Scott Gordon Attacks Tyler Livingston Over CES Letter

[Dr. Shades]

I would love to have Shades on as a guest!!!

You're too kind, but I can't imagine I'd have anything to say that you, and the audience, don't already know.

Yes, I’m serious. What is bad about the CES letter?

All of it is shoddy scholarship. It’s tabloid level gossip.

So, which parts are untrue?

There is nothing new in it.

So, "old" = "untrue?" Please tell us: What age must something reach before it magically transforms from true to false?

"Brigham Young had multiple wives at the same time." According to you, this is old, so it's false, which means he didn't have multiple wives at the same time, right?

Bennett did an amazing takedown.

I doubt it, but please provide a link so I can read it for myself.

[Physics Guy]

It's been a while, but the only thing about the CES letter that ever seemed questionable to me was this map that seemed to suggest that Smith made up names for Book of Mormon places by modifying the names of places near his own home. The questions that I understand could be raised were about whether those places really had those names in Smith's time. Some of them were apparently only incorporated as towns years after the Book of Mormon was published.

That's not actually a conclusive point, though. Plenty of places have established names in local usage long before the names ever get recorded officially anywhere. The roads and bays around my parents' cottage in rural Canada all had well-established names that never used to appear on maps until around twenty years ago, when some official cartographer surveyed locals and added in all the agreed-upon names. The fact that a place was later called something officially is actually substantial evidence that it was also called that much earlier, in common usage in the area.

As far as this map thing is concerned, then, the point raised by the CES letter ultimately stands as a significant one. It sure does kind of look as though Smith got help in making up exotic place names by thinking of places he knew and changing them slightly, to disguise them and make them sound more Hebrew-ish to his audience. The issue of exactly when the various names became official should have been noted, but ignoring it is hardly a huge flaw that makes the whole thing worthless.

Calling something "bad scholarship" is also a potentially weaselly way to try to get people to ignore it. The implication is that the thing is full of subtle, technical flaws that no expert scholar would tolerate. Well, if the piece in question is trying to present itself as a bunch of subtle and technical stuff that is really important even though lay people wouldn't appreciate it, then pointing out that it doesn't actually get the technicalities right is indeed damning. If a piece presents itself as a bunch of simple observations that anyone can grasp once they notice them, though, then complaining about a few technical details does not make its simple observations go away.

If I tell you that you have to stop eating Corn Flakes right now because quantum electrodynamics reveals that Corn Flakes produce positrons that will decohere your brain's alpha waves, then you can safely throw my warning away after someone else points out that I got the electric charge of the positron wrong and that my frequency of alpha waves is a million times too high. If instead I tell you not to jump off a high building because you'll accelerate downwards at 10 meters per second squared, you should not laugh at me and jump just because somebody archly observes that it's much closer to 9.8 meters per second squared—not even if they rub it in hard about how badly I'd be laughed off the stage at a rocketry conference.

[Equality]

Jeremy on his web site cesletter.org has a thorough reply to Bennett's alleged "amazing takedown." What's interesting to me is that Jeremy includes a link on his own site to Bennett's "amazing takedown." I've noticed this over the years. Critics have no problem sharing with their audience links to official church sources or apologetic arguments, but the church and its apologists almost never reciprocate. It says something about the relative strengths of their positions. Just like how DCP censors his site, but Shades allows free and full discussion here. The folks here will gladly link to DCP's site and quote from it, and would be happy to discuss openly with him on a level playing field. But the church and its apologists almost never participate on a level playing field and generally do not provide their audiences with links to the actual critics' work.

https://cesletter.org/debunkings/jim-be ... reply.html

Edited to add: I started reading the Bennett "amazing takedown," which starts with the lie that he was a CES employee, and the first few pages are simply personal insults and a ridiculous implication that the cesletter is like the God Makers. What a joke.

[Equality]

Bennett himself says that he failed to debunk the cesletter, and that his version of Mormonism is different from the orthodox, correlated version--the only way to deal with the issues raised by Jeremy in the cesletter is to evolve your faith and forgive the "mistakes" of the Brethren:

My initial purpose in replying to Jeremy’s letter was not an attempt to offer the kind of definitive, airtight answers to his questions that he was looking to the Church to provide. I don’t think such answers have been given to any church or faith tradition. Mortality is never that tidy, and simple, pat answers to complex theological questions don’t seem to be part of the plan. We came to this earth to struggle, to build faith in the absence of perfect knowledge. We aren’t allowed to look at the teacher’s key to read all the answers while we’re taking the test.

