Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

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_Doctor Scratch
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Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Doctor Scratch »

This stuff is great! Keep it coming, folks. I think this is in keeping with what Rev. Kishkumen described in the other thread, and I think it will be helpful to everyone. Struggling members can refer to this thread whenever an apologist-type asks for more specificity; the apologists themselves can use these examples to improve their work; etc.

Willy: yes, I was thinking more just of the Mopologists being mean, unpleasant, etc., but I think what you posted is in keeping with what Calmoriah was asking for on her thread. Though, given the fact that they apparently revised the list, maybe this is an example of a positive? (Or was your wife bothered by the second list, too?)

In any case, back to the FARMS Review, issue 1. The next two articles are reviews of a book by Wade Brown. The first, by Donald Parry, has moments of nastiness:

Notwithstanding the author's voluminous presentation of Hebrew poetry and parallelistic verse as demonstrated in this work, serious problems exist, both in his general thesis and in his method of formatting the text of the Book of Mormon.


While he correctly identified these varieties, and while all of them are important figures of speech, they simply are not parallelisms. Nor can they be considered poetry of any type. In identifying them to be such, the author has overstepped the bounds of discriminating scholarship.


On the other hand, Brown fails to include many important parallel types, all of which are attested within the Nephite scripture.


The second review, though, was written by David P. Wright, and it is a lot more reasonable:

By its own admission, the book is not a scholarly work but rather a witness of the author's religious convictions. Indeed, it was his family for whom the work was originally written as a "as a gift of his testimony of the language of the Book of Mormon" (p. i) that had the work published. This may account for the extremely brief and undeveloped character of the author's arguments and analysis.


The point of this review is not to question Brown's religious views, nor will it dwell on his metaphysical-historical judgments about the origin of the parallelistic form of the Book of Mormon which certainly can be questioned, even by scholars who view the book from an orthodox perspective. The point is rather to show that his layout of the text--apart from the problematic secondary material he has added--is a helpful contribution to the literary study of the Book of Mormon and has implications for further study.


Note how Wright is still critical, but he looks for the positives in the work. Parry's review, by comparison, is really a lot more negative: it is paragraph after paragraph of pointing out a variety of flaws. How, I have to ask, is this in keeping with what DCP described in his intro? Parry wraps up his review not by trying to counter his negativity with a final postive, but rather with the old, wrinkly Mopologetic refrain of, "There is still much work to be done."

The next was a positive review, by Lavina Fielding Anderson, and the next three (yes: three) were about a Book of Mormon geography book written by Bruce Hauck. More on this later, courtesy of an old thread by our dear, beloved Dean Robbers.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
_Yoda

Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Yoda »

FAIR wrote: The RLDS Church rejected plural marriage, and perhaps not coincidentally are now small in number and virtually indistinguishable from Protestants.


Which is, ironically, the current mainstream direction of the LDS Church. :rolleyes:
_RayAgostini

Re: Problems in the FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _RayAgostini »

Doctor Scratch wrote:
I think it's fine if Wyatt only wants textual examples, though I think he should bear in mind that the folks at FAIR have a tendency to spread gossip, and sometimes their backroom chatter winds up getting "leaked." Also, sometimes the FAIR people go back in to delete stuff, such as their Facebook cyber-stalking of John Dehlin, which has now been deleted from the FAIR Wiki. So does this count? Or is Wyatt only talking about the stuff that's still accessible online?


I was not on Facebook when this happened. Screen shots with time-dates can be useful, to make such things "count".

I don't think the focus should be entirely on FAIR/FARMS, and I applaud Allen Wyatt for inviting critical responses, because I think he's genuine in asking this.

In fact, going back to my statement earlier in this post, we at FAIR have been asking, for a long, long, LONG time, for concrete examples of all the meanness attributed to us, as an organization. Understanding that it is possible to not see the forest for the trees, please consider this an open, standing invitation. If anyone can point them out to us, I’d be glad to make sure someone takes a look at what is brought up.
(Original emphasis)

So far, no responses on the blog, but let's see what happens.

When on Facebook, I was aware of a group of "zealot defenders", who "policed" Facebook for "offending" comments/criticisms. Some of these "critical" comments were actually very benign, but they (the group) were often successful not only in having criticisms deleted, but the posters suspended or banned from Facebook. I don't know if they were associated with any "official" apologetic bodies, like FARMS/FAIR, maybe, maybe not, but the "net" of "zealots" spreads far and wide (look on this board too). My attention was drawn to this by a person I was trying to help who was struggling with (LDS) family matters, who was basically told that he/she was "darkened in mind" and had "sin issues". I did my best to help him/her look at the positives, and realise that "not all Mormons are like this". What these zealots were doing was reprehensible and dishonest, but I don't think this can be pinned down to any particular "apologetic body" within Mormonism, just individual and misguided zealotry.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Kishkumen »

Later in Gee's review of the second edition of Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, we get this gem of gentlemanly scholarly behavior:

John Gee wrote:One could consider this book to be the result of Michael Quinn's skewed view of reality.


