Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
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Kishkumen
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
Yeah! This keeps getting better. I am taken back to the Bob days. We are lucky to have this kind of material posted here!
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7bellyofenoch7
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
Entry #3
After stopping for sleep yesterday I happened upon a slim monograph that had fallen to the car floor from a box perched on my backseat. In truth this may have been less of an accident and more like my fellow priest Hilkiah finding the Torah. After writing my last entry, I took up this monograph because its title intrigued me: ‘Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument’ by one named Henry W. Johnstone Jr. I know not how such a book came into my possession as I have no memory of ever encountering it before, but once I had read the first few pages I was spiritually able to ascertain why such a work ought to be in my keeping. Before I sleep tonight I shall supplement this journal with a relevant selection from Johnstone, so that I have easy access to it and don’t have to keep the book at hand.
Often today my thoughts kept wandering back to my memories growing up on the prairies in the Mississippi River Valley and the violence of the canis latrans. Even while John Dehlin was droning on about how sex is “awesome”, I couldn’t ponderize on the his degeneracy and instead drank in the dim horror of a crafty predator who is a basal member of the same clade as the Mongolian Wolf! When Americans think of coyotes, what they don’t picture is small animals being torn apart while fully conscious by a pack of predators. Ever hear the screams of a donkey foal while it is suspended in the air by numerous hellish jaws whilst its bowels spill out onto the dusty ground? It haunts the alleys of my mind.
I think perhaps the Spirit had been goading me into those unpleasant thoughts to show me a resolution to a practical problem, just like the timely discovery of Johnstone Jr’s book. I’ve long struggled with what to call those who stand athwart the glorious Kingdom and find themselves deaf to our precious Gospel. Until recently we had the unwieldy portmanteau of “Anti-Mormon” until a trickle of Divine prudence was mercifully gifted to President Nelson thereby increasing the very sapience of the Saints. What do I switch to?
The label of “Critic” seems a poor fit as I see it. The term is too sterile in elocution, as if we were conceptually donning rubber gloves in pursuit of isolation. As a predicate it seems more appropriate for the polite disagreement one might have over fiscal policy with Cleon Skousen as opposed to the odious task engaging the necrotic worldview of Dan Vogel. In fairness I can understand the desire for some kind of prophylactic given Vogel’s effeminate glands and psychomotor agitation; like so much Bill Nye undergoing meth psychosis. No, simply too clinical.
What of the Nahuatl term coyotl? I must admit that the parallels between coyotes and the company of John Dehlin, Dan Vogel, and Grant Palmer are striking. One is a natural predator that quickly and violently establishes dominance hierarchies at just 5 weeks after birth and the other is a spiritual predator that seeks to terrorize the Saints just after a few weeks of discarding the Gospel.
I ought to shorten it to Yotes. I think?
After stopping for sleep yesterday I happened upon a slim monograph that had fallen to the car floor from a box perched on my backseat. In truth this may have been less of an accident and more like my fellow priest Hilkiah finding the Torah. After writing my last entry, I took up this monograph because its title intrigued me: ‘Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument’ by one named Henry W. Johnstone Jr. I know not how such a book came into my possession as I have no memory of ever encountering it before, but once I had read the first few pages I was spiritually able to ascertain why such a work ought to be in my keeping. Before I sleep tonight I shall supplement this journal with a relevant selection from Johnstone, so that I have easy access to it and don’t have to keep the book at hand.
Often today my thoughts kept wandering back to my memories growing up on the prairies in the Mississippi River Valley and the violence of the canis latrans. Even while John Dehlin was droning on about how sex is “awesome”, I couldn’t ponderize on the his degeneracy and instead drank in the dim horror of a crafty predator who is a basal member of the same clade as the Mongolian Wolf! When Americans think of coyotes, what they don’t picture is small animals being torn apart while fully conscious by a pack of predators. Ever hear the screams of a donkey foal while it is suspended in the air by numerous hellish jaws whilst its bowels spill out onto the dusty ground? It haunts the alleys of my mind.
I think perhaps the Spirit had been goading me into those unpleasant thoughts to show me a resolution to a practical problem, just like the timely discovery of Johnstone Jr’s book. I’ve long struggled with what to call those who stand athwart the glorious Kingdom and find themselves deaf to our precious Gospel. Until recently we had the unwieldy portmanteau of “Anti-Mormon” until a trickle of Divine prudence was mercifully gifted to President Nelson thereby increasing the very sapience of the Saints. What do I switch to?
