There's something strange about 'the Mormon debater'

[_beastie]

Will,

You are a pretentious, verbally flamboyant, melodramatic smoked mirror. Among your laughable statements is this one, for example:

On the other hand, if there were really no Moroni, no actual plates, no Nephites, etc., I am convinced that the “church” Joseph Smith founded would have never survived after his death, let alone grow steadily to the present day – not that its continued existence and growth are evidences of its truth, but simply because I consider the nature of its foundational claims such that, if not true, it would have failed long before now.

You must be kidding me. Mormons believe that all other religions are based on foundational claims that are, in the most crucial aspects (aside from generic jesusisms), "false". And yet they survived and thrived long past the deaths of their founders, too. Yet Mormonism, for some bizarre reason, is in a category of its own in that if its foundational claims were "no true", it would have failed long ago? What a hoot.

I also enjoyed this tidbit:

Yes, Joseph Smith had more than one wife. And of the wives he had, I believe he had sexual relationships with most, if not all. And I don’t find cause for condemnation in anything he ever did! Why? Because I know the nature and character of God. And the God I know sanctioned all that Joseph Smith did – with probably a few exceptions.

My, you are pretentious.

You also proclaim:

I’m sure I will find it quite gratifying and even mildly amusing when all the over-righteous, self-congratulating “moralists” who have condemned Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others end up quite surprised when they find out what God is really like.

and then state:

It is my long-considered and often-confirmed observation that those who cry “transgression” the loudest when it comes to Joseph Smith, turn out to have a predilection for precisely the kind of debauchery they imagine him guilty of – hence the later polyamorous forays of so many of the piously-outraged contemporary condemners of Joseph Smith.

I never cease to be amused by the spirited denials of the apostate who never passes up an opportunity to assure us that his/her loss of faith had nothing to do with “sin.” You see, I’ve lost count of how many times in the last several decades I have scraped away the patina of their “intellectual integrity” and found a tawdry buggerer (or somesuch) lurking in the shadows. It’s just like John-Charles Duffy (see the most recent Dialogue) and his coming to the conclusion, within days of discovering what he considered the joys of buggering, that the Book of Mormon is not an authentic ancient history.

Wow, thanks for the enlightenment regarding the nature of God! He's not a "moralist" and we'll be "surprised" to find out what he's really like (we must now add Uber Knowledge of the Character of God to Will's many spiritual gifts, along with the Super Spiritual Detector), but it's still moral sins that, in the Mind and Eye of Will, condemn them.

So straighten us out. God is fine with Joseph Smith marrying multiple women, including some women with pre-existent husbands, without taking care of them in any material way, while lying to Emma and church members about this practice, but don't ask him to tolerate "buggery" or "some-such". Even GOD has "standards."!

In other words, sexual libertinism is only ok when God sanctions it first. Like all mob leaders, God bestows many "privileges" among his alpha males.

LOL! It's a good thing most chapel Mormons have no idea of this garbage being pedaled on internet boards. Mormonism devolves into a pathetic exercise of self-indulgent, often repulsive, mental gymnastics at the hands of gifted dramatists such as Will. I imagine it would disgust even them.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

[/list]

[_beastie]

Hey, LOAP, maybe one of the "surprising" things we lesser lights will learn about God one day is that he will sanction you having sex with that fish.

[NorthboundZax]

"What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers."

I love this quote, by the way. Note that he, quite carefully, didn’t specify which of his wives he was able to find at the time.

[size=14]---Well, that is quite the telling statement. Perhaps it's my turn to feel sorry for you.

I love Joseph Smith

---Yes, it sounds like it. Your comments almost remind me of the comments made even now by men who adored the Reverend Jones. He (they say) brought heaven to earth; he preached the truth like no one before him; when he spoke, the heavens opened and light shone, etc. But whether he was all he claimed to be...whether he was a reliable source of information about his experiences...well that is really the question, isn't it? And with Joseph Smith, in at least the case of polygamy, the answer is no, isn't it?

Yes, Joseph Smith had more than one wife. And of the wives he had, I believe he had sexual relationships with most, if not all. And I don’t find cause for condemnation in anything he ever did! Why? Because I know the nature and character of God. And the God I know sanctioned all that Joseph Smith did – with probably a few exceptions.

