The Eye of Ra Decimates The Fischers
Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:56 am
When Wilford and Norma Fischer set out to follow the advice of the prophet to bring their brothers and sisters to Christ and write a book, A Simple Way to Teach a Friend, there was something they didn't know. They didn't know they were being watched, stalked. even followed by a dark force with roots in Egyptian occultism. They didn't know that they were the enemies of what some have in the literature refered to as a bizarre Mormon "Gnosticism"1 and that their insubordinance would be dealt with by nothing less than the human instantiation of Shekhmet's anger, Johnathon Gee.
As noted in a previous article2, the apologists had moved forward with an apologetic coup to dominate the entire intellectual and doctrinal life of the Church. The second volume of the FARMS Review of Books lay bare more details of this nefarious plan. The reviews by Gee are particularily telling. These are not reviews of scholarly works, but of the testimonies and religious beliefs of Chapel Mormons. And as Midgley warned, the apologists will judge it all, take it all. Rule over it all. All Of course, while giving credit to Gnostic deities from which they draw their powers.
The Fischers wrote a book that is entirely summed up by the title and nothing more really need be said. But its staunch Chapel Mormonism deserved 10 pages of slaughter, that's 5 more pages than were alloted to gentle criticism of 5 of Nibley's books. There are the usual insults: "awkward", "pedagogical flaw", "herd the investigator through", "time spent better...than reading the Fischer's guide", "The Fischer's have an annoying habit", and famoulsy he closes with, "[Fischer's book] might also show us that the Book of Mormon is successful in [leading to Christ] in spite of our best efforts to prevent it. He just had to get that last cruel cheap shot in to fulfill the vengeance of The Eye, didn't he?
Some of Gee's objections are predictable. He's very angry as is Midgley that someone would teach "doctrine" (with the scare quotes) when Internet Mormonism teaches there is no such thing. And some of Gee's main efforts are to go into damage control mode over Chapel Mormon ideas such as the apostasy. But he also offers some very unpredictable and rather bizarre objections. One of these is the cost, "Two copies of the guide...a copy of A New Witness...three pamphlets, and one to eight videos..This could become a very expensive propostion." I understand the problem, of course. The money going toward winning souls for Christ is money away from the thousand dollar plus membership programs of FARMS that will leave the investor with a box full of medieval Islamic Medical texts, far more important to Ra's plans than simple Mormon missionary work.
Gee also devotes an entire page to questioning how this guide will be of use to non-Enlgish speakers and exaggerates the situation to make it look like for the Fischer's book to have any value, it has to clearly prove its worth integrated within the Church's entire missionary effort on a global scale and across all foreign languages. Gee boasts the fact that the multi-Million dollar church that FARMS is in the process of acquiring publishes sections of the Book of Mormon in "Urdu, Persian, and Cambodian" and belittles the Fischer's efforts for not taking these cultures into account. And here the Fischer's just wanted to help a friend out! Is this strange line of argumentation perhaps the secondary effects of practicing Egyptian black magic? No one can say for sure, but, it's an incredibly odd and downright petty objection to pursue with such scholarly seriousness as Gee in fact does.
Yes, my friends, it's not just the technical details of archaeology, but the entire body of LDS teachings the apologists opt to dominate.
1. See Scratch, M 2008
2. See Robbers, G. P. 2008
As noted in a previous article2, the apologists had moved forward with an apologetic coup to dominate the entire intellectual and doctrinal life of the Church. The second volume of the FARMS Review of Books lay bare more details of this nefarious plan. The reviews by Gee are particularily telling. These are not reviews of scholarly works, but of the testimonies and religious beliefs of Chapel Mormons. And as Midgley warned, the apologists will judge it all, take it all. Rule over it all. All Of course, while giving credit to Gnostic deities from which they draw their powers.
The Fischers wrote a book that is entirely summed up by the title and nothing more really need be said. But its staunch Chapel Mormonism deserved 10 pages of slaughter, that's 5 more pages than were alloted to gentle criticism of 5 of Nibley's books. There are the usual insults: "awkward", "pedagogical flaw", "herd the investigator through", "time spent better...than reading the Fischer's guide", "The Fischer's have an annoying habit", and famoulsy he closes with, "[Fischer's book] might also show us that the Book of Mormon is successful in [leading to Christ] in spite of our best efforts to prevent it. He just had to get that last cruel cheap shot in to fulfill the vengeance of The Eye, didn't he?
Some of Gee's objections are predictable. He's very angry as is Midgley that someone would teach "doctrine" (with the scare quotes) when Internet Mormonism teaches there is no such thing. And some of Gee's main efforts are to go into damage control mode over Chapel Mormon ideas such as the apostasy. But he also offers some very unpredictable and rather bizarre objections. One of these is the cost, "Two copies of the guide...a copy of A New Witness...three pamphlets, and one to eight videos..This could become a very expensive propostion." I understand the problem, of course. The money going toward winning souls for Christ is money away from the thousand dollar plus membership programs of FARMS that will leave the investor with a box full of medieval Islamic Medical texts, far more important to Ra's plans than simple Mormon missionary work.
Gee also devotes an entire page to questioning how this guide will be of use to non-Enlgish speakers and exaggerates the situation to make it look like for the Fischer's book to have any value, it has to clearly prove its worth integrated within the Church's entire missionary effort on a global scale and across all foreign languages. Gee boasts the fact that the multi-Million dollar church that FARMS is in the process of acquiring publishes sections of the Book of Mormon in "Urdu, Persian, and Cambodian" and belittles the Fischer's efforts for not taking these cultures into account. And here the Fischer's just wanted to help a friend out! Is this strange line of argumentation perhaps the secondary effects of practicing Egyptian black magic? No one can say for sure, but, it's an incredibly odd and downright petty objection to pursue with such scholarly seriousness as Gee in fact does.
Yes, my friends, it's not just the technical details of archaeology, but the entire body of LDS teachings the apologists opt to dominate.
1. See Scratch, M 2008
2. See Robbers, G. P. 2008