John Larsen wrote:Your most recent banning was over the top and completely uncalled for. Here is my comment:
John Larsen wrote:You can be banned for things you do off the board? Where does Cinepro say that it is doing this to "stick it to Mormons"? Completely unwarranted.
I'm sure I will be joining you soon, as questioning Mod's judgment is a mortal sin.
The weird thing is, it was my impression that the board was somewhat balanced, and that cdowis and smac (among others) do a great job of responding to critics and giving it as good as they take it.
There have been a few times someone has taken offense to one of my posts and let me know (and frankly, with 5K+ posts, I would kind of expect a few to cut the wrong way), but the majority of comments I get are positive. And anytime someone has expressed offense, I've deleted or altered the post.
I even had a mod warn me yesterday that there were feelings that I should get banned again, but I never learned exactly what I was doing to spur those feelings, so I didn't know what to change. I never would have imagined that doing independent research on a claim (and invitation to "make a case") would be seen as a capital offense.
Curiouser and curiouser.

Edit to add: I now see that I've been accused of attempting to "embarrass" or"shame" LDS scholars. Interesting, since it was Juliann who first introduced the idea that "Maxwell Institute Apologetics" were somehow "mainstream" scholarship, and Meldrum shouldn't be taken seriously because he wasn't toeing the line of "mainstream scholarship".
Juliann:
Then you have no interest in mainstream scholarship...or you are one of those who simply labels whatever he doesn't agree with as "apologetics" to avoid academic pursuit....something I hadn't associated you with prior to your support of a dishonest use of sources.
Cinepro:
Let me get this straight. Are you really referring to contributors to the Maxwell Institute as "mainstream scholars"? If that's the case, the stream of mesoamerican and Egyptian scholarship must be much smaller than I imagined.
Juliann:
Then make your case. Start here:
QUOTE
The following organizations have partnership agreements with FARMS [now Maxwell Institute] :
The Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation
The Vatican Apostolic Library
The Israel Antiquities Authority
The National Library of Naples
The Society of Biblical Literature
The Martin-Buber-Institut für Judaistik in Cologne, Germany
The American Center for Oriental Research, in Amman, Jordan
The Smithsonian Institution
The J. Paul Getty Museum
The Newberry Library
The Library of Congress
The Pontifical Oriental Institute
The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science
The Middle Eastern Texts Initiative includes scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, New York University, the University of Michigan, the University of Cologne in Germany, the University of California at Los Angeles, the State University of New York, Harvard University, the University of Hamburg, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, the American University of Beirut, and other such institutions.
Events to honor the efforts of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative have been held at such locations as the British Library in London, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Embassy of Jordan, the University of Damascus, the University of Jordan, the United Nations, the Embassy of Egypt, and at the Embassy of Kuwait.
Over 300 scholars have written for FARMSj
Noting that Juliann referred to mainstream
scholarship, not
scholars, the question would be whether the views of FARMS contributors are considered "mainstream", obviously the list of references was meant to support the idea. And in the context of the thread, the claim was that "mainstream scholarship" supports the LGT. So the references provided were obviously meant to support the LGT.
Why anyone would be embarrassed to confirm their support for "mainstream scholarship", I don't know... I was, after all, just trying to make a case for the LGT not being "mainstream scholarship".