---But once again you subtly twist the point into something less threatening to faith.

In my view, the important point here is that with regards to at least one important "personal religious experience", Joseph Smith (as you tacitly concede) deliberately, convincingly, and aggressively, misled others (or as it is known in Clintonian depositions and common parlance, "lied to others"). So whether Smith's deception met with God's approval (as you insist) or not, is entirely beside the point, isn't it? The point is only that you and I already have one excellent example of Smith (with God's approval or not) as an unreliable source of his supposedly sacred experiences.

I’m sure I will find it quite gratifying and even mildly amusing when all the over-righteous, self-congratulating “moralists” who have condemned Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others end up quite surprised when they find out what God is really like.

---You are twisting the point here again. The thrust of my comments in my discussion with you (if you re-read them, you'll see) isn't to pass definitive moral judgment on early Mormon leaders. It is to acknowledge what you yourself tacitly acknowledged above: that Smith's lying about polygamy constitutes an undeniable example of Smith's unreliability as a source of information on one of his supposedly important religious experiences. To what extent Smith - or Mother Teresa or Pol Pot, for that matter - will be rewarded or punished in a future life is really irrelevant to me.

Your extensive reading in Mormon history will also have let you know that Emma Smith herself, upon finding out years after Smith's assassination just how deeply her late husband had deceived her, commented that that being the case, that he deserved to die as he did. (That was Emma Smith talking, not me).

[color=black]Actually, my “extensive reading in Mormon history” has already led me to believe that dear Sister Emma more than likely believed Joseph deserved to die in June of 1844, let alone “years after.” Emma had the same apparent visceral “moral outrage” towards Joseph that you do.

---So, let's see: Emma (like you and I) finds out that Joseph Smith is an unreliable source of information about his experiences. According to Smith, she then tries to murder him, twice. Later, she vicariously assents to his death. And "therefore", I too carry an Emma Smithian (that is, murderous) "visceral moral outrage"?

To me, that's very much a non sequitir. It is especially surprising given that while you yourself know that Smith misled others in his comments about polygamy, that you still "love" him. That ought to tell you that it is entirely possible - for Mormons, former Mormons, and never Mormons - to acknowledge that Smith (like everyone else who's ever lived) was not always a reliable source of information about his experiences, without consenting (like his wife) to his murder. How free you are with your own moral accusations - perhaps it is an expression of just that rejection of contraints on what we may justifiably believe which we began with.

As for Joseph Smith’s credibility, I have no reason to doubt it in any material respect.

---Yet you yourself, above, conceded that Smith indulged in some seriously misleading "private word redefinition", a la Bill Clinton, in announcing that he could "only find one" wife.

Quite to the contrary, it is precisely my “critical faculties” that have informed my judgment regarding those who accuse Joseph Smith (and Brigham Young, Porter Rockwell, etc.) of wrongdoing. It is my long-considered and often-confirmed observation that those who cry “transgression” the loudest when it comes to Joseph Smith, turn out to have a predilection for precisely the kind of debauchery they imagine him guilty of – hence the later polyamorous forays of so many of the piously-outraged contemporary condemners of Joseph Smith.

---Once again, the point here isn't possible "wrongdoing", but rather a question of unreliability as a source of information about a supposedly sacred experience.

After all, William, as believing Mormons, we could find out that Joseph Smith roasted and ate small children, or was a serial rapist, and still find a way to make that okay, couldn't we? The argument would go like this:

"The Prophet may have roasted and eaten small children; but that doesn't mean he didn't see God, or translate golden plates. I am content to leave the judging in the Lord's hands. No one ever said the prophets were perfect".

No problem, is it?

I never cease to be amused by the spirited denials of the apostate who never passes up an opportunity to assure us that his/her loss of faith had nothing to do with “sin.”

---I'm curious: which sin do you think I committed, which inexorably induced me to conclude that Joseph Smith didn't tell the truth about his sacred experiences?

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

---I'm not sure that being so in the throes of delusion, and what sorts of things that inspires us to think and say of others, is all that "funny". I think it's actually more sad.

Still, one day you may be happy to know that, for what it's worth, I regard every single comment like yours as nothing less than I deserve, not because what you say is true, but because I myself, as a member, thought and said just those same things about others, as you do now of me. And if the day ever comes when you acknowledge that, whatever else it may be, Mormonism simply cannot be what it claims, you will also begin to hear just those same things about yourself. You will encounter insinuations - or outright accusations - by people who "know", just by virtue of your conclusions, that you are guilty of serious sins: perjury, adultery, intemperance, greed, lust for status, anything and everything. It won't matter to them whether it's true or not, because they'll already "know".

Why do we instinctively character assassinate those who end up concluding that Mormonism cannot be what it claims? I think, because when we are in such a pleasing psychological state, being convinced that we are right and so many others are wrong, with the institution facilitating the meeting of so many of our most basic needs, we have no greater desire than to stay in just that state, forever. And we will tell ourselves anything - anything - to keep us in that state, and to avoid the sorrow (and fear and horror) of having it burst. The image of those who leave must be destroyed; they cannot be permitted to exist as embodiments of possibly valid conclusions having nothing to do with nefarious motives. That cannot be contemplated. These people must be vicariously destroyed. And we do it just like you're doing it to me here, by sly smears.

… you yourself must acknowledge that at least in this one case, Smith lied about his religious experiences.

I do not perceive any relationship whatsoever between Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo-era public references to plural marriage and “his religious experiences” – whatever exactly you mean by that ambiguous phrase.

---What I mean is this: Smith claimed to have received a revelation from God - supposedly to be enforced, as you may know, by a sword-wielding, homicidal angel - that polygamy should be lived by certain folks, most importantly, himself. He then repeatedly denied - to his wife, to his ma, to his brothers, to the church at large - having received any such relevation. He denied ever acting on that revelation. He "married" his teenaged foster daughters, the wives and daughters of his friends, etc., slept with them in obedience to his revelation, and then lied about it.

So if we only stick to orthodox sources, we must conclude (regardless of whether God approved) that:

Joseph Smith aggressively, repeatedly, and convincingly lied about a supposedly important religious experience involving an angel and revelations from God.

And that, to me, is a conclusion which must be in mind when we are considering Smith's other supposedly important religious experiences involving angels and revelations from God. For, is it not entirely possible that the aggressive, repeated, convincing lying employed by someone in denying an actual experience, could also be employed by that person in affirming a non-existent one?

I think so, but that's just me.

So if we are interested in the question of whether Smith was a reliable source of information about his experiences, why don't we do the right thing …

“The Right Thing?” ??? What might that be?

---I would say, stop announcing, in lieu of rational discourse, that you "know" that those who disagree with you are guilty of heinous sins.

I am convinced that those who limit their examination of Joseph Smith to exclusively sophic approaches will always, in the end, conclude him to be a fraud – pious or otherwise. Only those who have mastered the ways by which mantic knowledge is acquired and interpreted can ever hope to understand God and his dealings with mankind, whether through prophets or through the personal ministrations of the Spirit of God.

---But William, we started out here with you taking issue with my claim that Mormon belief relies on a denial of the constraints imposed on what we may justifiably believe by empiricism and logic. Yet you continue to affirm just that point, just using different language.

So we agree - believing in Mormonism requires the same denial of those constraints that believing in astrology, tarot reading, or the reliability of Bill Clinton does. That does not itself mean that Mormonism is a fraud. It does mean that, ultimately, belief in Mormonism relies on the same denials required for believing in other things which we would both agree are frauds.

Nonetheless, if the things you list were fantasy instead of reality, Mormonism could not be what it claims to be – according to my understanding of the phrase. Simply put, if there were no Moroni, no actual plates, no Nephites – there is nothing else, either. It’s a lie, and any other descriptor of fraud you might suggest.

---I think that makes perfect sense, and I'm glad that we agree on that.

On the other hand, if there were really no Moroni, no actual plates, no Nephites, etc., I am convinced that the “church” Joseph Smith founded would have never survived after his death, let alone grow steadily to the present day – not that its continued existence and growth are evidences of its truth, but simply because I consider the nature of its foundational claims such that, if not true, it would have failed long before now.

