Scott Gordon Attacks Tyler Livingston Over CES Letter

[Kishkumen]

I have noticed an utterly fascinating phenomena concerning the CES Letter. Once FAIR tried to destroy Runnell's arguments on the Book of Abraham, and Runnells came back with answers to their refutation, and obliterated their tissues of absurdities against the CES handling of the papyri questions, no one of the Mopologists anywhere on the Internet, have touched the Book of Abraham argument. They all now gravitate to the weakest arguments in the CES Letter (there are many of them, but the Book of Abraham issues are not among them).

Livingston left in part due to the CES Letter?!? Just WOW! He too was a die hard ardent, enthusiastic, gung-ho, LOVER of the Book of Abraham and papyri! This is news to me. Now I really do want to get hold of Livingston!

I Facebook stalked him for a bit last night, and it appears that he has been in the process of moving on for a couple of years. It seems he, to his credit, does not support the Church’s position on LGTBQ+ people, for one thing. Plenty of signs that he was off the rez. He even posts a link for how to resign from the Church at one point. In short, he does on Facebook things I don’t do here. He is out, out. Done.

[Kishkumen]

I know I've made this point before, but I think that it bears repeating every so often.

Some of the criticism of the CES Letter is due to people expecting it to be something that it is not, and never was intended to be. But for all its flaws, even FAIR is unable to support calling any more than 44% of its content either "error", or "falsehood". If they could do better than that I'm sure that they would.
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And calling your opponent's arguments "spin" is pretty weak.

Yeah. OK. True. The Mopologetic response is lame. The CES Letter is what it is. Jeremy deserves a lot of credit for the brilliant stroke of bringing Grant Palmer to the internet and multiplying it by a thousand. I mean just laying out problems, problems, and more problems. Of course, the fundamental problem is that the Church billed itself as something it is not, and it suddenly became easy to demonstrate that.

Let’s face it. These days, if you say you have “the” answers, and legit ancient texts of lost civilizations, family values, and Christian goals, you better make good on that stuff, or at least provide a pleasant customer experience, or people won’t hang around for long. In too many ways it is easy to contradict the Brethren’s claims, and church is a complete drag to boot.

[Shulem]

no one of the Mopologists anywhere on the Internet, have touched the Book of Abraham argument.

Yeah, nobody has tried to figure out why poor Anubis got his nose hacked out. They haven't touched that with a ten foot pole. And the apologetic explanations for the "Kings Name" in Facsimile No. 3 are a joke, literally!

And poor John Gee, all he can talk about is how chariots mentioned by Abraham aren't an anachronism. How pathetic.

[Shulem]

access to Google

It turns out that Google really is God. Information is POWER! Ain't that right, Philo baby?

[Fence Sitter]

I know I've made this point before, but I think that it bears repeating every so often.

Some of the criticism of the CES Letter is due to people expecting it to be something that it is not, and never was intended to be. But for all its flaws, even FAIR is unable to support calling any more than 44% of its content either "error", or "falsehood". If they could do better than that I'm sure that they would.


And calling your opponent's arguments "spin" is pretty weak.

I wonder how a good faith effort of the same type of graph applied to the Book of Mormon by apologists, would look?

"Hey look, Smith got 10% of his Ancient America facts right! You can't explain that!."

[Shulem]

I wonder how a good faith effort of the same type of graph applied to the Book of Mormon by apologists, would look?

"Hey look, Smith got 10% of his Ancient America facts right! You can't explain that!."

The big talking point for the Book of Abraham is the Four Sons of Horus. Oh look, Joseph Smith got it right! It's a bullseye! And with that they justify all the explanations of the Facsimiles as credible. But in reality, Smith didn't even get that right. He didn't know the names of the four gods and hadn't the faintest idea that Min was sporting an erection right in front of his face.

Book of Abraham apologetics has long since crashed and burned. It's a heap of ashes.

John Gee is a sorry sack of you-know-what.

[dastardly stem]

Scott's comments, as quoted by Scratch, hardly make any sense. How is a compilation of questions and explanations to support why the questions matter anything near a Dan Brown novel? He's acting as if since he's responded to the letter by missing the point any believer can't elevate any CES Letter question or type of question and realize there aren't good reasons to believe. of course Scott thinks apologetics is effective in the sense of being a rational enterprise. All apologetics seems to do is tell believers even if there are problems its still possible its true. If Scott were a rational agent he'd understand his and his buddies efforts aren't convincing unless someone has decided to believe. Once someone says to themselves, "I want to know if these claims are true"....they're gone. And there doesn't seem to be anything Scott and his pals can do. they can't support their beliefs with data and solid reasoning. They can only tell believers "its ok. If God is with us, he can make it true anyway. So it's still possible." Its far too easy for something to stop in that commotion and think "wait a minute. This is all very circular. maybe that inner witness is nothing more than me hoping and wishing and stuff." at that point all the criticisms start to make sense.

[master_dc]

Given that the CES Letter is bad, what the hell is stopping apologists from coming up with a great counter-argument?

Is there a good resource/post to better understand your position that it is bad? Not trying to be argumentative.

The CES letter is an interesting document to me. There are definitely parts that don't land, but it reads like a long-form conversation on many topics that don't pass the sniff test. I appreciate how Runnels has kept in the "bad criticism" (e.g. Vernal Holley maps), so as to keep it in a state that doesn't hide its origins. I read it as if I am listening to a podcast and, somethings resonate, others don't, but at least we are having a "conversation."

[Dr Exiled]

Scott's comments, as quoted by Scratch, hardly make any sense. How is a compilation of questions and explanations to support why the questions matter anything near a Dan Brown novel? He's acting as if since he's responded to the letter by missing the point any believer can't elevate any CES Letter question or type of question and realize there aren't good reasons to believe. of course Scott thinks apologetics is effective in the sense of being a rational enterprise. All apologetics seems to do is tell believers even if there are problems its still possible its true. If Scott were a rational agent he'd understand his and his buddies efforts aren't convincing unless someone has decided to believe. Once someone says to themselves, "I want to know if these claims are true"....they're gone. And there doesn't seem to be anything Scott and his pals can do. they can't support their beliefs with data and solid reasoning. They can only tell believers "its ok. If God is with us, he can make it true anyway. So it's still possible." Its far too easy for something to stop in that commotion and think "wait a minute. This is all very circular. maybe that inner witness is nothing more than me hoping and wishing and stuff." at that point all the criticisms start to make sense.

The comments make sense from the standpoint of support the team no matter what. It seems crisis management advisors are telling everyone to simply deny, deny and deny again, regardless of how silly it seems. "These aren't the droids you are looking for," hearkening back to the Asch conformity experiments. https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html. Just repeat the narrative over and over again bullying the dupes into conformity. So, the CES Letter must be misrepresented for what it really is, a list of the issues and a jumping off point.

We see this behavior with politicians, the media and in the corporate world. So, why not in religion?

[Moksha]

And poor John Gee, all he can talk about is how chariots mentioned by Abraham aren't an anachronism. How pathetic.

Those cute little tapirs and capybaras were tugging those steel chariot sleds with all of their might. Traveling in 5-foot increments was an effort.