The Tiers of Apologetics

[_JohnStuartMill]

More people have claimed to witness Bigfoot than to have seen the gold plates. And not with their "spiritual eyes", either.

[_Morrissey]

I'll thank you not to tell me what kind of Mormon I am. You don't the first thing about my relationship with Christ and with his church.

I don't know if you got the memo, but Christ isn't real.

Which begs the question how one can have a relationship with an entity he/she has never seen, heard, touched, etc.

This of course does not include my intimate, personal relationship with Thor.

[_Morrissey]

More people have claimed to witness Bigfoot than to have seen the gold plates. And not with their "spiritual eyes", either.

Hey, let's not forget all the people who have seen flying saucers and extra-terrestrials, ghosts, and even faeries.

Out of curiosity, didn't James Strange also produce some pretty impressive witnesses?

[_Morrissey]

I'll thank you not to tell me what kind of Mormon I am. You don't the first thing about my relationship with Christ and with his church.

I don't know if you got the memo, but Christ isn't real.

Do you have proof? I don't think that you do.

Do you have proof that Barack Obama is not really an alien from Planet Zorkon? I don't think that you do.

[_maklelan]

More people have claimed to witness Bigfoot than to have seen the gold plates. And not with their "spiritual eyes", either.

I guess that does it, then, huh? Witnesses are irrelevant unless there are more of them than there are witnesses of any other event.

I hope you don't think I'm stupid enough to believe you actually need me to spell out the differences between the two.

[_Gadianton]

Mak, you go off topic in a lot of directions. I think you do see the point of improving the reputation of the MI as an apologetic institution by appealing to secular audiences with non-religious output. The same way MBE sought to improve the reputation of her bizarre church via the Monitor. METI might put out good stuff. the Monitor is a good newspaper. I, like you, spent "hundreds of hours" in service on my mission and enjoyed helping people. But that doesn't detract from the fact that all of the above were/are part of a design to promote a religion.

[_JohnStuartMill]

More people have claimed to witness Bigfoot than to have seen the gold plates. And not with their "spiritual eyes", either.

I guess that does it, then, huh? Witnesses are irrelevant unless there are more of them than there are witnesses of any other event.

Didn't say that.

I hope you don't think I'm stupid enough to believe you actually need me to spell out the differences between the two.

I'd get a kick out of that, actually. Belief in Bigfoot is actually a lot more tenable than belief in Mormonism. It's not so ridiculous to believe in eight foot hairy apes when we know that six foot hairless apes and four foot hairy apes exist, at least compared to the belief in an ape that lives forever and can communicate telepathically with every human being on Earth at the same time.

[_maklelan]

Mak, you go off topic in a lot of directions. I think you do see the point of improving the reputation of the MI as an apologetic institution by appealing to secular audiences with non-religious output.

All these texts are quite clearly religious.

The same way MBE sought to improve the reputation of her bizarre church via the Monitor. METI might put out good stuff. the Monitor is a good newspaper. I, like you, spent "hundreds of hours" in service on my mission and enjoyed helping people. But that doesn't detract from the fact that all of the above were/are part of a design to promote a religion.

No, that's not invariably what it is, and I don't appreciate you belittling the work that the Church and its members do around the world to try to make it a better place. Don't project on me or my church.

[_maklelan]

Didn't say that.

You implied that the number of witnesses to an event was irrelevant, supporting the implication with a reference to clearly spurious testimony. By what criteria, then, can the strength of a testimony be determined? Either you mean to insist the number needs to be higher than those who saw Bigfoot, or the validity of testimony is determined primarily by your presupposition of whether the event in question really happened. The more objective criteria would be the former, as stupid as that sounds.

I'd get a kick out of that, actually. Belief in Bigfoot is actually a lot more tenable than belief in Mormonism. It's not so ridiculous to believe in eight foot hairy apes when we know that six foot hairless apes and four foot hairy apes exist, at least compared to the belief in an ape that lives forever and can communicate telepathically with every human being on Earth at the same time.

So it comes down to whether the witnesses are testifying to something you a priori find tenable or untenable.

As far as witnesses are concerned, misidentifying Bigfoot is quite easy. Misidentifying an angel and 75 lbs. of gold plates is more difficult. Second, most witnesses to Bigfoot don't become enemies of his tradition and seek to denigrate it. If there ever have been any that did, they probably didn't maintain their testimony. Several witnesses to the plates did become enemies of Joseph Smith, and even tried to have him incarcerated and physically harmed, but maintained their testimony. Bigfoot witnesses also tend to try to get gain by their testimony. The witnesses to the plates did not. The list goes on.

[_harmony]

And if there were witnesses to the first vision, it would not matter at all to the critics. Heck, the 11 witnesses do not matter. why would witnesses to the first vision matter? It would go like this:

Critic: the witnesses to the first vision were tricked into believing that they saw something. But actually, it was all contrived by Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was a good fraud and he could have fooled the witnesses to the sacred grove vision.

Or, the witnesses to the sacred grove were in on the fraud. Joseph Smith was a con artist abeit, a pious one.

So it would go. And it would certainly not matter to you harmony.

Well, it would take one of my more effective weapons, if you could maybe have an unimpeachable witness or two hiding behind the trees in the Sacred Grove who could vouch for Joseph's experience. Or if a similiar source could vouch for Moroni's visits. 'Cause right now, you got nuthin' for two of the most important events of the Restoration.