DiscussMormonism.com

Dear God, can this bad reasoningdie the death is deserves?

Pahoran wrote:
It's like this:

Anti = "opposed to."
Mormon = "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Hence an anti-Mormon is anyone who is opposed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What is it with lawyers who try to ply their trade to apologetics and becoming some of the most ineffectual dilettantes on the scene? In any case, Pahoran is correctly parroting the FAIR Wiki here:

FAIRWiki wrote:It is somewhat strange that critics of the Church wish to somehow divest the term "anti-Mormon" of its clear meaning. It is composed of two elements:
1) the prefix anti-
Noun: "A person who is opposed to something, such as a group, policy, proposal, or practice"
Adjective: Opposed
Preposition: Opposed to; against.


2) ...and Mormon, as a colloquial term for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But the slow witted kiwi and the FAIRWiki have fallen into anold fallacious mistake that the etymology of a word is a factor at all as to the meaning behind it’s use. For a good counter example to this poor thinking would be running a similar analysis on the English word ‘television’. The prefix means “far” and the suffix means “sight”, but no one in the English speaking world understands the word ‘television’ to literally mean “far sight”.

Etymology is used to understand the origins of a given word, it doesn’t give any insight into contemporary meaning. I don’t get how a bunch of adults who act so sensitive to context can’t stop form making basic errors in plain reasoning by ignoring how language is really used.

Critics complain about the use of “Anti-Mormon” because they feel groups like FAIR use it as a code word to dissuade people from even considering a source, poisoning the well as it were, pointing out the etymology of a word doesn’t explain anything.

MrStakhanovite wrote:Critics complain about the use of “Anti-Mormon” because they feel groups like FAIR use it as a code word to dissuade people from even considering a source, poisoning the well as it were, pointing out the etymology of a word doesn’t explain anything.

Personally, I've never been dissuaded from reading anything anti-Mormon. "Poisoning the well " goes both ways. From reading this board, one might conclude that Daniel Peterson is the most evil Mormon who ever lived. Is that a fair assessment? Is he really all the things which have been attributed to him here? Or has "the well" been poisoned beyond repair?

RayAgostini wrote:

MrStakhanovite wrote:Critics complain about the use of “Anti-Mormon” because they feel groups like FAIR use it as a code word to dissuade people from even considering a source, poisoning the well as it were, pointing out the etymology of a word doesn’t explain anything.

Personally, I've never been dissuaded from reading anything anti-Mormon. "Poisoning the well " goes both ways. From reading this board, one might conclude that Daniel Peterson is the most evil Mormon who ever lived. Is that a fair assessment? Is he really all the things which have been attributed to him here? Or has "the well" been poisoned beyond repair?

You are not framing the issue accurately. There might be a few people who just arbitrarily hate Daniel Peterson, but not many. What people don't like is the way he acts. For example, his recent taking what I said in a thread on this board out of context, and then lying and saying I was talking about him. Peterson has poisoned his own well beyond repair, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.

Speaking of poisoning the well, maybe you'd like to inform the world that I'm a pseudoskeptic, even though I have repeatedly said on this board that I believe in God and in life after death. Or that I cannot say that space aliens DON'T exist, but I have seen no persuasive evidence to make me conclude that they have visited this planet and abducted semi-literate hillbillies and performed colostomies on cows.

Or maybe you can announce without evidence that I just hate Mormons, and that must be why I say things that are not supportive of the faith-promoting narrative of the LDS Church. This afternoon, my little girl went to an activity with her Primary class. Clearly, I allowed her to do so because of my rabid, arbitrary hatred of Mormons.

And for the record, Peterson is much too much of a wet blanket to be evil. The most evil Mormon who ever lived was Joseph Smith.

MrStakhanovite wrote:What is it with lawyers who try to ply their trade to apologetics and becoming some of the most ineffectual dilettantes on the scene?

Unless his career has changed since his last publications, Pahoran isn't a lawyer.

