John Dehlin And Faith Reconstruction

[wayfarer]

The folks on that shady thing seem obsessed with what is being posted on this thread. I wonder if Wayfarer busy gathering "intel" for those ever so nice forks who never once say a naughty thing about anyone? Be that as it may, I am told that I should get over myself.

You know, I've learned from my mistakes in previous exchanges to set aside unfounded comments, as I now have done with your unfortunate, unfounded, and uncharitable comments in your mormoninterpreter.com article. for what it's worth, perhaps we should all do the same--it's part and parcel of getting over the self: something that challenges us as egotistical humans:

"Now for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed" - Moses 1:10.

As for me, I am not sure i have ever gathered intel on flatware.

Edited February 5, 2013 by wayfarer

[Storm Rider]

It is always enjoyable to see such smug, self-congratulatory, deluded superiority in others. I just wonder if their arm ever hurts from patting themselves on the back? It would seem to given the effort expended that it would at least result in a severe muscle ache. Of course, one would need a spine I guess. Carry on, I will just continue to watch. BTW, that self thing you seem so preoccupied with gets tiresome only because it rings so hollow and self-serving. You may want to look at charity and how it can be expressed in daily living.

[Calm]

You know, I've learned from my mistakes in previous exchanges to set aside unfounded comments, as I now have done with your unfortunate, unfounded, and uncharitable comments in your mormoninterpreter.com article.

It is quite obvious that not only have you set them aside, but you've completely banished them from your thoughts.

I always love it when people point out how forgiving they are by bringing up old offences. Somehow I get the distinct impression they've missed the point.

[wayfarer]

It is always enjoyable to see such smug, self-congratulatory, deluded superiority in others. I just wonder if their arm ever hurts from patting themselves on the back? It would seem to given the effort expended that it would at least result in a severe muscle ache. Of course, one would need a spine I guess. Carry on, I will just continue to watch. BTW, that self thing you seem so preoccupied with gets tiresome only because it rings so hollow and self-serving. You may want to look at charity and how it can be expressed in daily living.

is this directed at me or lou? It would apply to both. How does your arm feel right now?

It is quite obvious that not only have you set them aside, but you've completely banished them from your thoughts.

I always love it when people point out how forgiving they are by bringing up old offences. Somehow I get the distinct impression they've missed the point.

A completely predictable comment. Forgiveness and forgetting are two different things.

Edited February 5, 2013 by wayfarer

[Tacenda]

Come clean about what exactly? Should the lds church publish a thousand page book addressing all the complaints of the critics and give their own interpretation of events in history? Of course, then the critics will disagree with the interpretation and publish their own versions piece by piece over the internet. The bottom lines are very simple: either Joseph Smith was a prophet or he wasn't. Either the book of mormon is what it claims to be or it isn't. Either the 3 witnesses had a very special spiritual experience or they lied.

Those are the bottom lines.

Well the church started a new church history website recently right? With all the different catagories such as the JSP. Maybe they could have a catagory addressing issues that are not doctrine but were taught to be such as blacks not allowed the Priesthood, Blood Atonement (MMM), Polygamy (fruits of it), Adam/God theory. And include in a heading, the apology that these were taught at one time.

ETA: http://history.lds.org/?lang=eng Here is the link...also, want to say that people in/out of the church can heal faster with an apology.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Tacenda

[Sky]

With comments like these, I really don't blame Louis Midgley for being done with message boards (although none of this was said here):

It is this kind of fanaticism in which fellow human beings are treated as though they were a malignant cancer in the community that must be rooted out, which is the dangerous thing. This fanaticism obviously can strike any group. FARMS indulged in this kind of fanatical behavior too much, and that is why its expulsion from BYU campus was salutary.

He can't leave. Like all brainwashed die hard Mormons he thinks he is doing God's work and will and being a missionary and sharing the sweetness of the Gospel of Christ so he can get goodie cookies in heaven for his service. He's brainwashed and they are trained to actually think and believe that their work matters, that it makes a difference, and that God is pleased with them. God wants them to save even if it is but one soul, but notice who doesn't do much himself? God, of course. Religious thinking people are slaves to others who think God is at the helm. Midgley wants his reward and deep down is not so sure that Mormonism is really what it claims to be. He's smart, yet he is stupid all at once, a typical Mormon. All apologists deep down doubt, otherwise why would they spend years trying to defend Mormonism? If it was actually the truth, apologetics would be irrelevant. They really think God needs help in converting the world! That's not very impressive faith is it? No, Midgley, like all apologists is on an ego trip. They want the praise of each other and will stop at nothing, including ridicule, sarcasm, smirking, and outright lying for the Lord. Funny, where really is Jesus anyway? He obviously isn't here being involved in anything....


