Oh please MH, – Your the one who asked my opinion on the Exodus story in #29 and when I gave it to you in a respectfull manner, your only response [#36] was to suggest that my testimony was built on sand etc.

There is nothing wrong or disrespectfull when I suggest that LDS members read, study, and ponder any writings from non-members [like Pres. Veazey] thru the lens of D&C 91. If there has been any disrespect, it comes from you and your friends.

You are correct in one matter: At this point in time, if anyone suggests that the resurection of Christ did not take place, then for me to be convinced, Jesus Himself, would have to say something like: “It’s true – I never was resurrected from the dead etc”.

You may take my comments in #150 and #154 as insulting or whatever and I can only shake my head in amazement. Your the one who brought up the Exodus story, which has tremendous consequences were it to be altered to fit the needs of science instead of religion. Another example to be changed to a wonderfull fable should the Exodus story be altered is Joshua 4:22-24 and Joshua 5:1.

“Then ye shall let your chidren know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.
For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which He dried up from before us, until we were gone over:
That all the people of the Earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: That ye might fear the Lord your God for ever.
And it came to pass when all the Kings….heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them anymore, because of the children of Israel”.

And these things you wish to change? By being an active party of reinforcing doubt in these stories, are you not diminishing your own power to flatten mountains and turn water into mud – that you may be called upon one day to perform?

Doesn’t D&C 8:3 mean anything to you? Was it a missprint or the ramblings of a false prophet?

If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m just trying to ignore you. You’re just as obnoxious as Dexter, and I don’t think it does any good to engage you. Andrew, thanks for trying, but I don’t think it’s wise to feed the trolls of Dexter and Sxark. They have their opinions about scripture, and refuse to be respectful of anyone who disagrees. Therefore, I refuse to respect their opinions. They are perfect examples of intolerance. Their inflammatory comments are disgusting. Perhaps I’ll just close down the comments if we’re through talking about the original topic, and now are resorting to describing tactics. Sxark obviously believes the Bible is inerrant, except for the parts Joseph Smith corrected. Unlike Joseph Smith, Sxark does not seek anything “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy” from Pres Veazey or anyone not of the LDS faith. He has all truth summed up in his brain, and needs not be enlightened/corrupted by anyone else.

To say that Christ, Himself, would have to appear and say: [fill in the doctrine, though I was talking about the resurrection], before I could believe that. No scientist or President of the LDS Church would convince me otherwise.”

His arrogance is truly appalling.

Sorry, I didn’t see your #162 until #163 posted. It crosses like that sometimes.
I believe we all may float around a bit with doubt now and then concerning this or that. Many times its just momentary until the mind sparks in a manner where doubt is placed to the side.

Some however, may have great difficulty just brushing doubt to the side and it just gnaws and gnaws at them until it takes a stronger foothold.

D&C 8:3 actually speaks volumes concerning the literacy of Bible stories. For if one were to believe D&C 8:3 to be true, then there would be no reason to disbelieve the story of Daniel.

You truely have a condescending viewpoint when you set yourself up as one who can teach others how to write this or write that in a manner that you find satisfactory when discussing religeous matters and it’s a poor excuse for not answering #154 or #150. If you or others wish to use my “approach” as an excuse not to engage in reasonable dialog, then so be it. I can understand why.

again, I have told you what you can do if you don’t want to create mess. But I guess you won’t hear it from me. after all, I’m just one of those apostate atheists and you’ve got that old-time religion.

Had Mormon Heretic, [or those that side with him], been one of the 2 spies who visited Rahab [lady of the night of Jericho], he probably would have dissuaded her from her stated position [Joshua 2: 9,10,11]. As it was written, the Exodus story had great impact on the enemies of Israel.

Does Mormon Heretic and his friends and Pres. Veazey want to change all that to wonderfull fables instead of fact? And how can that be justified in light of D&C 8:3? “Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground”.

Once one starts to doubt one thing, then it’s only a matter of time before one starts to doubt all things. Not a very good character reference for one who should have the power to flatten mountains and turn water into mud.

Instead of commenting about anything commented on before, I will try to give a break down of argumentation and persuasion.

