Kishkumen wrote:Nibley and those he inspired filled a much-needed gap in the Church's intellectual scene for decades. They gave a certain intellectual and academic credibility to a Church that wanted almost nothing to do with the traditional academic religious training of Christendom. Why? Because it predictably leads to people who no longer literally believe in the things they are teaching. Nibley inspired Midgley partly because he offered a learned yet robust and spirited alternative to the flaccid intellectualizing and arid theorizing of the theologians.
This paragraph has substantially profound thoughts. If one really thinks about it, I believe this gives you an entrance into why so many are attracted to apologetics and subsequently the practice of apologetics.
Polygamy-Porter wrote:... FARMS/MI under the past management has done more financial damage to LDS Inc by way of lost tithe payers ... I will miss him as he did far more to help us exmormons bleed the beast than the sum of all of our efforts.
They did their best...
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Kishkumen wrote:Nibley and those he inspired filled a much-needed gap in the Church's intellectual scene for decades. They gave a certain intellectual and academic credibility to a Church that wanted almost nothing to do with the traditional academic religious training of Christendom. Why? Because it predictably leads to people who no longer literally believe in the things they are teaching. Nibley inspired Midgley partly because he offered a learned yet robust and spirited alternative to the flaccid intellectualizing and arid theorizing of the theologians.
This paragraph has substantially profound thoughts. If one really thinks about it, I believe this gives you an entrance into why so many are attracted to apologetics and subsequently the practice of apologetics.
I agree that Nibley's attention to the context of ancient culture and religious practice makes reading his work a more intriguing experience than that of the 'Just read the Book of Mormon' crowd - if only because the kind of material he cited is in itself much more interesting that Joseph Smith's 19th century religious pastiche. But the flaws in Nibley's work are (one the basis of my admittedly limited acquaintance) serious enough so that after having seen them for what they are, one simply ends up disbelieving in a more profound and culturally sensitive way.
It is a longer dead end than some other Mormon thinkers, but a dead end all the same.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
