Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
Post Reply
_stemelbow
_Emeritus
Posts: 5872
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:40 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _stemelbow »

zeezrom wrote:Hold on. Are you saying Stak and Scratch are hostile? Do you mean unfriendly? Where did that come from?


Sure. They both come off as very hostile overall. They aren't the only regulars here who come off as hostile people. I"m sure they aren't hostile to you, though. So I get your confusion.
Love ya tons,
Stem


I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
_Droopy
_Emeritus
Posts: 9826
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 4:06 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Droopy »

gramps wrote:You are a Mormon hippie?

Can such a thing actually exist?




Apparently you've never spent very much time at the Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Board. The fundamental problem at FAIR, as things now stand, however, isn't the presence of any "Mormon hippies," but that is now the home of a small group of (rather intolerant) "neo-orthodox" intellectuals for whom it has become, less an organization dedicated to apologetics (defending the church and its teachings from critics and articulating the doctrines and teachings of the church in an intellectually serious, scholarly, and faithful manner) and more a place around which liberal, avant garde LDS intellectuals can discuss and promote their own personal perspectives regarding LDS doctrine, church historical issues, concerns such as the origin and meaning of the KEP, and positions on the intersection of the gospel/church and politics (from an almost uniformly secularist influenced, leftish standpoint).

Much of what goes on there isn't about "apologetics" per se, but about apologetics within the scope of the articulation and defense of their own private doctrinal, philosophical, and political positions and interpretations of doctrine/scripture. One example is the development of what appears to be a small coalition of LDS intellectuals dedicated (against Nibley, Royal Skousen, Will Schryver, and other sundry apologists (and against the Church itself)) around the proposition that the Book of Abraham is the production of Joseph Smith's imagination, centered in the 19th century, and that the KEP is important to that production, taking, essentially, the position of both the EV and secular critics of the Church for several decades, but modifying this by claiming (following Hutchinson on the Book of Mormon) that it can, nonetheless, still be understood in some sense as "inspired fiction."

Other themes that have appeared on the message board over the last few years among members who present themselves, overall, as friendly to the Church, if not "faithful" members, and which the vast majority of "chapel Mormons" (I use the term for the sake of taxonomic brevity) generally, would not recognize as ideas held by "faithful" or "believing" LDS, is the United-Order-is-socialism meme, fixations on Heavenly Mother (as seen here as well), an anti-intelligent design animus and strident allegiance to strict Darwinian reductionism (odd, it would seem, given Church doctrine here and the ease with which a synthesis between the requirement of God's creative activity and evolutionary development per se can be understood), a preoccupation (and a rather narrow, academically arcane one) with placing any and all scriptural works claimed to have ancient origins within a 19th century setting, an equally strident (and mod protected) animus against individualism, free market economics, conservative precepts on social issues, and the coincidence of LDS teachings and conservative political/social concepts generally; an ongoing project aimed at synthesizing postmodern ideas and the church (one of Juliann's pet projects, but something that interests others as well), and a strong sensitivity to any criticism of feminism and its general view of the relations between men and woman.

But by far the worst corruption that has seeped into FAIR and its message board of late is the sheepishness, reticence, and unwillingness of its moderators and intellectual leadership to act like adults and talk seriously about present racial issues across the culture broadly speaking, and within the church specifically (and Bro. Smith has been right at the center of that retreat from actual apologetics (defending the Church) for quite sometime). The intellectual intolerance of the FAIR mods and leadership here, in respecting long held and mainstream conservative/libertarian views on racial issues and their negotiation has become all but visceral, and can only be understood as a capitulation to the fashionable political correctness that dominates the academic world from which these people have come and have spent much of their lives.

Some clearly came out of modern academic unscathed, if battle scarred. Others, however, appear, like David Bokovoy, to have drunk deeply from the well of fashionable academic leftism and come away, like the Alexandrian-trained church doctors of old, with a greater fealty and concern for the ideologies and philosophies of their generation and the academic milieu in which they are embedded, than with the teachings and principles of the gospel as they have been revealed and taught by the Brethren and with an overwhelming desire to create a syncretic fusion of the church with certain of the reigning politically correct ideas and beliefs of their generation (while at the same time marginalizing and labeling as "reactionary" and intellectually primitive/uneducated anyone who dares oppose them and actually do apologetics - defend the Church).

