LDS Apologetics Operating Costs Are More Than $7,000,000

[_Daniel Peterson]

What a stunner!

Poor antishock8 has discovered that a list of my Mormon-related publications with FARMS contains nothing but Mormon-related publications with FARMS!

Clearly, that demonstrates that I've only published Mormon-related things, and only with FARMS!

Brilliant, antishock8! Well done!

A watershed moment in the history of mopologetics.

You're right!

It deserves to be in larger letters:

A watershed moment in the history of Mopologetics!

[_Mister Scratch]

Well, okay, then. That means that you earn a supplemental income for doing apologetics.

No it doesn't. It means that I earned a supplemental income -- I'm no longer chairman of the board; for that matter, no FARMS board has existed for several years now -- for intensive administrative work.

If the administrative work was connected with apologetics in some way (and it was), then you earned extra moolah for apologetics. Period.

The bottom line is that part of your duties involved the FARMS Review, which means, therefore, that you were earning a supplemental income for doing apologetics.

Not so. I edited the FARMS Review for years before I became a member of the FARMS board, and for even more years before I became board chairman. I"ve edited the FARMS Review since stepping down as board chairman, and since the board was dissolved several years ago.

Yes, but your "promotion" to the board surely related in some way to FROB. Thus: paid for apologetics.

If you were making money from apologetics (and you are! at least $6,000 per year!), would you want to prevent people from knowing?

Not particularly. And the $6K stopped coming in a number of years ago. And it was never for apologetics. It was for administrative work. The vast majority of which had nothing to do with apologetics.

We've been over this before. Again and again and again.

Well, again: Do you not want people to know that you have been paid for apologetics? Yes or no?

[_Daniel Peterson]

If the administrative work was connected with apologetics in some way (and it was), then you earned extra moolah for apologetics. Period.

You keep insisting on that. I deny it. In my view, apologetics is writing or speaking apologetically. Administering an operation that, among other things, does apologetics, is no more doing apologetics than being a hospital administrator is practicing medicine. Managing a foundation that, among other things, does apologetics is no more doing apologetics than supplying the office in which an apologist works with electricity for his computer is doing apologetics. Printing apologetic tomes is not apologetics. Nor is binding them. Nor is transporting them to bookstores. Nor is ringing them up at a cash register or placing them in a mailbox.

But if you want to win by eccentric definition, be my guest.

The bottom line is that part of your duties involved the FARMS Review, which means, therefore, that you were earning a supplemental income for doing apologetics.

Not so. I edited the FARMS Review for years before I became a member of the FARMS board, and for even more years before I became board chairman. I"ve edited the FARMS Review since stepping down as board chairman, and since the board was dissolved several years ago.

Yes, but your "promotion" to the board surely related in some way to FROB. Thus: paid for apologetics.

This is simply silly.

My promotion to the board was related to my having a pulse. Hence, paid for having a beating heart. It was related to my being a Latter-day Saint. Thus, paid for baptism.

The absurdity of your position is reaching meltdown levels.

Well, again: Do you not want people to know that you have been paid for apologetics? Yes or no?

I couldn't possibly care less if they find out that, in some years, I've made as much as $50 or $100 in royalties from apologetic writing. You can hire skywriting aircraft and emblazon it on the clouds above General Conference for all I care.

[_Mister Scratch]

If the administrative work was connected with apologetics in some way (and it was), then you earned extra moolah for apologetics. Period.

You keep insisting on that. I deny it. In my view, apologetics is writing or speaking apologetically. Administering an operation that, among other things, does apologetics, is no more doing apologetics than being a hospital administrator is practicing medicine. Managing a foundation that, among other things, does apologetics is no more doing apologetics than supplying the office in which an apologist works with electricity for his computer is doing apologetics. Printing apologetic tomes is not apologetics. Nor is binding them. Nor is transporting them to bookstores. Nor is ringing them up at a cash register or placing them in a mailbox.

But if you want to win by eccentric definition, be my guest.

You know what? You're right. This is absurd. I am sorry, Professor P. It is really easy to get carried away on these messageboards. I apologize for asking you all these questions. Please know that I feel badly about it. As you said: All of the millions of dollars needed to run FARMS are in no way related to apologetics. And, hardly anybody ever gets paid to do apologetics, and when they do, it is only very small honoraria, usually in the realm of a couple hundred bucks or less.