I understand where you are coming from, and I disagree with your disagreement. But your comment on fanaticism? Now that is perhaps closer to what I was trying to get at. But it's still a brainwash. Everything in Mormonism is geared to that. From the early 3-6 year olds being encouraged to bear their testimonies they know everything in the church is true (before they even know how to read or think), to the music, the constant barrage of follow the leader, etc.

I think it is entirely amusing how Midgley and DCP continue talking and gossiping to each other about what is said here in such a superiority and condescending tone and attitude. They love to fawn over each other patting their backs and giving out kudos all the while claiming their superiority is vastly beyond anything anywhere else on the internet, nowhere more so than here. It's their way of continuing to keep themselves in the spotlight as super heroes, as almost apostles spreading the work of the Lord, and glorifying themselves.....woops, Christ, yeah, it's all about Christ, not themselves. But don't tell them that, they might go back and re-edit things into their comments about how good and true and real Jesus is.

The only reason they can command an audience is because they sneak over here and read, and then go and report. They are utterly bereft of logic or personal humility. Midgley brags he is very well known in his ward, that his intellect is beyond compare in the earth, and DCP concurs. This is precisely why apologetics fails and will fail. God doesn't need any of this kind of carping, nor does he encourage it. But then again, God is too lazy to show up and do anything for himself, so this must be the best he has, not much of a commentary on the greatness of God i would say.

Such a bastion of civil discourse, tolerance, mutual respect, humility, and intellectual superiority, isn't it?

[Daniel Peterson]

TLuke admitted that the two of us do some good scholarship, but that we have the very bad habit of throwing grenades at fellow Latter-day Saints, and that is what spoiled the Maxwell Institute and led our our being given the boot. I am tempted to post his long diatribe. I may. But for now I want to ask everyone who has read that list of insults who exactly is the Nasty One. He seems inclined to see his own worst proclivities in others. I suspect that he is a bright fellow and has good training. Why then all the insults and name-calling? I don't think we are dealing with a pathology. He simply could not survive the dog fights in an academic department in a university if he suffers from a pathology. Why the hatred toward you and now me? Is it that he has an irrational urge to destroy us with insults and violent language because he knows we are on the right track? I would be pleased to know why all the energy and what appears to me to be hatred. And why you (and now me)?

Kishkumen describes the anguish with which he's watched our viciousness over the years, as we've savaged and bullied fellow Saints, and so forth. And yet he's engaged continually -- weekly if not daily, for at least six years or so -- in derision, name-calling, and accusations against us of a kind and intensity that I have never leveled at any other person and would never dream of leveling at another person. Moreover, for that same length of time, with a handful of exceptions, he's been the complacently uncritical lapdog (when not indeed the enthusiastic ally) of my obsessively hostile Malevolent Stalker. He's virtually never uttered so much as a peep of protest while the Stalker has accused me of racism, sexism, latent violence, "homophobia," anti-Semitism, slander, libel, fascist sympathies, sexual perversion, greed, dishonesty, incompetence, sadism, and a host of other moral failings and psychological defects. Sometimes, indeed, he's even joined in to voice his approval. (So close are Kishkumen and the Stalker, in fact, that I know of at least one observer who is firmly convinced that the Stalker is simply a Kishkumen sock puppet. And, truly, with regard to their uniquely characteristic signature issue, which is their hatred of and disdain for Mormon apologists and "classic FARMS," there's not an atom's worth of difference between them.)

it's deeply weird, and it surely seems to cast doubt upon Kishkumen's capacity to judge the rhetoric of others and upon his moral standing to do so.

[Senator]

I plan to leave.

I would recommend that.

This thread is being given more leeway because it has been such a public event. Board nannies are never given leeway.

[Maidservant]

Now what is one to do if one finds out by reading diaries that those two missionaries sometimes either drank beer or puffed on a cigar? This is, please keep in mind, hypothetical. In telling this wonderful story, if I find that they sometimes drank beer, am I obligated to include that fact? Now I think that I might include that kind of detail. What if one of them farted after dinner? Must that go in also? Some selection must be made when one approaches any pile of textual materials out of which one is going to fashion a history.

