Servile Conformist

What’s Wrong With Mormon Apologetics?

The answer of course is, lack of substance:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

(1^st Peter 3:15 KJV)

Only You Can Prevent Village Atheism

Sigh. I’ve seen this picture floating around Facebook and Tumblr and hoped no high traffic blogger would touch it…

　

 

Scholars Misbehaving: A Mormon Flavor (Part II).

Dr. Peterson begins to shift gears and now starts going on the offensive by offering a two pronged internal critique of secular and naturalistic worldviews:

 

Scholars Misbehaving: A Mormon Flavor (Part I).

Anyone involved in Mormon Studies is keenly aware just who Daniel C. Peterson is, a quick look at his publication history at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship website shows a sustained effort in the area of Mormon Apologetics for two decades. Dr. Peterson is not merely limited to apologetics and faith promoting ventures however; he has also participated in the translation and publication of ancient philosophical texts under the auspices of the Maxwell Institute, a worthy contribution to a variety of fields covering History, Philosophy, and Near Eastern studies.

The industry of Mormon Apologetics rarely comes into contact with atheism or secularism, so when I came upon an essay written by Dr. Peterson entitled “Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism” that was published in the FARMS Review (2005), I was eager to read Dr. Peterson’s thoughts. Now it is important for me to mention that Dr. Peterson presented this essay that same year at a FAIR conference (Youtube video here and transcript here), because what I discovered both angered and disappointed me.

The essay itself isn’t enlightening, informative, nor entertaining, which is what disappointed me. Dr. Peterson’s criticisms of secular thought are shallow, but I found them largely unremarkable and seem to come straight out of the usual apologia-lite style of general Christian Apologetics like Lee Strobel or Norman Geisler. What had angered me was Dr. Peterson’s use (abuse really) of Albert Camus as a means to launch some of these criticisms.

 

The page Dr. Peterson selectively quotes from:

Rightly Dividing the blog of Bolt!

May those who divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burned alive!

 

Hey Greta! Why are atheists so thoughtless?

The blog title is my suggestion for Greta Christina's next book.

Now I really don’t know much about Greta Christina, other than she recently visited my campus to talk about secular sexuality, but I didn’t attend. Greta stayed off my radar until recently when three different people sent me one of her blog entries about Alain de Botton.

Presuppositional Apologetics can’t account for all Truth!

This is a friendly puzzle for my friends over at the Choosing Hats website. I can imagine that contesting with village atheists can be an exasperating experience, so here is something a little different:

A comment by Matthew...

In a pleasent exchange with Matthew, he made a comment about this portion of my response:

All for God’s glory?

So I happened upon a journal published by the Choosing Hats blog, where authors Alan Rhology and Matthew Martellus present a Reformed Christian theodicy in response to Bart Ehrman’s little book on the bible and suffering. While I’m not going to leap to the defense of Bart, I thought their solution merited some investigation.