beastie wrote:CK, this is a great post. Too bad Shades doesn't archive or sticky posts, I would vote for this one, hands down.
Ditto! In fact, I so vote. Shades, you can sticky this, can't you? Or otherwise archive it/link to it for future reference?
I hear where you're coming from, but there are so many excellent posts routinely made here that the entire first page would be nothing but stickies if we went that route.
As a compromise, we turned off the "parse" feature which culls posts of a certain age (like the set-up you see at RFM). This way, instead of us stickying things, you can save posts you like to your favorites menu, and they'll always be around for future reference.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
I disagree with any argument that suggests my style is worse than Peterson’s. I reject any argument that tries to explain his bad style on his attempts at humor. I reject any suggestion that ad hominem is a preferred tactic of mine. I reject any insinuation that I cannot discuss matters amicably.
For the record, I didn't argue (nor did I mean to imply) any of those things in my post. I was merely making a case for more consistently amicable behavior. With that, I suppose I will let the matter rest.
CaliforniaKid wrote:For the record, I didn't argue (nor did I mean to imply) any of those things in my post. I was merely making a case for more consistently amicable behavior. With that, I suppose I will let the matter rest.
From my personal experience, consistently amicable behavior is not rewarded, especially when dealing with apologists, especially when dealing with apologists on MAD. No matter how amicable the critic's behavior, apologists will react badly whenever they find the argument overwhelming. That's how a reader can tell which argument is stronger, even if no other clues are apparent: the one making the personal attack has the weaker argument, and knows it.
California Kid gave some good advice from a certain point of view and Kevin will lose nothing by accepting those things in the spirit in which it was given. None of us are perfect and Kevin can improve just as we all can. I sure hope CK doesn't critique me!
Kevin was railroaded on the MAD board. Those moderators are not working in the framework of what I consider to be honest and tolerant. They can be just as mean and nasty as their critics!
Anyway, Kevin should continue to pound away and challenge the learned fools at FARMS. He knows there is something rotten going on and his sole intention is to get to the truth. FARMS will distort truth just as quickly as the antis do! I can see that clearly from some of the writings of Hugh Nibley.
I am not certain Gee lied. When I paused long enough to take stock of that statement, I recalled that it is in the nature of human beings to deceive even themselves. I think it entirely possible that Dr. Gee's confirmation bias had led him to certain untenable conclusions that became rather magnified in his consciousness as time went on.
Of course anything is possible, but at this point I see no evidence that Gee would have been so intoxicated with ‘confirmation bias’ that he could overlook so many obvious facts. For example, that it was Ritner who suggested someone else be his dissertation advisor. Who the hell forgets something like this?
I vaguely remember Daniel Peterson making comments about John Gee getting another dissertation advisor, but do you have a quote from Gee himself?
Check the original thread I started on this subject. I provided all the relevant quotes therein.
Yes, Dan cites an email from Gee arguing the same thing.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
I want to make it clear that I do not view Kevin's posting style as worse than some notable apologists at MAD. The point I agree with is that it is normally pointless to engage in speculation on whether or not someone else is lying, or whether or not they're an idiot. I've done it myself, and it's always been pointless. But when we make that speculation a part of our posts, then it naturally becomes the focus point of the defensive responses. This gives the apologists the opportunity to divert the topic of the thread onto the character of the person doing the speculating.
Yes, the apologists at MAD engage in this type of speculation as well, and do it without censure from the mods. But when critics do it, then our character becomes the issue, and the mods support those who have made our character the issue. Apologists try to do this anyway - for example, Juliann attempted to portray me as someone who had been nasty to John Clark when there was zero evidence for that charge - so why give them ammo to do so? And does it really matter, in regards to Kevin's primary points, whether or not Gee was lying or just suffering from severe confirmation bias?
Kevin has a very strong argument, based solely on its merits. The apologists know that. So I suspect they are delighted when Kevin calls someone an idiot or says they're lying, because then they can divert attention to Kevin himself, rather than his points.
This attitude on my part - that I actually expect MORE from critics than I do from apologists - has gotten me into trouble on RFM. But we have cold, hard facts on our side. That means we don't NEED to engage in the same tactics that apologists engage in in order to divert attention from facts. We don't NEED to create weak arguments because we have an abundance of strong arguments (which is why I have frequently objected to Joseph Smith being called a pedophile on RFM and often got reamed for it - why bother with such a weak argument when there are so many strong arguments against Joseph Smith' character?). We don't NEED to speculate on whether or not apologists are lying or are idiots, because we WANT the focus to be on facts, not character.
I'm not preaching as someone who consistently does this, by the way. I'm just agreeing with CK' point that we can achieve cleaner, more focused points when we refuse to follow the rabbit trails laid out for us, and when we try to be careful not to inadvertently lay out some carrots that tempt responders to create rabbit trails. Part of the reason, along with the pre-poisoning of the MAD well against exmormon critics, I stopped posting on MAD was that I did not have the self control to avoid those diversionary rabbit trails.
Having said that, the charges that Kevin is dishonest with emails and doing something horrible by emailing scholars is an obvious diversion without merit. We all know that if a believer were to do the same thing and the end result would be in favor of the apologetic defense, that believer would be praised as someone willing to go the extra mile, determined not to rely on hearsay.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.