I agree with you and love the way you have expressed yourself. However to be fair on a small point, in our presentism as we look back on the details, nowadays drinking beer will keep you out of the temple but farting won't. So if or that Joseph Smith drank, it is of slightly more significance.

[Kenngo1969]

[Dan Peterson, re: Kishkumen's evaluation of Louis Midgley and him] He compared the two of us to "the Inquisition," "barracudas," and "cockroaches" ...

In a weird way, you gentlemen should be flattered. Those two things are so dissimilar that it's a real feat to somehow resemble them both!

Edited February 5, 2013 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

[Maidservant] ... nowadays drinking beer will keep you out of the temple but farting won't.

Whew! That's a relief!

[ERayR]

Come clean about what exactly? Should the lds church publish a thousand page book addressing all the complaints of the critics and give their own interpretation of events in history? Of course, then the critics will disagree with the interpretation and publish their own versions piece by piece over the internet. The bottom lines are very simple: either Joseph Smith was a prophet or he wasn't. Either the book of mormon is what it claims to be or it isn't. Either the 3 witnesses had a very special spiritual experience or they lied.

Those are the bottom lines.

This deserves several rep points.

[Daniel Peterson]

In a weird way, you gentlemen should be flattered. Those two things are so dissimilar that it's a real feat to somehow resemble them both!

"I contain multitudes." (Walt Whitman)

Or, maybe better, and more in the spirit of Kishkumen's estimate of me, "I am legion." (Beelzebub)

[Maidservant]

Whew! That's a relief!

I know, right?

[Daniel Peterson]

Wow. Kishkumen and his friends are, at this very moment, providing a tutorial in respectful disagreement and civil discourse. In person to stemelbow and, via distance learning, to Professor Midgley.

[why me]

This deserves several rep points.

I am amazed just how complicated we humans can make something. It is really quite simple when it comes to the lds church. And the foundation is in the book of mormon and how it came to be. And not how the church teaches church history today. For the early saints much was known. I would think that Joseph was asked over and over again about his experiences by the early saints. It would be human nature just to ask: Brother Joseph, can you tell us the story about how the book came to be? And I am sure that he provided a very good answer.

This is what happened to the witnesses over and over again...and they stuck with their story and gave a very convincing experience to outsiders. And to family and friends.

And does this reflect on how the church teaches history today or what they would like its members to dwell on? No, not really.

[Daniel Peterson]

Joining in with the Kishkumen chorus, Wayfarer has now suggested neurological impairment as an explanation for failure to agree with him.

This kinder, gentler, more Christ-like rhetoric is, I confess, not quite how I had imagined it would be. But their tutorial is very, very instructive.

[Scott Lloyd]

Joining in with the Kishkumen chorus, Wayfarer has now suggested neurological impairment as an explanation for failure to agree with him.

Heh. How benevolent of him.

[wayfarer]

Joining in with the Kishkumen chorus, Wayfarer has now suggested neurological impairment as an explanation for failure to agree with him.

This kinder, gentler, more Christ-like rhetoric is, I confess, not quite how I had imagined it would be. But their tutorial is very, very instructive.

I said that??? Hmmm. That would be a very creative interpretation of what I said. No, in fact, I didn't say that. What I said is that a certain style of apologetics has a cauterizing effect on the apologist's ability to discern truth. And you just proved my point by so dramatically misquoting me. I was merely trying to give Dr. Midgley the benefit of the doubt for selectively quoting John Dehlin in a way that reversed the meaning of his words. As quoted by another poster, "In that interview Dehlin does say that there's a low probability that God and Jesus exist, but then goes on to explicitly state that he chooses to have faith and believe in them anyway." For Midgley to omit the idea that John Dehlin chooses to have faith and believe in God and Jesus anyway is a material omission of the entire intent of what John Dehlin was saying. How can any reasonable person get John Dehlin's intent so wrong?

I certainly don't mean to demean you or others in the least. It's a danger of the profession of apologetics, in my impression. When we try to defend with logic that which defies logic, we put ourselves on dangerous ground. Our minds learn each time we express an argument, and through practice, we don't perfect the mind, but rather, make permanent our thought patterns. When we learn that it's ok to selectively pick from evidence to justify the Church's history and doctrine, then selectively picking from someone's words to justify a harsh judgment is not a leap of behavior. The mental patterns are identical.

