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If I Did It: Confessions of an SMPT Imposter

by

Gadianton P. Robbers, Phd

Chapter 5
Look In the Mirror

We've navigated some difficult terrain in the preceding two chapters. Now it's time to slow down and reflect for a few moments on one of the most bizarre ironys of DCP's invitation to the rubes at MDB to embarrass themselves by trying to "get in" to the SMPT conference. In Dr. Peterson's original invitation post, he wrote in response to my proposal to skewer the apologists,

I'll be candid with you and say that, from what you describe, your paper may not make it. We're talking about the annual meeting of a society devoted to philosophy and theology, after all, in which, while the thought of Kant and Berdyaev and Plantinga and folks like that is apropos, stories about their lives or their classroom manner or their personalities are, on the whole, probably not.

Isn't it interesting that given the depths of philosophical inquiry that the SMPT plumb, that Dr. Peterson's paper made the cut? I mean, wasn't his presentation on his experience with interfaith dialogue? We can't judge him without so much as an abstract, however, I think we can raise the question as to how his talk could have in any way been centered around the "thought of Berdyaev"?

If Dr. Peterson found a way to integrate his run-ins with EV ministers and so on into serious metaphysics, then he'd be hard pressed to doubt my project of exploring the ontological substructure of Mopologetic failure.

It seems to me that the LDS faith struggles with two opposing ideologies - one is that the "learning of men" is of little value compared to the revelations of God, and that what makes the LDS church unique is that it depends solely on the revelations of God to lead said church, as opposed to other religions that have paid degreed ministries - and the other is that the apologists are valuable to the church because their academic qualifications ensure that they will be able to present a defense of the faith within an academic context, the authority of which will be, to a great degree, dependent upon their degrees.

Has this always been a struggle in the LDS faith? Or is it a more recent development?

On a personal note, my personal "recovery" from Mormonism (and yes, it was a process of recovery - recovery of self and healing) has been two fold. The first portion was simpler, although more emotionally poignant - recovering from realizing the claims of Mormonism were false and I'd built my life around false claims. The second portion was messier, in a way, and had less to do with Mormonism than it had to do with personalities - recovering from my dealings with apologists, who so often tend to condescension while defending claims that are, on their face, ludicrous. That second portion eventually entailed learning more about human nature in general, and how our brains seem almost designed to deceive ourselves, and how little natural inclination there is in our species for logic, and how seemingly we are incapable of recognizing those problems within ourselves. So, in a way, apologists and the LDS/exLDS community were like a petri dish, in which the things I was reading about would be demonstrated in living color. While it was intriguing at times, it has also been discouraging because of that it demonstrates about human nature in general. At times I am amazed we made it out of the dark ages.

I think your satire did a good job capturing some of the basic elements of that second portion.

Gad

I don't know if you like to fish or not, but I think you would enjoy fishing for crappie. All you need is a hook and line. A pole is nice but not necessary. You can use bait, bait that can be almost anything a worm, leaf, something shiny or colorful, but in lots of cases even an empty hook will work.

All you do is bob the jig, the line and hook and whatever you put on it, up and down and the crappie come in and bite, heck sometimes you just hook them on the lip or a fin or in their belly. Heck the crappie come in out of curiosity of the movement alone, the bait is immaterial. It's easy and kids love it.

Crappie fishing is how I see this scenario having played out, that is of course, if you did it.

Pok

beastie wrote:It seems to me that the LDS faith struggles with two opposing ideologies - one is that the "learning of men" is of little value compared to the revelations of God, and that what makes the LDS church unique is that it depends solely on the revelations of God to lead said church, as opposed to other religions that have paid degreed ministries - and the other is that the apologists are valuable to the church because their academic qualifications ensure that they will be able to present a defense of the faith within an academic context, the authority of which will be, to a great degree, dependent upon their degrees.

Has this always been a struggle in the LDS faith? Or is it a more recent development?

On a personal note, my personal "recovery" from Mormonism (and yes, it was a process of recovery - recovery of self and healing) has been two fold. The first portion was simpler, although more emotionally poignant - recovering from realizing the claims of Mormonism were false and I'd built my life around false claims. The second portion was messier, in a way, and had less to do with Mormonism than it had to do with personalities - recovering from my dealings with apologists, who so often tend to condescension while defending claims that are, on their face, ludicrous. That second portion eventually entailed learning more about human nature in general, and how our brains seem almost designed to deceive ourselves, and how little natural inclination there is in our species for logic, and how seemingly we are incapable of recognizing those problems within ourselves. So, in a way, apologists and the LDS/exLDS community were like a petri dish, in which the things I was reading about would be demonstrated in living color. While it was intriguing at times, it has also been discouraging because of that it demonstrates about human nature in general. At times I am amazed we made it out of the dark ages.

I think your satire did a good job capturing some of the basic elements of that second portion.

My wife and I were discussing the subject of "self deception" a few days back. We couldn't come to an agreement as to whether it is man's greatest shortcoming or man's greatest survival mechanism.

Crappie fishing is how I see this scenario having played out, that is of course, if you did it.

That is an apt analogy.

My wife and I were discussing the subject of "self deception" a few days back. We couldn't come to an agreement as to whether it is man's greatest shortcoming or man's greatest survival mechanism.

I think it's both. I think it is undoubtedly a result of evolution, and protected us in many ways. But we no longer live in the ancestral environment, and are exposed to much more information - so it's also become a shortcoming.

by the way, I do not exempt myself from humanity, and realize I suffer from this trait as well. But like all human beings, I'm just not very good at recognizing it in myself. Every now and then I catch myself, but I'm quite sure I don't catch quite a bit, as well.