LifeOnaPlate wrote:Dart, I really don't know where to start in response. I can see, however, you're more interested in quibbling about "Mormon apologists" and what the "missionaries ought to do" than about similarities and differences between Dick and Smith's teachings. They had similarities, they had differences.
I'm not sure why I even thought it might be otherwise. I've lurked enough to see what you're on about, and it's not scholarship. You can call this a victory for yourself, but I've lost interest in discussing it with you; your view being as dogmatic as you believe "apologists" are.
I've said what I wanted to about the similarities, which I believe are many and interesting. The differences are interesting too. Joseph's positing of eternal intelligence as refined matter is interesting indeed, but there's no point in discussing things when one of us believes that differences obviate any similarities. What's the point?
What is the point, indeed? Different expectations about who God is and how He reveals or works with His prophets. It's a fundamental difference, and I'm fine with agreeing to disagree on it.
LifeOnaPlate wrote:What is the point, indeed? Different expectations about who God is and how He reveals or works with His prophets. It's a fundamental difference, and I'm fine with agreeing to disagree on it.
I don't think you and I have different expectations, unless of course you are indeed suggesting that there is zero relationship between Dick's thought and Joseph's. I think that's the point of the apologists you cited, but I have no idea why they insist on this idea.
LifeOnaPlate wrote:What is the point, indeed? Different expectations about who God is and how He reveals or works with His prophets. It's a fundamental difference, and I'm fine with agreeing to disagree on it.
I don't think you and I have different expectations, unless of course you are indeed suggesting that there is zero relationship between Dick's thought and Joseph's. I think that's the point of the apologists you cited, but I have no idea why they insist on this idea.
I thought that was what LOAP was arguing for here, as well. If he's merely suggesting that this was inspired borrowing, then I can live with that.
LifeOnAPlate, I'm sorry I called you a lightweight. I shouldn't have, and I'll retract it. You do seem to have the habit of using your testimony to inspire you to twist and turn, bob and weave, any way you have to, in order to deflect evidence that would appear to undermine Joseph Smith's claims, and the veracity of the church. But then, that pretty much describes all of Mormon apologetics, or really all of any church's apologetics. So you're certainly not an anomaly.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Sethbag wrote:And another thing people are saying is that it's completely laughable the way you're protesting the Dick influence on Joseph Smith on the basis of some differences between Dick and Smith, but the apologists of FARMS and the folks on MAD regularly pick and choose from amongst entire ancient religions bits and pieces here and there that they can call "parallels", while at the same time overlooking the fact that in other respects these ancient religions were utterly different than the LDS religion in terms of theology.
It has always amazed me the degree to which the claim that something is ancient gives it more weight. Given the fact that the ancients knew substantially less about the world than we do, I don't see how antiquity should necessarily equal credibility. If one man creates a myth in 2500 BCE, and another creates a myth in 1827 CE, does the date really matter all that much in determining who is more likely to be right? It seems to me that the advantage the ancient myth has is that 1) it has lasted a much longer time (if it did in fact survive), and 2) we lack much in the way of other evidence to challenge its claims.
I am not that impressed with pure age as a measure of truth.
Yet here you have the people of FARMS relying on the same meta-mythological assumptions as Joseph did when he created his pseudepigrapha--if it is ancient, it's somehow closer to the font of truth. I think that principle is at the bedrock of their whole enterprise.