Blake Ostlerism

[MG 2.0]

Something to keep in mind.

When a poster claims it happened but...

There is no evidence provided.
No corroboration (proof given) from other posters.
No link to the alleged thread in question.
No actual quotes from the alleged meltdown.

We ought to be careful about accepting the word of that poster.

On the other hand, we have a myriad of examples that could be given showing that Blake Ostler is one of the great LDS thinkers/philosophers.

Let's not muddy the waters.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

The meltdown:

https://faithpromotingrumor.com/2019/08 ... -the-jspp/

The thread about the meltdown:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=152267

And here we go again with the DCP hate club where the “interlocutors” do their best to hide and pretend to be saying something that has merit while bad mouthing DCP. Please grow up, get the hell off of these personal attacks and get a life. This kind of invective is beneath even SmallAxe. Jensen and Hauglid’s treatment of the KEP and related papers is abominable and the fact that only one POV is expressed — a rather Dan Vogel like POV that any responsible scholar should know better than to parrot — tells us everything we need to know about their “scholarship”.

And Dr. Scratch — really? Airing your petty jealousies in public is just childish. Your antics here are pathetic and explain why I stayed as far away from academia as I could. You do know that Dr. Midgely has passed, right? Truly you are disgusting.

And as iffy as some of the stuff published by the Interpreter may be, at least it isn’t totally insomnia curing drivel that we get here.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 11:12 AM

The personal attacks tell me all that I need to know about you cowards hiding behind anonymous posts. But I have the resources to find out who you are — and I will.

I desire to know identities because I have a deep seated belief in personal accountability for actions. I want to know who says such nasty things and let others know how loathsome some commenting here.truly are. I have already learned 2 identities. One used a vpn but it was easy to crack because they used the same moniker before the vpn. I was not surprised and I think those who deal with them will be quite interested in their conduct and comments here and elsewhere.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 8:29 PM

Everyone can kiss my white ass. The antics here are pathetic and childish and explain why there is a hell reserved for people like you. You people are truly disgusting.

Goodbye.

Now I understand better why Robert Boylan looks up to Ostler so much. They're two bipolar peas in a pod.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

And now it almost seems to me like the church leadership has lost the will to maintain any kind of control over their own theology. You can't have a church that lasts very long if there is not a central core that is passed on from generation to generation.

It almost seems like some of these guys are grabbing hold of liberalism. And this is their own fault. The church sent their people out to get PhDs at Ivy League universities. They didn't want doing it at BYU anymore. They wanted they wanted to up how they looked. The problem is those guys came back with critical methodology and they've injected that into the very bloodstream of Mormonism and Mormonism cannot survive that.

So, might there be internal struggles going on? I don't know.

All I know is any Mormon that I talked to in the first 30 years of my dealing with Mormonism that would listen to this guy (Jacob Hanson) would go, "Who's that? That's not Mormonism. That's not what we believe." And that's true.

That made for a good opportunity to remind folks once again when Joseph Smith said, "We have imagined supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see." When he said that, he separated himself and his followers forever from Christianity.
Forever.

And I was told yesterday, I was in Provo, I was talking to some fellow believers who do a lot of street witnessing to BYU students, stuff like that. They said there's this amazing desire from BYU Students to be accepted by evangelical Christians. They just don't understand why we won't. And I see that online all the time.

Um, there's no way to do that. There is no way to cross that chasm until you repudiate Joseph Smith. Repent of his blasphemies and worship the one true God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

There's no other way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSVX2fytS-U

James White really nailed it.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

The meltdown:

https://faithpromotingrumor.com/2019/08 ... -the-jspp/

The thread about the meltdown:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=152267

And here we go again with the DCP hate club where the “interlocutors” do their best to hide and pretend to be saying something that has merit while bad mouthing DCP. Please grow up, get the hell off of these personal attacks and get a life. This kind of invective is beneath even SmallAxe. Jensen and Hauglid’s treatment of the KEP and related papers is abominable and the fact that only one POV is expressed — a rather Dan Vogel like POV that any responsible scholar should know better than to parrot — tells us everything we need to know about their “scholarship”.

And Dr. Scratch — really? Airing your petty jealousies in public is just childish. Your antics here are pathetic and explain why I stayed as far away from academia as I could. You do know that Dr. Midgely has passed, right? Truly you are disgusting.

And as iffy as some of the stuff published by the Interpreter may be, at least it isn’t totally insomnia curing drivel that we get here.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 11:12 AM

The personal attacks tell me all that I need to know about you cowards hiding behind anonymous posts. But I have the resources to find out who you are — and I will.

I desire to know identities because I have a deep seated belief in personal accountability for actions. I want to know who says such nasty things and let others know how loathsome some commenting here.truly are. I have already learned 2 identities. One used a vpn but it was easy to crack because they used the same moniker before the vpn. I was not surprised and I think those who deal with them will be quite interested in their conduct and comments here and elsewhere.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 8:29 PM

Everyone can kiss my white ass. The antics here are pathetic and childish and explain why there is a hell reserved for people like you. You people are truly disgusting.

Goodbye.

Now I understand better why Robert Boylan looks up to Ostler so much. They're two bipolar peas in a pod.

Wow! Ostler is a totally unhinged nutjob! Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

[MG 2.0]

All I know is any Mormon that I talked to in the first 30 years of my dealing with Mormonism that would listen to this guy (Jacob Hanson) would go, "Who's that? That's not Mormonism. That's not what we believe." And that's true.

That made for a good opportunity to remind folks once again when Joseph Smith said, "We have imagined supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see." When he said that, he separated himself and his followers forever from Christianity.
Forever.

I've listened to the first half hour so far. This guy, Dr. White, has spent his life trying to teach/support a religion in which God predestines people to hell. The story Jacob tells about the little girls and the fisherman tells it all.

