The Tiers of Apologetics

[_Doctor Scratch]

Scratch very clearly misrepresented me in a thread.

No, I didn't. In fact, you're the one misrepresenting me, here, on this thread.

That's not even up for debate. Other posters recognize it, and Scratch couldn't deny it.

I deny it.

He could have acknowledged that or said, "I made an assumption that was incorrect, but I still think you overreacted to something insignificant," or something like that.

Since when do you get to dictate my responses, Maklelan? Gee, my labeling of you "anal-retentive" and "control freak" is seeming ever more true....

That's absolutely it. He did not even address the fact that he made up the accusation that is the foundation of the entire thread. He could not honestly discourse with me.

What do you want me to say, Mak? Personally, I'm not as fond of the aggressive personal attack as you seem to be. And, I had some other observations I wanted to make. And I made them.

By the way, I asked Scratch to substantiate his accusation that I repeatedly bring up my past in an apologetic manner:

And I did. Simply *two* mentions of the past would constitute "repeatedly." You've done it *at least* three or four times. That's "repeatedly," Mak, unless you now think that you can warp meaning. Did joining the Church give you the power to do that, too?

Strong language, yes, but I made a very clear and very legitimate point that is in no way invalidated by the normal tone of discourse on this board. Scratch's response:

Hi, Maklelan! Really, there's no need to expand your "repeatedly mention[ing] this stuff" beyond this thread or the original. So long as you "repeatedly mentioned" the stuff in those two threads along, then you did, in fact, "repeatedly mention" them.

Frankly, I'm stunned at the anal-retentive attitude you're displaying here. What's so shocking is that you would behaving this way, despite having told us (dare I say....repeatedly?) that you really and truly aren't the sort of hyper-sensitive, anal-retentive person who would contemplate a lawsuit over a messageboard post.

Again, flat refusal to speak honestly. No, my mention of it in that thread from over a year before and the allusion to the accusation here does not constitute "repeatedly mentioning" it

Sure it does. My humble Merriam-Webster's defines "repeatedly" as: "again and again." Since your mentioning of the past has happened "again and again," I'm afraid that I win on this count, my friend. (And, really: this seems such a petty thing to argue over. Why not just admit that, yet, you do enjoy doing missionary work for the Church? And that part of this work utilizes your past and your subsequent reformation---all thanks to the Church? How is that a bad thing, Mak?)


His insult was not only inaccurate (he knows very well I'm not an intellectual coward)[/quote]

I hate to break it to you, Mak, but that is indeed what I think. I've watched you bail out of discussions time and time again, and not once have I been impressed with your seriously pathetic excuses. It seems that when the going gets tough, Maklelan gets going.

I don't care if he insults me, and I don't care if it's particularly poor, but if he can do nothing but insult then I have a problem, and that's why I responded to his post.

That's not true---stop lying, Maklelan! Lol. You responded because you were upset, and thought that you came out looking like an anal-retentive knee-jerk who contemplates the legality of posts on CARM. Frankly, your whiny posts here aren't doing much to spruce up your image, imho.

[_Daniel Peterson]

As I think you've already wisely noticed, Maklelan, there is utterly no point in going down into the black hole of attempting conversation with Scratch.

[_cksalmon]

What do you think it is, cksalmon?

METI is an organization dedicated to publishing three series of works comprising English-language translations of (1) Islamic and (2) Eastern Christian texts as well as (3) the Medical Works of Moses Maimonides.

I'm not suggesting that METI isn't good for BYU/MI. Far from it. I'm suggesting that it is not an apologetic endeavor and that whatever benefits BYU/MI might derive from the consequent prestige and/or goodwill elicited are a matter of secondary importance.

Perhaps I'm less conspiratorial than some, but I find difficult to believe that METI's real, underlying purpose can be understood by reference to (either atop or beneath) the other of Gad's tiers such that it becomes merely a means to some LDS-specific apologetic end.

cks

[_maklelan]

maklelan, you learn fast. It took Dan Peterson a couple years before he learned to ignore debates he couldn't win,

Which debate do you think I cannot win, and did you read any of my post at all? My argument against this silly little 3 Tier thing has yet to be directly engaged, so I find nothing wrong with refusing to bicker about the minutiae of this discussion when it's clear my concerns aren't going to be addressed, but rather swept aside in favor of attempts to win as many tiny insignificant victories as possible with the hope they accumulate to a victory larger than the fundamental argument they've been ignoring.

and focus instead on petty personal attacks as if they were the sum and substance of the arguments against Mormonism.