Although at the time Quinn wrote the book he was a fervent believer in Mormonism, Gee proceeds to assure his reader, through various impressionistic assessments, that Quinn surely is not:

John Gee wrote:Quinn has "always seen [him]self as a Mormon apologist" (p. xi) and "a conservative revisionist in the writing of Mormon history" (p. xvii), although few others see him this way.25 The anti-Mormon John L. Smith, for instance, refers to "D. Michael Quinn who evidently believes little of Mormonism."26 On the other side of the spectrum, Stephen E. Robinson noted that Quinn's book manifested "a total lack of any pro-Mormon bias. . . . Quinn is clearly no LDS apologist. There is not a single page of the main text that would appear to be motivated by loyalty to the LDS church or its doctrines or to be apologetic of the Church's interests."27 Unfortunately, Quinn shows no sign of having understood either this fact or the reasons for the criticism of his book in the first place, and thus he is very defensive in his second edition. If anything, Quinn is now even less loyal to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than in the last edition.

The origins of this book might provide a clue to this lack of loyalty.


Let's be clear here. EMMWV is a work of history. Its value as scholarship should rise or fall in accordance with its merits as a scholarly argument. It is a difficult and challenging book in a number of ways, and not without significant flaws. What, however, is the value of assessing its scholarship on the basis that an anti-Mormon thought such and such about Quinn's religiosity? Or even Stephen E. Robinson?

What time has shown, however, is that Quinn's work was seminal in its area, however deficient in some respects, inasmuch as it brought attention to the historically significant phenomenon of folk magic in early Mormonism. By the way, contrary to Gee's correction on the matter, even scholars continue to use the word "magic," since it continues to be useful, much as Quinn's work does.

What good did it do to the many people who knew of Quinn's fervent testimony of Joseph Smith that the Church's rising star in Egyptology and apologetics was essentially calling their friend a traitor?

It may also be worth asking the following question. If Michael Quinn was using the term magic to denigrate Joseph Smith, why is it that naturalistic scholar Dan Vogel has chided Quinn for believing in magic?
Last edited by Guest on Fri May 11, 2012 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Doctor Scratch
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Re: Problems in the FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Doctor Scratch »

RayAgostini wrote:
Doctor Scratch wrote:
I think it's fine if Wyatt only wants textual examples, though I think he should bear in mind that the folks at FAIR have a tendency to spread gossip, and sometimes their backroom chatter winds up getting "leaked." Also, sometimes the FAIR people go back in to delete stuff, such as their Facebook cyber-stalking of John Dehlin, which has now been deleted from the FAIR Wiki. So does this count? Or is Wyatt only talking about the stuff that's still accessible online?


I was not on Facebook when this happened. Screen shots with time-dates can be useful, to make such things "count".

I don't think the focus should be entirely on FAIR/FARMS, and I applaud Allen Wyatt for inviting critical responses, because I think he's genuine in asking this.

In fact, going back to my statement earlier in this post, we at FAIR have been asking, for a long, long, LONG time, for concrete examples of all the meanness attributed to us, as an organization. Understanding that it is possible to not see the forest for the trees, please consider this an open, standing invitation. If anyone can point them out to us, I’d be glad to make sure someone takes a look at what is brought up.
(Original emphasis)

So far, no responses on the blog, but let's see what happens.


Don't you have to be "logged in" to respond? Meaning that they filter out who can participate? Or is it open to everyone?

When on Facebook, I was aware of a group of "zealot defenders", who "policed" Facebook for "offending" comments/criticisms. Some of these "critical" comments were actually very benign, but they (the group) were often successful not only in having criticisms deleted, but the posters suspended or banned from Facebook. I don't know if they were associated with any "official" apologetic bodies, like FARMS/FAIR, maybe, maybe not, but the "net" of "zealots" spreads far and wide (look on this board too). My attention was drawn to this by a person I was trying to help who was struggling with (LDS) family matters, who was basically told that he/she was "darkened in mind" and had "sin issues". I did my best to help him/her look at the positives, and realise that "not all Mormons are like this". What these zealots were doing was reprehensible and dishonest, but I don't think this can be pinned down to any particular "apologetic body" within Mormonism, just individual and misguided zealotry.


That's pretty incredible, Ray. Can you provide more details? For example, do you know who was involved?

