MYTH DISPELLED: LDS Apologists Are Paid

[_the road to hana]

Ever?

I have never, ever, written an article in defense of the Church at the request of the University or at the request of any General Authority.

Is that clear enough?

Good grief.

Who requested it, or suggested it, or invited you to do so?

Isn't that implicit with FARMS/Maxwell Institute?

No, it is not.

Here's the mission statement:


The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship exists to

*Describe and defend the Restoration through highest quality scholarship
*Provide critically edited, primary resources (ancient religious texts) to scholars and lay persons around the world
*Build bridges of understanding and goodwill to Muslim scholars by providing superior editions of primary texts
*Provide an anchor of faith in a sea of LDS Studies

You're correct. It's not implicit. It's explicit.

To some extent, at the University level (as I've noted time and again), there has actually been pressure to the contrary.

From your employer? I find that doubtful, and would love specific examples.

What some folks here may or may not find "doubtful" is not my problem.

I've already discussed this, with examples, on this thread.

Your experience differs from my own.

Once again, the expectation that a member of the BYU faculty not speak against the Church or write in opposition to the Church entails no obligation on a faculty member's part to write or speak affirmatively for the Church.

I would agree with you in the general, but not in the specific. It might not an expectation of all BYU faculty members, but it can be said that some are asked or invited to participate in activities that involve the same.

I'm aware of none.

And if you're simply going to dismiss what I say as lies, why do you bother to ask me questions?

I don't dismiss it as lying. I don't dismiss it at all. I think you're being careful with your responses, which I find curious.

***

Yes, Liz, this is being beaten to death, and then some. I understand why Scratch does what he does. He's trying, by asking his questions over and over and over again, to catch his prey in a contradiction, or to get something that he can use, plausibly or not, to level yet another accusation and/or on which to construct yet another conspiracy theory. It's rather like the technique used at Lod Airport, near Tel Aviv (which I just experienced again last week).

I'm not sure, though, why others are playing the game with such odd enthusiasm.

Don't even get me started on the Tel Aviv Airport.

People play the game because you are easy to tease, and a willing target. You engage, so they engage back. It's that simple.

I could care less if the LDS Church pays anyone for anything, personally. But I will say that your own experience and observations, including as a BYU employee, differ from my own experience and observations.

I'll ask you a question. If you were to stipulate that there is such as thing as Mormon apologetics, I wonder who you'd say are the ten leading LDS apologists currently living (feel free to include yourself in that list if you feel that is appropriate). As a follow-up, I'd ask you if you believe there is any organized community of apologists or apologetics within the LDS Church, or if you perceive it to be completely random and spontaneous.

[_Daniel Peterson]

And we are to believe that there is no evidence that "some people in BYU ... don't like it being associated with LDS apologetics" as I said above?

The work of the particular person I have in mind wasn't even apologetic.

But believe what you choose.

Who requested it, or suggested it, or invited you to do so?

It was my idea. I requested it. So I suggested it to myself. And then I invited myself to do it.

I write what I want to write when I want to write it. Once in a while, a friend (LDS or non-LDS) has asked me to contribute something to a book or journal, but I have never written anything that I can think of at the request of the University or at the request of a General Authority.

This shouldn't be hard to grasp.

You're correct. It's not implicit. It's explicit.

????

Your experience differs from my own. . . . I will say that your own experience and observations, including as a BYU employee, differ from my own experience and observations.

That seems to follow from the fact that you're not me and I'm not you.

But are you saying that nobody at BYU ever expressed any reservations about your ardent and prolonged devotion to publishing apologetic material?

I think you're being careful with your responses, which I find curious.

You prefer lack of care?

You have to remember, of course, that Scratch is eagerly compiling information for his dossier on me, and that he is especially interested in sniffing out statements that he can portray as contradictory, incriminating, dishonest, hateful, bigoted, etc. I favor exactness in any case, but, given the fact that my Malevolent Stalker is implacably, obsessively, combing everything I post for anything that he can use to discredit or malign me, I have an added incentive.

If you were to stipulate that there is such as thing as Mormon apologetics, I wonder who you'd say are the ten leading LDS apologists currently living (feel free to include yourself in that list if you feel that is appropriate).

I don't like to make such lists, and won't. Sorry.

As a follow-up, I'd ask you if you believe there is any organized community of apologists or apologetics within the LDS Church, or if you perceive it to be completely random and spontaneous.

Obviously, there are groups that have been organized to foster apologetic undertakings. FAIR is a clear example of such. (It receives no money or direction from the Church, by the way, and was launched by private members of the Church entirely on their own.) FARMS was also launched (entirely by private members of the Church, entirely on their own) with a partially -- never wholly -- apologetic agenda. To say that the Church is not the author or manager of such efforts is not to say that they are "completely random and spontaneous." That's a false dilemma. They are examples of ordinary members of the Church taking the initiative on their own.

People play the game because you are easy to tease, and a willing target. You engage, so they engage back. It's that simple.

Yes, I realize that Bait the Believer is a popular sport here, and that I'm an especially popular target. (I'm a popular target, here and elsewhere, even when I don't engage. Just watch. Scratch starts threads about me when I haven't been anywhere near this place for weeks or even months. The same is true elsewhere.)

There's an easy way to respond.

[_Daniel Peterson]

easy way to respond.

[_Daniel Peterson]

way to respond.

[_Daniel Peterson]

respond.

[_Daniel Peterson]

.

[_Yoda]

.

OK, now you're just trying to up your tally of posts for "God status".

;)

[_Jersey Girl]

Daniel,

When you're done responding to this little bit of pathological interrogation, might you consider voting in my hot dog poll?

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=6408

Seriously, it would be a far better use of your time.

:-D

[_antishock8]

What the heck was that? This very distinguished professor is acting very strangely. Very strangely, indeed. Hrm... I thought he might be projecting a little bit when he threw out that "therapy" barb, but now I have to wonder...

[The Stig]

.

Sooner or later you have to come to grips with the reality that their stamina for argument and single-minded capacity to "hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest" so far exceeds your own as to create a condition of inexorable futility.

And, given that realization, it should then be self-evident that there is no time like the present.