How To Keep Your Mormon Testimony

[Ray Agostini]

And I am going into uncharted waters here.  I feel that I should record how the Spirit whispers to me now that there were lots of proto-humans on Earth at the time Adam and Eve did this.

How can you say the spirit "whispers" to you while mocking it whispering to Mormons?

That's a classic Steve Benson quip, Juliann. It's just subtle mockery. RFM has really rubbed off on Bob.

[Serious]

What an incredible study in contrasts this thread is.

I apologize for not finding Mr. Bob McCue's posts intensely, or even minimally, interesting.

Basically, I just see him, over and over again, saying that he finds religious faith in general and Mormon faith in particular to be absurd. So what? I don't find him presenting much in the way of argument for his position. He assumes it, by and large, and then he cites a few authors or theories (sometimes, it strikes me, only partially or vaguely understood from secondary web sources) in order to explain why we fools believe such manifestly absurd and irrational things.

I printed his "Apologist Fog" #2 off a few days ago for leisurely reading and have leafed through it, but haven't gotten around to actually reading it yet. Perhaps it's both brilliant and devastating. I'll read through it at some point. And if I think anything in it is worth addressing, I'll address it.

Sorry to disappoint you.

I have to go with Daniel on this one. This thread isn't really enlightening or even intelligent.

The smallest and weakest of saints can have the same strength of understanding and testimony of the church as the strongest most educated because it comes from God who is no respectors of persons.

In the same vain, the most educated can be as unenlightened and left in the dark when it comes to the truthfulness of the church because he knows not God and has received not.

D&C 50: 24

24 That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

[juliann]

So, the prophetic command to stay away from faith threatening information is designed for children, regardless of how old they are.

What makes this different from the Bob command to stay away from that evil postmodernism?

[awyatt]

Ray A. said: I was skeptical of the Witnesses accounts up until I read Cook's David Whitmer Interviews.

Ray, do you have a full cite for this title. I couldn't find it on Amazon, and would be very interested.

-Allen

[juliann]

And I am going into uncharted waters here.

[Tarski]

And I am going into uncharted waters here.

[Ray Agostini]

Ray A. said: I was skeptical of the Witnesses accounts up until I read Cook's David Whitmer Interviews.

Ray, do you have a full cite for this title. I couldn't find it on Amazon, and would be very interested.

-Allen

Allen,

I'm giving this info to you from my original edition, one of the few books that survived five house moves in five years:

David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness

Lyndon W. Cook, Editor. Grandin Book Company. First Printing, 1991, Second Printing, 1993.

[charity]

McCue says to cjcampbell "But the question people like you need to answer is why do you live your life according to the best information science can offer until you get to Mormonism, and suddenly you reject that information."

I object to this statement by McCue for the following reasons:

1. "people like you" is insulting and has no place in a civil discussion.

2. The ridicule for someone who does not rely on the arm of flesh. There ought to be at least the grudging acknowledgement that there is wisdom in exercising caution in accepting the shifting doctrines of science. Science is only a tool, it is not a god. If you use something that science produces and it is beneficial, good. If you lock yourself into the infallibility of science you set yourself up for failure in many ways.

McCue says Mormons reject scientific information. We reject hasty and unwarranted interpretations of what science produces. There isn't one reputable archeologist who can say that his science has proven that there were no Nephites.

There is no reputable molecular biologist who can say that DNA evidence proves there were no Nephites on the Western continents. The most their sciences can say is that there hasn't been any proof YET that there were.

So McCue's condescenion and ridicule are not warranted and highly offensive in a discussion. Spitting at people is disgusting and that is what McCue is doing.

[juliann]

When I began to doubt Joseph's claims, I appealed to my family and leaders. The overwhelming response from these people contained the suggestion that I was taking the church and the Gospel too literally, that I should instead stop looking for everything to fit together perfectly, and in the end it was just a matter of what I choose to believe anyway. I was blown away at the flimsiness and wishy-washy nature of their responses.

And you are surprised because you are seen as fundamentalistic? Those most at risk for becoming angry exmos are those who cannot tolerate uncertainty.