The label of “Critic” seems a poor fit as I see it. The term is too sterile in elocution, as if we were conceptually donning rubber gloves in pursuit of isolation. As a predicate it seems more appropriate for the polite disagreement one might have over fiscal policy with Cleon Skousen as opposed to the odious task engaging the necrotic worldview of Dan Vogel. In fairness I can understand the desire for some kind of prophylactic given Vogel’s effeminate glands and psychomotor agitation; like so much Bill Nye undergoing meth psychosis. No, simply too clinical.
What of the Nahuatl term coyotl? I must admit that the parallels between coyotes and the company of John Dehlin, Dan Vogel, and Grant Palmer are striking. One is a natural predator that quickly and violently establishes dominance hierarchies at just 5 weeks after birth and the other is a spiritual predator that seeks to terrorize the Saints just after a few weeks of discarding the Gospel.
I ought to shorten it to Yotes. I think?
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drumdude
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
I hadn’t thought till just now that every LDS apologist is still using the term anti-Mormon. What is the approved Nelsonian term? 
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7bellyofenoch7
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Supplement #1
Journal Supplement #1
The Mysterious Slim Monograph
Henry W. Johnstone Jr. Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument.
Twenty-five years ago I felt that I needed to write something to clarify, for myself at least, the nature of philosophical argument. This feeling had developed as the result of my encounters with those who became my colleagues when I took my first teaching job at Williams College in 1948. I came to Williams from the graduate philosophy program at Harvard. This was at the time a very “tough minded” program, and as a result of my total immersion in it for several years I was not only deeply committed to empiricism but also under the impression that any philosopher in his right mind would be committed to it. But at Williams I quickly discovered that my colleagues were not empiricists. They were in fact, adherents to a position that I thought had long since been decisively refuted; to wit, absolute idealism. They read Hegel long after Hegel—as I had been led to believe—had been consigned to the museum of philosophical aberrations and curiosities. Even worse, they seemed to have no appreciation of the advances that had been made by modern empiricism. They wanted to discuss problems that I thought had long since been solved. In short, my new colleagues seemed to me to be anachronisms and quacks.
So I set about to refute them. As an empiricist, I relied primarily upon the strategy of Hume: I demanded that my interlocutors produce the sense-impressions from which were derived the ideas they claimed to have. I found, however, that instead of retreating in confusion, they began to ask me questions about sense-impressions that I could not readily answer. Once I had declared that sense-impressions were qualities, there was nothing more I seemed to be able to say. A quality implies nothing. Indeed, this very fact is central to Hume’s use of the doctrine of impressions to attack the claim there is causal efficacy. For if an alleged cause is nothing but a quality, it implies nothing. But if a quality implies nothing, there is not even any way to point to it. It is an occult entity. “Qualities tell no stories,” my Williams colleagues were fond of saying. When I protested that a quality can at least be characterized as what I am experiencing here and now, they suggested that I read the first section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, which, of course, displays “here” and “now” as mere abstractions.
Then they proceeded to tell me how the very notion that there are qualities had arisen. Qualities are markers of difference. Red is the quality that enables us to distinguish this book from that one. Unless there were a need to make distinctions, there would be no qualities. But of course the things that we need to distinguish cannot themselves all be qualities.
In the end, my colleagues showed me that empiricism itself was a historical phenomenon. It had arisen from certain intellectual needs. In turn it had given rise to others, including the need to give a coherent account of qualities, as might well be accomplished in some position superseding empiricism. To say, however, that empiricism is a historical phenomenon is to say that it has a place in history. And this was much more than I had originally been willing to concede with respect to my colleagues’ idealism. I had approached that idealism convinced that it had no place in history, certain that it was merely an aberration, a gratuitous step backward into error and bemusement. My colleagues were exhibiting the plausibility of the claims of my position, while I was repudiating the claims of theirs. They were being generous; I was not.
I have told only part of the story. None of my attempts at refutation was successful. Much more important, however, was my realization, after a painful period during which it was nearly impossible for me to carry forward any intellectual project at all, that I had been caught up in the very idealism that had once seemed so easy to refute.
