A conversation with Stan Barker of SHIELDS

[_why me]

Well, Shades, I have said it before: being an apologist is not easy.

Apologists always play the black pieces...and act defensively. This is not an easy game to play. Now if I were a critic, my life would be much easier. I would find it far less challenging than being an apologist. What does a critic do? Basically, a critic throws into the game platitudes such as: Hey, look at this, Joseph Smith had many wives...what a horney toad he was...Defend his polygyamy! Or...Hey, adrian, look at this: Joseph Smith destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor...what a undemocratic fellow...defend it! Or, Sidney wrote the book, I have read Dale's site and he has proven it...what do you have to say about it?

And of course, I am cutting and pasting from sites and quotations that support my understanding and causes the apologist to go on the defensive. Yep, critics have it easy....

[_why me]

Gee, is Barker going to clarify his views? Or can we safely assume that he is still smarting from having gotten his butt kicked by Dr. Shades?

Yep, he is definitely defeated. He should come back and clarify his views so we could attack him so more... and yep, he is still smarting that he got his butt kicked by shades...

Being an apologist is certainly not easy...

[_Dr. Shades]

Sethbag:

That treatise of yours was nothing less than masterful. It deserves to be printed into a pamphlet and passed out. And no, I am not joking.

Gee, is Barker going to clarify his views? Or can we safely assume that he is still smarting from having gotten his butt kicked by Dr. Shades?

I just re-checked my e-mail, and no, still no response from him.

Well, Shades, I have said it before: being an apologist is not easy.

I agree with that statement. I would hate to have to defend what they have to defend, that's for sure.

Yep, critics have it easy....

I most definitely agree with that, too.

[_why me]

Well, Shades, I have said it before: being an apologist is not easy.

I agree with that statement. I would hate to have to defend what they have to defend, that's for sure.

Yep, critics have it easy....

I most definitely agree with that, too.

Well, being an apologist for any religion is not easy. It is not possible for an apologist to prove a faith true because the existence of god cannot be proven and it is not easy to defend someone's faith that god exists.

In the Mormon case, they have Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Critics always attempt to blacken the founders intent and person as a way to say: 'hey, lookie here and see what ol' joe did...he must not be a prophet'...or they attempt to offer Book of Mormon authorship strategies...both have been done for well over a hundred years now. But to no effect...the LDS church is still around. The critics here will be dead and gone and more critics will take their place and repeat the criticisms ad nauseam. It has become one big circle merry go-around but without the music.

[Anonymous]

Now what I have seen is that what the LDS church represents has much truth in it, especially in how to do life.

So does Buddhism. So do a lot of philosophies of man. This Earth thing is a great big project that we're all involved in. There are seven billion people alive today, all trying to make the best life for themselves that they can, all trying to work out how to interact with each other as well as possible (at least most of them are), and so forth. A great many people who live, and have lived, on this earth, have put a lot of effort into figuring out how to live lives of happiness, kindness, etc.

The good faith efforts of these people have paid off in various positive aspects of various philosophies. Every good thing that you see in Mormonism is this way, ie: the fruit of well-meaning people trying to do the best they could in life.

It doesn't mean it's "true" in the "I bear my testimony..." sense of the word.

Also, looking into the early beginnings of Mormonism with the wítnesses and emma and sidney, plus Joseph Senior and his wife...I see much that is faith building. The early Mormon story has many unbelieveables in it. It is unbelieveable that 11 people never retracted their testimony. It is unblelieveable that emma after all she went through never just came out and said that the LDS church is false. Instead, her children were raised to believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

You have to remember the context. This was the early to mid 1800s, with a self-selecting crowd of believers. For these people, faith in God, of some sort, was the default position. And there was no real alternative. You have to remember this. The people with whom Joseph Smith created the church, and those who joined after it, believed in the supernatural, believed in God, and the idea that these things didn't exist at all would almost surely have been totally alien to their minds. They had rejected the authority of the Popes, and were left in an environment rich in the invention of and practice of religion in ways that had them seeing things massively different than we do.

But yes, there are many unbelievables.

