DiscussMormonism.com

The dethroned king has made yet another article seething with suppressed anger.
Im especially fasinated by the way he ends the article.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765584731/Korihor-and-Social-Darwinism.html

What will be next in this fasinating and ever escalating cartoon style string of events?
Will Schryver declaring that Dan is one of the 3 Nephites?

I have to quote brother Joseph: "If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself.."

I don't see it. The article looks good to me, unexpectedly so, in fact. It may cause me to rethink my assumptions about Peterson's ideological orientation and its impact on his interpretation of the Gospel.

Kishkumen wrote:I don't see it. The article looks good to me, unexpectedly so, in fact. It may cause me to rethink my assumptions about Peterson's ideological orientation and its impact on his interpretation of the Gospel.

Yeah, that was actually a pretty good article. Give credit where credit is due.

Kishkumen wrote:
I don't see it. The article looks good to me, unexpectedly so, in fact. It may cause me to rethink my assumptions about Peterson's ideological orientation and its impact on his interpretation of the Gospel.

I had the opposite reaction, Kish. I thought the article was a mess of muddled musings. I don't see the connection to DCP's "crucifixion" at the hands of Bradford and Co. But the smears of Charles Darwin and the attempts to paint the ficitonal cardboard character of Korihor as (1) inconsistent on the issue of life after death, (2) a Social Darwinist, (3) a Freudian, and (4) a Marxist are laughably juvenile. As is the relish with which DCP recounts Korihor's demise.

from the article wrote:where he also serves as editor in chief of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative and as director of advancement for the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

I thought he resigned from that position.

Smear of Darwin? LOL! Where?

I’m inclined to side with Equality on this, but I don’t think it some egregious breach of intellectual honesty. For example:

Dan Peterson wrote:Korihor denied both that Christ would come and that there was life after death, and yet, somewhat inconsistently, claimed that nobody can foresee the future. Rather in the style of Sigmund Freud, who wouldn't be born until 1856, he denounced Nephite religious beliefs (the "foolish traditions of your fathers") as "the effect of a frenzied mind" and "derangement." Denying that "atonement" for sins was even possible — it's unclear that Korihor granted the existence of "sin" at all — he accused the priests and prophets of the Nephites of seeking "to usurp power and authority over them, to keep them in ignorance, that they may not lift up their heads, but be brought down according to (your) words." Their intent, he claimed, was "that ye may glut yourselves with the labors of their hands, that they durst not look up with boldness, and that they durst not enjoy their rights and privileges."

It's a critique curiously reminiscent of Marxism, though Karl Marx was only 12 years old when the Book of Mormon came from the press in Palmyra.

That is a typical gloss of Marx of someone who has probably never read Marx’s criticisms on religion, how heavily they relied of Feuerbach and nor how Hegel was used as a foil. You don’t point at an example of someone accusing another group of suppression and go, “ZOMG Marxism B4 MARX!” The Hebrew prophets made an art form out of castigating rulers and priests for similar things, should we see that as some kind of evidence that they were leveling Marxist criticisms at what they perceived to be a Levitical superstructure? It’s gross anachronism and overt simplification.

On the flip, Deseret News is a pablum factory written at the level of semi-literate 8th graders, so it’s not like Dan has high standards to meet. I imagine in Dan’s mind he’s crafting some kind of short but insightful glimpse into the uncanny ideological complexity of the Book of Mormon, but he is just imitating what he reads from other more prominent talking heads.

Kishkumen wrote:Smear of Darwin? LOL! Where?

Here:

Apparently never used by actual "Social Darwinists," it was certainly not used by Charles Darwin himself, though he may have been sympathetic to the ideas it labels.

and, in a backhanded way, here:

Darwin's cousin Francis Galton (the founder of the "eugenics" movement to breed better humans)

The idea that Darwin would have been sympathetic to the ideas of the "Social Darwinists" or that he was in any way connected to the "eugenics" movement is a smear of Charles Darwin. It's just flatly not true. DCP (and other literalist Mormons) like to take potshots at Charles Darwin. DCP knows better, but he also knows that this kind of thing plays well with the ignoramuses who are his target audience. Note how DCP cleverly ties Charles Darwin to "eugenics" by referencing the irrelevant fact that Galton was Darwin's cousin. Note how DCP then equates Social Darwinism and, by inference, Darwin himself, with fascism and Nazism. It's disgusting. But it's par for the course for Peterson.

MrStakhanovite wrote:I’m inclined to side with Equality on this, but I don’t think it some egregious breach of intellectual honesty. For example:

Dan Peterson wrote:Korihor denied both that Christ would come and that there was life after death, and yet, somewhat inconsistently, claimed that nobody can foresee the future. Rather in the style of Sigmund Freud, who wouldn't be born until 1856, he denounced Nephite religious beliefs (the "foolish traditions of your fathers") as "the effect of a frenzied mind" and "derangement." Denying that "atonement" for sins was even possible — it's unclear that Korihor granted the existence of "sin" at all — he accused the priests and prophets of the Nephites of seeking "to usurp power and authority over them, to keep them in ignorance, that they may not lift up their heads, but be brought down according to (your) words." Their intent, he claimed, was "that ye may glut yourselves with the labors of their hands, that they durst not look up with boldness, and that they durst not enjoy their rights and privileges."

It's a critique curiously reminiscent of Marxism, though Karl Marx was only 12 years old when the Book of Mormon came from the press in Palmyra.

That is a typical gloss of Marx of someone who has probably never read Marx’s criticisms on religion, how heavily they relied of Feuerbach and nor how Hegel was used as a foil. You don’t point at an example of someone accusing another group of suppression and go, “ZOMG Marxism B4 MARX!” The Hebrew prophets made an art form out of castigating rulers and priests for similar things, should we see that as some kind of evidence that they were leveling Marxist criticisms at what they perceived to be a Levitical superstructure? It’s gross anachronism and overt simplification.

On the flip, Deseret News is a pablum factory written at the level of semi-literate 8th graders, so it’s not like Dan has high standards to meet. I imagine in Dan’s mind he’s crafting some kind of short but insightful glimpse into the uncanny ideological complexity of the Book of Mormon, but he is just imitating what he reads from other more prominent talking heads.

Peterson's "evidence" for Korihor being a Marxist is this:

Korihor also declared that "every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime."

That quote sounds nothing like Marxism to me. Sounds more like laissez-faire capitalism.

Yeah, I didn't really get it, either. Seemed messy and disjointed.