri
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Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by consiglieri » Thu Feb 21, 2019 5:20 pm

Okay, I think this is seriously a big deal.

Mormon apologist Jim Bennett agreed to go on Bill Reel's podcast.

They had six sit-down interviews, each of them around 2-hours long.

They were each able to express their views in a collegial and respectful manner without interruption or derogation.

They pushed back where they felt they needed, but did so without being disagreeable.

I think this may be historic.

Here is a link to the first episode.

https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/201 ... er-part-1/

The other five are easy to locate from there.

I think that as the sessions go on, Jim Bennett gets his back put more and more in a corner by the respectful but unrelenting reasoning of Mr. Reel.

By the end, Jim Bennett may think he is just up against the ropes, but the bell has already rung, the audience has gone home, and the lights have been turned off in the arena.

So if you think Bill Reel is giving Mr. Bennett too much leeway in the first episode, don't stop there.

It just gets better and better!

Hats off to Bill Reel for this podcast series!

And hats off to Jim Bennett for being the only apologist actually willing to sit down and be interviewed by Bill Reel for a podcast!

Enjoy!

--Consiglieri

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jfro18
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:11 pm

I finished the first episode today while getting some work done and I thought it was great back and forth that was respectful - I found the tone of Bennett's reply to the CES Letter to be really sarcastic and dismissive, so it was nice to hear him sound much more pleasant.

And, yes, I thought Bill gave him WAY too much leeway on a few things - especially as the first episode ended and they were discussing the impossible/implausible parts of the BoM and how they couldn't have happened in such a way... but I am withholding judgment on that until I get some more episodes as in per your suggestion. :lol:

Really looking forward to this one because although it would take something momentous for me to believe again, I do like hearing the other side's takes on these issues when they are willing to do so in an environment such as this.

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deacon blues
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by deacon blues » Fri Feb 22, 2019 6:46 pm

Just starting out listening to this, and I like the respectful tone. It’s going to take a while to get to a valuable evaluation.
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Hagoth
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Hagoth » Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:31 pm

I'm listening to the first episode and so far I'm liking Bennett. His attitudes and responses are generally more reasonable, in my opinion, than most. I also like the way it feels like a rational conversation rather than a debate.

Already there is a fascinating revelation about how a religious mindset guides out thinking. Bill observes that Joseph's treasure digging has so much in common with the gold plates story that it looks like it's all part of a developing pattern. Bennett understands right away where Bill is going but he can't put the pieces together in that way because through his lens he can agree that the treasure digging is bogus magic but he has to conclude that the gold plates story is real magic. So, no pattern.
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deacon blues
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by deacon blues » Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:34 pm

I want to add I think Jim Bennett is being more forthright than many apologists, and I appreciate his willingness to converse with Bill Reel.
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Hagoth » Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:59 pm

I just hope he doesn't keep talking about The Godmakers for the entire zillion hours of this discussion. The insinuation seems to be that the CES letter and The Godmakers are in bed together, and then there's truth at the other end of the spectrum.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:30 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:59 pm
I just hope he doesn't keep talking about The Godmakers for the entire zillion hours of this discussion. The insinuation seems to be that the CES letter and The Godmakers are in bed together, and then there's truth at the other end of the spectrum.
My early thoughts on Bennett are that he is really bothered by Jeremy and the CES Letter. He stays calm and reasonable with Bill on the issues, but when he references parts of the CES Letter you can sense how much it gets under his skin. I wonder if it's really the tone/approach of the CES Letter or just that it's been so effective as pulling people away from the church.

The other thoughts are along the lines of what you've mentioned before - you can see what Bennett is doing from an apologetic view to avoid the "Occam's Razor" of what the problems would logically lead to. He heavily relies on Hugh Nibley to make points about these issues as most 'old-school' apologists do, but many of Nibley's arguments have been outright debunked (long scroll theory) or been shown to be highly problematic. Yet they cling to him as if he's withstood the test of time.

And the last thought is that so far Bennett is constantly going to the "I have heard no other explanation as to how the Book of Mormon came to be that is satisfactory to show how Joseph Smith could create a book that is over 250,000 words and has withstood the test of time." I just think that argument is really ignorant to all of the great work that has come about lately from people like Dan Vogel, who can literally pinpoint where the different parts of the BoM came from and give many explanations as to 'how' it happened that are more likely than the idea of a rock in a hat.

You can really sense this when Bennett discusses early in episode 2 as to how all of the 19th century material is in the BoM as he allows for both a tight and loose translation which just does not work along with the info we have. I am not that far into episode two so I hope that Bill pushes back on this one.

And the conversation so far has been very good and civil - I want to scream at Bill for letting so much go, but I would imagine believers are feeling the same way about Bennett (not that many believers will listen to this). But I would imagine if Bill really pushed back on some of these issues the conversation would end quickly, because you can already see how Bennett has started with the conclusion already in mind as Muehlstein admits to doing with the Book of Abraham.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Hagoth » Sat Feb 23, 2019 8:48 am

jfro18 wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:30 am
And the last thought is that so far Bennett is constantly going to the "I have heard no other explanation as to how the Book of Mormon came to be that is satisfactory to show how Joseph Smith could create a book that is over 250,000 words and has withstood the test of time."
It's the insider perspective issue. How many Muslim scholars say the same about Koran but would find absolutely nothing compelling about the Book of Mormon? If you take away all of the stuff that Mormon apologists impose onto the BoM it's still an impressive piece of work coming from a young frontiersman, but not miraculously so. The answer "Joseph Smith wrote it" is unthinkable. Bennett talks about trusting the most parsimonious answer but somehow finds, as do most Mormons, the idea of an angel with a golden book and magic spectacles more parsimonious than a brilliant young man with a vivid imagination, even though the text is riddled with fingerprints of the 19th century.

I know a woman who is pursuing dual degrees in anthropology and astrophysics. Her inspiration was a book she read pre-college about ancient aliens. She applied to the university with the intent of proving that aliens built the pyramids and Macchu Pichu. I thought she would leave that behind her by now but three years later she's still going strong. She talks about all of the amazing measurements and ratios designed into the great pyramid that would require advanced mathematics and she's sure she'll be able to find the ancient technology that other people are overlooking. One thing all ancient structures seem to have in common is that modern people can use advanced mathematics to impose all kinds of fascinating measurements and ratios onto them if they work hard enough at it. Some of them do have impressive mathematical proportions, but somehow we are unable to accept that those people were as smart as we are. Two main issues that keep coming up are 1) how could the Egyptians make the pyramid so perfectly level? Answer: a ditch around the perimeter filled with water, and 2) how could they align it so perfectly to the cardinal directions without advanced technology? Answer: the shadow of a stick at Equinox or Solstice.

I don't want to go off on that tangent, I'm just using this as an illustration of what I often see going on with Mormon apologetics.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:34 am

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 8:48 am
It's the insider perspective issue. How many Muslim scholars say the same about Koran but would find absolutely nothing compelling about the Book of Mormon? If you take away all of the stuff that Mormon apologists impose onto the BoM it's still an impressive piece of work coming from a young frontiersman, but not miraculously so. The answer "Joseph Smith wrote it" is unthinkable. Bennett talks about trusting the most parsimonious answer but somehow finds, as do most Mormons, the idea of an angel with a golden book and magic spectacles more parsimonious than a brilliant young man with a vivid imagination, even though the text is riddled with fingerprints of the 19th century.
This is pretty much it. It's really the last line of defense, because as Bennett admits at the beginning of the 2nd episode, if you concede the Book of Mormon isn't historical and is just fictional mythology, there's no point to even dissecting the stories within it.

I've been writing a young adult book as a fun project for like 7-8 years now? I haven't really done much with it over the last 3-4 years, but I would just write a little bit in my downtime here and there and it's really long and unpolished. It's a book about superheroes who are kids... and the whole time I was writing it I kept thinking "How did JK Rowling or Tolkien create these universes where it just works so smoothly and is really just brilliant."

There's no doubt in my mind that Joseph Smith was a creative genius - much more so than I am. You could see that in how he could rip off revelations whenever his back was against the wall, and how he could create doctrine by riffing off of something he read in a newspaper or book. And that's why I don't need to have an "alternate explanation" as to how it was written... the errors he made are easily explained and many of the concepts introduced were things that were being discussed by people during his time (mound builders, where the Indians came from, etc). And looking beyond the Book of Mormon, you can trace almost every one of his concepts to something he was familiar with -- it doesn't take much to understand how he was doing it.

So looking back on writing the kids book by just doing a few pages a day (which I need to get back to now that I think about it).. it's easy to see how he did it, and once you can admit he wasn't the dumb farm boy the church wants to pretend he was, it becomes much easier to understand how it could be done and even understand the thought processes he was putting into it.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Hagoth » Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:29 pm

I have to give round 1 to Bennett. It's easy to armchair quarterback this stuff, and I know I wouldn't hold a candle to Bill Reel but there are so many bigger narrative problems than stuff like the stripling warriors. Also, the First Vision discussion seemed to go black and white when the best answer, whether you're a believer or not, is that the story got embellished over time as Joseph's theology of God developed.

I'm also hoping that I won't be hearing many more Scientology straw men. Bennett seems to have only two points of reference to which he can compare non-faithful opinions: The Godmakers and Scientology. Mormons love Scientology because it's even wackier than us. What's the name of that logical fallacy, the "wackier than us" fallacy? We love throwing the Bible under the bus too because its wackier than the Book of Mormon, yet if backed into a corner we believe the Bible nevertheless.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sat Feb 23, 2019 2:40 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:29 pm
I have to give round 1 to Bennett. It's easy to armchair quarterback this stuff, and I know I wouldn't hold a candle to Bill Reel but there are so many bigger narrative problems than stuff like the stripling warriors. Also, the First Vision discussion seemed to go black and white when the best answer, whether you're a believer or not, is that the story got embellished over time as Joseph's theology of God developed.
I agree. One thing I notice with rebuttals to critics is that the apologists tend to focus on one thing in order to refute the wider problem.

I personally don't think the First Vision is in my top 5 issues, but it shows a few things about Joseph:

1. He would change stories as his theology changed and they got grander as he needed to establish his authority/power (priesthood restoration another good example)

2. He used material that was available to him and made it his own. Solomon Chamberlain had a vision very similar to Joseph's which he had on a pamphlet, and even Saints now admits that Solomon visited with the Smith family *before* Joseph recorded his FV and shared this vision.

To me those are the two biggest pattern issues with the First Vision... then I would hammer a bit more on how Joseph never mentioned the FV story to anyone at the time and why Richard Bushman even took note to say that the reason no one would have believed Joseph wasn't because it was such a rare occurrence, but because it was common in that time.

It's really hard to navigate those things on the fly, but I do think that he gave Bennett too much space there to sidestep what some of the real issues with the FV are.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Reuben » Sat Feb 23, 2019 2:53 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:29 pm
Mormons love Scientology because it's even wackier than us. What's the name of that logical fallacy, the "wackier than us" fallacy? We love throwing the Bible under the bus too because its wackier than the Book of Mormon, yet if backed into a corner we believe the Bible nevertheless.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

I just can't bring myself to be impressed when a religion isn't as bad as Scientology. It's such a low bar.
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by deacon blues » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:25 pm

Reuben wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 2:53 pm
Hagoth wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 12:29 pm
Mormons love Scientology because it's even wackier than us. What's the name of that logical fallacy, the "wackier than us" fallacy? We love throwing the Bible under the bus too because its wackier than the Book of Mormon, yet if backed into a corner we believe the Bible nevertheless.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

