Do TBM's understand the level of intensity that goes into scholarly research? What is entailed, the presentment, rejection, revisiting, reviewing, sharing etc that goes on before scholarly research is compiled into final reports? For any TBM to come out and doubt the outcome of this type of research and dismiss as either anti-mormon or out of context is insulting the intelligence of not only anybody with a brain, but scholars who are 10 times smarter than they are. I feel extremely stupidified when I listen to apologetics, or those "mormon messages" pro-lds youtube campaigns that all come accompanied with that nostalgic spiritual music to try to appeal to that part of the brain of your good ol' TBM days. Providing overly simplified answers to things like priesthood restoration, multiple accounts of the 1st vision, stone in a hat etc. Thank god (or science) for scholars!! They bust their asses to get to the bottom of things and find motives, context, every last journal entry, opinions, cultural influences, newspapers. They painstakingly go through it all. The only ones who stay LDS after engaging in that level of research are either paid or extorted.

I had to patiently explain that I was not reading "anti" literature, as I was accused of, but making a studious attempt to learn the truth about the origins of the church. Both people I did this with just couldn't grok what I was talking about. To them, there's no difference between "Mormonism Unvailed" and "No Man Knows my History."

Grant Palmer's: An insiders view of mormon origins, is a fantastic source of scholarly research. Tragically rejected by mormons as anti. To their own peril.

I made a remark on the climate Change thread a couple of days ago about having read the scientific literature (at the source: scientific journals) and some dizzy fool quoted a newspaper article at me. !!! OK, whatever.

I think Mormons are trained to disbelieve any arguments or statements that see legitimacy to any aspect of global warming. My TBM daughter was telling me that the millionaire Bishop's two teen daughters think that anyone who takes any global warming claim seriously is a nut.

If we start into another ice age then ppl will be hoping like crazy that the CO2 warming effect can kick in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BQrl4EZ07Y

MORmON *logic* in action

LDS constantly comment that Nibley's remarks are essentially accurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuKb2HbiihI

I would assume that TBM academics would. Most normal people, TBM or not, don't.

My TBM brother is a brilliant, well-educated man who assiduously applies critical thinking to his long, successful career in agri-business, also denies the science of global warming. Go figure.

I'm a rational skeptic. The political noise surrounding the idea of Anthropomorphic Global Warming is too loud for me to make a reasoned decision on it's truthfulness right now.

I have not found convincing scientific research that I can really get down to digesting.. either it is non-existent, or I'm not looking in the right places.

-Global Warming exists. This is true.
-Many say excess man-made CO2 is the cause.

-The man-made excess CO2 is a very tiny fraction of the atmosphere and CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas. Some proponents posit a mysterious "amplifying effect," but nothing solid as to what that might be.

-Many of the studies I can find don't rely on empirical research..they're just computer simulations.

-There could be other causes... man-made or not.

So the question is still open until I see some convincing research, and there's lots of possible bias and ulterior motives.

I don't disbelieve AGW, but I don't believe it fully either. That's the stance a skeptic would naturally take.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2012 02:54PM by rationalguy.

I think I follow exactly those same lines. When I read the journals I find computer simulations that sometimes support man made global warming theories and sometimes don't. However I get hung up exactly the same thing. Man-made CO2 production are very minimal when we compare it to natural CO2 production.

I'm not sure of the answer, but I retain a healthy skepticism as well. The best case scenario is that I am right, but that we find ways to produce energy and move people without creating more harmful pollution.

that many people who are classified as Global Warming deniars are really just very skeptical. It doesn't help that politicians use it as a scare tactic to try to sway votes.

Agreed. Obviously global warming, or climate change exists to some extent. I'm sceptical to believe Al Gore on the source or cause, and I'm also sceptical to believe his prophecies. It seems that it's all part of big business, twisting some scientific facts to come to some other conclusion to support carbon credits etc. A future multi trillion dollar business. Who wouldn't like to get a tiny piece of that action. The climate has always been changing. Remember there was an ice age 10,000 years ago and the earth has been warming, perhaps not consistently since that time. I've yet to see any real convincing evidence however linking human activity directly to outrageously unprecedented levels of co2 in the air. Or perhaps I'm still in denial on that front. I haven't done as much research on this topic as I have on the church.

CO2 emissions is only a fraction of the anthropogenic problems related to Climate Change (which is the more apt terminology, BTW, which we use so that the rubes don't get confused when we talk about Global Warming during the cold winter months).

And despite all the newpaper articles in the world that Rupert Murdoch sponsors, the weight of scientific evidence forces the conclusion that while, yes, climate does always change, the rapidity of change that has taken place within the short span of the last one hundred years is unprecedented. All things being equal, including natural occurrences such as volcanic eruptions, etc., the question then arises as to what can be causing this rapid change? The evidence also indicates that the 20th century's explosion in world population and the consequent increased consumption of natural resources has contributed heavily to this.

Other things to note:

The USDA this year released a new climate zone map to replace the one that has been used since the 1930s. This map reflects some startling changes in climate zones throughout the North American continent.

Key Species migration: in Europe, some tree and animal species have migrated 1,500 kilometers north of their historical knnown range in the last 100 years; in the United States, that figure is approximately 400-450 miles northward in the same period of time. In both cases, the rate of migration has been exponentially accelerating in the last 40 years.

Shifts in season-length: recent reports from scientists in the National Park Service indicate that wet seasons in North America (fall/winter) have been getting progressively shorter over the last 50 years.

There are other factors that I don't have time to go into, but that are almost always ignored by newspaper reporters shilling for powerful people who are not interested in curbing human excesses. You can pooh-pooh them if you want, and dismiss them with a wave of your hand as so many Americans do. But I have to say that if you do so without thorough and rigorous research, you are merely acting like the Mormon who dismisses the 34 wives of Joe Smith while steadfastly refusing to consider that the larger body of evidence is stacked against his being a monogamist. Refusing to believe a belief is one thing. Refusing to believe a fact is quite another.

Why would TBMs need to give heed to real scholarly research when all their lives they've been subjected to Sunday School lessons (about the meaning of life, et.al.) that were thrown together five minutes before the class started...

+

Actually, one can come to conclusions just from reading what JS wrote. That is enough to damn mormonism.

Brigham Young's teachings would also be the last nail in the coffin.

Mormons don't worry much about any temporal long-term issues because, don't you know, they are millenarians and Jebus is a comin' soon to sort it all out, and the earth will be a giant seer stone. We apostates will be burnt as chaff (apparently without too much CO2 emission,) then the TBMs will live 1000 years of perfect bliss with Jebus.