Why I think Thomas Riskas Is A Joke

[_MrStakhanovite]

So just who is this Thomas Riskas fellow? Tom is a business man turned polemical author in the realm of counter-apologetics. Much like Mormon apologist Jeff Lindsay or Christian apologist Frank Turek, Tom’s background is steeped in the worldly toils of profit margins and workplace innovations:

Throughout his career, Riskas has also served in various senior executive positions. From 1990-1995 he served as Executive Vice President of the renowned Covey Leadership Center (CLC; now FranklinCovey). While at the CLC, Tom successfully built, managed and developed the Client Services Division (CSD) as a worldwide consulting organization. He also served with Stephen R. Covey as one of a select few senior level consultants responsible for developing the senior leadership capability and organizational effectiveness of some of the firm’s largest and most prominent clients.

Riskas completed his undergraduate degree (B.S.) in Business Administration at the University of San Francisco and his graduate degree (MBA) at Golden Gate University. His post-graduate, doctoral education was conducted at Pacifica Graduate Institute in the field of depth psychology. For two and a half years Mr. Riskas served as an adjunct professor of management at Arizona State University. He is the author of three books and several articles on the subject of leadership, performance management, and organizational development and has an enduring commitment to on-going action research and scholarship, and to providing research-based, state-of-the-art, and actionable executive consulting and coaching services to his clients.

The first rumblings of Tom Riskas came from internet mensch Kerry Shirts and the vivacious Rollo Tomasi quoting his book review:

. However, now I am forced to wear that shoe against Thomas Riskas' research and discussion. Good heavens, HOW are we Mormons going to have a chance now that our faith and doctrines have been every bit as much and powerfully deconstructed by Riskas as the Christian faith has been deconstructed by the new atheists? What makes Riskas' book so powerful, so thorough, and so.....well, just so......unforgettable, is that he is the very first person that I am aware of, I mean this literally, the very FIRST person to LITERALLY take us through every single assumption we have been taught and accepted as true and factual reality and absolute truth about God, the plan of salvation, faith, and spiritual experiences, and shown us the complete weaknesses of our assumptions which we think are factual truths and eternal laws and absolute objective realities.

Gotta love Kerry’s enthusiasm. Months roll by and I began investigating the book and I really didn’t like at all what I saw. Bad enough Riskas just imports all of Kai Nielson’s philosophic work on religion and uses it as a bludgeon on Mormonism, he combines it with what I feel to be an odious amalgamation of popular psychology and the discredited idea that religious faith is some kind of mental defect that can be overcome with proper guidance. His guidance being a paragon of proper guidance of course.

This sort of synthesis between an uncreative, drone-like adoption of just one philosopher’s ideas and a cavalier approach to mental health is something that strikes me so eerily similar to the same kind of snake oil salesmanship one can so readily find in Christian apologetics.

So when I learned that Riskas had condescended to interact with the lucky mortals over at the RFM boards, I thought I’d go have a look and see if he’d respond to a probing question:

Given the inordinate amount of citations of and lengthy quotations attributed to Kai Nielsen, I’d like to ask Mr. Riskas to list the top 5 most relevant and substantive critics of Kai Nielsen’s unique brand of philosophy, and offer a brief review of each critic’s contribution to the debate on those subjects.

For example, Kai Nielsen’s understanding of “God-talk” is controversial and not widely accepted in any major philosophical traditions. In Mr. Riskas opinion, who offered the best critiques of this, where, and how does Mr. Riskas respond to them?

Thanks!

So the strategy is to get him to talk about his favorite philosopher. You can easily tell a serious student from a fan by how they talk about the criticisms of their personal favorite. Very rarely does someone just take on everything their favorite philosopher believes, and the differences can be deep. A dedicated and serious person would become intimately familiar with the best criticisms on their pet topic, because that is where the most personal gain is to be had.

There truly are universes to be found in grains of sand, when you begin to really research a subject no matter what; physics, geometry, painting, history of German side arms, or whatever blows your dress up, there are so many facets to be examined that you can spend the rest of your life on that subject.

So this is Riskas’ chance to shine, if he really knows what he is talking about (and he better, since he wrote a 500 page boilerplate magnum opus where claims to deconstruct a world religion) then he should be able to give me an honest run down on Nielsen’s philosophy of religion explaining the weaknesses (and if anyone thinks there are no weaknesses in their worldview, watch out) and strengths, who give the best criticisms and how they have been met in print or how they might be answered.

[_MrStakhanovite]

~Part II~
What did I get in response? Lets break it down:

My "inordinate" quoting and citing of Nielsen, as you interestingly, if not revealingly, put it, has happily and hopefully created some interest in his work, as well as his critics, although both sides are I think important. At least they were and are to me.

So far so good. He at least acknowledges the other side and even states it is important to him! Perhaps I’ve found a fellow traveler here?

Perhaps the best sources that would give you what you need would be found in the References section of the book.