The bottom line is that part of your duties involved the FARMS Review, which means, therefore, that you were earning a supplemental income for doing apologetics.

Not so. I edited the FARMS Review for years before I became a member of the FARMS board, and for even more years before I became board chairman. I"ve edited the FARMS Review since stepping down as board chairman, and since the board was dissolved several years ago.

Yes, but your "promotion" to the board surely related in some way to FROB. Thus: paid for apologetics.

This is simply silly.

My promotion to the board was related to my having a pulse. Hence, paid for having a beating heart. It was related to my being a Latter-day Saint. Thus, paid for baptism.

The absurdity of your position is reaching meltdown levels.

Again: you are right. I'm sorry.

I guess ultimately the important point to take from this whole thread is that LDS apologetics is being financed with a stockpile of millions of dollars. No individual person actually profits from apologetics (unless you want to count fulltime staff such as the treasurer or the "fundraiser"), but millions are being poured into the effort nonetheless.

I wonder: do the Brethren know much money is at stake in all of this?

[_Daniel Peterson]

As you said: All of the millions of dollars needed to run FARMS are in no way related to apologetics.

Of course, I said absolutely nothing of the kind.

And, hardly anybody ever gets paid to do apologetics, and when they do, it is only very small honoraria, usually in the realm of a couple hundred bucks or less.

But that happens to be true. Even though you didn't intend to say anything true. (Even you can't avoid the truth altogether!)

I guess ultimately the important point to take from this whole thread is that LDS apologetics is being financed with a stockpile of millions of dollars. No individual person actually profits from apologetics (unless you want to count fulltime staff such as the treasurer or the "fundraiser"), but millions are being poured into the effort nonetheless.

You're still exaggerating by quite a bit.

I wonder: do the Brethren know much money is at stake in all of this?

I have no idea.

Tell us! Inquiring minds want to know.

[Guest]

Ok. Ok.... Wait for it... From BYU's website... Wait for it...

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/viewaut ... authorID=1

Ta-da!

My god... The similarities. Someone might actually mistake this brilliant ME Professor with a Mormon apologist.

That's the Maxwell Institute/FARMS website, poor fellow.

It offers a list of my Mormon-related publications with the Maxwell Institute. It doesn't contain my non-Mormon-related publications. It doesn't contain my Mormon-related publications that weren't published with the Maxwell Institute.

Oddly enough, since it's a list of my Mormon-related publications with the Maxwell Institute, it features only Mormon-related publications with the Maxwell Institute!

Poor antishock8.

Wow. You're one for noting the obvious. Let's go over this again lest you confuse anyone not paying attention:

1) You're a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University *pant pant*.

2) You're employed by BYU, as a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University *pant pant*.

3) One wants to review your body of work, because you're a brilliant professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University *pant pant*, and so one goes to www.BYU.edu.

4) One types "peterson" in the search engine, and the following page comes up:

http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/BYU?q=peterson

5) One clicks on your link, and the following page comes up:

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/viewaut ... authorID=1

One reviews the list expecting to find material in the area of Islamic Studies and Arabic from the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages via Brigham Young University *pant pant*, but instead finds:

Transcripts and Featured Publications



1 Nephi 1–7
Comparing LDS Beliefs with First-Century Christianity
Evidences of the Book of Mormon
On Alma 7:10 and the Birthplace of Jesus Christ
Other Voices from the Dust
The Keystone of Our Religion

