What?????s wrong with Mormon Apologetics? My reply to Seth Payne

[Guest]

Brade:

To speak to one thing that bothers me, perhaps more than anything else, about about a lot of LDS apologetics, it's that it can often be reduced to saying something that fits the form "X doesn't prove that Y didn't happen; therefore, it's possible that Y happened".

I agree with this. In fact, I've been saying this for quite some time. The issue is, from a defender's position, the critic is trying to prove the believer position wrong--why else are they offering critical arguments. My position is based on faith and what others would term subjective personal opinion. To me my position is one of relying heavily on spiritual experience--and that experience is real. So when critical arguments contain holes, then the critic hasn't proven his case, even if their argument comes out, when weighed against all other possibilities, most reasonable. That's what gets me. The critic is so critical of defenders because they maintain belief because their arguments, though often reasonable do not disprove faith. Yeah yeah, so there is not a lot of evidence for the believer position on the Book of Mormon. So? My evidence is something I can't show you--it's internal and in a sense other worldly. Thus, to argue, the believers position on the book can't be taken seriously because there is not enough evidence to support it, the believer is rightly left with a "So?" in response. It certainly doesn't mean it's not possible. The critic is then left with nothing, essentially. Sure the critic will suggest the believer's claimed experiences may not be real...but then again, so? The critic is left with nothing in this area as well.

In a way, I feel for you guys in that you have an endless hill to climb. There is no end.

Someone doesn't understand the concept of burden of proof. It's an endless hill all right, but you don't seem to understand who is struggling up it.

[_Buffalo]

[

Additionally what you characterize as my feelings are more than just feelings. There is something real to me--it is data that I would call facts. Go ahead and tell me they aren't facts. That destroys it all for me.

You have no basis for that claim.

http://goodreasonblog.blogspot.com/2010 ... dence.html

But so-called personal revelation doesn't follow these controls.

Your feelings can't be directly observed by other people. That makes it impossible to evaluate someone else's religious claims, and that means that religious people have to 'agree to disagree' when they get conflicting revelations.
There's no way to tell whether the feeling you're getting is a real live revelation from a god, something from your own mind, or (worse) a temptation from an evil spirit, if you go for that. Or Zeus, Krishna, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's easy to distinguish between two competing natural claims, but it's impossible to distinguish between two competing supernatural claims.
A scientific experiment attempts to control for bias, but here, the missionaries are subtlely biasing their subjects by telling them what they should expect to feel. It's sort of like when you're playing records backwards for Satanic messages -- it's hard to tell what the message is until someone gives you the words.
The goalposts for this test are defined very vaguely and can be shifted. A confirmation can be ginned up out of the most meager of subjective data -- or no data at all. Many are the members who ask for a revelation, get none, and continue in the church anyway, figuring that if they have real faith, they don't need a spiritual confirmation. It's a hit if you have good feelings, and hit if you don't.
In a real experiment, we would try to account for both positive and negative results. But here, no attempt is made to add negative results to the sample. People who report a positive result show up in church, but people who get no result don't, and are effectively deleted from the sample. In fact, if someone doesn't get a revelation, it's assumed that they are to blame for not being 'sincere' or trying hard enough. They are encouraged to repeat the test until they get a result that the experimenter will like.
Worse still, once someone is convinced that they've received a message from a god, Latter-day Saints then make a series of logical leaps to show that the whole church is true, from the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith to Thomas Monson and beyond. All from good feelings and not from anything solid.

[_stemelbow]

Don't pretend that you actually care what my point is, stem. It seems to me that what you are really concerned with is quashing any criticism, no matter how well founded, of your pals in the apologetic community.

I believe you are so blinded, that you do not realize my position on many things at all. I do not quash any criticism. I put it all on perspective. It just so happens your intended criticism is often personal animus directed towards certain LDS folks, it seems to me. You complain they are so bad when they attack another, but in so doing you often personally attack them. So I point it out. You don't like it. Most people don't like to be told the truth, at times. But someone ought to say it, for your sakes.

I stand by my judgment that the underlying assumptions that drive Will and Daniel's reading of the purported "benefits of slavery" are racist. I don't think it is necessary to attribute to them personal hatred of black people in order for that to be true.

Interesting. I think your judgment of them is unjust, and that your attempt to characterize them as such is due to your own hostility, as much as you would deny it.

