Credentials

[_charity]

Wooooooooo. The Danite Band!

Harmony, my point in that was that you cannot just assume that non-LDS who engage in debate with LDS apologists are neutral.

[_JAK]

Of course, you have to always wonder about LDS aruging anything, too. But it isn't just a case that all LDS are biased for and all non-LDS are neutral.

How many times have LDS apologists argued against the church and lived to tell about it?

Interesting question. Not being LDS, does the LDS organization actually kill people? Given the charity talk here, it appears they might.

The question, harmony, just what is the level of intolerance in that religious group?

JAK

[_richardMdBorn]

Charity,

The question I posed in my last post, how do you handle the situation where people with credentials argue for opposite positions. Do you have to, gasp, assess the cogency of their arguments?

In general, when we are talking about a population who is unschooled in a particular topioc, listening to "people with credentials" arguing for opposite positions, there are three things we have to do.

Listen to the arguments. But if we don't know anything about the topic, we aren't in a very good position to know which argument is more reasonable.

Check for bias in the experts. For instance, before Robert Ritner ever wrote a word against the Book of Abraham, he had established himself as anti-Mormon by his writings. So, then if he were a credentialed Egyptologist arguing about soemthing about the Book of Abraham, I would wonder if his bias was coloring his judgement. Of course, you have to always wonder about LDS aruging anything, too. But it isn't just a case that all LDS are biased for and all non-LDS are neutral.

Check for our own biases. If it comes down to a toss up over which "expert" to believe, we have to look to see if our prejudice will push us in one direction or the other.

But my point is that that my credentials, in terms of degrees, are not as a good as Dr. Parkinson's. Yet I have found mistakes in comments he has made about the invention of GPS. Perhaps degrees are not critical in this and other situations; rather, arguments and research are the vital factors.

[_harmony]

Of course, you have to always wonder about LDS aruging anything, too. But it isn't just a case that all LDS are biased for and all non-LDS are neutral.

How many times have LDS apologists argued against the church and lived to tell about it?

Interesting question. Not being LDS, does the LDS organization actually kill people? Given the charity talk here, it appears they might.

The question, harmony, just what is the level of intolerance in that religious group?

JAK

I was speaking of spiritual suicide, JAK, which is what happens to anyone who publically takes on the church. They get ex'ed, cut off from God forever; hence spiritual suicide.

[_harmony]

Wooooooooo. The Danite Band!

Harmony, my point in that was that you cannot just assume that non-LDS who engage in debate with LDS apologists are neutral.

I wasn't assuming non-LDS are neutral. I was assuming that LDS are biased. And I haven't seen your rebuttal yet about Daniel's credentials not supporting his apologetics. According to your list, they should, but they don't... so where does that leave your conclusion?

[_charity]

Of course, you have to always wonder about LDS aruging anything, too. But it isn't just a case that all LDS are biased for and all non-LDS are neutral.

How many times have LDS apologists argued against the church and lived to tell about it?

Interesting question. Not being LDS, does the LDS organization actually kill people? Given the charity talk here, it appears they might.

The question, harmony, just what is the level of intolerance in that religious group?

JAK

I hope you are joking, JAK. You see quite a group here who are critical of the Church, who maintain they are members, even members in good standing. They are still alive and kicking.

Of course, the Church does not kill anyone who is critical of it. Even very prominent anti-Mormons just go along digging themselves even deeper and deeper.

[_harmony]

Wooooooooo. The Danite Band!

Harmony, my point in that was that you cannot just assume that non-LDS who engage in debate with LDS apologists are neutral.

I wasn't assuming non-LDS are neutral. I was assuming that LDS are biased. And I haven't seen your rebuttal yet about Daniel's credentials not supporting his apologetics. According to your list, they should, but they don't... so where does that leave your conclusion?

Still waiting on charity to give some thoughts into the nonrelationship of Daniel's credentials to his apologetics.

[_Coggins7]

I

f you want “credentials,” you also should want objectivity from those with the credentials. Someone with a PhD. from BYU in religion lacks the credentials of someone with a PhD. in religion from an accredited university with no religious bias (or with some other religious bias), someone with a non-colored view of history and from a neutral perspective.

Absolutely, utterly, and unutterably knee slapping hilarious. This is a kind of fundamentalist rationalism that was popular with logical positivists in the 19th and early 20the centuries.

As there is no such thing as a "neutral perspective" in any human endeavor, whether scholarly or scientific, this claim above presents as, essentially, a religious faith in human rationality, a thin reed to hang one's view of life upon and a preposterous assumption on its face.

[_charity]

I wasn't assuming non-LDS are neutral.

Thank you. Most critics seem to make that their basic assumption.

I was assuming that LDS are biased. And I haven't seen your rebuttal yet about Daniel's credentials not supporting his apologetics. According to your list, they should, but they don't... so where does that leave your conclusion?

I haven't seen DCP make comments out of his area of expertise. You limit his expertise to his ph.d. He has undergradute degrees in Greek and philosophy as well as the Near Eastern languages. He is certainly qualified to write and speak on matters of LDS doctrine and practice.

[_charity]

I was speaking of spiritual suicide, JAK, which is what happens to anyone who publically takes on the church. They get ex'ed, cut off from God forever; hence spiritual suicide.

The person who has committed an offense which can result in excommunication is already spiritually dead. An excommunication merely formalizes what has already happened.