Kerry Shirts, Top Candidate for Apostasy

[_MrStakhanovite]

I watched the entire video, while I didn’t learn anything new and my potatoes were rustled by Kerry’s conflation of epistemology with paradigm, it’s not a bad video at all.

What Kerry does reminds me a lot of Descartes’ project in First Meditations and dealing with the reality of skepticism and knowledge, but instead of talking about crafty demons using illusions, Kerry focuses in on humanity’s cognitive limits, and how prone we all are to falling into cognitive error unconsciously. He talks about how one is raised is going to deeply impact your beliefs and how these early foundational beliefs easily get assumed without serious scrutiny. He also spends time on how human cognition actively works against us at times, by making it so easy for us to be dismissive of evidence that runs contra our beliefs and how this can impact how you understand scriptures.

I didn’t see Kerry advocate for atheism, but merely used Dan Barker as a springboard into a meditation about spiritual experiences and how conditions and descriptions of them are nearly universal for a wide range of mutually exclusive beliefs.

The overall message I took home was that everybody needs to be very humble and cautious about what they proclaim to be God’s honest truth, and make sure you do the hard work needed to win those conclusions, instead of just waving it off.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

[_Aristotle Smith]

I had a nice phone conversation with Kerry last week. He is a really good guy who is struggling with some things but probably not in the way you think. He is frustrated in the way certain Mormon writers have misrepresented the Bible in publications. But he never said anything to me about leaving the faith. He is just really interested more in what's true instead of what's politically correct from a faith promoting perspective and I get the sense he is starting to see the light in the way Mormon writers misrepresent the facts on a number of issues, and he doesn't like it.

Now this sounds like my path out of the church. I was teaching Old Testament to seminary students when it happened. I was really excited about teaching it at first because I spent the summer prior to the school year learning as much as I could about the ancient near east, about academic study of the Bible, about Israelite culture and practice, etc. I was excited because I finally felt like I was starting to understand the Bible; it was no longer a disconnected string of proof texts and stories but a coherent whole.

Then I started teaching the class and it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to share much of this with the kids. CES really isn't that interested in having the students understand the Bible, they are interested in using the Bible to bolster Mormon doctrine (such as it is) and especially support the teachings (such as they are) of the GAs. Plus, teaching kids Old Testament from the KJV is just painful, they really don't understand it for the most part. Everyday I really tried to figure out how to slip in what was excited about. I also schemed continually about how to get a comprehensible Bible into the hands of my students. I finally gave up right around the same time my testimony was really starting to slip away and quit.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Then I started teaching the class and it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to share much of this with the kids. CES really isn't that interested in having the students understand the Bible, they are interested in using the Bible to bolster Mormon doctrine (such as it is) and especially support the teachings (such as they are) of the GAs. Plus, teaching kids Old Testament from the KJV is just painful, they really don't understand it for the most part. Everyday I really tried to figure out how to slip in what was excited about. I also schemed continually about how to get a comprehensible Bible into the hands of my students. I finally gave up right around the same time my testimony was really starting to slip away and quit.

That is the saddest part in my opinion. Here was an excellent chance for some kids to learn something about the Bible, and it got steamrolled under a corporate top-down model.

I imagine Kerry has suffered from the same, the guy reads widely and I’m sure he is just exasperated with how little the Church as an institution has to offer him.

[_Droopy]

No, I'm referring jokingly to the targets of Droopy and Schryver who instantly suspect someone is about to leave the Church the second they start showing signs of independent thought. If Kerry posted more on the MAD forum he'd likely be one of their targets.

No, Will and I and others only suspect that someone may be leaning toward apostasy when they, well, start leaning toward apostasy. Kerry has been here before. Over the years, Kerry has flirted with atheism before, as well as a fixation with theoretical physics (which he once told me had essentially invalidated the entire view of the nature and structure of the cosmos as understood in the gospel), something he calls "Mormon mysticism," and what appears to be his most debilitating challenge, a kind of god complex that can frequently afflict highly intelligent and educated individuals.

