All-time favorite exchanges between mopologists and critics?

[_MonkeyNumber9]

No thread on this subject would be complete without mentioning MsJacks decimation of one William Schriver:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18091

Wow, thanks, but I could only stomach a few posts by this guy -- why was he allowed to continue this awful behavior and not simply booted from the board for being such a misogynist jerk?

~m#9

[_honorentheos]

No thread on this subject would be complete without mentioning MsJacks decimation of one William Schriver:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18091

Wow, thanks, but I could only stomach a few posts by this guy -- why was he allowed to continue this awful behavior and not simply booted from the board for being such a misogynist jerk?

~m#9

We used to be a libertarian free speech board that relied on forum structure and self reporting that gave the board a very unmoderated feel. Like I mentioned in the other thread, it can get a bit rough because of it, but the free speech forum has significant upsides I find appealing. It says something about MDB that while Schryver may have been allowed his say, MsJacks piece proved to have a weighty impact far beyond the board that in my opinion proves a point about the value of countering bad speech with better speech rather than trying to protect safe spaces. But that's me

I say used to because, somewhat like the Beatles, we ended up with an official J-Pop band around whom the rules and identity of the board are bent completely around and one is not allowed to comment on in a negative way. Which this isn't. This is me patriotically pointing out how blessed we are to be on a board with an official J-Pop band as great as the one we have who are so great I dare not even breath their names lest it be construed as negative due to my unworthiness. Or something.

[_moksha]

Monkey, here is a short audio podcast for you by another poster Chris Smith.

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/christopher-c-smiths-four-views-of-joseph-smith-historians-debate-the-prophet-puzzle/

[_honorentheos]

Moksha, that reminded me of the work Chris Smith/California Kid and Mortal Man put in to the Joseph Smith Papyri length calculations. I don't recall that taking place all in one forum, but it included papers being published in various Mormon related outlets in response to one another including Gee. Here's a thread about it with links from this board:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23930

Chris (a.k.a. California Kid) participated in it so there's some first person contact in it.

ETA: this thread by Dr. Scratch ties a couple of the above together nicely.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47255&view=previous

[_MsJack]

Wow, thanks, but I could only stomach a few posts by this guy -- why was he allowed to continue this awful behavior and not simply booted from the board for being such a misogynist jerk?

In addition to what honor said, very few people have ever been booted from here. Just a few who were considered mentally unhealthy and potentially dangerous. Someone was booted once for something to the effect of threatening to report the board to the Web host, but has since been allowed back.

The board encourages the "block" function when one poster can't stand another. Truly foul / abusive / rated R / NC-17 stuff tends to get sent to Telestial or Spirit Prison or Outer Darkness depending on how severe it is. A few people have been barred from posting in the Terrestrial / Spirit Paradise forums for posting nonstop racist or homophobic garbage.

I never minded that William was allowed here. I was just flabbergasted that so few LDS apologists spoke out against him and, in the wake of my thread, most apologists (Dan Peterson, Wade Larson, Russell McGregor, and Juliann Reynolds, to name a few) defended him. I am a graduate of BYU and used to have a good rapport with FAIR and a number of LDS apologists, so this development genuinely saddened me.

It also taught me that no opinion I hold that disagrees with the Mopologists, no matter how sincerely and earnestly I hold to it, will ever be respected.

[_Dr. Shades]

Wow, thanks, but I could only stomach a few posts by this guy -- why was he allowed to continue this awful behavior and not simply booted from the board for being such a misogynist jerk?

Here's why. One of the founding, bedrock philosophies of MormonDiscussions.com is this: If someone shows up and insists on building a monument to his or her own inanity, who am I to stop him or her from completing it?

This is me patriotically pointing out how blessed we are to be on a board with an official J-Pop band as great as the one we have who are so great I dare not even breath their names lest it be construed as negative due to my unworthiness.

Congratulations on having precisely the correct attitude.

[_honorentheos]

This is me patriotically pointing out how blessed we are to be on a board with an official J-Pop band as great as the one we have who are so great I dare not even breath their names lest it be construed as negative due to my unworthiness.

Congratulations on having precisely the correct attitude.

Of course. Art isn't a matter of what but of how.

[_Physics Guy]

They can't just hit you with their best shot. They expect you to do the work of finding their best shot and hitting yourself with it.

That’s because they know that if the did people would realise what they already know...there isn’t a best shot. There’s just noise. So they refer you to the noise saying the best shot is in there somewhere, hoping you’ll never bother to look.

Yeah, that's the advantage that the tactic offers. Even if you do bother to look at the noise, there's so much of it that the believer can always dismiss your objections by saying that you haven't looked at enough of the noise. Plus it's all so incoherent that they can always claim you misinterpreted whatever you've seen.

I'm still puzzled about why people think they can get away with the "go read all our noise" ploy, because it's not at all like how people behave when they really know something. When someone thinks they really have a point, they are in your face with it. You can't stop them from hitting you with it right away, in the shortest and sweetest form that they can. And everyone knows that that's how people behave when they have a big point. Everyone knows that's how others behave, and everyone knows that that's exactly what they'd do themselves if they could. So anyone who is cagily refusing to commit themselves to anything, until you read all their noise, has to know that they haven't got anything major. At least at some level.

[_Res Ipsa]

PG, I treat the “go read X” as a “tell.” If you can’t explain your own point, you very likely don’t have one.

[_MonkeyNumber9]

So anyone who is cagily refusing to commit themselves to anything, until you read all their noise, has to know that they haven't got anything major. At least at some level.

But do you think they know it consciously? Case by case, no doubt, but I wonder how many of them actually, in quiet moments before falling to sleep, after a good full day of blathering, think " Hmmmmmm... Click. This just can't be right."

m#9