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies



"Secret Combinations" Revisited
Nephi and His Asherah

Review of Books



Two Pahute Indian Legends: "Why the Grand Canyon Was Made" and "The Three Days of Darkness" (Volume 1 Issue 1)
A Modern Malleus maleficarum (Volume 3 Issue 1)
Afterword (Volume 11 Issue 2)
Authority in the Book of Mosiah (Volume 18 Issue 1)
Chattanooga Cheapshot, or The Gall of Bitterness (Volume 5 Issue 1)
Christ-Bearer (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Constancy amid Change (Volume 8 Issue 2)
David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Volume 5 Issue 1)
Decker's Complete Handbook on Mormonism (Volume 7 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction (Volume 3 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction (Volume 6 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: (Volume 16 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: (Volume 19 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: "The Worst Herricy Man Can Preach" (Volume 12 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: "What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?": Apostasy and Restoration in the Big Picture (Volume 12 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: American Apocrypha? (Volume 13 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: By What Measure Shall We Mete? (Volume 2 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Doubting the Doubters (Volume 8 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Fictionary (Volume 10 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Historical Concreteness, or Speculative Abstraction? (Volume 14 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: In the Land of the Lotus-Eaters (Volume 10 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Of "Galileo Events," Hype, and Suppression: Or, Abusing Science and its History (Volume 15 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Perceptions and Expectations (Volume 11 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: QnA (Volume 13 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Questions to Legal Answers (Volume 4 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Reflections on the Reactions to Rough Stone Rolling and Related Matters (Volume 19 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: The Review Crosses a Divide of Its Own (Volume 11 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Through a Glass, Darkly (Volume 9 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Traditions of the Fathers (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Triptych (Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch) (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction—Not So Easily Dismissed: Some Facts for Which Counterexplanations of the Book of Mormon Will Need to Account (Volume 17 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction—The Witchcraft Paradigm: On Claims to (Volume 18 Issue 2)
Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons (Volume 16 Issue 1)
Introduction (Volume 6 Issue 2)
Introduction (Volume 7 Issue 1)
Introduction (Volume 7 Issue 2)
Introduction (Volume 1 Issue 1)
Mormon in the Fiery Furnace Or, Loftes Tryk Goes to Cambridge (Volume 6 Issue 2)
Mormonism (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Mormonism as a Restoration (Volume 18 Issue 1)
Mormonism: The Prophet, the Book and the Cult. (Volume 2 Issue 1)
On the New World Archaeological Foundation (Volume 16 Issue 1)
Prolegomena to the DNA Articles (Volume 15 Issue 2)
Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism (Volume 17 Issue 2)
Skin Deep (Volume 9 Issue 2)
Stories from the Early Saints: Converted by the Book of Mormon (Volume 4 Issue 1)
Text and Context (Volume 6 Issue 1)
The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation. (Volume 1 Issue 1)
The Evangelical Is Our Brother (Volume 11 Issue 2)
The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Volume 2 Issue 1)
What Certain Baptists Think They Know about the Restored Gospel (Volume 10 Issue 1)
Yet More Abuse of B. H. Roberts (Volume 9 Issue 1)

Insights



New Book Features Work of Poet, Theologian
New Translation Launches METI's Library of the Christian East Series
Reflections: Cosmic Optimism

Foreign Language



A Pedra Fundamental De Nossa Religião
Evidências Da Veracidade Do Livro De Mórmon (PET-T1)
Evidenze del Libro di Mormon
L'autorité dans le livre de Mosiah
Un érudit étudie les preuves du Livre de Mormon (PET-T1)
UN ERUDITO EXAMINA LAS EVIDENCIAS PARA EL LIBRO DE MORMÓN (PET-T1)

Books



Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon
Offenders for a Word

Book Chapters



"Secret Combinations"
And I Saw the Stars -- The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy
Can the 1834 Affidavits Attacking the Smith Family Be Trusted?
Economy and Technology
Introduction
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 1
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 2
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 3
Is the Book of Mormon True?: Notes on the Debate
Mormonism as "Cult": The Limits of Lexical Polemics
Nephi and His Asherah: A Note on 1 Nephi 11:8–23
Not Joseph's, and Not Modern
Secret Combinations Revisited
The Throne Theophany/Prophetic Call of Muḥammad
Ye Are Gods: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind


1 Nephi 1–7
Comparing LDS Beliefs with First-Century Christianity
Evidences of the Book of Mormon
On Alma 7:10 and the Birthplace of Jesus Christ
Other Voices from the Dust
The Keystone of Our Religion

