DiscussMormonism.com

Thank you for bumping this thread, drumdude. Perhaps we should resurrect it each year, sort of like how he does with Bond’s comment about Interpreter? My prediction, by the way, was this: So long as he continues to pretend that his behavior hasn’t hurt people, he will never finish another book. His ...

Great post, Reverend. It’s really remarkable: the Mopologists sunk a million dollars into a “theatrical film”—a box office bomb, by the way—as an attempt to undo the problems posed by Harris’s own words.

Despite their claims to the contrary, it would seem that the eminent historian Richard Bushman is *not* the Mopologists’ friend. I’m sure that longtime readers remember Bushman openly upbraiding the classic FARMS apologists for their aggressive tactics, for example. And some of his historical writin...

Moroni: Here, Smith, take these plates. You won't use them for anything, and you can only show them to a few unconvincing witnesses before I take them away forever again, but you have to make a big point of claiming to have had them for a while. Smith: Why? Moroni: See, in the distant future there ...

CFR: I dispute this part "for years, I dismissed all parapsychological claims as baseless nonsense." Can he provide one quote from his former self criticizing paranormal claims? Exactly. How is it that angels showing up with gold plates is believable to him, but “parapsychological claims” used to b...

Can you cite a single incident, in all of "SeN" or FARMS or all the message board posts, where there is a sign that Mormonism has helped the Mopologists to be better people? No, not a single incident. Every evidence is that Mopologetics makes a person insensitive, angry, and tribal. The case of Joh...

I'd like to point out another gaping problem with his analysis. Joseph Smith said that a religion that doesn't require the sacrifice of everything is worth nothing (I think he did, at least). Was religion good for Joseph Smith's health? Was it good for the 12 apostles' health? Was it good for the h...

DS: "I'm wondering on what you base your motivation, if not by an eternal reward?" I re-read The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis, on the flight from London to Salt Lake City yesterday. My answer to your question would be pretty much the answer that Lewis gives. So, yes, then: he *does* base his be...

DS: "I can't think of anything more repulsive than only helping others due to belief they will be getting an eternal reward." Oh, I can think of many things more repulsive than that. Murdering scores of millions of people in the name of atheistic Marxism is one. Murdering millions in the name of Na...

Over the past few years, I've noticed an aggressive reliance on "well-being" surveys over at SeN in order to justify Mormonism--not directly, mind you, but as a defense of religion or "religiosity" more generally. But the use of these surveys is almost entirely polemical: it's not an occasion to thi...