Scott Gordon the CES Letter and Truth

[_Fence Sitter]

I can say that not a single member in our ward is inactive because of church history issues.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/674 ... 1209921979

How the Hell would he know? They're inactive.

They have suspended him for a while. Even the denizens of MAD realize Pacman is an idiot.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67444-jeremy-runnells-excommunicated/?do=findComment&comment=1209921992

[_Fence Sitter]

I REALLY hate how Smac posts his long, awfully boring and tedious posts (broken up into dozens of pieces). I do think he does his best to just derail or disrupt and frustrate. At least many stand up to him now and even all of the believers don't support all his posts (except Scott of course who immediately "likes" every post he makes )

Ditto here.

SMAC seems incapable of seeing the difference between a discussion board conversation and a cross examination. His methodology does not address ideas, it just breaks down conversations into such small bits that it destroys meaning and intent.

I believe over here he would not fare well at all.

[_toon]

I wonder if Smac can come up with an example of how the CES letter foments anger and hatred of church members as he has accused Jeremy of this in hist post.

Not just foment. Designed to foment. So Smac not only needs to come up with examples, he also needs to show evidence that that was the intent.

[_grindael]

This is from FAIRMORMON:

Brian C. Hales is the author of The CES Letter: A Closer Look, as well as seven books dealing with Mormon polygamy—most notably the three-volume, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology (Greg Kofford Books, 2013). His Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto received the “Best Book of 2007 Award” from the John Whitmer Historical Association. He has presented at numerous meetings and symposia and published articles in the Journal of Mormon History, Mormon Historical Studies, Dialogue, as well as contributing chapters to The Persistence of Polygamy series. Much of his research materials are available at http://www.MormonPolygamyDocuments.org.Theology (Greg Kofford Books, 2013). His Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto received the “Best Book of 2007 Award” from the John Whitmer Historical Association. He has presented at numerous meetings and symposia and published articles in the Journal of Mormon History, Mormon Historical Studies, Dialogue, as well as contributing chapters to The Persistence of Polygamy series. Much of his research materials are available at http://www.MormonPolygamyDocuments.org.

The website and the videos produced by Brian Hales have gone NOWHERE. Nobody watches them or cares. They have been watched by what a couple of thousand people? For example, Hales has a video on "Polyandry" published in 2016 and it's been watched 4,895 times. Nice to know all the FAIRMORMON sycophants and tuning in.

Jeremy has been called every name in the book by these creeps. They have no answers, only apologetic BS that makes absolutely NO SENSE. Here is where Hales comes from and he said this... really:

"I don’t mind being an apologist because I am a believer that Joseph Smith was a virtuous man and a true prophet of the living God. ―Brian Hales, 2011

Yet he whines and whines about being labeled a Mopologist. Because that is what he is, and that colors everything he does. He is a crappy historian and a horrible writer. He's a self serving prick who will comprise everything moral for his irrational beliefs.

Scott Gordon and Hales are two peas in a pod. Consummate liars. They wish they had the integrity and honesty of a Jeremy Runnells.

Pt. III of "The Irrational World of Brian Hales Polygamy" will be up in just a couple of more days. It's called "Getting to Snow You" and you are gonna love it.

And the quote above, he said that to Dan Vogel, right here on this forum.

[_moksha]

Scott Gordon said the CES Letter does a very good job attacking what he calls an unsustainable view of Mormonism. He then talks about how we have overfilled our “truth cart” and need to empty some of it. He believes there is a sustainable version of Mormonism that will come out on top. The CES Letter is effective in terms of identifying what needs to be tossed and what can stay.

Scott Gordon may very well be onto something here with his point that, "it is sort of true and that is all we need". I mean, think how much easier it is to choke on large whole truths, but when you slice it up into smaller partial truths it is easier and safer to swallow.
(Brought to you by FAIRminded Citizens Against Dogmatic Choking)

[_Uther]

Rob Terry on a Facebook post made these interesting comments about the CES Letter discussed at the Fair Conference by Scott Gordon. It is really hard when one is involved in a church which takes your money and involves a lot of your time. If you are someone who starts to read and think and check sources and arguments it can make you very uncomfortable.

My early life was as a Lutheran Christian in a quite conservative synod. I converted to Mormonism over the issue of the Trinity. Years later research on the Book of Abraham and Book of Mormon throttled my belief system. I associated with the Pentecostals for a while because my wife found a home there.Later I went back to the Lutheran church which had changed from what it use to be.Now I have problems with the Bible over archaeology of the exodus and conquest. Are scholars like Finkelstein and Dever wrong in their claims that the exodus and conquest did not happen?

Rob Terry's comment:

"Scott Gordon presented on the CES Letter at the FairMormon conference last week.

"He got emotional and choked up while talking about the effectiveness of this document as an “anti-Mormon” proselyting tool and the gravity of the CES Letter’s impact on the LDS world. Many families have been broken up and many people have had their lives disrupted. I share that emotion. I love this church, and I don’t like to see the number of people leaving it.

Scott spends part of the presentation describing generally the CES Letter and then spends a large amount of time going point by point for the first chapter of the CES Letter, showing that it is poor researched, sloppy, full of lies and half truths.

By doing so, I think Scott completely misses why the CES Letter is so compelling and so effective in deconstructing a traditional LDS belief set.

Yes, the CES Letter is a little sloppy. Yes, it includes a few inaccuracies and many “half-truths”. Yes, it includes all the bad and none of the good regarding evidences that support LDS truth claims. All of that is true. But it’s at least 70% accurate. And that 70% is a whopper for most LDS.

