DiscussMormonism.com

I came across this yesterday and thought others here would enjoy it. It's a critic on YouTube taking about The Backyard Professor (a.k.a. Kerry Shirts) and one of his apologetic videos.

Mormon Apologetics at its Finest

Phaedrus

Shirts = Owned

That is pretty damn funny. Certainly it wasn't one of Kerry's better videos, but it typifies well some of what is decidedly wrong with Book of Mormon apologetics. This particular argument I would call a "Gardner Special."

Can you imagine how hilarious Shirt's innane video would be if his character was played by John Cleese?


Quoting the "anonymous conquistador". That was funny.

Thanks for posting that. It gives some nice insights into the apologetic method. Good stuff.

Interesting and educational. I do wish he'd avoided the word "idiotic", because after all Kerry is just so darn likeable, but there it is.

When I think of Kerry, I think "goofy," not "idiotic." Maybe it's just semantics.

But I do genuinely like Kerry, goofy or not.

I like Kerry and I've always found him to be a pleasant guy. My point was to make him look but but rather I found it interesting more from the standpoint of perspective. We're used to the strenuous arguments put forth to explain many of the implausible items of the Book of Mormon (Horses, swords, language, translation, metallurgy, DNA etc).

However it's also interesting to see how really ludicrous these things look to people on the outside.


Phaedrus

Runtu wrote:When I think of Kerry, I think "goofy," not "idiotic." Maybe it's just semantics.

But I do genuinely like Kerry, goofy or not.

I agree, John. Kerry is a likable character. I would prefer to call the sword argument idiotic, and not the guy who is advertising it (Kerry). If anyone deserves derision for this kind of argument, it is Brant Gardner, as Trevor observed, who is a decent fellow too, but not quite as likable as Kerry.

And it is the most preposterous kind of nonsense, isn't it? It is right up there with pseudo-scholarly discussions by Atlantis and Mu enthusiasts and Hollow Earth theorists. If anything in the Book of Mormon can stand for anything else, then all bets are off and one can argue it is true on practically any basis at all.

"I Nephi [I, Galaxar] having been born of goodly parents [having been spawned from evil galactic overlords], therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father [therefore I gleamed from them how to eat delicious humans].... etcetera."

How preposterous is that? Is it all that different from the argument put forth in Kerry's video?

What confuses me is who Shirt's target audience is. Who is it? Really?