At this stage, an outside observer expecting conservative [orthodox]  Latter-day Saints to adopt a fundamentalist view of truth, and liberal [dissident]  Latter-day Saints to adopt a postmodernist one, may easily claim that something should be wrong. The attitudes are in fact almost reversed. Historical truth is regarded as a mere social product by Latter-day Saint conservatives, while a rather naive sociology of knowledge claiming that historical-critical methodologies may indeed achieve "truth" lies behind the liberals' attitude. The "love affair with Enlightenment science" of American fundamentalists described by Marsden does not find a counterpart among Latter-day Saint conservatives; conversely, Enlightenment's claim for certainty and objectivity is still defended in the liberal camp.

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Vol. 5, Num. 2 (Fall 1996)

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=122

The Book of Mormon Wars: A Non-Mormon Perspective

Massimo Introvigne

[Dr. Shades]

Bob McCue once told me that I had the gift of brevity. Therefore, for those who don't or won't read all of Bob's post, I'll boil down what I believe to be his main point(s).

In a podcast at http://thechurchisnottrue.com/files/NOT-2005-10-21.mp3, I explained something called "the Jehovah's Witness" test. In short, if (for example), the Book of Abraham were the Jehovah's Witnesses' problem, not ours, would you buy such arguments as "there is still a missing scroll" or "it was a catalyst to receive revelation?" Or would you draw the obvious conclusion?

ERGO, if you wouldn't believe it if it came from a Jehovah's Witness apologist, you aren't allowed to believe it if it comes from a Mormon apologist.

Next, I think Bob would've been better served by using a more practical example. Here is an extremely relevant post from the-board-which-shall-not-be-named by Randy J. [edited to preserve FAIR sensibilities]:

According to Joseph Smith, God kept sending an angel with a sword to command him to secretly [enter into the polygamous covenant]. This angelic visitor appeared and threatened Joseph Smith's life on at least a half-dozen occasions.

See:

http://www.i4m.com/think/history/angel_sword.htm

Mormons should recognize an important message from the Prophet Joseph Smith's experiences with the Angel.

They demonstrate God's priorities.

What a shame God didn't send an angel with a sword to straighten Smith out on these other occasions:

- No angel tried to stop him ordaining blacks to the priesthood

- No angel corrected him for writing contradictory versions of the First Vision story

- No angel coerced him into not ordering the destruction of the Nauvoo expositor press

- No angel tried to stop him from ordering the Danites to kill Governor Boggs

- No angel corrected him for repeatedly saying that Native Americans are Lamanites.

- No angel warned him to stop [exercising certain marital privileges] with his adopted daughters

- No angel prevented Smith from claiming to know how to translate Egyptian

- No angel came to tell him what happened to the lost 116 pages

- No angel stopped him from committing bank fraud

- No angel stopped him from trying to sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon

- No angel chastised him from declaring he was greater than Jesus Christ

Nope. Angelic messengers were complete no-shows, except for when Smith supposedly didn't want to [enter into the polygamous covenant], and then WALA, A MIRACLE! The Lord sends His angel to force Smith into [the polygamous covenant]!

NOW, the point of all this--and the one I strongly believe Bob was trying to make--is that if one can freely draw the obvious conclusions when presented with the facts about other people's religions, then it is unreasonable to purposefully avoid drawing the obvious conclusions when presented with the facts about one's own religion--no matter what apologists from either side say.

It is also possible that another aspect of Bob's message is encapsulated in my page titled "Inside the Minds of LDS Apologists" (at http://www.mormoninformation.com/pro_lds.htm):

Apologists are unable to distinguish between possibilities and probabilities.

When they come up with defenses for their faith, LDS apologists and their sympathizers automatically assume that the scenario they've concocted, however unlikely, is "good enough" to provide Mormonism with an "out," at which point all criticism is dismissed.

[The Dude]

Bob McCue once told me that I had the gift of brevity.  Therefore, for those who don't or won't read all of Bob's post, I'll boil down what I believe to be his main point(s).

In a podcast at http://thechurchisnottrue.com/files/NOT-2005-10-21.mp3, I explained something called "the Jehovah's Witness" test.  In short, if (for example), the Book of Abraham were the Jehovah's Witnesses' problem, not ours, would you buy such arguments as "there is still a missing scroll" or "it was a catalyst to receive revelation?"  Or would you draw the obvious conclusion?

ERGO, if you wouldn't believe it if it came from a Jehovah's Witness apologist, you aren't allowed to believe it if it comes from a Mormon apologist.

