MILLIONS spent by LDS Inc on new MMM book

[_antishock8]

This next Friday, someone is going to be murdered after a particularly moving sermon in the Middle East. It's called incitement to violence. I'm not sure what the big mystery is. It's a historial fact that preachers, imams, priests, and evangelists used/use their position to fire people up. BY had a particuarly effective dual role as a political leader. I'm sure there are some historical figures we could think of that gave rousing speeches that incited others to violence, too. You don't have to actually pull a trigger in order to be guilty of a crime, non? Oui. Oui oui.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Thank you for the review James.

I wonder how long it will be before the paid review from FARMS/MI is out.

It contains classic LDS doubletalk so Chapel Mormons will leave its pages with the age-old Official message that the people on the wagon train had it coming and the Indians did it, anyway.

Just reading the first part of chapter one you can see the tone they attempt to set for the book. This book was written by LDS Inc specifically shut up it's members with STS(shaken testimony syndrome.

Now any doubting member who confronts their bishop with questions about the MMM will be directed to this OFFICIAL book. How can other books not authored by righteous members, be trusted?

[_Droopy]

I assume that you're joking.

Beastie is never joking, regardless of how farcical or implausible her claims become.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

I assume that you're joking.

Beastie is never joking, regardless of how farcical or implausible her claims become.

Conversely, you are never serious regardless of how pious, pretentious, or pompous your presentation is, its all pretend.

[_Droopy]

Who else would be interested enough to fund it other than the church itself, or rich Mormons interested in defending the faith? My only mistake was not realizing that the church funded it directly.

Are you suggesting that it's unthinkable that rich LDS donors would be approached to help fund apologetic projects??????? This seems to defy known reality.

It's amusing that you dismiss the book as an "apologetic project" designed to "defend the faith."

You've probably heard the old academic joke about the two professors talking. "Have you read Smith's new book yet?" asks one. "Have I read it?" responds the other. "Why, I haven't even reviewed it yet!"

That Beastie continues her pretensions to serious scholarly thought, while all the while continuing to let the intellectual cat out of the proverbial bag with vacuous debates such as this is well nigh verging on the comical.

This is why one should not trust her anti-Mormon Mesoamerican potboilers: its all just far too interested (read tendentious) to be taken with anything but a bag of rock salt within reach, and the sands always continue to shift as new information comes forth. The bar is always raised, and the goal posts moved, against the Church, no matter what the data or evidence actually portend.

[_guy sajer]

I must say that I admire the speed with which you've read, devoured, and taken the measure of the new Oxford MMM book.

To my embarrassment, I haven't even gotten around to buying a copy yet. In fact, I haven't so much as seen it.

I have both purchased and completed my first read of the book. My summary at this point is:

It contains classic LDS doubletalk so Chapel Mormons will leave its pages with the age-old Official message that (1) Brigham Young didn't order it, (2) the people on the wagon train had it coming, and (3) the Indians did it, anyway.

Brigham Young may have made some completely innocent remarks about blood atonement, killing people, and letting the Indians kill people and steal their livestock which set the stage for violence, but didn't set the stage for violence.

Brigham Young didn't order the massacre, but the people had no question that they were following his orders.

The inoffensive, innocent people on the wagon train didn't have it coming and nothing could justify the violence, but they were offensive louts who DID have it coming and it's completely understandable why people in southern Utah would massacre them.

Most of fighting and killing was done by members of the Nauvoo Legion and not the Indians particularly on the last day when Lee and his men betrayed and killed the remaining men, women, and children, but a noticeably disproportionate amount of the narrative is devoted to the little fighting and killing the Indians did.

Southern Utahans in dual roles as commanding officers of the Nauvoo Legion AND the highest LDS Church and community leaders -- who were advised by Church headquarters in advance of the arrival of the wagon train -- planned and ordered the massacre carried out by LDS who were both church members and formally enlisted Nauvoo Legion soldiers under direct orders of the Nauvoo Legion from, if I remember correctly, at least four different communities in Southern Utah (which required substantial and coordinated travel over long distances from disparate locations). But the massacre was the work of a small number of rogue elements acting spontaneously on their own.

James Clifford Miller

Aside from the question of BY's culpability in the massacre itself (of which I don't have a firm opinion), there certainly appears to have been some kind of cover up (or sweeping under the rug) orchestrated T, or at least winked at, high levels of Mormon leadership. If this occurred, this strikes me as only somewhat less inconsistent behavior of men claiming to be God's sole representatives on earth.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Aside from the question of BY's culpability in the massacre itself (of which I don't have a firm opinion), there certainly appears to have been some kind of cover up (or sweeping under the rug) orchestrated T, or at least winked at, high levels of Mormon leadership. If this occurred, this strikes me as only somewhat less inconsistent behavior of men claiming to be God's sole representatives on earth.

