![\"TAMU](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/10\/1600px-TAMU_wcl.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Nearly three years ago now, the astoundingly prolific and productive Irish Latter-day Saint writer Robert Boylan posted this interesting blog entry:<\/p>\n
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\u201cSome tips on becoming an effective apologist\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, my friend Tarik LaCour<\/a>, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy and a master\u2019s degree in neuroscience at Texas A&M University, has published an interesting item on his own blog that\u00a0I commend to your attention.\u00a0 It\u2019s entitled<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow to be a Good Apologist.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I very much like his advocacy of giving attention to natural theology, which Latter-day Saint thinkers have tended to neglect when they have not altogether rejected it.\u00a0 In fact, in his entry on the day following \u201cHow to be a Good Apologist,\u201d he actually directed his readers to a debate that was focused<\/em> on natural theology:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFriday Traditio: Alex Rosenberg vs. William Lane Craig\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I must, however, quibble with his advice to \u201cTake on the heavyweights\u201d \u2014 at least, to the extent that he means by that advice that (as he actually says) apologists should ignore intellectually unserious challenges like the notorious \u201cCES Letter\u201d and the bestselling \u201cNew Atheists.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I readily grant that \u201cNew Atheists\u201d like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens \u2014 to say nothing of the unfortunate \u201cCES Letter\u201d \u2014\u00a0 aren\u2019t exactly \u201cheavyweights\u201d of the kind that Brother LaCour commends to our attention.\u00a0 Their facts are often cherry-picked, when not altogether fictional, their interpretations are all too often caricatures, their logic is slipshod, and so on and so forth.\u00a0 I absolutely agree.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s the \u201cNew Atheists\u201d and the \u201cCES Letter\u201d \u2014 and other people and arguments on a similar low level \u2014 that are damaging testimonies and destroying faith among (especially) young Latter-day Saints, and rendering many people outside the Church inaccessible to our missionary efforts.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the works of\u00a0 J. L. Mackie, Paul Draper, Alex Rosenberg, or David Hume.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So, yes, it would be more gratifying always to work on a sophisticated level, and, yes, the arguments of sophisticated atheistic thinkers absolutely merit serious attention and faithful response.\u00a0 I believe that academically-equipped Latter-day Saint apologists should be doing just that.\u00a0 Indeed, I wish that more Latter-day Saints with the appropriate academic training and the necessary capability, from many fields, would give at least some attention to apologetics in all fields, not only in philosophy.\u00a0 And, yes, this comes at a cost.\u00a0 More than once, I myself have lamented the time and energy that I\u2019ve felt that I had to allocate to analyzing the works of such relatively dim bulbs as Ed Decker<\/a>, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon (as here<\/a> and here<\/a>), and the effusions of the balmy loon Loftes Tryk<\/a>, when I ought rather to be engaging Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, al-Farabi, al-Kirmani, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd (Averro\u00ebs), and St. Thomas Aquinas, as I was trained to do, as I want to do, and as I set out on my career to do.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But I did<\/em> feel the obligation.\u00a0 It seemed to me a pastoral duty.\u00a0 In fact, at the risk of sounding vainglorious, it seemed to me something of a \u201ccalling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To conclude this hasty response \u2014 please read the two blog entries that I\u2019ve highlighted above, and, indeed, Tarik LaCour\u2019s blog as whole \u2014 I cite a passage that I\u2019ve long treasured from C. S. Lewis\u2019s classic essay The Weight of Glory<\/em>.\u00a0 Tarik, alas, is not a fan of C. S. Lewis.\u00a0 But I am:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo be ignorant and simple now \u2014 not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground \u2014 would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 Nearly three years ago now, the astoundingly prolific and productive Irish Latter-day Saint writer Robert Boylan posted this interesting blog entry: \u00a0 \u201cSome tips on becoming an effective apologist\u201d \u00a0 Now, my friend Tarik LaCour, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy and a master\u2019s degree in neuroscience at Texas A&M University, […]<\/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":[17803,68,17788,5391,17785,1543,813,1809,11990,6994,4204,17815,2652,11987,17812,17797,17806,17800,15328,2905,1812,1815,17809,788,837,17791,17794,177,17782,15325,4789,4489],"class_list":["post-88663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ankerberg","tag-apologetics","tag-apologist","tag-apologists","tag-boylan","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-david-hume","tag-dawkins","tag-ed-decker","tag-edward-decker","tag-hitchens","tag-hume","tag-j-edward-decker","tag-j-l-mackie","tag-john-ankerberg","tag-john-weldon","tag-lacour","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-latter-day-saints","tag-lds","tag-loftes-tryk","tag-mormon","tag-new-atheism","tag-new-atheists","tag-paul-draper","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-robert-boylan","tag-tarik","tag-weight-of-glory","tag-william-lane-craig"],"yoast_head":"\n