Come on guys…persuasion is about three things: logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is the appeal to logic (whatever logical premises and conclusions one will us). There’s a lot of this here, although people in some cases haven’t been too keen on even trying to touch base on premises. People haven’t even attempted to show WHY certain premises should be agreed upon (so, the various arguments for or against x part of the Bible…obviously, all sides are approaching things from a different angle…it’s not just two sides either. I see the Dexter kind of side…and then kinda over a ways is the MH kind of side…and then over a bit is the sxark side.) Every side is trying to make a point and try to justify it according to some logical thought process.

BUT THIS ISN’T ENOUGH.

The two other modes are pathos and ethos. This is really basic. Pathos is about the emotional appeal. Quite simply, pissing people off, although it will get attention, isn’t a good way to try to PERSUADE. So, Dexter, I don’t care how right (a logos thing) you think you are. If you piss people off (and you acknowledge this in comment 144), then this is something YOU must fix. You can’t just default to blaming the other person and saying that some people cannot set the tone apart from what people are saying. The simple fact is that you as a rhetor must be able to control a persuasive tone AND speech. If you cannot control your tone, you will continue to burn up in a fiery burst. You CANNOT say, “Wake up and learn to read what is being said, instead of just latching onto someone’s tone or history of posts.” Because the TONE and HISTORY OF POSTS are both VITALLY important.

This gets into the third factor: ethos…this is the perceived moral character of an individual. It’s not just about doing moral things. Rather, it is precisely about character credibility. WHEN PEOPLE SAY THAT YOUR POOR HISTORY OF POSTS PRECEDES YOU, THIS IS AN ETHOS SUICIDE. This is something you must rectify if you want to be persuasive, not something your audience must rectify. Then again, if you don’t want to be persuasive, then you don’t have to care about any of these factors.

I mean, this is BASIC stuff guys. And I don’t know why it’s so hard to learn. Because I guarantee you — all of you — have been in a situation where YOU were paying attention to your opponent’s ethos and pathos over logos. And you were COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED in doing so.

I mean, this isn’t just directed to one person. Everyone’s falling apart in this discussion. A lot of this comment was directed to Dexter this time around, but I guarantee in particular that I have made these same comments in one way or another to sxark and others. And I’ll continue making them whenever they need to be made. How can there be any communication and shared understanding at this point?

Because I’ll tell you truly: if you cannot learn to properly cultivate all three modes of persuasion, you will find your arguments failing every time. You will find your communication and conversations falling apart every time. But if you will just TRY to improve ethos and pathos (and this involves understanding the other person, and what things appeal to them), I can promise you that you will find — it’s like magic — that you will suddenly be able to engage in conversations that don’t lead to frustration, regardless of if the conversation still ends in disagreement.

Yes.

LDS members are free to read, study, and ponder what they will, but when this study concerns non-members of the LDS Church [as Pres. Veazey of the CoC], it would be well to use D&C 91 as a guide.

I encourage everyone to read again all 150 entries.

Is the Bible free of such criticism? Did you see my Joshua post?

I suppose the Bible is free of such criticism within Sunday School class, but I don’t think anyone who has really studied the Bible is comfortable accepting the more outrageous parts. People who really study the Bible often become non-literalists by saying, “I don’t believe God commanded Joshua to wipe out every man, woman and child.” I think that is why the more outrageous parts don’t get talked about as much in church. The parts like the Sermon on the Mount get taken more literally and emphasized more. Also, people begin to reject some of the Old Testament ways as “the Law of Moses” which has been superseded by the “Law of Christ.” The Genocide in Joshua is recognized as no longer an appropriate response, and the real lesson is then that we must “obey God as Joshua [thought] he was obeying God.”

For me, this particular story a dubious example, because even if we believe Joshua believed he was obeying God, we need to understand that extremism is bad. We should never resort to Crusade or Jihadist (despite some fundamentalist/literalist) beliefs that would try to use Joshua to justify atrocities. That’s why the story of Joshua is a bad example, and I can frankly understand why Dexter would reject it. Frankly, I reject the idea that God would command the atrocity. I like the idea that Joshua says, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”, but I think we need to temper that with the idea that God would never command genocide, and if we think he will, then we’re sorely mistaken. Serving the Lord needs to be more along the lines of the Savior–Love God, Love your neighbor.

