Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Kishkumen »

Having an equal number on both sides is the smartest and only fair way to go about this. RFM understands this and knows if he goes into a debate by himself against three opponents on one team he'll win the sympathy vote because it's going to look like three young guys picking on a senior citizen. He's thought this out exactly like any good lawyer should and the three young Mormons have fallen into his trap. They've already lost and they're probably starting to understand exactly this! Good for them if they want equal numbers. Maybe RFM should stop trying to lawyer a bunch of 20 year olds and man up and find two people who will join him to debate these 3 guys that all you athiest believe to be complete idiots.
They got most of what they wanted in their negotiation with RFM. This is the one thing he stuck to his guns on. They agreed to it. I don’t see why they should get it all their way. They obviously thought the other asks were more important and that’s their decision. They are, after all, adults.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
User avatar
Atlanticmike
God
Posts: 2721
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2021 12:16 pm

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Atlanticmike »

Bought Yahoo wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:26 am
Moksha wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:17 am

I had asked you for clarification on that point before. So then, who is Cultellus?
Who gives a feck.
Look!! It's completely obvious to everyone here you're jealous of a guy who manages a pawn shop. I think it drives you batcrap crazy that a guy who not only manages a pawn shop, but also doesn't speak or write as well as a polished lawyer has the cojones to start a podcast. Admit it!! You're jealous!! All those years you spent in school becoming a lawyer and learning the English language so you can sound sophisticated, and you've been outshined by a guy who sells old sxxt for a living.
User avatar
Rivendale
God
Posts: 1166
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:21 pm

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Rivendale »

SaturdaysVoyeur wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:02 am
Rivendale wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:55 am
Remember Jim wouldn't let his daughters stay with Joseph.
Well, yeah, like I said, Bennett isn't a dummy! No thinking person would leave their daughters with Joseph Smith any more than they would with leave them in the care of Josh Duggar.
Rivendale wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:55 am
And he subscribes to the obscure idea that Joseph discovered a Dan Brown code in the Book of Abraham translation.
I'm not sure what this is referring to exactly. I assume he accepts some form of the "inspiration theory" of the Book of Abraham. But I don't recall.

(Keep in mind, I never had any real interest in apologetics even when I was still in. I didn't leave the church because of anything that was later published in the CES Letter. I don't know that I ever would have left over anachronisms or historicity problems. I just got bored. I adored Young Women's and Mutual. In my home ward, the youth really cared about supporting one another and our meetings were all about how we could become more Christ-like. I ate that up with a spoon---and had it stayed that way, I might still be in the church today. They were truly kind and caring teenagers. But once I graduated to Relief Society, it just stopped spiritually feeding me. All we ever did in Relief Society was overanalyze conference talks that possessed all the theological depth of a cookie sheet. That was also when I began to experience serious body-shaming, and I quickly realized that, as a large-breasted woman, I could never meet the stringent requirements of female modesty. My body itself sexualized me and I wasn't interested in hating my body for the rest of my life.)

Sorry, I digress.... I don't recall how Bennett made sense of the Book of Abraham. There was much in his reply to the CES Letter that I found unpersuasive, or even absurd.

But he's no dummy either. I think he has a basic grasp of logical fallacies and would present a far better rebuttal to RFM in a debate than the Unholy Trinity from Midnight Mormons. If nothing else, Bennett seems to have scruples. Those guys have none. And they're simply not bright enough to even realize when they're presenting an incoherent counter-argument.

Bennett is. I probably don't agree with most of what he said in his reply to the CES Letter. But most of it didn't strike me as lacking in the most basic understanding of logical fallacy. He acknowledges that a lot of it comes down to believing things that are rationally implausible. The Unholy Trinity don't even know the difference between plausible and implausible. Kwaku is essentially willing to hand-wave away the Laws of the Universe with his personal theory that the implausible is more common and normal than the plausible. He said as much when he appeared on Mormonism Live.

