DCP makes this board

[_Ray A]

For the record, I don't believe I have ever gotten Wade's point correctly. :)

[_Ray A]

Finally, you got it right. [Thumbs Up]

I see, so we are deficient in understanding. Wade, don't waste any more of my time. You didn't address 90% of the points I made in the thread you started about me and you. With all of your professions of "love" and "understanding" and "tolerance" you've come up with the most typical of TBM responses imaginable. I'm so reminded of a typical Mormon tactic - bake a cake and take it over for the neighbours. They will know that we "care". (read: and one day they'll join the Church).

[_harmony]

I see. In other words, you mistakenly read your own conclusions into what I said--which explains your mangled interpretation. So much for your powers of observation.

I'm going to give you a chance to expand on "mangled". And be careful. No personal attacks are tolerated here any longer.

So... are you going to answer my question?

Your question is based on a presupposition that I believe to be false, and thus can't reasonably be answered as asked.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Um, Wade? My question was:

Why do you say that?

I was referring to this comment of yours:

The foggy crags and battlegrounds of discussion boards such as this, are no place for apologetics.

So... why do you say that discussion boards such as this one are no place for apologetics?

Not wanting to put words into your mouth, I'm willing to give you another shot at answering the question.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Then they'd best be getting themselves on the internet, in blogs or on message boards, because that's where the battle's being fought.

They're getting themselves into articles and books and symposia and articles published on line and lectures put on line and films and national and international television broadcasts. These tend to reach a fairly good audience. More remains to be done, but it's not bad.

As for this message board, there are literally one or two dozen people here, duking it out day by day.

And they'd best be polite about it, because that's the direction we've heard from the GC pulpit lately. God's hammering on spiteful, mean-spirited apologists, in case you missed that talk. He likes civil discourse, not that I find that surprising. I'm sure someone will link that particular talk, should you need a reference.

I'm quite familiar with that particular talk, and those particular talks.

You've been wrong before. I suppose it's possible for you to be wrong again. Please don't make assumptions based on information for which you have no foundation.

If you're at all current with the work of John Sorenson, Bob Millet, Andrew Hedges, Jack Welch, Camille Williams, Jim Faulconer, John Tvedtnes, Paul Hoskisson, Stephen Ricks, Louis Midgley, Blake Ostler, Matt Roper, David Seely, Richard Lloyd Anderson, David Paulsen, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Noel Reynolds, John Clark, Don Parry, Shirley Ricks, Jordan Vajda, Kent Brown, Steve Harper, Catherine Thomas, John Gee, Brant Gardner, and Bill Hamblin, I'll be much surprised.

Are you?

Do you think 60,000 hits a month is impressive?

It's reasonably good.

Remember, we're not talking about a mere message board, where each reading or posting of a one-liner may count as a hit. The FARMS Review publishes -- and those who read the FARMS Review read -- lengthy and complex articles.

Sixty-thousand such encounters each month is, meines Erachtens, not bad.

You can talk about conferences and books and authors until the cows come home, but that won't change the current and future face of apologetics.

Actually, I think it will.

Dissemination of solid research and arguments is an important matter, but such arguments are constructed and such research is published not initially on message boards but via conference papers, articles, and books.

Oxford University Press, Caltech, Nature, the American Historical Association, Science, and the Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft aren't going to be replaced by message boards any time soon.




####################################################

[_wenglund]

Finally, you got it right. [Thumbs Up]

I see, so we are deficient in understanding. Wade, don't waste any more of my time. You didn't address 90% of the points I made in the thread you started about me and you. With all of your professions of "love" and "understanding" and "tolerance" you've come up with the most typical of TBM responses imaginable. I'm so reminded of a typical Mormon tactic - bake a cake and take it over for the neighbours. They will know that we "care". (read: and one day they'll join the Church).

This is your reaction to me matter-of-factly pointing out that you misunderstood my analogy?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_LifeOnaPlate]

i'd like to remind you all to visit my blog, the new navel of all Mormon studies, where scholars abound and love all around:

http://www.lifeongoldplates.com

[_Mister Scratch]

LoP,We know that there are no academic venues for Mormon apologetics to take place in.

You don't count Oxford University Press or Columbia University Press?

Hmmm. So, you consider the Mormon-themed books which have been published by those presses to be apologetic in nature? I.e., that the Turley et al. MMM book, was, in essence, a "defensive" book?

Apologists also apparently, do not post on "bottom feeder" sites such as this, where there is risk of hearing an opposing view. It would seem then, that the only option apologists have is their private lists, their TBM blogs, conferences of their own construct where pretty much, only apologists are allowed to speak, and publications like the Review which very strictly only present a narrow breed of Internet Mormon ideas without any kind of outside criticism available. It might be true that the apologists might read "anti-Mormon" books, any book that references the church which isn't explicitely apologetic, but they only respond to these by taking pot shots from behind a tree. It would seem apologetics is basically an unscholarly and uncritical sunday school class. Is that how it appears to you too?

There is, and has long been, a vigorous conversation going on between defenders of the Church and their critics. It goes on between books

Sure. But this is obviously a far "safer" venue for apologists. Perhaps this is why many of the apologists you named prefer it.

between authors of books and authors of book reviews, between articles in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and Dialogue and BYU Studies and Sunstone, between the Maxwell Institute and Signature Books,

All of these are obviously Mormon-related---i.e., the "private lists, their TBM blogs, conferences of their own construct" that Gadianton mentioned.

It's simply silly to pretend that this isn't so, or to pretend, if one is unaware of it, that one has any standing to comment on the state of the conversation.

