The MADB Body Count

[_Kishkumen]

I would definitely say that the treatment I have received at the hands of some apologists has contributed to my alienation from the LDS Church.

So you admit that sin was a contributing factor......

Yes, I would.

As sin is a factor in anyone's existence.

[_Wisdom Seeker]

Are apologist without Sin?

[_brade]

How many of here would consider themselves to have been struggling members whose experience with MADB and/or apologists was a catalyst in the loss of their faith in the LDS Church?

I started getting into FAIR/FARMS/Maxwell Institute writings at about the same time I turned to MADB looking to discuss some of my questions with my fellow Latter-day Saints. I don't know that I can really quantify how much of the catalyst for me was apologetics in general and how much was MADB, but it is accurate to count me among MADB's body count.

I don't know how widely it's known, but, for what it's worth, I think I'm the most recent casualty of war from the MADB community. I'm hesitant to say that MADB and/or my experience with apologetics had/has anything to do with my belief changes. Maybe it has in the sense that, on the whole, I've not found the apologetic responses to many questions very satisfying. Though, some apologetic arguments and responses are compelling and many provide a nice reasonable balance to criticisms that simply go too far. So, I don't want to be taken as disparaging the whole apologetic project. And, honestly, if that played any part in the way I think now, it did so only peripherally.

[_MrStakhanovite]

What are you beliefs now Brade? Where exactly do you stand (if you know)?

[_moksha]

I would definitely say that the treatment I have received at the hands of some apologists has contributed to my alienation from the LDS Church.

So you admit that sin was a contributing factor......

But can he blame his alienation on the sin of these maltreating apologists? Would you?

[_Darth J]

So you admit that sin was a contributing factor......

Like General Authorities being indistinguishable from televangelists.......

Or the LDS Church spending on humanitarian efforts, over the course of a couple of decades, a fraction of what it is spending on a mall in Salt Lake City........

Or Latter-day Saints mocking and sitting in judgment over those who are struggling with their faith and looking for help........

Or "sin" invariably being defined as something to do with sex, something to do with alcohol or cigarettes, or failing to support anything and everything church leaders say or do without question.......

Or plagiarizing Masonic handshakes and telling people this is how you get into God's secret club, and telling people that underwear with magic Masonic symbols on it will protect them from evil.....

Or campaigning about "traditional marriage" when one is in a religion founded by a man who secretly practiced polygamy and polyandry, and which religion continued to practice polygamy until it lied about stopping it in the 1890's so Utah could become a state, and then stopped it again nearly a decade and a half later......

Or a grown man sitting alone in a closed office talking to a 12 year-old about masturbation......

Or telling people that there was a vast pre-Columbian Hebrew civilization in the Americas somewhere that practiced New Testament Christianity and even knew New Testament verses centuries before the New Testament was written......

Or telling people that Egyptian funerary documents were the record of Abraham teaching Mormonism to an unnamed pharaoh who could not have the priesthood himself because he was a negro.....

Yes, I will admit that sin was a contributing factor.

[_Ray A]

FARMS Review Volume 6 #1. I read this one right after reading New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology. To put it simply that entire issue is a train wreck. Ironically, that issue probably has more big name contributors than any other FARMS review out there. The responses were unhelpful and snide. Many times they didn't even engage the actual issues of the book they were critiquing.

That was a major turning point for me in finally determining that the Book of Mormon is not history. As for your quote that I placed in bold, what struck me too was the emphasis on lecturing about "worthiness", attaining the CK, etc. They were basically saying that critics were "darkened in mind". And to top all that off was Text and Context, about "degenerate moderns".

I was an apologist for MAD, something I have deeply regretted. Hopefully others still defending it will come to the same realisations I did. You live and learn.

Someone ought to make an actual list of those banned, a sort of "MAD Memorial". When I posted there in mid 2009, while going through old threads I was shocked at just how many they have banned. It seemed like nearly every archived page contained comments from a poster who was eventually banned. It was like a list of war dead.

[_Kishkumen]

Yes, I will admit that sin was a contributing factor.

Well played, Darth.

[_sock puppet]

Participating on MADB, MD, AOL LDD, etc., flawed as they all are (or were) has done nothing but strengthen my faith.

That makes sense. After all, what you have faith in is even more flawed.

[_sock puppet]

I have never contributed to MADB, however apologists did contribute to my exit. Three FARMS productions in particular stand out.

FARMS Review Volume 6 #1. I read this one right after reading New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology. To put it simply that entire issue is a train wreck. Ironically, that issue probably has more big name contributors than any other FARMS review out there. The responses were unhelpful and snide. Many times they didn't even engage the actual issues of the book they were critiquing.

Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon. I read this one to make sure I was up to date on the latest Book of Mormon apologetics before passing a final judgment on the Book of Mormon. The thing about it that was the most funny was that I had read everything, with one exception, earlier in Nibley. It turns out I really didn't need to get up to date on Book of Mormon apologetics, because there hasn't been any new apologetics for decades. The one exception, Sorenson's "How Could Joseph Smith Write So Accurately about Ancient American Civilization?" was the one thing that was new for me. However, it was easily the weakest article in the entire book and completely unconvincing.

Abraham in Egypt. Nibley spends the first 1/3 of the book engaging in a series of ad hominem attacks against anyone who has ever said anything negative about the Book of Abraham. He then spends the next 2/3 of the book avoiding every issue in the Book of Abraham controversy while fishing for any parallel he can find. He mostly just meanders around in vague search of a coherent argument, hoping that if he throws up enough Egyptology people will think he actually answered the criticisms. Even as a TBM I thought this book was stupid.

I really can't say how much these led to my apostasy, but they definitely contributed.

Great description of Nibley!