This should be interesting to readers, notice what he didn’t say? He doesn’t have a place in the book where he deals with the best criticisms. Consider this quote from a writing guide often assigned to undergraduate philosophers to aid them in writing:

Contrary to what some may think, when you deal effectively with objections in your essay, you do not weaken it-you strengthen it. You lend credibility to it by making an attempt to be fair and thorough. You make your position stronger by removing doubts from your reader’s minds. If you don‘t confront likely objections, your readers may conclude either that you are ignorant of the objections or that you don‘t have a good reply to them.

Page 59 from Writing Philosophy: A student’s Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays

Anticipating objections and dealing with them isn’t just good philosophical writing it is a plain basic strategy for any kind of persuasive communication. If it belongs in a persuasive essay it sure as hell belongs in a 500 page “deconstruction” and there is simply no excuse for not including it. I’m sure Riskas will hem and haw over this and claim otherwise, but if you’ve read his book and you want to see confirmation that I’m right then I propose a simple self test:

Take a few a few moments and carefully read the beginning of Chapter 1 (p. 20) and read through the subsection called ‘The Problem of Reality’ down to the subsection’s end (p.24). During this portion of text, Riskas identifies a philosophical position he calls ‘metaphysical realism’ which he rejects for a ‘naturalistic anti-metaphysical view of reality’. What are 3 objections to this ‘naturalistic anti-metaphysical view of reality’? Are they plausible and thoughtful objections or do they like knee-jerk reactions someone off the street might give? Does Riskas name anyone who offers these objections? How much space or word count is dedicated to explaining these objections? In what way can these 3 objections be defeated or avoided?

Anyone who has taught or TA’ed a freshmen level course can see what I’m doing here. It is the kind of prodding that reveals if a student knows the material or not. Did Riskas book educate you sufficiently to answer all those questions? Keep this in mind later, because this issue of ‘metaphysical realism’ will come up again.

Specifically,see: Nielsen (1993): "Does God Exist: The Debate between Theists and Atheists." This work is somewhat dated, though still relevant, and Nielsen's evolution as a thinker on this matter can be determined by reading some of his later work.

This is the first specific reference he gives me, a book where Nielsen has to share space with 6 other authors. The four authors critical of Nielsen are J.P. Moreland, Peter Kreeft, William Lane Craig, and Dallas Willard. On the surface this seems to be intuitive, what better book to recommend for someone wanting to be exposed to criticisms than a debate book?

Horrible idea, actually. Riskas seems impervious to my lexical cues here, Nielsen’s critique of “God-talk” really isn’t an issue in the philosophy of religion as much as it is an application of ideas from the philosophy of language. The real issue is going to boil down to who has the most robust understanding of thee important terms; sense, reference, and meaning.

Nielsen’s positions in philosophy of language are not shared by the atheist authors whom he shares space with (Keith Parsons and Antony Flew), and the disconnect that the Moreland and Nielsen debate suffers from is noted by Craig and Kreeft, but neither of them point the reader to the important literature on the subject. Unless someone was already specifically aware of these issue prior to reading the book, there isn’t much given to reader about the underlying issues.

So instead of giving me something scholarly and solid, Riskas gives me a popular book as a reference. None of the authors in that book do much work in the philosophy of language except perhaps Nielsen himself.

Nielsen would no doubt resist the characterization of his thinking and work as a "unique brand" of philosophy.

That was actually a compliment for Nielsen. I’m not so much worried about the quality of Nielsen’s work (something that is lost on Riskas) as I am worried about the quality of his thought. Nielsen is not the one who is going to have to defend this book from Mopologists, Riskas is.

He would perhaps not object to my characterization of his work in Atheism as merely intelligent, rational and informed analytical inquiry into theistic 'God-talk' (and formal docrine) that is not intended to falsify or disprove such talk and related truth-claims, but rather to determine if the various concepts of god, i.e. the ways 'God' is used in different theistic language-games, can reasonably be considered to be intellible and coherent, and factually intelligible (i.e. confirmable or disconfirmable in principle as stated, and therefore even probably true or false, or justifiable, as truth claims worthy of rationale belief).

This "a priori" approach just seems like good common-sense to me.

Really not sure what all this is supposed to accomplish. I’m already painfully aware of much he admires this man, because he tortuously quotes him and often in roughly chopped up with brackets with his own thoughts. Thanks for letting me know that when Nielsen writes “pure spirits” that this also can be understood as spirit matter or spirit element

Nielsen's work, while initially rooted in analytical philosophy, pragmatism and critical theory, has evolved with advancements in philosophical thinking, particularly in the areas of analytical philosophy and neo-pragmatism. In those venues, he has primarily been challenged by those whom he characterizes as "Wittgensteinian Fideists," i.e. those who apply the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein to the question of "God-talk." See in this regard: Nielsen (1982, 2001, and 2006; "Wittgensteinian Fideism?").

Just to refresh everyone my question was:

I’d like to ask Mr. Riskas to list the top 5 most relevant and substantive critics of Kai Nielsen’s unique brand of philosophy, and offer a brief review of each critic’s contribution to the debate on those subjects.