I think the church could do more to reject bad teachings. But I think it’s a difficult line to walk because of the over-emphasis on following the prophet because he’ll never lead us astray. The church is sold on this line of reasoning, so it’s tough to undermine Joshua without undermining the current prophet. That’s why I like Pres Veazey’s approach: “if portions of scripture don’t agree with our fullest understanding, of the meaning of the revelation of God in Christ, as illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and discerned by the faith community, the teachings and vision of Christ take precedence. This principle applies to all of our books of Scripture, especially any passages by some to categorically assign to God’s disfavor, or negative characteristics, or secondary roles to others.

This is why our belief in continuing revelation is so important. This belief keeps us open to yet more light and truth so we can grow and understand of God’s supreme will as revealed in Jesus Christ.”

I would think that people like Dexter would appreciate this approach which tries to distance itself from the bad doctrines in favor of the good doctrines, but from his comments so far, it doesn’t seem like he thinks the Bible has any redeeming value in it at all. All he seems to see are atrocities, and I don’t think he looks at the Bible as a whole. Most Christians pay much more attention to the New Testament than the Old Testament, because the laws of Christ supersede Old Testament customs. Therefore, the New Testament is the more important part of scripture, and deserves more attention than previous laws/understandings of God. Thou shalt not kill gets superseded by don’t get angry. Certainly the New Testament has fewer problems than the Old Testament regarding bad doctrines or poor understandings of God.

When you continually try to pick a fight, nobody respects what you have to say. When inflammatory comments are your primary means of communication, people get tired of the bickering, and write you off as a blowhard. It’s not what you say so much as how you say it.

I have honest disagreements with Cowboy and Andrew S. Andrew is an atheist, so we obviously disagree on just about every aspect of God, yet did you notice that Andrew defended me in 95 and I defended him in 63? I have no problem with respectful disagreement, but a big problem with inflammatory comments. You pick fights with your comments. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be respectful of others’ beliefs. Andrew and Cowboy are respectful. You should learn from their tactics if you want to be taken seriously.

I can’t believe I have to explain why your comment is ridiculous, but since you seem sincerely bewildered, I’ll oblige. I teach math 1030 at the local community college. Chapter 1 is entitled “Thinking Critically”, and section 1 is called “Recognizing Fallacies.” This is a freshman level class. Example 4 on page 16 is titled “Hasty generalization.” Since my book is an older edition, you can purchase this for less than $6 including shipping on Amazon. Go to http://www.amazon.com/Using-Understanding-Mathematics-Quantitative-Reasoning/dp/0201717115 (The new version is $106)

The idea behind Hasty Generalization is that A and B are linked one or a few times; therefore A causes B (or vice versa.) The example in the book is “Two cases of childhood leukemia have occurred along the street where the high-voltage power lines run. The power lines must be the cause of these illness.”

“The premise of this argument cites two cases in which leukemia occurred on the street with the power lines. But two cases are not enough to establish a pattern, let alone conclude that the power lines are the cause of the illnesses. This argument illustrates the fallacy of hasty generalization, in which a conclusion is drawn from an inadequate number of cases or cases that have not been sufficiently analyzed.

Let’s do a hasty generalization in your direction. Apparently, you enjoyed Natural Born Killers. I have not seen the movie (excuse my ignorance), but according to IMDB, the story goes like this: They [Mickey and Mallory] travel across Route 666 conducting psychadelic mass-slaughters not for money, not for revenge, just for kicks. The Nazi’s used to kill Jews just for kicks. You have much in common with the Nazi’s.

According to your reasoning, I am stating facts here, not engaging in hyperbole or hasty generalization. You do enjoy Natural Born Killers. The Nazi’s did kill some Jews just for kicks. Therefore, you have something in common with Nazi’s.

If you want to gain some respect, once again, don’t disrespect others with inflammatory hasty generalizations.

Brjones, just because the movie and the Bible are violent, isn’t enough to make them connected. Lions, sharks, and Jack the Ripper are violent killers too, but I don’t think you’d compare them to the Bible. If you want to use a more realistic example, comparing the people who justify killing in the Bible to Jihadists is a much more appropriate example. Mickey and Mallory had no purpose for their killing. Jihadists have a purpose, as did Joshua. I already condemned this as genocide in my very first post here. See Joshua’s Unholy War. I was also accused of launching “an unholy war against holy scripture.”

Andrew calls me an apologist. Others have called me an anti-mormon. Apparently I’m both, depending on which extreme one leans.