With this realization came the need to reflect on the etiology of the deep change in my philosophical position. Somehow, my colleagues had argued me into idealism. I wanted to understand the power of their arguments. My reflection took the form of my early writings on philosophical argumentation, including the first few in this book. These writings were not confined to discussions of arguments in favor of idealism; I considered philosophical arguments of all sorts. At the same time, they were necessarily idealistic writings about philosophical argumentation, for it was clear that the very arguments that had persuaded me to become an idealist were idealistic arguments. The thesis, for example, that philosophical positions have a place in history, and that the claims and flaws of such positions can be exhibited as moments in a historical process, is itself an idealistic thesis. It may be contrasted, by way of illustration, with the empiricistic thesis that philosophical positions are meaningful if they can be traced back to Humean impressions, and otherwise are meaningless aberrations. For some reason, however, few readers other than my Williams colleagues seem to have noticed the idealistic character of my writings on philosophical argumentation. They have not seemed to be aware, for example, that when I said that I thought that philosophical arguments were sui generis—not to be judged by the standards of argumentation in science and everyday discourse—I was expressing much of the same idea that can be expressed by saying that Hegelian dialectic is not to be judged by the standards of argumentation in science and everyday discourse.
The Mysterious Slim Monograph
Henry W. Johnstone Jr. Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument.
Twenty-five years ago I felt that I needed to write something to clarify, for myself at least, the nature of philosophical argument. This feeling had developed as the result of my encounters with those who became my colleagues when I took my first teaching job at Williams College in 1948. I came to Williams from the graduate philosophy program at Harvard. This was at the time a very “tough minded” program, and as a result of my total immersion in it for several years I was not only deeply committed to empiricism but also under the impression that any philosopher in his right mind would be committed to it. But at Williams I quickly discovered that my colleagues were not empiricists. They were in fact, adherents to a position that I thought had long since been decisively refuted; to wit, absolute idealism. They read Hegel long after Hegel—as I had been led to believe—had been consigned to the museum of philosophical aberrations and curiosities. Even worse, they seemed to have no appreciation of the advances that had been made by modern empiricism. They wanted to discuss problems that I thought had long since been solved. In short, my new colleagues seemed to me to be anachronisms and quacks.
So I set about to refute them. As an empiricist, I relied primarily upon the strategy of Hume: I demanded that my interlocutors produce the sense-impressions from which were derived the ideas they claimed to have. I found, however, that instead of retreating in confusion, they began to ask me questions about sense-impressions that I could not readily answer. Once I had declared that sense-impressions were qualities, there was nothing more I seemed to be able to say. A quality implies nothing. Indeed, this very fact is central to Hume’s use of the doctrine of impressions to attack the claim there is causal efficacy. For if an alleged cause is nothing but a quality, it implies nothing. But if a quality implies nothing, there is not even any way to point to it. It is an occult entity. “Qualities tell no stories,” my Williams colleagues were fond of saying. When I protested that a quality can at least be characterized as what I am experiencing here and now, they suggested that I read the first section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, which, of course, displays “here” and “now” as mere abstractions.
Then they proceeded to tell me how the very notion that there are qualities had arisen. Qualities are markers of difference. Red is the quality that enables us to distinguish this book from that one. Unless there were a need to make distinctions, there would be no qualities. But of course the things that we need to distinguish cannot themselves all be qualities.
In the end, my colleagues showed me that empiricism itself was a historical phenomenon. It had arisen from certain intellectual needs. In turn it had given rise to others, including the need to give a coherent account of qualities, as might well be accomplished in some position superseding empiricism. To say, however, that empiricism is a historical phenomenon is to say that it has a place in history. And this was much more than I had originally been willing to concede with respect to my colleagues’ idealism. I had approached that idealism convinced that it had no place in history, certain that it was merely an aberration, a gratuitous step backward into error and bemusement. My colleagues were exhibiting the plausibility of the claims of my position, while I was repudiating the claims of theirs. They were being generous; I was not.
I have told only part of the story. None of my attempts at refutation was successful. Much more important, however, was my realization, after a painful period during which it was nearly impossible for me to carry forward any intellectual project at all, that I had been caught up in the very idealism that had once seemed so easy to refute.
