WOTM: Apologetic Answers (or "an"swers)
Prager's defense of our misbehaving political leaders via the story of King David (see last month's WOTM) really got me thinking. How do intelligent people (and yes, Dennis is intelligent) say and think such stupid things? Is there a Kruger-Dunning effect at work? The opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect — where dump people thing they're smarter than they are? That made me think broadly about the field of apologetics and how all some people need is AN answer. Not THE answer. Just any answer that helps them hold on to whatever believe they're desperate to maintain.
Thanks again, everyone. Coming up, I have the next chapter of The God Distraction — about the afterlife. It got unwieldy, and I'm having to make some cuts. Plus it's a more complicated shoot. But it's coming. I also have another good Deity in mind. I'm going to see if I can beg Sean (Jesse/Jesus) to help me out with that one. That may take a bit longer. We'll see.
And in terms of the update with the Mr. Deity show going to Netflix or Amazon, etc... (I can't remember if I already mentioned this), I did sign a shopping deal with the former head of Sony Latin America and the creator of Jane The Virgin. I'll let you know what's going on with that once I have word.
Again, I really appreciate your support. You may not know this, but I am an input junkie. I love reading and learning and researching. So, this really is a terrific thing you guys allow me to do. I get to research and study all the issues I talk about and get paid to do it!!! It's a great gig and I don't want you to think for a minute that I don't know what a lucky schmuck I am. Or who(m?) I have to thank (I need a grammarian on that). Guess? Yep, it's YOU!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! B
Comments (5)
Well, looking up stuff and seeing for yourself -- doesn't that just ruin Everything?
Poor Dennis (and so many other sheeple in the world). He might as well continue to get out of bed every morning because he unquestionably accepts as true… his horoscope, a fortune cookie, the crowd's praise of the Emperor's New Clothes. Tsk. The cherry picking that you uncovered in that two-hour tape lecture is so typical of Mormonism's apologists. Consider the decades that Thomas Ferguson would spend taking groups on tours of the Mesoamerican ruins to show them "evidence" of the Nephites. Pfffft. And people would fall for it, accepting his arguments as THE 'an'swer, never even bothering to pick up a National Geographic to check the facts! As Sagan sagely observed: "If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones arise."
Someone is always reminding me how much I love Sagan. Can you imagine him out there now, commenting on our current time. Fucking cancer!!! We gotta fix that! Thanks for the comment, Mark. Always good stuff from you.
Brian, you mention early in the video how difficult it is to leave religion and most people can't endure it. Do you know of the musician David Bazan? His parents were missionaries or something like that; he grew up soaking in religion, became a musician and was the leader of popular Christian Rock band Pedro The Lion (PTL get it), got married, had kids. Everything revolved around Christ. Then he lost his faith, and became an alcoholic while he tried to resolve what to do about it; he felt like a fraud presenting as a Christian and singing songs and having people look up to him. Eventually he "came out" and wrote a terrifically personal album "Curse Your Branches." The most straight-forward of the songs is this, "Hard to Be" : <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqVx3ShrgA" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqVx3ShrgA</a>
Interesting. I'll look at that. I think it would have been much harder for me if a large part of my livelihood had been involved. These pastors absolutely blow me away at the loss they suffer and still leave it behind. Thanks for the input! ;-)