What is the Mopologetic "skinny-l" Listserve?

[_Trevor]

And, of course, college professors often have the same inclination towards the over-development of ego, due to also often possessing a small group of acolytes (their students).

Ouch. I personally don't get kicks from college students thinking I am "all that."

[_beastie]

Ouch. I personally don't get kicks from college students thinking I am "all that."

But I bet you know colleagues who do.

College professors, of course, don't have to deal with numbers 1 and 3, so that tends to keep the ego more in check. Imagine not just students thinking you're "all that", but another group of adults thinking you're "all that" and view you as a knight in shining armor of sorts, defending the faith. Also imagine embracing a philosophy that tells you there is "something wrong" with the character or thinking of those who may criticize your work. Wouldn't that be a witch's brew guaranteed to serve up bloated ego?

[_William Schryver]

And, of course, college professors often have the same inclination towards the over-development of ego, due to also often possessing a small group of acolytes (their students).

Ouch. I personally don't get kicks from college students thinking I am "all that."

Of course not. That's what you come here for.

The CJS™ has the advantage of providing all the benefits without any of the potential risks of its non-virtual counterparts.

[_Trevor]

Of course not. That's what you come here for.

The CJS™ has the advantage of providing all the benefits without any of the potential risks of its non-virtual counterparts.

Don't think too hard, Schryver. You're bound to get constipated.

Nice to see I was right about you keeping your promise. You are one sad, strange little man.

[_EAllusion]

I don't think it is necessary to engage in the armchair psychology. It's fun, though. I once - well more than once - compared DCP to William Dembski. We both seemed happy with the comparison. What occurs with LDS apologists is highly, highly similar to what happens in the Intelligent Design culture, even down the the message board level. You could also compare the Mormon apologia crowd to the vaccines lead to autism crowd or the facilitated communication crowd. There are patterns here for anyone who is familiar with multiple crackpot groups. Leaders with loosely connected academic credentials and oversized egos appear often. There is a pop theory that ego is a major part of what leads a smart person down to the darkside of crankery. I'm just not sure if it wouldn't seem that way frequently simply because they are displaying confidence in what seems obviously off. They almost by necessity have to view themselves as getting something the general academic community does not, and egotistical explanations are a pretty obvious route to understand this. There's a chicken/egg thing there.

[_Trevor]

Imagine not just students thinking you're "all that", but another group of adults thinking you're "all that" and view you as a knight in shining armor of sorts, defending the faith. Also imagine embracing a philosophy that tells you there is "something wrong" with the character or thinking of those who may criticize your work. Wouldn't that be a witch's brew guaranteed to serve up bloated ego?

Well, in my brief experience, professors live to tear each other to shreds. There is due respect for good work, but every theory exists to be torn apart. No one is exempt. Depending on your perspective, it can be either terrifying or exhilarating. There are plenty of big egos, and I am not exempt from ego, but my ego problems are of a different variety.

One of the benefits of playing around with apologetics, I suppose, would be that few people with credentials will bother to waste their time on anything you write. Maybe it is a gas to have the faithful dumbstruck by your apparent erudition in things they know nothing about. I can't imagine what one gets from ceaselessly tracking message boards, however.

[_cksalmon]

Having a bad day, cks? You seem unusually antagonistic today.

Ah, yes, the redirect. "What are your crimes?"

[_beastie]

Well, in my brief experience, professors live to tear each other to shreds. There is due respect for good work, but every theory exists to be torn apart. No one is exempt. Depending on your perspective, it can be either terrifying or exhilarating. There are plenty of big egos, and I am not exempt from ego, but my ego problems are of a different variety.

One of the benefits of playing around with apologetics, I suppose, would be that few people with credentials will bother to waste their time on anything you write. Maybe it is a gas to have the faithful dumbstruck by your apparent erudition in things they know nothing about. I can't imagine what one gets from ceaselessly tracking message boards, however.

While knowing that credentialed peers are waiting to tear your theory apart might be unnerving, it would seem to encourage careful and cautious work. I think this is a stark contrast to apologia - there are no credentialed peers waiting to tear your theory apart, in contrast, they want to support and cheer your theory, because it's all for the defense of the faith. The fact that two of their "brightest stars" - Nibley and Sorenson - repeatedly have serious footnote problems, for example, seems to underline this inherent weakness in the craft.

I believe that what they get from "ceaselessly tracking message boards" and culling stupid quotes is supportive evidence to justify their dismissal of critics. Instead of focusing on the solid critiques some critics have delivered in the past, they look for the stupid, the inane, the insulting to add to their collection.

Really. Can you imagine what sort of "dossier" we could collect if we regularly fished in Mormon message boards for stupid, inane, or insulting believer comments?? MAD alone would produce volumes.

[_Trevor]

While knowing that credentialed peers are waiting to tear your theory apart might be unnerving, it would seem to encourage careful and cautious work. I think this is a stark contrast to apologia - there are no credentialed peers waiting to tear your theory apart, in contrast, they want to support and cheer your theory, because it's all for the defense of the faith. The fact that two of their "brightest stars" - Nibley and Sorenson - repeatedly have serious footnote problems, for example, seems to underline this inherent weakness in the craft.

Good point. The people who should criticize this do so very infrequently. I heard secondhand things that Robinson said about Nibley's abuse of the apocrypha as evidence. There is also the Kent Jackson criticism of Nibley. I wish there were more rigorous, internal critiques of LDS apologetics in the LDS community. It would do them a lot of good. Frankly there are numerous reviews published by FARMS that should have never seen the light of day. Too much of what they publish is bilge. As you point out, culling the criticisms of teenagers lends to a real perspective problem.

What I would most love to see is a more organized, internal backlash against Mormon apologetics, especially where it concerns their attacks on people like Michael Quinn. It amazes me that these guys are given the latitude they have to perpetrate the nonsense they do. LDS apologetics as it is conducted today is, by and large, a malignant tumor on the body of the LDS Church.

Really. Can you imagine what sort of "dossier" we could collect if we regularly fished in Mormon message boards for stupid, inane, or insulting believer comments?? MAD alone would produce volumes.

Obviously we are too occupied with criticisms of the people who are supposedly the heavy hitters. Why waste time on the bulk of the people who post on MAD and elsewhere?

[_Gadianton]

EA,

In the ID movement and others you've studied, is there a propensity to laugh hysterically, very often?