DCP’s incoherent babbling about morality

[Dr. Shades]

*if God doesn’t have a body and satan doesn’t have a body does that mean they are one and the same? We have to figure out, I guess, what is a non entity?

Mormonism teaches that God does have a body.

[Gadianton]

It's just that Dan isn't consistent with this idea. He's opportunistic to get atheists on a technicality, "Nope! God didn't say so, and so by definition it's arbitrary!" Otherwise, he's a hedonist. That's borne out in every conversation with Gemli. Life has no meaning if he can't personally live forever. What, Gemli asks, are you going to do forever? For one, more of the same things enjoyed now: eating out and travelling, Dan replies.

A case can be made that Jews prior to Persian captivity didn't have a concept of personal immortality let alone a consumer-oriented one. This would put Dan in a tremendous moral dilemma, because while he tries to make God the ground of morality by some kind of metaphysical imperative, on some occasions when arguing with atheists, what he really believes is that God makes meaning and morality possible because God can grant immortality and endless personal consumption. Without God all is permitted, not because of abstract logical necessity, but because without God, there is no carrot and stick to enforce anything.

If Dan lived in Abraham's time, he'd tell God to F off. Long life and proliferation of seed and even wealth or restoration of previously owned territory; the kind of promises Israel got, ultimately end. Unless Dan's paycheck has a sideways "eight" on it, he's not budging.

[sock puppet]

Luckily the concept of god is so poorly defined, most often resulting in an adequate description of nothing, we really don’t need to reach into our imaginations to conjure up what a god might think is the right thing to do. We can just easily imagine what is good ourselves. After all what are believers doing but imaging god and then telling us what their imagined god thinks? Someone trying to use morality to speak their god into existence is nothing more than that person pretending their own thoughts are god

That paragraph captures the rub. If A says, "You shouldn't drink coffee." A hearer thinks, 'who are you [A] to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?' However, if B says, "God doesn't want you to drink coffee?", the hearer starts questioning himself, 'what if there is a God who has told B that?' and 'will I be punished if I go against that?' Invoking God as the source of whatever the speaker wants to impose on listeners, the speaker is pretending his own thoughts are those of some higher, super power being and thereby causing the listener to doubt the real source and fear there might be a punishment from a 'God' if he drinks coffee. And the dynamic is complete, out of doubting himself, the listener kowtows to the speaker that invokes 'God', and thus the speaker gains power and gets his way.

With so many different individuals and groups each invoking a different version of 'God' and of what 'God' wants, it should become apparent to even the most ardent believer of a sect what the scam by all those that invoke 'God' to get power and the speaker's way is that is playing out. But then there is the 'special' dynamic. God has sent this messenger to me because I am special. Among Mormons this concept is particularly insidious for those 'born in the coventant', especially if there are generations of ancestry all born in the covenant and perhaps leading back to Nauvoo, to Missouri, to Kirtland, to Harmony or all the way to Manchester or even Palmyra. Tell someone they are special and you have them eating out of your hand.

When DCP says he thinks there is no morality without a 'God', DCP is exposing the fact that he has no idea who he really is. He's special. He was born Mormon. His ancestry dates back, I believe, to the Pennsylvania era of Mormonism. How much more special can he get without being a descendant of Joseph Smith Jr? DCP has always had this Mormon God crutch in his life, he's never 'walked' without it. DCP assumes that he would be morally rudderless without this crutch. He clings to it like Linus to his blanket, obviously afraid he might not like who he truly is without any crutch.

DCP then turns this dynamic a bit, and tells others that his God, the Mormon God--DCP's crutch--wants the listeners to do X and to refrain from doing Y. The angle is to instill doubt, which leads to fear, in the listeners. Religion thrives by getting people to doubt themselves and become fearful; religion is organized gaslighting.

[Rivendale]

Luckily the concept of god is so poorly defined, most often resulting in an adequate description of nothing, we really don’t need to reach into our imaginations to conjure up what a god might think is the right thing to do. We can just easily imagine what is good ourselves. After all what are believers doing but imaging god and then telling us what their imagined god thinks? Someone trying to use morality to speak their god into existence is nothing more than that person pretending their own thoughts are god

That paragraph captures the rub. If A says, "You shouldn't drink coffee." A hearer thinks, 'who are you [A] to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?' However, if B says, "God doesn't want you to drink coffee?", the hearer starts questioning himself, 'what if there is a God who has told B that?' and 'will I be punished if I go against that?' Invoking God as the source of whatever the speaker wants to impose on listeners, the speaker is pretending his own thoughts are those of some higher, super power being and thereby causing the listener to doubt the real source and fear there might be a punishment from a 'God' if he drinks coffee. And the dynamic is complete, out of doubting himself, the listener kowtows to the speaker that invokes 'God', and thus the speaker gains power and gets his way.

