Look at where Dr. Gee has been!

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_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

charity wrote:
Gadianton wrote:
charity wrote:The point of the post was to show that Dr. Gee is not the laughable pseudo scholar that some here have painted him.


Um, you've been listening to Peterson too long. He's the one I think who invented the idea that critics charge apologists with pseudoscholarship in their areas of expertise - or in those areas where they are acting as scholars, and not as two-bit cult defenders. Can you cite any examples of critics claiming Gee has no idea what he's talking about in his professional work that pays his electric bill?


Dartagnan fairly frequenlty has very negative things to say about Dr. Gee.


But not about Gee's work in Egyptology. Only about his apologetics.
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

But not about Gee's work in Egyptology. Only about his apologetics.



Yes but, you see, ancient Egyptian religion and the restored gospel are closely related, so the apologetics are closely related, and should be.

Its just that some people don't like the apologetics for other reasons.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_ludwigm
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Post by _ludwigm »

Coggins7 wrote:
But not about Gee's work in Egyptology. Only about his apologetics.
Yes but, you see, ancient Egyptian religion and the restored gospel are closely related, so the apologetics are closely related, and should be.
Its just that some people don't like the apologetics for other reasons.
Dictionary
la·con·ic (lə-kŏn'ĭk) adj.
Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise. See synonyms at silent.
[Latin Lacōnicus, Spartan, from Greek Lakōnikos, from Lakōn, a Spartan (from the reputation of the Spartans for brevity of speech).]

It came to pass (hehe) that enemies who assaulted Sparta have sent them the message: "Capitulate, because if we occupy the town, we will utterly destroy etc."
They have answered : "if".

"ancient Egyptian religion and the restored gospel are closely related"
If.
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco
- To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
_CaliforniaKid
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Re: Look at where Dr. Gee has been!

Post by _CaliforniaKid »

charity wrote:The annual joint meeting of the American Academy or Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature (and affiliated organizations), just concluded in San Diego.

And lo and behold, look at one of the listings.

MONDAY 11/19, 1pm – 3:30pm (Location: 31 A – CC)
Assyriology and the Bible Section (S19-55)
John Gee, “An Egyptian Version of the Atrahasis?”

So Dr. Gee is not a respected scholar in his field and by his peers? Yeah, right.

I searched the whole program and couldn't find a listing for a Kevin Graham or a Brent Metcalfe. Did I miss something? Or maybe these people who like to take such pot shorts at Dr. Gee don't move in the same august circles as Dr. Gee and these society academicians.


Hi charity,

Nobody has said that Gee isn't a respected scholar in his field. That's pretty generally acknowledged. The trouble is when somebody takes their credentials in a field like Egyptology and uses it as a cover to do shoddy or dishonest apologetics. One thing Gee isn't is a historian, yet his major contributions to the apologetic field have been historical in nature. Those are the contributions that have rightly been belittled here.

I've tried to convince Dan that publishing Gee's historical work is a mistake, but he seems more interested in their friendship than in disseminating accurate apologetic information. Such is life, I suppose.

-CK
_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

So do we have to accept Newton's thoughts on alchemy because he was a genius in physics?

Yes, I do think this was popularized by Peterson, who at times responds to criticism of his apologetics by trotting out his expertise in Islamic studies.

This is a demonstration of a comment I made on another thread recently (no longer remember which one). It seems to be the philosophy of quite a few MADdites that the magic letters Phd after a name bestow an almost magical air of authority on an apologist, even if his Phd has nothing to do with the area of apologetics. This is a textbook case of an appeal to authority:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... ority.html



Since this sort of reasoning is fallacious only when the person is not a legitimate authority in a particular context, it is necessary to provide some acceptable standards of assessment. The following standards are widely accepted:

1. The person has sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.

2. The claim being made by the person is within her area(s) of expertise.
If a person makes a claim about some subject outside of his area(s) of expertise, then the person is not an expert in that context. Hence, the claim in question is not backed by the required degree of expertise and is not reliable.

It is very important to remember that because of the vast scope of human knowledge and skill it is simply not possible for one person to be an expert on everything. Hence, experts will only be true experts in respect to certain subject areas. In most other areas they will have little or no expertise. Thus, it is important to determine what subject area a claim falls under.

It is also very important to note that expertise in one area does not automatically confer expertise in another. For example, being an expert physicist does not automatically make a person an expert on morality or politics. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked or intentionally ignored. In fact, a great deal of advertising rests on a violation of this condition. As anyone who watches television knows, it is extremely common to get famous actors and sports heroes to endorse products that they are not qualified to assess. For example, a person may be a great actor, but that does not automatically make him an expert on cars or shaving or underwear or diets or politics.


3. There is an adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question.

4. The person in question is not significantly biased.

5. The area of expertise is a legitimate area or discipline.

6. The authority in question must be identified.


Gee meets the standard for the fallacy on several points.

What is funny about the apologetic tendency to commit this particular logical fallacy is that the church was partly built upon the idea of disdaining the "arm of flesh", or the reasoning of men. Revelation was always preferable. For today's apologists, often the complete opposite is true. It doesn't matter what Joseph Smith thought happened in the Book of Mormon, despite his revelations on the subject, including tutorials by Moroni, and instead what matters is what scholars today think about the Book of Mormon.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

Yes but, you see, ancient Egyptian religion and the restored gospel are closely related, so the apologetics are closely related, and should be.

