Help me out here. What would a factually-grounded theoretical explanation of an imaginary event that violates all laws of physics look like? All I have the patience for is...
"Nope. Didn't happen." (eyes roll vigorously.)
Maybe with a corollary of
"Grow up. Take a science class or something. Here, I'll lend you a book."
Anybody got anything else???
Asking a Mopologist to take a science class is one thing, asking them to actually grasp what it teaches and apply thinking to one's faith.....oh now you are pushing the limits way out of bounds.....
"How we speak to and about others at home, at church, at work, and online really matters. Today, I am asking us to interact with others in a higher, holier way. Please listen carefully. “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy” that we can say about another person—whether to his face or behind her back—that should be our standard of communication." -- Russell M. Nelson
Daniel C. Peterson, clearly following the Prophet:
A more efficient approach -- I'm watching it in real time over at the Peterson Obsession Board -- is to simply dismiss all the accounts, sight unseen, accompanied by snorts of derision and, among the higher organisms there, airy but factually-ungrounded theoretical explanations of why the accounts needn't be seriously considered.
It's conjured up an involuntary image in my mind of a ritual gathering of such folks: "By the great throbbing brain of Dumb-Dud!" goes the incantation. Dumb-Dud actually explained, a few weeks ago, that dissenting from His views indicates that the dissenter has the mental power of a "gnat." (The mightily engorged self-esteem is rather cute, in its way.)
DCP pictured here, awkwardly realizing that someone is actually waiving to the person behind him:
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
I don’t think Daniel has once addressed anything I’ve written. I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on his trademark self deprecation, superfluous hyperbole, or personal travel anecdotes. I discuss his ideas and often ridicule them from the perspective of a non-Mormon who doesn’t have a preexisting bias towards belief. He recently did the same with Calvinism.
The best Dan can muster in response is, well, rather embarrassing. “He are dumb” is an argument, I guess. But it’s a little surprising that’s the best a PhD professor can offer in response to an amateur poster on an obscure forum.
All of that to say, I’m quite happy to believe I’ve won when Dan has that to say in response.
My favorite Pahoran episode was from ZLMB, when the subject of Ronald E. Poelman's re-taped conference talk was raised. He had never heard of this and outright denied that it could be true.
When his fellow apologists on the board finally managed to convince him that it happened, he immediately changed course and began defending it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It was quite a thing to behold. One moment he found the story so outrageous that he was offended that critics would have the gall to invent such a thing. The next, he regarded it as so benign and commonplace that he couldn't believe anyone would ever have any problem with it.
The FARMS group did the exact same thing with the Hoffmann forgeries of the Salamander Letter... It's all for an image. Truth stopped being a part of their church since 1805. Yes, do the math and figure out why I chose this year as the beginning of the end of truth in Mormonism.
Not just FARMS! Elder Oaks got in on the story:
Elder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote:Another source of differences in the accounts of different witnesses is the different meanings that different persons attach to words. We have a vivid illustration of this in the recent media excitement about the word salamander in a letter Martin Harris is supposed to have sent to W. W. Phelps over 150 years ago. All of the scores of media stories on that subject apparently assume that the author of that letter used the word salamander in the modern sense of a 'tailed amphibian.'"
One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their readers that there is another meaning of salamander, which may even have been the primary meaning in this context in the eighteen twenties. That meaning is listed second in a current edition of Webster's' New World Dictionary is a "spirit supposed to live in fire" (2d College ed. 1982, s.v. "salamander'). Modern and ancient literature contain many examples of this usage.
A spirit that is able to live in fire is a good approximation of the description Joseph Smith gave of the angel Moroni: a personage in the midst of a light, whose countenance was 'truly like lightning" and whose overall appearance "was glorious beyond description" (Joseph SmithÑHistory 1:32). As Joseph Smith wrote later, "The first sight [of this personage] was as though the house was filled with consuming fire" (History of the Church - 4:536). Since the letter purports only to be Martin Harris's interpretation of what he had heard about Joseph's experience, the use of the words white salamander and old spirit seem understandable.
The FARMS group did the exact same thing with the Hoffmann forgeries of the Salamander Letter... It's all for an image. Truth stopped being a part of their church since 1805. Yes, do the math and figure out why I chose this year as the beginning of the end of truth in Mormonism.
Not just FARMS! Elder Oaks got in on the story:
Elder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote:Another source of differences in the accounts of different witnesses is the different meanings that different persons attach to words. We have a vivid illustration of this in the recent media excitement about the word salamander in a letter Martin Harris is supposed to have sent to W. W. Phelps over 150 years ago. All of the scores of media stories on that subject apparently assume that the author of that letter used the word salamander in the modern sense of a 'tailed amphibian.'"
One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their readers that there is another meaning of salamander, which may even have been the primary meaning in this context in the eighteen twenties. That meaning is listed second in a current edition of Webster's' New World Dictionary is a "spirit supposed to live in fire" (2d College ed. 1982, s.v. "salamander'). Modern and ancient literature contain many examples of this usage.
A spirit that is able to live in fire is a good approximation of the description Joseph Smith gave of the angel Moroni: a personage in the midst of a light, whose countenance was 'truly like lightning" and whose overall appearance "was glorious beyond description" (Joseph SmithÑHistory 1:32). As Joseph Smith wrote later, "The first sight [of this personage] was as though the house was filled with consuming fire" (History of the Church - 4:536). Since the letter purports only to be Martin Harris's interpretation of what he had heard about Joseph's experience, the use of the words white salamander and old spirit seem understandable.
Daniel C. Peterson, clearly following the Prophet:
A more efficient approach -- I'm watching it in real time over at the Peterson Obsession Board -- is to simply dismiss all the accounts, sight unseen, accompanied by snorts of derision and, among the higher organisms there, airy but factually-ungrounded theoretical explanations of why the accounts needn't be seriously considered.
Just like he does with the Conneaut witnesses to the Spalding manuscript.
"It’s ironic that the Church that people claim to be true, puts so much effort into hiding truths."
--I Have Questions, 01-25-2024
Just like he does with the Conneaut witnesses to the Spalding manuscript.
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Indeed. Petersen’s hypocrisy sure is cute, though.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Indeed. Petersen’s hypocrisy sure is cute, though.
It's why he has followers. The hypocrisy must have a group of hypocrites...... and of course, he w(h)ines and dines them real proper so they feel celestial.....