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies



"Secret Combinations" Revisited
Nephi and His Asherah

Review of Books



Two Pahute Indian Legends: "Why the Grand Canyon Was Made" and "The Three Days of Darkness" (Volume 1 Issue 1)
A Modern Malleus maleficarum (Volume 3 Issue 1)
Afterword (Volume 11 Issue 2)
Authority in the Book of Mosiah (Volume 18 Issue 1)
Chattanooga Cheapshot, or The Gall of Bitterness (Volume 5 Issue 1)
Christ-Bearer (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Constancy amid Change (Volume 8 Issue 2)
David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Volume 5 Issue 1)
Decker's Complete Handbook on Mormonism (Volume 7 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction (Volume 3 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction (Volume 6 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: (Volume 16 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: (Volume 19 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: "The Worst Herricy Man Can Preach" (Volume 12 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: "What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?": Apostasy and Restoration in the Big Picture (Volume 12 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: American Apocrypha? (Volume 13 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: By What Measure Shall We Mete? (Volume 2 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Doubting the Doubters (Volume 8 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Fictionary (Volume 10 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Historical Concreteness, or Speculative Abstraction? (Volume 14 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: In the Land of the Lotus-Eaters (Volume 10 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Of "Galileo Events," Hype, and Suppression: Or, Abusing Science and its History (Volume 15 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Perceptions and Expectations (Volume 11 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: QnA (Volume 13 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Questions to Legal Answers (Volume 4 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Reflections on the Reactions to Rough Stone Rolling and Related Matters (Volume 19 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: The Review Crosses a Divide of Its Own (Volume 11 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Through a Glass, Darkly (Volume 9 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction: Traditions of the Fathers (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction: Triptych (Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch) (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Editor's Introduction—Not So Easily Dismissed: Some Facts for Which Counterexplanations of the Book of Mormon Will Need to Account (Volume 17 Issue 2)
Editor's Introduction—The Witchcraft Paradigm: On Claims to (Volume 18 Issue 2)
Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons (Volume 16 Issue 1)
Introduction (Volume 6 Issue 2)
Introduction (Volume 7 Issue 1)
Introduction (Volume 7 Issue 2)
Introduction (Volume 1 Issue 1)
Mormon in the Fiery Furnace Or, Loftes Tryk Goes to Cambridge (Volume 6 Issue 2)
Mormonism (Volume 8 Issue 1)
Mormonism as a Restoration (Volume 18 Issue 1)
Mormonism: The Prophet, the Book and the Cult. (Volume 2 Issue 1)
On the New World Archaeological Foundation (Volume 16 Issue 1)
Prolegomena to the DNA Articles (Volume 15 Issue 2)
Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism (Volume 17 Issue 2)
Skin Deep (Volume 9 Issue 2)
Stories from the Early Saints: Converted by the Book of Mormon (Volume 4 Issue 1)
Text and Context (Volume 6 Issue 1)
The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation. (Volume 1 Issue 1)
The Evangelical Is Our Brother (Volume 11 Issue 2)
The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Volume 2 Issue 1)
What Certain Baptists Think They Know about the Restored Gospel (Volume 10 Issue 1)
Yet More Abuse of B. H. Roberts (Volume 9 Issue 1)

Insights



New Book Features Work of Poet, Theologian
New Translation Launches METI's Library of the Christian East Series
Reflections: Cosmic Optimism

Foreign Language



A Pedra Fundamental De Nossa Religião
Evidências Da Veracidade Do Livro De Mórmon (PET-T1)
Evidenze del Libro di Mormon
L'autorité dans le livre de Mosiah
Un érudit étudie les preuves du Livre de Mormon (PET-T1)
UN ERUDITO EXAMINA LAS EVIDENCIAS PARA EL LIBRO DE MORMÓN (PET-T1)

Books



Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon
Offenders for a Word

Book Chapters



"Secret Combinations"
And I Saw the Stars -- The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy
Can the 1834 Affidavits Attacking the Smith Family Be Trusted?
Economy and Technology
Introduction
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 1
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 2
Is Mormonism Christian? An Investigation of Definitions, part 3
Is the Book of Mormon True?: Notes on the Debate
Mormonism as "Cult": The Limits of Lexical Polemics
Nephi and His Asherah: A Note on 1 Nephi 11:8–23
Not Joseph's, and Not Modern
Secret Combinations Revisited
The Throne Theophany/Prophetic Call of Muḥammad
Ye Are Gods: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind

-------------------------------------------------

So, you'll have to forgive some of us "lesser lights" when it seems that a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University *pant pant* can't seem to tear himself away from arguing on the Internet all day in Mormon forums, and certainly is unable to stop himself from pumping out volumes of Mormon apologia. It gives the impression you're paid, not to produce a prodigious body of Islamic Studies and Arabic within the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages for Brigham Young University *pant pant*, but rather, as you yourself admitted vis a vis your curriculum vitae, that the BYU is, indeed, paying you to produce Mormon apologia, or manage Mormon apologetic foundations (for which proof has been amply provided thanks to this thread), or that you are compensated well for your time... Time spent apologizing for Mormonia.

