Blixa wrote:That's true. And it depends on the department/program/discipline, too. In my own academic baliwick, however, its not thought of as one of the best schools in the nation.
Even so, talented and challenging individual teachers and students can be found pretty much anywhere---even in places which don't much encourage them!
BYU has its weaknesses. At the same time, it is pretty well respected as an undergraduate institution, and it has some fairly highly ranked professional schools. When it comes to the question of what makes a school "one of the best schools in the nation," I am sure there is plenty of room for subjective judgment. I know BYU does not immediately occur to me when I think of "best schools."
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
charity wrote:And of course, it is really easy to just put down anything BYU. Which is one of the best schools in the nation.
BYU is more like an LDS seminary class than a university.
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."
-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
Rollo Tomasi wrote:BYU is more like an LDS seminary class than a university.
Gotta disagree, with all due respect, and I mean with all due respect. It's much more like Bob Jones University than a seminary class.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
I was a TBM for 46 years. I attended church every week (except when ill). I was always explicitly taught that ALL native Americans were descendents of peoples in the Book of Mormon - now called Lamanites. North American, Central American, South American - they are all descendants of the Lamanites. This is what I was taught - continually - over a lifetime.
When I served my mission in South AMerica, I was told I was taking the gospel to the LAMANITES. We taught the people in South America that they were from the tribe of Joseph - the house of Israel - they were Lamanites. I never met anyone that really got excited about this information, but that is what we believed and taught.
Now that the DNA evidence has proved that these people are of Asiatic descent, the teachings of the prophets and everything I have been taught my whole life is being re-written - that they are just "among" the principle descendants of the Native Americans.
This totally flies in the face of what I have always been taught and believed. I only found out about the DNA issue within the last year. To me - this was huge!!
Yes - definitely - doctrine is being changed in response to the science. It doesn't matter who wrote the introduction (Bruce R. McConkie, or Joseph SMith, or Gordon B. Hinckley, or Zelph) - this is what Joseph Smith taught, all the prophets have taught this. And science has proved it wrong!!
You can't "apologize" that away. Not to me.
"Brigham said the day would come when thousands would be made Eunuchs in order for them to be saved in the kingdom of God." (Wilford Woodruff's Diary, June 2, 1857, Vol. 5, pages 54-55)
Nothing to say about insinuating there aren't any genealogy courses around when they are many and how shallow your research was?
And of course, it is really easy to just put down anything BYU. Which is one of the best schools in the nation.
BYU is a very good school, in my opinion, having been on the faculty there for 14 years. Despite the many other problems I have with it, I give credit where credit is due.
But "among the best in the nation." This is going too far. Off the top of my head, I can name 40-50 universities that are better. And most of these universities don't mix religious indoctrination with secular education. Nor will most of them expel or censure students or faculty for changing their minds about their religious convictions or for speaking out against religious authority figures. Nor to they violate student and faculty privacy by demanding that clergy violate their position of trust by disclosing information about the student or faculty obtained in private consultations or in the confessional.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
ktallamigo wrote:I was a TBM for 46 years. I attended church every week (except when ill). I was always explicitly taught that ALL native Americans were descendents of peoples in the Book of Mormon - now called Lamanites. North American, Central American, South American - they are all descendants of the Lamanites. This is what I was taught - continually - over a lifetime.
When I served my mission in South AMerica, I was told I was taking the gospel to the LAMANITES. We taught the people in South America that they were from the tribe of Joseph - the house of Israel - they were Lamanites. I never met anyone that really got excited about this information, but that is what we believed and taught.
Just because you interpreted it that way, I mean sheez! ;-)
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
charity wrote:Sorry to burst your little bubble, but that is what principal ancestor always meant. That among their pedigrees , Lehi was there, and because Lehi carried the covenant promise of Abraham to these people, he was the "principal ancestor" among the millions of their ancestors.
That has always been the meaning. But becasue people are so ignorant about genealogy, they changed it to make it more understandable to the less educated (in matters of genealogy) masses.
Boy in my 40 years as a baptized member this this first I have heard that this is what this always meant...........Really. I was brought up to think that say the Navajo Indians were really laminites, descended principally from Lehi. And the polynesians, and the Cherokee, and the native Mexicans and those with native South American blood in them and so on. Of course we all know that even though most prophets and apostles believed this too it was not an offical position, but for some strange reason the position at FARMS on the LGT and the idea that there were many peoples here when Lehi arrived is the official position.
Honestly, I find this comment as nothing but disingenuous.
charity wrote:Sorry to burst your little bubble, but that is what principal ancestor always meant. That among their pedigrees , Lehi was there, and because Lehi carried the covenant promise of Abraham to these people, he was the "principal ancestor" among the millions of their ancestors.
That has always been the meaning. But becasue people are so ignorant about genealogy, they changed it to make it more understandable to the less educated (in matters of genealogy) masses.
Boy in my 40 years as a baptized member this this first I have heard that this is what this always meant...........Really. I was brought up to think that say the Navajo Indians were really laminites, descended principally from Lehi. And the polynesians, and the Cherokee, and the native Mexicans and those with native South American blood in them and so on. Of course we all know that even though most prophets and apostles believed this too it was not an offical position, but for some strange reason the position at FARMS on the LGT and the idea that there were many peoples here when Lehi arrived is the official position.
Honestly, I find this comment as nothing but disingenuous.
Jason, you obviously weren't born into good Mormon stock (probably because you were less valiant in the pre-existence) and therefore you were not priveleged to be born into Charity's ward boundaries. You see, Charity attended the same ward as Juliann and Daniel Peterson. Their ward taught the REAL meaning of the word 'principal' in the intro. Furthermore, it was not their responsibility to spread their superior doctrinal knowledge to the lesser wards that you and I attended.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks