FIRM Exults in "Firing" of Heartland Model Critics

[_Pahoran]

Hello Pahoran,

I think even you would heartily admit that "scholarly circles" do not the Church membership make.

No, but at least they do include actual believing Latter-day Saints, and not mere pious poseurs.

Also, I sincerely hope you are joking when you say that the "US=centric Heartland model" is a "recent innovation". Because if you are serious, then I will smile and slowly back away until I reach the door and then run for my life to escape the crazy.

So anyone who has a different view of the history of ideas than you is "crazy."

Got it.

Regards,
Pahoran

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Also, I sincerely hope you are joking when you say that the "US=centric Heartland model" is a "recent innovation". Because if you are serious, then I will smile and slowly back away until I reach the door and then run for my life to escape the crazy.

So anyone who has a different view of the history of ideas than you is "crazy."

Hello Pahoran,

Anyone who has a different view of history than me is certainly not crazy. Someone with a different view of REALITY is probably crazy. Anyone with a basic knowledge of Church history knows the "Heartland Model" is not a "recent innovation" as you assert. Such a position is just plain crazy and not grounded in reality.

(Wang Chung, smiles a big smile and slowly backs up to Pahoran's door, then runs for dear life away from crazy.)

Very truly yours,

Wang

[_Kishkumen]

Anyone with a basic knowledge of Church history knows the "Heartland Model" is not a "recent innovation" as you assert.

I don't see how anyone could think that the idea the Book of Mormon took place in North America is some kind of recent innovation.

[_Markk]

I appear to have missed this, but Rodney Meldrum has helpfully informed all interested parties that Maxwell Institute has "fired" the main proponents of the LGT:

http://www.firmlds.org/feature.php?id=24

BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (MI) made a profound change in direction when, on Thursday, June 14th, 2012, Executive Director M. Gerald Bradford fired Daniel C. Peterson, a founder of FARMS (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies) and long time advocate of Mesoamerican theories, along with his editorial staff. Director Bradford cited a desire to “take the Review (Mormon Studies Review, formerly FARMS Review) in a different direction.” The “shake-up” involves several of the most ardent critics of the Heartland Model Geography research.

This is yet more evidence in favor of Dean Robbers's claim that the LGT has effectively been "abandoned" by the Mopologetic hard-liners. Then again, I wonder if we might read this development as indication that LGT was being "suppressed" from the inside? In any case, you can practically sense the Meldrum camp's jubilation over these developments.

Does this mean that North is actually North again. The next submissions by the new gaurd will be tapirs and deer were not rode into war, and we can actually know what a sword looks like.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Hello Pahoran,

I am going to have to issue you a CFR for your unique assertion that the Heartland Model is a "recent innovation".

I look forward with much anticipation to your response to my CFR.

Very truly yours,

Wang Chung

[_Infymus]

Rodney Meldrum is a quack. A couple of weeks ago he was at a Utah Costco peddling his easily debunked book "DNA Evidence Of The Book of Mormon". His books and DVDS and posters around him all have pics of Guatemalan ancient temple ruins.

Rodney is selling nothing but snake oil and Mormons buy it up and then immediately put it on the shelf.

[_sock puppet]

some form of Mesoamerican LGT has been the dominant view in LDS scholarly circles since 1950 at the latest.

The most common "folklore" view has always been the "hemispheric" model. The silly, parochial, US-centric "Heartland" model is a recent innovation.

But the Lilliputian model on a footprint the size of an ever shrinking football field is the only one that can withstand scrutiny under today's science and technology. Give another 10 years of development, and even the Lilliputian model goes 'poof'.

[_sock puppet]

Rodney Meldrum is a quack. A couple of weeks ago he was at a Utah Costco peddling his easily debunked book "DNA Evidence Of The Book of Mormon". His books and DVDS and posters around him all have pics of Guatemalan ancient temple ruins.

Rodney is selling nothing but snake oil and Mormons buy it up and then immediately put it on the shelf.

Or, Deseret Book sells nothing but snake oil and Mormons buy them up and then immediately put them on the shelf.

[_Infymus]

Thing for me is that I never knew there was an LGT or any thought of an LGT until I ran into the Mormon Apologists.

When I was full TBM, the Book of Mormon, the D&C, the HOTC, JOD - and all the propaganda material I had my hands on squarely stated that the Hill Cummorah was located in Manchester, New York. It was the final resting place of the golden plates. It was the final location of one of the greatest battles on the North American continent. It is where Mormon buried the records. It is where the stone box was that Joseph lifted the plates out of.

In the text of the Book of Mormon, "Cumorah" is a hill located in a land of the same name, which is "a land of many waters, rivers and fountains".[7] In this hill Book of Mormon figure Mormon deposited a number of metal plates containing the record of his nation of Nephites,[8] just prior to their final battle with the Lamanites in which at least 230,000 people were killed.

Mormon Apologists like Meldrum teach a different version of Mormonism than his so-called Apostles do. All they do is serve to confuse Mormons even more and open up more questions - leading them to sites like mine.

[_Infymus]

Or, Deseret Book sells nothing but snake oil and Mormons buy them up and then immediately put them on the shelf.

I know, and I was one of those gullible Mormons who worked downtown and spent a lot of time AND money in that store. And when I left in 2001, I believe I gave away at least 12 or 15 boxes of books (except Kimball's two atrocious rags).