Why I think Thomas Riskas Is A Joke

[_Darth J]

1. Commit to complete the assigned reading for each thread , inclusive of all footnotes. (The assigned reading for the next thread will be the FP and Chs. 1 and 2, inclusive of all footnotes.);

2. Commit to be serious participants engaged actively (even if only "listening actively") in a good faith pursuit of understanding this book and contributing to mine and others' understanding;

3. Commit to not engage in polemics or debate, but instead keep the inquiries, comments, thoughts, offerings and disagreements civil and RELEVANT to the topics of the various threads as outlined.

Nothing is advanced by Riskas’ book other than the thesis (that is fast becoming a truism) that you can’t take the Mormon out of an Ex-Mormon.

QED.

[_Stormy Waters]

It is wrong to criticize Riskas, even if the criticism is true.

[_Blixa]

It is wrong to criticize Riskas, even if the criticism is true.

By God, Stormy, I'm so mad I didn't come up with this quip first. *shakes fist*

[_ludwigm]

It is wrong to criticize Riskas, even if the criticism is true.

By God, Stormy, I'm so mad I didn't come up with this quip first. *shakes fist*

You must check every moment of THIS.
Otherwise, You are lost.

[_Gadianton]

thanks for the heads up Dr. Cam.

At this point, wagers on how many more posts shall be produced in the DM forum are probably more relevant than anything else.

I read the TR post about half way.

note the caps

Yeah, we get it Tom. The fact you're discovering this crap late in life is great, but don't invest too much in the fact that you get it. What pains us is that certain apologists also like to make a big deal out of spelling "truth" with a lowercase "t" instead of a cap "t". Emphasizing "truth" with a cap or lowercase "t" or the word "philosophy" or "science" with caps/lowercase or anything else in lowercase vs. caps for the sake of announcing one's pragmatism or deflationism is pretty sophomoric. You need to get to know an apologist who calls himself "mfbukowski" (with a freaking lowercase "m" no less!). I can continue with names of apologists but for the sake of not sounding too petty, I won't.

...used to determine if Mormon truth claims inherent in Mormon 'God-talk' are indicative of factual reality (or 'Truth') as conceived and believed;

But you already discount or outright dismiss "truth", with a cap "t", you're very clear about this, even when a secular, godless atheists are supposidly guilty, so what are the chances that Mormon talk or any kind of talk can be indicative of "truth", with a cap "t"? You don't buy the cap "t", no deconstruction necessary. If you bought into the cap-t, then you could argue for the legit cap-t, and "deconstruct" the illigit cap-t. But you don't believe in cap-t, so all alleged cap-t-dependent ideas fail by fiat. Plenty of apologists are more excited than you about this fact, by the way. They think prophets are stupid and light their own fires in the wilderness, contra Hugh W.

If I follow Nielsen, then I can say that God-talk is meaningless, irrespective of whether or not I buy into representational absolutism or not. You [should] want to find arguments against Mormonism that aren't dependent on hair-splitting distinctions within epistemoloty/ontology.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Your IP address, domain or ISP has been blocked. Please contact the forum administrators.

Welp. That didn't take long.

Looks like there's an incredible discussion taking place on RFM ref Deconstructing Mormonism!

- Doc

[_Analytics]

So just who is this Thomas Riskas fellow? Tom is a business man turned polemical author in the realm of counter-apologetics....

I haven't read all of this thread, but what I've gotten out of it is that it is essentially a long, esoteric review of a book that focuses on Riskas the man and whether his views of the philosopy of Kai Nielsen are sufficiently nuanced to be qualified to write a book about "deconstructing Mormonism". The conclusion is that the man is a joke and that the book isn't worth reading, all without giving the reader of the review a clue as to what are the actual arguments in the Book--especially the arguments directly related to Mormonism's truth-claims. Did I miss anything?

If not, has the editor of Mormon Interpreter contacted you yet about reviewing the book for his journal?

[_MrStakhanovite]

Did I miss anything?

Yeah. The thread.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Sorry for the delay Dean Robbers...

Predictably, this whole project starts with logical positivism and verification, an idea that has pretty much been rejected, that a sentence, in order to be meaningful, must have empirical content. From Jacqueline's statement, it seems to me he's trying to get rid of ambitious assumptions like those made in logical positivism that can easily be disputed. Perhaps he ran into trouble down the road and had to get creative with semantics in order to support his ideas, but there are many factors to take into consideration before I would judge these arguments against God unsound because his semantic theory is mistaken. As an extreme example, I would not trash-can Roger Penrose's physics found in The Road to Reality that was so far above my head I couldn't follow it, just because he ascribes to a readily understood and naïve philosophical realism that he explains into the first chapters. The point being, his theological points might have value even if he hasn't revolutionized semantics; his semantics might not be material to his theological case. From this summary, it seems to me Nielsen is trying to avoid relying on unique semantics to make his case.

Kai is going to reject any sort of metaphysical theory of truth and go for a epistemological theory of truth (instead of basing our notions of truth about what there is or is not, we should base it on what we can justify). He embraces a pragmatic, anti-realist, and deflationary epistemological theory of truth that is going to rely heavily on empiricism for determining truth functions. As you’ve already noted above, this severely limit’s the number of truth claims that could be made, so as remedy he borrows an idea from Rorty that talks about a sentence/proposition/belief that is “assertable” or not. Trying to pin down what is assertable or not from Rorty is really…well…difficult.

[_Samantabhadra]

Analytics, I suggest you read this whole thread. Stak has been very upfront about where/how Riskas is failing to produce good scholarship.