I don't envy the position you and Dr. Midgley have taken upon yourselves to defend the faith. It's not easy.

Edited February 5, 2013 by wayfarer

[Calm]

Forgiveness and forgetting are two different things.

I agree, but when one continues to harp on an offence one claims to have forgiven, doubts about the accuracy of that claim are reasonable.

[Kenngo1969]

"I contain multitudes." (Walt Whitman)

Or, maybe better, and more in the spirit of Kishkumen's estimate of me, "I am legion." (Beelzebub)

Perhaps there is fertile ground for a future blockbuster, The Many Faces of Dan Peterson.

[wayfarer]

I agree, but when one continues to harp on an offence one claims to have forgiven, doubts about the accuracy of that claim are reasonable.

there is merit to your point. Perhaps I'm finding it difficult -- something i may be trying to sort out. I guess this Dehlin topic has opened old wounds on all sides.

[Daniel Peterson]

I said that??? Hmmm. That would be a very creative interpretation of what I said. No, in fact, I didn't say that. What I said is that a certain style of apologetics has a cauterizing effect on the apologist's ability to discern truth. And you just proved my point by so dramatically misquoting me. I was merely trying to give Dr. Midgley the benefit of the doubt

Here's what you said:

"that's midgley's and the mopologists standard operating procedure, cultivated over time, as a result of a mental discipline that turns absence of evidence into compelling proof. when one cauterizes the neurological structures that recognize the obvious, then one's ability to discern truth is seriously limited."

I certainly don't mean to demean you or others in the least.

Of course you don't. Who could possibly ever imagine such a thing?

You're attempting to illustrate for us what respectful disagreement and civil discourse look like.

[wayfarer]

Here's what you said:

"that's midgley's and the mopologists standard operating procedure, cultivated over time, as a result of a mental discipline that turns absence of evidence into compelling proof. when one cauterizes the neurological structures that recognize the obvious, then one's ability to discern truth is seriously limited."

ok...how does that equate to 'neurological impairment as an explanation for anyone who doesn't agree with him'? Did I say anything about impairment or agreeing with me -- at all???

I think you should look carefully at what I said. When we practice a given pattern, over time, neurological structures adapt to the pattern of our behavior. You at least need to grant me that. It's how "training" and "practice" alter the mind. So, if one develops a pattern of selectively choosing some facts and disregarding others to justify a position, that selective attitude towards facts and truth does in fact limits one's ability to be objective. It's kind of like when we ignore the spirit, the spirit will cease to communicate -- it's the Way things work.

That' all I'm saying, Dr. Peterson, with as much compassion and respect as I can render. It's a serious danger in the type of apologetics you guys practice. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do what you're doing -- sometimes it's necessary. I'm saying that a selective choosing of facts to justify a position is a dangerous practice. So, since I think that Dr. Midgley is sincere, and in respect for him, I am trying to understand why he would have such a selective disregard for the facts in cherry-picking what John Dehlin said without quoting the statement that effectively reversed the completely incorrect conclusion Dr. Midgley made in his "mormonexpression.com" article.

that's all.

You're attempting to illustrate for us what respectful disagreement and civil discourse look like.

and failing miserably at it. how about you? By the way, I was thinking about you as I spent a week in the land of the two holy mosques a few weeks ago...and wished I had your command of arabic...

Edited February 6, 2013 by wayfarer

[Sky]

Now some of them are accusing Midgley of lying and being a coward...

I'm sure it's striking to all observers that Prof. Midgley is apparently unwilling to register on this board in order to answer his critics. Why is that, I wonder? He is every bit as free to register here as anyone else... And yet he doesn't. He prefers, instead, to "hide" on a board that is heavily moderated. Does he fear that he'd be unable to hack it over here? I get the sense that he's feeling rather hot under the collar; he keeps saying that he's had enough, that he can't bear the criticism, and that he ready to run away in a panic from discussion boards altogether.

What must the onlookers think, that this "Emperor" of FARMS is afraid to leave the cozy confines of the MDD forum? Do they judge him a coward, I wonder?

Why doesn't Midgley register on that board and answer his critics? Gee, I don't know, maybe because he doesn't want to roll around in the mud with bullies, who aren't really interested in hearing what he has to say, but are more interested in accusing him and calling him names or "catching" him in his words...maybe this has something to do with it?...