![\"Another](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/10\/580-Kinshasa-Temple4-2018.jpg\")
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New, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Church in the DR Congo: A Personal Perspective:\u00a0Part 11, \u201cThe Labourers Are Few\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From the astonishing Jeff Lindsay<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSouls that Expand and Swell: An Intriguing But Not Unique Book of Mormon Concept\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Do not \u2014 do not<\/em> \u2014 entrust the fate of your eternal soul to the tender ministrations of John Dehlin.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a brand new resource for evaluating his latest venture:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mormon Stories Essays: Reviewing John Dehlin\u2019s \u201cTruth Claims\u201d Essays<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And, on rather a different note, here\u2019s a new effort to assess the claims of Jonathan Neville, an aggressively vocal proponent of the \u201cHeartland\u201d model for Book of Mormon geography:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNeville-Neville Land\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This is also relevant:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVideo: What did prophets think about Book of Mormon geography? Their old books may give clues.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Years ago, I thought that it might be fun someday to write a guide to what logicians call \u201cpractical fallacies\u201d or \u201cinformal fallacies.\u201d \u00a0Many such guides have already been published, but this one, I thought, would be unique in drawing its specimens entirely from the publications of Evangelical Protestant anti-Mormons.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One particular then-fresh example had inspired me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A professional anti-Mormon named Robert McKay, writing for the now defunct Utah Evangel<\/em> (published by Utah Missions, Inc., of Marlow, Oklahoma) made this argument:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Latter-day Saints, he said, claim to be Christians. \u00a0But this cannot be true because, if it were, all Christians would necessarily accept the Book of Mormon, regard the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> as a prophet, believe in Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision, and so forth. \u00a0But they don\u2019t. \u00a0Catholics don\u2019t, and Protestants don\u2019t, and the Orthodox don\u2019t. \u00a0Thus, he declared, by ironclad logical deduction Latter-day Saints cannot be Christians.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Wow.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The reasoning seems to be that, if all Latter-day Saints are Christians, it must follow that all Christians are Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The obvious problem here was Mr. McKay\u2019s confusion of genus for species, of set for subset. \u00a0In our correspondence, I tried to illustrate this for him by giving him precisely analogous arguments that reached obviously false conclusions:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If Democrats are politicians, politicians are Democrats.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If lakes are filled with water, everything filled with water is a lake.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If drowning causes death, all deaths must be caused by drowning.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n All men are mortal.<\/p>\n Socrates is a man.<\/p>\n Therefore, all men are Socrates.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Catholics claim to be Christians. \u00a0But this cannot be true because, if it were, all Christians would necessarily venerate the Mass, regard the bishop of Rome as the leader of global Christendom, etc. \u00a0Which they obviously don\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some people claim that squirrels are mammals. \u00a0But this cannot be true because, if it were, all mammals would necessarily gather nuts, scurry up and down trees, etc. \u00a0Which, obviously, dolphins and poodles and lions don\u2019t<\/em> do.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some claim that General Motors is a manufacturer of automobiles. \u00a0But this cannot be true because, if it were, all automobile manufacturers would necessarily be headquartered in Detroit. \u00a0But Toyota and Jaguar and Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz and Nissan and Volkswagen and Ferrari aren\u2019t<\/em> headquartered in Detroit.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Obviously, it would be easy to multiply such examples all day long (e.g., \u201cpoems can\u2019t be literature,\u201d \u201cPrinceton can\u2019t be a university,\u201d \u201cBaptists can\u2019t be humans,\u201d and so forth). \u00a0But he never grasped the point. \u00a0Really. \u00a0He never did.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Anyway, I\u2019ve long since lost most of my interest in Evangelical Protestant anti-Mormonism. \u00a0But I\u2019ve recently experienced at least a slight flicker of revived interest in doing that handbook of logical fallacies.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Two specimens from just the last twenty four hours have reminded me of it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In one, a habitual and often rather frenetic misreader of my blog entries mocks my little piece entitled \u201cNew light on the question of bees and the Book of Mormon\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as arguing that evidence of apiculture among the ancient Maya proves the Book of Mormon true. \u00a0Of course, I make no such claim. \u00a0Like many of his comments previously, this recent response might well serve as an example of a \u201cstraw man\u201d argument<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Another individual, responding to the Interpreter<\/em> essay that I discuss in my blog entry \u201cOn that article about \u201cMental Distress and Disaffection from the Church,\u201d\u201d<\/a>\u00a0insists that, although it plainly doesn\u2019t suggest that loss of faith is proof of mental illness, the actual intent of the essay is to plant precisely that defamatory notion in the minds of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. \u00a0This specimen could serve to illustrate a fallacious appeal to motive<\/a>, in which a thesis is challenged by calling into question the motives (or, even worse, as in this case, the hypothetical or merely conceivable though undemonstrated motives) of its advocate. It represents a special case of the\u00a0ad hominem circumstantial<\/a>\u00a0argument.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 New, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 \u201cThe Church in the DR Congo: A Personal Perspective:\u00a0Part 11, \u201cThe Labourers Are Few\u201d\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 From the astonishing Jeff Lindsay: \u00a0 \u201cSouls that Expand and Swell: An Intriguing But Not Unique Book of Mormon Concept\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Do not \u2014 do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2556,329,3460,3463,3466,933,3454,3457],"class_list":["post-70339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-mormon","tag-anti-mormonism","tag-critics","tag-fallacies","tag-fallacy","tag-john-dehlin","tag-jonathan-neville","tag-logic"],"yoast_head":"\n