Problems in FARMS/FAIR: A Cassius CFP

[Guest]

On the MDD board, Calmoriah has requested that people who have had problems with either FARMS or FAIR post specific examples of problematic passages:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/577 ... -you-want/

No one has as of yet responded to her inquiry, but nonetheless, in light of everything that's been going on, I think her question has a lot of merit. So I propose a kind of "compendium" of problematic material from FARMS and FAIR. Perhaps, as a group, we could go through all of the FARMS and FAIR documents and list all of the ad hominem attacks, nastiness, calls for viciousness, and so forth.

For brevity's sake, and for Cal, a few problematic things (off the top of my head) would definitely include:

--Bill Hamblin's "k-word"-laced rant, which is posted on the FAIR Web site.
--"Metcalfe is Butthead" from the FARMS Review
--Dan Peterson's "Text and Context," the main argument of which is that ad hominem attack is a valid and useful kind of critique. This article also quotes extensively from a wildly anti-semitic author, and forwards the argument that homosexual authors should not be trusted because they are "traitors" and "Korihors."
--Bill Hamblin's "That Old Black Magic," in which he boasts of training his students to think that D. Michael Quinn is a "bad historian."
--DCP's "Thoughts on Secular Anti-Mormonism," which has already been dicussed at length on Mr. Stakhanovite's blog.
--The FAIR Wiki entry on Bob McCue, in which McCue was falsely accused of being an "abuser." (This was deleted after McCue threatened legal action.)

These are just a few, and it won't be hard to list a lot more, which is what I propose as the purpose of this thread. This should be useful for anyone who wants to see the extent to which the apologists have been engaging in this kind of "destructive" behavior. So let's begin with issue No. 1 of the Review.

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... ol=1&num=1

In the "Editor's Introduction," DCP is pretty mild, though the editorial includes this rather foreboding passage:

Where there is shoddy writing or shallow reasoning, we hope to point it out. Not that we necessarily enjoy doing so--although on those rare occasions where there is dishonesty or bad faith, it is a positive if not altogether saintly pleasure to draw attention to it. (No such occasions occur in this volume, although they have in the past and, no doubt, will in the future.) Rather, we hope in a modest way to improve the quality of writing and thinking on the Book of Mormon, our own not excluded, by signalizing defects and areas of potential improvement. But the purpose of the garden, the goal of the gardener, the ambition of the hungry onlooker, is to harvest wholesome vegetables and delicious fruit. Obsessive weeding for its own sake is just that--obsessive. Unfruitful. Although this Review will not hesitate to point out bad work, we will enjoy much more the opportunity to draw attention to things that have been well done.

The next article is John Welch's review of a text by Ezra Taft Benson, so as you can imagine, it is devoid of criticism.

Following this is Camille Williams's review of Susan Easton Black's Finding Christ through the Book of Mormon. Williams attacks Black for being critical of scholars:

I am puzzled by her attack against both the "gratuitous verbiage" of critics of the Book of Mormon (p. 10), also against the efforts of "sympathetic" archaeologists, anthropologists, and other scholars (pp. 10-12). Her assertion that some studies of the Book of Mormon "are intellectually stimulating but not always spiritually edifying," often missing "the Christ-centered purpose of the book" (p. 11), suggests in perhaps a too general sense that scholars lack or destroy faith. This seems an unhappy generalization, especially since it is followed immediately by a quantitative study of Christ's names and their frequency of use--a type of the analytical approach similar to those which she appears to condemn.

And:

Professor Black's testimony permeates her writing. She has spent years studying the Book of Mormon, but for the most part her scholarly insights are less clearly communicated than they might have been.

Two swipes here at a "Scholar Who is Testifying." This tack of going after LDS who are too "faith-oriented" and not "scholarly enough" will become a common theme in the Review.

More to come....

[_RayAgostini]

The FAIR Blog has also joined the conversation:

Our History of Nasty Ad Hominem Attacks.

[_Kishkumen]

Time for some apologists to start cleaning up their old writings, I'd wager.

[_lostindc]

there is a ****storm brewing. I just hope the great losses suffered in Mormon 6 do not happen here in the field of apologetic credibility.

[_Doctor Scratch]

The FAIR Blog has also joined the conversation:

Our History of Nasty Ad Hominem Attacks.

Wyatt's own cybersquatting is a key example. He can address that. There also was a lot of stuff (e.g., DCP's attempts to insinuate that Mike Quinn was ex'ed for "homosexual sin") on the MB when it was still associated with FAIR.

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?

[Guest]

The FAIR Blog has also joined the conversation:

Our History of Nasty Ad Hominem Attacks.