Notice again what he is not doing, listing those substantive critics or explaining just what those criticisms are. At least he gave me references though instead of just a laundry list of names…

As a philosopher (with a small "p") Nielsen's body of work, of which its application to the philosophy of religion is is but one (and not primary) application, tends to be influenced by the works of Dewey, Peirce, Rorty, Davidson, Quine, Putnam, Wittgenstein, Rawls, Daniels and others from the disciplines of analytical and pragmatic philosophy. As a philosopher, he might characterize himself as a pragmatic, analytical, commonsensical thinker committed to a contextualist, historicist, non-scientistic (not non-scientific), fallibilist naturalism without metaphysical foundations.

…Correction! A laundry list of names with a quick rehash of his most unhelpful chapter discussed above.

Perhaps it's fair and reasonable to say, without anticipated objection from Kai, that his critics, whoever they might be, would be those thinkers -- theists or not -- who remain firmly rooted in, and committed to, the pre-Enlightenment Tradition of Platonic, Cartesian and Kantian thinking, as well as post-modernism. This would include those who would consider themselves Metaphysical Realists, Relativists, and even those Scientific Realists in search of knowledge of the world as it "really is" on the basis of "word-world" correspondences or fittingness.

This turns out to be…well just about everyone who doesn’t answer to the names “Kai Nielsen” or “Thomas Riskas”.

My post-deconversion study of Nielsen's work was very therapeutic for me, as was the writing of the book, which I disclose in the Introduction. My appropriation of Nielsen's approach to Mormonism comes with his late-in-life endorsement and generous collaboration. For me, his "a priori" Atheism is, among all forms of Atheism I have studied over the years, the only approach that can neutralize Mormon apologetics and promote the real doubt necessary to break the vicious "double-bind" of Mormonism.

As for my reply to Nielsen's critics, I would very briefly say here that such criticisms are falsely leveled against a "straw man" and wrongly based on the fallacious premise that the language-games of theism are incommensuable with non-theistic language games, and are therefore not analytically criticizable from anyone outside such a privileged language-game. This sort of relativistic, Wittgensteinian defense, together with the defense from parity and possibility are, to my mind, and as I write in my book, evasive and ineffectual, particularly given the certainty and univesality that theists profess and argue for.

More extensive replies to common criticisms of, and defenses against, the analytical deconstruction of "God-talk" performed by Nielsen are offered in the book, should you choose to carefully read it.

I realize that this is more than you asker for.

Hope it helps, regardless of your reasons for asking.

Tom

None of it helped and he never addresses the important issues in his book. In reality, he just asserts them by mass quoting Nielsen and name dropping a bunch of names most people have never heard of.

[_MrStakhanovite]

~Part III~
I decided to give this another go around and be even more specific:

Hello Tom,

I’m glad you think both sides are important. The motivation behind this post had been building up for some time, your book has been causing a stir among ex-mormons and more than a few friends have told me about your book. So before going any further I do want to say that overall, it is almost always a good thing for people to get excited about a book that captures their attention and that you should be congratulated on achieving that on any scale.

I’m a never-Mormon, an atheist, and a student of philosophy, so my interest in your book only centers around the philosophy you marshal for your deconstruction of Mormonism. I was actually surprised by how much you seem to rely on Kai Nielson, you seem to import everything he says in toto and it gave me the impression that a better title would be “How Kai Nielson might deconstruct Mormonism”. Nothing inherently wrong with that I guess, but you seem to be out of touch with the philosophical issues that surround the controversial stances that Nielson takes. It is almost as if you’ve read Nielson very carefully, but never read much farther than that.

For a good example, take this comment:

“Perhaps it's fair and reasonable to say, without anticipated objection from Kai, that his critics, whoever they might be, would be those thinkers -- theists or not -- who remain firmly rooted in, and committed to, the pre-Enlightenment Tradition of Platonic, Cartesian and Kantian thinking, as well as post-modernism. This would include those who would consider themselves Metaphysical Realists, Relativists, and even those Scientific Realists in search of knowledge of the world as it "really is" on the basis of "word-world" correspondences or fittingness.”

You do realize that these unknown “critics” bear a description eerily similar to the majority of the academic philosophers in the English speaking world today? Just scanning the philpapers poll with some of the positions you mentioned…

http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

…we see that 75.1% believe in scientific realism, 81.6% adhere to a non-skeptical realism about the external world (mind independent reality we have access too), 50.8% to a correspondence theory of truth.

Your criticism of metaphysics (rather, a presentation of Kai’s criticism) presented in your book just seems out of touch with how analytical metaphysics is done today, if not all philosophy done in the 20th century it seems. Like on page 45 where you include yourself ( ! ) in a list of influential philosophers who take on a “deflationary concept of truth” to prevent being “clouded by metaphysics” sort of left me like a YouTube commenter saying “WTF?” Quine was a hard realist about mathematical objects so I guess he is a pre-enlightenment Platonist? Donald Davidson’s explicit externalism in his semantic theory of meaning is a pretty strong commitment to a mind independent external world.