I don't think you did read any of my post.

Good for you. You'll make a great senior apologist one day.

I guess I'm meant to take offense at this or respond angrily at you, but I really don't understand why you think I care at all about being called an apologist.

[_cksalmon]

There's really no sane reason why the Maxwell Institute, of all things, needs to be publishing METI stuff.

I can't think of a "sane reason" that METI shouldn't publish under the aegis of MI. Your point seems to be that, if METI is not intended to be, at whatever remove, a tool wielded self-servingly to legitimate LDS-specific apologetic goals, then it should not be associated with MI. Is that about right?

I take the same information and conclude that MI is broad enough to include projects that are not specifically apologetic in nature.

And, please note that I have no particular love for FARMS or LDS apologia and don't care to defend it, but I see myself as holding perhaps a less jaundiced view of METI. I rather appreciate METI's aims. But, perhaps I've been snookered and have fallen into precisely the trap Gad's tier system was intended to highlight.

cks

[_maklelan]

No, I didn't. In fact, you're the one misrepresenting me, here, on this thread.

Prove it.

[_cksalmon]

I'm curious how at a minimum Cks doesn't see DCP's habit of announcing these projects on Mormondiscussions.com as a sort of announcement that they are legitimate scholarly work to imply respectability to their apologetics. It screams it precisely in the same way the sandbagging example screamed proselytizing.

But, of course, EA, I haven't ventured an opinion one way or the other about "DCP's habit of announcing these projects* on Mormondiscussions.com as a sort of announcement that they are legitimate scholarly work to imply respectability to their apologetics."

I've limited my comments to Gad's identification of METI as, essentially, an apologetic front whose primary purpose is to elicit respect for LDS-specific apologia.

Those are, of course, two quite separate things.

Your "their" above has no antecedent, a fact about which, I assure you, I generally wouldn't care one whit (given my undeniable proclivity for making grammatical mush in quickly typed posts); in this case, however, it appears to impact your intended meaning. Who are "they?" What is "their" relationship to MI/METI?

cks

*emphasis mine.

[_Daniel Peterson]

There's really no sane reason why the Maxwell Institute, of all things, needs to be publishing METI stuff.

Why on earth shouldn't it?

I launched METI back in the 1990s. I had to do all of the accounting and contracts and payroll and etc. for it. But I was also a member of the board of what was then simply FARMS. So, at a board meeting, I raised the notion that, since FARMS already had an office staff that routinely handled accounting, contracts, payroll, and the like, appending METI to FARMS would substantially simplify my life but add only a marginal increased burden to the lives of the staff of FARMS. The board agreed, and off we went. The arrangement has proven very helpful.

Ultimately, we decided that, since Mormon-related efforts didn't exhaust what the organization did (besides METI, there were our digitizing projects in Guatemala, Jordan, Naples, the Vatican, etc., and our work on databases of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Syriac manuscripts, and our multispectral imaging work on the Herculaneum papyri, and the like), the name FARMS ("Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies") was somewhat misleading or, at least, inadequate. So we created the overall Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, with FARMS as a department within it, and eventually moved to the less clunky name The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

I hope you don't mind, but we've always preferred to define our own mission and priorities. We're funny like that.

[_JohnStuartMill]

maklelan, you learn fast. It took Dan Peterson a couple years before he learned to ignore debates he couldn't win,

Which debate do you think I cannot win

The one in the "A question for Daniel Peterson and like-minded posters." thread. See you there.

[_Doctor Scratch]

No, I didn't. In fact, you're the one misrepresenting me, here, on this thread.

Prove it.

You misrepresented my use of the word "repeatedly." You also misrepresented clear engagement with your truly horrible, silly, evidence-free argument about the supposed "separation" between Tier 1, 2, and 3 apologetics. You also misrepresented my feeling that you are, in fact, an intellectual coward.