Internet Mormons vs. Chapel Mormons thread on MA&D

[_EAllusion]

LOL... this is great coming from the biggest Internet Mormon there is.

In Shades' dichotomy, DCP would come out somewhat comfortably on the "Chapel" side. That's mainly because it isn't really a coherent concept and DCP has some fundamentalist tendencies Shade's would identify as "Chapel," but there you go.

[_Some Schmo]

LOL... this is great coming from the biggest Internet Mormon there is.

In Shade's dichotomy, DCP would come out somewhat comfortably on the "Chapel" side. That's mainly because it isn't really a cohereant concept and DCP has some fundamentalist tendencies Shade's would identify as "Chapel," but there you go.

LOL... if you say so, it must be true.

[_Dr. Shades]

Last night I was finally able to finish perusing the MA&D thread. Now that that's done, there are two final things I ought to comment on.

First off, the MA&Dites have failed to notice that they contradict themselves:

• On the one hand, they claim that the Internet Mormon/Chapel Mormon theory is complete bunk, that such categories simply don't exist, etc. etc. etc.
• On the other hand, they claim that I've done nothing more than reinvent or relabel (or, in Juliann "Transcript" Reynolds's case, that I've somehow plagiarized) Richard Poll's 40+ year-old "Iron Rod/Liahona Mormon" model.

So, which is it? If the Internet/Chapel dichotomy is complete bunk, then if I simply reinvented Richard Poll, then Richard Poll's Iron Rod/Liahona model is ipso facto complete bunk as well. Yet the Internet Mormons have never hurled any invective at Poll's model or otherwise gnashed their teeth at Poll the way they have me.

Or, correspondingly, if the Internet/Chapel dichotomy is complete bunk, whereas Poll's categories were/are valid, then it's ipso facto impossible for me to have reinvented Poll, since the Internet Mormons have never hurled any invective at Poll's model or otherwise gnashed their teeth at Poll the way they have me.

So it'll be fun to watch the Interent Mormons try to make up their minds on this one.

Second off, Bsix has brought up the informal survey I conducted a number of years ago. Now, he is completely wrong about a crucial point: He said that "Even according to Shades's research, the internet apologists all scored as Chapel Mormons." This is absolutely, utterly NOT TRUE.

A mere four people responded to my online survey request (compared to the 38 or so people who agreed to the survey on the street, face-to-face). NONE of those four people were internet apologists. One of those four was Paul Osborne, Chapel Mormon extraordinaire, who's so firmly in the Chapel Mormon camp that he once called FARMS to repentance! So that skewed the online results 25% of the way toward the Chapel Mormon camp. Another of the respondents had/has never participated in online forums, and only replied to the online survey at the request of his unbelieving spouse. The other two were complete unknowns. NONE of the promulgators of Internet Mormonism, the better-known names at MA&D, bothered to respond--which leads me to believe that they don't like being "nailed down" or otherwise have their Internet Mormonism noted "for the record."

So Bsix is completely mistaken in his evaluation of the survey results.

In FAIRness, however, DCP took the survey before I decided to go door-to-door and compile any results. His answers landed him in the Chapel Mormon camp, as he has remind us nearly every time the Internet Mormonism/Chapel Mormonism subject comes up. However, I wonder about the veracity of his answers: For example, for the survey question "When the prophets contradict the apologists, who is right?" he chose "the prophets," but I seem to remember him siding with the apologists and not Smith regarding the veracity of Smith's vision of Zelph the White Lamanite.

Here are some final words on the informal survey I conducted. Back when I first discovered the Internet Mormon/Chapel Mormon dichotomy and shared the discovery with ZLMB, the mopologists told me that I couldn't draw any conclusions until I actually conducted some sort of survey. (Which is strange, since I know what I heard growing up in church and I know what I see with my own two eyes on the Internet.) Then when I actually did conduct a survey--demonstrating that Chapel Mormons do indeed exist--they "upped the ante" by claiming that I had to conduct research through an accredited college or university.

I had to laugh at this, because that's not what they said the first time around. I.e., they didn't like the results, so they shifted the goalposts. Now, if I was to take them at their word and conduct the research through an accredited college or university, they'd ask me how much government grant money I'd obtained. If I said the college did it using volunteers, they'd of course claim that my results can't be trusted until I obtain $100,000 in grant money. If I jumped through that hoop and obtained that much money, they'd next claim that the results can't be trusted until I obtain $500,000 in grant money, etc. So no matter what, it can never enough for them--unless they come across an internet apologist who claims to score as a Chapel Mormon, well, then their own singular anecdote magically becomes the be-all, end-all of top-level State Department research into this topic.

[_EAllusion]

LOL... if you say so, it must be true.