Next to me, of course (https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/ces-letter/), Patrick Mason has given the best insight into how to process the CES Letter while retaining an LDS testimony.

He said the CES Letter does a very good job attacking what he calls an unsustainable view of Mormonism. He then talks about how we have overfilled our “truth cart” and need to empty some of it. He believes there is a sustainable version of Mormonism that will come out on top. The CES Letter is effective in terms of identifying what needs to be tossed and what can stay.

I don’t think Scott Gordon’s defense of the CES Letter is effective, because I didn’t hear him acknowledge that point or encourage those struggling with doubt to shift their paradigm or adopt a more humble view of our doctrine and truth claims. His approach seems to be to just simply write it all off and defend the traditional narrative, with the overflowing truth cart, stuffing it back in as it keeps falling out.

Book of Abraham problems. Polygamy problems. Priesthood ban. Book of Mormon translation issues. Conflict in First Vision accounts. Details lacking in the priesthood restoration narrative. Old Testament Documentary Hypothesis. New Testament textual criticism. Evolution of doctrine in the restoration (and anciently).

None of these are simple problems. Every single one is a land mine ready to explode a traditional/literal/fundamentalistic testimony. The CES Letter is extremely effective at pointing this out. The process goes like this:

1. Many LDS have a simple, white-washed, historically indefensible view on the issue. Usually the view includes a perspective that God is involved in a way that’s 100% certain, in a fundamentalistic, inerrant manner.
2. The CES Letter blows away this view. (and in my opinion, rightly so)
3. The faith struggler then has three options.
a. Combat the new information to settle back into the initial perspective, or a slightly nuanced version that’s essentially the same. But basically retaining the notion that God is involved in a way that’s nearly 100% certain and inerrant.
b. Accept the new information and come to believe the Church is not “true” and either leave or try to stay in a state that’s very uncomfortable.
c. Accept the new information and reprocess the view of the Church into a version that’s less certain and more humanistic and built on true faith. This new view may not retain beliefs such that LDS is the one and only exclusively true church. But it does retain beliefs that God is in this Church in some way, and that it’s worthy of us devoting ourselves to.

I have a hunch that Scott Gordon and most of FairMormon would agree with me on this. But it’s very scary to say directly, considering that this more humanistic more epistemologically humble perspective is not the one taught over the pulpit at General Conference or on Sundays in our wards. It’s much easier to snipe around the borders of the CES Letter without really taking it on."

Scott Gordon and his likes are destined to fail. Instead of adapting to the inevitable, not only do they smear the pig with lipstick, but they french kiss it on camera.

[_grindael]

They have suspended him for a while. Even the denizens of MAD realize Pacman is an idiot.

And they closed the topic! Why do they do that? It's ridiculous.

[_Physics Guy]

People on the other board are angry with Runnells for posting a concise list of short questions. The angry people feel that these short questions all have good answers but that the good answers are unfortunately all long answers. They don't seem to see anything wrong with the fact that their answers all have to be long. They seem to feel that it's common for short questions to have good long answers but no good short ones, so it's unfair for Runnells to post a bunch of such questions in order to take advantage of the woefully short attention spans of today's wavering Mormons.

I'm not convinced that short attention spans are such a bad thing, actually. When I read old books I'm often appalled at how they ramble. I think that earlier generations did take longer attention spans for granted—and it encouraged bad writing. Writers had it easier in the old days because with fewer competitors writing they could get away with slowly bruising their topics to death. The billions of people in today's online audiences draw millions of content producers, and if you take a thousand words to explain something then people will skip you and click on the one of those millions who can nail it in a hundred words. At least potentially, I think, this is good.

So I don't really buy the claim that good answers have to be long. I think there's always a way to give a good short answer, by summarizing details and their implications instead of reciting them all. People might then want to hear all the details before being fully convinced, but a good short answer will at least win you that willingness to hear more, and so in that sense the good short answer is good enough. The only reason I can see for why a short question might really need a long answer is that in fact there are no good answers to the question, so you need time and space to create a new context within which the question can mean something else—something that you can answer. Insisting that people listen to a long answer is exactly like insisting on dimming the lights before doing your magic trick. It's something you do to get away with deception.

So if none of your short answers sounds good enough to win a genuine willingness to hear more, then you have a real problem, not just a perception problem. Blaming someone for asking those nasty short questions without any short answers is shooting the messenger.

[Guest]

Physics Guy,

There doesn't seem to be an answer of any kind from the apologists whether SHORT or LONG when asking for the name of the king in Facsimile No. 3 which Joseph Smith pointedly made clear is given in the characters. To this day nobody has been able to answer that question. No amount of parallelisms can come up with an answer and all the footnotes ever produced by Hugh Nibley don't reveal the name.

There simply is no answer, whether short or long -- nobody in MormonDumb knows the king's name. As I said above, the name is "GIVEN IN THE CHARACTERS" (that's a direct quote)!!

QUESTION: Which characters is the name given?

ANSWER: In the characters above his head!

In the characters above his head

No matter how many times I repeat myself and keep asking there remains to this day, no answer. How sad. I'm going to keep asking until they answer.

[_fetchface]

Yeah, I remember listening to the Swedish Rescue and that was their favorite go-to answer, "There is a good answer to that but we don't have enough time to go through it all." When I heard that, I thought, "You just flew from Salt Lake to Sweden, don't you think you could make some time for some long answers?" Truth is, they just don't have any reasonable answer at all.