Engaging Mormon Apologetics

[_Darth J]

Oh, and mfb----

About your premise that animals don't or can't commit murder:

http://www.bbcfocusmagazine.com/qa/do-a ... wn-species

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/ ... 5085.shtml

http://writing.gather.com/viewArticle.a ... 4977447664

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... perts.html

[_mfbukowski]

Oh, and mfb----

About your premise that animals don't or can't commit murder:

http://www.bbcfocusmagazine.com/qa/do-a ... wn-species

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/ ... 5085.shtml

http://writing.gather.com/viewArticle.a ... 4977447664

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... perts.html

Hardly strong evidence, since each and every quote finally hedges their sensational headlines:

One quote:

Biologically, it is important for the band of marauding young males to to kill the infants, because the infants are preventing the females from bearing new young.

The females are suckling the infants, and by so doing, are incapable of having new infants.

As long as the female langur is nursing an infant, she is not menstuating and remains infertile with either her alpha male or with a newcomer.

For the newcomer male langurs to establish themselves, they must secure the sexual interest of the females.

Once the nursed infants are dead, the female langur begins to menstruate again and she becomes receptive to the young males who have just murdered all her children.

Numerous comparisons between such primate murder and humans has been drawn, likening this kind of biological determination to human stepfathers who are more likely to abuse their stepchildren.

But we can rise above what some may say is biological determinism, despite tendencies that we as a species may have.

Another:

Does any of this count as murder? That depends on your moral philosophy. Most animals are probably unaware of the moral dimension of their actions, but whether this excuses them is a matter of opinion. Humans also have plenty of circumstances that allow them to kill without committing murder – in self-defence, or during war for example – and animals generally have similar justifications.

Another:

Chimp expert Frans de Waal appreciates his caution. He says, “There have been claims made in the past that since chimps wage war and we do as well it must be a characteristic that goes back 6 million years, and that we have always waged war, and always will.

“There are many problems with this idea, not the least of which is that firm archaeological evidence for human warfare goes back only about 10-15 thousand years. And apart from chimpanzees, we have an equally close relative, the bonobo, that is remarkably peaceful. The recent discovery of Ardipithecus also adds to the picture, as the suggestion has been that Ardi was relatively peaceful too. The present study provides us with a very critical piece of information of what chimpanzees may gain from attacking neighbours. How this connects with human warfare is a different story.”

Another:

But as the experts of the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit are forced to declare: "These killings represent yet another example of the hard brutality and evolutionary pressures of the marine world."

[_Darth J]

/snip

Oh, so it's not so clear cut as your unequivocal statement to the contrary? I see. So you're just making sweeping generalizations about things that are not as cut and dry as you want them to be in order to prove your contrived point about LDS doctrine.

By the way, how do you reconcile "firm archaeological evidence for human warfare goes back only about 10-15 thousand years" with Section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants?

[_mfbukowski]

Oh. So let's exclude the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, anything Joseph Smith taught, the Pearl of Great Price, and anything older than when Ezra Taft Benson was the president of the Church. Why should we exclude quotes that are more than 20 years old when the Church relies on purported quotes from people like Nephi and Abraham that are hundreds or even thousands of years old?.

Obviously, I was referring to quotes about the scriptures, not the scriptures.

Other than Adam-God, blood atonement, black people, and the then-current practice of polygamy, tell me a basic doctrine of the Church that Brigham Young taught that is inconsistent with what Jeffrey R. Holland teaches today.

LOL. A considerable list. I think I could add considerably to that list. Things like evolution and several others.

By the way, the Civil War ended in 1865. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

And a well established one. How is this relevant to anything? We are discussing those things which are not "objective" - ie which are not perceivable and which do not have much evidence. If you have ever studied the law, you know that "facts" are often created by juries of reasonable men- not objective observation.

I also consider myself a TBM. I just don't believe in certain things that the Church teaches, like that Joseph Smith was a prophet, or that the Book of Mormon, or the D&C, or the Pearl of Great Price are scriptures, or that anyone since Joseph Smith has been a prophet. Just because I reject certain church teachings, as do you, makes it totally irrelevant how YOU choose to define MY beliefs. You have no right telling me I'm not a TBM. That is how I classify myself, and if I say that about myself, then it's objectively true

Very cute, but I do actually believe these things.

I can see that you are prepared to take on every line I write and give some smart aleky response.

I don't have time to play that game, and won't respond to silly posts. I am not prepared to win a war of attrition, which is apparently what you are waging.

If you have something to say about proving the existence of things you can't see, which is what I am here to discuss, I will respond, other

[_mfbukowski]

/snip

Oh, so it's not so clear cut as your unequivocal statement to the contrary? I see. So you're just making sweeping generalizations about things that are not as cut and dry as you want them to be in order to prove your contrived point about LDS doctrine.

By the way, how do you reconcile "firm archaeological evidence for human warfare goes back only about 10-15 thousand years" with Section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants?

Your fundamentalism is what causes the conflict. I am so glad I said "snip". Funny I don't recall that.

This is the type of thing I don't want to waste time with

You cannot or will not stick to one issue, because you are a shotgun debater who's tactic is to wear down your competition.

I won't play that game

[_Darth J]

This is the type of thing I don't want to waste time with

You cannot or will not stick to one issue, because you are a shotgun debater who's tactic is to wear down your competition.

I won't play that game

The "/snip" thing is very common around here when the post you are quoting is right above yours.

And it's okay, mfb. You have not provided a single reference to LDS doctrine in explaining how your sophistry conforms to LDS doctrine, leaving you with calling me a fundamentalist.

I can no more blame a militant cafeteria Mormon for reacting this way than I can blame anteaters for eating ants. It's just what you do.

[_Darth J]

You cannot or will not stick to one issue, because you are a shotgun debater who's tactic is to wear down your competition.

You mean, kind of like making a bold, unsupported assertion that turns out not to be supported by external evidence, and then simultaneously abandoning your previous assertion and complaining about being called on an assertion you made to prove your point?

Like:

--there is no orthodox interpretation of the scriptures in the LDS Church;

--the LDS Church doesn't teach that there's such a thing as objective truth;

--there was no "death" before the Fall because animals don't mourn and can't commit murder.

You know, making a whole lot of assertions that you can't back up but assume will just be taken at face value, and when your assertions are shown to be inaccurate, deciding that you're not going to "play that game?"

Is that what you mean by shotgun debating?

[_Darth J]

Oh. So let's exclude the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, anything Joseph Smith taught, the Pearl of Great Price, and anything older than when Ezra Taft Benson was the president of the Church. Why should we exclude quotes that are more than 20 years old when the Church relies on purported quotes from people like Nephi and Abraham that are hundreds or even thousands of years old?.

Obviously, I was referring to quotes about the scriptures, not the scriptures.

No, that wasn't obvious. And it's even less obvious now that you again say I'm a fundamentalist because the plain language of D&C 77 doesn't fit what anthropologists say.

Other than Adam-God, blood atonement, black people, and the then-current practice of polygamy, tell me a basic doctrine of the Church that Brigham Young taught that is inconsistent with what Jeffrey R. Holland teaches today.

LOL. A considerable list. I think I could add considerably to that list. Things like evolution and several others.

It's only a considerable list if you concede that this list is representative of the majority of Brigham Young's teachings. I see again, though, that you are relying on your own assertions instead of giving a real example. That's what makes militant cafeteria Mormonism so appealing. You get to ignore the Church's teachings while purporting to defend them.

By the way, the Civil War ended in 1865. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

And a well established one. How is this relevant to anything? We are discussing those things which are not "objective" - ie which are not perceivable and which do not have much evidence. If you have ever studied the law, you know that "facts" are often created by juries of reasonable men- not objective observation.

No, juries do not create facts. Juries have evidence presented to them. They then draw conclusions and reasonable inferences from that evidence, determine weight and credibility of the evidence, and make a finding based on the evidence and the application of law to fact.

And what the LDS Church actually teaches is perceivable and is not reasonably debatable. Or if you want to go back to your mistaken jury analogy, I have presented evidence to make a prima facie case of what the Church teaches. You have presented zero evidence to rebut that prima facie case.

I also consider myself a TBM. I just don't believe in certain things that the Church teaches, like that Joseph Smith was a prophet, or that the Book of Mormon, or the D&C, or the Pearl of Great Price are scriptures, or that anyone since Joseph Smith has been a prophet. Just because I reject certain church teachings, as do you, makes it totally irrelevant how YOU choose to define MY beliefs. You have no right telling me I'm not a TBM. That is how I classify myself, and if I say that about myself, then it's objectively true

Very cute, but I do actually believe these things.

Right. If you say something about yourself, it's true, regardless of what else you say that conflicts with what you say about yourself.

I can see that you are prepared to take on every line I write and give some smart aleky response.

I don't have time to play that game, and won't respond to silly posts. I am not prepared to win a war of attrition, which is apparently what you are waging.

If you have something to say about proving the existence of things you can't see, which is what I am here to discuss, I will respond, other

I take this to mean that your examples of what the Church teaches that refute what I say it teaches, and your examples to show how I'm a fundamentalist who is characterizing the Church, will not be forthcoming.

[_mfbukowski]

I have answered most of these earlier in the thread including examples of how I correspond with orthodox doctrine- all as responses to you.

You however have not responded to a single point I have made- the "murder" fake quotes, the repetition of the same points over and over- this is not a debate, it is a mud shoveling contest.

You don't respond to a single issue, but you just keep shoveling it. Good for you.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hi there mfbukowski!

What "thing" is it precisely that "exists" in this instance? We can see the rabbit. We can see the duck.

That “thing” is the combined image of the duck and the rabbit, the image of seeing both the duck and the rabbit at the same time as one picture. We know it’s there, but we can’t see it and we cannot build a machine to help us see it. We cannot create a test to see if this picture has some sort of notable effect on our environment. We know it exists, yet how can we detect this combined image? Where did we get the knowledge that combined image in the first place?
I suppose one could say that we see the Rabbit and we see the Duck, therefore it follows that we can infer the combined image of the duck-rabbit exists, but I think that is highly dubious, since there is no empirical datum to suggest that the two pictures could/should be viewed as one.

By replying, I keep bumping this topic in hopes that one of your cronies will jump in to help you, but no one has.

I wonder why.

You’ll have to forgive the delay in my replies; I’m on my two week summer break between summer and fall terms.
But why would I need help? I didn’t think this was a debate or a contest, just a friendly discussion between you and I. Was I mistaken?