1) It is unbelievable that a kind, loving, merciful God really did order his "covenant people" to slaughter whole kingdoms and tribes of people just so that this covenant people could live on a certain chunk of land.

2) It is unbelievable that this same kind, loving, merciful God "trained" Joseph Smith to be a true and credible Prophet by having him stare at a peepstone at the bottom of a hat for the purpose of identifying the location of buried treasure. This simply cannot be believed, I'm sorry.

3) It is unbelievable that this God regards something as trivial as masturbation as this heinous crime, and yet let his Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and essentially his Right-Hand Man on Earth screw a variety of different women, starting with his hired help Fanny Alger, multiple years before any possible pretense of sealing, Celestial binding, etc. can be claimed.

4) Given how we who grew up as Mormons were taught that God valued honesty, fidelity, and regarded any sex outside of very strict limits to be abomination, it is unbelievable that this same God not only allowed Joseph Smith to practice rampant secret polygamy, and lie about it, even to his own legal wife, but in fact ordered him to keep doing it even after he'd already surpassed double digits. I may have to look this up again, because I'm going on just straight memory here, but I believe the girl Joseph told the "angel with the flaming sword" story to was like #18 or 20 or so. I'm sorry Why Me but this is simply unbelievable.

It is simply impossible to believe that manipulation, spiritual coersion, and deception on the scale practiced by Joseph Smith were sanctioned by the God I grew up believing in. It's simply not possible.

5) It is unbelievable that the characters on the paper that are said to be reformed Egyptian are in fact authentically ancient characters used by a real people that actually existed.

6) It is unbelievable that any people were led to the American Continent in the aftermath of the confounding of languages at the Tower of Babel, which is a complete and total myth.

7) It is unbelievable that Abraham wrote down a story on papyrus, and that this story, either the original version or some subsequent copy of it, was included for some reason on an ordinary Egyptian funeral spellbook by the priests of said pagan religion, and that the facimilies really do mean what Joseph Smith said they mean, and that the KEP's and alphabet and grammar have either A) anything remotely to do with reality, or else B) are entirely to be blamed on the ignorant scribes. It's unbelievable that the story of Abraham really was written on the papyrus, but in a stroke of terrible luck, exactly those sections of papyrus that contained the Abraham story were lost, leaving only those sections of papyrus that happen to be Egyptian funeral rites.

The entire Book of Abraham apologetic is completely unbelievable. Sorry, but it's simply impossible to believe that stuff without an intense need for the Book of Abraham to remain credible.

8) It's unbelievable that the same kind, loving, Mormon God I grew up believing in denied black people his holy priesthood, and ordinances necessary for salvation, all the way up until 1978, all the while allowing his Special Witnesses of Jesus Christ, his apostles, yea verily, even the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the whole Earth should look to for spiritual guidance, to say things like that the black people were less valiant in the pre-existence, or that they were cursed with black skin because of the sin of Cain, or that they would be white folks' servants in the Celestial Kingdom, or whatever other manner of complete racist bullsh*t these guys once taught. I'm sorry, Why Me, but it's simply unbelievable. Has God no shame, that he would let his Special Witnesses so wreck the credibility of his Kingdom on Earth with their stupid racist beliefs?

Why Me, there are so many freaking unbelievables about the Mormon Church, it's founding, early days, it's methods, beliefs, doctrines, practices, etc. that it's not even funny. And yet you are convinced by the fact that 11 credulous frontier folk from the 1820s and 30s of American history never incriminated themselves by admitting they were part of a fabrication?

Tell me this, Why Me: do you really expect everyone who was ever part of the creation of the many thousands of various religions and faiths that have existed to recognize that they were involved in the creation of something manmade? Would you not expect that the pool of people willing and able to become involved in such a creation to be a crowd fairly well self-selected for credulity, faith in the supernatural, and belief in what they were doing? Why would the Mormon 11 be any different than the founders of, say, 7th Day Adventists, or Methodists, or Baptists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or even Roman Catholicism, for God's sake.

And of course, no one to my knowledge saw Joe with feathered pen in hand writing a document that would become the Book of Mormon. Nor did anyone ever say that good ol' joe bought a lot of paper for his manucript. This is not something that one can keep secret for too long.