So, Allen Wyatt asks his detractors to point out where FAIR writers have used the "ad hominem fallacy." He must disagree with Daniel Peterson then in Daniel's defense of ad hominem arguments:

The popular view, however, is inadequate. But we must be clear, in order to make sense of this, just what it is we are talking about here: An ad hominem argument is precisely that—an argument. It can be a good or bad argument, valid or invalid, relevant or irrelevant. Insults, on the other hand, while they may in a sense be ad hominem (i.e., "against the man") are not arguments at all, neither of the ad hominem variety nor of any other. It is not entirely clear what Mr. Bergera has in mind. If we have made irrelevant ad hominem arguments, the proper response would be to identify these and to rebut them with counterarguments. This nobody at Signature has ever done. (Threats of legal action do not constitute cogent arguments.)40 If, on the other hand, he wishes to charge us with insults or abuse, it is difficult to imagine that we have said anything that even approaches the sort of vituperative language that the good folks at Signature have used against F.A.R.M.S. and against leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Words like "infantile," "dishonest," "cowardly," "self-serving," "paranoid," "self-righteous," "rationalizing," "obscurantist," "libelous," "tasteless," "spiritually abusive," "character assassination," "immature," "pseudo-scholarly," "confused," "scurrilous," and "Machiavellian" come immediately to mind, and there are many others.)41

Since the detractors of FAIR are not Logic 101 students, whose view of the term "ad hominem" was learned from a classroom exercise of some kind, I think that, more properly, anyone who is dealing with these problems honestly must investigate all bullying, and abusive and insulting language and behavior in the pursuit of apologetics in various fora. Otherwise, this silly enterprise is the equivalent of John Gee's Egyptology quiz for anyone interested in the origins of the Book of Abraham. It is largely beside the point.

As Allen Wyatt well knows, John Dehlin is not a philosophy student in undergrad, seeking the precise logical fallacy among the many that are known to exist in apologetic publications; he was using the term "ad hominem attack" in accordance with its broader, popular meaning.

[_Willy Law]

Scratch, this may not be the type of thing you are after, but FAIR's list of benefits of polygamy was devastating to my wife when she was looking for answers. She could not believe that such a thing could be written by well intentioned members. After I posted it on this board FAIR seriously revised the list.

ORIGINAL LIST

Any such list as this is tentative. But, it reminds us plural marriage may have accomplished more than we sometimes appreciate. Some benefits which have been suggested include:
1. It was to try (prove) His people. Polygamy stood as an Abrahamic test for the saints. The willingness to obey a commandment that was inherently distasteful to the vast majority of the members of the Church allowed members to draw close to the Lord.
2. It was to "raise up" righteous seed. Specifically it allowed a relatively few righteous men to become very prolific in a time when the West was very wild and there were many unrighteous men. Children were raised in more households with a strong gospel commitment.
3. It served to "set apart" his people as a peculiar people to the world. This social isolation that gave the church space to solidify itself into an identity independent of the many denominations from which the membership was derived. Sociologists have discovered that in order for a religion to successfully grow it has to be demanding and it has to experience a moderate amount of tension with its host society. The RLDS Church rejected plural marriage, and perhaps not coincidentally are now small in number and virtually indistinguishable from Protestants.
4. Polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things," and a way for Mormons to feel connected with prophets like Abraham and Jacob. 19th century Mormons gained a greater appreciation for covenants that these forefathers made with God.
5. Numerous family ties that were created, building a network of associations that strengthened the Church.
6. Arguably polygamy affected higher natural growth rates. Ironically plural wives had fewer children than their monogamous Mormon counterparts. [2]
7. Polygamy created a system where a higher percentage of women and men got married compared to the national average at the time. [3]
8. Plural marriages increased competition in the marriage market, so the "spiritual slackers" and lower quality men had to work to improve their standing to compete. They had to clean up, try to get good jobs and treat the women with respect. It gave the women more options as to whom to marry.
9.Out on the frontier in 19th century life expectancy was low and women were not as economically independent as they are today. Therefore there were many widows (and orphans coming of age) that needed to be taken care of. Some women who joined the Church abroad immigrated without their husbands, leaving them without male financial support. Furthermore, Brigham Young instituted the most liberal divorce policy in the country so women (but not men!) could get out of unhappy marriages. Kathryn Daynes estimated that 30% of plural marriages came from married-before women. [4]
10. Church Historian Elder Jensen observed how Mormon polygamy enabled women more freedom to earn college degrees and join national women's rights organizations at the time. [5]
11. Polygamy helped integrate foreign immigrants into Mormon society. With the marriage market operating so efficiently, women were highly sought after, and so Utah men had to sometimes marry outside their preferred cultural boundaries. This provided a great way to redistribute the wealth to the immigrants families coming. [6]
12. Plural marriages provided a social support network while the husbands were off on missions.

