honorentheos wrote:Exactly, stem. For example, reading In Sacred Loneliness bothered me but didn't undemine my testimony. I believed the Church was what it claimed to be still. So I assumed whatever the explanation was, it was a valid one. It was from reading FARMS responses to the book that I began to think there was a real possibility there were problems.
Ironically, I think my participation on this message board is indirectly the result of bad apologetics which the Rommelator put out related to the first vision on the old MAD board. First Vision issues were among the key problems for me in that it undermined the premise of the restoration. While I was participating in Church despite my questions, a post on another board directed me to something he had put up at MAD that supposedly addressed those issues. I admit, I was still in enough at that point that I felt actual relief at the suggestion there were answers. It has the distinction of being the last time I ever entertained the possibility the Church might still be what it claimed to be. Turned out the Rommelator was relying on bad faith arguments on top of being a jerk. His claim relied on late attestations of saints claiming to have heard the first vision story as early as 1831 while the testimonies stating this dated between the 1850s to the 1900s. Not only did it prove unhelpful, it took away any possibility I held onto that there was something true if obscured in the origin story of the Church.
Bad defense is worse than no defense.
hah...Thanks for that. I remember the name Rommelator. I feel like I"m denser than most people here. I didn't catch on very quickly. But, yes, it's not that someone out there is not answering questions. It's more that the answers are bad. It's not that Fair didn't offer a critique of the CES Letter its that their critique is ineffective, even if they raise a good point or two along the way.
Exiled wrote:Does anyone think Smoot might be doing this to impress the Midge...
Not directly. Smoot is trying to impress the same guy with his aggression that the Midge is trying to impress with his aggression.
Is it working?
Yes; with qualifications. The guy at the top knows the extremes are embarrassing, which is why he conscientiously (not because he isn't paying attention or doesn't have time, it's well thought out) refrains from upvoting many of these comments. Only Kiwi57 upvotes the worst of the worst, on purpose, to provoke his adversaries, even if he doesn't really believe what he's upvoting. However, comments over the edge and an embarrassment, are still positive, because they show loyalty, which can't be rivaled, and so in a secondary way, these extreme comments are still impressive for the guy at the top.
Exactly,
I had a faculty member at BYU whom Smoot has worked with call him, a "Dan Peterson Mini-Me wannabe"
He also said Steven Smoot was they type of student who they never had to worry about his shelf breaking.
honorentheos wrote:Ironically, I think my participation on this message board is indirectly the result of bad apologetics which the Rommelator put out related to the first vision on the old MAD board. First Vision issues were among the key problems for me in that it undermined the premise of the restoration. While I was participating in Church despite my questions, a post on another board directed me to something he had put up at MAD that supposedly addressed those issues. I admit, I was still in enough at that point that I felt actual relief at the suggestion there were answers. It has the distinction of being the last time I ever entertained the possibility the Church might still be what it claimed to be. Turned out the Rommelator was relying on bad faith arguments on top of being a jerk. His claim relied on late attestations of saints claiming to have heard the first vision story as early as 1831 while the testimonies stating this dated between the 1850s to the 1900s. Not only did it prove unhelpful, it took away any possibility I held onto that there was something true if obscured in the origin story of the Church.
Bad defense is worse than no defense.
I think you are absolutely right in seeing Smoot's clever exercise as entirely beside the point.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Dr Moore wrote:First time reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, fascinating.
The parallels to Lehi’s dream practically scream from the pages.
“Dreamed a dream” Host holding a book “Forbidden paths” “The way” People in building calling to stop moving forward Field Reward of celestial / life eternal at the top of the hill Dream interpreter at length, piece by piece
Many more themes and key phrases from Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s interpretation
Wow.
Surely someone has written on this already...???
When I read it, I remember thinking that I was totally sure that Joseph Smith had read this book prior to dictating the Book of Mormon.
I can't believe Mr. Smoot left out the most important paragraph! It's the one that goes between his last and his second-to-last paragraphs:
"Nevertheless, Jim knew that both his eternal salvation and his eventual godhood was at stake, so he dared not exchange his birthright for a mess of pottage. He set his prejudices aside and, with an open mind, went to FAIRmormon in search of any rebuttals to the troubling issues he'd read about in the CES Letter. He devoured the material there, spending many hours over many days learning as many faithful responses to the issues as he possibly could. But alas, his heart slowly sunk even further than where it had been before when, time after time, even the believing apologists verified that the raw facts laid out in the CES letter were 100% true."
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
Exiled wrote:Does anyone think Smoot might be doing this to impress the Midge, a man who recently disparaged Smoot's sexuality? Midge loves in your face attack Mormonism and young Smoot is giving it to him.
Young? That guy is probably in his 30s and he is still a virgin. I feel sorry for him. But I am confident that guy will grow up and become an agnostic in the near future.
I was under the impression that Stephen Smoot was the same Stephen Smoot who posted as the Rommelator on MAD, and was called on a mission sometime around 2010. I don't think he's in his 30s yet. He has always came across as older than his years, to his credit. But then again, he seems to have found a bit of a mental rut that could be ruinous if he fails to get out of it at some point. Mormonism. It's the gift that keeps on giving. And Stephen is evidence that no matter how hard some people work at trying to give it away they can't seem to get it off their own backs. You have to give him a little sympathy for that if for nothing else. He works pretty damn hard to try and get other people to take some of it back.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
honorentheos wrote:I was under the impression that Stephen Smoot was the same Stephen Smoot who posted as the Rommelator on MAD, and was called on a mission sometime around 2010. I don't think he's in his 30s yet.