Droopy wrote:This video is a cornucopia of slovenly, facile argument, disingenuity, apparent ignorance of basic LDS doctrine, unfamiliarity with two decades of apologetic scholarship, and resuscitations of a number of long discredited and debunked anti-Mormon myths, some of which can be traced back to the 19th century to the most lurid and vacuous anti-Mormon bigots of that age.
You clearly missed the entire point of the presentation. The point is that members of the church are raised with a sanitized version of church history, and so when they are confronted with troubling issues they have never heard about in church it can trigger a crisis of faith because it makes people feel like they have been misled by their church. Of course, apologists like you always want to blame the member and say it's his own fault that he didn't learn about these issues, and that each of the troubling issues have clearly been "debunked" anyway, which is complete BS. You didn't give any examples so I don't know what you were talking about, but Book of Abraham translation issues are not a "myth" and they certainly haven't been "debunked" . . . and that is just one example.
Apologists have made arguments yes, but making an argument doesn't mean that an issues has been "debunked." I have read all of the apologists' arguments about Book of Abraham translation issues and I have found them all to be weak smoke screens that obscure the fundamental problems. I will also admit that I have yet to read a convincing argument as to how Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon (I thought Palmer's and Vogel's books, for example, were seriously flawed). Just wanted you to know that I am in fact not a moron that just accepts whatever any critic of the church spoon feeds to me (which appears to be exactly what you assume about everyone that doesn't think exactly like you and kneel down at your feet declaring "we're not worthy mighty Droopy" while genuflecting in awe at the unmatched brilliance of your wit and prose).
When questioning members encounter apologists like you that question their motives and their intelligence, it only makes them angrier and more likely to leave the church. You are doing more harm than good. You should listen to John's interview of Terryl Givens for Mormon Stories. You would do well to learn to approach apologetics like Givens does. You may no longer be able to gratify your ego and come across like a smug, condescending a&*hole on Mormon chat boards, but you would be more successful at actually keeping people in the church.