With this realization came the need to reflect on the etiology of the deep change in my philosophical position. Somehow, my colleagues had argued me into idealism. I wanted to understand the power of their arguments. My reflection took the form of my early writings on philosophical argumentation, including the first few in this book. These writings were not confined to discussions of arguments in favor of idealism; I considered philosophical arguments of all sorts. At the same time, they were necessarily idealistic writings about philosophical argumentation, for it was clear that the very arguments that had persuaded me to become an idealist were idealistic arguments. The thesis, for example, that philosophical positions have a place in history, and that the claims and flaws of such positions can be exhibited as moments in a historical process, is itself an idealistic thesis. It may be contrasted, by way of illustration, with the empiricistic thesis that philosophical positions are meaningful if they can be traced back to Humean impressions, and otherwise are meaningless aberrations. For some reason, however, few readers other than my Williams colleagues seem to have noticed the idealistic character of my writings on philosophical argumentation. They have not seemed to be aware, for example, that when I said that I thought that philosophical arguments were sui generis—not to be judged by the standards of argumentation in science and everyday discourse—I was expressing much of the same idea that can be expressed by saying that Hegelian dialectic is not to be judged by the standards of argumentation in science and everyday discourse.
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Moksha
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
Can an apologist change its spots, even to appease President Nelson?
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
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7bellyofenoch7
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Entry #4
Entry #4
If the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can be considered a flock that properly belongs to our Holy Father then it follows that Russell M. Nelson is the shepherd ultimately responsible for the flock. Obviously one man cannot manage a flock of this size and so various tasks are delegated to local leadership; feeding and shearing the sheep of Christ is the work of the brothers and sisters wisely and duly appointed to do so. The function of Apologists is that of a livestock guardian, we keep the flock safe from coyotes. How do we neutralize the threat posed by coyotes? Arguments.
Arguments are implementations of persuasion and in that sense our work is related to missionaries, but we seek to reduce losses to the flock instead of growing it by addition. One does not engage a coyote as one would a sheep, different jobs require different tools.
What drew me to the Johnstone piece was the process of how a dyed-in-the-wool Empiricist was flipped to Idealism by his own colleagues. It serves as a fitting start to my project; developing my own school of apologetics. While I certainly stand firm on the broad shoulders of men like Hugh Nibley, Jack Welch, and Daniel Peterson, their work simply doesn’t age well. In truth, even writing such a sentence as the previous one brings me relief. Not only is such a confession cathartic, but it also justifies my decision to create a shadow journal. Publicly stating such sentiments can create enemies in any habitat of the Saints.
Returning to Johnstone, he mentions at the end of the first paragraph that he considered his colleagues “anachronisms and quacks”. Under the current circumstances, every Apologist out there would bristle to discover a fresh Harvard graduate considered them as Johnstone considered his colleagues. Such folly brings to mind Helaman’s son Nephi when he wrote:
“Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity”
Better that the coyotes assume we are simple minded quacks, the less prepared they are the better in my estimation. Coyotes will yip to get prey to reveal itself and then silently chase and kill or in a more relevant context; coyotes will be brash and bombastic on social media to draw out Apologists and then close in with prepared arguments. Humanity has been exploiting such predictable behavior in the animal kingdom since before the invention of writing or agriculture, why stop when it comes to the defense of His Kingdom?
It has been a custom among Apologists for a few generations now to respond to such brashness and bombastic behavior with their own posturing that always includes rehearsing their own curriculum vitae and extolling the accomplishments of the Saints in academia as if they were performing a haka to intimidate a rival iwi. I consider that to be a waste of energy and opportunity.
In my own system, it calls for the Apologist to array themselves in humility and to exude spiritual contentment from their very pores. Allow the coyotes to eagerly advance and when their confidence has led them straight into the jaws of folly, you break their backs with a well timed strike.
“I’m sorry, I assumed you could sight read Hieratic. Let me translate that papyri for you.”
“I’ve long considered memorizing the catalogues of dig sites to be helpful in finding Semitic influence. May I draw your attention to…”
“Ha! I’m afraid the K’iche’ language is as agglutinative as Sumerian. I can’t help but feel that Jaredites played a role in that.”
In unrelated news, I’ve arrived at my new apartment. I’ve only managed to haul up a few of my belongings, the drive has been exhausting and I yearn for slumber. Tomorrow I’m getting dinner with two friends I met at Wizchan. Their Discord names are BasedBoomer1488 and BeefSwellington420. I’m cautiously optimistic!
If the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can be considered a flock that properly belongs to our Holy Father then it follows that Russell M. Nelson is the shepherd ultimately responsible for the flock. Obviously one man cannot manage a flock of this size and so various tasks are delegated to local leadership; feeding and shearing the sheep of Christ is the work of the brothers and sisters wisely and duly appointed to do so. The function of Apologists is that of a livestock guardian, we keep the flock safe from coyotes. How do we neutralize the threat posed by coyotes? Arguments.