There's no silliness at all. Mopologists have demonstrated time and time again that they approach argumentative scholarly discourse with a "control-freak" mindset. Most Mopologists wouldn't dare be caught out in the open.

[_harmony]

I was under the impression that apologetics was supposed to defend. Defense implies... requires, actually... opposition. Critics, In other words.

How can a book... defend?
How can a presentation at a conference of like-minded people... defend?
How can an article in a magazine... defend?

There is no opposition in a book, no opposition in a presentation at a comference of like-minded people, no opposition in any closed forum. The only place where a defense can be effective... or exist at all... is in a place where debate, discussion... conversation!... takes place.

Otherwise, it's just preaching, and we all know how effective preaching to the choir is.

If you want to defend... get in the trenches. If you want to pontificate and preach, ignore the trenches.

The battle is here, and in other trenches just like this one. It's too bad only Daniel and a few stalwarts actually show up to defend.

160,000 hits a day isn't something to be sniffed at, Daniel. That's a lot of people, seeking conversation.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I was under the impression that apologetics was supposed to defend. Defense implies... requires, actually... opposition. Critics, In other words.

How can a book... defend?

Easily.

There are "conversations" between books all the time.

Immanuel Kant (d. 1804), for example, declared in his Critique of Pure Reason that David Hume (d. 1776) had awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber,” and several of Kant's books can be seen, to a significant degree, as responses to, and as attempt to rebut, Humean skepticism.

Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) wrote Tahafut al-Falasifa, or "The Incoherence of the Philosophers," which was a rebuttal of the general metaphysical/theological stance of Ibn Sina (or Avicenna, d. 1037), who represented an Islamic synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Ibn Rushd (or Averroës, d. 1198) responded with the Tahafut al-Tahafut, or "Incoherence of the Incoherence."

Examples could be multiplied for weeks.

I've already cited, elsewhere on this board and in a different context, a nice example of authors of books arguing with each other over time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis

How can a presentation at a conference of like-minded people... defend?

Easily.

It can argue for a position that a critic has attacked or against a position that differs with its own. This happens constantly. Papers at FAIR conferences and at Maxwell Institute symposia are far from alone in this.

Opponents attend, or obtain copies of the delivered paper, and they respond. And then someone responds to them. And then someone responds to the respondent.

How can an article in a magazine... defend?

Easily.

By, for example, responding to criticisms of a position. Or by criticizing another, competing, position.

The only place where a defense can be effective... or exist at all... is in a place where debate, discussion... conversation!... takes place.

And that place is all around you.

Will Bagley writes a book. Ron Walker and Rick Turley and Glen Leonard write a book on the same subject that takes a different stance. Will Bagley criticizes their book. They and others will respond to Bagley. And others will respond to the responses. And so on and so forth. Virtually none of this -- if, indeed, any at all -- happens on message boards. It happens at conferences, in lectures, in book reviews, in journal articles, and the like.

The conversation is intense. You may be oblivious to it, but many others are not. The FARMS Review is engaged in this conversation to the max, as are others on both (or all) sides. Signature Books publishes something. The FARMS Review critiques it. The Maxwell Institute publishes something. Signature Books counters it in yet another book or on the Signature web page. Others weigh in.

The conversation is exhilarating, and is lots of fun. And it seems to be utterly passing you by.

[_harmony]

The conversation is exhilarating, and is lots of fun.

And slow. I understand your point. I wonder if you understand mine.

Maybe the problem is we don't see apologetics in the same light. Yours appears to be write scholarly tomes (in whatever medium) and sit back and wait for the members to come to the apologist (with proper deference, of course).

People don't do that anymore, if they ever did. People don't have time to read books and long drawn out articles. People don't have time or money to attend conferences. Your colleagues are sitting in ivory towers, while you and a valiant few others are in the trenches occasionally, putting your own name and thoughts in the battle.

Mine is: use apologetics to defend the church now, to show the members and potential members that what the critics say isn't the way things are or were, or at least give some clear insight instead of murking things up where the people are now. Now. No insistence that books and articles and conferences are not just nice if the person has access and time and money, but addressing people where they are now. Insisting that the only way or even the best way to defend the church is through a few scholars taking pot shots at each other over a lengthy period of time via mediums few if anyone accesses isn't productive, while the rest of the world logs on and hears the roar of the critics via blog, chat room, and message boards.

You need help, and your scholarly friends, for the most part, are sitting on their hands. And the result is people walking away from the church or not joining in the first place.

While y'all are busily writing scholarly tomes to each other, we're bleeding people. There is no ability to react to current events as they happen, unless and until you get some help from your fellow apologists here on the internet.

Where's the book responding to the fallout from Prop 8? Is it ready to print? Reports are coming in about good LDS people leaving the church over this. Lots of them. Where's the response?

Instead of addressing current issues now, today, your colleagues are worried about stuff that has no bearing on the lives of the members... stuff like keeping Quinn from presenting at a conference. Good grief.

Even when apologists use the internet, y'all just don't get it. When all KA has to do is send people to websites affiliated with you (FAIR and MI and MADB), and then 18 people walk away from the church because apologetic answers provide smoke and mirrors hidden within thinly disguised personal attacks... that's a problem. Multiply that by the thousands of ex-LDS out there, and that's a meltdown.

And all you can do is write books? Present at conferences few even know exist? Edit a magazine that few people read? Meanwhile, 160,000 hits a day on one anti-LDS website alone... 160,000!

And it seems to be utterly passing you by.

While your colleagues ignore the meltdown and leave you to do battle in the trenches alone.

You aren't Superman, Daniel. Get some help. Any of those people on your list would be a help. All or most of them would have an impact.