With so many different individuals and groups each invoking a different version of 'God' and of what 'God' wants, it should become apparent to even the most ardent believer of a sect what the scam by all those that invoke 'God' to get power and the speaker's way is that is playing out. But then there is the 'special' dynamic. God has sent this messenger to me because I am special. Among Mormons this concept is particularly insidious for those 'born in the coventant', especially if there are generations of ancestry all born in the covenant and perhaps leading back to Nauvoo, to Missouri, to Kirtland, to Harmony or all the way to Manchester or even Palmyra. Tell someone they are special and you have them eating out of your hand.

When DCP says he thinks there is no morality without a 'God', DCP is exposing the fact that he has no idea who he really is. He's special. He was born Mormon. His ancestry dates back, I believe, to the Pennsylvania era of Mormonism. How much more special can he get without being a descendant of Joseph Smith Jr? DCP has always had this Mormon God crutch in his life, he's never 'walked' without it. DCP assumes that he would be morally rudderless without this crutch. He clings to it like Linus to his blanket, obviously afraid he might not like who he truly is without any crutch.

DCP then turns this dynamic a bit, and tells others that his God, the Mormon God--DCP's crutch--wants the listeners to do X and to refrain from doing Y. The angle is to instill doubt, which leads to fear, in the listeners. Religion thrives by getting people to doubt themselves and become fearful; religion is organized gaslighting.

I like this description given on the comment section of Mormonism live regarding Bednar and revelation.

Team P0SEID0N
3 weeks ago
Let me get this straight. So, if you REALLY want to know something for certain in Mormonism, you've got all kinds of assistance -- or spiritual "apps"-- if you will to help you navigate on the straight and narrow path to salvation and exaltation (ignoring for the moment that if there really was a straight and narrow path, things should never be complicated or confusing anyway). You've got The Holy Ghost (TM). You've got The Light of Christ (TM). You've even got The Spirit of Discernment (TM), even though it's not clear whether that one is a stand-alone app or if it's a feature of either THG or TLC. Sounds pretty good. But as Bednar acknowledged, they all can be hacked by the adversary and his many minions with their many counterfeit apps that mimic the THG, TLC and TSD. Plus, members at any given time can even fool themselves into thinking that they are using THG, TLC and/or TSD, without realizing that those apps are not actually operating at that time.

Bednar implicitly confirmed exactly what David Whitmer attributed to Joseph Smith as a statement concerning the nature of revelation, i.e. "some revelations are of God: some revelations are of men: and some revelations are of the devil." And, given the context in which Joseph Smith was speaking (namely the "revelation" about selling the copyright of the Book of Mormon in Canada), often the only way you can tell the difference is to see what happens after you've committed to whatever "revelation" it is that is in play at the moment.

So given these gaseous, ambiguous and phantasmagoric methods of "knowing things" in Mormonism, what could possibly go wrong...other than just about everything and anything? To be honest, it sounds like your average Booger King, Taco Smell or Pizza Butt regional business management team would likely have a firmer grasp on reality and truth than the top leadership of the Mormon church...at least to the extent that the top leadership actually relies upon concepts like The Holy Ghost (TM), The Light of Christ (TM) and The Spirit of Discernment (TM) as their principal methods for "knowing things" and making decisions.
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[drumdude]

I feel somewhat the same way when I read threads on the Peterson Obsession Board in which earnest pseudonymous scholars of my thought endeavor to lay out my positions and to explain the motivations behind my vicious crimes, my absurd ideas, and my hilarious antics. On the whole, I seem to be a rather depraved, cruel, and corrupt dimwit (though at the same time, curiously and inadvertently, an often amusing one). Still, even I’m occasionally capable of learning new things, and I always learn lots of new things about what I believe and about what drives me when I read those threads — things that I had never so much as thought of until I read about them on the POB.

The wisdom of Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet is perfectly apt here: “For what do we live,” he asked, rhetorically, “but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”

But so, too, is that inscribed quotation at the American University in Cairo. The little coterie of Peterson scholars at the POB badly want me to be a cruel buffoon and so, accordingly, that’s exactly what I am. Which is, umm, perhaps not wholly coincidental. Sometimes, unfortunately, “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

Sometimes it seems like DCP is only getting the contents of this board fed to him 3rd hand through one of his followers rather than actually reading what is posted here.

[hauslern]

I have not seen DCP make any comment about January 6th. Also he is silent about the attack on Paul Pelosi. Some despicable comments have been made about him. He did not open the door the man was already inside. He was in his underwear duh! he was asleep. If Nancy Pelosi was home would he have killed her?

[dastardly stem]

That paragraph captures the rub. If A says, "You shouldn't drink coffee." A hearer thinks, 'who are you [A] to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?' However, if B says, "God doesn't want you to drink coffee?", the hearer starts questioning himself, 'what if there is a God who has told B that?' and 'will I be punished if I go against that?' Invoking God as the source of whatever the speaker wants to impose on listeners, the speaker is pretending his own thoughts are those of some higher, super power being and thereby causing the listener to doubt the real source and fear there might be a punishment from a 'God' if he drinks coffee. And the dynamic is complete, out of doubting himself, the listener kowtows to the speaker that invokes 'God', and thus the speaker gains power and gets his way.

