Bob Loblaw wrote:The way things are going, within a few years the only people who will be left in the church will be the fanatics, the insane, and the ignorant.
We see that already on this board: the only LDS posters we have here regularly are nut jobs like Tobin, the ignorant nut jobs like ldsfaqs and fanatics like bcspace. If they are the wave of the future the church is in serious trouble.
TBMs on this board are in no way representative of of LDS in general. Even so, there are non-fanatic, non-insane, non-ignorant, TBM posters that occasionally post here. Maklelan and Asbestosman come immediately to mind as knowledgeable and insightful. I have no doubt they will be with the church for more than "a few more years".
Hmmm...I'd have to say, I consider Maklelan as a bit of a fanatic who can be pretty ignorant towards others when he posts.
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
Bazooka wrote:Hmmm...I'd have to say, I consider Maklelan as a bit of a fanatic who can be pretty ignorant towards others when he posts.
I take ignorant to mean ignorant about topics. Maklelan is clearly not ignorant about topics he typically weighs in on and is more of an expert on some issues (like the Hebrew Bible) than probably anyone else on the board. I am honestly unsure what you mean by 'ignorant towards others'. Whatever that is supposed to mean, I doubt it is more endemic to TBMs than critics.
As for 'fanatic' - only by some very weak definition of the word. For some reason, the word fanatic is sounding like it would fit well on Sock Puppet's conversation stopper thread.
Bazooka wrote:Hmmm...I'd have to say, I consider Maklelan as a bit of a fanatic who can be pretty ignorant towards others when he posts.
I take ignorant to mean ignorant about topics. Maklelan is clearly not ignorant about topics he typically weighs in on and is more of an expert on some issues (like the Hebrew Bible) than probably anyone else on the board. I am honestly unsure what you mean by 'ignorant towards others'. Whatever that is supposed to mean, I doubt it is more endemic to TBMs than critics.
As for 'fanatic' - only by some very weak definition of the word. For some reason, the word fanatic is sounding like it would fit well on Sock Puppet's conversation stopper thread.
No, 'ignorant' as in unnecessarily dismissive of posters or their points.
Fanatic: A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause. Informal - a person devoted to a particular hobby or pastime; fan a jazz fanatic
I'd say Maklelan (online postings) fits with that of a fanatic as defined above.
Would he, if asked by the Prophet, become a suicide bomber for Mormonism....not sure, I doubt it, but I'm not sure.
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
Oh, I think the church is likely packed with people who only partly believe. People on this board who seem reasonable fit the bill beautifully. The may call themselves believers, but if you confront them on certain issues, you see where they depart from full-on belief.
I don't consider mak very reasonable, however. Dude seems more concerned with people thinking of him as a mature grown-up than making reasonable arguments, and flees when things go south for him.
As for the abs-man, he's the kind of poster I was thinking of in the first statement. Good guy, and not crazy.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
Bazooka wrote:I'd say Maklelan (online postings) fits with that of a fanatic as defined above.
Would he, if asked by the Prophet, become a suicide bomber for Mormonism....not sure, I doubt it, but I'm not sure.
For the record, I would not become a suicide bomber for Mormonism, even if asked to by the prophet. I'd like to think I'm willing to give my life for the cause, but I'm not willing to take other people's lives, for any cause.
I think you are quite sincere, and I find it sad that you are in a position where you find the only allies in thought on this board to include people who are blatantly trolling. He's saying ridiculous things to get a rise out of others, and you react with sincere camaraderie? I pity that.
There's a purely abstract sense in which I think it is necessary to think anyone who accepts Mormonism is, to adapt a famous Dawkins quote, "ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." That's simply a function of me thinking that Mormonism is not rational to believe when properly considered. That doesn't mean intelligent, sane, thoughtful people can't be Mormons, but that there is a defect in thinking that underlies belief in Mormonism just as it does in anything else that we think people aren't warranted to believe in. Either a person isn't completely aware of the information or they are not thinking about it clearly enough.
But the original post tries to argue that there's a threshold being crossed where people who aren't ignorant, fanatical, or mentally unstable (more or less the same categories above) can safely believe now, but that soon won't be the case. That strikes me as silly polemic. What's changing? More information on the history of Mormonism is available? Well, that goes to ignorance either way then, doesn't it?
EAllusion wrote:There's a purely abstract sense in which I think it is necessary to think anyone who accepts Mormonism is, to adapt a famous Dawkins quote, "ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." That's simply a function of me thinking that Mormonism is not rational to believe when properly considered. That doesn't mean intelligent, sane, thoughtful people can't be Mormons, but that there is a defect in thinking that underlies belief in Mormonism just as it does in anything else that we think people aren't warranted to believe in. Either a person isn't completely aware of the information or they are not thinking about it clearly enough.
EAllusion, why do you think that someone who accepts Mormonism (as I do) must be "ignorant, stupid or insane"? Why do you think that Mormonism "is not rational"? Do you think that I am "not thinking about it clearly enough"? And if you do, why do you think so?
KevinSim wrote:EAllusion, why do you think that someone who accepts Mormonism (as I do) must be "ignorant, stupid or insane"? Why do you think that Mormonism "is not rational"? Do you think that I am "not thinking about it clearly enough"? And if you do, why do you think so?
I think explaining why belief in Mormonism is unreasonable in a distilled message board post is asking too much. The point that you are quoting is that if you accept it as unreasonable, then it naturally follows that belief in it must come from those categories. I think the same thing of people who believe aliens built the pyramids, which is a notion I think is several orders of magnitude more plausible than the Mormon faith is. Those categories are an exhaustive explanation for whenever someone accepts something that is unreasonable, at least if you stretch those crude terms to their natural semantic limits.
