Travis Anderson vs. Aaron Shafovaloff in new discussion video

[Amulek]

On 6/23/2024 at 5:01 PM, Devobah said:

[...] I'm not here to critique the video, but rather the abrasive style in which both parties choose to indulge in. 

I don't condone Travis's style when it comes to street debating. He likes to interrupt and act like he knows everything. Aaron does this as well. Those associated with Apologia Church like to do the same. I ran into that down here in Mesa as well. They often do the outreach around the Mesa temple. I swear I've been told I'm going to hell more at the Mesa temple than in my entire two years in Oklahoma. It gets rather frustrating. I'm not a really confrontational guy. It's just not the way I am. It's why I don't get into debates online, and why I hate this kind of attitude and behavior in general. If you want to have a discussion: then discuss. Listen. Quit interrupting and trying to make yourself sound smart. 

Truthfully I could only get through about 15 minutes of this. I like a more timed style of debate. Street work has never been my deal.

What do you all think?

As someone who comes from the land of bible-bashing, I'm fairly accustomed to this style of debate. It doesn't really bother me, though I find myself to be more of a 'ask questions until you reason yourself into a corner' kind of guy at this stage of my life.

That being said, I do think that what Travis was trying to do is frequently necessary in these kind of interactions. You aren't going to get to the root of our disagreements if you let the other side just run through their pre-rehersed prooftexting script. You need to flip the script and try to get them to engage with the false or assumed premise as soon as it shows up - rather than listening to their entire long-winded argument (which, if we're being honest, is really meant for outside observers and not the actual participant you are talking to).

 

[Daniel2]

Wow. When Travis suggest Latter-day Saints don’t believe that Heavenly Father was once a mortal man prior to His exaltation and those that do are lazy or on the fringe, that really struck me as flat out dishonestly. Unless the Church has really changed that much in the last 20 year….?!? 

And between the two, Aaron reflected a much kinder and gentler approach, for sure. Travis’s abrasive and aggressive style definitely doesn’t reflect most LDS members that I know. My guess is that if he did, there’d be a lot less members in the Faith. 

Edited June 26, 2024 by Daniel2

[ZealouslyStriving]

14 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Wow. When Travis suggest Latter-day Saints don’t believe that Heavenly Father was once a mortal man prior to His exaltation and those that do are lazy or on the fringe, that really struck me as flat out dishonestly. Unless the Church has really changed that much in the last 20 year….?!? 

And between the two, Aaron reflected a much kinder and gentler approach, for sure. Travis’s abrasive and aggressive style definitely doesn’t reflect most LDS members that I know. My guess is that if he did, there’d be a lot less members in the Faith. 

How are you defining "mortal man" in this context?

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Daniel2 said:

When Travis suggest Latter-day Saints don’t believe that Heavenly Father was once a mortal man prior to His exaltation and those that do are lazy or on the fringe

We aren’t required to, but it’s odd he sees it as a fringe belief.  Maybe could squeak by with a label of folk belief, but even that seems pushing it to me.

Did he explain why he sees them as lazy?

[Devobah]

8 hours ago, Amulek said:

As someone who comes from the land of bible-bashing, I'm fairly accustomed to this style of debate. It doesn't really bother me, though I find myself to be more of a 'ask questions until you reason yourself into a corner' kind of guy at this stage of my life.

Ah, so you were born in it; molded by it; you likely didn't see a healthy theological conversation until you were an adult. And by then it was nothing to you but SHOCKING! (I have a problem with modifying movie quotes. Please send help)

I served for two years in the land of Bible bashing. It's always disheartening when you find that the people that want to talk to you only want to bash. Multiple times we were just on the corner waiting to cross and we'd get flagged down to meet in a parking lot to "talk" about The Book of Mormon. By a certain point I'd just turn to my companion and compare what we were about to do to a school fight in terms of how it's set up. 

9 hours ago, Amulek said:

That being said, I do think that what Travis was trying to do is frequently necessary in these kind of interactions. You aren't going to get to the root of our disagreements if you let the other side just run through their pre-rehersed prooftexting script. You need to flip the script and try to get them to engage with the false or assumed premise as soon as it shows up - rather than listening to their entire long-winded argument (which, if we're being honest, is really meant for outside observers and not the actual participant you are talking to).

Aaron often comes with the same points over and over again. If you watch the Apologia videos it's the same thing. Nothing new but the face being talked to. 

[Devobah]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Did he explain why he sees them as lazy?