Yet paper was bought, because the the manuscript of the Book of Mormon wasn't exactly delivered to the printer scribbled on the back of Oliver Cowdery's hand, was it?

So, nobody claims to have seen Joseph Smith with pen in hand writing the first draft of the Book of Mormon, and so you find it impossible to believe that maybe he did, but people claim to have witnessed Joseph Smith pressing his face into a hat, staring at a magic rock that the hat contained, and reading words off ethereal parchment that appeared on this rock, and you find that more believable? Really? Really? Are you kidding me?

And so, I am a fundamental kind of person. I look at the simplicity of it all in the very beginning and wonder just how he did it if he were a fraud and at this moment, I cannot see how.

You're not meant to see how he did it. That's the nature of fraud, and con games, and whatnot. They are done to convince people of something other than what really happened. It's what these things are all about. Do you really go to a magic show assuming that the magician is going to explain and demonstrate every trick to you?

Have you never watched one of these guys like a hawk, trying to figure out how they are doing some particular "magic" trick, and still, even having seen it with your own two eyes, not been able to figure it out? I don't know about you, but I have. I've stood three feet away from a guy who was hired to do magic tricks at a trade show I worked at once, and I saw him do the same trick a few different times, and still never figured it out.

But you figure that since we don't know the particulars of exactly how Joseph Smith fooled everyone into believing he was a real prophet, 180 years later, then the default belief must be that he was genuine?

Still, if you really want to see just how Joseph Smith fooled people, look at the Book of Abraham with a more critical eye. It's all right there for you to see. Joseph Smith found himself in need of impressing his believers with his Prophetic powers. The opportunity presented itself in the form of ancient documents that for all he knew nobody could read, nor ever would be able to. He represented these documents as the works of not just one ancient Israelite prophet, but two (Abraham and Joseph), and subsequently wowed his audience with all sorts of gibberish. And they ate it up!

Unlike the Book of Mormon, however, we can see right through this one in remarkable detail. Why Me, tell me, honestly, what aspects of the coming forth of the Book of Abraham, the papyri, the facsimilies, etc. cannot be explained by Joseph Smith pretending to know what they meant, and inventing the Book of Abraham story and the KEP and Alphabet and Grammar materials and whatnot as a way of sucking his followers further into his thrall? Seriously, what aspect of this whole thing cannot be explained by the theory that Joseph Smith made it up?

[_Sethbag]

Well, being an apologist for any religion is not easy.

Particularly when the religion isn't actually true, and when you're a reasonably smart guy. I mean seriously, just imagine what it must be like to be a Scientology apologist.

It is not possible for an apologist to prove a faith true because the existence of god cannot be proven and it is not easy to defend someone's faith that god exists.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if this God made it a bit more obvious. I mean, seriously, this God has created a universe in which it is not only possible to believe that it came about without his own direct intervention, but which actually shows evidence of this in fact having taken place.

Imagine that: you're an apologist, with your frail, weak human mind, trying to defend a Guy who deliberately made the universe look as if he's not really there. Gee, thanks God. He certainly didn't make your job any easier, did he? Way to go, Big Guy!

In the Mormon case, they have Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Critics always attempt to blacken the founders intent and person as a way to say: 'hey, lookie here and see what ol' joe did...he must not be a prophet'...

Given the plethora of false prophets who have stood up and proclaimed to the world that they had been secretly empowered by God to represent him on Earth, and that all on Earth were bound to follow him and obey his commands as if he were God speaking, don't you think this is a pretty obvious course of action for anyone who sees a guy make a similar claim?

And did not Joseph Smith actually do the things that "blacken" his reputation?

Seriously, Why Me, this deserves to be said again. When the 999th guy has stood up and claimed to be God's secretly appointed Right Hand Man on Earth, and has proven to be an imposter, and then the 1000th guy claims up and says essentially the same thing, do you not think his claims deserve a little scrutiny? And do you not believe that any reasonable God who might exist would have some sort of duty to make his chosen representative on Earth at least somewhat credible and believable to those doing their due diligence?

or they attempt to offer Book of Mormon authorship strategies...both have been done for well over a hundred years now. But to no effect...the LDS church is still around.

