Critiques of Church leadership

[All-American]

Originally Posted by jay santos

FARMS and other LDS academics are doing more in their arena than their peers in other religions. I recently read a Christian scholar critiquing a FARMS publication on Central America anthropology and said he didn't agree but said that LDS scholars are kicking Christian scholars butts when it comes to research. Wish I could remember where I found it to give the link.

LDS scholars are also some of the guys leading the whole Dead Sea scrolls research.

Probably this one:

http://home.uchicago.edu/~spackman/losing.doc

In fact, as I read this paper, there's a lot that's pertinent to the discussion at hand.

[Archaea]

Interesting comments on Nibley, whom SU dismisses without familiarity with his skills.

[SeattleUte]

I think the Wikipedia article linked below has a set of good working definitions of "intellectual."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual

The opening, summary paragraph, reads in part as follows:

"There are, broadly, three modern definitions at work in discussions about intellectuals. Firstly, 'intellectuals' as those deeply involved in ideas, books, the life of the mind. Secondly, and here largely arising from Marxism, 'intellectuals' as that recognisable occupational class consisting of lecturers, teachers, lawyers, journalists, and suchlike. Thirdly, cultural 'intellectuals', being those of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, and who then use that authority to speak in public on other matters."

Many in this thread cite Mormon intellectuals while apparently applying the second definition above; under this definition, yes, MikeWates and others cited are intellectuals. I submit there are are few genuine devout Mormon intellectuals who fit under the first or third category. But there are some that come to mind immediately, from the past and present: Michael Young, Rex Lee, Richard Bushman, B.H. Robers, maybe Dallen Oaks, probably Orson Scott Card, probably a number of professors at BYU who have been careful about what they say publicly or in print. MikeWaters also could qualify under the first definition.

I wouldn't include anyone from FARMS or Nibley in the first or third category because those individuals have devoted their life's work to building a case to support Mormonism. I don't disqualify anyone because they have religious faith or adhere to a religious creed; Augustine, Aquinus, and Dante, among many others, were towering intellectuals who were devout Christians. The problem I have with Nibley and FARMS folks is a level of intellectual dishonesty, carrying on a pretense of using the scientific method to prove something based on purported objective evidence when really all they are doing is consciously engaging in sophistry. It's more accurate to call these people fraudsters.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I wouldn't include anyone from FARMS or Nibley in the first or third category because those individuals have devoted their life's work to building a case to support Mormonism. I don't disqualify anyone because they have religious faith or adhere to a religious creed; Augustine, Aquinus, and Dante, among many others, were towering intellectuals who were devout Christians. The problem I have with Nibley and FARMS folks is a level of intellectual dishonesty, carrying on a pretense of using the scientific method to prove something based on purported objective evidence when really all they are doing is consciously engaging in sophistry. It's more accurate to call these people fraudsters.

Fraudsters, because you say so?

Even the evangelical link seems to support the concept that Nibley is respected for his intellect.

You are being disengenuous. At the very worst, Nibley and FARMS could be considered religious advocates, which is all a religious apologist is.

You yourself admitted that you do NOT pay attention to minutae, but you claim they are "fraudsters". Are you being objective in your evaluation of Nibley and FARMS? Not being in the same sphere of their expertise are you even qualified to judge them?

I am not an intellectual, and really don't want to be one. But I have many friends who busy themselves with the intellectualism of life. You seem quite happy to pick and choose, to use the pretense of intellectualism, but to shed its rigors when it pleases you.

Why are they fraudsters in your mind? Because they haven't reached the same conclusions as you have? Is that approach intellectually honest?

This post is not your best work.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Fraudsters, because you say so?

Even the evangelical link seems to support the concept that Nibley is respected for his intellect.

You are being disengenuous. At the very worst, Nibley and FARMS could be considered religious advocates, which is all a religious apologist is.

You yourself admitted that you do NOT pay attention to minutae, but you claim they are "fraudsters". Are you being objective in your evaluation of Nibley and FARMS? Not being in the same sphere of their expertise are you even qualified to judge them?

I am not an intellectual, and really don't want to be one. But I have many friends who busy themselves with the intellectualism of life. You seem quite happy to pick and choose, to use the pretense of intellectualism, but to shed its rigors when it pleases you.

Why are they fraudsters in your mind? Because they haven't reached the same conclusions as you have? Is that approach intellectually honest?

This post is not your best work.

I don't care what the "evangelicals" say. I looked the authors up and I don't see that they're known for anything other than this article. I looked Mosser up on Google and the first thing that came up was a glowing profile on the FARMS web site. Who are these guys? Just "evangelicals?" Needless to say, "evangelicals" are not an intellectual lot.

A major premise of Nibley's and FARMS' work is that native Americans are descendants of Lehi.

