Interpreter celebrates 10 years of real evidence and cogent argument

[drumdude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYXimcu-tM

Interpreter gives us what people are hungering for, which is actual arguments that are accessible and understood and can take the simple truths we know from the gospel and put them alongside the evidence in the real world.

On Saturday, 17 September 2022, we held a special tenth-birthday party for the Interpreter Foundation at the Riverside Country Club in Provo. Invited guests included Foundation volunteers and major donors.

Unfortunately, limitations of space and budget precluded us from inviting everybody who has stepped forward to support and advance the work of the Foundation. So we’re now making video recordings of the event freely accessible to all who might be interested. A playlist of the three videos is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXd0wT ... FD8LJXcg9Z and they are also embedded below.

The recordings fall into three distinct parts:

In Part One, Rex Kocherhans opens the evening’s program with an unaccompanied vocal rendition of the song “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” He sings it in the melody that Elder John Taylor used in Carthage Jail in June of 1844, just prior to the mob attack that severely wounded him and took the lives of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. That melody differs somewhat from the tune that we typically sing today. Part One lasts approximately five and a half minutes (5:28). https://youtu.be/LsXd0wT8bA0

The next part (which is entitled “Happy 10th Anniversary, Interpreter Foundation!”) is the film that was shown to those in attendance at the party. Altogether, it runs somewhat less than nineteen minutes (18:37). The first portion of the video offers a collage of photographs of Interpreter volunteers. At 3:38, Dr. Kyler Rasmussen tells how he became involved with Interpreter and explains something of what the Foundation means to him. While he speaks, images on the screen give an overview of Interpreter’s accomplishments to date. Finally, at approximately 8:42, the third and closing portion of Part Two begins. It is devoted to the Interpreter Foundation’s past and future film projects. https://youtu.be/fhYXimcu-tM

Part Three, which runs 40:13, is a recording of the generous remarks that were given that evening by Elder Robert C. Gay, an emeritus General Authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whose last assignment was to serve as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy. and on the board of trustees of the Church Educational System. https://youtu.be/phQrqahpf4w

On behalf of the leadership of the Interpreter Foundation, I want to express my gratitude once again to all of those who have made the work of the Foundation possible

Sincerely,
Dan Peterson

It's a bit odd, I've skimmed through the talks and I don't see anywhere a single endorsement of Interpreter. By a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Even after 10 years, they can't be bothered to show up and give Daniel a public pat on the back?

[IHAQ]

Interpreter gives us what people are hungering for, which is actual arguments that are accessible and understood and can take the simple truths we know from the gospel and put them alongside the evidence in the real world.

When apologists say stuff like this I don’t think they understand that they are tacitly criticising Church Leaders for failing to give the members what they need. It’s actually a statement of arrogance.

[Moksha]

I'm glad there was no sticking pins in a Maxwell Institute doll ceremony.

[Analytics]

"I really take Interpreter to be a bit of an antidote to what the rest of the world currently has to offer in terms of intellectual discussion."

Kyle Rasmussen, 6:36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYXimcu-tM

[Everybody Wang Chung]

"I really take Interpreter to be a bit of an antidote to what the rest of the world currently has to offer in terms of intellectual discussion."

Kyle Rasmussen, 6:36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYXimcu-tM

[Tom]

There was another emeritus general authority who spoke at the Interpreter Foundation’s tenth-birthday celebration, but, unfortunately, his remarkable address was not captured on camera. You see, there was much boasting and praise during the party regarding the Interpreter Foundation and its volunteers’ many great works and accomplishments during the past ten years—books, podcasts, blog posts, videos, radio shows, conferences, a feature film, documentaries, articles published for more than 500 weeks in a row, the Ultimate Egypt Tour, and more—and talk of even greater works to come in the next ten years. Elder Gay suggested that, like Jacob of old in the Book of Mormon, Dr. Peterson had suffered affliction and much sorrow due to the rudeness of his brethren (presumably alluding to Gerald Bradford and others at the Maxwell Institute), but that God had consecrated those afflictions for his gain. One could say that the evening had a decidedly self-congratulatory tone.

Following Elder Gay’s remarks, to everyone’s astonishment, an apparition exactly resembling Joseph Fielding Smith suddenly appeared inside the large Riverside Country Club conference room. The apparition then floated to the podium, where it recited Mosiah 2:20-21 exactly as it reads in the 2013 edition of the Book of Mormon:

I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

The apparition then floated away. The scriptural recitation put a quick and quiet end to the party. But as the chastened partygoers reflected on the rebuke, they decided that that was exactly what they needed to hear. I am a witness.

[drumdude]

[Marcus]

Interpreter gives us what people are hungering for, which is actual arguments that are accessible and understood and can take the simple truths we know from the gospel and put them alongside the evidence in the real world.

This is a very carefully constructed statement. Making arguments “accessible” and “understood” doesn’t mean they are true or logically constructed.

Placing them “alongside the evidence in the real world” doesn’t mean they are on par with evidence in the real world.

Something tells me Rasmussen is feeling the need to rehab his professional reputation, while still keeping his gig with Peterson, et al.

[Dr Moore]

Interpreter gives us what people are hungering for, which is actual arguments that are accessible and understood and can take the simple truths we know from the gospel and put them alongside the evidence in the real world.

This is a very carefully constructed statement. Making arguments “accessible” and “understood” doesn’t mean they are true or logically constructed.

Placing them “alongside the evidence in the real world” doesn’t mean they are on par with evidence in the real world.

Something tells me Rasmussen is feeling the need to rehab his professional reputation, while still keeping his gig with Peterson, et al.

The gospel tells us we need to find a pattern of 10 sixes rolled in a row. Interpreter shows you how to find 10 sixes amongst 100 dice rolls, line them up in a row, and declare a hit.

[Kishkumen]

Good for them! I guess tasty vittles and self-kudos make the bitterness of bad reviews and bad scholarly practices more palatable.