Thanks Dr Shades. I've never finished one of Bob's posts.

I think the Jehovah's Witness test is great. Unfortunately, most people on this board are relatively ignorant of the JWs. I met many on my mission and enjoyed many a Bible-bash, so I became quite familiar with their apologetics and their uncanny similarity to Mormons. If it hadn't been for the JWs, it would have been a lot harder to look at my own religious-self in the mirror.

For me, this is a way to set-aside Juliann's oft-repeated accusation that ex-LDS are/were fundamentalists. The degree to which you really believe your Church (be it LDS or JW) is the one and only True Church is the measure of your fundamentalism. If you can't handle uncertainty about that claim, then you are in danger of loosing your testimony as soon as you look at your religious-self in the mirror of another religion that makes the same claim.

[Tchild2]

Juliann quoted Jarrod:

And you are surprised because you are seen as fundamentalistic? Those most at risk for becoming angry exmos are those who cannot tolerate uncertainty.

Wow - Juliann every time I read one or your posts I have to look up and remind myself I am on an LDS themed message board. exactly what part of you is LDS? If you knew the very first thing about exmormons...which you don't seem to exhibit much knowledge in your posts, is that ex-mormons by virtue of questioning and by pulling back the curtain, exposing frail old men pulling levers and knobs, is that uncertainty (total uncertainty for some) is the most absolute product of losing your religious cosmology.

Fundamentalism is a fixated attachment to a prescribed dogmatic worldview which defines Mormons up, down and all around. If you believe in "a one true church" you are a fundamentalist Juliann. Ex-mormons (not all) only have one fundamentalist viewpoint; of everything they DON'T know, they DO know that Mormonism isn't the truth as sold to the world (Mormonism does have a very real spiritual component). Well, I guess we know it with about the same certainty that we know that the moon isn't a large cheese doodle.

[Jarrod]

When I began to doubt Joseph's claims, I appealed to my family and leaders.  The overwhelming response from these people contained the suggestion that I was taking the church and the Gospel too literally, that I should instead stop looking for everything to fit together perfectly, and in the end it was just a matter of what I choose to believe anyway.  I was blown away at the flimsiness and wishy-washy nature of their responses. 

And you are surprised because you are seen as fundamentalistic? Those most at risk for becoming angry exmos are those who cannot tolerate uncertainty.

juliann, you've been clucking about my supposed "fundamentalistic" tendencies for over a year now. Give it up already. You don't know me, your books don't know me, the voices in your head don't know me. You have got it wrong, wrong, wrong. Go ahead and keep chortling your "fundamentalistic" mantra, but you'll still be speaking nonsense because you, juliann, don't know jack about me.

Yes, I can tolerate uncertainty just fine, thank you very much. But in case you haven't noticed, Mormonism is the Cliff Claven of religions. It has answers for everything. Listening to a pro-LDS podcast just this morning, I heard yet another convert to the church remark on how Mormonism was the only religion that had all the answers. I heard this all the time on my mission from those I baptized. The fact that Mormonism removes more uncertainty from peoples' lives than other religions do is a selling point, juliann. I offered the example I did to demonstrate that despite the fact that so many Mormons "know of a surety" about so many things, those same people admit "it's just what you choose to believe." I was pointing out a dichotomy, not any supposed fear of uncertainty.

[Dale]

mccue: First, the Mormon can go metaphoric.

From an outsider viewpoint, this is what Mormonism appears to be leading toward, bob.

I don't see this trend at all.

I see an overabundance of it. When I began to doubt Joseph's claims, I appealed to my family and leaders. The overwhelming response from these people contained the suggestion that I was taking the church and the Gospel too literally, that I should instead stop looking for everything to fit together perfectly, and in the end it was just a matter of what I choose to believe anyway. I was blown away at the flimsiness and wishy-washy nature of their responses. I still hear these kinds of responses on a regular basis: "It doesn't matter how we got the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham; the point is that we have them!"

Can you imagine a BYU professor taking the same posture with a student's thesis? "I don't care how my student might have produced this paper; the point is that he turned it in!"