I mean, who is your audience here? It can’t be people with a background in philosophy because you just assert stuff without much argument and name drop people without meaningfully incorporating or engaging the ideas associated with those names. It can’t be people who don’t know anything about philosophy, because all these names and three dollar words mean nothing to them.

I’ve engaged a few readers of your book (even Kerry Shirts on Facebook) and they really didn’t seem to grasp all the philosophical foundations of your deconstruction and to be honest, I don’t blame them a bit. The only reason I can make sense of it is because I’ve gone through the mechanical process of actually reading J.L. Austin, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Davidson in school, but all it did was make me wonder if you’ve bothered to do so.

So if I take your standard of what it is to be a “Free Thinker” and being “mature” ( page 125, citation #82), should I come to the conclusion that you’ve stepped away from Kai’s philosophy and objectively examined all these philosophical issues you’ve seemed to come to a steadfast position on?

I’m sure it is apparent that I’ve lost my patience. I can sense he is dodging and I can’t stand people B.S.ing me. Either you know your stuff or you don’t. His reply was…well…interesting.

[_MrStakhanovite]

~Part IV~

So lets break down the response:

Before I begin my reply, allow me to say that your aggressive and frankly offensive intrusion into this forum and thread, and toward me personally, is, from my perspective, as suspect as it is unprofessional. It seems my initial instincts regarding your initial inquiry have been confirmed.

I ain’t a pro when it comes to posting!

That said, whatever your concerns are regarding my book or philosophical preferences are, to my mind, irrelevant to the work proposed and at hand in the book itself.

Whatever my concerns regarding his book are irrelevant to the book itself. See how that works?

You no doubt would have written a very different book on the subject if you were a once an informed insider, or are now an informed outsider to the Mormon faith, but that as well is irrelevant to this forum, for you have not, and are not in either case.

He’s right, I haven’t published a book about Mormonism from American Atheist Press, so I should know my role when addressing such a notable as himself.

That you do not hold Nielsen's work with esteem, or do hold it in derision for your own reasons, is also not relevant to this forum. Nor is the question of how Nielsen's work might be, or is, regarded by other philosophers, or the extent or degree to which I have studied every philosopher mentioned, or all that has been written about them. (When it comes to philosophy, we are all amateurs to some degree, whether we choose to admit or not.)

My considered agreement with Nielsen's philosophical leanings and approach in his particular Atheism, together with my considered judgement in favoring or rejecting certain aspects of those philosphers I have mentioned, cited and studied in the book (which is not to include myself as one among them in status, staure or reputation as you seem to have wrongly inferred from your reading of p.45) is also not relevant to either the work presented or performed in the book.

What is relevant to my purposes for writing the book, and primary to this work, is the analysis and assessment of the Mormon faith performed, the arguments and conclusions reached and the justification presented. Beyond that, you and I or others might disagree on the philosophical underpinnings of the work, or the pedigree of those sources I have chosen, or the style of the writing, or the underlying assumptions and fundamental premises of the work, but such disagreements are, I would argue, of secondary concern to the actual analysis and psycho-social assessment performed in Chapters 3-8 of the book. (Fallibilism, as I'm sure we would both agree, cuts both ways, and noone has access to "The Truth," or to a privileged point of view or linguistic representation of reality or right and wrong.)

I found this bit so surreal. He honestly cannot differentiate my derision of his book from the work of Kai Nielsen. It is like the two people are bound up together and cannot be separated.

This is not the appropriate forum to litigate our philosophical differences, engage in philosophical debate, or showcase our believed mastery of the current state of philosophy.

The focus of this forum, as I understand it, is to allow those who are interested in reading the book and understanding it to have access to its author; to ask questions to check or deepen understandings, and to exchange views regarding the analysis and assessment performed, the arguments made, and conclusions reached; to, in other words, capture, expand and apply what has been presented in the book for whatever personal reasons the readers might have in reading it. Beyond that, every reader, every member of this forum, will make their own assessments and appropriate and/or investigate their own areas of interest to satisfy their own appetities for learning.

This will be my only reply to you in this or any RfM forum.

Regards.

The parting shot turns out not to be true, but I really enjoyed this little bit (bolding mine):

The focus of this forum, as I understand it, is to allow those who are interested in reading the book and understanding it to have access to its author; [/b]to ask questions[/b] to check or deepen understandings, and to exchange views regarding the analysis and assessment performed, the arguments made, and conclusions reached; to, in other words, capture, expand and apply what has been presented in the book for whatever personal reasons the readers might have in reading it.

Here I was thinking that this is exactly what I’m doing, but I guess I was wrong.

My reply is pretty brief:

Hey Tom,

Ya know, I owe you an apology. When I bellied up to this forum and wrongly assumed that because you repeatedly mentioned scholars by name for the purposes of highlighting your agreement with them, I should have understood intuitively that this doesn’t obligate you to really know anything about what those names actually thought and wrote. I should have checked myself right then and there. Why assume such an outrageous thing that Tom Riskas is familiar with all the names he drops? I ain’t got the right.

