For those who don't know, Shirts is otherwise known as the Backyard Professor. He is the former director of research for FAIR and is still listed as a researcher.

It took me a while to catch on to what he was doing. The title of my video was "Archaeological Proofs of the Book of Mormon." The point of which is to show that in spite of Mormon claims, they not only have no proofs, they have no evidence. Shirts climbed on this and twisted his way through to prove the point that there is no "proof" only "opinion." So, he completely "proved" my point that the Mormon proofs are worthless, because they are simply opinion and opinion that does not hold up to scrutiny. I knew who he was and was not very nice. I forgot this happened until I started going back through some of my documents.

• Archaeology NEVER has the last word on proof or reality. Want proof? Look at William G. Dever's book "Did God Have a Wife?" wherein he answers it in the affirmative. Now who west of Suez would have ever thought *that*?!?
TheBackyardProfessor

• Dever provides "PROOF"? There is as much evidence that Jesus had a relationship with groups such as the Essenes who did not believe in marriage. His 40 days in the wilderness and coat without seam are indications of the relationship. Archaeology never claims final proof, because it is willing to admit they were wrong when new evidence is found. Ignorant people feel the need to search for whatever shred of evidence that exists to support their ridiculous conclusions. Shirts, you are a joke.
jhuston7

• Hey dope. Before opening your mouth, engage your brain and understand what I SAID. I said archaeology provides NO PROOF, my PROOF of which is Dever's book. He goes AGAINST the conventions of archaeology. You are the joke. You are also wrong about the Essenes never marrying. True some were celibate, but others were married.
TheBackyardProfessor

• Documentation Sparky. Give me chapter and verse of what you are claiming. Your being Mormon, and especially an apologist, lowers your credibility and I require sources from everyone that makes such claims. I also expect specific documentation where Dever supports your claims and exactly what he said. Not paraphrased, not taken out of context. I will check in detail any sources you provide. References to Maxwell Institute papers or other Mormon sources does not mean anything to me.
jhuston7

• O.K., for the less than genius (take a bow pal, yer on stage), I will tell you *AGAIN* William G. Dever's book "Does God Have a Wife?" and he says archaeology absolutely SHOWS this was the ancient Israelite belief in many more quarters of the land than was previously suspected. Google it and have a great read.
TheBackyardProfessor

• Not my job Sparky. I am requiring no more of you than the typical Mormon apologist requires of us "anti-Mormons." I have in fact copied my tactics from the illustrious Denial C. Peterson. You have the burden of proof here. You are the one throwing around the word proof, so prove it to me Sparky.
That being said, whether Jesus was married or not has absolutely nothing to do with North American archaeology. It is just something that one archaeologist has commented on. BFD
jhuston7

• You are like an ant to an elephant in relation to Daniel C. Peterson's credentials and abilities. I don't have to prove anything to you. I gave you the reference. Read it yourself.
TheBackyardProfessor

• It is the person making outlandish and ridiculous claims that bears the burden of proof. Mormonism is ridiculous and outlandish ergo you bear the burden of proof Sparky. I don't need to do any research. I have already done sufficient for my needs.
jhuston7

• So have I, and I am more than confident Mormonism will come off victorious.
TheBackyardProfessor

• Fat chance. It is losing more every day.
jhuston7

• I want to know specifically what sources you have concerning the Essenes and I will evaluate their credibility. People Like Denial C. Peterson and Whiting are worse than no source at all. I have caught them in too many misquotes and clear lies.
jhuston7

• Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, yeah all we Mormans can't even read yet, let alone type, or use our sources correctly. Yeah you others are so far beyond me and all the rest, you already HAVE read all about it and are toying with me right? You already KNOW that not all the essenes were celibates, but are going easy on me right?
TheBackyardProfessor

• Buy and read the book "Breaking the Mormon Code" which point by point shows how Peterson misquoted and bastardized sources to attempt to support the Mormon position. He specifically critiqued Peterson's "Offenders for a Word" which has been since removed from publication. To me the removal of the book from publication is very telling.
jhuston7

• Yeah they say the same thing about me and the same thing about Hugh Nibley and the same thing about John Gee, etc. ESPECIALLY when they cannot refute the materials. In other words, YAWN!
TheBackyardProfessor

• I gave you the reference, read it for yourself. I have nothing to prove here, you do.
jhuston7

• No I don't. I am fine with my beliefs. I could care less if you fall for this type of brainless, lopsided thinking.
TheBackyardProfessor

• Boy if that is not a joke. A Mormon unable to look beyond the narrow limits allowed him by his fundamentalist religion saying I have lopsided thinking. Someone who twists and strains to justify the ridiculous claims of a cult saying someone else has lopsided thinking. That is the best laugh I have had in a long time. I am sure you are "fine" with your beliefs. People like you generally are.
jhuston7

• I am glad you agree that you have lopsided thinking, it definitely shows.
TheBackyardProfessor