You're right that it can sometimes be tought to attribute the bad deeds of individuals to an organization, and that is probably one of the rebuttals that Wyatt himself would provide. Sometimes an organization with a lot of bad behavior also has good people/things about it. E.g., the issue of the Review I've been going through: the DCP editorial was fine, as were the reviews by David Wright, Jack Welch, and Lavina Anderson. But there were problems, too. Similarly, FAIR has decent people like Wiki Wonka and Kevin Barney. But it also has Will Schryver, Allen Wyatt, and Mike Parker. So you have to weigh everything out. If we are able to list example after example of "nastiness," then after a certain point you have to conclude that the organization itself can be blamed--especially if the Powers that Be do nothing to rein in the offenders. FAIR ultimately divested itself of the messageboard for precisely this reason, I think. But, then again, if FAIR continues to keep people like Schryver, Greg Smith, etc. on board, then you have to conclude that the organization itself is tolerant of this crappy behavior.

Anyhow, we still have work to do. I'm barely through the first issue of the Review.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
_Darth J
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Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Darth J »

Then there's that habit FARMS and FAIR have of directly contradicting the teachings of the LDS Church in the course of purporting to defend the institution:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15412
_RayAgostini

Re: Problems in the FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _RayAgostini »

Doctor Scratch wrote:Don't you have to be "logged in" to respond? Meaning that they filter out who can participate? Or is it open to everyone?


I'm pretty sure it's open to everyone. I haven't posted there for a long time, and the log-in thing is new to me.

Doctor Scratch wrote:That's pretty incredible, Ray. Can you provide more details? For example, do you know who was involved?


Once I deactivated my Facebook account I lost everything. I have no reason to believe they were associated with any particular "apologetic body", and when I examined the page I couldn't see any evidence of that. I believe they were just zealots. That's not uncommon. Many years ago I remember that ultra-conservative Christians at the university I attended would rip out pages of books on evolution, or leave notes to contact so and so to "avoid going to hell", and "repent and hear the good news".

Doctor Scratch wrote:You're right that it can sometimes be tought to attribute the bad deeds of individuals to an organization, and that is probably one of the rebuttals that Wyatt himself would provide. Sometimes an organization with a lot of bad behavior also has good people/things about it. E.g., the issue of the Review I've been going through: the DCP editorial was fine, as were the reviews by David Wright, Jack Welch, and Lavina Anderson. But there were problems, too. Similarly, FAIR has decent people like Wiki Wonka and Kevin Barney. But it also has Will Schryver, Allen Wyatt, and Mike Parker. So you have to weigh everything out. If we are able to list example after example of "nastiness," then after a certain point you have to conclude that the organization itself can be blamed--especially if the Powers that Be do nothing to rein in the offenders. FAIR ultimately divested itself of the messageboard for precisely this reason, I think. But, then again, if FAIR continues to keep people like Schryver, Greg Smith, etc. on board, then you have to conclude that the organization itself is tolerant of this crappy behavior.


Kevin Barney is a good example of why certain apologetic bodies should not be condemned wholesale (he's on the FAIR board of directors and has contributed to that "awful" FRB). He's also featured on MST, as well as Joanna Brooks, and for that I applaud DCP. I rarely read MST, but some of the more "radical" (unpredictable and unconventional) entries do interest me. Sunday Fast & Testimony bearing holds no interest for me, whatsoever.

The net gathers all kinds, and "wheat grows along with the tares".
_Kishkumen
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Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Kishkumen »

Let's look at Matthew Brown's review of Buerger's The Mysteries of Godliness:

At the outset of his review, Brown sets us up for how we should view this work, which is one of the first, if not the first, history of LDS temple worship that was not written for the purpose of scandalizing its readers, but rather of informing them:

Matthew Brown wrote:On 20 April 1974 members of the Mormon History Association gathered in Nauvoo, Illinois, to hear Reed C. Durham Jr. deliver a paper entitled "Is There No Help for the Widow's Son?" In this lecture Dr. Durham, the association's president at the time, agreed with the anti-Mormon allegation that Joseph Smith plagiarized ritual elements from Freemasonry1 and used them to create the endowment ceremony for the Nauvoo Temple.


OK, immediately, one should notice that Buerger's book covers a great deal more than the Nauvoo endowment. He also spends a good deal of time exploring the evolution of the practice of the second anointing, for example, addressing the question of how much it was practiced over the years, among other things.

And yet here, at the beginning, Matt Brown tells us that Reed Durham, president of the Mormon History Association at the time, "agreed with the allegation that Joseph Smith plagiarized ritual elements from Freemasonry, and used them in the endowment ceremony for the Nauvoo Temple."

This description of Reed Durham's address is grossly distorted.

First of all, Durham never uses the word "plagiarize/d" or "plagiarism" in his address. Instead, this is the language he uses:

Reed Durham wrote:Masonic influence on Joseph was further highlighted when the heated anti-Masonic crusades flared up in western New York.


Reed Durham wrote:The many parallels found between early Mormonism and the Masonry of that day are substantial...