Besides, Bennett, for whatever his lapses in apologetic reasoning, isn't a total dick.
Bennet is no dick I agree. Bennet admits he would not be Mormon if the Book of Abraham was all he had to base it on. During his Bill Reel interview he had suggested a few explanations to why the papyri does not match the "translation". One was that the language had been corrupted. He stated some statistic that most written words lose meaning after a certain time period. He also suggested that he was able to get inspired meaning hidden inside the hieroglyphics. Again you are correct. He admits that the evidence as presented does not support the truth claims. In essence he is willfully ambivalent. That seems to be a common theme in todays world.
User avatar
Bought Yahoo
High Councilman
Posts: 523
Joined: Thu Oct 29, 2020 8:59 pm

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Bought Yahoo »

Atlanticmike wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:32 am
Bought Yahoo wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 9:14 am

AtlanticMike is Bill Reel. You're getting trolled
CAREFUL!!! I told you if you keep saying I'm Bill Reel, I'm going to give you your key back. And we both know how you reacted to that last time. Have you refilled all your prescriptions??
You and Cardon are perfect for each other. Love the lispish mincing behavior.
Last edited by Bought Yahoo on Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Moksha
God
Posts: 5810
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 3:13 am
Location: Koloburbia

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Moksha »

Atlanticmike wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 6:09 pm
I just received a notification from Midnight Mormons YouTube channel and they're claiming Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate. Any truth?
https://youtu.be/uxaLKprguvo
So if you are Bill Reel, there is a huge amount of cleverness to this post. One question, why so much disruption on the Spirit Paradise forum?

by the way, thanks for keeping the Pro-Trumpism off the Mormonism Live vlog.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
dastardly stem
God
Posts: 2259
Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2020 2:38 pm

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by dastardly stem »

Consiglieri:
On another note, Bill Reel may be withdrawing his invitation after Kwaku started claiming he cheats on his wife.
I understood why Bill backed out. As I recall after the debate was agreed to they did a video where they played some recording of Bill talking hypothetically, I'm guessing, about trying to pick up ladies while his partner watched, or something. It was a weird sounding hypothetical for sure, but they really played as if Bill was a miscreant.

Anyway, it kind of makes sense that they are now ccomplaining Bill backed out. Apparently he did. And, I mean, for good reason. Plus, let's face it a debate with these guys is simply a bit of a joke anyway. They are addressing questions that they have in advance to prepare for. Are they going to go back and forth debating the answers? They'd have to. So it'll be kinda fun to see how that goes. The lame part is the Mormon defenders willing to debate comes down to these guys. I'm guessing their command of logic, or lack of it, will be their defeat. But they'll be loud and showy enough to impress those who refuse logic, as believes typically do. Rfm will likely have great points to make but they'll be fine to beg questions and make emotional appeals, ad hominems, non sequiturs, and to quoque statements. Those will make them feel good and will resonate with fellow believers.

It'll be interesting. I'd really like to see this open up better communication and collaboration across the isles.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Kishkumen »

The Midnight Morons are just a-holes behaving like a-holes. Really just the NNN version of Mopologists.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
User avatar
Kukulkan
High Priest
Posts: 361
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:36 pm
Location: Slipping deeper into the earth

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Kukulkan »

I find it very funny that the people who made the TITS videos are all of the sudden concerned about the 'optics' of having a 3 on 1 debate. If they feel so confident in their position as they stated multiple times in the video, the strength of their position will outweigh any unfair 'optics'.

I think Jonathan Streeter from Thinker of Thoughts laid out some fairly simple solutions to this 'optic' issue the Midnight Mormons are so concerned about.
Each of you are very capable impromptu and on your toes and you have a decent grasp of the issues - you aren’t going to want a “team” if you are going to be responding in the limited time of a structured debate.

It takes time to engage an issue and have a structured response. Dividing the 5–8 minutes allowed into 3 or even 2 is going to limit the effectiveness of the entire debate.

I would suggest one of the following:

Solution 1: just select one of you to be the master debater, and have the others be in the audience for support. You could have the others take center stage on subsequent engagement with Bill Reel or Others when the time comes.

Solution 2: Allow all three to be on stage, but just select one to respond to a given question. That way it is still one on one for each question.

