rcrocket wrote:[...] FARMS review [...] should publish alternative points of view.
Wouldn't be cool if they published an alternative point of view by someone like... I don't know... say, Michael Heiser?
I think that would be cool. They should do that.
You mean like these, Doc? In the FARMS Review?
Israel's Divine Council, Mormonism, and Evangelicalism: Clarifying the Issues and Directions for Future Study (Volume 19 Issue 1)
You've Seen One Elohim, You've Seen Them All? A Critique of Mormonism's Use of Psalm 82 (Volume 19 Issue 1)
charity wrote:You mean like these, Doc? In the FARMS Review?
Israel's Divine Council, Mormonism, and Evangelicalism: Clarifying the Issues and Directions for Future Study (Volume 19 Issue 1) You've Seen One Elohim, You've Seen Them All? A Critique of Mormonism's Use of Psalm 82 (Volume 19 Issue 1)
Well, wudduya know? Whoda thunk such a day would come.
Maybe there's hope yet for those yahoos at FARMS. Not much, but just enough to keep a feller warm at night.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
Sorry my former-Vegas-now-fled-for-good-reason-brother. I didn't mean to kill/derail your thread with my commentary regarding FARMS. So, in an effort to get it back on topic (pro/con/llama), I hereby bump quotes from the only book I've ever read.
Doctor Steuss wrote:“In Judaism, how can the worshiping of the invisible G[-]d be defended as reasonable? In Christianity, how can the belief in Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and resurrected Lord, be defended as a reasonable type of religious belief? They cannot. Therefore, apologetics is the defense of the indefensible.”
Hans Dieter Betz, “In Defense of the Spirit: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians as a Document of Early Christian Apologetics,” in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, ed., University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1976), pg 100.
Betz's entire article is pretty insightful in regards to the overall role of apologetics and its inherent flaws outside of those who are coming to the table with a priori beliefs. There are certain things (whether they are metaphysical, scriptural, ethereal, etc.) that belief is needed in in order to for apologetics to be viewed as “reasonable.” Without these beliefs, it is essentially the “defense of the indefensible.”
Also from the same author (and page for that matter), "Those who were sophisticated enough always knew the apologetic demonstrations depend primarily upon the believer’s naïveté, rather than upon the soundness of the case. Rhetoric works only as long as one does not know how it works." (Italics in original).
Betz does take a few liberties in his article, and he is mostly speaking of 1st-5th century Jewish and Christian apologetics, but nonetheless I think this essentially still applies to apologetics today (although there are some areas in apologetics where scholarly standards have probably improved).
[edited for spelling and crap... a lot]
Last edited by Reflexzero on Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
Doctor Steuss wrote:Sorry my former-Vegas-now-fled-for-good-reason-brother.
Its OK, its Karmic retribution for my Monkeywrench Gang zeal for derailment. Next Thousand posts comes round, I just might Change my name to Seldom Seen Smith.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
rcrocket wrote:You might remember that Scratch has argued in the past that FARMS review should not hand-pick its peer reviewers, and should publish alternative points of view.
I keep asking him to name a single academic journal that does not hand-pick its reviewers; he hasn't. The invitation is still open. Maybe there's a journal out there. Somehow I don't think Scratch reads academic journals nor knows what they might be.
Correct. You HAVE to hand pick your reviewers, if for no other reason that you need to make sure that the person reviewing has the appropriate expertise. It wouldn't make sense to send manuscripts out randomly.
As for the alternative points of view, the same journals that hand pick their reviewers will publish articles espousing competing POVs, theories, etc. FARMS can still do this, to a degree, as long as the competing theories etc. all reside within the overarching theoretical framework--e.g., the Church is True etc.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
The purpose of FARMS is so that the chapel Mormons can say "smarter men than me know about these issues, and they still believe."
In other words, these "smart men" have done the research and have found that the anti-Mormon lies just don't hold any water what-so-ever. All is well in Zion, and our testimony stands firm.
Earlier this year, I was flying from Vegas to SLC next to an uber-TBM. She started talking Mormonism with me and told me that they just keep uncovering bounties of evidence that proves the Book of Mormon true! I just silently rolled my eyes at her. I think this mindset is prevalent in Zion.
FARMS and Jeff Lindsey want to make it appear that way...that there are mountains of evidence for the Book of Mormon, and any criticism against it has been thoroughly debunked.
And, Charity, let me stop you before you start. Everything hasn't been "answered". It may have been addressed, but precious little of it has been answered.
If there's one thing I've learned from this board, it's that consensual sex with multiple partners is okay unless God commands it. - Abman
I find this place to be hostile toward all brands of stupidity. That's why I like it. - Some Schmo
Scottie wrote:And, Charity, let me stop you before you start. Everything hasn't been "answered". It may have been addressed, but precious little of it has been answered.
You bring me into it by name, and you can't muzzle me, Scottie.
Everything has been addressed. The jury is out on a very few questions. Most have been answered, to those who aren't the anti-Mormon apologists.
Edited to add: Re: The Book of Mormon. Those questions which are still to be answered are quickly becoming irrelevant. The questions are on the production side. The textual issues are being addressed and answered very satisfactorily. And with the textual evidences, the production doesn't matter. IF the Book of Abraham contains doctrine and materials consistent with newly discovered ancient parallel documents, then how Joseph Smith "produced" it is of no consequence.
charity wrote:You bring me into it by name, and you can't muzzle me, Scottie.
Fair enough.
Everything has been addressed. The jury is out on a very few questions. Most have been answered, to those who aren't the anti-Mormon apologists.
This is where you and I differ. I say that very few question HAVE been answered. Most questions have multiple theories that COULD be an answer. Apologetics is all about maintaining plausibility, no matter how absurdly remote it might be. Hence absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. "We just haven't found the horse bones yet" is sufficient enough, even though there is SO much parallel evidence that points to the absence of horses in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon times.
Edited to add: Re: The Book of Mormon. Those questions which are still to be answered are quickly becoming irrelevant. The questions are on the production side. The textual issues are being addressed and answered very satisfactorily. And with the textual evidences, the production doesn't matter. IF the Book of Abraham contains doctrine and materials consistent with newly discovered ancient parallel documents, then how Joseph Smith "produced" it is of no consequence.
That's a might big "if", Charity...
And, no, the questions about the Book of Mormon are anything but irrelevant.
If there's one thing I've learned from this board, it's that consensual sex with multiple partners is okay unless God commands it. - Abman
I find this place to be hostile toward all brands of stupidity. That's why I like it. - Some Schmo
isn't apologetics ultimately a desire to find edification? In faith to faith apologetics, your looking to show more evidence that your brand of faith is the strongest edified according to the evidence we have.
In faith to non-believer, its an effort to show the most evidence for a need to kneel and pray and receive a witness.
Its scholarship when it needs to be, and its testimony by the very nature of the topic at hand.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato
rcrocket wrote:You might remember that Scratch has argued in the past that FARMS review should not hand-pick its peer reviewers, and should publish alternative points of view.
I keep asking him to name a single academic journal that does not hand-pick its reviewers; he hasn't. The invitation is still open. Maybe there's a journal out there. Somehow I don't think Scratch reads academic journals nor knows what they might be.
That's not what I said. I said that FROB cherry-picks its reviews. Whereas the typical academic journal is looking to increase knowledge and to produce vital scholarship, FARMS Review uses a stacked-deck peer reviews process in order to ensure full orthodoxy. Of course DCP "hand-picks" his reviewers: they are all a bunch of Church "yes men" who will never, ever go against the Brethren, or the Church of Latter-day Mopologetics.