0. I still claim to be Mormon. I don't go to Church because every time I hear someone tell me how much they _know_ the _church_ is _true_ I just feel like getting into heated public arguments where I constantly tell them their beliefs are based on predetermined conclusions, that the whitewashed version of how things happened has a nasty ugly side much like Two-Face in the Batman series (Aaron Eckhart, Mormon actor plug), that they don't even know enough to know they don't know anything, that the Earth is more than 6000 years old, that no, languages were not confounded at the Tower of Babel...etc., but I spend a good deal of time examining Mormonism because I hold onto hope that sometime, somehow, something will come along and plug all these holes and prevent me from drowning in a sea of confusion and total despair.


1.The FAIR presentation.
Part 1:
http://vimeo.com/16276142

Part 2:
http://vimeo.com/16276416



2. Huh? No really, what ..... is this man talking about? I once drove from Malad to Pocatello through a blizzard. It took upwards of 2.75 hours in arguably one of the worst automobiles ever made -- the Hyundai Excel. I couldn't see anything -- no cars, no road, just snow coming sideways. We were all scared. The storm was so powerful that they closed the highway (we had entered before they closed it). The storm was so strong that it hindered the heater from putting out much heat and frost was forming on the inside of the windows. And I felt more sane and aware of things in that blizzard in that crappy little car than I do trying to interpret what Mr. Scarecrow himself is talking about (the Scarecrow is his avatar on MAD). It's like his whole goal was to confuse people into submission.

3. Don't understand what he says? Bah! You're obviously just too stupid to know anything and nobody should listen to your poorly-formed conclusions that the Book of Abraham is made-up and that Mormonism is Joseph's con game. And since you're not smart enough to counter every single point in his diatribe then he wins by default. And that of course _PROVES_ the _CHURCH_ is TRUE! It just doesn't get any better than that!!!

4. You say you understand what he says? No, no you don't, otherwise you'd become a member of FAIR and regurgitate the same apologetics with the goal of herding these notions of falsifiability of Mormonism back into the faith-only-unfalsifiable world where it *must* belong.....


Okay, I got a little sarcastic there -- I do that when I feel like I'm being lied to or given a propaganda-snow-job. Seriously, does anybody understand what he's talking about? I only want the truth. If Mormonism or any -ism really is true I would want to make it central in my life. If Mormonism is false I want to see every apologetic argument shattered and all their laundry done openly. I'm sure I'll post back with more thoughts on the matter.

Seriously, he's done more for our cause than Steve Benson, Simon, Cheryl & Jerry, Tom Clark, Primus, myself, GayLayAle, Timothy, or all the rest combined to lift the blinders off of the faithful...

And as far as that scarecrow avatar, well, as an early scholar of the Wizard of Oz--the book, not the movie--we know the Wizard concocted a mixture of bran and pins and needles to create his "gift" to the Scarecrow (who, in later books, actually ruled the Emerald City for a time).

There's a literary lesson there, I think, but it was lost on Ol' Will... He does, however, speak Reformed Nibleyese extremely well...

I tried to slog through that talk, but finally had to put in the BG while I had some leftover pizza...

I didn't listen too closely, so I let the talk be a catalyst and had a revelation that Joe Smith & Co, were actually coming up with a code for the muckey-mucks in the church to communicate their real beliefs and intentions and not get caught at it by those outside the "circle." (What the hell, as good as any other explaination...)

I wonder how much he gets paid to come up with WTH?????? What in hells name is he talking about, really? Why does he talk about things totally irrelevant to discovering the supposed truth of the papari? This guy is a nutjob.

If the Book of Abraham is true, why has the church distanced itelf from the teachings that came from it?

If the Book of Abraham is true then the Lds church is true, but if the Book of Mormon is true, then the other groups who did not follow Brigahm are true.

You can't have both.

Wow, just wow. This is just a bad trip. Joseph Smith makes much more sense to me now that I've studied the history of Kabbalah, Golden Dawn, etc. Just as arcane, just not as logical. Looking at Joseph Smith through an odd, white-cloaked hermetic lens really does help me understand how someone could actually sit at a desk and cook on this shit for weeks at a time. If this Shryver guy weren't Mormon, he'd be in some other odd little corner of the world. Or maybe just World of Warcraft.

Well, perhaps Will & "Leeeeeeroy Jenkins!" can get together for a raid...

1. http://www.myspace.com/leeeerooooy_jenkins (religion: Mormon)
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU
3. at least i have chicken...

promoted among apologists last fall. They were constantly heralding a new era of BoA scholarship that would clearly show they were all right and we were all wrong. It was billed as the ultimate missing bit of scholarship.

When it was finally published, everyone went pretty quiet about that!

Wow what a lot of horse crap! The papyri had egyption characters. Joseph smith wrote the character and its translation in his notes. Scholars agree that Joseph Smith had no idea what the characters said. Some of the characters were indeed given whole paragraphs as to their translation. This guy's video is much of how I read mormon apologetics in that they are circuitous, wordy, and confusing.