Joseph Wilkinson

@andrewklavan @RealMattFradd @SouthPark @SpencerKlavan Cool. So when will we see a piece criticizing Jews or Catholics or evangelist's?

While my friend @RealMattFradd has been criticizing the LDS church, and Mormons (and fake Mormons) have been expressing outrage (and fake outrage), I went to see "The Book of Mormon," by the @SouthPark guys. Here's my reaction essay to @SpencerKlavan at The New Jerusalem substack. thenewjerusalem.substack.com/p/laughing-at-…

@StrykerStryker5 This is such a stretch. Do better

I think he just proved that the BOM was written by a man who studied the writing/teaching style of the chiasmus

@stackerco No. Just saying same standard applies both ways

@JoeWilkinson09 Did I say it was just for religious believers?

30 Ways Your Brain Tricks You Into Believing False Things 1. Parallelomania Seeing “meaningful” parallels everywhere and assuming similarity proves connection. 2. Confirmation bias Looking for evidence that supports what you already believe while ignoring evidence against it. 3. Motivated reasoning Starting with the conclusion you want to be true, then building arguments to defend it. 4.Texas sharpshooter fallacy Shooting first, drawing the target later. You notice a pattern after the fact and act like it was predicted. 5. Cherry-picking Selecting only the facts, quotes, studies, or stories that help your case. 6. Post hoc fallacy Assuming that because one thing happened after another, the first thing caused the second. 7. Appeal to mystery Treating “we don’t fully understand this” as evidence for your preferred explanation. 8. God-of-the-gaps / magic-of-the-gaps Filling unknowns with supernatural, paranormal, or conspiratorial explanations. 9. Special pleading Creating exceptions for your belief system that you would not allow for anyone else’s. 10. Double standard of evidence Demanding strong evidence from critics but accepting weak evidence for your own side. 11. Apophenia Seeing patterns in random data: numbers, dreams, coincidences, symbols, dates, names, etc. 12. Availability bias Believing something is common or true because examples come easily to mind. 13. Survivorship bias Only noticing the hits and ignoring all the misses. Example: “This prophecy came true,” while ignoring 100 failed ones. 14. Argument from ignorance “You can’t prove it’s false, therefore it might be true.” 15. False cause Assuming a connection without proving causation. 16. Anecdotal fallacy Treating personal stories as stronger evidence than data. 17. Authority bias Believing something because a respected leader, scholar, influencer, or institution said it. 18. Sunk cost fallacy Continuing to believe because you’ve already invested too much time, identity, money, or relationships. 19. Groupthink Going along with the group because disagreement is socially costly. 20. Identity-protective cognition Rejecting evidence because accepting it would threaten your tribe, identity, family, worldview, or sense of self. 21. Pattern inflation Taking a weak resemblance and exaggerating it into a strong argument. 22. Conspiracy thinking Assuming contrary evidence is itself part of the cover-up. 23. Emotional reasoning “It feels true, therefore it is true.” 24. No true Scotsman Redefining the category to protect the belief. Example: “No real believer would do that.” 25. Ad hoc rescue Inventing explanations after the fact to save a failing claim. 26. Overfitting Creating a theory that explains every tiny detail so well that it stops being falsifiable. 27. Falsifiability failure Believing a claim that no possible evidence could disprove. 28. Equivocation Switching meanings of words mid-argument. Example: using “spiritual,” “true,” “know,” or “evidence” in different ways depending on pressure. 29. Base rate neglect Ignoring how common ordinary explanations are compared to extraordinary ones. 30. The “too many coincidences” fallacy Assuming multiple coincidences must mean design, while ignoring how many possible coincidences could have been noticed.

@John_Stone_ @stackerco Man you really figured it out. Those old guys just just fleece us sheep so they can get all that money and.... Sit in meetings all day until they die...

@stackerco Pro tip: telling you to go to the temple is telling you to be worthy to go to the temple, which is just another way of encouraging you to give 10% of your income to the “church” so they can invest it in the Wall Street casino and real estate.

I had a conversation with my wife a couple days ago that church is just lessons and talks telling us to go to the temple. And tonight, I check out the Come Follow Me … and …

@Josiahnd3 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco Yeah, to turn John dehlins classic trademark violation lawsuit into a David and Goliath analogy does take a lot of spin so I'll give it to you there.