Its just that some people don't like the apologetics for other reasons.


Does it make anyone else despair for the future of humanity that a human being can actually assert something like this that so obviously contradicts known reality, and apparently really believe it??
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_dartagnan
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Post by _dartagnan »

Dartagnan fairly frequenlty has very negative things to say about Dr. Gee.


And rightly so.

I have provided an entire thread that demonstrates why John Gee cannot be trusted in his apologetics. You avoid it like the plague because you cannot refute anything I said. So you have to veer off with this straw man thread. The respondents here are correct. Nobody has questioned Gee's ability in his respective field of expertise. It is when he starts with his apologetic theories that prove him a deceptive person.

Nobody has said that Gee isn't a respected scholar in his field.


Actually, if anyone has said anything like this... Robert Ritner came very close to saying something like this. He noted that Gee shows up at every conference he can, desperately trying to increase his visibility in the community. But he said this kind of thing doesn't always translate to an increase in respectability, and Ritner's refutations of Gee's work will probably guarantee Gee's status in the academic community will always be within the confines of talented amateur and apologetic hack.

Dartagnan's flaming rants against me, Peterson, Gee and others are probably, without equivocation, the best evidence available of the insecurity that lies at the root of his anti-Mormon tree.


Yea, my anti-Mormon tree!!

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that no such tree exists. My history online for the past decade has been overwhelmingly acting as an apologist. So suddenly when i let reason take over confirmation bias and allow myself to be dissuaded from my presuppositions, immediately I have to be called anti-Mormon and an entire history about my anti-Mormonism must be invented.

Again, its idiots like these that make my absence from the FAIR scene tolerable.

Dartagnan, at least at some level, knows very well that, with the Book of Abraham, for example, he is dealing with a combination of facts, hypothesis, conjecture, and wishful thinking that apologists do, in fact, have plausible and logical answers to.


You're still beating this drum, even after your recent botched attempt to provide examples of "plausible/logical answers"? Your problem is that you do not know what plausible means. Plausible means believable, and for apologists, any possibility is immediately accepted as a valid plausibility. Only those who believe out of necessity find them to be plausible.

Why don't you and charity explain for us why it is OK for Gee and Nibley to play color games with the audience? Why did Gee publish an argument based on color photos that were manipulated with different hues?

If Brent Metcalfe had ever done such a thing you would be yapping over and over how this proves he is deceptive and cannot be trusted. I simply employed teh same logic I learned as an apologist and discovered that the LDS scholars/apologists were often just as deceptive as some of the critics, and more so than others. And when this is shown, you start whining about ad hominem and throw up their resumes as if this somehow changes their deception.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
_truth dancer
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Post by _truth dancer »

Charity...

I'm trying to be helpful here.

So Dr. Gee is not a respected scholar in his field and by his peers? Yeah, right.

I searched the whole program and couldn't find a listing for a Kevin Graham or a Brent Metcalfe. Did I miss something? Or maybe these people who like to take such pot shorts at Dr. Gee don't move in the same august circles as Dr. Gee and these society academicians.


You continually come up with "pretend" arguments against which to fight.

I'm not sure if you realize this, if it is intentional, or if you think you are making a case for something.

Regardless, maybe you should step back before you post something and ask yourself if you understand what is being said.

You seem to think you are making some sort of point but your comments come across as if you do not understand the issue.

CK writes,

Nobody has said that Gee isn't a respected scholar in his field. That's pretty generally acknowledged. The trouble is when somebody takes their credentials in a field like Egyptology and uses it as a cover to do shoddy or dishonest apologetics. One thing Gee isn't is a historian, yet his major contributions to the apologetic field have been historical in nature. Those are the contributions that have rightly been belittled here.


Do you understand this?

~dancer~
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
_BishopRic
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Post by _BishopRic »

A bit analogous here, but I was told that a doctor friend recently participated in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. He was American trained, top of his class, saved many lives as an ER doc, then strapped on some bombs and went into bulding and took his and others' innocent lives. All of this to get those 72 virgins he obviously believed he would get as his "reward."

Sometimes religious conviction Trump's logic and reason.
_charity
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Post by _charity »

truth dancer wrote:Charity...

I'm trying to be helpful here.

CK writes,

Nobody has said that Gee isn't a respected scholar in his field. That's pretty generally acknowledged. The trouble is when somebody takes their credentials in a field like Egyptology and uses it as a cover to do shoddy or dishonest apologetics. One thing Gee isn't is a historian, yet his major contributions to the apologetic field have been historical in nature. Those are the contributions that have rightly been belittled here.


Do you understand this?

~dancer~


I understand that is what you say. But I also understand that anytime Dr. Gee's name is brought up he is spoken of in the most derogatroy terms. And it isn't just in his apologetics. Kevin, in his post saying he doesn't contest Dr. Gee's academic proficiciecy still brings up the Ritner thing, and refuses to admit that there are big question marks over Ritner's history with Dr. Gee.

And about the apologetics line. How can someone who is not an Egyptologist know enough to criticize what an Egyptolgist has to say about any relationship he sees with the Book of Abraham? Kevin isn't an Egyptologist. Neither is Metcalfe. Talk about stepping outside your academic field!
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