So my reply attempt was to model how I, personally, have confronted this issues with my eyes open and come away with a richer and deeper faith than I had before I knew about any of it. I don’t hope to create converts to Jim Bennett Mormonism® so much as I hope that you can use me as a catalyst to brew up your own tasty theological concoction. I want to give people an appreciation for how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a place where the hand of the Lord can be found amid all the mistakes and shortcomings of its leaders and members.

[Equality]

Let's examine the "amazing takedown" with just one example, shall we? (Note: the CES letter originated as, well, an actual letter that Runnells wrote to a CES employee asking questions. That's it: a church member had questions and was seeking answers. It's telling that apologists feel the need to "take down" the simple act of asking questions, isn't it?).

One question Runnells had was concerning the difference between how the church in conference talks, study manuals, and official magazines presented the manner of translation of the Book of Mormon and what the historical record indicates actually occurred:

In 2000, two BYU religion professors, Joseph Fielding McConkie (son of Elder Bruce R. McConkie) and Craig J. Ostler, wrote an essay titled, “The Process of Translating the Book of Mormon.” They wrote:

Thus, everything we have in the Book of Mormon, according to Mr. Whitmer, was translated by placing the chocolate-colored stone in a hat into which Joseph would bury his head so as to close out the light. While doing so he could see ‘an oblong piece of parchment, on which the hieroglyphics would appear,’ and below the ancient writing, the translation would be given in English. Joseph would then read this to Oliver Cowdery, who in turn would write it. If he did so correctly, the characters and the interpretation would disappear and be replaced by other characters with their interpretation.
After laying the groundwork, the professors continue:

Finally, the testimony of David Whitmer simply does not accord with the divine pattern. If Joseph Smith translated everything that is now in the Book of Mormon without using the gold plates, we are left to wonder why the plates were necessary in the first place. It will be remembered that possession of the plates placed the Smith family in considerable danger, causing them a host of difficulties. If the plates were not part of the translation process, this would not have been the case. It also leaves us wondering why the Lord directed the writers of the Book of Mormon to take a duplicate record of the plates of Lehi. This provision which compensated for the loss of the 116 pages would have served no purpose either.

Further, we would be left to wonder why it was necessary for Moroni to instruct Joseph each year for four years before he was entrusted with the plates. We would also wonder why it was so important for Moroni to show the plates to the three witnesses, including David Whitmer. And why did the Lord have the Prophet show the plates to the eight witnesses? Why all this flap and fuss if the Prophet didn’t really have the plates and if they were not used in the process of translation?

What David Whitmer is asking us to believe is that the Lord had Moroni seal up the plates and the means by which they were to be translated hundreds of years before they would come into Joseph Smith’s possession and then decided to have the Prophet use a seer stone found while digging a well so that none of these things would be necessary after all. Is this, we would ask, really a credible explanation of the way the heavens operate?

How could it have been expected of me and any other member to know about and to embrace the rock in the hat translation when even these two faithful full-time professors of religion at BYU rejected it as a fictitious lie meant to undermine Joseph Smith and the truth claims of the Restoration?

And what is Bennett's "amazing takedown" to the fact that the church perpetuated a false narrative about the translation process over the course of many decades?

Ah, yes. The rock in a hat.

SHORT ANSWER:

The Book of Mormon is a bonafide miracle with unmistakable marks of antiquity that could not have been produced by anyone living in 1830. No other explanation other than the one offered by Joseph Smith can account for its existence.

You do not make it disappear by simply repeating a mantra about a rock in a hat.

In typical apologist fashion, he sidesteps the actual question/concern (i.e., why did church leaders lie for decades about how the Book of Mormon was produced?) and instead bears his testimony that the Book of Mormon is a "miracle" so, therefore, any questions about why the church lied for so long to its members about how it was produced are immaterial. Bennett also falsely accuses Jeremy of "repeating a mantra about a rock in a hat" when all he did was ask why church leaders for so long worked so hard to present to members and investigators a different image of how Smith produced the Book of Mormon.

