I know that I'm committing a bit of a logical fallacy when I say this, but Jerry Bergman has little credibility in my book due to his incessant defense of creationism and intelligent design. I believe he also has posted here a while ago and I remember not being very impressed. -- Logansrun
LR,
Of what relevance to the issue of mental illness among Jehovah's Witnesses addressed by Dr. Bergman's book are his views on creationism and intelligent design? Rather than give us this BS general bashing of Dr. Bergman, maybe you can cite some specifics? This unsupported bashing of Dr. Bergman reeks of the actions of a Watchtower apologist. Your unsupported bashing of Dr. Bergman leaves little for anyone to be "impressed" with in your posts. -- 144001
Logansrun,
Here's another opportunity for you to answer these questions you have ignored. You asserted that Dr. Bergman has "little credibility in [your] book due to his incessant defense of creationism and intelligent design." This may be a shocker for you, but many people, myself excluded, believe in creationism and intelligent design. How does Dr. Bergman's religious beliefs impact impact his professional work as a psychologist? You made no effort to refute or discredit any of the substance of Dr. Bergman's published works, including the book "Jehovah's Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness" that I referred to in my original post to you. Instead, you attempted to discredit him by attacking his personal religious beliefs, a tactic similar to those employed by many Jehovah's Witnesses.
Assuming Dr. Bergman did post here, what was it about his post that didn't "impress" you? Did his comments challenge the beliefs instilled in you by the Watchtower?
Villifying Jerry Bergman or his work holds little interest for me; perhaps you're more interested in this argument than I am. Nevertheless, I will simply say that my general feeling in perusing Jerry Bergmans comments on this site was somewhat negative. He seemed to be on somewhat of an ego trip and also did not appear as bright as I would expect a doctored professor to be. (On many occassions he would use more than one exclamation point or question mark after making a statment; besides being bad grammer this appears childish and betrays a lack of sound argumentation)
I did say that I was somewhat engaging in a logical fallacy by discrediting his research on JWs and mental illness with his noted apologetics for creationism and ID. But, on closer examination, this isn't necessarily a fallacy. If a professional starts to make outlandish claims in favor of pseudoscience (which ID and creationism indubitably is) this does cast a negative spell on the rest of his work, work which is supposedly "scienctific." No, it doesn't prove that his work on JWs and mental illness is wrong, but if he is willing to believe in one form of pseudoscience -- as well as engage in Christian apologetics, something I consider irrational -- then I think I am justified if I take his psychological studies with serious skepticism. (In my experience Christian apologetics have a very extreme bias against JWs since they view them as deviating from "the one true faith" and are likely to consider them a cult for theological reasons)
From what I understand, Bergman's work has been criticised by many of his peers as well. I will end my part in this dialogue with that thought.
