A Mormon Privilege: Intellectual Honesty

[_canpakes]

DrDarby - maybe you can help out Mr. Peterson with his evidential dilemma. Please post some references that allow his claim to meet an acceptable standard of 'intellectual honesty'.

The floor is yours.

[_Philo Sofee]

Dr. Peterson also says in the essay

Likewise, if God were to reveal himself directly and conclusively, he would destroy our freedom, so overwhelming would that revelation be.

So uh, why did Jesus even bother to come to earth then? And uh, I guess that damns Joseph Smith all to living hell. First Vision and some such inconvenient events as Kirtland Temple visions, etc. You mean to tell me apologetics is so self serving that this is all they can come up with?! The logic of this decimates ANY claim for modern prophets whom God reveals himself to doesn't it?

[_Philo Sofee]

Dan Peterson also said about the book that favors his own presupposed beliefs

“The thesis of the book,” he explains, “is that the two central Christian resurrection claims — namely, that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead and that we will all be raised from the dead — are defensible claims.”

The probability of its truth is based on evidence.....lessee here........have we seen even a mere 1 in 100 people coming back from the dead in 2 millenia? Or maybe 1 in 1,000,000? Is 1 in 100,000,000 asking too much?! Just what evidence is there for this?

Peterson continued

Davis explains that he’s not doing what he calls “hard apologetics,” in which the attempt is to prove a religious claim true.

No crap Sherlock. There is no apologetics at all here, mere assertion and dogma.

More from Peterson

Bart Ehrman is living proof that it’s a matter of historical evidence, not of faith. And Professor [Page xvii]Ehrman is not alone.13 “Jesus existed,” Ehrman writes, “and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves. From a dispassionate point of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth.”

Peterson's amateurish careful selection of authors to use and other authors to ignore is the MAIN reason I could not continue in apologetics. Ehrman has been destroyed in his analysis in this, his most unfortunate book. Of course, Peterson relies on Ehrman here since it suits Peterson's purposes. Ehrman is simply wrong when he says its only an agenda of others to argue against Jesus existing. It is analysis of evidence that is driving that engine these days. Of course, Peterson refuses to enter the actual arena of discussion because, he knows, without doubt, that he will be crushed with the evidence and analysis. THis is faith promoting pap and pablum, not scholarship. Quoting a scholar who agrees with you is not scholarship, but no one tell Peterson that, he loves to make others think it is. His favorite book on this is a 1993 source?! He acts like nothing since then has been significantly discussed?!? I have read over a dozen newer books that challenge his entire articles' information. It's just no longer surprising to me is all. Amusing, but not surprising. Sad in some ways too, but not surprising..... and well over half his article is about Mormonism and Joseph Smith?! If this is the best that can be done, this war is already over, the apologists have simply lost on this subject as well.

[_SteelHead]

He is also selectively quoting Erhman. While Erhman states that Jesus was likely a historical person, that it does not mean he is the divine resurrected being of the New Testament.

[_Spanner]

Hopefully members will go on to read Bart Ehrman and discover he uses the Book of Mormon as an example of forgery:

However, he doesn't hesitate to say: "The Book of Mormon is completely made up."

By whom?

"Joseph Smith, I assume. Whether he was completely self-deceived or crazy or just a lying bastard, I don't know. It's one of those three, probably."

Maybe someday he'll take that up with Glenn Beck.

[_Tchild]

Moreover, I judge that this is what the evidentiary situation will sustain with regard to the fundamental and crucial claims of Christian theism in general and the claims of the Restoration in particular — and I strongly suspect that this is exactly where the evidentiary situation is divinely intended to remain, pending Judgment Day

Dr. Darby and the good Dr. are omitting a few crucial pieces of Mormon doctrine / belief with this proof opt-out rationale.

According to Mormon belief - I hate to say doctrine, because the apologists do not accept what has been taught for 150 years consistently as doctrine - the 'judgement day', or final judgement is an event that is at least 1,000 years off. That means that every last soul alive today will be dead and gone before the judgement day. Mormonism teaches that there will be a second coming (proof up the wazoo of Jesus and his angels) wherein the wicked are burned in fire (faith not required). Death is proof for atheists of a life after, and there has to be at least 1,000 years of peace during the millenial reign. Satan is loosed for a "little Season" and the final battle of Gog and Magog takes place after the millenium where Jesus and other resurrected beings are hanging out constantly. Only after that shall the final judgement transpire.

That is a millenium of Jesus redeeming the world from wickedness, the world transforming into a terrestial state where death happens in "the twinkling of an eye" into resurrection and folks resurrecting all over the place.

There are more promised proofs in Mormonism than faith...if any of it were actually true that is.

[_sunstoned]

Amen. This hits on one of the reasons I absolutely love living in this later dispensation and take such pride in being a Mormon; this faith requires a strong intellectual honesty as a core tenet of Mormon praxis. When certainty ends the real thinking begins and all thinking persons are behaving as Mormons whether they know it or not. The ceaseless reminder that agency impacts our beliefs bothers many people and this should come as no surprise in this postmodern world where responsibility is something to be ignored rather than embraced.

I can't believe that you used intellectual honesty and Mormon in the same sentence.

[_canpakes]

Cliches, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence.

I actually have this quote taped to my refrigerator, because to me it captures the essence of what it means to be a Latter Day Saint. Unlike our Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, and Muslim friends, we Saints do not rely either on rote symbolism nor do we use a vast array of coded expressions and cliches to keep the hard questions of life at bay. Saints must give attention to the sources of doubt and we relish the challenge of questioning basic assumptions and giving evidence a fresh look when the situation demands.

Meanwhile...

Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet; don't go astray.
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet; he knows the way.

https://www.lds.org/music/library/child ... t?lang=eng

"Lucifer has a very cunning way of convincing unsuspecting souls that the General Authorities of the Church are as likely to be wrong as they are to be right. This sort of game is Satan’s favorite pastime, and he has practiced it on believing souls since Adam. He wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to “do their own thinking.” He specializes in suggesting that our leaders are in error while he plays the blinding rays of apostasy in the eyes of those whom he thus beguiles. What cunning!

... When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done."

http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/ ... nking-done

[_Philo Sofee]

Nice link to FAIR, I can use that periodically.....

[_Gadianton]

I think we'd have to agree to disagree that there is any significant amount of evidence against the truth claims of the LDS Church.

It's a stalemate eh? I love it.

You never did reveal how the critics navigated your comeback all those years ago that is now your signature line.