Apologists just cannot stop whining about the CES letter. Its success must be attributable to anything but its own merits.
In 1993, Adobe Systems led the programming competition with its Portable Document Format (PDF). After guarding it as intellectual property for fifteen years, Adobe displayed shrewd business logic in 2008 by offering the PDF as an open format (PDF 1.7)—allowing software developers worldwide to develop and provide tools for the creation, modification, viewing, and printing of PDF files if they adhered to Adobe’s original PDF specifications.
Also, in 2008, Adobe offered its Reader 2.0 as a free download. This enabled web designers and authors to offer their publications as PDF downloads with an accompanying link to the free PDF viewer. Readers could easily download both the app and the book or article and view the original text as it was designed to be read.
Advanced distribution capability. Soon other free PDF viewers became available, and popular Internet search engines incorporated them into their browsers (2).
A new world began to emerge, empowering individual authors and content creators to distribute their views instantly, in increasingly persuasive ways, across a mammoth distribution channel: the World Wide Web.
The reality is that before the early 2010s, it would have been difficult to widely distribute any computerized books or extensive articles such as The CES Letter. Documents circulated as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect files would have been susceptible to formatting changes when the files were opened, as well as alteration from other readers.
The church must have one of the largest internet capabilities available to a non governmental org. They spend millions each year updating and promoting it. They do have PDF capabilities, right? Heck they have what 3 or 4 Universities. They spend who knows how much money a year on Search Engine Optimization strategies. They send out 60 plus thousand missionaries each year with laptops. But Jeremy basically reorganizing Tanner material blows the church away, and it is because of PDF's, and because the church shut down Mopology?
They wrote:
3. The lack of easily accessible and comprehensive discussions of subjects like those raised in The CES Letter, now available in the Gospel Topic Essays, that thoughtfully explain many complicated and sometimes controversial issues.
Lol....Google "LDS and any subject" and you have an answer on the church website. But they are right that you won't get anything comprehensive, even in the essays. But that is not Jeremy's fault, or because he wrote in PDF. However it is why he wrote the letter.
How about just start telling the truth in simple terms.
Brian needs to find a new hobby. Is Michael Peterson related to Dan?
While good things are afoot at Maxwell and other faith defense organizations like Scripture Central, and FAIR, this relative vacuum during the early 2010’s may have contributed to some unfortunate effects.
Few, if any, of its accusations were new, and most had already been repeatedly refuted.
Is there another definition of “refuted” with which I’m unfamiliar?
1. Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. 2. The best evidence for The Book of Mormon is eye witness testimony, therefore… 3.The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is a type of evidence that is notoriously unreliable.
Few, if any, of its accusations were new, and most had already been repeatedly refuted.
Is there another definition of “refuted” with which I’m unfamiliar?
Indeed! I've noticed that a bedrock tactic of Mopologetics is to offer a lame excuse for one of Mormonism's falsehoods, then falsely label it a "refutation."
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"I think the idea of repairing a corpse does not work very well."
Indeed! I've noticed that a bedrock tactic of Mopologetics is to offer a lame excuse for one of Mormonism's falsehoods, then falsely label it a "refutation."
Refutation has been a joke claim since Hippolytus penned Refutation of All Heresies.
Just barely woke up, under the weather; saw this with my signals crossed. Was thinking it was a new excuse for the Second Watson letter. As I'm preparing my cloak and top hat, I'm wondering how on earth a .pdf would help and a "published" essay on it? Could claim to see it and then lost because it was on the computer and deleted? were there .pdfs yet? Took me until the third paragraph before I realized how mixed up I was. My bad! lol.
This must be one of the strangest apologetics of all time. I love how the tone reflects all the anti-lit they've read over the years, "How was it possible for such diabolical screed to see the light of day? Let's get to the details of how this document, this hostile and damnable document, got into the hands of the good people of the church."
They need to be careful with this kind of argument. "Faith in the age of the printing press: How a perfect storm of random forces inflated the Bible beyond its merits."
Social distancing has likely already begun to flatten the curve...Continue to research good antivirals and vaccine candidates. Make everyone wear masks. -- J.D. Vance
They need to be careful with this kind of argument. "Faith in the age of the printing press: How a perfect storm of random forces inflated the Bible beyond its merits."
Ahhh, the lamentations against Adobe, the sinister ally of Lucifer. It allows too much content, too much development of ideas and thoughts. All hail, Power Point and its pithiness for the shorter attention spanned, especially now featured in 'the House of the Lord.'
"Apologists try to shill an explanation to questioning members as though science and reason really explain and buttress their professed faith. It [sic] does not. ...faith is the antithesis of science and reason." Critic as quoted by Peterson, Daniel C. (2010) FARMS Review, Intro., v22:2,2.
The LDS religious claims and dogma have been reeling with each advance of the information age. No longer can 'the Brethren' control the narrative. They are having to compete in the market place of ideas. Their LDS ideas have not fared well in that marketplace. The 1st Amendment freedoms of speech, press and assembly have been their nemesis. Ironically, they are couched in that same amendment with their monolithically worshipped 'freedom of religion' that they would suggest should allow them to foist their religious beliefs (such as against same sex marriage) on others.
"Apologists try to shill an explanation to questioning members as though science and reason really explain and buttress their professed faith. It [sic] does not. ...faith is the antithesis of science and reason." Critic as quoted by Peterson, Daniel C. (2010) FARMS Review, Intro., v22:2,2.