Reed Durham wrote:By the end of 1832, Joseph Smith had welcomed new brethren, along with their influences, into the Church.


Reed Durham wrote:The Kirtland Temple also reflected an influence of Masonry.


(emphasis added)

Most reasonably intelligent college graduates can tell the difference between the word "influence" and the word "plagiarism." My music may be influenced by the oeuvre of Kraftwerk, but I have not plagiarized any of their songs. In this I am unlike the band Coldplay, which has plagiarized another artist. Most people get the distinction.

Why, then, does Matt Brown say that Reed Durham agreed with anti-Mormons who accused Joseph Smith of plagiarizing Freemasonic ritual? Was it the case that Mr. Brown simply did not understand the difference between the words "influence" and "plagiarize"? Unfortunately, this mischaracterization of Reed Durham's address is used by Brown to tarnish Buerger's work, since Buerger refers to Durham's address and claims that it was misunderstood.

(A witness of the wisdom and correctness of Buerger's assessment might be found in Kerry Shirts, "The Backyard Professor," an endowed Mormon and apologist, who, having been initiated into Freemasonry, speaks in positive terms about the symbolic relationship between Freemasonic and Mormon ritual. In fact, Shirts has engaged in fairly spirited exchanges with apologist Louis Midgley, who, like former colleague Bill Hamblin, denies any relationship between Mormonism and Masonry.)

But to let us know how we should feel about Buerger's work, we are told that anti-Mormons greeted Durham's essay with great joy:

Matt Brown wrote:The anti-Mormon community was overjoyed at this presentation, while Dr. Durham's LDS colleagues were stunned and called his faith and good sense into question.


I find it very interesting that one's friends' and enemies' immediate emotional reaction to any argument has become a measure of its validity in the world of LDS scholarship. I rather suspect it has not, but one would not know based on this review.

In any case, it is true that Buerger accepted the idea that Joseph Smith was influenced by Freemasonry in the construction of the temple ritual, but to any scholar of religion, this is no more controversial than arguing that Solomon's Temple or early Christian ritual reflected the art, symbolism, and ritual of their environment. Nowadays, many LDS scholars rightly do not fret over the relationship between Freemasonry and the LDS endowment, because they understand that such a relationship does not invalidate the endowment.

At the time Matt Brown wrote this review, that was less the case. Yet one wonders why it was still necessary to cloud the issue of the historical merits of Buerger's argument by making an effort to associate Buerger with anti-Mormonism at the opening of the review. What does one call the misleading characterization of a person's argument as anti-Mormon at the outset of a review smack of?
Last edited by Guest on Sat May 12, 2012 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Hasa Diga Eebowai
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Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _Hasa Diga Eebowai »

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_RayAgostini

Re: Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

Post by _RayAgostini »

Kishkumen wrote:At the time Matt Brown wrote this review, that was less the case. Yet one wonders why it was still necessary to cloud the issue of the historical merits of Buerger's argument by making an effort to associate Buerger with anti-Mormonism at the opening of the review. What does one call the misleading characterization of a person's argument as anti-Mormon at the outset of a review smack of?


Durham was the one who warned the Church that the Tanners' influence was greater than they estimated, or that they underestimated it. Interestingly, the Tanners published this:

It was, in fact, D. Michael Quinn who lifted his pen in 1977 in an attempt to refute our work. Dr. Quinn wrote a pamphlet entitled, Jerald and Sandra Tanner's Distorted View of Mormonism: A Response to Mormonism - Shadow or Reality? According to Richard Stephen Marshall, Mormon historian Reed Durham gave him the following information:

He also said that due to the large number of letters the Church Historian's Office is receiving asking for answers to the things the Tanners have published, a certain scholar (name deliberately withheld) was appointed to write a general answer to the Tanners... This unnamed person solicited the help of Reed Durham on the project. The work is finished but its publication is delayed, according to what Leonard Arrington told Durham, because they can not decide how or where to publish it....it will probably be published anonymously, to avoid difficulties which could result were such an article connected with an official Church agency. ("The New Mormon History," by Richard Stephen Marshall, A Senior Honors Project Summary, University of Utah, May 1, 1977, page 62)



Mormon Inquisition? LDS Leaders Move to Repress Rebellion.

According to Durham's Wiki entry:

His colleague Gilbert W. Scharffs said, "I have seldom found a man with a firmer conviction of Jesus Christ and the LDS Church. There are few in the LDS Church who have a deeper knowledge of LDS history and doctrine than Reed C. Durham, Jr."


Anti-Mormon? Durham warned Church leaders, in the 1970s, that they were sitting on a membership exodus time bomb. I'd call that pro-Mormon, actually, a radical shift from the "all is well in Zion" approach, and Durham's call was simply to be more honest, and "tell the truth about our history", and "let them decide" (members and investigators).
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