A New Smear Piece in "Mormon Interpreter"

[_Kishkumen]

Sometimes even you do it.

Tu quoque nonsense duly ignored.

Well I'm offering counter-criticisms of that. You okay if I speak my mind? Or are you going to tell me to "b****r off" too?

Counter-criticisms of what? My historical anecdote? What are you talking about exactly?

What you are not doing is rebutting the specific criticisms that Gadianton made, because you know you can't. And really, this is the pertinent issue. Ms. Hedelius can say whatever she wants about her intentions or tone, but it is blatantly obvious that she misrepresented what Jackson wrote.

As for the final impertinent and ridiculous question you posed: Ray, Jeffrey Dahmer killed people; are you going to try to kill me too?

I'm going to rant a bit.

I absolutely detest this type of approach to apologetics....

And for hell's sake, if you have the guts to write a review of an author's book then have the balls/ovaries to debate the author and defend your position. To avoid such a debate is cowardly....

Read the work of Givens, Bowman, Bushman and Flake. Do what they do. Please. Like it or not you have put yourselves out as representatives of Mormonism. Well, right now you are making us Mormons look like complete douche bags.

That's a very well balanced, objective and compassionate reply. Seth doesn't practice what he's calling for. "Ranting" isn't very productive if one wishes to correct or improve approaches to apologetics, and someone who holds a different (sometimes more orthodox) view isn't necessarily a "douchebag". They just have different opinions, beliefs, and approaches to apologetics.

I think it was a very compassionate reply. Sethpayne has lots of compassion for people whose work is deliberately misrepresented in bad apologetic writing and the members who are misinformed and misled thereby. I think Jackson's response to Hedelius was spot-on, and I believe that every criticism of Hedelius' review has been essentially just. By falsely attributing certain positions to Jackson, positions that are stereotypical of anti-Mormon literature but not representative of what Jackson actually wrote, Hedelius impugned her own credibility, but it does take the kind of diligence that Gadianton exercised to point that out. I think he is to be praised for doing so.

Oh, and I fully endorse sethpayne's reaction to bad apologetic writing. Hedelius' piece was bad apologetic writing. This is not a criticism against all apologetic writing by any means. It is a criticism of a particular piece of writing that is seriously flawed.

I've read her article, and I don't agree with you.

Yes, you don't agree with me, and yet you have nothing to say about her deliberate distortions of Jackson, which Gadianton pointed out. So, until you can rebut those observations, I am not all that concerned about your other impressions regarding her piece.

[_3sheets2thewind]

Good critics engage in good scholarship.

Did Jesus engage in "scholarship" with the scribes and Pharisees? Oh yeah, I can just see it. Jesus' "problem" was that he could see pretentiousness and hypocrisy a mile off.

Good God!

Are you now putting mopologists on the same pedestal as the Only Begotten of God the Eternal Father?
Are you now putting mopologist on the same pedestal as the Saviour of the World?
Are you now putting mopologist on the same pedestal as Member of the Godhead?
Is there no end to the self importance of mopologist.

Yes, Jesus (a Member of the God Head, whose will is that of the Fathers), acted in a certain way towards Pharisess and Scribes.

And who were the Pharisees and Scribes, they were people who ordained themselves are the arbiters and defenders of the true Religion of God (at the time the true religion of God was the Law of Moses,presently it is the LDS Faith.) The Pharisees of Old as the FAIRisees of new, lift up themselves in their own self-righteous due to their membership in a religious organization.

Call me naïve but I think I can find it in myself to understand that a Member of the Godhead - My Saviour even - treated a very specific group people a certain way.

I really can't believe you would try and defend mopologist by way of how Jesus treated scribes and pharisees.....the Scribes and Pharisees were the mopologists of their day.

[_RayAgostini]

Yes, you don't agree with me, and yet you have nothing to say about her deliberate distortions of Jackson, which Gadianton pointed out. So, until you can rebut those observations, I am not all that concerned about your other impressions regarding her piece.