For God's sake, the Roman Catholic Church is still around. The Church of England is still around. Hubbard's been dead for like 20 years or so and Scientology is still around. Jehovah's Witnesses are still around. Does this not rather hurt your defense, by showing that there is something especially resilient about religious beliefs, even when they are obviously manmade and not literally true?

The critics here will be dead and gone and more critics will take their place and repeat the criticisms ad nauseam. It has become one big circle merry go-around but without the music.

It is quite likely that the Mormon church will remain in operation and existence for a long time, assuming the human species doesn't annihilate itself anytime soon. This would be right in line with the history of a very great many of other manmade churches, which have remained for centuries, even millenia, despite being utterly, and obviously inventions of man.

It's all about the memes man!

Why Me, you are better than this. There is nothing really outlandish or mysterious about what's going on here. What you would so clearly recognize if it was a Jehovah's Witness posting here, and it were you and I watching and examining his claims, you cannot recognize in yourself, despite the fact that it's really exactly the same thing.

[_Dr. Shades]

[Everything that Sethbag said]

Sethbag, I'd really love to borrow your brain sometime. It'd do me a world of good.

[_Gadianton]

I too applaud Sethbag's fine analysis. The gist of what I got out of it is that the apologists are asking for way too much. I mean, it's not like they are just arguing for one of many competing theories about how things are in the world. Rather, they are arguing things are a certain way, and if things are that way, then every man, woman, and child on this planet is at once bound to completely revise all their hopes, dreams, and needs in life in order to serve the institution that supposedly makes this information available, the consequences of not doing so being "Eternal Death". And the force of this contract is upheld by the demonstrations of its divine, ultimate validity by the apologists.

Einstein once said, 'In our time, scientists and engineers carry a particularly heavy burden of moral responsibility, because the development of military means of mass destruction is dependent on their work"

Do the apologists understand the moral responsibility of their work? Do they appreciate the huge, monumental changes to the world they demand every time they offer one of their proofs for the church's validity? To me, it seems like most of them are playing games and caught up in locker-room talk. At best, apologetics is a hobby-horse. Well, I don't think the whole planet should be bound to change everything just because some apologist has a hobby.

Would the apologists really be ready for a world that took them seirously? Imagine for a moment, that everyone who read Schryver's and Shirts's arguments for the Book of Abraham started buying it. Imagine that eventually, millions and millions of people just swallowed all of it hook line and sinker, and ignored anything "Joe did", and admitted the Church is true, and that everyone owes Shirts and Schryver a debt of gratitude for proving it. Would they really be ready for the consequences of the world taking them seirously? Do they really believe in the religion they happened to grow up in so much, that they would be prepared for being responsible for turning the entire planet Mormon because their arguments were so powerful, and demanded this result on the threat of Eternal Damnation for refusing? They might say yes, but the general immaturity they demonstrates says "no way in hell" are these two yahoos shouldering the great burden that follows naturally for what otherwise looks like a silly little hobby.

It would be a moral outrage for the apologists to be "taken seirously".

Kerry, at least, is a nice guy, but I don't think he or others really grasp what they are asking for when demanding people take their work seriously.

[_Doctor Scratch]

It is a frightening prospect, I agree, Dr. Robbers. On the other hand.... Maybe that really *do* hope that they can change the whole world. This may go some ways towards explaining why the apologists are so reluctant to discuss their motivations.

Or, it could be as I've observed: while there is some dabbling in actual persuasion and in legit doctrinal and theological issues, the real heart of Mopologetics is pumping to the rhythm of revenge and vindictiveness. It's not so much that they want the world to convert; it's that they want Church critics to experience the same rage, humiliation, and existential pain that all of them have felt, and continue to feel.

[_Yong Xi]

Kerry, at least, is a nice guy, but I don't think he or others really grasp what they are asking for when demanding people take their work seriously.

Both Shirts and Schryver are most interested in academically credentialed FARMS apologists taking them seriously. Schryver's obvious insecurity overwhelms any argument he attempts to make.