Dunnisms from Midgley

[_Dr Moore]

In the back of her mind she had a nagging desire to read this “CES Letter,” if only to prove how stupid it was, but she remembered being told never to read “anti-Mormon” literature.

Wait, WHAT?? The Mopologists have insisted for years that nobody in the church tells anyone else in the church not to read anti-Mormon literature!!

Where is that stated? I still take it for granted that the church discourages exploring beyond the approved sources.

I was just in a stake leadership training and the 1st SP counselor pounded on the pulpit about keeping ourselves, and our kids, away from those "absolute poison" websites. He did not get the memo that it's ok to read anything?

[_Lemmie]

Smoot:

I've been around the Internet long enough to know that your typical ex-Mormon grasp of actual "apologetic" arguments (as opposed to the MormonThink caricatures of the same) is, shall we say, lacking.

Your “typical ex-Mormon”? Smoot has made it clear where he gets his information. Proudly sharing the bukkake and manga porn knowledge he’s gained by playing a board game that discriminates and stereotypes with equal opportunity filth is not exactly an erudite path.

His fixation on the exmormon subreddit, a sub that admittedly is perpetually stuck at a barely past prepubescent level, is quite telling. Has his misogynistic porn fixation never allowed him to investigate other locations? You know, where he might find the grown-ups?

r/mormonscholar, and r/Mormon come to mind, as well as this forum, newordermormon.net, even mormondialogue would introduce him to the adults with thoughtful points re lds issues.

[_grindael]

This is simply too hilarious, this thread! I'm just chucklin' my ass off and then the Smuut crap hits the fan! And so I just have to read the comments over there at Phoney Maroney and lo and behold, look at what the Smuutster gifted the world with!

Greg Bell
August 21, 2019 at 11:42 pm | Reply
I just googled bukkakke, and wish I hadn’t. I’m not sure why this is being brought up in this thread so often.


Stephen Smuut
August 21, 2019 at 11:59 pm | Reply
About a year ago, as I recall, I was arguing with one of Bill Reel’s followers on his Facebook page about something or other to do with the burden of proof. I made the point that you cannot prove a negative, and it is fallacious to expect somebody to do so. My interlocutor was disputing my argument. To put a fine point on it, because Tapirs have become a stupid ex-Mormon meme, I made some offhand joke along the lines of: “Well you can’t prove that you and Bill Reel don’t watch Tapir Bukkake.” It was purposefully over-the-top because I had lost all patience with Reel and his cult-like followers.

I didn’t think much of it at the time since I blocked Reel and then left Facebook altogether not long thereafter. It was just a throwaway joke made in the heat of a Facebook argument. Recently, however, because he’s a compulsive weirdo who is desperate for any kind of relevancy or notoriety, Reel devoted some time on his podcast breaking down this episode from his perspective. (Because normal, healthy, non-obsessive human beings compulsively hoard Facebook comments from a year ago and dredge them up to score points against people long after the thing has died down.) In his podcast, he basically implied that I must be some kind of pervert because I know what bukakke is to begin with. What he’s too stupid or dishonest to realize is that, instead of me being a pervert, I know what bukakke is because I know what Urban Dictionary is, I sometimes play Cards Against Humanity with my friends, and I know what memes are.

Because Reel’s cult-followers are even more unoriginal than he is, they’ve since tried to somehow shame me by calling me Mr. Bukakke, not realizing that I am utterly incapable of caring what Reel or his sycophants think about me, especially when it comes to the occasional off-color jokes I make, and so their efforts to shame me are entirely in vain.

I mean…that and also because I’m a hollowed-out husk of a human being who is dead inside, obviously.

I know what bukakke is because I know what Urban Dictionary is, I sometimes play Cards Against Humanity with my friends

Really? Just ... Really? So... I googled "Cards against humanity Bukakke" and lo and behold this showed up... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15pS4VORbgM

A "throwaway joke"?? Why in the world would he be playing that game? Or did he just google "Bukakke" and find the video and a ready made excuse for his perversion? I love how these guys invent these stories and just make everything so much worse.... keeps me chucklin' all the live long day...



And this, this is simply priceless...

What he’s too stupid or dishonest to realize is that, instead of me being a pervert, I know what bukakke is because I know what Urban Dictionary is, I sometimes play Cards Against Humanity with my friends, and I know what memes are.

Sure, sure he explained all that to Bill Reel, right, right!!??? Only a stupid or dishonest person would think that someone that makes "throwaway jokes' using THAT WORD, would associate it with perversion, right? Bill should have gone right to the URBAN DICTIONARY! It would have been all cleared up, right? Or better yet, play twisted and perverted GAMES with your "friends" and you'll learn all about THAT WORD, right?

Nope, you can't make this crap up. Only in the world of Mopology... Mopology... Mopology...



Yeah, he doesn't care.... that's why he's left us with the long, pathetic fairy tale about how he learned what THAT WORD means.

[_I have a question]

Just for reference:

Cards Against Humanity is a party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements using words or phrases typically deemed as offensive, risqué or politically incorrect printed on playing cards. It has been compared to the 1999 card game Apples to Apples[1] and originated from a Kickstarter campaign in 2011.[1] Its title refers to the phrase "crimes against humanity", reflecting its politically incorrect content.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cards_Against_Humanity

[_Gadianton]

On the "He has not created me for naught" thread, Billy Shears responds to Smoot's argument, saying that ex-Mormons love to read apologetic material, and Smoot objects, noting all the technical material the apologists have produced, such as Gee's stuff, that he doesn't think the average ex-Mormon has mastered. Of course, the direction he's going is that should one study Gee and disagree, one isn't qualified to do so without learning Egyptian, and then what about all the other ancient languages that could be relevant? One could never, in principle, leave the Church, because there wouldn't be time to master the relevant topics and most wouldn't have the capacity for it anyway.

