The logic of apologetic backfire

[malkie]

For me it was the very existence of the problems, when there shouldn't have been, had the church's claims been true. I think this is why the CES letter has the power it does. If you are indoctrinated into believing that you belong to God's one and only true church, why would there be any issues? Why would a CES letter even exist? And if there are answers, the answers should be clear and concise. The CES letter starts many on the deep dive to see what the apologists say about the issues and soon they find the apologetic responses to be wanting.

I find in particular that FAIR's criticism of the CES Letter is more damaging than the Letter itself.

[Dr Exiled]

For me it was the very existence of the problems, when there shouldn't have been, had the church's claims been true. I think this is why the CES letter has the power it does. If you are indoctrinated into believing that you belong to God's one and only true church, why would there be any issues? Why would a CES letter even exist? And if there are answers, the answers should be clear and concise. The CES letter starts many on the deep dive to see what the apologists say about the issues and soon they find the apologetic responses to be wanting.

I find in particular that FAIR's criticism of the CES Letter is more damaging than the Letter itself.

I was thinking of that when I made my comment. FAIR's response to the issues brought up in the CES letter were sadly lacking and that is the problem for the apologists. Grindael, a former poster here before his death, did an excellent job with Jeremy Runnells in responding to FAIR's weak response.

[Physics Guy]

Perhaps the connection to the crow paradox is that "this story is all pretty unlike real life as I know it" is like the animal in the tree being a bird, and "Joseph Smith was a sketchy guy" is like it being black. If one is oneself like biologist A, admitting that the critter's a bird but comfortable that it's no darker than grey, then finding someone like biologist B, who argues it's not like a bird but confirms that it's black, is going to make one believe that this creature's a crow, this frontier faith was a con.