What?????s wrong with Mormon Apologetics? My reply to Seth Payne

[_stemelbow]

Tacked up on that cross just so makes for easy shooting.

H.

As it is, sadly, I comment and within a few responses its not about what I said at all...it's about me. It's pretty stupid. I call people on it and the next thing that comes is a bunch of silly posts about how it's my fault, even some saying it's my fault because I called people on it after the attacks.

But, there are plenty of folks like Toronto to chime in and jump on the pile too.

The silly games played at MDB. Cute stuff indeed.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Tacked up on that cross just so makes for easy shooting.

H.

As it is, sadly, I comment and within a few responses its not about what I said at all...it's about me. It's pretty stupid. I call people on it and the next thing that comes is a bunch of silly posts about how it's my fault, even some saying it's my fault because I called people on it after the attacks.

But, there are plenty of folks like Toronto to chime in and jump on the pile too.

The silly games played at MDB. Cute stuff indeed.

Is it as "cute" as the "nipple rings" you supposedly wear?:

My name is David Troy Anthony Bennett. i have a wife and three kids ages 13, 3, and 3 mos. I live in sandy Utah. I coach my 13 year old's basketball team--which so happens to be my favorite sport. I weigh 175 lbs and am in the process of getting back in shape so I'll shed 15 or so, I imagine. My hair is black, my eyes are brown, my mustache is fluffy, my nipple piercings are shiney. I chew my fingernails, which totally annoys my wife so i try not to very often. I am amazing at preserving underpants. They remain pristine after 10 years of use.

Peace to you all.

viewtopic.php?p=521758#p521758

[_Dr. Shades]

Half a minute. The person in question provided that information on the board and openly, according to Dr. Scratch. Further, he acknowledged that this was the case when he said in response to Scratch:

Yes, it's pretty weird that you remember that

Information that has been made public surely cannot be dropped into the memory hole, can it?

[MODERATOR NOTE: You're right. I stand corrected.]

[_lulu]

What was the question?

Many parts of this thread are quite excellent in my opinion. I think it would be great to expand on them. I hope someone does.

I think it might be tough to decide if the problem is substance alone or rhetoric alone. Both? I don’t disagree that Mormon apologetics, for the most part, lack substance. Some, most? of its rhetorical stance has real problems too. Which is worse? That could be a close question and might depend on what is being labeled apologia, most of Peterson? and what is not, most of Bushman & Givens?

I didn’t know of Robert Sungenis, who has a cool last name, especially in view of his best known view, but I don’t think I’ll be reading much geo-centrism soon. If Stak would care to elaborate more specifically on how he fits here. Sungenis has done a particularly good job of arguing an impossible position? A Jesuit’s take on Christians’ misinterpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures would attract me first. Most all of Christianity could be rightly understood as a misinterpretation of most Jewish self-understandings of its traditions.

Roman Catholics, for better or worse, have a much larger population base to draw on for high quality writing and thinking. It has had much, much longer to develop a tradition, points made by Kish. But I’d be careful about thinking that there is/was a “golden age” of Roman Catholic intellectualism. That church always had and has ways of controlling what it doesn’t like. I suggested some of those in an earlier post. Not everyone, least of all everyone in the hierarchy, immediately jumped up and said “hail Aquinas.” And you need not look far to find some really bad Roman Catholic apologia. Aristotle Smith suggests Roman Catholicism has “a general desire to defend the church using the best scholarship.” But how any institution, especially a really big one, expresses its desires can be complex.

Will it get better in Mormonism? I don’t know. It could well be the people on the edge of the Mormon movement, you Stak? will do the work that will eventually be accepted as top Mormon intellectualism, not the people at the center, Midgley and Gee.

I don’t think the Book of Mormon is a stylistic master piece. As that other Bloom, Harold, says, “I cannot recommend that the book be read either fully or closely, because it scarcely sustains such reading.” In fact, he claims, “Joseph Smith’s alternative texts . . . are all stunted stepchildren of the Bible.” But Bloom also says that Joseph was a minor religious genius. As I said in a prior post, it recombines, and I would add here, recombines very creatively, things that were already being discussed. Is this Givens’ point? How does it compare to Tolkien? I don’t know, I’ve never read Tolkien and don’t plan to, from what I know, he’s just not my taste, sounds like that makes me an outsider among the “Mormon less active” on MD.

My problem with what, at least some thought, was a good Petersonian blog post regarding evidence is raised, to my understanding, in this thread by brade. Yes there is evidence, but what is the quality of the evidence? Is there some evidence that has so little probative value that it deserves only a nanosecond of consideration? A whole bunch of things are possible, but what things are probable? Is it probable that an angel showed Martin Harris some historiographically correct plates via his spiritual eyes? Is it probable that people from Palestine were part of the pre-Columbian American population? Judy Tenuta’s “it could happen” is the high point of Mormon apologia?

Thanks, Kish for recommending Brown, another book to get for Kindle. I don’t think Brook’s Refiner’s Fire gets enough attention so I’m glad to see it come up. It only won the Bancroft Prize, that’s for the best historical work of the year. Quinn is deservedly noteworthy but I think Brook contextualized Quinn after Quinn first brought together boatloads of basic facts. They really need to be read in tandem. For a time I’d said paganism was my favorite part of Mormonism. But I’ve moved on since then.

Bushman is behind the curve, but at 80 we might all be behind the curve. I’ll admit that I haven’t kept close enough track in apologetics and Mormon intellectual circles to know “whose got next.”

I’m left curious as to how an epistemological argument as suggested by Givens might proceed.

Looking forward to seeing you arguing from your “other” side Ray.

How’s the hoops team, Stem?

lulu – advocating for Lucy as the founder of Mormonism since 2001

[_RayAgostini]

My problem with what, at least some thought, was a good Petersonian blog post regarding evidence is raised, to my understanding, in this thread by brade. Yes there is evidence, but what is the quality of the evidence? Is there some evidence that has so little probative value that it deserves only a nanosecond of consideration? A whole bunch of things are possible, but what things are probable? Is it probable that an angel showed Martin Harris some historiographically correct plates via his spiritual eyes? Is it probable that people from Palestine were part of the pre-Columbian American population? Judy Tenuta’s “it could happen” is the high point of Mormon apologia?

I have to admit that I'm not sure what Dan considers evidence, after
trying to understand his reasoning Here.

For the record: I myself think it extremely likely that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. Or, rather, hugely improbable that it doesn't. But it's striking that, thus far, we've found no recognizable signs of it.

So I'm in a bit of a flux now about what he considers "evidence". If it's eyewitness testimony, there are thousands, hundreds of thousands more eyewitnesses to "the alien presence" than to the Book of Mormon. While I've admitted that my own experience could well have been manufactured on earth, neither I, nor anyone else who was there, can confirm it either way. All we knew was that "man-made craft don't fly like this" (unless there are secret technologies we know nothing about). And we were by no means significant witnesses. See Timothy Good, as one example for better evidence. So to say there are, and have been "no recognizable signs" of extraterrestrial visitors, either demonstrates a non-reading or misreading of the available eyewitness evidence. What we make of it after reading it is another matter, but there's no denying that it (the evidence) exists - in abundance. Hawking takes this same line publicly, when I think he knows far better, so I think it's basically an "academic response" in order to distance themselves from "cranks".

The real problem, though, is that accepting eyewitness evidence which came in the form of angelic visitations, while saying there is "no recognizable" evidence for aliens/UFOs, effectively buries the eyewitness evidence for the Book of Mormon along with it.

Incidentally, I firmly believe there's more evidence for "extraterrestrial visitors", than there is for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Light years more.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Getting back to the OP.... Well, I certainly agree that Mopologetics tends to lack substance, but I also think that the rhetoric--the polemics & etc.--is a major problem as well. The Mopologists are in a position to better educate the Saints, but that's not what they do. They twist sources, alienate members in good standing, and conduct smear campaigns. And they often serve as this kind of "beacon" for lower-tier amateur apologists. People like Kevin "Pocket Protector" Christenson, who probably ought to know better, see what these guys do and start to think it's okay. (I'm talking about his recent post where he says that the stakes are so high in Mormonism that crapping on people and using a "negative tone" is acceptable.) DCP, Midgley, and others have convinced a lot of these people that defending the Church is so important that all kinds of tactics are acceptable.

So while I agree that the lack of substance is a major problem (perhaps *the* major problem), I don't know that it's the thing that is causing direct harm (e.g., interfering with Murphy's bid for tenure, say, or trying to destroy Mike Quinn's repuation in LDS circles). You can have substance-free apologetics without these other casualties.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Dear God.

[_Drifting]

Getting back to the OP.... Well, I certainly agree that Mopologetics tends to lack substance, but I also think that the rhetoric--the polemics & etc.--is a major problem as well. The Mopologists are in a position to better educate the Saints, but that's not what they do. They twist sources, alienate members in good standing, and conduct smear campaigns.

Which is why the Church officially disavows them.