With the help of Krakauer
 

Marreen Dowd sets her take on Romneys speech. To quote Mike Gundy, ""Three-fourths of this is inaccurate."

Despite some problems with the article, there was a valid point to be gleaned:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/op...prod=permalink

Another good quote:

This is my main gripe about the GOP. Too much focus on political red herrings, like abortion and gay marriage.

Let's solve other problems that impact everyone on a day to day basis.

Another Krakauer quote:

I must have missed that memo. What part of the New Testament do we not "buy"?

Another good one:

All of the excerpts seem about right to me. What's so inaccurate?

I used the Gundy quote partially in jest, but one-piece garments are non-existent in the under-65 Mormon crowd, blacks have full rights and privileges within the church and it's wrong to say that we don't "buy" the whole New Testament.

Yeah.

The article had some great quotes. But some silly errors also.

Oh I haven't read the article, so I was just going off the quotes.

The issue seems to be this: Romney's speech is being compared to JFK's, and rightly so, because they were given similar opportunities to defend their religious belief and explain the impact it would have on their presidency. That's where the similarly ends. JFK used his opportunity to guarantee that the separation of church and state would be "absolute." Romney used his opportunity to declare that the separation of church and state is overrated, and was never intended to result in a secular nation, when I think we all realize that the exact opposite is true. The American Revolution was done in defiance of theocracy, and one of the main goals of it was to establish a secular government. That Romney got it so wrong probably means he's still pandering to whomever he thinks will get him elected, but the scary version is that he actually believes that bullshit he said is true.

It also seems to be the case that the "creator" spoken of in the preamble is the generic, deistic creator, and that Christian values did not play that big of a role in our nation's founding. Mitt once again got it exactly backwards when he declared in his speech that the US is unique because it was founded on religious principles. Obviously, that's not true at all. What makes us semi-unique is that the exact opposite is true. Romney got it horribly, horribly wrong, and his entire speech was a disaster. The polls seem to agree with this assessment, and it seems that the collective orgasm on CB over it was just the typical partisan hackery that we've all come to acknowledge over there.

Dowd is a bitter woman who can't stand it when anyone doesn't see things her way.

I love this:

“J.F.K.’s speech was to reassure Americans that he wasn’t a religious fanatic,” Mr. Krakauer agreed. “Mitt’s was to tell evangelical Christians, ‘I’m a religious fanatic just like you.’”

Hee hee. Brilliant.

Has there ever been a more ignorant self-proclaimed expert on Mormons than Krakauer? I'm lumping in every one who has ever lived in there.

Going to K. to understand Mormonism would be like the Seahawks hiring SU as their general manager.

I agree. Krakauer is a Mormon ignoramus. Though I would say that Krakauer being an expert about Mormons is more like exUte being asked to explain why God cares about BYU football.

Krakauer has written a book on Mormonism issued by a major publisher. He has the credential the world recoginizes for expertise.

You are intentionally ignoring that opinion and fact are two different things.

So who would you guys recommend? It seems that even Bushman tends to put a positive spin on things. I haven't read Krakauer's book and have no intention of doing so, but it's probably safe to assume that he puts a negative spin on things. I don't think it's possible to find an authoritative and unbiased treatment of something like this.

actually what he has is the viewpoint that certain elites crave.

as much as you hate Mormonism, you couldn't get it wrong like Krakauer.

I've seen some here calling Bushman an apostate.

It's not so much that Krakauer puts a negative spin, but that he tries to pass off his opinion as fact.

it's not so much that he puts a negative spin on things (which he does) , but it's that he fundamentally misunderstands Mormons and Mormonism.

He has done the intellectual equivalent of SU's favorite trick--read only the review and claim to have read the book. And hope no one notices.

That doesn't answer my question.

Well, I've yet to read Bushman's book, so I can't comment if he puts a positive spin on things. My understanding is that he portrays JS as being more human.

I don't know if there will never be a truly objective book about Mormonism.

Read Brodie along with Bushman. Read Sunstone and Dialogue along with the Maxwell Institute. Read Quinn along with Givens. Watch Godmakers along with Plan of Happiness. There is no definitive, unbiased historical authority on the LDS church, if that was your question.

I guess that's my point. Any book from a faithful perspective, in my opinion, cannot possibly be objective. Faith is by definition not objective. On the other hand, books are a lot of work to write, so they tend not to be written by dispassionate people, so many books that evaluate it from an outside perspective tend to seem negative. Is the correct understanding of a religion always the faithful one? I would submit that this is obviously not the case.

I think Bushman is important for the church, because if the two options are the white-washed version and biased negative version, I would guess the biased negative version would be closer to the truth. Bushman seems to provide something in the middle, but I wonder if he includes some negative things only in order to appear objective while continuing in his faith-promoting agenda. It's been a while since I read his first book about the history of the church (the orange one), so I can't recall specifics.

It seems likely that the best perspective is going to come from reading a combination of viewpoints, and I think doing so is important in any topic. There are a bunch of creationists running around who actually believe that the science supports their position, because the only "science" books they read are the ones that put lipstick on their pig of a belief system. I bet you could make scientology seem like a good, upstanding set of beliefs from a faithful perspective.

Bushman admits his bias from the onset whereas so-called "unbiased" works do not.

Bushman discusses aspects of Smith, which many may not perceive as positive or negative, only reporting what he has found through research. Like a good historian, he doesn't always draw a conclusion, but allows the reader to decide. And I bet readers will draw different conclusions. Whereas in more biased works, you'll find readers are forced to make only one conclusion. That's my main critique of Brodie, she is biased but won't acknowledge her bias and tries to force the reader to make only one conclusion. Hence, her work is not good.

A professional historian's work will never leave the reader entirely satisfied, because no person will ever live a life devoid of nuance or imperfection.

I couldn't believe somebody who is supposed to be a professional could do such a horrible job.