_____'s "The Anti-Mormon Attackers"

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_wenglund
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Re: _____'s "The Anti-Mormon Attackers"

Post by _wenglund »

Mister Scratch wrote:Oh, I see! You're holding up your mirror again. And thus, by mirroring Pahoran, you yourself have become a slobbering, bootlicking ass-kisser. Bravo, Wade! Yet another coup!


No mirror. You are proving my point all on your self-discrediting own.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-
_moksha
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Post by _moksha »

This is all getting pretty mean spirited. I wish everyone could tone it down a bit and try to be civil to one another. It is like trying to read an episode of Ultimate Combat.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
_Mister Scratch
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Re: _____'s "The Anti-Mormon Attackers"

Post by _Mister Scratch »

wenglund wrote:No mirror. You are proving my point all on your self-discrediting own.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-


Hey, isn't this what Kevin told you over on MTT, Wade? Can't you come up with any original barbs or observations on your own?
_Runtu
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Re: FARMS Reviews the New Testament

Post by _Runtu »

But the above is mostly just ho-hum boring.

I just thought you'd like to know.

Regards,
Pahoran


Thanks for the comment. I suppose I can't always be brilliant. ;)
_wenglund
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Re: _____'s "The Anti-Mormon Attackers"

Post by _wenglund »

Mister Scratch wrote:Hey, isn't this what Kevin told you over on MTT, Wade?


Perhaps. If it is important enough for you to find out for sure, you will have to check there yourself since I have been banned there by Kevin in an unoriginal way and for unoriginal reasons.

Can't you come up with any original barbs or observations on your own?


If it is important enough for you to find out, you can check all the posts I have ever written against all the things that anyone has ever said or observed, and make that determination yourself. And, were your apparent concern for originality consistent, you would do the same test of Kevin's and your posts (including your question above). For my part, I really don't care.

Now, I realize that consistency (particularly when it requires honest introspection and acceptance of personal responsibility) is somewhat foreign to you, and that it is not an original notion or practice to anyone currently living on earth, but were you to embrace and inculcate it (along with any one or more of a number of conventions of critical thought and fair, balanced, and reasonable discourse currently absent in your behavior), then I would not question that unoriginality, but I would welcome and celebrate it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-
_Kevin Graham
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Post by _Kevin Graham »

== If it is important enough for you to find out for sure, you will have to check there yourself since I have been banned there by Kevin in an unoriginal way and for unoriginal reasons.

I beg to differ. I doubt anyone else has ever been banned from FAIR or ZLMB for stupidity.

That's as original as can be.
_wenglund
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Post by _wenglund »

Kevin Graham wrote:== If it is important enough for you to find out for sure, you will have to check there yourself since I have been banned there by Kevin in an unoriginal way and for unoriginal reasons.

I beg to differ. I doubt anyone else has ever been banned from FAIR or ZLMB for stupidity.

That's as original as can be.


Strange...that is not exactly what you said earlier here, and certainly not what Liz here told me was the reason.

But, I suppose it does depend upon what the respective mods consider as "stupid". In your case, "stupid" evidently means "anyone who cares enough about you to undertake the arduous task of demonstrating indisputably to your closed and self-protective mind that you were clearly wrong on quite a few of your perception about what I had said." Being proven wrong is loathsome enough for you and entirely unacceptable to your mind, let alone being forced by the power of careful, maticulous, and self-evident reasoning to accept that you were wrong many times over. To your mind, it would be "stupid" to let that happen. So, on several levels, I can see how "stupidity" was your reason--or at least the reason you need to suggest in order to avoid being confronted with the unacceptable truth.

The mods at FAIR, on the other hand, might consider it "stupid" for someone with your unflattering reputation to boast that a respected and valued scholar was "fabricating" reasons to close off a public conversation.

They might have thought it "stupid" for you to, in your typically belligerent, reactionary, accusatory, misunderstanding and misrepresentative way, badger them.

Then, too, the mods at FAIR and ZLMB may have considered it "stupid" for you to do all the inane and uncivil things you have done over the years to get booted or queued as many times as you have on both boards, and they may have thought the same thing about me and others who have likewise been banned and queued multiple times.

They may think it "stupid" that you just don't get this, and likely never will--particularly now that you closed off the one remaining avenue that could help you gain congnition (i.e. me).

So, it's questionable whether that is an "original" reason or not.

Even still, it is unoriginal to ban people regardless of the reason. It happens all the time--as you well know.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-
_Pahoran
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Re: _____'s "The Anti-Mormon Attackers"

Post by _Pahoran »

Mister Scratch wrote:[MODERATOR NOTE: Keene recently dropped the hammer, which you can read about here. Therefore, I have to edit out in real life information that a person requests be edited out.]

