A New Smear Piece in "Mormon Interpreter"

[_Bob Loblaw]

What leads people to leave the church isn't sin. It's integrity. We go where the evidence leads, no matter the cost. Mormon apologists have decided that spiritual experience not only Trump's reason and evidence but makes them suspect and evidence of pride.

[_Darth J]

I would advise everyone not to be too bothered by a closet transvestite like Pahoran who is simply projecting his hate onto critics of the Church to distract from his own guilty feelings.

[_Darth J]

In any case, yes, Darth, Pahoran is defending what amounts to an unreliable and idiotic standard for determining the causes of belief or unbelief, one that is not even consistently and clearly supported by the scriptures he proof-texts.

Mere assertion does not an argument make. Call for references that those passages mean something other than what I have cited them to support.

It's unfortunate that Pahoran's obsession with wearing a bra and panties has made it so difficult for him to get the point. It is not the exegesis of the LDS scriptures that is at issue, but the the authenticity of the purported revelations that is at issue.

The mighty God of the Sea, Poseidon, explained all of this to me when he was revealing the scandalous reason why Pahoran hates critics of the Church so much.

[_Drifting]

I walked into my house and discovered my irony meter had blown up in my absence. It was a complete mystery........until now..

Mere assertion does not an argument make.
Regards,
Pahoran

[_Kishkumen]

As is your conscious misrepresentation of my position. Note that I did not say what you wish to attribute to me, which is why you have to lamely, vaguely and counterfactually say that I "write as if" that were my position.

Which it is not.

I'm simply pointing out that the Church has always taught that immoral behaviour leads to the loss of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, which in turn leads to abandonment of the faith. This was not a new discovery of Mr Jones, and your attempt to get rid of it by burying him in irrelevant epithets is as futile as it is fallacious.

And you know it to be fallacious.

What Jones wrote is that sexual immorality leads to unbelief and the particular philosophies that Jones decries. And yet I have shown that the language of denying the faith has a much more rich context in LDS theology than one that connects it uniquely with sexual immorality. So, in point of fact, LDS theology is much more interesting and deep in this regard than the poor bigot Jones or the poor bigot Pahoran, or so it would seem. After all, your quotation of a couple of scriptures with a few phrases of commentary hardly makes for an actual "position."

I put the material there for you, Pahoran. Evidently you did not take the time to read it, but ignoring evidence does not constitute winning the argument. You are simply restating the bare bones of a position that you believe you staked out in the first place.

Pardon me for interrupting your boilerplate anti-Mormon propaganda, but the bigoted opinions of a few EV zealots are not "the Christian assessment of Joseph Smith." It is an established fact that Mormons are Christians (See Peterson and Ricks, Offenders for a Word) and our "Christian assessment of Joseph Smith" leads to different conclusions.

I will not pardon you for being the illiterate hack and asshole that craps on this board repeatedly. The fact that mainstream Christian theology leads to different conclusions about Joseph Smith's activities than Mormon theology does does not make it "anti-Mormon" in the sense of deliberately and unfairly distorting Mormonism. Rather, it is about applying Christian theology to Mormon-Christian arguments, and showing how the two are distinct. Clearly, most modern Protestants will not view Mormon theosis, polygyny, temple rites, and kingdom theology favorably, because they are not all that consistent with Protestant theological positions. That does not, however, make it anti-Mormon to point such out. It is no different from explaining how a Democrat is not a Republican, to use American political terminology. One need not be "anti-Republican" to point out the real differences, and if there were no difference, there would be no point in being Mormon instead of Evangelical, as you would readily admit, at least being in your right mind (something I imagine happens elsewhere).

So, not accepting polygyny as consistent with Christian morality as defined by the majority of Protestants, these Protestants will not likely buy the idea that Joseph Smith's polygyny and polyandry were moral practices. Unless, of course, you attribute all differences of opinion on values to bigotry and anti-Mormonism.

Really, this has absolutely nothing to do with calling Mormons unchristian. After all, I really don't care what Evangelicals or any other group believes about Mormons, since I don't grant them authority to confer or deny Christian status on any other group.

You do understand that, right?

Snip failed attempt to smear me by association with Falwell.

Translation: "I don't know how to deal with this, and I really don't want to, so I will label it and move on."

Still obsessed about that, I see. I must have given you a thorough pasting that you keep harping on it.

Actually, you went silent when I demonstrated clearly that your idea didn't work.

Mere assertion does not an argument make. Call for references that those passages mean something other than what I have cited them to support.

Um, I gave you quotes demonstrating how the concepts of "denying the faith" or "denying the work" were a little more complicated than your simple proof-texting can account for. I notice that you ignored those quotations. This tells me that, as per usual, you just pass over the things that you can't grapple with and liberally slather on more snark and derision like Archie Bunker applies butter and salt to his favorite Swanson frozen dinner.

I think you are going to continue to rely upon posing and blustering in an attempt to dissimulate the weakness of your position.

Go ahead; prove me wrong.

Translation: "I have said almost nothing, but I have said it a lot and I have said it very cuttingly. Now I will demand that he refute the next to nothing I have said, although I have, as of yet, addressed not a single point he has raised. I hope no one notices that I ain't got bupkis."