And to think, here I was laboring under the illusion that the controversial claims about there being no truth without language and the radically minority view Kai Nielson has about referents in language was somehow importantly connected to your chapters about Mormon concepts of God and the plan of salvation being incoherent. Thankfully, you’ve instructed me that isn’t the case at all. I must have dreamed up all those pedantic warnings to your undefined readers at the beginning of Chapter 1 about how important all this philosophy stuff was to the “conceptual analysis” of your book.

As you have correctly pointed out, a forum that is described by a mod as,“…discussion of Tom Riskas' book "Deconstructing Mormonism: An Analysis and Assessment of the Mormon Faith." is no place to talk about what you wrote in said book. I’m such a fool! The only appropriate course of action was to jump in line to give you a textual massage and praise you for the courage it took to equate Mormonism with a virus that infects the brain. Talk about an edgy and provocative psycho-social assessment that hasn’t been overdone or run into the ground before!

I’m having all my e-mail forwarded to the edge baby, because that’s where Tom Riskas’ eye opening commentary on ‘Basic Freud’ takes us!

[_MrStakhanovite]

~Part V~

His response is perfect:

Mr. or Ms. "mrstakhanovite"

The nature of your initial offensive and aggressive posting to me, followed by your faux, sarcastic apology to me above, your misrepresentations of what little you have read, and your uninformed reply to DF above points to the likelihood, if not the fact, that you are an imposter who has no genuine interest in carefully reading the book, and whose only interest is in disrupting this forum with irrelevant diversions and pretentions of knowledge regarding both the work and reputation of Kai Nielsen as a widely known and respected philosopher, and the conceptual foundations and methodology of the deconstructive analytical work being proposed, advocated and utilized in deconstructing what would seem to be your particular faith at birth or of choice.

Regardless, if you are interested in having a civil, informed and mature conversation with me on the philosophical basis of my work in another, appropriate forum, or by email, after I am satisfied that (1) you have carefully read the entire book, inclusive of footnotes; (2) you are willing and capable of seeking to understand and engage in mutually respectul dialogue and discussion (not debate); and (3) I have completed my involvement in this DM forum, I would be willing to do so to further your understanding of the basis of, and rationale for, my philosophical commitments, and my advocasy of the work of Kai Nielsen in relation to the works of his critics and other philosophers of like mind (in certain significant aspects) cited in the book, including the relevant works of Ayer, Frege and, more recently, Quine, Putnam, Davidson, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Peice, Sellars, Rorty, Rawls,and Daniels to name a critical few.

But again, your agenda, whatever it might be (and I for one do not think it is the authentic pursuit of understanding), is in conflict with the agenda of this dedicated forum as I understand it to be, which is the reading, understanding and exploration of the analysis and assessment of the Mormon faith as presented in my book.

Preferrably you will either withtdraw from this and other forums on this book in which I have been invited to participate as a guest, or agree to limit, with civility and in the spirit of curiosity and a desire to understand, your questions and expressed thoughts to the content of the particular sections or chapters being discussed with the sole intent of more fully understanding the content and its implications to the topic at hand, and after you have studied the section or chapter in question in its entirety.

This is not a forum for debate, philosophical polemics or "ad hominem" attacks or insinuations. It is, at least in this case, a forum for learning, understanding and reflective content-and- self evaluation. The dialogue, discussion and inquiry will hopefully deepen understanding, expand learning and enable critical evaluation of the content of the various sections and chapters of the books.

Since I do not have the right or authority to remove you from this dedicated forum (DM), my voluntary involvement in this forum as its guest will, sadly, hereby be suspended by choice until you either withdraw, are removed (which, again, is not my decision), or agree to comply fully and in good faith with the above terms and conditions in this case, which normally would be adhered to without explicit requirement or demand.

It. Just. Got. Real. There are only thee options before me; (i)I start giving him the respect he damn well deserves for writing such a brilliant work or (ii) he stops posting or (iii) I go away.

Looking at the options here I can tell you it’ll be a cold day in hell before (i), (ii) is unacceptable to Riskas’ virtual harem at RfM, so (iii) is the only choice. I love how everything I’ve posted does not fall under ‘critical evaluation of the content of the various sections and chapters of the books’. It is almost as if he doesn’t understand what has been said at all.

Riskas’ distress does not go unnoticed. Steve Benson (no stranger to presiding over cults of personality) consoles Riskas by leaving me an ominous threat:

[Topic] Tom if Admin suspects you are being hit by Mormon trolls…

…they can possibly be weeded out.

Let's hope some kind of screening can be done, since this (as you accurately note) is not a forum for LDS apologists to swoop in like the Wicked Witch of the West's flying monkeys and contaminate the board. Mormon apologists have their own forums. This ain't one of 'em.

Well that didn’t take long to associate me with Mopologetics. But who didn’t see this coming anyways? Internetmormon tried to vouch for me (Thanks!) but to no avail:

[Topic] Mormon or other, Tom does not oblige to obnoxious types easily--

He's too bright for that and I suspect would rather not waste his time or brain power indulging what he would regard, essentially, as jerks. He's got his boundaries and priorities and Stak didn't appear to fit well with either.