I just can't bring myself to be impressed when a religion isn't as bad as Scientology. It's such a low bar.
I agree. Jim Bennett comes across as more reasonable than a McConkie, but he sets the bar too low to sustain the usual General conference speech. Bill Reel, who is often sharp as a tack, picks some odd points to emphasize. Saying Moses 1 is a ripoff of Matthew 4 doesn't seem as helpful as to bring up, say: JST: Genesis 50 and/or 2nd Nephi 3 as examples of Joseph Smith's dubious scriptures. I'm speaking from the sidelines, though. I'm not in the arena.
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:39 pm

deacon blues wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:25 pm
I agree. Jim Bennett comes across as more reasonable than a McConkie, but he sets the bar too low to sustain the usual General conference speech. Bill Reel, who is often sharp as a tack, picks some odd points to emphasize. Saying Moses 1 is a ripoff of Matthew 4 doesn't seem as helpful as to bring up, say: JST: Genesis 50 and/or 2nd Nephi 3 as examples of Joseph Smith's dubious scriptures. I'm speaking from the sidelines, though. I'm not in the arena.
I was listening to this part tonight as I was walking the dog, and I was really surprised at how Bill seemed to be kind of off here...

When Bennett asked for an example of where Joseph took ideas from Rigdon, Bill seemed to flail around a bit and just said the vague idea that he renamed parts of church structure over it. I think Bill was wanting to talk about how Rigdon brought over the concepts of the priesthood restoration which led to JS changing the revelation to include those terms (Melchizedek), but he just seemed to draw a blank there.

And when talking about how Joseph "lifted" material in his works, it did seem odd to bring up that part of Moses although it is a valid area.

I'm not done with this section yet, but I hope Bill pushes back on Bennett's dismissal of Deutero-Isaiah because it's much more complex than Bennett wants us to think it is.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:24 am

jfro18 wrote:
deacon blues wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:25 pm
I agree. Jim Bennett comes across as more reasonable than a McConkie, but he sets the bar too low to sustain the usual General conference speech. Bill Reel, who is often sharp as a tack, picks some odd points to emphasize. Saying Moses 1 is a ripoff of Matthew 4 doesn't seem as helpful as to bring up, say: JST: Genesis 50 and/or 2nd Nephi 3 as examples of Joseph Smith's dubious scriptures. I'm speaking from the sidelines, though. I'm not in the arena.
I was listening to this part tonight as I was walking the dog, and I was really surprised at how Bill seemed to be kind of off here...

When Bennett asked for an example of where Joseph took ideas from Rigdon, Bill seemed to flail around a bit and just said the vague idea that he renamed parts of church structure over it. I think Bill was wanting to talk about how Rigdon brought over the concepts of the priesthood restoration which led to JS changing the revelation to include those terms (Melchizedek), but he just seemed to draw a blank there.

And when talking about how Joseph "lifted" material in his works, it did seem odd to bring up that part of Moses although it is a valid area.

I'm not done with this section yet, but I hope Bill pushes back on Bennett's dismissal of Deutero-Isaiah because it's much more complex than Bennett wants us to think it is.
I once brought up all sorts of Campbellite material to Bill that showed a direct connection and he blew me off as if the evidence was weak. I don't think Bill is highly educated in this area of religious doctrinal borrowing unfortunately. He was more interested in rock magic.

And that's ok, we all have areas of interest that dominate our libraries of the mind. 19th century magic world view is much more interesting to a wide audience than obscure religious doctrinal development in 19th century frontier america.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:33 am

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:24 am
I once brought up all sorts of Campbellite material to Bill that showed a direct connection and he blew me off as if the evidence was weak. I don't think Bill is highly educated in this area of religious doctrinal borrowing unfortunately. He was more interested in rock magic.
Yeah this is definitely a weaker area for Bill to argue from if he can't bring up some of the specifics in real time. For example we know that Joseph borrowed:

-The priesthood titles/split from the Campbellites (Rigdon)
-The multiple tiers of heaven from Emanuel Swedenborg
-Temple ceremony from the Masons
-Word of Wisdom from the Temperance movement
-First Vision from Solomon Chamberlain
-Book of Abraham from Jasher, Josephus, Philosophy of a Future State (1830) and The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato (1816)

Etc, etc... I just wish he would push back more on these issues.

