SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
_The Stig
_Emeritus
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:37 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _The Stig »

"SeN takes a cheap shot..."

That might be one of the most descriptive statements about the content of SeN of all time.
_Doctor Scratch
_Emeritus
Posts: 8025
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:44 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Doctor Scratch »

Definitely an interesting tactic/response from the Proprietor. Rather than backtrack, he decides to double down! And surely everyone remembers this thread, which caused Dr. Peterson to spiral out of control, moaning and wailing in a Defcon 5-level meltdown. Does he denigrate and put down the faith of others--including JWs, Evangelicals, and Calvinists? Sure he does; this is just the latest example of it. He might try to defend himself here by saying, "Hey, I'm just going along with the consensus views," and yet surely he can see how that line of response is no help to his cause.

The Mopologists have never been sincere about the idea of being respectful of others' faith traditions. They resent the scorn that has been heaped on them for being Mormon, and so they will say that when it suits them--i.e., we know how much it sucks to get attacked over our religious beliefs, so we do our best to be respectful of others. But they want to inflict the same pain that they've been forced to endure.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Kishkumen »

Symmachus wrote:
Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:47 pm
I agree with most of this, though at a certain point I do think there is a debate to be had that isn't about snobbery (for another time). Peterson will denigrate all he wants, of course, but I see all of that as an evasion of his obligation he sets for himself in play-acting the role of a Mormon intellectual, because the intellectual value or contribution of a given religious tradition is a relevant question in light of that role. Accepting the premise that a religious tradition relies on an intellectual tradition for longevity and depth, what have Peterson and the FARMS people done about that in the case of Mormonism? What book in the past forty years has come out of their activity that has a had not merely a significant intellectual contribution but has had effects beyond that rarified arena? My god, the guy calls his blog "Sic et Non," presumably a reference to scholasticism, but the value of the scholastics is precisely that their work had significant and long-lasting impact outside of the universities of Paris and Oxford and beyond the high middle ages. What book produced by the FARMSians looks like it might have that kind of impact within Mormonism? Come to think of it, what books have they actually published since Nibley? Sorenson and Skousen are the only ones who come to mind. I find it revealing that Peterson focuses on the Mormon presence in institutions, as if mere membership in a club constitutes intellectual contribution.

The FARMSians seem to take it as a given that Mormonism has intellectual substance merely because of its cosmic claims; their progressive bêtes noires accept the standard academic assumption that the concept of intellectual substance is simply a tool of power. The result from both camps is blithering nonsense. Peterson can disturb this balance of vapidity by publishing his multi-volume Mormon Summa he promised long ago—any news on a publication date yet?
If we accept Cahill's premise that what is required of a faith to nourish is that it has a profound intellectual tradition, then, of course, he is making a kind of valid point. That said, I would say that anyone who belongs to any faith in which Jesus features as the primary savior figure ought to be nourished by and exposed to the tradition as a whole, not just what their proximate "smart guys" have to say. Christianity has all kinds of richness that nourishes in different ways, some of it rejected by the Catholic Church or mainstream Protestantism (Luther was inspired by the Theologia Germanica but are Protestants today?) and part of the larger current that brings about these other sects. Cahill has his own point to make, and that is fine enough as it is, but I disagree that the named sects of Christianity are so bereft of any part of that larger, rich tradition that I would join him in dismissing them casually as he seems to.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Kishkumen »

Doctor Scratch wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 3:29 am
Definitely an interesting tactic/response from the Proprietor. Rather than backtrack, he decides to double down! And surely everyone remembers this thread, which caused Dr. Peterson to spiral out of control, moaning and wailing in a Defcon 5-level meltdown. Does he denigrate and put down the faith of others--including JWs, Evangelicals, and Calvinists? Sure he does; this is just the latest example of it. He might try to defend himself here by saying, "Hey, I'm just going along with the consensus views," and yet surely he can see how that line of response is no help to his cause.