Given what just happened, I’d say Tom obliges to obnoxious types too easily. It took me all of three posts to stoke a white collar consultant into throwing his hands up and issuing an ultimatum and I wasn’t even trying. But hey fun is fun and Steve has a lot other duties in douchebaggery to attend to, so I’ll leave the forum alone.

In addition, there was also a demand for me to justify my presence:

mrstak: Tom Riskas is an author who was expressly invited to participate in this RfM sub-forum to discuss his book. He graciously accepted and is making himself available to answer questions and talk about his book's content in an orderly and specific way.

It is unlikely that any regular RfM posters interested in the book intended to jump down Tom's throat from the outset and thereby set an aggressive, discourteous tone to our interactions. I'd guess that not many people wishing to talk about the book would be interested in participating in the discussion as you have set it out.

Why the sarcasm? Why the rudeness? Could not the same points be made, if they must be, in at least a neutral way? What need is there to be so aggressive and rude to the author that he even considers withdrawing his participation?

I hope you will reconsider your approach or even withdraw your participation. Or else lay out your reasons for coming here and for your antagonistic posting.

Why? Because he is a pedantic twit who wrote a terrible terrible book and wants validation for it by pretending to be some kind of guru that can help people realize that if they think Mormonism is some kind of incoherent fantasy, their lives will magically improve. Someone has to call him on this B.S. and it isn’t going to come from anyone over there.

Now I know you guys like to think you are some kind of internet trauma center for displaced ex-mormons and this kind of attitude Riskas exudes probably tickles your pineal gland, but life just isn’t that easy. Nothing is advanced by Riskas’ book other than the thesis (that is fast becoming a truism) that you can’t take the Mormon out of an Ex-Mormon.

I mean, have you read this crap?! Check out this little nugget from his personal post-script:

Perhaps in the end, apart from my very modest hope that reason, rationality, and sanity will ultimately prevail over the sway of irrational religious feelings and beliefs, the pressing needs and corresponding desires of which I have written constitute my primary motivation and justification for writing this book — along with the accompanying desire to persuade others to attend therapeutically to their real doubts by more critically and skeptically testing their religious beliefs and commitments as objective outsiders.

I wrote similar masturbatory crap when I was 17, high on cheap weed , and reading Ayn Rand. Anyone who writes out a wistful yearning for the day where “…reason, rationality, and sanity will ultimately prevail over the sway of irrational religious feelings and beliefs” is immediately communicating they are just another vanilla epigone of French anti-clericalism. This guy just happened to take 500 pages to prove it.

[_MrStakhanovite]

~Part VI~

So my work is done over at RfM, so I’m no longer posting. Riskas has apparently been deeply troubled by my three posts and wants tighter security around his exalted personage with strict litmus tests as to who is allowed and not allowed the sacred privilege of asking him questions.

Nothing cultic about this at all…

Hello All.

I assume our unwelcomed intruder will not return either by choice in not wanting to comply in good faith with the conditions proposed for continuance, or by action taken by the Admin. Board of RfM.

I want to continue our deliberations and explorations if you do. I am, of course, concerned about further intrusions by those who have bad intentions, or who desire only to be rudely disruptive.

Again, I will participate if and as you desire. My hope is that you and the Admin. Board of this Forum will consider some additional guidelines and, if needed, enforcement mechanisms to vet new participants and protect against intrusive and unwelcomed interference.

As a start in this regard, I do not think that those who do not have the book or have not done the requisite reading should actively participate in any of the DM Forums, or if they do, I suggest they perhaps submit their questions or comments to a board for determination on the basis of certain basic criteria, such as, for example: Is the question relevant to the content being discussed?; Has the question already been addressed?; Does the question deal with a personal concern or problem in a way that solicits advice or counsel? Is the question or comment constructive to the dialogue?, etc.

Also, may I suggest that, again, we all try to stay focused on the topic being discussed and avoid digressions, speculations, of forays into the mystical, esoteric or realm of metaphysical speculation? I'd like to suggest a little more discipline in sticking to the knitting, so to speak, and avoiding getting into the thick of thin (or irrelevant) things (irrelevant only to this forum). (Note: This might be easier asked than done since relevance can be so individualistic and, well, relative. So perhaps, as a common habit, we could all start by asking ourselves if what we're about to ask or contribute is relevant or a diversion or distraction. If we don't think it is then try it out. If another member questions its relevance, a simple, courteous inquiry would do. We could ask, for example, if it's relevant and if the person can explain the relevance so we can understand. Just a thought.)

I also like the suggested idea of starting separate threads to deal with other interests not strictly relevant to the main thread of the chapter in the book.

Thanks for your continued interest and support.