@JoeWilkinson09 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco If MS/Dehlin’s two-employee company with annual revenue less than $1m Vs 17+M member org with tens of thousands of employees with annual revs at $7-ish B and 300+ B surplus reserves can’t spin this into a classic David vs Goliath story then Idk 🤷‍♀️

RFM was right. Oaks was committed to handing out more excommunications.

@Josiahnd3 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco Goliath? You're hilarious

@JoeWilkinson09 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco I mean if Goliath is gonna make it this easy, I’d say, Keep leanin’ in, John.

@Josiahnd3 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco I agree. I'm sure he goes to bed every night just giddy with joy that he gets to wake up and play the victim card again

@JoeWilkinson09 @BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco He already won. Legal battle - TBD. But irrelevant. Free publicity. So long as the church maintains its lawsuit, his platform will regularly receive more regional, national exposure. Views, subscribers, donations are all up for the foreseeable future for MS/Dehlin.

@stackerco @BasicBaptistGuy The don't just excommunicate and sue everyone that speaks out. You're taking a single case scenario and creating a false equivalency to everyone else who verbalizes their doubts about the church. That's just not what happens and everyone knows that

@JoeWilkinson09 @BasicBaptistGuy Of course they don’t sue for just speaking out. But they will excommunicate and then will sue if they can justify doing it like with Mormon stories and sending similar letters to mormon discussion etc.

@BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco If it's so clear like you say then you have nothing to worry about. John dehlin will be vindicated. Or alternatively... He's screwed. When he loses, I encourage you to do a little self reflection about your level of objectivity.

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco Dude, do you believe everything the LDS corporation tells you? @stackerco has posted all the information and clearly if you actually look at it it’s pretty clear it’s not from the church. I watched Mormon Stories 10 years ago and I knew it wasn’t supported by the LDS. Duh!

@BasicBaptistGuy @stackerco He intentionally made his website/billboards and adds look like they were from the church to direct traffic to his sights. He even admitted so on his own podcast. That's why he's being sued and that's why he'll lose. Speaking out doesn't get you sued

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco Sure they can, you just blindly believing that a YouTube podcast is a trademark threat to a multi billion dollar corporation. They seem to be ignoring the big boys who have the power and money to fight back like Disney (Mormon Wives) and “The Book of Mormon” Broadway musical.

@stackerco @BasicBaptistGuy They can't sue you for "speaking out." Why do you pretend not to understand what the issue is?

@BasicBaptistGuy Yep. The threat is if you speak out you might get excommunicated and sued.

@Salt_n_Smoke Ummm no

Ironic. Isn’t the whole LDS religion just based off one guy and his “trust me bro” statements?

@HollandGreig @Mormonger A rigorous debate on how the debate should be debated...

@Mormonger Yes, I think you misunderstand these things So how a debate works is that you try and prove me wrong by saying “here’s what the gospel is, and here’s what the keys are, and here’s what it means that they disappeared from the earth for over a thousand years”

It’s nice when the Mormons own their heretical views instead of hide them They believe in “eternal progression,” where you can become like God (who they claim used to be a man) and can create whole worlds just like God…so not just “getting your own planet,” but creating worlds

@JeremyAbrahams8 Um nope

The Mormon Church has historically, and to my knowledge, until now, taught that both the Father and the Son have points of absolute beginning, and do not exist from eternity. So this man is lying, knowingly or unknowingly for the sake of disrupting discourse.

@Espalda @stackerco Yeah they kind of evicted themselves because they didn’t feel like being exterminated. Those silly Mormons. Keep playing the mental gymnastics. It’s fun. Movie???

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco The way that played out in reality it was an eviction, and was between people who no longer exist. Meanwhile Heritage Mormons are being actively exterminated by the corporation, yet you are still triggered by a movie into supporting the people doing that.

I think you all forget the LDS church is already in a PR deficit.

@Espalda @stackerco Maybe, for those who don't know what words mean, it's not

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco

@Espalda @stackerco Cool story. Still an extermination order

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco The men acted like enemies, were bad neighbors, and the women and children paid the price for their hubris. They wouldn't even recognize the Grantite Corporate Sole Globohomo faction who learned to play ball anyways as part of their religion.

@Espalda @stackerco Missouri Executive Order 44, known as the "Extermination Order," was issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs on October 27, 1838, during the Missouri Mormon War. It stated that Mormons had to be treated as enemies and "exterminated or driven from the state" to restore peace.

@JoeWilkinson09 @stackerco It was a strongly worded eviction notice. Get over yourselves.