Racism is a worldview as much or more than it is a matter of personal feeling. It is a system of thought that began with fear of the other, but continues to thrive independent of an individual's conscious attitudes about members of different ethnic groups.

Very mundane here. Look, it doesn't matter. You don't like them and in so doing wish to paint them as racist. That's silly. What can be said in defense of such accusations?

"i'm not racist".

"yes you are...because when you quote a black man as finding happiness in his life, that must mean you support the notion that slavery happened for a good reason" or something.

"I didn't say that. I do know slavery happened and I'm very happy to know someone who can exult in his current state considering where we were not too long ago."

"You racist"

Stupid.

[_stemelbow]

Someone doesn't understand the concept of burden of proof. It's an endless hill all right, but you don't seem to understand who is struggling up it.

I wasn't really going to respond because we've been through this and I know where it's headed, but here goes.

The only way religious people hold their position is due to their individual attempts at faith. The only method to accept religious truth is by something some simply, like you, don't accept for whatever reason. My burden is to invite others to try it out. To see if they personally can find reason to believe while acknowledging the reason is based on spiritual experience. Some will search it out and find it and steadily believe. Others will not. Some will maintain belief due to their individual experiences over anything. Some will not. The proof in my eyes is in spiritual experience. To you that isn't proof of anything. I say, so? I can't help your unbelief. I"m not God. So I continue forward knowing full well many will not believe, and will not find reason to believe.

[_Themis]

Oh wait, i suppose plain childish mockery is what your left with, not nothing.

Not at all, but we are not talking about anything specific. I brought it only only because of an earlier post in which you show that you still play the possibility game no matter how unlikely they may be.

How not? Who said there is anything foolproof in spiritual experience? Likewise why do scholars disagree?

Scholars tend to agree very well on established theories. Also the facts are available to all. This is not true at all with the spiritual. There is so much disagreement here and the experience is very subjective. The comparison is a joke.

[_stemelbow]

Scholars tend to agree very well on established theories. Also the facts are available to all. This is not true at all with the spiritual. There is so much disagreement here and the experience is very subjective. The comparison is a joke.

Fine consider it a joke. I'm merely saying we can all disagree on many things if we so choose. I don't think disagreement itself is somehow indicative of the methods used as being problematic or even inefficient, per se.

[_Themis]

I'm merely saying we can all disagree on many things if we so choose.

LOL You think.

I don't think disagreement itself is somehow indicative of the methods used as being problematic or even inefficient, per se.

There is a huge difference between why scholars may disagree and those who disagree about what they think their subjective spiritual experiences are telling them. The LDS method is flawed in that it gives people different results in a major way.

[_lulu]

lulu - printing this one out to take on the train for better study.

Thanks all.

[_Buffalo]

Someone doesn't understand the concept of burden of proof. It's an endless hill all right, but you don't seem to understand who is struggling up it.

I wasn't really going to respond because we've been through this and I know where it's headed, but here goes.

The only way religious people hold their position is due to their individual attempts at faith. The only method to accept religious truth is by something some simply, like you, don't accept for whatever reason. My burden is to invite others to try it out. To see if they personally can find reason to believe while acknowledging the reason is based on spiritual experience. Some will search it out and find it and steadily believe. Others will not. Some will maintain belief due to their individual experiences over anything. Some will not. The proof in my eyes is in spiritual experience. To you that isn't proof of anything. I say, so? I can't help your unbelief. I"m not God. So I continue forward knowing full well many will not believe, and will not find reason to believe.

You can limit your interactions to simply inviting people to share your beliefs on faith alone, but the burden of proof is still entirely on those making supernatural claims. If you choose to abandon that burden, that's fine, but it doesn't shift to skeptics. You can choose not to attempt to climb the endless hill, but it's still your hill, not mine.

[_stemelbow]

Hey fellas (Buffalo and Themis),

It appears we aren't communicating effectively again. It seems you guys are missing my point, and I'd wager you think the same of me. I'll just concede that the religious method of determine truth, is not foolproof and is not universal to all religionists. I concede that if you wish to compare the methods used by religionists to those used by scientists the religionist method very much appears short. One could do a study, I'm sure, and arrive at that conclusion. Of course all of that, I'd maintain, misses my point.

Take care, chumps (meant in a nice and friendly way)