If he were born into Scientology, could he never leave it because somewhere out there, there is a argument or perspective about it that he hadn't yet considered?

[_grindael]

Just for reference:

Cards Against Humanity is a party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements using words or phrases typically deemed as offensive, risqué or politically incorrect printed on playing cards. It has been compared to the 1999 card game Apples to Apples[1] and originated from a Kickstarter campaign in 2011.[1] Its title refers to the phrase "crimes against humanity", reflecting its politically incorrect content.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cards_Against_Humanity

Yes, something I'm sure all the faithful followers of Jesus spend a lot of time playing. I mean, it just reeks of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles and modern Mormonism. I'm sure the First Presidency and Council of Twelve play it whenever they get together with "friends" and that they know all about THAT WORD and what it means and all the dirty, nasty memes that are out there on the internet today. Yup, I'm sure that this is something that, unlike all the arguments from Mopology, the average Mormon can grasp and understand and know all about. What an astute, cogent argument from Smuut! Irrefutable! Anyone who doesn't believe it just has to be "stupid" or "dishonest", unlike the fine, upstanding Mr. (THAT WORD), Stephen Smuut.

And isn't the can't learn everything argument just another way to say put it on a SHELF and it will all be answered in the afterlife. Now where have we heard that before? Didn't Mopologists like Smuut invent that?

[_moksha]

I see Steve's usage of Tapir Hentai being one more hint of his secret attraction to Dr. Peterson. Too bad Steve could not get Dr. Peterson to dress up as a brony for a little harmless wrestling. Just two bronies engaged in horseplay, with the younger one feeling to older brony's oats.

Hope that was a pleasant fantasy, Steve. You're welcome.


Family Home Evening at BYU. Just pretend they are Tapirs

[_grindael]

Hope that was a pleasant fantasy...

[_Gadianton]

Young Smoot may ought to sit back and think about just what kind of a war he's fighting. On these boards we talk about it like an objective problem to solve and perhaps it is, and critics know that the consensus of every field of inquiry is far away from taking seriously anything in Mormonism. The apologists disagree, allegedly believing that they have the finest scholars around who are experts in those fields, and who believe, and with plausible explanations that at worst are underdog theories, not given due consideration by other scholars out of prejudice.

But really, all of this is just an entertaining aside to the real problem of losing faith. I don't think I have a perfect grasp of this, but I'm pretty sure I get it better than young smoot, or "Crucible of Doubt" and associates. Being a typical generational Mormon is like being all-in on a highly leveraged position. Mormonism expects a lot in terms of commitment, and worse, member culture advertises the commitment as part of the investment. The reward is all the mystery and joys of "the Eternities", but it all depends on this tiny window of opportunity. The risks are real, as Dr. Shades has recently reminded us, even God himself is "all-in" as he could "cease to be God" at any time if he screws up just a little bit.

Excellence, achievement, 5.0 grade-point averages on a 4.0 scale all become a part of his uber-position taken on the big bet. At the heart of the whole thing is the restoration narrative, with Joseph Smith having lived a morally exemplar life from a young age, refusing alcohol before even knowing what it was; wise, able to confound the greatest intellects and translate documents that not even the Doctors could, but temperate; all this greatness didn't make him a stiff, he could wrestle with the kids and have a good time with the best of them.

And Mormon culture literally is cyclonic reinforcement of the narrative. From competitiveness, to testimonies, to odd spiritual encounters, to making doubt uncool -- it all reinforces this vision of grandeur and the big wager everyone is taking to score the eternities.

It's like watching Jascha Heifetz perform a difficult peace and suddenly, he hits a sour note. How do you even process that? Well, you can't. All it takes is hearing that one little piece of information and the leveraged position is in trouble. It's not like the apologists try to sell it: maybe they've got a stalemate in terms of what we can prove, or maybe we've got 51% odds and still ahead. It doesn't matter, because for a TBM, all that needs to happen is the underlying asset price to drop by 1$ and the world crumbles. On the third or fourth sour note, most are going to be in damage control mode.

Unfortunately, no amount of scholarship can fix that. The only possibility is for Mormonism to re-invent itself somehow, the apologists are trying, the Brethren are trying, new offerings of misdirection in FIRM or Snuffer to keep the cyclone spinning are on the table. We just see how it goes, but I'm pretty sure out of the various options, the Gee school learning Egyptology first and then get back to us about those two inks isn't going to work, no matter how loudly young Smoot screams it at people.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

That was a great post, Dr. Gad. Excellent observations.

As loathe as I am to give the surveillor's over at the COB any bright ideas (they did, after all, get 'inoculation' and 'mainstreaming' from this board), they really ought to stick to a sort of gnostic Christianity when we're talking about Mormonism and the restoration. Really focus in on personal revelation guided by the Q12. All the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham and D&C should be examples of personal gnostic revelation that are mysterious products of godly revelation, where not only how they were revealed a mystery (stick to the catalyst theories, guys, it's your only chance), but they themselves are catalysts for your very own and very personal mystical experience as you navigate this life.

Beyond that, and most importantly, Mormonism has to, and I mean it has to, become again fraternity for the men, and a sorority for the women, with real, tangible, lifestyle and structural benefits to current and upcoming generations, or it's going away. Belonging to the religion can't be a crucible of pablum and business meetings. It's not a damned job, brethren. There needs to be men doing men things, and women doing women things. There needs to be relationship building, real relationship building, built through activities that are fun, creative, challenging, and needful in the sense the things being done in the church fill a void that the larger overall society or the smaller family unit can't.

And if all that is too tall an order, then just keep doing what you're doing and focus on your transition to becoming a large real estate corporation managing and acquiring its assets. You're at least good at that.

- Doc