Robert Ritner: Part 2, and Cade the Dad

Mormon Stories: Robert Ritner

As I mentioned yesterday, Robert Ritner is brilliant. Not only is he brilliant, but he seems to be very genuine and honest. He doesn't seem to be hiding anything or has an ulterior motive. I also love the way he approaches scholarship and disagreements. When he is presented with a case or a rebuttal to something he has proposed, if he disagrees, he will state his disagreement, and then back up that disagreement with facts directly related to the argument. I didn't realize it before, but I've seen very common apologetic responses to rebuttals essentially say either:

1. "I disagree, and you've just got to trust me on it. There is definitely data." Sometimes they'll give a vague reference to said data, but rarely give it. On the occasions when I've seen data explicitly given, it has only been when some obscure reference supports the conclusion (hence, apologist). Many times, even this obscure reference, after digging, isn't actually a legitimate reference, only related in some way.

   For example, a 3rd century CE (note the timing on this... 500 years after the facsimile 1 papyrus!) "love charm" was found with the name Abraham on it that also had a lion couch, but the "love charm" was for invoking a spell to get a women to have sex with you. That is it. There is literally no other connection to Abraham except that his name (along with a dozen or so other non-Hebrew famous names) was placed within the text.

2. Present some unfalsifiable information, such as, "well, we've just got to trust the Lord" or some conjecture or theory that goes into the supernatural realm (e.g., the Catalyst Theory for the Book of Abraham).

CES Letter vs. cade_the_dad

It seems that the Instagram user cade_the_dad has decided to start responding to the CES letter point-by-point to give a more faithful perspective of the issues found therein. The Highlight is found here.

I appreciate some aspects of what he is trying to do. There are many times where he gives a more nuanced view of the issues, which validates many of the negative experiences that have occurred to the members (and non-members) throughout the church's history.

I've noticed, however, that there are a number of instances where it seems he avoids the really difficult instances. For example, he made a Highlight about Native Americans and church history. He showed "the racist verses in the Book of Mormon" (2 Nephi 5:21, Alma 3:6-8, and Jacob 3:8) and made a response about those. The first thing to be noticed about the verses he shared, is that this isn't everything. These are definitely racist and discuss skin color, but one noticeable lack are the verses which show other aspects of the Lamanites, due to their cursing, unrighteousness, and hatred toward the Lamanites.

If you take a look at the next few verses after his reference 2 Nephi 5:21, this helps illustrate this. 2 Nephi 5:22-24.

Another verse which illustrates more ideas that weren't mentioned by cade_the_dad: Enos 1:20.

In my opinion, these scriptures (plus more I didn't add) show the "savagery" of the Lamanites, the "dark-skinned" group that was not civilized, thus they could not possibly be the group that built the large civilizations that the Native Americans built.

There's more, and I'll add it eventually. I need to move on to other works so I don't really fall behind on the weekly musings, and other things. I have so many things I want to write about.