• I think I have clearly demonstrated and explained that it is you that have lopsided thinking. Having to get the last word in does not make Mormonism any more true and shows you for who you are.
jhuston7

• My contention in all of this is that Dever does not provide "PROOF." He provides opinion, which happens to be contrary to the opinion of the majority of other "experts" in his field, as you have pointed out. You call it "PROOF" because it agrees with your narrow minded, pedantic Mormon thinking. It is not "PROOF" of anything, Sparky.
jhuston7

• LOL! You FINALLY are getting the deep ***IRONY*** of me using the word "proof." It's about time, I honestly thought you were just playing stupid for the crowd to chuckle.....
TheBackyardProfessor

• And you have just proven that the "proofs" Mormons claim are worthless.
jhuston7

Jim, does it seem to you that his reason for compromising on the "no proof exist" discussion is to move the argument to the idea that there's never going to be proof either way. Just faith?

who preys on ignorant people. He knows most people will only listen to him and not research for themselves. He is a court jester sitting at the feet of Dan Peterson looking for praise and thrown a compliment.

I once saw a video of him saying metal swords aren't stained with blood but wood clubs would be stained with blood. So the wood clubs mayans use were actually the swords the BoM talked about.

Now the lie in there is while "Stainless Steel" which most people use currently does not get stained with blood "High Carbon" steel which would have been used in sword making back then would stain and blemish a blade quickly.

Shirts know that, but he uses peoples ignorance against them to get them to believe his nonsense.

Good point!

the junk yard retard !

quoting 30,000 year old archaeology to support the BOM,
(there goes the bible!!!!)
....INSANE!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qjsRJvvfIU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vypMNG6Mks

The other day on RfM, someone was talking about the "Church of God" (IORC) and a gentleman named Lamar Vest, and now it's Kerry Shirts...

Are there any other good ones I've missed?

Some of Kerry Shirts favorite words/phrases are things like "bullseye", "right on the mark", "astonishing parallels" picked from all kinds of stuff. I suspect if the LDS church taught that members should eat chorizo and pickles for lunch on St. Patrick's Day, he'd be there showing the Assyrian parallels for proper spice mixtures.
He's almost got me to believe a few times, but I have to remember he could pull a few lines out of my Volkswagen manual to convince me I'm actually driving a Mack truck...

The book I quoted "Breaking the Mormon Code" shows in great detail that Peterson is very adept at mis-quoting and taking things out of context, rearranging words within quotes and actually mis-quoting people like Irenaeus, Valentinus,Clement, as well as current authors such as CS Lewis to "prove" the Mormon viewpoint of exaltation in their book.

I thought that he was an antimormon running a mormon parody website.

Being a TBM at the time I was insulted that somebody took the time to ridicule us on the web.

Kurly Shits is The Backdoor Performer?

"Did God Have a Wife?" is an extensively documented book about the emergence of the Jewish belief system from the regional pantheon. In that pantheon, there were gods named El and Yahweh. El, the supreme god, had numerous children who were collectively known as the Elohim, children of god.

The book discusses how those two gods got combined together to the exclusion of the other pantheon members as Judaism evolved into monotheism.

The suppression of the Ashereh worship within ancient Israel is detailed within the Bible and is also discussed in the book.

It is not supportive at all of Shirts and his lies. Dever would likely be offended that his book is being bastardized in support of a silly 19th century religious scam.

I haven't read that book, but I probably should. The multiple faces of God and a female form of God reemerged around the 12th century as the Hasidic Rabbinic schools in France and Spain developed Kabbalism. The Sephirot defines the separate "emanations" or manifestations of El, both in a higher and lower form. There is a female component which created man.

Kabbalism may have been a reemergence of old beliefs that Dever is discussing.

I have made an extensive study of Asherah in ancient Israel and Canaan. If one studies this in detail it is easy to see that the Mormon beliefs have nothing to do with these beliefs and one is easily able to see that Israelite religion developed out of the old Canaanite beliefs. Archaeology shows that the Bible is myth mixed with some history. Shirts and the other apologists are simply liars. Or completely deluded and perhaps both. Just because Smith used a heavenly mother motif to help back up his celestial marriage (i.e. Screw every young woman he could) ideas, does not mean that he is basing his ideas on ancient belief. Believing that is fallicious.

Also, Dever stated that archaeology does not lie but historians do in that they ignore or incorrectly interpret and misinterpret archaeological details to push their pet theories. I talk about this in a paper I wrote on moron, I mean Mormon apologetics and BoM geography. http://grapenephi.freewebpages.org/papers.html

In your studies, did you ever come to the conclusion that the mother goddess was politically cast into the role of the devil? As in new male god good and creator of all, goddess bad deceivor of women (Eve)?

I have also wondered if there was any research that could show Mary mother of god as a type for the original Mother Goddess worshipped in the Near East and Middle East before the Hebrews arrived. I just got done reading When God was a Woman, but the author never exactly spelled out these conclusions. It was fascinating to read but I never followed up if anyone did any more research regarding the early religion.