Let me know when you're interested in starting up again, if you haven't already done so. :)

And is quickly followed up with:

Regarding this recent, unfortunate incident and distraction, please allow me to be clear that my objection to anyone's participation in any constructive inquiry I choose to be involved in, and particularly in this forum dedicated to the understanding and discussion of this book, has nothing to do with whether or not I agree or disagree with alternative or opposing points of view regarding the premises and conclusions of my approach or arguments, or if what I have written in the book or in these threads is agreed with. I'm not after agreement. I'm here only to provide my perspectives, provide context as needed, answer questions, ask questions, and facilitate my own and others understanding, if and as desired or needed. (I'm also here to enjoy your company and get to know you better) :)

Nor, as I also wrote, and proposed above to "Mr. S", am I averse to engaging in other forums to discuss philosophy or psychology, for example, if I have the time and interest after fulfilling my chosen commitment to RfM members re: DM.

What is at issue for me pertains to the motives (interests or reasons for), agenda (or objectives) and behavior of participants.

If such motives, agenda and behavior in this case are to seek to understand, through inquiry, or dialogue, and pointed, contextual and (I think it should go without saying) civil and mutually respectful discussion relevant to the author's work and topics at hand, then we have, I think, a recipe for productive exchange and learning for all involved; specifically, learning that determines, at a personal level for the participant, the efficacy (or not) of this work (DM) in deconstructing and rejecting Mormonism in particular, and perhaps, in connection with other like Atheistic works, theism in general.

None of this, to my mind, requires a pre-requisite understanding of comparative "Philosophy” or the "Philosophy of Religion,” or Depth Psychology, or even a commitment to a particular "Philosophical” tradition or "theory," as previously suggested.

In fact, as DF I think correctly and perceptively put it in her initial 5/16 post above, and as I tried in vain to point out, "Philosophical Theory" is neither relevant nor necessary to the analytical work performed in DM, either in relation to "Philosophy," as distinguished from "philosophy" in the blocked quote on p. 21, or in relation the term "theory" as I understand the term in the context used.

To be clear, the analytical approach I propose and employ in deconstructing Mormonism and all forms of theistic "God-talk" is just that, an approach, or therapeutic practice, that is based on certain assumptions that I consider to be clear and sensible.

These assumptions are alluded to in the Introduction (pp. xxxi-xl) and the FP, and are built into the "fundamental premises" presented in Ch. 1, as is a demonstration of the practice in the "Instructive, Deconstructive Conversation."

[Guest]

I like Kerry Shirts a great deal and he asks me a sincere question that deserves to be answered:

May I ask you a question mrsstakhanovite? I am under the impression based on your exchange here with Tom (Tom, don't leave, I think everyone has a right and ought to try and come to understand your book as best as possible for them), that you think "God-talk" as deconstructed by Tom is actually a valid way to discuss God in religion? What impressed me the most (in my ignorance of the various philosophical strands of thought hovering out there, I haven't read them because my head has been up my butt for decades in apologetics, so my ignorance is vast, DANG IT....) was Tom's insistence that the description of what is actually MEANT when talking about Intelligences, spirits, what eternal means, etc. How can we actually justifiably even come close to demonstrate there is any reality to any of this kind of talk? And if there isn't of what meaning is it?

Anyway, I'm just curious about your view on that. Thanks. I have been reading Shades board for a while, and I think you guys n gals always have good discussions. I am seriously hoping we can here too.

I think this shows just how poorly of a job Riskas does explaining the philosophical positions that serve as the foundation for his analysis of Mormonism (given you‘ve read the book more than anyone else I know). To demonstrate to you just how much of the philosophical picture he left out, I’m going to show what his real position is by tracing it through some of the most important works in 20th century Anglo-American philosophy of language. This is going to take some time on my part, so I beg for your patience as I crank out the parts to your open letter.

Instead of just listing names and asserting my position by quoting my favorite philosopher ad nauseum, I’m going to do my best to try and show you what the issue is, because Riskas has done such a poor job of it, he has done you a disservice. Every philosopher I’m going to discuss here is gratuitously name dropped by Riskas with nary an explanation for his readers. He might just be lazy, but I suspect he is just ignorant. While you’re reading this, keep this little nugget from his ‘Personal Post-Script’ in mind:

Those who are epistemically irresponsible misrepresent the truth to their own or others detriment or harm. They do not exercise intellectual due diligence and are therefore guilty of at least gross incompetence and negligence. They too know better.

Judge for yourself if you think he was ‘epistemically irresponsible’. My verdict is clear.

Philosophy 201 for victims of Riskas

To understand what was philosophically motivating peeps like Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E.M Anscombe, Logical Positivists and the like, you really have to start with the piss poor condition the state of Logic was in up through the 19th century here in the West. Aristotle codified valid syllogisms and danced around the subject of valid inferences which pretty much became the standard for logic until the brilliant Leibnitz made a handful of innovations (Leibnitz being so brilliant that rat bastard Isaac Newton stole calculus from him!), which almost was immediately forgotten it seems.