The Mopologists have never been sincere about the idea of being respectful of others' faith traditions. They resent the scorn that has been heaped on them for being Mormon, and so they will say that when it suits them--i.e., we know how much it sucks to get attacked over our religious beliefs, so we do our best to be respectful of others. But they want to inflict the same pain that they've been forced to endure.
People in glass houses, eh? I just don't get it.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Symmachus
_Emeritus
Posts: 1520
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:32 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Symmachus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:24 pm
If we accept Cahill's premise that what is required of a faith to nourish is that it has a profound intellectual tradition, then, of course, he is making a kind of valid point. That said, I would say that anyone who belongs to any faith in which Jesus features as the primary savior figure ought to be nourished by and exposed to the tradition as a whole, not just what their proximate "smart guys" have to say. Christianity has all kinds of richness that nourishes in different ways, some of it rejected by the Catholic Church or mainstream Protestantism (Luther was inspired by the Theologia Germanica but are Protestants today?) and part of the larger current that brings about these other sects. Cahill has his own point to make, and that is fine enough as it is, but I disagree that the named sects of Christianity are so bereft of any part of that larger, rich tradition that I would join him in dismissing them casually as he seems to.
I completely agree with all of this, and I don't take someone like Thomas Cahill very seriously. I think the absence of a strong intellectual framework does lead to problems, which as I say is a more complex discussion for all kinds of reasons, but my intention is not dismiss groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses on such grounds. I just think it's a practical question of longevity that is at stake. I don't see it as about inspiration but rather as about structure; the fact that these things aren't just incidental features to religious life is most apparent when they are absent (and perhaps mainline Protestantism is not such a bad example of that). We could get into all kinds of examples of what I'm talking about, and the Hitchens quotation brought in by Analytics is one of the few insights he has into contemporary religion, but I just want to clarify that I wasn't arguing in support of Cahill's blurbish elitism. My point in this case is about the people who set themselves up as the "smart guys," which is what Peterson and his crowd do. If you are going to play that game, as he wants to do, then by the standards of that game he and his crowd have been a dismal failure. I think it's been bad for Mormonism as a whole, and though perhaps it was unavoidable, I don't see they have any room for such self-congratulation.
"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."

—B. Redd McConkie
_Doctor Scratch
_Emeritus
Posts: 8025
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:44 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Doctor Scratch »

Hey, Dean Robbers--

Did you see how the Editor in Chief at "SeN" is changing the topic yet again? After doubling down on his negative depictions of JW's, he's decided that it would be better to concentrate on the question of whether or not he and his compadres have been mean to Gemli. All you have to do is tune in on Sunday: that's the most boring day of the week to them, and so that's when the pitchforks come out.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
_Gadianton
_Emeritus
Posts: 9947
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2007 5:12 am

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Gadianton »

"but I just want to clarify that I wasn't arguing in support of Cahill's blurbish elitism."

Right, I don't support it either. My point (just in case anybody missed it, such as those on other discussions boards/blogs) is that, had the Proprietor condemned "Cahill's blurbish elitism" I'd also have agreed with that, but what I saw was only an objection to being a mis-identified target of the elitism. The elitism is great, so long as the Mopologists walk arm in arm with their fellow stuffy scholars of faith, and look down on their lessors.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.

LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
_Dr Exiled
_Emeritus
Posts: 3616
Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:48 am

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Dr Exiled »

Mormonism must put down the competition and it believes it is no. 1. So, Dr. P puts down other religions. These are less than, unimportant to kolobians everywhere.

I like how Tavs has taken him to task and forced the change in subject. Would that I could be there to resume my interrogation.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen 
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
Posts: 21373
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: SeN takes a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses

Post by _Kishkumen »

Symmachus wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 2:26 pm
My point in this case is about the people who set themselves up as the "smart guys," which is what Peterson and his crowd do. If you are going to play that game, as he wants to do, then by the standards of that game he and his crowd have been a dismal failure. I think it's been bad for Mormonism as a whole, and though perhaps it was unavoidable, I don't see they have any room for such self-congratulation.
No, indeed. No room for self-congratulation.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Post Reply