CURRENT/REVISED LIST

Possible benefits of plural marriage

Main articles: Polygamy because of lustful motives?, Reasons for plural marriage that have scant evidence, and Possible benefits of plural marriage
To try (prove) His people
Polygamy stood as an Abrahamic test for the saints. The willingness to obey a commandment that was inherently distasteful to the vast majority of the members of the Church allowed members to draw close to the Lord.
To "raise up" righteous seed
Specifically it allowed a relatively few righteous men to become very prolific in a time when the West was very wild and there were many unrighteous men. Children were raised in more households with a strong gospel commitment.
It served to "set apart" his people as a peculiar people to the world
This social isolation that gave the church space to solidify itself into an identity independent of the many denominations from which the membership was derived. Sociologists have discovered that in order for a religion to successfully grow it has to be demanding and it has to experience a moderate amount of tension with its host society. The RLDS Church rejected plural marriage, and perhaps not coincidentally are now small in number and virtually indistinguishable from Protestants.
Polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things"
This was a way for Mormons to feel connected with prophets like Abraham and Jacob. 19th century Mormons gained a greater appreciation for covenants that these forefathers made with God.
Family ties
Numerous family ties that were created, building a network of associations that strengthened the Church.
Higher growth rates
Arguably polygamy affected higher natural growth rates. Ironically plural wives had fewer children than their monogamous Mormon counterparts. [1]
Temple recommend holders
Professor Kathryn M. Daynes makes the point that in nineteenth century Utah, more women arranged to hold temple recommends and receive their endowments. That is, female rates of temple-worthiness (or, at least, being willing to take the time and effort to get a recommend and actually go to the temple) were higher than male rates. And, these rates didn't really change much, regardless of how common plural marriage was (and, so, these higher rates cannot have been caused by plural marriage). Thus, women in Utah were in a difficult situation--more of them were willing and able to have temple sealings/eternal marriage than there were men willing and able to do so. Plural marriage changed this dynamic enormously. One temple-worthy man being married would not take that man out of the "potential married partners pool." This allowed more members to have temple marriages, sealings, and the blessings that came with these ordinances.
Widows and orphans
Out on the frontier in 19th century life expectancy was low and women were not as economically independent as they are today. Therefore there were many widows (and orphans coming of age) that needed to be taken care of. Some women who joined the Church abroad immigrated without their husbands, leaving them without male financial support. Furthermore, Brigham Young instituted the most liberal divorce policy in the country so women (but not men!) could get out of unhappy marriages. Kathryn Daynes estimated that 30% of plural marriages came from married-before women. [2]
Education for women
Church Historian Elder Jensen observed how Mormon polygamy enabled women more freedom to earn college degrees and join national women's rights organizations at the time. [3]
Immigrants
Polygamy helped integrate foreign immigrants into Mormon society. With the marriage market operating so efficiently, women were highly sought after, and so Utah men had to sometimes marry outside their preferred cultural boundaries. This provided a great way to redistribute the wealth to the immigrants families coming. [4]
Social support
Plural marriages provided a social support network while the husbands were off on missions.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_polygamy/Purpose_of_plural_marriage/Possible_benefits

[Guest]

Since I do not feel constrained by the narrow confines of the homework assignment anyone else presumes to give me, I will add to this thread anything I deem pertinent to the honest and full consideration of the issue of the nature of apologetics as currently practiced for struggling members of all kinds.

Let me ask what LDS folk "struggling with SSA," as it were, and dealing with the resulting alienation between themselves and their Church, would think of Daniel Peterson's approbation of E. Michael Jones' argument for the causal relationship between homosexuality and other areas of their lives, including their philosophies and faith commitments:

In the brilliant third chapter of Degenerate Moderns, entitled "Homosexual as Subversive," E. Michael Jones demonstrates the crucial and explanatory role of personal lifestyle not only in the traitorous career of Sir Anthony Blunt, but in the theories of John Maynard Keynes, the biographical writings of Lytton Strachey, and the novels of E. M. Forster. "Modernity was the exoteric version of Bloomsbury biography; it was a radically homosexual vision of the world and therefore of its very nature subversive; treason was its logical outcome. . . . The Bloomsberries' public writings—Keynes' economic theories, Strachey's best-selling Eminent Victorians, etc.—were the sodomitical vision for public consumption."55 Reflecting upon the development of the characters in Forster's long-suppressed book, Maurice, Jones notes that, "In the world of this novel it's hard to tell whether declining religious faith fosters homosexuality or whether homosexuality kills faith. At any rate Forster sees a connection. . . . As their involvement in sodomy increases, so also does their opposition to Christianity."56 That denial of the truths one can know about God should lead to sodomy is in some sense a mystery," concludes Jones. "However, it is a mystery that can be fairly well documented, from Paul's epistle to the Romans to any objective view of modern British history."57 In any event, it seems clear that immorality (not merely of the homosexual variety) and intellectual apostasy are, and always have been, frequent (though not invariable) companions. (Joseph Smith's famous announcement of a link between adultery and sign-seeking is apropos here.)58 Sodom and Cumorah are apparently not compatible.

So, a member struggling with "SSA" may be left to feel consoled by the fact that the feelings most people identify with homosexual identity are something that are completely incompatible with his or her religious identity. Let's hope this person does not find Dr. Peterson's essay, in which he seems to agree that homosexuality is incompatible with religious faith, this in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary in the world all around us.

[Guest]

The review of Brooke's Refiner's Fire was named in part after an anti-Mormon that the BYU apologists held in particular derision. One would naturally draw the inference that Brooke himself was anti-Mormon and had deliberately set out to damage the LDS Church, although one would be hard pressed to prove such an accusation by reading the book.

Mormon in the Fiery Furnace
Or, Loftes Tryk Goes to Cambridge
Reviewed by William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, and George L. Mitton

I ask, what does it help the LDS Church to have its scholars insult non-LDS scholars who have no observable antipathy toward the LDS Church?

Let's have a look at what another apologetic website has to tell us about this fellow Loftes Tryk, whom our jovial reviewers thought appropriate to compare with John L. Brooke, Distinguished Humanities Professor of History at Ohio State University, after reading this book:

By the time I left on my mission in 1982, the Tryk's were all but completely inactive although my dad kept in touch with the family through his responsibilities in the bishopric, as a hometeacher, and as a friend. Then, sometime in 1983 I got a letter from home that really surprised me. [SHIELDS Note: Loftes committed immoral acts which got him thrown in prison.] His wife divorced and prosecuted him and he was sentenced to 4 years in the state prison. When I returned from Italy in 1984, Loftes was in prison, his wife had turned against the Church, and his kids, for the most part, were in all kinds of trouble themselves. Loftes blamed the Church's strict code of chastity for an unfulfilling marital relationship which led to his actions and his wife apparently agreed -- citing the same reasons for her inactivity in the Church. I passed the whole thing off as a tragic turn of events and focused on my studies at BYU.

Anyway, that's the story of Loftes Tryk. As with most anti's, someone who fell from grace who can't face his own weaknesses and chooses, instead, to find fault with the Church and its teachings. And, is it any wonder, really, that his book is so weird when you consider that he wrote it from prison and the influences there? In the final analysis, we get a good laugh from his book but we can't laugh for long when we understand the circumstances of its creation and the lives destroyed by the author -- including his own.

I ask you, in all honesty, is this the kind of scholarly practice one would want associated with the Church of Jesus Christ?

[Guest]

Deceptive scholarship designed to poison the well.

John Gee's review of the second edition of Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View begins thus:

Michael Quinn made a big mistake in publishing the first edition of his Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. His publisher (see p. xiii)3 and his friends4 warned him about the mistake he was making. He chose to publish the book anyway. When Quinn's first edition came out in 1987, the reviewers pointed out fundamental flaws—including a tortured thesis,5 twisted and forged evidence, and problematic and idiosyncratic use of loaded language—and it became clear that these flaws irreparably marred the entire framework of the book.

In the second line, Gee assures us that Quinn's "friends warned him about the mistake he was making" in publishing the first edition of the book. When one consults footnote 4, this is what one finds:

4. At least one of the historians whom Quinn thanks in his acknowledgments (see pp. xviii—xix) has told me that he advised Quinn before he went to print the first time that it would be a mistake to publish this particular work because of major historical flaws.

What?

I thought there were "friends" that warned him not to publish the first edition. Not a single "friend." And, who is this friend? How can we contact this friend unless we know who he is? Must we go through the entire list of people Quinn acknowledged? How do we know Gee is telling us the truth about this friend, unless we can reasonably contact this person for corroboration of Gee's story?

That should be an immediate warning sign that something is terribly awry in Gee's scholarly practices in this review.

When citing a source properly in academic literature, one does not say, "on condition of anonymity, one scholar told me I could quote him as saying that I was correct in my hypothesis."

Somehow Gee believes that it is OK to build a deceptive portrait about this large consensus that existed before the first edition of EMMWV was published, that it was an inferior work. This comes in the very first paragraph of the review.

What he essentially says to his reader, at the outset, is this, "Everyone else said this was a bad book and that it should not have been published. Now I will proceed to give you a fair assessment of the book."

Anyone who buys this can come buy the bridge I have for sale. Please.