I think usually it's because the only sermon we really have on it is the King Follet sermon. Maybe some JoD quotes as well? I always liked Truman G. Madsen's take on it from the Joseph Smith Lectures (great listen). His take is that God the Father wasn't just some Joe Schmo sipping orange juice and reading the paper on the front porch, but since Christ is in the exact image of God, and the Son can do nothing but what he seeth the Father do, then the Father must have been a Savior as well. Is that true? IDK, but I like it

[Devobah]

5 hours ago, Daniel2 said:

And between the two, Aaron reflected a much kinder and gentler approach, for sure. Travis’s abrasive and aggressive style definitely doesn’t reflect most LDS members that I know. My guess is that if he did, there’d be a lot less members in the Faith.

It's definitely not the best foot forward to be sure. Travis has good points, but the attitude could be different. Then again I just don't like confrontation.

[Calm]

34 minutes ago, Devobah said:

I think usually it's because the only sermon we really have on it is the King Follet sermon. Maybe some JoD quotes as well? I always liked Truman G. Madsen's take on it from the Joseph Smith Lectures (great listen). His take is that God the Father wasn't just some Joe Schmo sipping orange juice and reading the paper on the front porch, but since Christ is in the exact image of God, and the Son can do nothing but what he seeth the Father do, then the Father must have been a Savior as well. Is that true? IDK, but I like it

It is the way I have always seen it.  

Iirc Aaron used to come here and go on about how we believed God could have been a cross dressing whatever sinner, though I could be mixing him up with another antimormon.  Not much is left of his posts here, possibly because the mods had to remove some of them due to him ramping things up.  Aaron would pretty much ignore those of us who pointed to the verses Christ does nothing but what he sees the Father do as a rebuttal.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/profile/2480-aaronshaf/

Here is an older thread where we discussed his claim some, but he didn’t show up himself.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/58202-did-god-ever-sin/

More…

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/44506-why-is-aaron-shafovaloff-so-concerned-with-whether-god-has-sinned/

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/56208-can-thomas-monson-say-jesus-sinned-and-still-be-a-true-prophet/

 

Edited June 27, 2024 by Calm

[Devobah]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Iirc Aaron used to come here and go on about how we believed God could have been a cross dressing whatever sinner, though I could be mixing him up with another antimormon.  Not much is left of his posts here, possibly because the mods had to remove some of them due to him ramping things up.  Aaron would pretty much ignore those of us who pointed to the verses Christ does nothing but what he sees the Father do as a rebuttal.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/profile/2480-aaronshaf/

Here is an older thread where we discussed his claim some, but he didn’t show up himself.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/58202-did-god-ever-sin/

More…

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/44506-why-is-aaron-shafovaloff-so-concerned-with-whether-god-has-sinned/

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/56208-can-thomas-monson-say-jesus-sinned-and-still-be-a-true-prophet/

Boy that last thread on the surface (just by looking at the link) looks like a dang good time! I love playing the hypothetical game!

One of the things that I do is think of a topic to put in google and then just put "mormon dialogue" after that, just to see what I can come up with. It yields interesting results to be sure. It's how I found out that Aaron used to frequent this board. Was he banned or did he just ghost?

[Calm]

26 minutes ago, Devobah said:

Boy that last thread on the surface (just by looking at the link) looks like a dang good time! I love playing the hypothetical game!

One of the things that I do is think of a topic to put in google and then just put "mormon dialogue" after that, just to see what I can come up with. It yields interesting results to be sure. It's how I found out that Aaron used to frequent this board. Was he banned or did he just ghost?

He wasn’t fully banned iirc, I couldn’t know for sure since I am not a mod, but I don’t remember him as someone who would cross that particular line. He might have had threads locked.  Some posters get annoyed with that and go elsewhere when it happens once too often for them.  Same if they get banned from a particular thread His profile showed him last on the board in 2015.  My guess is like the rest of the strident evangelical/fundamentalist critics who frequented the board, they just stopped coming around for some reason.  Possibly because many of their former opponents got bored or busy and stopped posting.  Other critics have hung around longer.

 

[Doctrine 612]

The video posted by Travis has about 30 minutes more and it reveals a lot more.

 

https://youtu.be/bR_LmuzvM-8?si=O6SvMMo4PDptx0sG

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Doctrine 612 said:

The video posted by Travis has about 30 minutes more and it reveals a lot more.

 

https://youtu.be/bR_LmuzvM-8?si=O6SvMMo4PDptx0sG

Summary please…

[Doctrine 612]

its goes in to attacking travis

[Devobah]

37 minutes ago, Doctrine 612 said:

its goes in to attacking travis

There’s always deeper context to these things. Channels like Apologia Church or others will start in the middle of a conversation when it comes to street evangelism. I see it as more of a tactic to make the channel’s owner seem better or to catch the one that is being debated off guard, but there are also times where it’s just a “where does the discussion begin?” kind of thing. I’m not saying that Travis is calling out Aaron saying he’s a liar, but there is a method to these videos and the editing choices. 