I'm not interested in taking the back-slapping, self-congratulatory Cassius fan club very seriously. The Dorothy-Dixers and amens ache after a while.

for what it's worth, I will make one comment. Gadianton wrote:

McConkie's and Robinson's books are among the best out there for discovering what Mormonism teaches. Jackson clearly went out of his way to get the best explanations of Mormonism as published by Mormons themselves.

The "best explanations of Mormonism"?

"Bruce R. McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine" An Embarrassment to the LDS Church and Officially Repudiated"

But in any case, back to your echo-chamber.

[_Kishkumen]

I'm not interested in taking the back-slapping, self-congratulatory Cassius fan club very seriously. The Dorothy-Dixers and amens ache after a while.

Thanks for admitting that you have nothing. Gadianton provided specific evidence of material Hedelius deliberately ignored that seriously undermines her distorted representation of Jackson's book. All you can do in response is offer insults. You can't rebut the evidence.

You fail.

Oh, and it does no credit to your defense of Hedelius that you are incapable of doing so substantively. You would have been better off not saying anything.

[_RockSlider]

The "best explanations of Mormonism"?
"Bruce R. McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine" An Embarrassment to the LDS Church and Officially Repudiated"

Where I grew up and was raised Mormon (Wasatch Front), BRM's Mormon doctrine was on evey family in the wards book shelf, in every ward I was ever in.

Apparently the GA's never got the word out that members should not be using this book as one of their main source's for their lessons.

[_Cicero]

Where I grew up and was raised Mormon (Wasatch Front), BRM's Mormon doctrine was on evey family in the wards book shelf, in every ward I was ever in.

Ditto, it was also easily the most quoted book in talks, lessons and seminary.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I honestly don't see how Ray A can be taken seriously. He's basically defending things like "Metcalfe is Butthead," or Louis Midgley's attempts to get Rod Meldrum's book pulled from the shelves of Deseret Book, or Dan Peterson calling Will Bagley a "venomous gasbag," as being instances where the Mopologists "just have different opinions, beliefs, and approaches to apologetics." This kind of behavior is clearly endemic to this group of people, and the mindset behind it clearly had a role in shaping the article under discussion. Furthermore, Ray seems to have no real defense for the Hedelius piece, which is riddled with stale Mopologetic cliches and accusations, and contains serious distortions and misrepresentations. If this really is just a case of everyone having a difference of opinion, then Ray's yapping is all pretty much a moot point: Seth calling the Mopologists "douche bags" is every bit as valid as Dan Peterson calling Ron Priddis a "sodomite."

[_zeezrom]

I don't have time to read any of this thread but just came in here to say hi to Dr. Scratch. Hi Doctor. It's been a while since we've interacted and I hope all is well with you these days. I hope you are still having fun talking to all your intel sources about FAIR dudes.

Zee.

[_RayAgostini]

Where I grew up and was raised Mormon (Wasatch Front), BRM's Mormon doctrine was on evey family in the wards book shelf, in every ward I was ever in.

Apparently the GA's never got the word out that members should not be using this book as one of their main source's for their lessons.

I'm aware of that, although after only a short while in the Church I was warned by a perceptive member to "be wary of Mormon Doctrine". Initially that warning puzzled me, but I later learned why he was right. There have always been Mormon Doctrine skeptics in the Church, beginning with the GAs themselves. It was not even supposed to go to a second edition, and the references to that are in Steve Benson's article.

Aristotle also quoted this from Philip Barlow:

As with his father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith, the scriptures to McConkie were "everything." He relied on his own understanding of them, he said, as mediated by the Holy Spirit. He was dramatically independent and, with few exceptions, he seldom researched what other church leaders had said about a given passage.

I no longer have a copy of Barlow's Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion, but it's worth a read, and it's certainly a more informative read than Mormon Doctrine.

[_MCB]

Who is Ron Priddis?

http://web.archive.org/web/200701290536 ... der's4.htm


OH!! A review of FARMS Review.