"You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

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Moksha
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Moksha »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:54 am
I am pretty sure that attacking perceived enemies of the faith was believed by some to be helpful to members. It is surely no substitute for actually addressing the problems and directly helping struggling souls, but it was what they were used to and enjoyed doing.
Didn't Elder Neal Maxwell issue them a commandment to use ad hominem arguments against those they feel need attacking, whether John Dehlin or those apostates from the Joseph Smith Papers Project?

Can't remember what year for that FAIR warning against the anti-Mormon potential of the internet.
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Philo Sofee »

Moksha wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:51 pm
Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:54 am
I am pretty sure that attacking perceived enemies of the faith was believed by some to be helpful to members. It is surely no substitute for actually addressing the problems and directly helping struggling souls, but it was what they were used to and enjoyed doing.
Didn't Elder Neal Maxwell issue them a commandment to use ad hominem arguments against those they feel need attacking, whether John Dehlin or those apostates from the Joseph Smith Papers Project?

Can't remember what year for that FAIR warning against the anti-Mormon potential of the internet.
The year was from 1999-2022... :D
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by High Spy »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 6:08 pm
Moksha wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:51 pm

Didn't Elder Neal Maxwell issue them a commandment to use ad hominem arguments against those they feel need attacking, whether John Dehlin or those apostates from the Joseph Smith Papers Project?

Can't remember what year for that FAIR warning against the anti-Mormon potential of the internet.
The year was from 1999-2022... :D
The way the SLC Temple was affected, the timing pattern and magnitude of the March18 quake all combined as an awesome sign that things have been amiss for a very long time. The magnitude may be said to be emblematic of the Davidic Servant.

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Kishkumen
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Kishkumen »

Moksha wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:51 pm
Didn't Elder Neal Maxwell issue them a commandment to use ad hominem arguments against those they feel need attacking, whether John Dehlin or those apostates from the Joseph Smith Papers Project?

Can't remember what year for that FAIR warning against the anti-Mormon potential of the internet.
No uncontested slam dunks. Which is funny if you think about it. Should slam dunks just not be possible in the first place?

Anyway, thanks for trying to remember the year. I was thinking of the long-view history of the internet in general, in which it may have been difficult to predict exactly what all of the impacts of this new environment would be. And I was mostly thinking of the leadership of the LDS Church. Did they really see the great impact of the internet coming down the road?

Perhaps.

I doubt it, though.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Philo Sofee »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 5:14 pm
Moksha wrote:
Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:51 pm
Didn't Elder Neal Maxwell issue them a commandment to use ad hominem arguments against those they feel need attacking, whether John Dehlin or those apostates from the Joseph Smith Papers Project?

Can't remember what year for that FAIR warning against the anti-Mormon potential of the internet.
No uncontested slam dunks. Which is funny if you think about it. Should slam dunks just not be possible in the first place?

Anyway, thanks for trying to remember the year. I was thinking of the long-view history of the internet in general, in which it may have been difficult to predict exactly what all of the impacts of this new environment would be. And I was mostly thinking of the leadership of the LDS Church. Did they really see the great impact of the internet coming down the road?

Perhaps.

I doubt it, though.
I was thrilled about the internet as an apologist for finally being able to demonstrate Mormonism was the real thing and the world would coming sauntering over to the baptismal fonts, and the growth would get into the hundreds of millions. True story man...
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Everybody Wang Chung »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 9:10 pm
I was thrilled about the internet as an apologist for finally being able to demonstrate Mormonism was the real thing and the world would coming sauntering over to the baptismal fonts, and the growth would get into the hundreds of millions. True story man...
There is still time to turn things around. SeN and FAIR have started to have a real and lasting impact on missionary work.

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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Dr. Shades »

High Spy wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 8:36 am
The magnitude may be said to be emblematic of the Davidic Servant.
Who or what the Hell is "the Davidic servant?"
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by Gadianton »

Who or what the Hell is "the Davidic servant?"
According to an aunt of mine, he's one of my cousins.
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by drumdude »

Davidic Servant/King

In the latter/last days the Lord will send a servant, referred to as “David” (Beloved). This servant will be a descendant of the ancient King David who will be a shepherd and king over the entire house of Israel.

Joseph Smith stated that in the last days the throne of David would be given to another man of his lineage. He implied that unlike the ancient King David, this last days descendant of David would have the spirit and power of Elijah and the fulness of the priesthood.

Although David was a king, he never did obtain the spirit and power of Elijah and the fullness of the Priesthood; and the Priesthood that he received, and the throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 339)

Ties in nicely with a recent excellent Radio Free Mormon podcast. It was about patriarchal blessings which mention specific priesthood lines.

Apparently a patriarch gave a blessing telling a member that he was of a certain special lineage. A special lineage that is able to be a presiding bishop of the entire religion. Church leaders scrambled and rushed to get the "correct" blessing bestowed upon the member to avoid any coup d'états :lol:


Just the kind of Barney Fife bull that you would expect from a fraudulent religion based on the sex drive of a treasure digger.
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Re: "You've achieved your goal. I resign." Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the End of FARMS

Post by DrStakhanovite »

I can’t imagine writing an email like this to a colleague or administrator using an institutional account. WTF was the professional atmosphere of the M.I. like when Daniel was around?
drumdude wrote:
Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:12 am
Dr. Bradford:

You've achieved your goal. I resign.