I quote Gary Novak's much-loved Worst of the Anti-Mormon Web:

Gary Novak wrote:Novak's Rule Number 1 of Anti-Mormonism: When becoming an anti-Mormon, expect your IQ to drop at least 85 points. Or, to put it a little more succinctly: God strikes you stupid.

Novak has published 5 book reviews for FARMS/MI and co-authored an article with Louis Midgley, and Worst featured contributions from Dan Peterson, so it's not like he's from off the reservation. He quit running the Worst site in 1999, but I guarantee you most of the members of the so-called "old guard" still remember it well. So of course it's a well-poisoning, pejorative term. Mormons and Mormon apologists widely associate the term with stupidity, dishonesty, viciousness, and having a bias against the LDS church. It's regularly applied to scenarios and cases where not even Pahoran's extremely broad definition of the term works.

by the way, I argued in an article for the Patheos Mormonism portal a few years ago that "cult" and "anti-Mormon" are being similarly abused by the opposing sides and need to be retired. I don't know whether John Dehlin came to that conclusion on his own or if he got it from me, but we're in agreement on that either way.

RayAgostini wrote:

MrStakhanovite wrote:Critics complain about the use of “Anti-Mormon” because they feel groups like FAIR use it as a code word to dissuade people from even considering a source, poisoning the well as it were, pointing out the etymology of a word doesn’t explain anything.

Personally, I've never been dissuaded from reading anything anti-Mormon. "Poisoning the well " goes both ways. From reading this board, one might conclude that Daniel Peterson is the most evil Mormon who ever lived. Is that a fair assessment? Is he really all the things which have been attributed to him here? Or has "the well" been poisoned beyond repair?

DCP has worked long and hard to build his reputation. He has done so in writings that are easily accessed by the general public.

The fact that some faithful Mormons look on DCP's writing as a defense of their unfounded belief, while non-Mormons and former Mormons overwhelmingly look at his writings as self-serving, ineffective, illogical and even silly, should tell anyone interested something about the Mormon mindset.

Anyone unfamiliar with DCP's antics need only go back and have a look at the numerous threads on this board in which DCP was being called out for intellectual dishonesty, miscomprehension of key cited literature, and other unscholarly behavior. Since he really had no defense for this behavior, he simply quit the board.

If the DCP well has been poisoned, DCP is one one who dropped in the cyanide. And he continues to add little doses on a unnervingly regular basis.

MrStakhanovite wrote:Dear God, can this bad reasoningdie the death is deserves?

No, Stak, it can't. It can't die for the same reason that species that are no longer suited to their environment would go extinct in nature, but they survive in captivity.

Stupid ideas and specious reasoning are subject to their own form of natural selection. But when stupid ideas and specious reasoning occur on a message board that is dedicated to a religion that indulges in navel-gazing on a cosmological scale, and which is moderated to prevent the predation and other ways that such thinking is killed off in nature, fatuousness lives a full, unhindered life.

MsJack wrote:

Gary Novak wrote:Novak's Rule Number 1 of Anti-Mormonism: When becoming an anti-Mormon, expect your IQ to drop at least 85 points. Or, to put it a little more succinctly: God strikes you stupid.

Yes. Only the most incisive intellects can understand complex topics like the economic and social impact of tapir ranching among Hebrews in pre-Columbian Guatemala.

Darth J wrote:You are not framing the issue accurately. There might be a few people who just arbitrarily hate Daniel Peterson, but not many. What people don't like is the way he acts. For example, his recent taking what I said in a thread on this board out of context, and then lying and saying I was talking about him. Peterson has poisoned his own well beyond repair, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.

You're deeply offended because you were "taken out of context"? Has Dr. Peterson ever been "taken out of context" on this board?

Darth J wrote:Speaking of poisoning the well, maybe you'd like to inform the world that I'm a pseudoskeptic, even though I have repeatedly said on this board that I believe in God and in life after death. Or that I cannot say that space aliens DON'T exist, but I have seen no persuasive evidence to make me conclude that they have visited this planet and abducted semi-literate hillbillies and performed colostomies on cows.