[/quote]

---I am curious to know, then, given that premise, how you would explain the continued existence of the Shakers, the Quakers, the Christian Scientists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies....?[/size]

[_wenglund]

beastie wrote:
I haven't read all the replies, but have been meaning to add a comment since this thread started. Mormon apologists are a classic example of what Shermer discusses in his book, Why People Believe Weird Things. In particular, smart people believe weird things for nonsmart reasons, but then apply their "smart skills" to defending the weird thing. Men in particular are more prone to this than woman, according to Shermer.

Your prejudiced (highly biased, stereotyped, sexist) analysis of Mormon apologists is a classic example of what George Fuechsel coined as "garbage in, garbage out". ;-)

Well, let's see. On the one hand we have Michael Shermer, and on the other hand we have Wade.

I beg to differ in regards to which source could rightly be labeled "garbage".

What you just said would make sinse if: 1) you are Michael Shermer, and 2) your book on "Why People Believe Weird Things" was in specific reference to LDS apologists. Otherwise, you are entirely confused (a common Beastie-ism, which is made all the more amazing by your alleging to teach comprehension skills to children) regarding the "source" I was clearly referring to--hint: it was you. (Bold included so as to prevent further confusion)

Aside from that bit of wadism, tell me: do intelligent people believe in completely erroneous belief systems, wade? And are they inclined to defend their completely erroneous belief systems?

Not that I am aware.

However, I do believe intellegent people have differing beliefs from my own, and in that sense I may respectfully consider their belief systems, or at least portions thereof, to be in error (though certainly not "completely erroneous"). And, those same people are, at times and in some cases (though certainly not all), inclined to defend their belief systems.

I hope that helps.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_beastie]

Wade,

LOL! You said "garbage in, garbage out". I assumed you were talking about my statement with "garbage out", but what in the heck was the "garbage in", if not Shermer??? Could you at least TRY to make sense?

And your next response made as little sense. I asked if intelligent people believe erroneous things and are inclined to defend those beliefs...and you replied "not that I'm aware of" and then proceeded to assert that yes, intelligent people believe erroneous things and are inclined to defend those beliefs.

Now, after much pain and gnashing of teeth, we've established that yes, intelligent people do believe erroneous things and are inclined to defend those erroneous things, can you bring yourself to admit the validity of Michael Shermer's statement that I paraphrased?

Smart people can, and do, have erroneous beliefs. Let's use scientology as an easy example. Let's focus on one belief that I assume you will agree is erroneous: that thetans interfere with human thoughts and beliefs and cause human beings pain, and that specific training can eliminate the influence of Thetans.

Intelligent people believe this. Intelligent people defend it. Do you concede that they believe this idea for what Shermer calls "nonsmart" reasons, but then use their smart skills to defend those beliefs?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Hey, LOAP, maybe one of the "surprising" things we lesser lights will learn about God one day is that he will sanction you having sex with that fish.

I can always count on Shady Acres when I need some low brow jabs from some old lady.

PS- Tal: I like the whole "teaching by repetition" thing you have going on.

[_beastie]

I can always count on Shady Acres when I need some low brow jabs from some old lady.

Old Lady??

I'll have you know I'm a youthful 50 years old. That is hardly "old".

Besides, it wasn't a low brow jab. I was just speculating. After all, the Spiritually Gifted Will assures us that we will be SURPRISED by God's true character. Given how God sent an angel with a flaming sword to force Joseph Smith to marry other women, including women who already had husbands and very young teenagers, sanctioned Joseph Smith lying about it all to Emma and church members, it wouldn't be surprising to find out that fishy sex is A-Ok with the Big Guy.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I can always count on Shady Acres when I need some low brow jabs from some old lady.

Old Lady??

I'll have you know I'm a youthful 50 years old. That is hardly "old".

I'm afraid that is quite old. Old enough to be my mother. In a non-Mormon family, at that.

[_Moniker]

I can always count on Shady Acres when I need some low brow jabs from some old lady.

Old Lady??

I'll have you know I'm a youthful 50 years old. That is hardly "old".

I'm afraid that is quite old. Old enough to be my mother. In a non-Mormon family, at that.

LOAP, you can get some brow jabs from me too. I'll gladly be an "old lady" like beastie. Matter of fact, I'd rather be that than a Mormon.... any day. :)