I resign as Director of Advancement, effective immediately. You've already fired me as editor of the Mormon Studies Review.

My wife predicted that you would pull this while I was out of the country -- just as you used my absence last year to suppress Will Schryver's writing without discussion -- and, in fact, you have.

I realize now, too, that you've been plotting this for some time, and that, naïve fool that I am, I didn't even realize that I was playing chess before I had been checkmated.

There is nothing you can do to prevent this from being an absolutely spectacular propaganda triumph for those who oppose the Institute and despise me, so don't bother trying. As a matter of fact -- since the Institute leaks like a sieve -- I had already read today (on an apostate message board) that there was soon to be a shake-up in the editorial leadership of the Review. They know about it, and they're going to feast on this for years to come.

The timing of my dismissal, coming immediately after my public crucifixion over the John Dehlin debacle, guarantees that it will be read as an institutional rebuke of me and all my works. You could have waited a bit so that that conclusion would be less apparent, but, of course, you haven't. Frankly, I'm not surprised.

With my sacking now, and with what I presume to be the simultaneous dismissal of Lou Midgley and George Mitton and my other associate editors, which follows the utter marginalization of the scholars who once made up the board of directors and the complete ostracism of Jack Welch and, most recently, the re-alienation of Bill Hamblin, the process of driving away those who committed so much of their energy to the creation and building of FARMS and the Maxwell Institute continues apace.

You think it healthy. I do not.

And let's not pretend that the delay in this issue of the Review, or the slowness with which recent issues have appeared, is the justification for this move. You've never raised the matter with me before. In fact, your own actions have significantly contributed to the delay of this most recent issue. (It's substantially complete, though, and the Institute owes my associate editors the proper fees for their services. It's no fault of theirs that you're spiking this issue.)

I regard this as an utterly wrong-headed and disastrous decision, and will not pretend to support it. And not merely because it will subject me to enormous and quite undeserved public humiliation. It's a betrayal of Elder Maxwell, who explicitly approved of what we were doing. "No more uncontested slam dunks," he said. But now we're returning to the status quo ante, under which there were and will continue to be plenty of "uncontested slam dunks." It's a brazen repudiation of the mandate given to us by President Packer, who, when he spoke at the dinner during which we were officially entrusted with Elder Maxwell's name, praised two specific aspects of the Institute's work: the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative and its apologetic efforts. It's a betrayal of the promises we made to our leading donors, who explicitly asked us to do apologetics and, in some substantial recent cases, gave us major donations based on our assurance that we would continue to do so.

You place me in an extraordinarily difficult situation, as I'm supposed to be an advocate for a Maxwell Institute that, in my view, will soon no longer exist, and to maintain good relations with donors to the Institute to whom, in my opinion, we will now prove to have flatly lied. I cannot do that. I don't know what to do about the forthcoming Development Council Turkey trip that I conceived, since several of the people who are slated to participate in it are going, at least partially, because I persuaded them to do so.

I feel obliged to try to make it a good trip and to go, but it will, I think, be my last effort on behalf of the Maxwell Institute, and I won't solicit a nickel more for the Institute from any donors. Given their interests, I think their money should go elsewhere. And, though I won't be so disloyal as to solicit funds from them for anything else during the trip to Turkey, I will feel entirely free to do so thereafter. And I'll be vocal about why I no longer regard the Maxwell Institute as an appropriate recipient of their money. I will explain my resignation, and my reasons for it, in a note to members of the Development Council after the conclusion of the Turkey trip but prior to the October PLC meeting. I do not feel that I can do otherwise and maintain my integrity. I've built up a good relationship with the members of the Smith Family Foundation; good luck in maintaining that.

I agreed to give a private tour to the Holy Land -- the trip that I'm currently on -- partially in the hope of interesting a PLC donor in giving to the Maxwell Institute. We're getting along well, but I'm not going to mention the Institute to him any more. Nursing and Athletics are perfectly adequate continuing recipients of his gifts. And I think I can safely predict that, even without my saying much, you will, with my dismissal, instantly lose one very specific annual donation.

Please note that I have not resigned as editor in chief of METI. I will not let you have that so easily. I founded it. It was entirely my idea. I brought it into the Institute. You'll have to explicitly fire me from that position in order to get rid of me altogether. And I won't take it lightly when you do.

I understand that some contract issues may be affected by my resignation as Director of Advancement. I trust that we can work those out in a civil manner. Pending my dismissal from METI, I will insist that I continue to be compensated as a director in my role, which I will now have more time for, as its editor in chief. I also expect my usual fee as editor of the issue of the Mormon Studies Review that you've killed. It was finished and ready to go.

Very seriously yours,

Daniel C. Peterson
Tiberias, Israel


"There is nothing you can do to prevent this from being an absolutely spectacular propaganda triumph for those who oppose the Institute and despise me"

Indeed, this flame still warms my cold dead atheist heart.
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