Doctor Scratch wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:04 am
So, I have to ask: How do the Mopologists benefit from NDEs? Is this little more than pandering to the lowest of the lowest common denominator of Chapel Mormons who turn up on the "Comments" section? I would dismiss this all as Gemli-bait, except that Dr. Peterson, Kiwi, and the others seem to genuinely believe that the NDEs are real, and that they are faith-promoting.
To be blunt, I think the focus on NDEs from Daniel is due to a lack of ability to produce original arguments premised on his own research and thinking.
Mopologists have a tough order to fill when it comes to mounting a robust defense of LDS scriptures and beliefs; the movement is relatively young with roots in American revivalist theology and folk religion. There is no deep well of intellectual tradition unique to Mormonism from which to draw. No Doctors of the Church like Thomas Aquinas to look to, and no revered sages like Saadia Gaon, or expert jurists like Hasan al-Basri. All they have is a poor man's version of Chesterton in B.H. Roberts and a scuffed up N.T. Wright in Hugh Nibley.
For amateur apologists (i.e. mere apologetics) this is an exciting state of affairs because they have an immense amount of room to be as creative and eclectic as they like. The fruit of their labors languish in obscurity, but this doesn’t really bother them because they are comfortable with the reality they are a minority and don’t care a whit about being ignored because they are having fun and feel a sense of accomplishment just from the activity. They don’t take themselves seriously and as a result they enjoy a fair amount of goodwill from non-LDS folks.
Mopologists like Daniel do not get the luxury of having fun or being creative because they want to anchor their ‘Good Ship Apologetics’ in the waters of Higher Education. They become obsessed with status and care more about appearances than they do about substance. Thus mopologists become risk averse and are very reluctant to propose a new or unique thesis.
This hesitancy makes a certain amount of strategic sense. Original ideas or novel variations are not only hard to conceive, but the defense of them is daunting because the one who proposes them can only rely upon themselves to carry the burden of justification. This requires an immense amount of learning to pull off and has the possibility of backfiring and ruining one’s professional reputation; the intellectual history of Europe is riddled with scholars living and dying in poverty only to have their work become exalted and praised by the same institutions a few generations later. If you listen closely you can actually hear Daniel snorting in disgust from here and asking aloud, “what is the point then?”.
Everyone wants to be a scholar until it's time to do scholarly crap.
Gadianton wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:18 am
So to tie it all up, the game changed from EVs to secular, and secular critics would be the target of basic propositions of belief. But that doesn't really explain it beyond Gemli, with notable apostates like Vogel or Metcalfe totally off radar. What really drives it is DCP's odd fascination with New-Age / occult subjects. Finally, you are correct that it's too general to really establish Mormonism but again a) the fight against atheists only require proof of the basics b) it's possible that DCP's afterlife beliefs have become more general over time.
I am of the opinion that Daniel and the rest of the Mopologists are utterly dependent on Evangelical apologetics. Think about all the issues Daniel touches on that are relevant to Mormon apologetics and just about every single example is a wholesale appropriation from the Evangelical apologetics industry with occasional use of non-Christian materials.
Consider Daniel’s emphasis on the Book of Mormon witnesses, it is totally modeled on the argumentative strategies used by other Christians to establish the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. The emphasis on the credibility of witnesses combined with the insistence that the miraculous is the only plausible explanation for what happened.
There is also Daniel’s abiding interest in Intelligent Design and criticism of the contemporary evolutionary synthesis, which is only kept alive in the English speaking world by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists waging their culture war.
Don’t forget to include his consistent use of C.S. Lewis and the Moral Argument.
How about his refutations of Logical Positivism which consist of nothing more than the identical platitudes used by Norman Geisler?
Criticisms of Nietzsche is Daniel trying to ape Ravi Zacharias’ popular talks. I guess we should be thankful that Daniel also didn’t copy Ravi’s predilection for sending dick pics and employing sex workers, but I digress.
The shift from Evangelical ministries to secular critics allowed Mopologists to pass the buck to their former opponents and effectively excuses Daniel and the other Mopologists from ever having to do any sort of mental heavy lifting and if they get painted into a corner all they need to do is disavow: “I was just merely posting snippets from a book I found interesting, I didn’t say I fully endorse soandso because I thought that was implicit, now if you’ll excuse me I got a plane to catch.”
NDEs are merely another example in a long list of examples of Daniel borrowing from others for his own apologetic purposes, which is to undermine secularism, naturalism, and materialism by throwing everything he can against the wall in the hopes that something sticks.
Daniel’s real skills are in administration and in fundraising, Mopologetics is a side hustle that is just a means to feed that voracious ego of his. I doubt Daniel has any meaningful beliefs about the afterlife because he isn’t a particularly religious person and having such beliefs would mean he’d have to practice some kind of discrimination and think through implications and that would drastically reduce the amount of material he can lift from other people.