Apostasy's A Bummer

[_Doctor Scratch]

Will Schryver should avoid you like the plague, Loran. I don't know why he sends PMs to you. I thought he wanted to help his own reputation.

[_Kevin Graham]

Outside of BYU there is.

No there isn't. The LDS pov can get you blacklisted from many graduate schools or tenure. Same goes for a conservative pov. Conservative speakers often can't give a speech at many universities without interruption or violence etc. The world of academia is no longer academic. Same goes for journalism.

What "LDS POV" are you talking about? LDS scholars love to boast about how their scholarship is accepted at other institutions of higher learning. Yale loves the Mormon folks, hires Mormon professors and even hosts their Institute program. Brandeis and Claremont are a coupld of others that come to mind, but I cannot think of any schools outside the Evangelical seminary type, that does any "blacklisting" to Mormons.

Sounds like yet another myth created to support the imagined persecution of Mormons.

Conservative commentators appear at Universities on a weekly basis without protest or violence. Only the truly controversial ones, like Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter (who have no business speaking as authorities anyway) or Daniel Pipes, get a rise out of folks. But rarely in these cases is "violence" involved. In fact, Newt Gingrich actually taught one of my Political Science classes back in 1989. Not a single shot was fired.

Come to think of it, virtually every School in the State of Georgia is overwhelmingly Conservative. Neal Boortz actually spoke at Kennesaw State University and he had the freedom to bad-mouth public education. Seriously. His speech was broadcast on his radio show as he spoke to a large audience of students on campus, and he flat out told them that they were being indoctrinated by a liberal government institution. That same institution invited him to return in the future. He was met with a roaring applause before and after his lecture.

So you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

[_Kevin Graham]

Will Schryver should avoid you like the plague, Loran. I don't know why he sends PMs to you. I thought he wanted to help his own reputation.

LOL!

What ever gave you that idea?

I don't think William cares much at all about his reputation, whatever that may be.

[_Carton]

I'm going to hazard based on tacit agreement that he's more conservative and anti-Muslim than you think. His current Church associated employment prevents him from expressly speaking his mind, when he's posting as DCP that is.

I really don't know what his views on Islam are, to any degree. A question did arise in my mind in the interview he did in which he states that he didn't feel free to criticize some aspects of Islam openly because, as I recall, he wished continued access to certain people and institutions relative to his scholarly interests. I can also understand that there may be some church related cautions involved.

Whoa! He said this? Really?

If true, I think this is a very revealing thing for him to say since it shows he is willing to be disingenuous and/or deceitful by design. It makes you wonder if he does this kind of thing with more than just his public statements about Islam.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Will Schryver should avoid you like the plague, Loran. I don't know why he sends PMs to you. I thought he wanted to help his own reputation.

LOL!

What ever gave you that idea?

I don't think William cares much at all about his reputation, whatever that may be.

Heh. Well, maybe so. But still: Loran is trying to play it as if he's got some bonafide apologetic "source," even though he's already admitted to us that it's Schryver. Hardly authoritative.

[Guest]

Droopy, the fact that Don has left the Church and then came back, and still disagrees with your attitude towards "apostates," is further evidence that you are simply out of touch.

With what, Don Bradley, the Church, or apostasy qua apostasy?

Don't presume that just because DOn came back, that he in any way agrees with you on this. He and other LDS folks like Bokovoy and Hauglid are among the few who actually "get it." No wonder you can't stand them.

Agree with me on what? "Get it" about what?

They have more insight into what goes on in the mind of an apostate than you ever will.

Well, as I have never been an apostate, I would have to agree with you there.

All you ever do is judge, and you do so based on what the Church tells you to think about us.

Who is "us" Kevin? Should Don be understood as a "faithful" member, and fully committed to the teachings of the Church and following the Brethren since his return, or are there still strong reservations, on some core doctrines/conceptions, that would place him, in a sense, in an avant garde or idiosyncratic position as to doctrine and philosophy?

As I told Don today, I truly wish the Church were true. But it isn't. It is really that simple. All this psychobabble about why people leave the Church is just crap Mormons say to make themselves feel better about the fact that others have taken an intellectual path and it led them out of the Church.

Seeing you venting your internal psychological conflicts and unresolved childhood developmental fixations is not what I'm interested in, Kevin.

I don;t know the details of Don's apostasy, why he left, or why he returned. You can ask him if you like, though I doubt you will. The point is Don and others are in a better position to speak on the apostate's psyche, and they clearly disagree with you are your ilk.

This is what you said:

That;s one of the things we discusses today during lunch. Don Bradley is one LDS member who actually gets it. Most "apostates" are folks who are genuine in their gripes. Many of them still want the Church to be true. I know I do.

All I wanted was an elucidation of your meaning here. Is Don one of these who believes his problems with the Church are legitimate, and does he see places where the Church is not true (true here, but not there), or has he matured beyond this point?

That's all I was asking.

According to you, we're all just a bunch of disgruntled people who are driven by hate.

You are driven by hate, sour grapes, and a crippling narcissism, but I've never said anything about all those who leave the church as a group. Far from it. You're from the Philastus Hurlbut, Ed Decker, Sonja Johnson wing of the apostate demographic; you still know the church is true at some level, and that knowledge has "seared your conscience as with a hot iron," and left you with a kind of lingering madness in which you have nowhere to go but repentance or all out hostility toward the Church and everything it stands for and approves of, combined with an evangelical mission to convert others out of the church and to your own perspective.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and those in the Church who actually take the time to get to know us, can testify to this. But that would require a Christian heart and desire to understand. Something which you, and the Church as a whole, sorely lacks.

Thanks for substantiating precisely my points above.

[_Droopy]

Yes. There really is no such thing as academic freedom, even here in the USA.

Outside of BYU there is.

Yeah, in some places, like Hillsdale and a few other islands in the sea of intellectual conformity and philosophical repression that is the contemporary American university, but rare they are indeed.

[_Droopy]

Will Schryver should avoid you like the plague, Loran. I don't know why he sends PMs to you. I thought he wanted to help his own reputation.

While I'm not going to mention who it is, you being concerned about reputation is about as rich as ripe as it gets.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Will Schryver should avoid you like the plague, Loran. I don't know why he sends PMs to you. I thought he wanted to help his own reputation.

While I'm not going to mention who it is, you being concerned about reputation is about as rich as ripe as it gets.

You don't have to mention who it is. I already know.

[_Droopy]

Whoa! He said this? Really?

If true, I think this is a very revealing thing for him to say since it shows he is willing to be disingenuous and/or deceitful by design. It makes you wonder if he does this kind of thing with more than just his public statements about Islam.

I think bc already spoke to this. You also apparently missed my statement above regarding his belief that Islam is in dire need of a thorough reformation.