This project of reaching an accommodation with secular modernity and the "political correctness" that functions as its regnant philosophical/political/social orthodoxy, is well represented on the MDDB, and indeed defines the concept of "New Order," "reform" or "neo-orthodox" Mormonism and its primary concerns.
Last edited by Guest on Mon May 07, 2012 4:36 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us

- President Ezra Taft Benson


I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

- Thomas Sowell
_stemelbow
_Emeritus
Posts: 5872
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:40 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _stemelbow »

Jeremy,

and that was it. I didn't think it was some big statement, or a shrill demand for censorship; I didn't even request that the mods take the link down on my behalf, though upon rereading I can understand how my email might have been read as such a request.


I wouldn't sweat it at all. Stak is a bit of a bully. He's just trying to get your goat, so to speak. I think you've handled yourself very well, and its very wise not to post or read here. It's their game. They'll happily claim victory in almost anything for whatever reason.
Love ya tons,
Stem


I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
_Buffalo
_Emeritus
Posts: 12064
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:33 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Buffalo »

Jeremy seems like a nice person. There are so many unpleasant people at MAD. Why focus on one of the few nice ones?
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_stemelbow
_Emeritus
Posts: 5872
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:40 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _stemelbow »

Buffalo wrote:Jeremy seems like a nice person. There are so many unpleasant people at MAD. Why focus on one of the few nice ones?


Indeed. Nice folks there, just like here, are hard to come by. Well, they're much harder to come by here, but that's neither here or there.
Love ya tons,
Stem


I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
_Blixa
_Emeritus
Posts: 8381
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:45 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Blixa »

Lol. I wish I could give our Ancient Astronaut a handful of rep points for provoking that fustian bibble babble from Lord Kinbote.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
_Droopy
_Emeritus
Posts: 9826
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 4:06 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Droopy »

If I didn't make myself clear enough in the above post, it is simply that the Church of David Bokovoy, The Church of Jeremy Smith, the Church of Joanna Brooks, or the Church of Loyd Ericson, would not look at all - or hold to the same core truth claims - as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and that church, under those conditions, would effectively cease to exist.

Which, after all, is the very point, isn't it?
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us

- President Ezra Taft Benson


I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

- Thomas Sowell
_Buffalo
_Emeritus
Posts: 12064
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:33 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Buffalo »

stemelbow wrote:
Buffalo wrote:Jeremy seems like a nice person. There are so many unpleasant people at MAD. Why focus on one of the few nice ones?


Indeed. Nice folks there, just like here, are hard to come by. Well, they're much harder to come by here, but that's neither here or there.


Why do you always have to be so negative? :sad:
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_Buffalo
_Emeritus
Posts: 12064
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:33 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Buffalo »

Droopy wrote:If I didn't make myself clear enough in the above post, it is simply that the Church of David Bokovoy, The Church of Jeremy Smith, the Church of Joanna Brooks, or the Church of Loyd Ericson, would not look at all - or hold to the same core truth claims - as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and that church, under those conditions, would effectively cease to exist.

Which, after all, is the very point, isn't it?


Does it bother you that Joanna Brooks is featured on MST?
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_Droopy
_Emeritus
Posts: 9826
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 4:06 pm

Re: Who is Jeremy Orbe Smith...

Post by _Droopy »

The problem isn't that you use elevated language, the problem is that you do it amateurishly and for the purposes of appearing pedantic. Also, holy redundancy, Batman.


At your 7th - 8th grade reading and literary composition level, I doubt very much that you even know what "elevated language" is. In any case, I'm not going to respond to any of your usual smarmy intellectual vacuities, but just wanted to let you know I was aware that you were still indulging yourself in them.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us

- President Ezra Taft Benson


I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

- Thomas Sowell
Post Reply