Exactly.

Growing up Mormon, we are taught that the top 16 men of LDS were all of God.

Additionally, in both seminary and Utah history class I was taught explicitly that the indians did all of the planning and killing.

Yet today, LDS Inc admits that it was Mormon men lead by Mormon leadership who did all of the planning and the majority of the killing.

Given that Young and his leaders were "chosen men of God", why did they cover up the facts that the massacre was carried out by Mormons instead of just turning over those responsible IMMEDIATELY to the US officials?

[_Droopy]

I've argued several times, in print, that historians are more like witnesses than they are like, say, mathematicians. The reasoning of a mathematician is entirely public, and his character, trustworthiness, ideology, etc., are irrelevant. The logic either holds or it doesn't. When we read a historian's work, by contrast, we have to take his word for it that he's accurately representing the sources he cites, that he has cited all of the salient sources, etc.

Yes, this is why her Book of Mormon criticisms re ancient Mesoamerican political structures cannot be trusted. She speaks with certitude upon subjects using only a percentage of the available data, cherry picked to support her arguments, and the rest of the evidence she has left invisible is itself, only a fraction of the evidence available and potentially available (assuming that the mountain of unexcavated sites in Latin America will yield, not simply more and more of what supports present theories and assumptions in Mesoamerican archeology, but any number of surprises)

Beastie follows her mentor Quinn very well: the entire study is always constructed with a preconceived end in sight. I don't think I'm the first one to have noticed that Quinn has always been out to make a point using history as the tool with which this is to be accomplished, not to discover, in a dispassionate manner, what "the point" really was, or is (as, for example, Quinn's transparently tendentious Sam Sex Dynamics).

[_Boaz & Lidia]

I've argued several times, in print, that historians are more like witnesses than they are like, say, mathematicians. The reasoning of a mathematician is entirely public, and his character, trustworthiness, ideology, etc., are irrelevant. The logic either holds or it doesn't. When we read a historian's work, by contrast, we have to take his word for it that he's accurately representing the sources he cites, that he has cited all of the salient sources, etc.

Yes, this is why her Book of Mormon criticisms re ancient Mesoamerican political structures cannot be trusted. She speaks with certitude upon subjects using only a percentage of the available data, cherry picked to support her arguments, and the rest of the evidence she has left invisible is itself, only a fraction of the evidence available and potentially available (assuming that the mountain of unexcavated sites in Latin America will yield, not simply more and more of what supports present theories and assumptions in Mesoamerican archeology, but any number of surprises)

Beastie follows her mentor Quinn very well: the entire study is always constructed with a preconceived end in sight. I don't think I'm the first one to have noticed that Quinn has always been out to make a point using history as the tool with which this is to be accomplished, not to discover, in a dispassionate manner, what "the point" really was, or is (as, for example, Quinn's transparently tendentious Sam Sex Dynamics).

Bravo Droopy man.

Each of your statements describes both chapel and internet Mormon apologetics perfectly.

[_antishock8]

I've argued several times, in print, that historians are more like witnesses than they are like, say, mathematicians. The reasoning of a mathematician is entirely public, and his character, trustworthiness, ideology, etc., are irrelevant. The logic either holds or it doesn't. When we read a historian's work, by contrast, we have to take his word for it that he's accurately representing the sources he cites, that he has cited all of the salient sources, etc.

Yes, this is why her Book of Mormon criticisms re ancient Mesoamerican political structures cannot be trusted. She speaks with certitude upon subjects using only a percentage of the available data, cherry picked to support her arguments, and the rest of the evidence she has left invisible is itself, only a fraction of the evidence available and potentially available (assuming that the mountain of unexcavated sites in Latin America will yield, not simply more and more of what supports present theories and assumptions in Mesoamerican archeology, but any number of surprises)

Beastie follows her mentor Quinn very well: the entire study is always constructed with a preconceived end in sight. I don't think I'm the first one to have noticed that Quinn has always been out to make a point using history as the tool with which this is to be accomplished, not to discover, in a dispassionate manner, what "the point" really was, or is (as, for example, Quinn's transparently tendentious Sam Sex Dynamics).

Bravo Droopy man.

Each of your statements describes both chapel and internet Mormon apologetics perfectly.

Lol. Omg.