[halconero]

On 6/26/2024 at 7:30 PM, Calm said:

It is the way I have always seen it.  

Iirc Aaron used to come here and go on about how we believed God could have been a cross dressing whatever sinner, though I could be mixing him up with another antimormon.  Not much is left of his posts here, possibly because the mods had to remove some of them due to him ramping things up.  Aaron would pretty much ignore those of us who pointed to the verses Christ does nothing but what he sees the Father do as a rebuttal.

It's interesting the limits we sometimes put on the grace of Christ. I have pondered extensively about the eternal qualities of redemption and sanctification. Eternity is forward looking, but by the same token, is retrospective. Hence, the Saints of old could look forward with faith to the Atonement of Christ and live as though they were already saved, because they were!

Not only that, but according to Latter-day Saint theology, we won the war in Heaven by the blood of the Lamb — achieving something in a place that was outside time as we know it through something that would occur eons later.

Quote

Revelation 12:7-11

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

The implications of that are astounding. If salvation, power, and glory are not only prospective, but prospective, forming one eternal round, it suggests that once cleansed from sin we are in the same state as we would be had the sin never been committed in the first place.

While, I don't think that Heavenly Father was a "cross dressing whatever sinner," and take the lead from verses about Christ doing nothing but he saw the Father do, to me it matters not. Whatever we are or have been, all that is wrong shall be made as if it never were, replaced only with love, glory, power, and beauty of an eternal being who always was, is, and shall be.

[Pyreaux]

On 6/23/2024 at 5:01 PM, Devobah said:

Recently, Aaron S. had a 2 hour discussion with Travis Anderson, a well known apologist for the church (usually among missionary circles). The video is posted above for those that wish to watch the discussion. Depending on who you ask in the comments, Travis either demolished Aaron or Aaron demolished Travis. (Funny how that works, huh?). I'm not here to critique the video, but rather the abrasive style in which both parties choose to indulge in. 

I don't condone Travis's style when it comes to street debating. He likes to interrupt and act like he knows everything. Aaron does this as well. Those associated with Apologia Church like to do the same. I ran into that down here in Mesa as well. They often do the outreach around the Mesa temple. I swear I've been told I'm going to hell more at the Mesa temple than in my entire two years in Oklahoma. It gets rather frustrating. I'm not a really confrontational guy. It's just not the way I am. It's why I don't get into debates online, and why I hate this kind of attitude and behavior in general. If you want to have a discussion: then discuss. Listen. Quit interrupting and trying to make yourself sound smart. 

Truthfully I could only get through about 15 minutes of this. I like a more timed style of debate. Street work has never been my deal.

What do you all think?

Travis style: This is not being rude or angry, this is emotionless Street Epistemology, a set of conversational techniques designed to promote thoughtful reflection and open-mindedness in a participant with a strongly held belief. Despite the objections of the participants, these are productive conversations that help people reflect on the quality of their reasons and the reliability of the methods used to derive one's confidence level in their deeply-held beliefs.

Travis confronts the beliefs of believers with questions, at first presumes to be ignorant, he probes for knowledge by asking it of others. But since often his “ignorance” is in fact wiser than the wisdom of his contemporaries, he asks questions to help his interlocutors understand his own beliefs and reality better.

Travis almost always takes the conversation to a point where one runs into a logical contradiction in one’s beliefs. Facing contradiction, the participants are left confused, but often mistakenly thinking that confusion is Travis' endgame, but confusion is not the point. Understanding is. Believers who are unsure of their reasons for faith simply become aware that they are unsure of their reasons for faith. This gives room for new discovery.

The confused participant gets frustrated when Travis' interaction leaves the person's personal faith unveiled. They discover they don’t know or can’t articulate good reasons for why they believe what they believe. Sometimes it’s even more narrowly focused, as a pastor: they do not know or cannot articulate good reasons to persuade Travis to believe what they believe. This realization is good. The conversation is not as Travis' opponent's might consider "wasted time", it's not "going nowhere", it's not "pointless talking anymore", nor "fruitless asking questions like this".

Is this what Jesus would do? If you read the Bible, where Jesus was not portrayed as a passive person, He did not meekly get cowed when hearing the right scripture and He even threw some shade back at his critics. Jesus Christ took this approach often. He brought knowledge in with Him, but then He often drew that knowledge out of them.

[Okrahomer]

54 minutes ago, halconero said:

Whatever we are or have been, all that is wrong shall be made as if it never were, replaced only with love, glory, power, and beauty of an eternal being who always was, is, and shall be.

Thank you for this…beautifully expressed.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, halconero said:

While, I don't think that Heavenly Father was a "cross dressing whatever sinner," and take the lead from verses about Christ doing nothing but he saw the Father do, to me it matters not.

The only reason it matters to me is I don’t like arrogant smugness.