John Dehlin and the Open Stories Foundation Board wrote:Mediation talks with the LDS Church have ended with no agreement being reached. We cooperatively addressed every one of their reasonable requests — even prior to mediation. In the end, the Church’s demands were just too unreasonable and we walked away. I don’t know if the Church will actually pursue any formal legal action. We don’t think they have any legitimate claims, and we are prepared to fight if that ends up being the case. We are not willing to be bullied into allowing the Church to micromanage our organization and interfere with our mission.
I am curious as to what sort of demands the church was making. Why is that a mystery?
Well it might be covered by an NDA that may have been signed as part of entering into the mediation. I doubt the Church would want it's approach laid open to public scrutiny.
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
I'm guessing they wanted him to stop using Mormon in Mormon Stories. Maybe legally they might have had more of a case to hit JD when he started to get traction and defend it, but perhaps they saw it as too costly to really police it, and then that there are plenty of "Mormon" sects and stuff. So instead the bright minds in the CoB decided to try and flood the zone with positive LDS things around the word, like "I'm a Mormon".
The problem is that now cause of Nelson's pet peeve and being the longest serving apostle so he got the top spot that not only can JD show the church effectively abandoned the trademark by not defending it more their president actively rejected it. You can't put that genie back in the bottle, the US courts don't care that the living prophet is the only one you are supposed to listen to, Nelson has ruined any chance they had to hold onto it. Sure it will cost JD money if it is litigated, but it's pretty much slam dunk.
Indeed I think since it is set to expire soon this was more a last try and showing they haven't completely abandoned it enough for them to get a renewal approved.
