beastie
If you're talking about my essays, I think the best way to evaluate them is to read the original sources I cite. You don't have to read all of them, but a few would be helpful in determining if I've distorted the sources. And that includes reading the apologia I reference.
Precisely! Yet this is not what critics against my writings say to me. Many of them simply dismiss what I write, automatically as being junk or biased or pro-Mormon and hence of no value whatever. I obviously misuse my sources. That is what I am told. I am told
the only way to validate my research is have it peer reviewed and published in an acceptable scholarly journal. I disagree with this. I think it is the best way, of course, without question. But it is not the
only way. I have even been told that if the peer review is done by fellow Mormons that doesn't count. It must be someone not Mormon, and
better still, an atheistic bent. That way objectivity is achieved. I can't help but laugh at that assumption. But that is what I am told. I wonder how many non-Mormons would ask a Mormon to critique their writings on the Book of Mormon first? Would they scream bias and subjectivity if they then couldn't get their "junk" published by FARMS or FAIR?