By: Grey_Wolf_Leader

Grey_Wolf_Leader — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:52:41 +0000

@Ismael: I think you are sadly missing the point of this entire argument Ismael. Mormons and Catholics do not have “faith” in and “testimonies” of their respective churches’ histories. That is what Bitton was saying when he points out that many a Mormon historian sees no contradiction between history and doctrine.
Rather, their faith is in the principles and doctrines which their respective religion happens to espouse, being the institutions from which they learned such things.
Why do you think that these churches do not bother much with their history? Because that is not what they are about. They are educational institutions concerned with the perfecting of the saints through the gospel of Christ, not cliques of elite historians chronicling the mistakes and the poor choices of their predecessors.

Meanwhile, since you mentioned logical fallacies, I think you should remember the most used and abused fallacy against the LDS faith the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy, that, in layman’s terms, it is the classical “shoot the messenger, not the message” argument. Many an anti-Mormon use the fact Joesph Smith wasn’t perfect to argue that somehow the principles and facts he preached wrote weren’t true.

The problem we have with secular intellectuals it that they typically make pronouncements and claims based on incomplete and often very biased resources.

PS: By the way, the “authority” fallacy only applies to unqualified authority, not a mere appeal to authority. Issac Newton was a qualified authority on mathematics and physics, but not alchemy.

Comments on: Are You Blown Away by Church History?

By: Grey_Wolf_Leader