Kerry has lurched and lunged between various preoccupations such as this for many years, while remaining a strong defender of Joseph Smith and the Church. However, in recent years, he has, unfortunately, become ever more judgmental and critical of the Brethren along several major dimensions, and recent posts at the MDB indicate that he perceives himself to have moved well beyond the General Authorities of the Church in his own spiritual and intellectual development, and is on the verge of some kind of, what he appears to consider a personal transcendence regarding the Church and its claim of being the authoritative organized vehicle through which the the gospel is preached, its doctrines settled and established, and the Saints organized as a people.

This is unfortunate. This is intellectualism in the form that can be the most destructive to both the spirit and the intellect.

[_Jason Bourne]

[quote="Droopy]No, Will and I and others only suspect that someone may be leaning toward apostasy when they, well, start leaning toward apostasy. Kerry has been here before. Over the years, Kerry has flirted with atheism before, as well as a fixation with theoretical physics (which he once told me had essentially invalidated the entire view of the nature and structure of the cosmos as understood in the gospel), something he calls "Mormon mysticism," and what appears to be his most debilitating challenge, a kind of god complex that can frequently afflict highly intelligent and educated individuals.[/quote]

Ah yes two of the self proclaimed rooter outers of apostates. Modern day Orin Porter Rockwells to the rescue.

[quote="Droopy]Kerry has lurched and lunged between various preoccupations such as this for many years, while remaining a strong defender of Joseph Smith and the Church. However, in recent years, he has, unfortunately, become ever more judgmental and critical of the Brethren along several major dimensions, and recent posts at the MDB indicate that he perceives himself to have moved well beyond the General Authorities of the Church in his own spiritual and intellectual development, and is on the verge of some kind of, what he appears to consider a personal transcendence regarding the Church and its claim of being the authoritative organized vehicle through which the the gospel is preached, its doctrines settled and established, and the Saints organized as a people.

This is unfortunate. This is intellectualism in the form that can be the most destructive to both the spirit and the intellect.[/quote]


In other words he is thinking for himself. Indeed that can be a dangerous thing to one's testimony. Dangerous but perhaps not detrimental over all to ones own personal journey in life.

[_Droopy]

Ah yes two of the self proclaimed rooter outers of apostates. Modern day Orin Porter Rockwells to the rescue.

Be afraid...be very afraid.

In other words he is thinking for himself. Indeed that can be a dangerous thing to one's testimony. Dangerous but perhaps not detrimental over all to ones own personal journey in life.

Typical secularist/idolotarian drool winding its way down the apostate chin to settle in a viscous pool on the floor of the Great and Spacious Building.

The hornets are really buzzing today.

Must be Sunday.

[_Jason Bourne]

Ah yes two of the self proclaimed rooter outers of apostates. Modern day Orin Porter Rockwells to the rescue.

Be afraid...be very afraid.

In other words he is thinking for himself. Indeed that can be a dangerous thing to one's testimony. Dangerous but perhaps not detrimental over all to ones own personal journey in life.

Typical secularist/idolotarian drool winding its way down the apostate chin to settle in a viscous pool on the floor of the Great and Spacious Building.

The hornets are really buzzing today.

Must be Sunday.

YAAAWWN

[_RockSlider]

I imagine Kerry has suffered from the same, the guy reads widely and I’m sure he is just exasperated with how little the Church as an institution has to offer him.

and worse yet, a very lonely place, with no one to share with.

[_Kevin Graham]

In other words he is thinking for himself. Indeed that can be a dangerous thing to one's testimony. Dangerous but perhaps not detrimental over all to ones own personal journey in life.

Yes, thinking for yourself is a huge NO NO in Mormonism. Droopy does this all the time when trying to be an apologist on Mormon matters, and the funny thing is he has relied on Kerry Shirts in the past simply because Kerry was the only Mormon who tried to address the issue. All Droopy needs is a loyalist's perspective, no matter if it is reasonable or not.

I spoke with Kerry over the phone recently and he told me he is completely out of the loop on this Book of Abraham stuff for about a decade now. He didn't even know the two ink theory was abandoned/refuted.