To give you an example of how bad things were, arguably the greatest 19th century philosopher actually wrote a book entitled ‘Logic’ that only had formally invalid arguments in it (thanks Hegel). Some might argue that J.S. Mill advanced things with his ‘Systems of Logic’ but fans of his are not to be trusted. At the end of the 19th century, Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege (FRAY-gah, in case you were wondering) began looking into the foundations of mathematical thinking and changed things for the better.

These concepts rely a lot on logic, but I’m going to use minimal symbols here, so it might get a little messy. The paper I will largely be drawing from is called ‘On Sense and Reference’by Frege and is part of the canon of modern philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition. Many consider it a necessary reading in philosophical logic. The link takes you to a decent PDF of the paper, which was my first assigned reading in my mathematical logic class. I’ve returned to it many times since then.

Anatomy Of A Sentence

Ancient Greeks had a good handle on the basic subject-predicate sentence like

Kishkumen is wicked

The subject term is Kishkumen, the predicate is wicked, and the copula is is. This was important to so many Greek thinkers because it suggested a metaphysical division between what the subject term picks out and what the predicate term picks out. It seemed impossible to think or speak without the use of subject/predicate, so maybe the ultimate division of reality is between particular substances that exist in space-time (like a subject) and universal properties that have multiple occurrences (like being wicked or being red). This is what divides philosophers along the “Universalist” and “Nominalist” lines in metaphysics; universalists like Plato thought universal properties existed in themselves in his platonic heaven which is problematic, and nominalists like the Scholastics who think only particulars exist.

As I’m sure you are already aware, there are so many other kinds of sentences that don’t fit the subject-predicate mold:

Moroni exists (existential sentence)

All Mormons are white (universal sentence)

Opium is necessary for Sethbag to sleep (modal sentence)

So this is what Frege does. He says:

Hey girl, when we be talkin’ bout Kishkumen, you need to drop that copula cuz it ain’t existential at all. There be only two parts to that sentence ‘Kishkumen is’ and ‘wicked’. Baby, if you wanna get existential you’re gonna need a variable to make sense of it.

So for example:

Moroni exists

This sentence is saying that there is something that is Moroni. To demonstrate with a variable, it is saying that there exists an x, such that x is identical with Moroni. Introducing a variable into logic really allows us to get a better understanding of existence. Existence isn’t to be thought of as a predicate (which Kant argued against the ontological argument for the existence of God), but is to be represented as a quantifier that tells us how many things have that predicate.

Frege uncovers something interesting here. When playing around with quantifiers in logic, he discovers that when you say things like this:

All Mormons are white

You are also saying this:

No Mormons are not-white

Interesting…you can define two different quantifiers in terms of each other by means of a negation. We can begin to see why people like Bertrand Russell thought he saw a clue to the foundation of mathematics, is it possible to develop the logic of quantification until all the numbers were defined in terms of it?!?!?

(SPOILER ALERT: You can’t.)

Sense and Reference

So what about the subject term? Frege breaks new ground here by making careful distinctions by what’s meant by the term ‘subject’. He thinks names like Thomas, Kishkumen, Moroni, Daniel are singular terms. What are singular terms? They refer to objects and what is an object (major metaphysical question!)? For Frege, they are the bearers of properties ,they are the subject matter of identity statements, and they can be indefinite (a man) or definite (the current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). An example of an identity statement would be this:

x = y

This identity statement can only be meaningful if the variables are singular terms (e.g. names) that refer to objects like this:

water = H20

What does it mean to refer to an object? That is shown by logic instead of being stated. Reference is the relation that holds between a singular term (name) and the object it picks out (or corresponds to) in the world. Simple enough but for Frege there is much more going on with reference. Consider this again:

x = y

What makes this true is that x and y refer to the same object. If you understood was x was and understood what y was, you would immediately know that the above statement was true. It is as apparent as x being equal to x. But look at my second example again:

water = H20

It is possible to understand that sentence without knowing it is true. You might know what water looks like and might understand that hydrogen and oxygen can combine, but be clueless to the fact that the clear liquid people drink is actually H20. This tells us something else must be going on with reference.

This brings about Frege’s distinction between Sinn (sense) and Bedeutung (reference). When you understand a word like ‘water’ you get its sense, and you can do this without knowing that it refers to an object that a different word also picks out. When you get the sense of the word ‘water’ you know it means that clear liquid in that glass on the table. The sense helps you fix the referent, but it doesn’t give you everything there is to know about the object.

Gonna take a break before we start in again on predicates and the basics of predicate logic.

[_Josh Seconal]

Jesus! This guy sounds like an arrogant asshole. How dare you question him!
Nice going MrStakhanovite, I enjoyed the thread.

[_Dr. Shades]

What part/parts of Thomas Riskas's book is/are untrue?

[_Shiloh]

What part/parts of Thomas Riskas's book is/are untrue?

Shades,

I don't think Stak is making a claim about the truth or untruth of Riska's book.

From what I can tell, Stak objects to Riskas staking out a foundational epistemology based on an uncritically cited source. It is clear that Riskas doesn't want to discuss criticisms of his underlying, fundamental assumptions.