SHIELDS Launches an Attack on Some Schmo

[_Dr. Shades]

Let's not forget the grand-daddies of all those who fully understand the church but nevertheless haven't joined: The much-vaunted Owen & Moesser [sp?], authors of "Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and Not Even Knowing It?", wherein they charge that FARMS arguments are so sophisticated that Evangelicals aren't keeping up. One of them went so far as to apologize to the Mormons for how his fellow-Evangelicals have been treating them.

The top-tier Mopologists love to trot these two out as examples of non-Mormons who "get it." Yet even THEY have not joined the church.

Would Barker argue that they just haven't listened, and if only they would, then they, too, would join Mormonism?

[_silentkid]

Intelligent people justify ridiculous beliefs just as often as ignorant people. I think Dr. Peterson is extremely intelligent, but that doesn't preclude him believing in magic rocks and angelic visitations. This Barker guy is probably pretty smart too, but if he accepts the Book of Mormon as a literal history, then he accepts Jaredite submarines with glowing rocks as night lights, Ammon as Wolverine, and other such absurdities. Michael Shermer discusses the idea of smart people believing bizarre things in the last chapter of his book Why People Believe Weird Things. It's a good read.

[_beastie]

I think the fact that they targeted schmo's post supports what I've long suspected - what pushes the buttons of apologists more than anything else is the insinuation that most people would find their beliefs ridiculous.

Most apologists are intelligent people, who probably know, deep down, how silly many LDS beliefs appear to nonLDS. Yet their deep spiritual conviction of these same beliefs compels them to try and intellectually justify those beliefs. I know that apologists huff and puff and behave as if their arguments and superior education renders their apologia strong and solid. They behave as if the arguments of critics are the silly arguments of naif oafs. Yet, I suspect that they do have a sense of the flaws in their own apologia, and are sensitive to those flaws. So having their beliefs or arguments labeled as flawed or ridiculous is too sensitive, too close to home.

It often seems to me that what apologists want the most isn't to convince nonbelievers, but for nonbelievers to at least admit that the arguments they craft are well-informed and well-constructed, even if, at the end of the day, the critic "chooses" to not believe. They want to be assured that their arguments are fairly persuasive and intelligent. And, of course, some of the arguments are intelligent. But that doesn't eliminate the core problem - what apologists are defending is going to be viewed as ridiculous by most nonbelievers. To assert that Joseph Smith had a stone through which he could see buried treasures, and through which God later helped him translated disappearing golden plates, that told a story of ancient Jews living in America along with their horses and steel weapons is just going to be viewed as ridiculous to most nonbelievers. Add to that that Joseph Smith managed to marry 33 additional "wives", include very young followers and married women, and it becomes even more laughable. Mormons are then entering the "Scientology" level of ridiculous beliefs. And they hate that reality.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that intelligent critics can often believe ridiculous things, themselves. It's just that their ridiculous beliefs have been culturally accepted so no longer appear ridiculous. Anyone who believes Jesus's death somehow 'saves' human beings from their own sins has no business laughing at Mormons, in my opinion. But they will laugh at Mormons, because the larger culture has declared the Jesus belief reasonable, but, outside utah, finds peepstones laughable.

[_Gadianton]

But what is Barker's counter to the fact that even complete rubes w/ 4th grade educations are rejecting the Church?

Doctor Scratch,

I'm not sure I get what you are driving at, can you explain again for me?

[_Doctor Scratch]

But what is Barker's counter to the fact that even complete rubes w/ 4th grade educations are rejecting the Church?

Doctor Scratch,

I'm not sure I get what you are driving at, can you explain again for me?

Barker is suggesting that highly educated and intelligent people ought to dive right into the Church---i.e., that they are so smart, and so interested in "The Truth," that, if they genuinely listened, they would really have no intellectual alternative but to sign up for baptism.

But, I wonder if it would be useful to turn the tables on Barker. As you, Dr. Shades, and others have pointed out---it seems *obvious* that the best educated secular folks would reject the more absurd aspects of Mormonism. Thus, why not adjust the question for Barker: *Of course* the Ph.D.s are not joining up. How does Barker explain the fact that the vast majority of uneducated rubes, boneheads, and intellectual lightweights also don't join? I mean, even these less-educated folks are coming to the conclusion that the Church is absurd. Is it because they, too, are failing to "listen"?

[_Gadianton]

No, I don't think he would argue that. Rather, I think he would argue the uneducated don't join the church because they are too dumb to understand it.

[_Doctor Scratch]

No, I don't think he would argue that. Rather, I think he would argue the uneducated don't join the church because they are too dumb to understand it.

To summarize:

In your view, Barker's basic argument is:
1) Intelligent, well-educated people don't join the Church because they "don't listen," and/or because they "don't know enough" about Mormon theology and doctrine.
2) The uneducated "rubes" don't join the Church because they are too stupid to grasp the complexities of the Church.

Does that pretty much sum up your take on Barker's theories?

[_Gadianton]

Yes, that sums up my take on Barker's theories.

For the record, I think the apologists are not in line with 1, but very much in line with 2.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Yes, that sums up my take on Barker's theories.

For the record, I think the apologists are not in line with 1, but very much in line with 2.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I also think that the apologists secretly *do* follow Barker Dictum #1, but of course they would never admit it in public.

Here is a question for you:

---Since the apologists (and both Barker and DCP have gone on the record about this) think that the bulk of Mormons are, in effect, "stupid rubes" who don't have a full knowledge of the Gospel, how do you think they explain the discrepancy between "converted rubes" vs. those who reject the Church as being "too absurd"? Or, to put it another way: if the Church has been able to convert and retain a large corpus of idiotic members who cannot grasp the Gospel, then how do the apologists account for the millions of non-LDS "rubes" who rejected the Church due to its "absurdity"?

[_Gadianton]

Scratch, I'm going to have to get back to you later tonight. Your line of questioning has led me to a stunning revelation.