ALITD -
I thought I would spend fifteen whole minutes of my time to share some of my recent comments about LDS apologists. Surely, if you have seen my talk about how apologists waste their talents "several times", at least one of these would contain such a statement. Yet, none do.
Hint: before you make assertions about what specific posters have said, click that little "search" at the top of the board, and plug in the variables. If this is too much to ask of your busy schedule, then perhaps you ought to consider omitting claims about other people's opinions.
My comments on apologists:
http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=2170
I don't view myself as griping and deriding the LDS church. I critique certain LDS truth claims, and deride MAD internet apologists. That is quite different than griping about or deriding the LDS church, although I understand that some believers have so conflated issues in their minds they can't tell the difference.
http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=1386
I have not been banned from MAD, as far as I know. I just refuse to post on a board with such openly biased moderation that not only tolerates, but seems to, at times, encourage some very rude behavior in believers. What an stellar example to those who wander onto the site.
I lost faith prior to my internet days, but I can imagine having wandered onto a place like MAD when I first found out about the more troubling aspects of church history. I can imagine posting a question about Joseph Smith' polyandry and being told, over and over, by rude, dismissive believers that the only problem is that I was too stupid or lazy to find out this information long ago.
Frankly, some of the people who post over there are of the same mindset as those who didn't have a moral problem with attacking Martha Brotherton and calling her a whore from her mother's breast. So I guess this type of behavior has a long history in Mormonism. I just wasn't familiar with it when I converted to the church. My fault, of course. Despite the fact that I checked out and read the sole TWO books on Mormonism in my college library and the internet hadn't been invented yet, I should have somehow been able to find out this information.
I don't need any recovery from Mormonism. I need recovery from my several years dealing with Mormon apologists.
http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=2213
Certainly believers stood up to critics, and probably felt that they did a good job refuting the critics. Yet, the discontent was obvious in the result - Z is a ghost town.
So what was the problem? Rehashing of old arguments? Yes, but that also occurs on FAIR/MAD. It's the same old topics, that is the nature of the beast. Certainly old ZLMBies who went to FAIR were seeing the same arguments.
Here's what I think reveals the problem that resulted in the exodus: what was the difference between FAIR and ZLMB? There had to be SOME difference, and that difference is why believers preferred FAIR to Z.
Is it that new, exciting topics are discussed at FAIR that were ignored at Z? Of course not, the idea is silly.
Some of the more notable critics also posted, at least for a time, on FAIR, (like Brent Metcalfe), so it's not just the idea that the critics were too good for the apologists, (which seems to be your insinuation)
What was the primary difference between FAIR and Z?
The only answer I've come up with is that FAIR has an openly biased moderating style, as well as an openly biased format. So the question is: why do believers prefer that format?
I was still a moderator during the period in which Pac and the mods were trying to figure out how to fix Z. The problem was definitely believers were discontented with Z. They did not feel adequately protected, and they felt outnumbered. We bounced around various ideas, and I even suggested some tactics that FAIR seemed to use - such as limiting the number of critics, and refusing to engage in any discussion regarding moderating. (I made it clear when I made those suggestions that I was suggesting these changes as possible ways to help believers feel better about the situation, but also made it clear I would not be interested in participating on such an openly biased board)
So FAIR has helped believers by being openly biased in their behalf and by (at times arbitrarily) limiting the number of critics, and yet they still are unhappy with the situation (judging by Juliann's recent comments at MAD about feeling distressed at having created this situation). Just what do they want?
I think the hard fact isn't that critics are particularly better at these debates, or that one group is meaner than the other - the hard fact is that believers who are defending the faith just have the harder job. I've said this many times - which would be easier? Criticizing Joseph Smith marrying other men's wives, or defending it? Criticizing the Book of Abraham "translation", or defending it?
Critics have a far easier job - one of my favorite critics, Gadianton, used to say that apologists are probably brighter people, because it's hard to come up with some of these defenses, and that critics can be of mediocre intelligence and still wipe up the floor with the apologists.
There is no situation that is going to make believers feel completely comfortable defending their faith against critics who know what they're talking about. That's because, well, the church is a man-made fantasy, constructed by a man who engaged in the same "benefits" that almost every other religious alpha male indulges in.
I bet scientologist apologists have the same problem (in fact, I would bet MONEY on it, given the extent the organization goes to to shut up critics). No matter how openly biased the moderating team is, no matter how hard the mods are on critics, no matter how limited the number of critics - it's just hard to defend the basic claims of scientology. Aliens dropping frozen aliens in volcanoes? Okay.
LDS believers will feel insulted by this comparison, but the only reason LDS beliefs do not strike them as inherently absurd as scientology beliefs (assuming we would agree that frozen aliens in volcanoes is, indeed, inherently absurd) is because they BELIEVE in them. (and were often RAISED in an environment that just accepted them)
This is why I've given up on real dialog between believer and nonbeliever. The believers just have a harder job, and they are hugely emotionally invested in their beliefs, and there is just no way to avoid them feeling attacked and persecuted, no matter HOW biased the moderating may be. So they're going to react as if they were personally attacked, and then the critics are going to feel unjustly attacked, and respond in kind (generalization, not true for each individual case).
It's just pointless. in my opinion, the only solution is for LDS to stop creating boards that are open to critics in the first place.
It depends on the topic, in my opinion. Critics aren't more intelligent or "better" in some way than defenders of the faith are. It all has to do with what is being defended. I think defenders usually "win" in debates about whether or not Mormonism is a Christian faith, for example. And they can offer good evidence that Mormonism, as a social system, can be very helpful to many individuals (although they tend to ignore the potential harm, as well).
But in regards to other topics, the negative evidence is just so overwhelming (say, for example, Joseph Smith secretly marrying young women and other men's wives, or the Book of Abraham problems) that no amount of intelligence and diligence is going to make the defenders' argument look "good". So yes, in a more open and free format, they were regularly trounced in those sort of arguments.
I'm sure they would not agree. Perhaps they really felt that their arguments always looked better, and critics were just mean people, and that was what created the stress. Who knows. The human mind is amazing in its capacity for self-delusion. (maybe my own mind is deluding myself in terms of who looked "good"!)
http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... c&start=63
I've gotten three quarters of the way through Duffy's essay, and part of what strikes me, so far, is that apparently internet apologists like Dan and Wade really are "big names" in this arena. I always had a hard time believing that, because neither of them, from what I saw in their interactions, had a lot of substance to them. I thought they were just big names on the net due to their high profile on boards. I've just never been that impressed with what either of them produces, which is part of the reason I never understood RFM's apparent obsession with Dan. I think people like Ben McGuire and Brant Gardner, while I disagree with many of their points, are far better at presenting substance.
But maybe Dan and Wade just got mentioned because they're good examples of LDS apologists who like to fight, not because they're known for substantial apologia within the LDS community.
What do you all think? Are Dan and Wade viewed, within the LDS intelligentsia community at least, as "top tier"?