There are evidences of the Book of Abraham. Abrahamin lore in support of the Boook of Abraham exists. And there are ways in which Joseph Smiths explanations of the facimilies is supported by modern Egyptology. Kerry Shirts Research is just an example of that. John Gee needs to defend his missing papyrus idea a little better, and I expect when Brent Metcalfe gets his book out you will see a little more action on this area of the Book of Abraham debate.

I figure that whether the papyrus was a catalyst for recieving revelation about Abraham, or whether there was a literal text of Abrhaham upon missing papyrus is a matter of faith. Paul Osbournes website is probably the most capable defense of the catylyst revelation idea around.

With the Book of Mormon books like Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited edited by Noel Reynolds gives evidence for the Book of Mormon. I have seen capable Evangelical scholars try & take on such evidences. I feel such evidences survive.

Evidences do matter, and how we got them matter. I am not satisfied alone with the idea that since we have them that's all that matters. To me if they are Joseph's fraud that doesn't make me happy to have them.

[Matt Andrews]

juliann wrote:

  How can you say the spirit "whispers" to you while mocking it whispering to Mormons?

bob wasn't saying the spirit whispered to him. He was writing, at that point in his essay, from the perspective of a hypothetical Mormon apologist. (It was a long post, and easy to miss, but he did clearly state, just before that part you quoted, what he was going to do.) All of your comments in this same (first) post are missing that this was not bob speaking for himself, but for a hypothetical 'apologist. (It wasn't particularly great, as I'm sure he'd admit himself, but that is what he was doing.)

Hope that helps clear things up a bit.

[Rock]

Mormonism is the Cliff Claven of religions

Tee-hee.

I'm stealing that one.

[Daniel Peterson]

I explained something called "the Jehovah's Witness" test.  In short, if (for example), the Book of Abraham were the Jehovah's Witnesses' problem, not ours, would you buy such arguments as "there is still a missing scroll" or "it was a catalyst to receive revelation?"

It would depend on the quality of the evidence and the logic advanced. I don't discount arguments simply because of the identity of the person advancing them. I'm not positively impressed by anybody who does. To do so would be a classic instance of the ad hominem fallacy -- a fallacy of which many critics like to unjustly accuse me and my colleagues at FARMS but which, ironically, those same critics very frequently commit themselves and commonly urge others to commit.

Or would you draw the obvious conclusion?

I always attempt to draw the best conclusion consistent with the evidence and the logic. Even if those were presented by someone from a background deemed unfashionable by some baselessly self-anointed elite.

ERGO, if you wouldn't believe it if it came from a Jehovah's Witness apologist, you aren't allowed to believe it if it comes from a Mormon apologist.

No problem.

Here is an extremely relevant post from the-board-which-shall-not-be-named by Randy J. [edited to preserve FAIR sensibilities]:

According to Joseph Smith, God kept sending an angel with a sword to command him to secretly [enter into the polygamous covenant]. This angelic visitor appeared and threatened Joseph Smith's life on at least a half-dozen occasions. . . .

Mormons should recognize an important message from the Prophet Joseph Smith's experiences with the Angel.

They demonstrate God's priorities.

What a shame God didn't send an angel with a sword to straighten Smith out on these other occasions:

- No angel tried to stop him ordaining blacks to the priesthood

- No angel corrected him for writing contradictory versions of the First Vision story

- No angel coerced him into not ordering the destruction of the Nauvoo expositor press

- No angel tried to stop him from ordering the Danites to kill Governor Boggs

- No angel corrected him for repeatedly saying that Native Americans are Lamanites.

- No angel warned him to stop [exercising certain marital privileges] with his adopted daughters

- No angel prevented Smith from claiming to know how to translate Egyptian

- No angel came to tell him what happened to the lost 116 pages

- No angel stopped him from committing bank fraud

- No angel stopped him from trying to sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon

- No angel chastised him from declaring he was greater than Jesus Christ

Nope. Angelic messengers were complete no-shows, except for when Smith supposedly didn't want to [enter into the polygamous covenant], and then WALA [sic], A MIRACLE! The Lord sends His angel to force Smith into [the polygamous covenant]!

That is an unusually helpful conspectus of question-begging assumption and, sometimes, outright falsehood. I understand Randy J. somewhat better now.

Here, briefly stated, are my reactions to his list:

I have no problem with Joseph ordaining blacks to the priesthood.

I don't believe that the First Vision accounts are significantly contradictory.

The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press was probably a mistake, but I don't believe that prophets are inerrant or infallible or superhuman, and I don't know of any scriptural basis for thinking otherwise.

I don't believe that Joseph ordered the Danites (or anybody else, for that matter) to kill the execrable Lilburn W. Boggs.

Native Americans are Lamanites.

The question of Joseph's marital relationships is (pretty much by its nature) rather murky, and I'm disinclined to take Randy J.'s accusation at face value.

I believe that Joseph's translations were divinely inspired and correct.

Joseph received two revelations (Doctrine and Covenants 3 and 10) regarding the 116 lost manuscript pages. Whether or not they were delivered via an angel seems rather unimportant.

Joseph didn't commit bank fraud.

I have no problem with his attempt, if such it was, to sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon.

Joseph never claimed to be greater than Jesus Christ.

NOW, the point of all this--and the one I strongly believe Bob was trying to make--is that if one can freely draw the obvious conclusions when presented with the facts about other people's religions, then it is unreasonable to purposefully avoid drawing the obvious conclusions when presented with the facts about one's own religion--no matter what apologists from either side say.

I don't plead guilty to holding a double standard. To assume that I do is, therefore, to beg the question at issue. Question-begging is a logical fallacy. It is counted among the so-called "practical fallacies." As is the ad hominem fallacy.

It is also possible that another aspect of Bob's message is encapsulated in my page titled "Inside the Minds of LDS Apologists"

It's possible. But not very likely. See below.

Apologists are unable to distinguish between possibilities and probabilities.

Some are. See, for example, your own remark, just above.

But to treat all "apologists" as if they constituted some sort of undifferentiated group is simply ridiculous. It betrays a noticeable lack of intellectual seriousness.

When they come up with defenses for their faith, LDS apologists and their sympathizers automatically assume that the scenario they've concocted, however unlikely, is "good enough" to provide Mormonism with an "out," at which point all criticism is dismissed.

Uh huh. As a caricaturist, you have a certain crude skill.

As far as serious analysis goes, though, the above is simple bunk.

For example, when it comes to the Book of Abraham controversy, the characters written down the left margins of three of the four manuscripts prove that the recovered papyrii were indeed the source of the Book of Abraham and not any "missing black and red scroll."  Yet some apologists say that the scribes went "maverick" and wrote the characters in the margins on their own without any input from Joseph.  The fact is that Joseph was broken of his habit of loaning out scriptural manuscripts way back in 1828.  The idea that he would let scribes "have their way" with such important documents may be an extremely remote possibility, but is not a probability by any means.

And, thus, some very careful and sophisticated argumentation is simply dismissed by internet fiat.

I can see why you would feel an affinity with Mr. Bob McCue.

Now, did that simplify Bob's message a bit for everyone?

It was indeed pretty simplistic.

[Daniel Peterson]

mccue: First, the Mormon can go metaphoric.

From an outsider viewpoint, this is what Mormonism appears to be leading toward, bob.

I don't see this trend at all.

I see an overabundance of it.

Perhaps you hang around more Mormons than I do, or are better connected than I am. I can only report what my very limited personal experience with these issues suggests to me, and what it doesn't suggest. I don't get out much.

I still hear these kinds of responses on a regular basis: "It doesn't matter how we got the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham; the point is that we have them!"

Can you imagine a BYU professor taking the same posture with a student's thesis? "I don't care how my student might have produced this paper; the point is that he turned it in!"

In my (admittedly minuscule) experience with these issues, the point that is being made by such folks as say that (and I'm one of them) is not that they don't care whether he made it up or purloined it from the late great Solomon Spalding or pirated it from Ethan Smith or received it as a mysterious and unmotivated gift from the omnipresent, omnicompetent, and omniscient Illuminati, but that, once the idea of its being a translation of a genuinely ancient text by divine inspiration is granted, the precise mechanism of translation is of at most secondary importance.

Thus, the comparison to plagiarism in a college term paper doesn't work because it doesn't capture the real issue.

[juliann]

Unfortunately, most people on this board are relatively ignorant of the JWs. I met many on my mission and enjoyed many a Bible-bash, so I became quite familiar with their apologetics and their uncanny similarity to Mormons. If it hadn't been for the JWs, it would have been a lot harder to look at my own religious-self in the mirror.

