Wow, I'm impressed that Volgadon is standing his ground:
Volgadon wrote:
William Schryver wrote:By the way, have you read Dan Peterson's MT column? What did you think about it?
Yes, I had read it. I think he has written better columns in the past.
He's going to wind up on the "black list," alongside other "fifth columnists" like LoaP and Brian Hauglid.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Will Schryver as Gospel Doctrine teacher is more than enough reason to avoid Sunday School altogether.
And Cinepro's right.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
Why have DCP and William Schryver not been disciplined by Church leadership? At this point, these two are in open rebellion against the LDS leadership. I cannot fathom how many members and prospective members the Peterson/Schryver posse have led astray.
Kevin Graham wrote:Could someone please post cinepro's response?
Thanks in advance.
cinepro wrote:Based on some things I've recently read, I suspect such people would try to gain positions in the Church where they could influence the thinking of others, such as teaching, and then look for opportunities to go off-manual and inject their own "gospel hobbies" and spin on things.
To be most effective, they would have to couch their teachings in scripture, so that's the first thing I would look for.
You know the more I read the arguments from this school of thought, the more I'm reminded of the kinds of thinking and rationales used by Evangelicals who see Mormonism as one big false religion foretold in scripture, i.e. false prophets, false Gospels, etc.
In both cases you have a group of people basing their bigotry on a narrow interpretation of scripture.
So how can Dan or anyone else at NAMIR ever claim the Church is tolerant towards former members? You can't claim tolerance while at the same time constantly look down on them with such suspicion as if we're all a bunch of insidious wolves. In their view, we're all potential wolves in sheep's clothing and if any of the sheep commiserate with dissidents, then they should be treated as potential apostates just the same. Dan has no apologetic defense for the so-called "lies and deceptions" coming from these "wolves" so all he can do is scare people away from us by convincing them we're wolves simply because we're vocally opposed to the Church's deceptions.
All those scriptures and conference talks about unconditional love must take the back seat to their personalized interpretation/application of the McCarthyesque scriptures about how the tribe is constantly being attacked by evil and "secret" forces. So if this is their world view, where exactly is there room for tolerance towards ex-Mormons? It seems there is no room at all. Could you imagine the outrageous Dan would express if someone said Muslims were wolves in sheep's clothing? They follow a religion that flat out rejects the atonement of Christ, even his crucifixion, but Dan has room to accept them as brothers because they're part of an Abrahamic faith, and he even has room to consider Muhammed a true Prophet of God using the most convoluted reasoning.
Ultimately it seems Dan and Will think it is more important to live in fear and anoint themselves as protectors of their local tribes by coming up with these whacked out "they're coming to get you" scenarios, than it is to follow the commandments of Christ. You know, commandments like loving your neighbor unconditionally, not judging, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, etc. If they've abandoned so many fundamental teachings of Christ, then I have to become more sympathetic to those Evangelicals who consider them unChristian.
Another point I'd like to make is an important one. William and Dan want to determine the wolves based on nothing more than the fact that they disagree with their apologetics. But what about "by their fruits you shall know them?" Isn't that something we are constantly told by LDS missionaries and LDS leaders? William and Dan think they can identify wolves based on their degree of loyalty, but they ignore the whole "fruits" aspect, and in this case we're talking about honesty. William keeps asserting that people are dragging people away from their tribe by lying to them, but the fact is William is a compulsive liar. Every year I find more and more people leaving MAD to come over here after they've left the fold, and nowhere can William or Dan point to "lies" that were told to get them to leave.
Case in point, the Book of Abraham. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and there wasn't a single "lie" involved from the critics. Instead, I got tons of lies from people like John Gee and William Schryver. If I were a devout Christian, then I'd have to conclude immediately that these "fruits" prove that it is they who are being deceptive and leading spiritual people down a dangerous ideological road. Not the other way around.
Of course I'm always willing to debate and prove the fact that William and his apologist buddies flat out lie on these matters, but they do not have the integrity to face criticism, and have to hide out at MAD where the mods instaban people for pointing out their dishonesty.
Probably John Dehlin, if I had to guess. This is probably a set-up for whatever version of Greg Smith's "hit piece" winds up in the Review.
I had another person in mind too. Quinn?
when believers want to give their claims more weight, they dress these claims up in scientific terms. When believers want to belittle atheism or secular humanism, they call it a "religion". -Beastie
yesterday's Mormon doctrine is today's Mormon folklore.-Buffalo
Doctor Scratch wrote:Wow, I'm impressed that Volgadon is standing his ground: ... He's going to wind up on the "black list," alongside other "fifth columnists" like LoaP and Brian Hauglid.
Volgadon is an awesome fellow. Any group that loses his voice, just plain loses.
"In my more rebellious days I tried to doubt the existence of the sacred, but the universe kept dancing and life kept writing poetry across my life." ~ David N. Elkins, 1998, Beyond Religion, p. 81
Vlogadon wrote:You are not Alma nor should you call on people to be Alma.
Vlog is a good guy.
ETA: Will can't exeget scripture to save his sorry ass.
I agree. Frankly, this is pretty scary stuff all around. I have a certain sympathy for the desire to hold to standards and not cave in to the latest fashions, etc., but I really part ways with Daniel Peterson at the point where he implicitly advocates a creepy new McCarthyism in the LDS Church:
Daniel Peterson wrote:This wasn't just a falling or a drifting away. It was a knowing, conscious revolt. But it was also clandestine, surreptitious, sneaky. Alma "did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church" (27:10). It's very doubtful, though, that they would have openly admitted that their goal was "to destroy the church." Perhaps they wouldn't even have admitted it to themselves.
Look at what he is saying: these people consciously revolt, but they are sneaky, so sneaky in fact that they might not be able to admit their revolt to themselves.
Uh, what? Hold on just a sec there, pard. Either they are consciously rebelling or they are simply confused; they are not unconsciously devious. This is the kind of language that truly breeds Inquisitions, where you draw the conclusion that your enemy is under the influence of an evil so subtle that the only way you can disabuse him of his folly is by aggressively pushing him in some way, say by ecclesiastical discipline or, dare I say, torture.
No one should want to take any credit for cooking up this disturbing nonsense.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist