Most Delusional anti-Mormon Ever?

[The Nehor]

So when I idly came up with a sophisticated plan for world domination before laughing it off I was moved to the same tier as this guy. I like him now and want to be his friend.

[3DOP]

On 12/9/2025 at 6:00 PM, Calm said:

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t pick that up the first time, may have stopped too soon or popped over it and when I encountered it, felt I had done enough criticism for the day….

But it just isn’t right for Saints to be doing this.  We get mocked for peculiar ideas, for being cult like in other eyes…so it’s okay if we turn around and treat them as mindless, foolish, nonsensical?

Let’s be adult at least if we can’t bring ourselves to stop ridiculing others out of love.

calm, 

Hi. The guy is apparently only an immature, over zealous Catholic convert. No priest, bishop, or pope could ever endorse such a strategy in favor of his faith, which it seems he abandoned (the stupid strategy). He was truly ignorant of basic Catholic principles of love and truth telling.

 I am sorry for the LDS mockery. But I am glad to see the instinctively loving reaction of most of you to that. 

One could argue about which side is the most poisonous. I couldn't watch more than a minute. I thought the guy who has been identified as Catholic, with his weird beard and glasses was more excusable.

All that said, in 40 or 50 years, we can hope that all parties will reflect on their current follies in a different and repentant light. 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by 3DOP

[bluebell]

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

That's more naiveté than delusional. 

What this reminds me of is a friend of mine who had a life changing experience on his mission. He and his companion came across some anti-Mormon material, and the issue that somehow got traction in their respective minds was the accusation that the apostles are all rich businessmen which is the antithesis of the humble followers of Christ in the Bible. This issue bothered both him and his companion, and they talked to their mission president about it. The mission president (incorrectly) explained that the Church doesn't have a paid clergy, so the only people who are in a financial position to lead the church full time are already financially independent.

One of the missionaries found this answer unsatisfactory and left the Church shortly after he finished his mission.

The other one (my friend) found the answer quite satisfactory and made it his life's mission to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company so that he could become financially independent and be called as an apostle.

What's tragic about this is that he didn't have the self awareness to understand that he wasn't cut out for that type of high stakes leadership. He was wicked smart book-wise, but didn't have the vision, charisma, or intestinal fortitude to successfully compete in high stakes business. In the end he sacrificed his excellent career as an engineer to pursue an MBA at a top school, but after getting the MBA he just couldn't compete. He is now in his 50's and has spent over half of his working years unemployed.

The guy in the video was being self-deprecating and was laughing about an idea he flirted with but ultimately decided wasn't realistic. Who is more delusional--that guy, or the RM who put it all on the line to pursue a Harvard MBA so that he could be an apostle?  

I'd say both equally.   

[ZealouslyStriving]

31 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I'd say both equally.   

I think the Catholic podcaster who brought him on is the one to really look at. Can you imagine hearing dude's story and thinking, "That is totally awesome, I need to have this cat on my podcast!" ??

Edited December 11, 2025 by ZealouslyStriving

[Stargazer]

On 12/9/2025 at 11:13 PM, morgan.deane said:

The final point doesn't matter except it annoys the crap out of me. I'm an actual professor. I spent years working towards my position and then some radio show personality wants to call himself "associate professor" of apocrypha.  If he wants to play professor, I have a stack of papers he can grade, at least a third of which are AI generated.

Maybe you should take this a little less seriously. The "associate professor" thing is obviously intended as somewhat of a joke -- probably assigned the title by the jokester Cardon, and not self-assumed. And he doesn't claim to be a "full professor."  He does have a lot of knowledge regarding the Apocrypha, so much so that he wrote a book about correspondences between apocryphal works and the Book of Mormon. Unaccredited people with large amounts of knowledge gained by self-study sometimes get assigned "courtesy titles" by media figures or other kinds of pundits. Some examples:

• Elvis Presley - the King of Rock and Roll
• TIna Turner - the Queen of Rock and Roll
• John Wayne - the Duke
• Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
• Adam Reader - the Professor of Rock - in his case, self-assigned as a trade name. To be fair, he does know a lot about the subject. I do wonder, are there any universities offering courses in Rock and Roll that have a department that would require hiring a professor to chair it? Asking for a friend...
• Bill Nye - the Science Guy - but his BS degree is in mechanical engineering, not science

I am a retired software developer. I'm also an Army veteran. I once worked with a project leader, seriously a fine chap, who insisted upon calling me "Sergeant Major" even though I rose never higher than a three striper, a mere buck sergeant. Should I have been offended on behalf of my old fellow soldier, who stayed in the service after I left, and actually did rise to the rank of Command Sergeant Major? My project leader was actually a retired lieutenant colonel, and I liked to annoy him by calling him General. Payback! 

 

[Stargazer]

On 12/10/2025 at 11:09 PM, Analytics said:

That's more naiveté than delusional. 

What this reminds me of is a friend of mine who had a life changing experience on his mission. He and his companion came across some anti-Mormon material, and the issue that somehow got traction in their respective minds was the accusation that the apostles are all rich businessmen which is the antithesis of the humble followers of Christ in the Bible. This issue bothered both him and his companion, and they talked to their mission president about it. The mission president (incorrectly) explained that the Church doesn't have a paid clergy, so the only people who are in a financial position to lead the church full time are already financially independent.

One of the missionaries found this answer unsatisfactory and left the Church shortly after he finished his mission.

The other one (my friend) found the answer quite satisfactory and made it his life's mission to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company so that he could become financially independent and be called as an apostle.

What's tragic about this is that he didn't have the self awareness to understand that he wasn't cut out for that type of high stakes leadership. He was wicked smart book-wise, but didn't have the vision, charisma, or intestinal fortitude to successfully compete in high stakes business. In the end he sacrificed his excellent career as an engineer to pursue an MBA at a top school, but after getting the MBA he just couldn't compete. He is now in his 50's and has spent over half of his working years unemployed.

The guy in the video was being self-deprecating and was laughing about an idea he flirted with but ultimately decided wasn't realistic. Who is more delusional--that guy, or the RM who put it all on the line to pursue a Harvard MBA so that he could be an apostle?  

I'd say that your friend who left the church because the apostles were men of means and not "humble followers of Christ" was rather deluded as well. The idea that a rich person cannot be humble is a little cracked, as far as I can see. Of course rich people can be proud and selfish. But I've known poor men who were so jacked up in their own minds that nobody could tell them anything, and I've known rich men whom you wouldn't know were rich because they just didn't put on airs. I had a bishop once who was a multimillionaire, and also one of the most humble men I knew, and genuinely Christlike. The Apostle Peter was not some poor uneducated mendicant, he was apparently a businessman running a successful fishing business along with other members of his family. And let's not leave out the tax collector, Matthew, who was probably doing pretty well for himself, even if he wasn't corrupt like some others of his profession. 

[Calm]

32 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

much so that he wrote a book about correspondences between apocryphal works and the Book of Mormon.

But was it a good book?

[InCognitus]

28 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

are there any universities offering courses in Rock and Roll that have a department that would require hiring a professor to chair it? Asking for a friend...

This is not a university, but the School of Rock (which I see mostly offering courses for children and young adults, but it looks like they have courses for adults too) has locations throughout North America, Europe, and many other places.  I really like their Youtube channel, as some of the performances are quite good.

[The Nehor]

35 minutes ago, Calm said:

But was it a good book?

This. Any idiot can write a book about anything.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

But was it a good book?

I thought so. No doubt Mr. McGuire thinks it's a load of rubbish. If he read it. Or maybe even if he didn't.

[Stargazer]

47 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This. Any idiot can write a book about anything.

Of course! I've written a couple and edit/published another, so I should know.

• The Bones of My People - attributed author is my late mother-in-law (died in 2004), but I ghost-wrote it from a transcript of an audio tape recorded by one of my sisters-in-law (no longer in print)
• Bramber Castle and the Rise and Fall of the House of Braose - I can see this castle from my backyard
• Yesterday's Sandhills - written by my late sister-in-law, but edited and published by me (no longer in print)

[ZealouslyStriving]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

But was it a good book?

Some people like it- mostly people on the Conservative side of things.

Some people don't like it- mostly people on the Liberal side of things.

So, basically, it goodness is mostly being based on whether you like Jonah's views on a variety of other things.

Edited December 13, 2025 by ZealouslyStriving

[Stargazer]

21 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Some people like it- mostly people on the Conservative side of things.

Some people don't like it- mostly people on the Liberal side of things.

So, basically, it goodness is mostly being based on whether you like Jonah's views on a variety of other things.

Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't look the author in the mouth as if he or she were a horse, and judged instead based on the content? 

Nah.

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Some people like it- mostly people on the Conservative side of things.

Some people don't like it- mostly people on the Liberal side of things.

So, basically, it goodness is mostly being based on whether you like Jonah's views on a variety of other things.

Did his political/social views impact the book?

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't look the author in the mouth as if he or she were a horse, and judged instead based on the content? 

This makes sense to some degree though.  If you don’t trust someone’s self taught ability to analyze political or social issues, there is solid reason not to trust other self taught skills.

Self taught isn’t inherently a reason to dismiss, but it is a reason to be cautious as the person may not have received training in how to be critical of their own work, they may not be aware of gaps of knowledge, etc.

[ZealouslyStriving]

8 minutes ago, Calm said:

Did his political/social views impact the book?

Don't know... haven't read it yet. But based on the subject matter, I wouldn't think so.

[ZealouslyStriving]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

This makes sense to some degree though.  If you don’t trust someone’s self taught ability to analyze political or social issues, there is solid reason not to trust other self taught skills.

What the ? 🤨

Just because someone holds a different politically, mostly having to do with a variety of social issues, doesn't mean they don't have the ability to reason. Are you saying that only those that have a political science degree can be trusted?

So... if someone doesn't agree with you about abortion, they are a trash researcher about the influence of geometry Muslim religious art?

 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Just because someone holds a different politically, mostly having to do with a variety of social issues, doesn't mean they don't have the ability to reason. Are you saying that only those that have a political science degree can be trusted?

 

No, as I said self taught isn’t a guarantee they can’t critique the quality of their own arguments…nor is academic training a guarantee they can, but when passing a class and getting a degree and thus not wasting time, money, and effort depends on the quality of analysis, one tends to pick up skills on how to critique one’s own arguments, looking for gaps of knowledge, inappropriate assumptions, use of poor sources, bad logic, etc.

In many cases people who disagree with someone’s political or social argument will look for what the person did wrong in constructing that argument to justify their disagreement…they won’t always outright dismiss arguments as bad.  They may look for poor construction of arguments as in poor logic, using less credible sources, etc.  If they do find things they see as red flags, demonstrating poor skills, then it is often reasonable to assume such poor skills carry over to other subjects.

There will be those who look for red flags in arguments they agree with, but I am guessing that occurs significantly less often.

PS:  also notice I said “it makes sense to some degree” meaning it’s understandable, not inherently appropriate.

Quote

if someone doesn't agree with you about abortion, they are a trash researcher about the influence of geometry Muslim religious art?

That would depend on the overlap of skills exhibited in their arguments about abortion.  For example if they used made up stats from poor sources or misused accurate stats from good sources to argue against abortion instead of taking the time to look for actual ones, why should someone assume they would put in the needed effort and accuracy into researching the art to produce informative, accurate work?

Edited December 14, 2025 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

No, as I said self taught isn’t a guarantee they can’t critique the quality of their own arguments…nor is academic training, but when passing a class and getting a degree and thus not wasting time, money, and effort depends on the quality of analysis, one tends to pick up skills on how to critique one’s own arguments, looking for gaps of knowledge, inappropriate assumptions, use of poor sources, bad logic, etc.

In many cases people who are disagree with someone’s political or social argument will look for what the person did wrong in constructing that argument…they won’t always outright dismiss arguments as bad.  They may look for poor construction of arguments as in poor logic, using less credible sources, etc.  If they do find things they see as red flags, demonstrating poor skills, then it is often reasonable to assume such poor skills carry over to other subjects.

There will be those who look for red flags in arguments they agree with, but I am guessing that occurs significantly less often.

Or... hear me out... They don't like anything a person has to say on any subject because the author doesn't accept their worldview. I venture to guess most people aren't looking at methodology in their research as a reason to poopoo their ideas.

If one is only interested in reading credentialed writers, I believe they will unintentionally miss out on some amazing discoveries that academics will miss because of academic bias towards certain opinions and being insolated among others that think the same.

[Calm]

56 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

They don't like anything a person has to say on any subject because the author doesn't accept their worldview.

That does often occur.  What I stated does not suggest it doesn’t.

56 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I venture to guess most people aren't looking at methodology in their research as a reason to poopoo their ideas.

I suspect it may be a majority as well….Which is another reason why I used “this makes sense to some degree”.

However, some stuff is blaringly obvious.  Take your example of abortion.  If someone has read any articles supporting abortion, they are probably familiar with the fact that legal abortions are generally low risk so if they see someone arguing for the banning of abortions based on the stat 45% of global abortions are unsafe, that is going to be a major red flag and likely cause them not to trust any arguments made by whoever did this. (Note:  there are good arguments for restricting abortions imo, essentially using the WHO stat showing globally illegal abortions are dangerous to argue for making abortions illegal is definitely not a good argument).  Someone who has read articles supporting the banning of abortions is less likely to be aware of the problem with such use of the stat because they may not be as familiar with the safety stats of legal abortions and are more likely to have heard claims abortions are dangerous (including possibly accurate ones comparing risks of childbirth vs late legal abortions, I say possibly accurate as I have seen claims of such but haven’t delved into latest stats to see which competing claims are most accurate).

Edited December 13, 2025 by Calm

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Some people like it- mostly people on the Conservative side of things.

Some people don't like it- mostly people on the Liberal side of things.

So, basically, it goodness is mostly being based on whether you like Jonah's views on a variety of other things.

I prefer to judge based on whether it is accurate.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

This makes sense to some degree though.  If you don’t trust someone’s self taught ability to analyze political or social issues, there is solid reason not to trust other self taught skills.

I will admit to existing bias as to people I've seen operate already, so I can be a little hypocritical about this. But I do know how to suppress my biases even when reading/listening to people I have previously decided are best taken with a (large) grain of salt, because nobody is wrong all the time. 

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Self taught isn’t inherently a reason to dismiss, but it is a reason to be cautious as the person may not have received training in how to be critical of their own work, they may not be aware of gaps of knowledge, etc.

That's true, but I am also aware that others-taught are not immune to taking their own selves too seriously. There are plenty of historical examples of this from world-famous scientists and engineers. And world-famous military strategists, theologians and philosophers, too. 

There's a semi-famous engineering example of an NYC skyscraper that had a hidden flaw and could have collapsed within just a few years after completion. When the engineer discovered the flaw (uncovered by an engineering student), he briefly considered suicide to be able to stop worrying about the problem.  It's an interesting story:

 

Edited December 13, 2025 by Stargazer

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

But I do know how to suppress my biases even when reading/listening to people I have previously decided are best taken with a (large) grain of salt, because nobody is wrong all the time. 

I would love to see studies showing how people rate their ability to suppress biases vs the reality as it seems likely this would be an area our self appraisal isn’t that great…since our biases would affect our judgment.  We often don’t recognize our own biases after all, hard to suppress what we aren’t aware of.

decided to look and found this

https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2015/june/bias-blind-spot.html#:~:text=It has been well established that people,biased than others have been less clear.

Quote

“People seem to have no idea how biased they are. Whether a good decision-maker or a bad one, everyone thinks that they are less biased than their peers,” said Carey Morewedge, associate professor of marketing at Boston University. “This susceptibility to the bias blind spot appears to be pervasive, and is unrelated to people’s intelligence, self-esteem, and actual ability to make unbiased judgments and decisions.”

They also found that people with a high bias blind spot are those most likely to ignore the advice of peers or experts, and are least likely to learn from de-biasing training that could improve the quality of their decisions.

“Our research found that the extent to which one is blind to her own bias has important consequences for the quality of decision-making. People more prone to think they are less biased than others are less accurate at evaluating their abilities relative to the abilities of others, they listen less to others’ advice, and are less likely to learn from training that would help them make less biased judgments.” said Irene Scopelliti, the study’s lead author and a lecturer in marketing at City University London.

Not sure how this applies to when we recognize our biases rather than ignore them and attempt to control them.

Edited December 14, 2025 by Calm

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

I would love to see studies showing how people rate their ability to suppress biases vs the reality as it seems likely this would be an area our self appraisal isn’t that great…since our biases would affect our judgment.

And then you have to consider the biases of the people conducting the study! Double blind would not be enough. Maybe triple blind?  

 

[bluebell]

25 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I prefer to judge based on whether it is accurate.

Everyone one else would say the same about themselves. It’s just that our biases play a bigger role in what we will accept as accurate than we’d like to admit.