Well, Shades created a handy dandy test to see if you are Internet or Chapel. While the test didn't appear to have any reliability or validity, DCP scored Chapel simply by giving answers congruent with his posting history. So as Lavar Burton would say, you don't have to take my word for it.

[_Dr. Shades]

. . . DCP scored Chapel simply by giving answers congruent with his posting history.

Are you sure they were congruent with his posting history?

[_EAllusion]

Are you sure they were congruent with his posting history?

With the exception in the ambiguity in the question you brought up, yes.

[_EAllusion]

Here are some final words on the informal survey I conducted. Back when I first discovered the Internet Mormon/Chapel Mormon dichotomy and shared the discovery with ZLMB, the mopologists told me that I couldn't draw any conclusions until I actually conducted some sort of survey. (Which is strange, since I know what I heard growing up in church and I know what I see with my own two eyes on the Internet.) Then when I actually did conduct a survey--demonstrating that Chapel Mormons do indeed exist--they "upped the ante" by claiming that I had to conduct research through an accredited college or university.

Some people complained about your lack of credentials, but the main and more serious focus was that your survey lacked any basic traits of sound methodology to draw the conclusions you wanted to. It contained basic errors that research through accredited colleges would not. Heck, it contained basic errors that an average student who had taken a research methodology class in psych or sociology would not make.

[_Dr. Shades]

Like I said, it's always something.

It's one thing to say that the informal survey was flawed; it's something else to come up with something better.

If you had typed up the survey, what would it look like?

[_EAllusion]

Like I said, it's always something.

It's one thing to say that the informal survey was flawed; it's something else to come up with something better.

Actually, I don't need to be able to come up with something better to notice methodological flaws in a survey anymore than I need to be able to sing to notice someone is out of pitch. Your survey was pretty awful, which is why Gad tried very hard to stress to you not to take it seriously. That means don't try to draw conclusions from it.

If you had typed up the survey, what would it look like?

Off the top of my head: I'd use weighted sampling techniques and make sure I was hitting demographically relevant portions of the LDS faith in proportion. The sample size would be much larger. I'd have test-retest, and internal reliability constructs built into the question lists through similarly worded questions attempting to measure the same dimension and rephrasing of specific questions. There would be a clear operational definition of the concepts I'm attempting to measure with a rationale for why each question validly relates to each group. I'd use an ANOVA to make sure there was statistically significant relationships between answer patterns. I'd use Likert scale measuring instead of Yes No I Don't Know, etc.

As it stands, your survey did not allow you to draw any meaningful conclusions from it. The more seriously you take it, the more embarrassing it is.

[_Daniel Peterson]

First off, the MA&Dites have failed to notice that they contradict themselves:

• On the one hand, they claim that the Internet Mormon/Chapel Mormon theory is complete bunk, that such categories simply don't exist, etc. etc. etc.
• On the other hand, they claim that I've done nothing more than reinvent or relabel (or, in Juliann "Transcript" Reynolds's case, that I've somehow plagiarized) Richard Poll's 40+ year-old "Iron Rod/Liahona Mormon" model.

So, which is it? If the Internet/Chapel dichotomy is complete bunk, then if I simply reinvented Richard Poll, then Richard Poll's Iron Rod/Liahona model is ipso facto complete bunk as well. Yet the Internet Mormons have never hurled any invective at Poll's model or otherwise gnashed their teeth at Poll the way they have me.

My objection to your scheme is not self-contradictory. It is, and has always been, your simplistic reification of your two categories, which you have often portrayed as mutually contradictory or incompatible (e.g., "two entirely distinct churches," "two totally different churches"). That there exists a spectrum of beliefs and attitudes within Mormonism - or, more precisely, that there exist multiple spectra within Mormonism -- is obvious. Analogous spectra also exist among Catholics, socialists, Republicans, libertarians, Keynesians, cosmologists, French teachers, ecologists, stock analysts, anti-Mormons, and film critics.

NONE of the promulgators of Internet Mormonism, the better-known names at MA&D, bothered to respond--which leads me to believe that they don't like being "nailed down" or otherwise have their Internet Mormonism noted "for the record."

I was simply reluctant to lend my support to a simplistic forced dichotomy that I could already see was being exploited against my faith for agenda-driven propaganda purposes.

In FAIRness, however, DCP took the survey before I decided to go door-to-door and compile any results. His answers landed him in the Chapel Mormon camp, as he has remind us nearly every time the Internet Mormonism/Chapel Mormonism subject comes up. However, I wonder about the veracity of his answers:

When the survey data don't support his pet theory, the true zealot insinuates that those he surveyed are liars. It simply can't be the case that his pet theory is misguided.

When people at a Sunstone symposium (who should have been fairly sympathetic) find The Pet Theory risible, the problem lies with them. Surely not with The Pet Theory!