With so many different individuals and groups each invoking a different version of 'God' and of what 'God' wants, it should become apparent to even the most ardent believer of a sect what the scam by all those that invoke 'God' to get power and the speaker's way is that is playing out. But then there is the 'special' dynamic. God has sent this messenger to me because I am special. Among Mormons this concept is particularly insidious for those 'born in the coventant', especially if there are generations of ancestry all born in the covenant and perhaps leading back to Nauvoo, to Missouri, to Kirtland, to Harmony or all the way to Manchester or even Palmyra. Tell someone they are special and you have them eating out of your hand.

When DCP says he thinks there is no morality without a 'God', DCP is exposing the fact that he has no idea who he really is. He's special. He was born Mormon. His ancestry dates back, I believe, to the Pennsylvania era of Mormonism. How much more special can he get without being a descendant of Joseph Smith Jr? DCP has always had this Mormon God crutch in his life, he's never 'walked' without it. DCP assumes that he would be morally rudderless without this crutch. He clings to it like Linus to his blanket, obviously afraid he might not like who he truly is without any crutch.

DCP then turns this dynamic a bit, and tells others that his God, the Mormon God--DCP's crutch--wants the listeners to do X and to refrain from doing Y. The angle is to instill doubt, which leads to fear, in the listeners. Religion thrives by getting people to doubt themselves and become fearful; religion is organized gaslighting.

I like this description given on the comment section of Mormonism live regarding Bednar and revelation.

Team P0SEID0N
3 weeks ago
Let me get this straight. So, if you REALLY want to know something for certain in Mormonism, you've got all kinds of assistance -- or spiritual "apps"-- if you will to help you navigate on the straight and narrow path to salvation and exaltation (ignoring for the moment that if there really was a straight and narrow path, things should never be complicated or confusing anyway). You've got The Holy Ghost (TM). You've got The Light of Christ (TM). You've even got The Spirit of Discernment (TM), even though it's not clear whether that one is a stand-alone app or if it's a feature of either THG or TLC. Sounds pretty good. But as Bednar acknowledged, they all can be hacked by the adversary and his many minions with their many counterfeit apps that mimic the THG, TLC and TSD. Plus, members at any given time can even fool themselves into thinking that they are using THG, TLC and/or TSD, without realizing that those apps are not actually operating at that time.

Bednar implicitly confirmed exactly what David Whitmer attributed to Joseph Smith as a statement concerning the nature of revelation, i.e. "some revelations are of God: some revelations are of men: and some revelations are of the devil." And, given the context in which Joseph Smith was speaking (namely the "revelation" about selling the copyright of the Book of Mormon in Canada), often the only way you can tell the difference is to see what happens after you've committed to whatever "revelation" it is that is in play at the moment.

So given these gaseous, ambiguous and phantasmagoric methods of "knowing things" in Mormonism, what could possibly go wrong...other than just about everything and anything? To be honest, it sounds like your average Booger King, Taco Smell or Pizza Butt regional business management team would likely have a firmer grasp on reality and truth than the top leadership of the Mormon church...at least to the extent that the top leadership actually relies upon concepts like The Holy Ghost (TM), The Light of Christ (TM) and The Spirit of Discernment (TM) as their principal methods for "knowing things" and making decisions.
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Lol, that is well said.


I used to argue with DCP about this type of thing. I’d tell him if Mormon leadership is inspired by god then so are leaders of all sorts of organizations and businesses. They all show the same signs of success when it comes to inspired thinking. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. They each gone in on a question and come up with inspired ideas of what to do or how to solve problems. Additionally each business often Carrie’s a mission statement that includes something about helping people as the goal just like Mormon incorporated does. Thus in these businesses people get together just like Mormon leaders and share ideas about how to support their goals and achieve their unstated or sometimes stated bottom line—growth, expansion, financial and social increase. The underlying thought to this is each business, organization etc holds as its core value that their existence is a benefit to mankind and society. I mean it enriches the decision makers so why not?

[bill4long]

Rape. Murder. Bad things. All repugnant. But "morality?" What the hell is that?

As smart as anyone might be, nobody else can make an atheistic "absolute moral" case against anything that you feel is repugnant.

It's all just molecules in motion, regardless of your feelings.

This has bean beaten to death philosophically for centuries. Who can anyone add to it?

FBO

[hauslern]

DanP does not seem too concerned about the lies (lack of morality) in where they tried some conspiracy about Mr Pelosi. Why was he in his underwear? Perhaps he is gay? There was someone else there. Beacuse the attacker was involved in the MAGA crowd they have to somehow swist the story. Especially Kari Lake.

[hauslern]

I liked the comment by Philosopher W K Clifford "It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence

HIs collegue Royal Skousen does not accept Smith's interpretations of the facsimiles. Does Dan still accept it?

Royal:

Noel has misrepresented what I said. And I’ve said very, very little (and, even then, only a while ago and only in response to a specific question from him) about your view. I don’t presume to speak for you and would never do so.

A former member of the Church in Australia, Noel constantly writes to scholars in and out of the Church trying to get them to say things critical of Joseph Smith and the Restoration. He’s been at it for many years.

Dan