"One who feels compelled to offer a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another.."

In other words, one who regrets.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Just sayin'...


Ron

An ad hoc assumption or adhoc hypothesis is a way of explaining away your wrongness.
After you discover that you are mistaken, you make an assumption that, if true, allows you to conclude that you were not really mistaken
If I run an experiment in which I predict some psychic phenomena, but the results contradict my hypothesis, I can argue that my psychic phenomena still exists, but the problem is that there were skeptics who were observing the experiment, and they sent off bad psi vibes (or some such thing).

We believe that Joseph Smith is a mouthpiece for God.
Observation: He was wrong about men on the moon.
Ad hoc assumption: he was speaking as a man.

We believe Joseph Smith was a translator:
Observation: Book of Abraham
Ad hoc assumption: he didn't literally translate it, it was simply a tool of inspiration

We believe we will be blessed for paying tithing.
Observation: You are a bankrupt
Ad hoc assumption: God is testing you

We believe we can be healed by blessings
Observation: non healing
Ad hoc assumption: the recipient lacks faith

We believe that the church takes tithing & offerings for purposes of charity
Observation: There is little evidence that this is true
Ad hoc assumption: the church doesn't want to brag about it's charitableness

We believe that black people are cursed, and were less valiant in the pre-existence
Observation: 1978 revelation
Ad hoc assumption: that was simply a policy, never a doctrine

etc
etc
etc

A member of a group who volunteers to lie to the rest of the group in order to maintain the status quo.

It doesn't matter if they don't always defend everything about whatever they're touting nor does it matter if they're a participant. It only means they try to justify and/or argue angainst those who oppose it.

It is not enough for an apologist to be right, it's necessary for you to be wrong.

Apologists are pseudo-scientists. That is, they do their "science" in reverse. They start with a conclusion. In the case of Mopologists, that means, for instance, that they have concluded ("spiritually") that the BoM is the word of God. Then, they look for evidence that supports their conclusion; any evidence that contradicts their previously arrived-at conclusion is either ignored, distorted or completely redefined.

Bottom line: it is impossible to engage in a rational, objective argument with an apologist in the area he or she is defending ... IMPOSSIBLE ... as in: DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!!!

The ones who don't work for FAIR or FARMS or the church pr system?

I'd say that many TBMs, Jackmos, nonmos, and exmos act as apolgists at times.

I told my nonmo chiropractor that I was attending a party for exmormons and he gushed over how wonderful the mormon church is and how great mormon members are. That was his conclusion based on having had one mormon family as neighbors years ago. Would the unknowing chiropractor be considered an apologist?

What about TBMs who credit the church with all kinds of humanitarian efforts which are figments of the immagination?

What about those who assume that the Book of Mormon musical and Krakauer's book are riddled with errors?

What about those who assume that recovering mormons are damaged goodes full of blinding hate and forever incapable of appreciating the morg?

And those who claim that pointing out problems with the church only proves that a person is blaming every single problem or frustration in their life on what the morg did to them as members?

I would call much of this apologetic thinking by those who don't know they are part time apologists.

>I'd say that many TBMs, Jackmos, nonmos, and exmos act as apolgists at times.

Apologists for what? The truth?

Apologetics is intellectually and scientifically dishonest by defintion. The agenda reduces to "don't question this hypothesis," rather than "what hypothesis is suggested by the evidence."

What's so difficult to understand about that one? It's easy enough if one sets aside the drama, but that's a difficult task for many...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2011 02:45PM by Cheryl.

I guess in your original post you were referring to "apologists" in the more general sense, in which case, ANYONE who speaks in defense of ANYTHING can be considered an apologist. So yes, there are a lot of individuals who informally apologize/defend Mormonism, for whatever reason.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apologist


(I was thinking more along the lines of our "friends" at FARMS, FAIRS, SHIELDS, etc.)

You mentioned your chiropractor who has obviously been influenced in his opinion on the church because of his happy dealings with a nice Mormon family. But, I don't think ANYONE would ever apologize for Mormonism if they had the complete picture of it (and were playing with a "full deck") and certainly wouldn't be finding fault with recovering Mormons.

All of the above responses should be considered, or perhaps reconsidered, upon noting that apologetics is not only applicable to Mormonism and religion, but is an appoach to any intellectual inquiry or argument that is fundamentally intended first and foremost to defend or preserve a particular point of view.

Thus, although not easily defined, we can note from Mormon apologetics that an apologist focuses on providing interpretations of negative evidence, sometimes quite bizzare, that is intended to defuse such evidence and preserve the apologist's committed point of view. Moreover, an apologist exaggerates positive evidence, presenting incidental facts as critical points of support.

