Bob Loblaw wrote:This is a perfect description of Mormon apologetics in general. Everything they do is evasion, diversion, and misses the obvious stuff. It's an effective tactic and I'm glad you are not letting them get away with it.
It really is their modus operandi if you think about it. The purpose of FARMS was to make sure believers never got their hands on books or papers critical of the faith. They thought that as long as they "reviewed" these works first, then the believers didn't need to read them for themselves. They would do their thinking for them by pointing out whatever flaws they could find (like doing background checks to attack the character of the author or criticize typos and word counts!) while they ignore or misrepresent the hard hitting arguments. I am a victim of that too. I never read Charles Larsen's book because I was a loyalist who understood that reading "anti-Mormon" stuff was bad for my spirituality and that these things needed to be addressed by the super smart/spiritual folks at FARMS. By limiting my reading to John Gee's "reviews" I blinded myself to all the key arguments which Gee conveniently ignored. And it is expected behavior of all believers. Even to this day we see apologists respond to critical arguments with nothing more than a hyperlink to a FARMS review of a book in which that argument was published.
It is an institutionalized effort to instill ignorance and fear into the minds of the sheep. They know perfectly well that when the sheep start opening their minds to other view points and expose themselves to critical information, they gradually begin to realize how full of s*** Mormonism really is, and so their first line of defense is to make sure no one gets their hands on such information. Their attitude about this is really insulting if you think about it because they're essentially saying Mormon people in general are too weak and/or stupid because they cannot be trusted to read these things on their own and be expected to maintain faith. It is a foregone conclusion that most of them will see the critical arguments and leave the faith, which is precisely what we've been witnessing over the years as MAD apologists have been dropping like flies.
They also try to focus in on maximizing the effectiveness of scare words like "anti-Mormon," "apostate," etc. They're really in a bad situation because they are forced to defend things that are simply not true. So, because they cannot rely on evidence or logical deductions, they need every rhetorical tool in the shed to fabricate this illusion that in some convoluted sense, Mormon claims are just as "plausible" as any other.
But what has become stunningly obvious to me throughout my transition from apologist to critic, is their willingness to flat out lie, no matter how minor the point. So long as they thing the critics have no way of verifying their truth claims, they'll just lie and chalk it up as justified since loyalty and defending the faith comes first. So when Dan Peterson is accused of getting paid to do apologetics, he knows he can just lie about it and the critics will never be able to prove him wrong - until a future email proving the opposite is leaked to the web.
When the KEP were under tight control of the Church, people like Gee and Schryver felt they could just lie about these documents and get away with it since no one had the means to verify their claims.
Given that their modus operandi has been exposed for what it is, why would anyone ever trust these guys with anything again?
But apparently, if you are on the inside, you honestly CANNOT see this. It's weird isn't it? It appears you have heavily vested into these areas with a lot of thinking. But then so have the LDS scholars. The difference as I see it? They are (whether one likes the ethics and morality of it or not) virtually forced to walk a line that no matter what the church must be correct. It is no longer a search for the truth. Once they think they have it, it now morphes into something that no ethics are needed to do, defend the truth, at all costs, make sure the church comes out sunny side up.
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
I'm a newbie here, but just out of curiousity when did you switch from apologist to ardent critic? Did you post about it here or on your blog?
I dumped the damn church a few years ago. My old website was totally proMormon. I used to post on this board as a faithful Mormon under my actual name.
Tobin wrote:No, I'm saying the papyri weren't the source. They were merely the impetus. The original writings of Abraham do not exist nor should we expect to find them. The Egyptians would have no reason to maintain a story about Abraham (or his myths). They'd write about their own myths and depictions (as you'd expect).
Isn't that kind of like telling your wife that while you were having sex with another woman, you were falling deeply in love with your wife all along?
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
Tobin wrote:No, I'm saying the papyri weren't the source. They were merely the impetus. The original writings of Abraham do not exist nor should we expect to find them. The Egyptians would have no reason to maintain a story about Abraham (or his myths). They'd write about their own myths and depictions (as you'd expect).
Isn't that kind of like telling your wife that while you were having sex with another woman, you were falling deeply in love with your wife all along?
No.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
It certainly has the same quality. Sort of a cheap shot lie kinda feeling.
And why refer to the works of the Egyptians as mere myths? Much of their works are epic.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
It certainly has the same quality. Sort of a cheap shot lie kinda feeling.
Not really. As I've said, IF the Book of Abraham truly represents the writings of Abraham, then this is really the only plausible way for that to be true. There is simply no evidence (nor reason to believe) the Egyptian papyri contain anything about Abraham.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
Tobin wrote:...then this is really the only plausible way for that to be true...
plausible = reasonable, credible, probable
Umm, a better word is "desperate".
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
Philo Sofee wrote:I don't think plausible means the same as probable. Probable measures frequency. Plausible just means something this side of absurd.
I thought it meant seemingly reasonable or probable. Probability can be quantitative but it doesn't have to be.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)