I was perusing over at the FAIR-affiliated FARMS recently, and came across this article. I may perhaps add it to the blog eventually, if I can ever determine how it fits. But in any case, I thought it was an interesting demonstration of FARMS-style rhetoric, or what DCP has recently describes as "just more ad hominems." Anyways, a few choice quotes (you can count the ad hominems and straw men, if you'd like):

Indeed.

Ad Hominem means "to the man." The ad hominem fallacy consists of arguments like, "he can't be a good plumber because he's a vegetarian" or "her arguments can't be sound because she's a democrat," or "he'd be a disaster as President because he's a Mormon." Exactly which, of your carefully chosen excerpts or anything else in the FARMS review under discussion, makes such an argument with regard to the book under review?

Mister Scratch wrote:
The Anti-Mormon Attackers
_____

A further self-recommendation is found in the author's introduction, which is titled, "Aggressive Apologetics: The Growing Mormon Mission." "Holding"1 takes up the theme introduced by Mosser and Owen's essay on the need for better quality evangelical apologetics2 and promises to deliver the goods in the form of "top-notch Biblical scholarship" (p. 10). This level of self-certification makes no concessions to false modesty. Whatever the actual quality of the scholarship here, the author certainly thinks it is formidable.

(bold emphasis added)

Yes, and? This is an ad hominem argument--how, exactly? Do you deny that "top-notch" scholarship ought to be formidable? How does this not qualify as self-certification of the book?

Mister Scratch wrote:
The book has a distinct apologetic handbook feel, with the key points being reiterated in summary form at the end of each chapter. This provides the reader with a useful way to survey quickly what Holding thinks he has proven in those chapters.

And you have a problem with this--why? Do you take issue with that? Do you think the "Key Points" at the bottom of each chapter represent things Holding thinks he hasn't proven?

Mister Scratch wrote:
In contrast to this approach, Holding becomes a staunch and loyal enthusiast for majority opinion or scholarship as soon as it suits his purposes.

Holding cannot claim to be ignorant of the relevant literature since he refers to it,4 yet he fails entirely to interact with it. Is this his idea of "top-notch scholarship"?

Yes, and? Do you have an argument to make here? Is the other shoe about to drop any time soon?

Mister Scratch wrote:
A detailed critique of his arguments would run to many pages and would be tedious.

Do you expect a review to rebut every point its subject makes? Is every review as long as the book it discusses?

Do you even know what a review is?

Mister Scratch wrote:
Holding has at least made an effort to justify this assumption with something resembling a structured argument, but that argument turns out, upon inspection, to be fatally flawed by its tendentiousness.

(Isn't this called "Begging the Question"? I.e., "The argument is flawed because it is flawed."?)

No, the argument is flawed because it is tendentious. Tendentiousness is but one of many possible flaws an argument may have.

Mister Scratch wrote:I thought this was hilarious:

Where this book really does improve on some of those of its predecessors is in its tone. It neither bristles with hostility, as most earlier productions do, nor drips with insincere, condescending friendliness, as some of the more recent efforts do.
(emphasis added)

Really? Why?

Does the FARMS review in question "bristle with hostility?" If so, you have failed to produce any examples of such bristlings.

Mister Scratch wrote:This too:
I saw none of the usual accusations of "dishonesty" that conservative Protestant anti-Mormons tend to fling at Latter-day Saints for failing to describe our own faith in terms amenable to the hostile caricatures our opponents have fashioned and prefer. His approach is businesslike and his tone scholarly.
(emphasis added)

Does this remind anyone of FAIR?

Why should that matter?

The statement is question is complimentary of the book. Did you really not understand that?

Mister Scratch wrote:
He shifts his ground from chapter to chapter and from topic to topic as he keeps his focus on whatever angle of attack seems most profitable at the time.

So, what? Are you saying he doesn't? Note that this is a summary; the review gives examples of the book doing exactly that.

Mister Scratch wrote:All in all, I thought this was a very interesting article, which is easily accessible via google. It seems a good example of the smear tactics of which FAIR and FARMS are so fond.

Based upon what you have given us, it indeed seems a good example of what passes for "smear tactics" in the minds of obsessive FARMS-bashers.

Regards,
Pahoran
_Mister Scratch
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Post by _Mister Scratch »

Frankly, I think the link Kevin provided is far more damning than anything I said.
_Pahoran
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Post by _Pahoran »

Mister Scratch wrote:Frankly, I think the link Kevin provided is far more damning than anything I said.

I agree that your attempted hatchet-job was rather underwhelming.

Regards,
Pahoran
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