Leaving the Church can be a moral choice.

Reasons to agree:

1. It is moral not to hold on to implausible claims when they support a problematical construal of God

Saying that God would test our faith with designed-implausibility, makes God into a pious-fraud.

Reasons to agree

1. A fraud is someone who says they are something that they are not. God never said he wouldn't hide himself so intellectuals couldn't find him. He does talk about stumbling blocks. I don't think that God tests our faith with designed implausibility, but if he did I wouldn't call him a fraud. I can see why he would do it. He would want nice people who pray, and stuff to make it into heaven, not people that construct logical towers of Babel.

Book of Mormon anachronistic do not prove the Book of Mormon is false.

Reasons to agree:

1. Someone on the other side perhaps Nephi in a ‘postmortem’ state provided the anachronistic Isaiah material.” (I'm not sure I follow this line of thought. It it assuming that this person provided a more accurate version of Isiah? I'm not sure how getting help from an Angel would explain problems with Isaiah in 2nd Nephi any differently than getting the translation from the Urim and Thummim.

2. Jesus could have intentionally communicated the Isaiah anachronisms to Mormon and Moroni.

Jesus could have intentionally communicated the Isaiah anachronisms to Mormon and Moroni

Reasons to agree

1. Our ways are not God's ways.


2. God did lots of things in the Old Testament, and some in the New Testament, that don't sound ethical to us. But God may not have to live by our definition of ethical.


3. God could be testing us. "Smart" people won't believe, but people that keep praying, and reading their scriptures will believe, just as God intended.

Reasons to disagree

1. God would not test our faith with designed-implausibility.

God would not test our faith with designed-implausibility. -2

Reasons to agree: 3

1. God cannot be said to purposely deceive us, and also be a god of truth. 


2. Saying that God purposely made his Church hard for intellectuals to accept disrespects God


3. The normal course of life provide enough stumbling blocks, without designed-implausibility.  What would such a construct of God be salvaging?

Reasons to disagree: -5

1. God never explains himself. He told Abraham to kill his son. Abraham could have researched if that commandment jived with the other commandments, but we are supposed to believe that it was counted to Abraham for righteousness.


2. Elijah (?) didn't explain himself when he told that guy to bath in that river (?) to fix his leprosy


3. We are told that Jesus purposely made the "eat of my flesh" and "drink of my blood" commandment confusing, as a test to weed out his followers.


4. God's ways are not our ways. 


5. God doesn't have to follow our rules. 

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 3

# of reasons to disagree: -5

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -0

Total Idea Score: -2

Related arguments:

1. Saying there are Old Testament scriptures that support something is meaningless, because so many Old Scriptures contradict each other.


2. Saying there are Old Testament scriptures that support something is meaningless, because so many Old Scriptures contradict the New Testament.


3. Saying there are Old Testament scriptures that support something is meaningless, because so many Old Scriptures can be used to do terrible things.

The LDS Church should move beyond apologetics.

Reasons to agree

1. LDS apologetics don't work.

Reasons to disagree

1.  If the LDS Church doesn't defend themselves intellectually, then no one will.


2. It is possible for LDS scholars to present the LDS perspective while also being completely faithful to the truth.


3. LDS apologetics do work (see contrading claim above).


4. The term "biased apologetics" is an oxymoron. Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position  through the SYSTEMATIC use of reason. If an apologetic essay is "biased" it is not "systematic", as a systematic approach would address all aspects of an argument and not favor a biased perspective.

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to disagree: -0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to disagree with reasons to agree: 0

Total Idea Score: 0

Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change

Conclusion: The important remaining question is which attempts at apologetic really use a systematic use of reason, and which ones try to confuse the reader.

The LDS Church should move beyond biased apologetics

I think we should dare to be boring, and investigate each belief on its own, and from each angle, because we don't want to keep having portions of the same conversations over and over again, from now until the crack of doom.  Lets do it very well, but only do it once. 

Belief: The LDS Church should move beyond biased apologetics. 

Reasons to agree

1. LDS apologetics don't work. 

Reasons to disagree

1. If the LDS Church doesn't defend themselves intellectually, then no one will.


2. It is possible for LDS scholars to present the LDS perspective without being biased to anything to the truth. 


3. LDS apologetics do work. 


4. The term "biased apologetics" is an oxymoron. Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position  through the SYSTEMATIC use of reason. If it is biased it is not systematic, as a systematic approach would address all aspects of an argument and not favor a biased perspective. 

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 1

# of reasons to disagree: -4

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to disagree with reasons to agree: 0

Total Idea Score: 0

Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change