I'm almost done with part two and I'd give part two as well to Bennett. Part of that is because I can see all the areas that Bill is conceding to Bennett and part is because I'm noticing the areas he's letting go, so maybe I'm being too critical here.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:39 am

jfro18 wrote:
FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:24 am
I once brought up all sorts of Campbellite material to Bill that showed a direct connection and he blew me off as if the evidence was weak. I don't think Bill is highly educated in this area of religious doctrinal borrowing unfortunately. He was more interested in rock magic.
Yeah this is definitely a weaker area for Bill to argue from if he can't bring up some of the specifics in real time. For example we know that Joseph borrowed:

-The priesthood titles/split from the Campbellites (Rigdon)
-The multiple tiers of heaven from Emanuel Swedenborg
-Temple ceremony from the Masons
-Word of Wisdom from the Temperance movement
-First Vision from Solomon Chamberlain
-Book of Abraham from Jasher, Josephus, Philosophy of a Future State (1830) and The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato (1816)

Etc, etc... I just wish he would push back more on these issues.

I'm almost done with part two and I'd give part two as well to Bennett. Part of that is because I can see all the areas that Bill is conceding to Bennett and part is because I'm noticing the areas he's letting go, so maybe I'm being too critical here.
3 degrees of glory also has a parallel in Campbell's article "The Three Kingdoms" in the Christian Baptist paper (1828) prior to Rigdon and Smith's vision in D&C 76 which ties it to Rigdon.



Last edited by FiveFingerMnemonic on Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by Red Ryder » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:59 am

I have followed the thread over at MormonDiscussions.com.
Bill vs Bennett

Bill makes an appearance over there to respond to a few comments. It seems Bill maneuvered Bennett through a conversational maze that left Bennett cornered into a few disagreements with Church policy on LGBTQ policy and a few other issues.

Long form discussion never ends well for the church narrative.
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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by jfro18 » Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:53 pm

Red Ryder wrote:
Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:59 am
I have followed the thread over at MormonDiscussions.com.
Bill vs Bennett

Bill makes an appearance over there to respond to a few comments. It seems Bill maneuvered Bennett through a conversational maze that left Bennett cornered into a few disagreements with Church policy on LGBTQ policy and a few other issues.

Long form discussion never ends well for the church narrative.
I saw that thread on MD and I hope it ends up being the case that as it goes Reel ends up trapping some of the arguments. I think so far he's just left so many problematic areas on the table. I know some of that is not wanting to turn what is so far a respectful conversation into something more heated, but it just feels like on some of the specifics he is just missing some really hard to counter examples.

If after 6 episodes the best that happens is that Bennett agrees that the church erred on the Nov 15 policy and that Joseph has made a lot of mistakes alone with other prophets... it would be a bit of a letdown. I am almost done with ep 2 so a very long way to go though.

If you ever read Bennett's reply to the CES Letter (the 370+ page one) you'll notice how different he sounds in these discussions. In his reply, Bennett is very sarcastic, sometimes aggressive, and not really wavering. With these discussions, Bennett leaves a lot of space for errors in the church and has already said twice that Russell Nelson has no more vision to heaven than you or I do. That's a pretty fascinating take to me that you will not hear many TBMs concede.

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Re: Bill Reel v. Apologist Jim Bennett

Post by deacon blues » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:48 pm

I just finished part 2, and I'm enjoying the discussion. I can understand it best in 1/2 hr. to 1 hour segments, so I'll probably be behind the curve on this, but want to say again: Kudos to Bill Reel and Jim Bennett for doing this discussion. I believe they are each trying to understand the other's point of view, which is darned hard work, at least harder than preparing talks about stuff that one was brought up from childhood to believe. I also sense that Bennett has spent some real effort in developing a sustainable, nuanced belief, which still allows understanding of a differing viewpoint. I think Bill is providing a real service here too. I feel my donations are going to a good cause. See you after the next episode. :D

PS: I would add that episode makes a good point that the JSP:BOA volume is going to be more valuable to the BOA discussion than John Gee's or Kerry Muelstein's articles.
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