You shouldn't assume. I spent years defending JWs on the AOL message board. And apologetics is similar the world over. You guys really need to get over the idea that there is anything special about yours. Bob has appealing to authority down cold...although he would benefit from a little more sophisticated approach than trying to use going out to dinner with a "scientist" as support. You need to look at your "non-religious self" just as thoroughly because changing religion does not change the self.

For me, this is a way to set-aside Juliann's oft-repeated accusation that ex-LDS are/were fundamentalists.

And this seems to be the chosen mopologist dance of the veils. I have never accused "ex-LDS" of anything. I have two sisters who are ex-LDS. But this accusation is used nonstop no matter how many corrections are made. It will be continued to be used to avoid having to admit that I talk about a very small subgroup of ex-LDS who seems to think there is some magical intellectual transformation in shedding religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentism

Non-religious fundamentalism

Some refer to any literal-minded or intolerant philosophy with pretense of being the sole source of objective truth, as fundamentalist, regardless of whether it is usually called a religion. . . .[edited to avoid invoking Godwin's Law] There are people who in their attempt to live according to the writings of Ayn Rand seem to detractors to transgress respect for other perspectives in propagating their views, so that they are deemed to be a kind of "Objectivist Fundamentalist", and they are spoken of derogatorily as, "Randroids." In France, the imposition of restrictions on public display of religion has been labelled by some as "Secular Fundamentalism." The idea of non-religious Fundamentalism almost always expands the definition of "Fundamentalism" along the lines of criticisms. 

Countermos cannot walk away from a definition of fundamentalist just because they don't like the sound of the word. The only way you are going to be able to shed the obvious is to stop harrassing other people because they believe something you do not.

The degree to which you really believe your Church (be it LDS or JW) is the one and only True Church is the measure of your fundamentalism.

The degree to which you really believe your worldview is the one and only true worldview is the measure of your fundamentalism.

[Jigglysaint]

Well my apology since I contributed to that chaff. The worst part about the internet is you can sometimes strike faster than your brain can handle.

Anyway, I'll go read the posts again, and if they keep my attention, I might make a better post.

[Pokatator]

I spent years defending JWs on the AOL message board. And apologetics is similar the world over. You guys really need to get over the idea that there is anything special about yours.

[juliann]

bob wasn't saying the spirit whispered to him. He was writing, at that point in his essay, from the perspective of a hypothetical Mormon apologist. (It was a long post, and easy to miss, but he did clearly state, just before that part you quoted, what he was going to do.) All of your comments in this same (first) post are missing that this was not bob speaking for himself, but for a hypothetical 'apologist. (It wasn't particularly great, as I'm sure he'd admit himself, but that is what he was doing.)

Hope that helps clear things up a bit.

Thanks, Matt. It does not change my point because he was still speaking with approval because this "spirit" was "whispering" the right things to the hypothetical Mormon...that then allowed him to "hypothetically" position the hypothetical Mormon as a child which by default places him in the adult role. The point remains that these fundamentalistic countermos do accept "spirit" if it elevates their worldview.

(And if I have missed any other nuances in his dear diary meanderings...oh well.)

[juliann]

I spent years defending JWs on the AOL message board. And apologetics is similar the world over. You guys really need to get over the idea that there is anything special about yours.

[Pokatator]

I spent years defending JWs on the AOL message board. And apologetics is similar the world over. You guys really need to get over the idea that there is anything special about yours.

Are you an apologist for hire?

[Dr. Shades]

In short, if (for example), the Book of Abraham were the Jehovah's Witnesses' problem, not ours, would you buy such arguments as "there is still a missing scroll" or "it was a catalyst to receive revelation?"

It would depend on the quality of the evidence and the logic advanced.

I'm sure the Jehovah's Witnesses advance several well-written, sensible, and erudite apologetics for the reason behind the failure of their world-will-definitely-end-in-1975 prophecy. But the fact remains that their prophecy failed, so only one real conclusion can be drawn, regardless of the quality of their evidence and the logic they advance.

I don't discount arguments simply because of the identity of the person advancing them.

Even if the identity of the person is "Bob McCue?"

I'm not positively impressed by anybody who does.

Then you must've been extremely disappointed in your fellow-believers who have posted in this thread so far.

I always attempt to draw the best conclusion consistent with the evidence and the logic.