The rationalizations for possibly calling it off that y’all bring up in this clip aren’t necessary - y’all will do fine either way. It will be a fun evening and I know both rfm and y’all are courteous and fun and engaging when dealing one-on-one with interlocutors.
"I advise all to go on to perfection and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness." -Joseph Smith
User avatar
SaturdaysVoyeur
CTR A
Posts: 121
Joined: Fri May 14, 2021 7:24 am

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by SaturdaysVoyeur »

Atlanticmike wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:16 am
So let me see if I understand this correctly. You think, actually, a bunch of you guys think, the three guys that make up Midnight Mormons are "complete idiots" for acting and defending Mormonism exactly like you guys would've when you were in your twenties and still TBM? Gee whiz!!! RFM actually audio recorded himself teaching lessons when he was a young and dumb TBM preaching the gospel to other TBMs. But somehow now that you're not TBM and have reached a state of "wokeness" outside Mormonism, the defenders of Mormonism are stuck in the Stone age because a bunch of geriatric white men have podcast and use their platform to bash a religion they once held dear and defended no differently than the three young men we're talking about?
For my part, no, this is not correct. Sure, we were all dumb kids at one time, Mormon or otherwise. I'll cut the MM guys some slack for that---up to a point. For one thing, they're sorely pushing the boundary of "kids" anymore. They're reaching the age where they're grown men and ought to start acting like it.

I also don't fault them for being TBMs. Most of my family are either TBMs or quietly nuanced, but Mormon believers nonetheless. So no shade from me there.

But Kwaku, Cardon, and Brad are just plain mean. And they're mean in a way that damages people. They have no compunction about lying. They've accused at least three men of serious improprieties and/or sex crimes, on little to no evidence. They're willing to manipulate video and audio clips to make people look like they're saying things that they didn't say. None of that is ok, and, no, most of us did NOT do those things when we were Mormon. As a Mormon, I was smug and condescending, but I didn't accuse people of serious felonies and claim I was doing it to advance Mormonism.

I can't speak as much to the pretzel logic of apologetics, because it never interested me. But I think it's possible to be an apologist without being an asshole---Jim Bennett is a case-in-point. Most of his arguments are unpersuasive. (For example, if he justifies the Book of Abraham as a real translation due to the evolution of language over time, then that's just ridiculous. We have the Rosetta Stone now.)

But I think Bennett could make rational arguments on specific points, as he did in response to the CES Letter, that would give RFM a run for his money. Or at least be interesting to watch. Bennett can score some individual points so long as he ignores the totality of the CES Letter.

The MM trio literally do not understand what a rational argument is. Kwaku has actually said this on RFM's show: He doesn't believe reality is governed by predictable and replicable phenomena. His default assumption is that the weird and the illogical are more common and believable. That's just....dumb. And Kwaku's a college-educated man. He doesn't have much excuse.
Atlanticmike wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:16 am
Religion isn't about "truth", it's not about "facts". And by the way, sorry for assuming you are an atheist.
Apology accepted :-) I understand. Most Mormons do seem to lose all faith when they lose their Mormon faith. I feel fortunate that I didn't. As a Mormon, I experienced what I might call "the Spirit of God." I just ditched Mormonism, but kept God (albeit with far fewer specific claims as to what "God" might be).

And I agree it's not about facts. Faith is not rational. I don't look to God for history or science. So I think these debates are a little silly, but could be fruitful if they eventually result in a Mormonism that doesn't rely on understanding American history based on what gives you the warm fuzzies.

I also agree that some of the most fire-breathing Book-of-Mormon-thumpers wind up becoming the most fire-breathing anti-Mormons. All they've done is change what they breathe fire about. I don't have much respect for that. Looking back at what we did believe as Mormons ought to give us a little humility.

But my hands aren't clean just because I wasn't into apologetics. I was still smug and supercilious as a Mormon. I pitied the non-Mormons. And that's pretty assholish too. I would not say it's on the same moral level as destroying people with lies, however, and that's what the MM trio attempt to do.

If the church adopts that type of scorched-earth apologetics, where they "fair-game" former Mormons as enemies, then I fear the Mormon faith is in real trouble. The one thing we used to have going for us: People might have thought Mormons were weird and culty, but invariably they thought we were kind. If we lose that, I think we will have lost a "plain and precious truth" for real.
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: Is it true Bill Reel backed out of the upcoming debate with Midnight Mormons?

Post by Kishkumen »

Kukulkan wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:48 pm
I find it very funny that the people who made the TITS videos are all of the sudden concerned about the 'optics' of having a 3 on 1 debate. If they feel so confident in their position as they stated multiple times in the video, the strength of their position will outweigh any unfair 'optics'.

I think Jonathan Streeter from Thinker of Thoughts laid out some fairly simple solutions to this 'optic' issue the Midnight Mormons are so concerned about.
The concern about optics is funny coming from guys who didn't want Jim Bennett to be the moderator.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Post Reply