Chap wrote:However, so far as I recall his final departure came not long after the CoJCoLDS published the essays - which made several of his favored positions no longer tenable. In a way, I miss him. But it seems that the ecology of Mopologetics no longer has a favorable niche for his species.
That was also my take on his disappearance.
But what can you do? He came here to argue, others argued back, the church cut the ground from under him, and in the end he realized he couldn't win. So he left. What were his opponents supposed to do? Not answer him? But if they did answer him, and knew what they were about, his end was inevitable.
Once the Church confirmed the same points that bcspace was arguing against, he was done for.
He could no longer add his own slant when the Church closed off the wiggle room. So, as Festinger studied, he was at a point of confronting the evidence for what it was (cue shelf collapse) or running away from it to avoid invalidating a significant part of his life. That's a problem all believing Mormons have interacting here, they are pushed into seeing the evidence for what it is.