That's because, like DCP, you've either ignored or never seriously considered the evidence. It's weird that you two actually agree on this.

Darth J wrote:Or maybe you can announce without evidence that I just hate Mormons, and that must be why I say things that are not supportive of the faith-promoting narrative of the LDS Church. This afternoon, my little girl went to an activity with her Primary class. Clearly, I allowed her to do so because of my rabid, arbitrary hatred of Mormons.

I'm genuinely pleased to hear that. When she gets older, you have an obligation to let her know the issues, and understand both sides, and make her own choice, and I won't begrudge you for that.

Darth J wrote:And for the record, Peterson is much too much of a wet blanket to be evil. The most evil Mormon who ever lived was Joseph Smith.

I trust your little girl doesn't know that yet.

RayAgostini wrote:

Darth J wrote:You are not framing the issue accurately. There might be a few people who just arbitrarily hate Daniel Peterson, but not many. What people don't like is the way he acts. For example, his recent taking what I said in a thread on this board out of context, and then lying and saying I was talking about him. Peterson has poisoned his own well beyond repair, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.

You're deeply offended because you were "taken out of context"? Has Dr. Peterson ever been "taken out of context" on this board?

Not by me. And since I have never purported to be the board police, I have no responsibility to account for everything anyone has ever said here.

And I didn't say I'm deeply offended. I said he's a liar and an attention whore.

Darth J wrote:Speaking of poisoning the well, maybe you'd like to inform the world that I'm a pseudoskeptic, even though I have repeatedly said on this board that I believe in God and in life after death. Or that I cannot say that space aliens DON'T exist, but I have seen no persuasive evidence to make me conclude that they have visited this planet and abducted semi-literate hillbillies and performed colostomies on cows.

That's because, like DCP, you've either ignored or never seriously considered the evidence. It's weird that you two actually agree on this.

Maybe you can find me another video that misrepresents what Eisenhower said, or makes specious assumptions about the "Battle" of Los Angeles.

Darth J wrote:Or maybe you can announce without evidence that I just hate Mormons, and that must be why I say things that are not supportive of the faith-promoting narrative of the LDS Church. This afternoon, my little girl went to an activity with her Primary class. Clearly, I allowed her to do so because of my rabid, arbitrary hatred of Mormons.

I'm genuinely pleased to hear that. When she gets older, you have an obligation to let her know the issues, and understand both sides, and make her own choice, and I won't begrudge you for that.

In fact, I think I am obligated to let her know the issues and understand both sides of every single belief system on Earth and every extraordinary claim there is, since we can't ever come to a conclusion about the overwhelming weight of the evidence respecting any given claim.

Darth J wrote:And for the record, Peterson is much too much of a wet blanket to be evil. The most evil Mormon who ever lived was Joseph Smith.

I trust your little girl doesn't know that yet.

Maybe when she's old enough to have had an adulterous relationship with him. So, 14?

DrW wrote:
DCP has worked long and hard to build his reputation. He has done so in writings that are easily accessed by the general public.

The fact that some faithful Mormons look on DCP's writing as a defense of their unfounded belief, while non-Mormons and former Mormons overwhelmingly look at his writings as self-serving, ineffective, illogical and even silly, should tell anyone interested something about the Mormon mindset.

Anyone unfamiliar with DCP's antics need only go back and have a look at the numerous threads on this board in which DCP was being called out for intellectual dishonesty, miscomprehension of key cited literature, and other unscholarly behavior. Since he really had no defense for this behavior, he simply quit the board.

If the DCP well has been poisoned, DCP is one one who dropped in the cyanide. And he continues to add little doses on a unnervingly regular basis.

Dan and I come from the same era, and I think there's only about an 18 month gap between us in age, he being the geriatric We've both "encountered Mormonism" at the same time, and at the same levels. I chose apostasy, he didn't. I respect his choice. I've never believed that he's above "equivocation" or "human folly", or "self-aggrandisement", nor exempt from "the afflictions of human nature", which largely tends to be hypocrisy. The problem is that many of his accusers here possess it (hypocrisy) in spades.