Arguments are implementations of persuasion and in that sense our work is related to missionaries, but we seek to reduce losses to the flock instead of growing it by addition. One does not engage a coyote as one would a sheep, different jobs require different tools.
What drew me to the Johnstone piece was the process of how a dyed-in-the-wool Empiricist was flipped to Idealism by his own colleagues. It serves as a fitting start to my project; developing my own school of apologetics. While I certainly stand firm on the broad shoulders of men like Hugh Nibley, Jack Welch, and Daniel Peterson, their work simply doesn’t age well. In truth, even writing such a sentence as the previous one brings me relief. Not only is such a confession cathartic, but it also justifies my decision to create a shadow journal. Publicly stating such sentiments can create enemies in any habitat of the Saints.
Returning to Johnstone, he mentions at the end of the first paragraph that he considered his colleagues “anachronisms and quacks”. Under the current circumstances, every Apologist out there would bristle to discover a fresh Harvard graduate considered them as Johnstone considered his colleagues. Such folly brings to mind Helaman’s son Nephi when he wrote:
“Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity”
Better that the coyotes assume we are simple minded quacks, the less prepared they are the better in my estimation. Coyotes will yip to get prey to reveal itself and then silently chase and kill or in a more relevant context; coyotes will be brash and bombastic on social media to draw out Apologists and then close in with prepared arguments. Humanity has been exploiting such predictable behavior in the animal kingdom since before the invention of writing or agriculture, why stop when it comes to the defense of His Kingdom?
It has been a custom among Apologists for a few generations now to respond to such brashness and bombastic behavior with their own posturing that always includes rehearsing their own curriculum vitae and extolling the accomplishments of the Saints in academia as if they were performing a haka to intimidate a rival iwi. I consider that to be a waste of energy and opportunity.
In my own system, it calls for the Apologist to array themselves in humility and to exude spiritual contentment from their very pores. Allow the coyotes to eagerly advance and when their confidence has led them straight into the jaws of folly, you break their backs with a well timed strike.
“I’m sorry, I assumed you could sight read Hieratic. Let me translate that papyri for you.”
“I’ve long considered memorizing the catalogues of dig sites to be helpful in finding Semitic influence. May I draw your attention to…”
“Ha! I’m afraid the K’iche’ language is as agglutinative as Sumerian. I can’t help but feel that Jaredites played a role in that.”
In unrelated news, I’ve arrived at my new apartment. I’ve only managed to haul up a few of my belongings, the drive has been exhausting and I yearn for slumber. Tomorrow I’m getting dinner with two friends I met at Wizchan. Their Discord names are BasedBoomer1488 and BeefSwellington420. I’m cautiously optimistic!
Last edited by 7bellyofenoch7 on Sun Dec 15, 2024 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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drumdude
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
This is great stuff, keep it up brother!
I particularly like the characterization of the LDS apologist as a nervous wreck, trying to play whack-a-mole with negative apologetics rather than a calm steady approach of producing impeccable scholarship. The shotgun approach of spewing out thousands of low quality papers and blog entries does not seem to be very effective.
Bring on the ÜberApologist!
I particularly like the characterization of the LDS apologist as a nervous wreck, trying to play whack-a-mole with negative apologetics rather than a calm steady approach of producing impeccable scholarship. The shotgun approach of spewing out thousands of low quality papers and blog entries does not seem to be very effective.
Bring on the ÜberApologist!
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7bellyofenoch7
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
Sorry friends,
Shades has made it pretty clear to me now that my participation in this forum doesn’t really have much of a future, so I’m afraid I’ll have to end this here.
-Mr/DrStakhanovite.
Shades has made it pretty clear to me now that my participation in this forum doesn’t really have much of a future, so I’m afraid I’ll have to end this here.
-Mr/DrStakhanovite.
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Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
Stak,7bellyofenoch7 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2024 10:01 pmSorry friends,
Shades has made it pretty clear to me now that my participation in this forum doesn’t really have much of a future, so I’m afraid I’ll have to end this here.
-Mr/DrStakhanovite.
Please tell me this is some kind of joke?
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
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Kishkumen
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Re: Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits
I am sorry, Stak. I knew it was you, but I wasn't here to intervene in time. Pretty crappy way to treat an old friend of the board, in my opinion.7bellyofenoch7 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2024 10:01 pmSorry friends,
Shades has made it pretty clear to me now that my participation in this forum doesn’t really have much of a future, so I’m afraid I’ll have to end this here.
-Mr/DrStakhanovite.