Calvinism? No thanks. A majority of Christians would agree.

It's important to remember that Dr. White is holding up a doctrinal/theological position of Mormonism that is taken out of context. Critics do that.

Also, I have to say, why is it that when Blake Ostler (and others) is/are spending the time and effort to think out of the box in regard to LDS theology that there are some, not all, that immediately call, "Foul!".

It's happening right here.

I would recommend simply doing a google search, find his writings, read some of them...and then decide if you think he's an unhinged 'quack'. Ahem, as some would like to portray him to be. Ad hominem, first line of attack.

Regards,
MG

[Gadianton]

Why would, from what I've been saying on this thread (if you agree) would you think that Chapel Mormonism today would necessarily look like the Chapel Mormonism from yesteryear?

I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again, I think that there are some of the older critics who are still stuck in the past with a fundamentalistic/black and white way of viewing the world.

That doesn't even make sense to me. The world has never been black and white. There are so many colors and shades of gray. Obviously, some things don't change...but they are few and far between, I think.

MG, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about something. There is a difference between a person being a black-and-white thinker, and a person recognizing that God, who says he's the same "yesterday, today, and forever" is a black-and-white thinker. Recognizing that a church which claims to be the pure restoration of the gospel from the time of Jesus can't exist in 500 different ways, otherwise it makes the idea of restoration meaningless.

I understand very well that no two generations are going to see things the same way. I understand that norms change. The fact that society, culture, and beliefs change over time is quite normal, for a sociologist, however, for the Mormon church, that change is called the Great Apostacy.

If you believe people should have very liberal interpretations doctrine and ideas are allowed to change liberally over time and everyone just needs to be flexible, then everyone should recognize the Catholic church as the true church Christ set up and no need for a restoration. Of course the church in the 15th century is going to look different than the church of the first century, what idiot could possibly think otherwise?

[drumdude]

I've listened to the first half hour so far. This guy, Dr. White, has spent his life trying to teach/support a religion in which God predestines people to hell. The story Jacob tells about the little girls and the fisherman tells it all.

Calvinism? No thanks. A majority of Christians would agree.

It's important to remember that Dr. White is holding up a doctrinal/theological position of Mormonism that is taken out of context. Critics do that.

Also, I have to say, why is it that when Blake Ostler (and others) is/are spending the time and effort to think out of the box in regard to LDS theology that there are some, not all, that immediately call, "Foul!".

It's happening right here.

I would recommend simply doing a google search, find his writings, read some of them...and then decide if you think he's an unhinged 'quack'. Ahem, as some would like to portray him to be. Ad hominem, first line of attack.

Regards,
MG

I don't think James White has ever acted as childishly online as Blake Ostler has, as evidenced above. While I don't always agree with James White (his doctorate, for example, seems like it was from a diploma mill) at least White has some shred of integrity. Jacob Hansen has time and time again been shown to lie just to win an argument.

Famously:

I once pointed out that Jacob had failed to recognize Joseph’s Smith’s handwriting on some document that Jacob said would be “pretty damning if it were in Joseph Smith’s handwriting.” When it was pointed out to him, by me and another critic that the document he was showing literally was in Joseph’s handwriting, he edited that out and his conclusion didn’t change.

[MG 2.0]

The meltdown:

https://faithpromotingrumor.com/2019/08 ... -the-jspp/

The thread about the meltdown:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=152267

And here we go again with the DCP hate club where the “interlocutors” do their best to hide and pretend to be saying something that has merit while bad mouthing DCP. Please grow up, get the hell off of these personal attacks and get a life. This kind of invective is beneath even SmallAxe. Jensen and Hauglid’s treatment of the KEP and related papers is abominable and the fact that only one POV is expressed — a rather Dan Vogel like POV that any responsible scholar should know better than to parrot — tells us everything we need to know about their “scholarship”.

And Dr. Scratch — really? Airing your petty jealousies in public is just childish. Your antics here are pathetic and explain why I stayed as far away from academia as I could. You do know that Dr. Midgely has passed, right? Truly you are disgusting.

And as iffy as some of the stuff published by the Interpreter may be, at least it isn’t totally insomnia curing drivel that we get here.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 11:12 AM

The personal attacks tell me all that I need to know about you cowards hiding behind anonymous posts. But I have the resources to find out who you are — and I will.

I desire to know identities because I have a deep seated belief in personal accountability for actions. I want to know who says such nasty things and let others know how loathsome some commenting here.truly are. I have already learned 2 identities. One used a vpn but it was easy to crack because they used the same moniker before the vpn. I was not surprised and I think those who deal with them will be quite interested in their conduct and comments here and elsewhere.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 AT 8:29 PM

Everyone can kiss my white ass. The antics here are pathetic and childish and explain why there is a hell reserved for people like you. You people are truly disgusting.

Goodbye.

Nice. Can't say I disagree with anything he said. In my mind, the truth cuts hard. I've experienced what he is describing and calling out too many times to count.

Thanks for the link though. Appreciated.

Regards,
MG

[Gadianton]

Can't say I disagree with anything he said

You agree that Dr. Midgley died ~2019?

[drumdude]

If you believe people should have very liberal interpretations doctrine and ideas are allowed to change liberally over time and everyone just needs to be flexible, then everyone should recognize the Catholic church as the true church Christ set up and no need for a restoration.

This is exactly what many prominent Mormons are coming to believe...

From Mormon Missionary to Catholic (Isaac Hess)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAdsnUjObsI

After months of study and prayer, I was received into the Byzantine Catholic Church on Oct. 13, 2024. This isn’t a rejection of the LDS Church but a step rooted in my convictions and faith. I’m happy to answer any questions if you’d like to know more.