What is wrong with apologetics is not that the apologist has a point of view to defend that we might not agree with, or even that is evidentially weak. Rather, the problem is that the defense of that point of view takes precedence over objectivity. Thus, the priority for the apologist is not to discover truth, but rather to preserve one's pre-established point of view at all costs.

I reluctantly note that I have seen numerous examples of apologetics, based upon the above definition, in populist "anti-religion" and skeptical literature, including anti-Mormon literature. Also, believe it or not, it is the essential point of this Board. Objectivity is simply not what this Board is about, which is why pro-Mormon argument is not welcome here. The foremost purpose of this Board is to defend and support "ExMormonism," not to treat the issue objectively. (Not necessarily a bad thing in the context of "recovery" but let's understand it for what it is.) This is not to say that all posters are apologists, or that there is NO objectivity here.

To determine whether you are an apologist, ask yourself this question: "Is it more important to defend my position at all costs, or to assess the evidence fairly and critically, even if it means acknowledging at times the strengths of the opposing view."

+1

It would seem to me that it is sometime difficult to tell if one is acting out of their own apologetics or not. I believe we all have preconceived notions - or a paradigm, if you will - of the world that we believe to be correct. I also believe it is natural enough to defend our preconception (to varying degrees with different individuals). Even when we discover that our preconceptions are mistaken, we might change the structure of the paradigm but the changed structure becomes the new paradigm we believe to be correct. In effect, we all hold certain preconceptions about the world we believe to be correct and we naturally maitain these preconceptions to some extent.

Perhaps the degree we can describe ourselves as apologists is the degree we are willing to rationalize a preconception especially when the rationalization itself becomes irrational. The "apologist" is willing to go to irrational extremes to justify their preconceived notions of the world.

Apologists are often engaged in something akin to a theodicy.
(theodicy is an answer to the problem of evil/the problem of suffering--if there is suffering/evil, there can be no being that has infinite knowledge and/or infinite power and/or infinite compassion).
It is important to note that a theodicy is not typically regarded as a positive argument for the existence of God, but rather an argument against an argument against the existence of God.
So a theodicy makes no contribution to the probability that God does exist, but offers *possible* solutions to the problem (ad hoc assumptions?). They offer plausible Kiplingian (I just made that word up) "just so" stories that make it possible to not eliminate belief in God whilst acknowledging the existence of evil/suffering.

What apologists do clean up after the horses are out of the barn. They are typically not contributing anything to the probability that the LDS church is legit. At best their arguments, if examined critically, allow us to conclude that it *could* still be true if we accept their Kiplingian ad hoc assertions ("sometimes a prophet speaks as a man," "it was all a test of faith.").

Yes, theodicy is an excellent example. Thank you. But let me offer an another example that I think is equally good.

Survival advocates often point to the credible "past life" accounts of children as support for their thesis. Skeptics are then left to explain this phenomena. Typically, they will invoke ad hoc and loose explanations of fraud, or procedural problems, etc. to try to explain away the phenomena in question with the primary purpose of preserving their view that death is final, rather than considering the issue substantively. Finally, they often beg the question by simply noting that science does not allow for survival. (Sort of like the theist insisting that God has his own definition of evil, and therefore the problem of evil is a non-issue.) Nothing substantive is contributed to the issue, and no real explanation is provided. (See noteably, Paul Edwards' book, Reincarnation)

To address both Puli's and your comments, I think that apologetics is more than simply a poor response to an argument or data challenging one's point of view. Perhaps it encompasses simply a general attitude that no evidence will be allowed to undermine one's point of view, and a refusal to allow a real problem to exist, and to address it. In support of this approach, I will point out that a great many theists do take the problem of evil seriously, and honestly do try to a address it with the attention it deserves. John Hick, for example. Moreover, there are skeptics that acknowledge the credible reports of past lives of children, and realize the need to explain it. Carl Sagen, for example. Difficult problems require difficult explanations, and sometimes there simply are no explanations. The lesson, if there is one, is that such problems cannot be easily dismissed, and certainly not rhetorically dismissed.

I don't follow the reference.

Just curious as to what connection you're making to Kipling.

Rudyard Kipling wrote the wonderul "Just So Stories" like "How the Camel Got His Hump," and "How the Leopard Got His Spots," and "The Beginning of Armadillos".
Wonderful stories. If true, they would totally explain things.

And I've read those. They were good.

I really liked some of Kipling's poetry too.

They are like the OB/GYN doctor who gets paid by the wife to tell her husband that it is perfectly normal for a caucasian couple to have a black child. And if the husband had any brains or love for his wife, he would know these things.