In Bennett's longer answer, he engages in more sophistry, getting facts wrong (such as asserting that the Urim and Thummim were used for the translation of some of the Book of Mormon, ignoring the fact that they were used only for a portion of the Book of Mormon that we do not have (the 116 pages). He also argues that David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses, is an unreliable source for information on how the Book of Mormon was translated, even though Whitmer was an eyewitness to much of the translation process, which occurred at Whitmer's father's house in Fayette.

This is your "amazing takedown"?

I think Runnells's rebuttal is far more persuasive than Bennett's critique. https://cesletter.org/debunkings/jim-be ... #graphical

Having said that, let me be clear: I don't think Runnells is a great writer. Nor is he an intellectual giant. And his web site leaves a lot to be desired, in my view. I think it could be better organized. There are parts of it that are sloppy. But overall, it is effective at exposing many problems with LDS church foundational truth claims and historical practices.

An analogy:

Suppose someone was raised to believe in the Flat Earth Theory (let's call it "FET"). Now suppose they reach adulthood and come across information calling into question the FET they had been indoctrinated to believe was true. Armed with this information, they ask a person of authority within their FET cult about what they had discovered. They receive no satisfactory answers in response. So they publish their questions and concerns on a site called FETletter.org. The site is not perfect. Some of the criticisms of the FET may even be problematic in one way or another. Some FET apologists may seize on those imperfections in their efforts to debunk the FETletter. People with a strong prior belief in the FET may find those apologetic responses to be "amazing." Other people with strong prior belief in the FET may say they have heard all the arguments in the FETletter before, and dismiss them as "nothing new."

Query: is the problem with the FETletter, or is the problem that the Earth is not, in fact, flat?

[Kishkumen]

Yes, there are better reasons for leaving the LDS Church than the CES Letter. I agree. The sad thing is that the CES Letter is more than enough for most people to leave, . . .

Why is that sad?

Given that the CES Letter is bad, . . .

What is bad about it?

I have been busy doing things with Mormonism that are valuable to me and people who are interested in similar ideas and discussions, so I have not had time to get back to these questions. But, let what I just said sink in for a moment. Working with Mormonism in a positive way is valuable to me, and I realize that this is a choice. I doubt that making this choice will, in itself, be destructive in my life. I enjoy it, and I get something out of it. I get to see other people have those lights go on, get enthused about an interesting subject, and come out with a more well rounded view of the topic.

The CES letter is a document generated by a spiritual crisis that has been honed into a tool for generating spiritual crisis in others. That is why I think it is bad. There are many other less disruptive ways, less unhealthy ways of leading people to have a more accurate, healthier, and more realistic view of Mormonism. A number of those people so informed will say, "You know, I think it is time for me to move on." Others will say, "You know, I still get something out of this, I think I am going to stick around." And a third group might say, "You know, I never knew that, something suddenly really interests me in this topic, and I want to know more."

Unfortunately, many people who read the CES letter see the next step in their journey as an inevitable scary crisis. If a crisis is something you have the resources to handle, it's probably not the end of the world. If you are already stretched thin, it very well could be the end of the world for you.

On the surface, the CES letter appears to be a bunch of questions. Many of those questions do not have answers that line up with the Sunday School liturgy of the LDS Church. And that is enough. Because LDS people have been trained to say "I know" in one way, and without really reflecting on what that actually means, along comes John Dehlin or Jeremy Runnells or Bill Reel to say, "Hey, buddy, you don't know." And they panic. And they leave. And they break up families. They lose friends. And they lose jobs. Now, this is the worst case scenario, but it is certainly a possible scenario, and, in fact, those things have happened.

The majority who survive will come out on the other end and thank these people for disabusing them of the mind-eff of Mormonism. And that is that. I don't think that is the end of the world. At the same time, they also become casually dismissive and ridiculing of lots of people they once communed with peaceably and even charitably. I don't call that a gain. I don't call that a win.

But I am not intending to horribilize the CES letter or Jeremy Runnells. In the larger scheme of things they are not that big a deal. They can be devastating to individuals, but in the larger historical framework, there's not much to be upset about. And, someday the LDS Church will probably learn to deal with this. They were caught flatfooted, like many of us not understanding what to do with the sudden almost instantaneous access to all kinds of information previously hard to reach. And, lacking any kind of commitment to pastoral theology for reasons that are absolutely historically predictable, they have been absolutely slammed by these shamans of "conversion away."

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The CES letter is a document generated by a spiritual crisis that has been honed into a tool for generating spiritual crisis in others.

But I am not intending to horribilize the CES letter…

It kind of appears like you do.