You are salaried, and paid to produce apologia, despite your lies to the contrary.

You receive additional thousands of dollars per annum, to manage apologetic foundations.

Your apologetic foundations receive millions of dollars of funding; quite contrary to the "shoestring budget" lie you propagated.

AND... In addition to all this, you do a side job of METI, a few debates here and there, some book reviews, and occasionally half-ass a book or two (dhimmi asshole).

Dan, you're a liar. You lie for a living. You promote a deceptive con job, and you should be ashamed of yourself. But you're fat, lazy, and suckled quite securely up to that teat aren't you? Pathetic. You're no better than the Jim Bakers of this world, passing off a fraud to a credulous audience, earning your living 'by the temple'. If you have any conscience, at all, you'll drop the charade, stop with all apologetics, period, and re-focus on your primary field of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages for Brigham Young University *pant pant*.

[_Mister Scratch]

As you said: All of the millions of dollars needed to run FARMS are in no way related to apologetics.

Of course, I said absolutely nothing of the kind.

Feel free to elaborate on just what the relationship is between the money and apologetics.

I guess ultimately the important point to take from this whole thread is that LDS apologetics is being financed with a stockpile of millions of dollars. No individual person actually profits from apologetics (unless you want to count fulltime staff such as the treasurer or the "fundraiser"), but millions are being poured into the effort nonetheless.

You're still exaggerating by quite a bit.

How? A simple perusal of the 990 forms would seem to indicate that the vast bulk of FARMS's yearly budget is devoted to the support, development, and production of apologia. The budget runs into the millions. I don't see why you would call that "exaggerating."

[_Daniel Peterson]

Wow. You're one for noting the obvious. Let's go over this again lest you confuse anyone not paying attention:

Okay. Let's. The list that comes up is, plainly, a list of the Mormon-related things that I've published with the Maxwell Institute.

It doesn't include non-Mormon-related things that I've plainly published, like my Muhammad biography (Eerdmans, 2007), various articles in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and E. J. Brill's Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an and the journal Incognita and etc. Nor even the Middle Eastern Text Initiative books that I've edited. Nor does it even include all of my Mormon-related publications (e.g. articles in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and the Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, etc., nor even a trio of Mormon-related books).

Thus, if you think that that particular list is giving you a full picture of my output, you're simply deluded.

You are salaried, and paid to produce apologia, despite your lies to the contrary.

You've offered better evidence than anything Scratch has managed to come up with . . .

You receive additional thousands of dollars per annum, to manage apologetic foundations.

No I don't. Even the $6K board chairman fee stopped years ago when I stepped down as chairman of the board. And there is no more board.

Your apologetic foundations receive millions of dollars of funding; quite contrary to the "shoestring budget" lie you propagated.

Can you provide a reference to my "'shoestring budget' lie"?

AND... In addition to all this, you do a side job of METI, a few debates here and there, some book reviews, and occasionally half-ass a book or two (dhimmi asshole).

You're more eloquent than Scratch, too!

Dan, you're a liar. You lie for a living. You promote a deceptive con job, and you should be ashamed of yourself. But you're fat, lazy, and suckled quite securely up to that teat aren't you? Pathetic. You're no better than the Jim Bakers of this world, passing off a fraud to a credulous audience, earning your living 'by the temple'. If you have any conscience, at all, you'll drop the charade, stop with all apologetics, period, and re-focus on your primary field of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages for Brigham Young University *pant pant*.

A very, very persuasive final paragraph. Bravo!

I think this board has found its official spokesperson.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Feel free to elaborate on just what the relationship is between the money and apologetics.

Editing and printing books costs money. It's that simple.

Incidentally, a (much) younger, more articulate rival is snapping at your heels, declaring ever more sizzlingly dramatic condemnations based on slightly better evidence than you've mustered to this point. You may need to ramp things up a bit, lest you be displaced by antishock8 and discarded on the ashheap of paranoid-fantasist anti-Mormonism.

[_Trevor]

I think this board has found its official spokesperson.

The board is a place where people of different opinions and backgrounds post. It does not have anything like an "official spokesperson" that I am aware of, unless the owners and mods lay claim that role. Its personality comes from Scratch no more than it derives from your participation. Feel free to insult people individually, but be apprised that your and your associates at MA&D's constant running down of the entire board as though it were a monolithic entity is about as fair as the caricature many angry anti-Mormons hurl at FARMS and the LDS Church.