In other words: because she's a non-believer, and because her book has some things in it that square with LDS beliefs (esp. the idea that God has a physical body), it actually supports Mormonism! Because, you see: if even a *non-believer* supports LDS ideas, then those ideas *must* be true, right? That, at any rate, seems to be the totality of DCP's logic here.“I’ve never believed in God,” Dr. Stavrakopoulou says flatly, on her book’s very first page.2 Understandably in that light, the book is neither reverent nor awestruck in its approach to her vastly important subject. For her, what she’s discussing is merely a matter of ancient history, not a clue to the ultimate nature of reality or of any relevance to the heavens, human salvation, or an afterlife. After all, she believes in none of those things. And yet, her very lack of belief also frees her from any obligation to grind theological axes and permits her to go with her data. And that liberty, I think, has allowed her to create a book that offers rich material for believers in the Restoration and that can, in some important ways, support the teachings of Joseph Smith and his successors.
But part of the fun of reading his article is looking at where all the citations come from. He writes:
Okay, so he looked at the blurbs on the book jacket?Not surprisingly, so far as I can see, God: An Anatomy seems to have received far more enthusiastic reviews from secularists than from religious believers.
Ah, so he read "the very first pages"! Later, he cites a quotation from page 4, and even lists off all the chapters from the Table of Contents:In the very first pages of God: An Anatomy, she supplies a bit of autobiographical information
He also quotes several reviewers (likely whatever turns up first in a Google search). Gee, if this were a drinking game, and you had to take a shot every time you found evidence suggesting that DCP didn't read the whole book, you would be blacking out by now. In all fairness, though, he does also cite from page 415, though later we find out why that might be:She organizes her treatment anatomically, from the ground up. It is comprised of five sections (Part I, “Feet and Legs”; Part II, “Genitals”; Part III, “Torso”; Part IV, “Arms and Hands”; Part V, “Head”) and an epilogue. In turn, each part is made up of between three and five chapters. Thus, for example, Part V treats the divine ears, nose, and mouth in a quintet of separate pieces.
Ah, okay: so he flipped through the first ten pages, and the *last* ten pages! Hey, that's all you need to review a book for "Mormon Interpreter"! LOL!near the conclusion of God: An Anatomy, she herself describes the divine image that she has created: “This was a god more like the best of us and the worst of us. A god made in our own image” (423).
At the end of the day, this is really quite an idiotic article: Stavrakopoulou seems to be mocking and making fun of an embodied God, and even DCP seems to realize this, as he quotes from a review from The Economist: "Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun." But he presses on, insisting that this somehow functions as support for LDS theological claims.
"Interpreter" really seems to be running out of steam, and yet Peterson is crowing about how this is apparently the 500th week in a row that they've published something. Quite a pity that this is the article they used to mark the occasion.