… but in the larger historical framework, there's not much to be upset about.

I mean, existential terror and social death aside.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

Jeremy on his web site cesletter.org has a thorough reply to Bennett's alleged "amazing takedown." What's interesting to me is that Jeremy includes a link on his own site to Bennett's "amazing takedown." I've noticed this over the years. Critics have no problem sharing with their audience links to official church sources or apologetic arguments, but the church and its apologists almost never reciprocate. It says something about the relative strengths of their positions. Just like how DCP censors his site, but Shades allows free and full discussion here. The folks here will gladly link to DCP's site and quote from it, and would be happy to discuss openly with him on a level playing field. But the church and its apologists almost never participate on a level playing field and generally do not provide their audiences with links to the actual critics' work.

https://cesletter.org/debunkings/jim-be ... reply.html

Edited to add: I started reading the Bennett "amazing takedown," which starts with the lie that he was a CES employee, and the first few pages are simply personal insults and a ridiculous implication that the cesletter is like the God Makers. What a joke.

I don't think it is a joke at all. The CES letter is very much like the Godmakers, if a Mormon had written the Godmakers. It is an implicitly polemical, and distorted take on a religion that is even more effective because, unlike Ed Decker, Jeremy Runnells was LDS when he wrote the first version. Now, I don't think Jeremy started out with anything but genuine intentions, and he is still a good guy, but that does not mean that what he has done is not incredibly one-sided and distorting.

Part of what is sadly hilarious about all of this is that the CES letter reduces a living religious community to a quasi-journalistic interrogation with the stakes being that if the questioned party does not answer to the interrogator's satisfaction, well, the whole religious community and everything and everyone involved in it have been invalidated in the mind of the person who gets caught up in the exercise. As if "sir, when is the last time you beat your wife" were a fair way of approaching any sincere and sober quest to understand anything.

I don't absolve the LDS Church and its representatives of the responsibility for utterly failing to address the problems this represents. I guess I am a little impatient and also disappointed that they have not done a lot better a lot sooner. But it is a real challenge to slow down a locomotive of outrage barreling down the track, filled with suffering people who are convinced that running you over will be their salvation.

Let me suggest that one reason that it is not easy to respond to these things is that the hostile and outraged questioner has freed themselves of any positive goal that takes sufficient account of the impact of their actions on others. The LDS Church seeks to use its traditional tools to make the lives of its members better. It is a system that has evolved over many decades, and it cannot turn on a dime because you found some information on the internet. So, Jeremy found the information, he started screaming that the sky is falling, and now so many people, and I include myself in this number, say, "Wow, you guys must be cons because you have no answer for this screaming person's questions!" All the while forgetting that religious communities exist because their members actually do find value in them.

That value may not be found in where and how Joseph Smith came up the names for Book of Mormon places. Not having an answer better than Jeremy's speculation is not proof of a bankrupt enterprise.

[Kishkumen]

The CES letter is a document generated by a spiritual crisis that has been honed into a tool for generating spiritual crisis in others.

But I am not intending to horribilize the CES letter…

It kind of appears like you do.

… but in the larger historical framework, there's not much to be upset about.

I mean, existential terror and social death aside.

- Doc

I have qualified what I said in what I think are appropriate and responsible ways. I think the CES letter can be devastating to individuals and families, but certainly not societies. I never said that the suffering of individuals who have experienced crisis is not something to be upset and compassionate about, and I am really disappointed in you for misrepresenting me in that way.

[Equality]

On the surface, the CES letter appears to be a bunch of questions. Many of those questions do not have answers that line up with the Sunday School liturgy of the LDS Church. And that is enough. Because LDS people have been trained to say "I know" in one way, and without really reflecting on what that actually means, along comes John Dehlin or Jeremy Runnells or Bill Reel to say, "Hey, buddy, you don't know." And they panic. And they leave. And they break up families. They lose friends. And they lose jobs. Now, this is the worst case scenario, but it is certainly a possible scenario, and, in fact, those things have happened.

Have you asked yourself why someone leaving a church would result in the breakup of their family, the loss of friends, or the loss of a job?

Does this typically happen when someone leaves, say, the Presbyterian church? I know it happens when Scientologists leave Scientology and when Jehovah's Witnesses leave the JWs, and when Moonies leave the Unification Church. What do those organizations have in common that they don't have with the Presbyterians?