There was not just one goddess, there were many.

Asherah was sort of the equivalent to Hera but she could not be said to have been any sort of supreme deity.

She was generally, as far as known, not worshiped exclusively from her husband/husbands.

separately, certainly prior to any concept of "husbands".
The Goddess is the ground of being, the source of all life.
That applies to every culture, from the beginning.
All life comes from Mother.

There are female demons mentioned in the Midrash and in the Zohar. These are Lilith, Lamashtu and Lamia. There may be more, but I am not familiar with them. Lilith was Adam’s first wife. She turned evil, was made a demon and was replaced by Eve. Lilith was a tormentor of children, particularly babies. She was the explanation for infant mortality of infection, sudden infant death, etc. This was taken from a Sumero-Babylonian legend dating from around 3,500 BCE. Moses de Leon incorporated some of the legends, taken from the Midrash into the Sefer ha-Zohar which was the basis for much of Kabbalism. This is all early Jewish mysticism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2011 06:34PM by Jim Huston.

Seahorse Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In your studies, did you ever come to the
> conclusion that the mother goddess was politically
> cast into the role of the devil? As in new male
> god good and creator of all, goddess bad deceivor
> of women (Eve)?

no. my studies indicate the female aspect, ie Asherah became the Shekinah, the female presence of God.

>
> I have also wondered if there was any research
> that could show Mary mother of god as a type for
> the original Mother Goddess worshipped in the Near

not that I know but I have not actively studied that.

> East and Middle East before the Hebrews arrived.
> I just got done reading When God was a Woman, but
> the author never exactly spelled out these
> conclusions. It was fascinating to read but I
> never followed up if anyone did any more research
> regarding the early religion.

sorry for the mini hyjack!!! ::carry on::

And that once and for all he would show that to the point that the critics could say it wasn't

And then after watching about 5 or 6 videos in this serious and him NEVER getting anywhere, I just gave up.

All he spent the videos doing was bragging about his big book collection and the tons of reading he had done which would 'blow your mind' and taking picture out in the wilderness. It was a whole lot of nothing.

I never understood why he can't seem to realize that calling himself the Backyard Professor is detrimental to his credibility.

If he would write or make a video that wasn't just linguistic hokey pokey that would do much more for his credibility.

Kerry Shirts: a backyard buffoon dressed like Indiana Jones who slashes at the air with a wooden "sword." The only thing he's slaying is rationality.

You exposed him well, Jim. Note that he compared himself to Hugh Nibley, a pro-Mormon crank who has been conveniently forgotten by the big name Mormon "thinkers."

OK, here's my take. I've seen him at a couple of things- like a community meeting at a library.

He's a nice person to casually meet- he comes across as a nice enough person. I didn't have much in common with him since I am atheistic and scientific. My take on him from listening to his comments and questions was that he is a VERY magical thinker. It doesn't take long to notice low standards for evidence. Random association of facts, cherry picking, and magical thinking don't hold a lot of credibility.

He comes across as very blue collar - by that I mean not academic or well studied. Let's say "backyard learned." I think he is talented in a trade. He seemed to have ideas he just sort of pulls out of nowhere. He didn't come across as a regular Mormon- he's pretty out there by their standards too I would guess. He didn't come across to me as anyone I would take seriously but he did strike me as friendly and nice enough.

affable crackpot.

His website is hoot and contains a lot of bizarre ideas: http://www.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/mormonis.htm

Here is a whole section of examples what Dagny aptly termed as Shirts making "random associations": http://www.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/mormonmystic.htm

Now, seeing this go-round with Jim, Shirts strikes me more of a desperately deluded stubborn crackpot. I suspect that Shirts's crazymaking even causes the Morg Masters to do a *facepalm*.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> He comes across as very blue collar - by that I
> mean not academic or well studied. Let's say
> "backyard learned." I think he is talented in a
> trade. He seemed to have ideas he just sort of
> pulls out of nowhere.

They don't come out of nowhere. They come out of his ass.

First of all, you went toe to toe with a "professor." He knows what he's talking about, or why else would he be called a "professor?"

Thirdly, He said that you weren't even close to the kind of mind that Daniel Peterson was.

I'll refer you to point one. He doesn't NEED to prove that kind of statement. He's a "professor" remember.

Lastly, the burden of proof is always, always on you. No matter what kind of claim. And if you ever have have actual proof, he can always just attack your character, as he did.

That negates any "proof" that you might have.

For example; You claim that Joseph Smith was partially in it for the ladies (aka Motley Crew reason for doing anything), and you cite all of the ladies that Joseph Smith conned into having sex, etc.

Well guess what? You are a silly nanny. Boom. Your argument just got defeated.

I win.

Thanks, you gave me a much needed laugh.

give the bozo hell, Jim...

He needs to be exposed for what he is. ++ good.

I miss the posts from you and Lucyfer.

but I must say this 'sparky' character is tiresome. Its like arguing with a spoiled child.