Let me ask you this: If they are such world class intellectuals and their scholarship so distinguished, why have Nibley and FARMS folks been confined to this tiny tithing funded think tank? Nobody knows who the hell they are except for Mormons and a couple of evangelicals. If they really were world class, wouldn't they do more good to everyone, not least of all the Church, developing their platform at places like Harvard, Stanford or the University of Chicago (a school with leading anthropology and archeology research programs)? They can't go there because their "scholarship" isn't recognized by intellectuals as legitimate.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I don't care what the "evangelicals" say. I looked the authors up and I don't see that they're known for anything other than this article. I looked Mosser up on Google and the first thing that came up was a glowing profile on the FARMS web site. Who are these guys? Just "evangelicals?" Needless to say, "evangelicals" are not an intellectual lot.

A major premise of Nibley's and FARMS' work is that native Americans are descendants of Lehi.

Let me ask you this: If they are such world class intellectuals and their scholarship so distinguished, why have Nibley and FARMS folks been confined to this tiny tithing funded think tank? Nobody knows who the hell they are except for Mormons and a couple of evangelicals. If they really were world class, wouldn't they do more good to everyone, not least of all the Church, developing their platform at places like Harvard, Stanford or the University of Chicago (a school with leading anthropology and archeology research programs)? They can't go there because their "scholarship" isn't recognized by intellectuals as legitimate.

They haven't gone to Harvard and the like because of the narrow field of Mormonism doesn't interest those colleges or no Mormon has funded a chair there. Do you think a Mormon funded the first Harvard Hebrew studies chair.

You also no do what you accuse Nibley and FARMS of. As I understand it, FARMS looks at evidence to determine if the limited geography theory is applicable. Nibley would probably accept that concept. Have you read the stuff from the Iceland geneticts program. It's the one that shows a large portion of the now extant Icelanders don't actually exist according to the same type of program analysis that is used to say no Semitic genotypes are found amongst Native Americans? You seem to latch on to the one group of studies that confirm your suspicions and ignore all others.

It's not a question whether you care if something is true or not.

So these lists of persons don't matter according to you. Evangelicals, Mormons, people not at Harvard, Stanford. Anybody's opinion that does matter? Israelis?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

They haven't gone to Harvard and the like because of the narrow field of Mormonism doesn't interest those colleges or no Mormon has funded a chair there. Do you think a Mormon funded the first Harvard Hebrew studies chair.

You also no do what you accuse Nibley and FARMS of. As I understand it, FARMS looks at evidence to determine if the limited geography theory is applicable. Nibley would probably accept that concept. Have you read the stuff from the Iceland geneticts program. It's the one that shows a large portion of the now extant Icelanders don't actually exist according to the same type of program analysis that is used to say no Semitic genotypes are found amongst Native Americans? You seem to latch on to the one group of studies that confirm your suspicions and ignore all others.

It's not a question whether you care if something is true or not.

So these lists of persons don't matter according to you. Evangelicals, Mormons, people not at Harvard, Stanford. Anybody's opinion that does matter? Israelis?

So what is this narrow field of interest? There's no observable, physical relationship between the the "Book of Abrham scrolls" and the Book of Abraham. MesoAmerican and middle Eastern archeology have as much to do with the Book of Mormon as they do Alice in Wonderland. What do the Dead Sea scrolls have to do with Mormon scriptures? NADA. There's nothing to study concerning this "narrow field." This is what I find reprehensibe. High falutin pretense at scholarly pursuit when there's no there there. They're studying the limited geography theory you say. You wouldn't fill up a thimble with real linguistic, archeological, scientific, anthropological evidence bearing on this. Unlike the Hebrews, the Assyrians, etc. there's no evidence these Book of Mormon "peoples" even existed. All the limited geography theory is is a retrenchment, a dissembling. It doesn't justify a think tank, reams of articles, a web page, hundreds of thousands of dollarrs a year. It's all a big charade. Really just a big lie. Like I said, there are Mormon intellectuals. I listed some of them above. These jokers aren't among them.

Cheers

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

So what is this narrow field of interest? There's no observable, physical relationship between the the "Book of Abrham scrolls" and the Book of Abraham. MesoAmerican and middle Eastern archeology have as much to do with the Book of Mormon as they do Alice in Wonderland. What do the Dead Sea scrolls have to do with Mormon scriptures? NADA. There's nothing to study concerning this "narrow field.". This is what I find reprehensibe. High falutin pretense at scholarly pursuit when there's no there there. They're studying the limited geography theory you say. You wouldn't fill up a thimble with real linguistic, archeological, scientific, anthropological evidence bearing on this. Unlike the Hebrew, the Assyrians, etc. There's no evidence these Book of Mormon "peoples even existed. All the limited geography theory is is a retrenchment, a dissembling. It doesn't justify a think tank, reams of articles, a web page hundreds of thousands of dollarrs a year. It's all a big charade. Really just a big lie. Like I said, there are Mormon intellectuals. I listed some of them above. These jokers aren't among them.

Cheers

Didn't you say a while back that you hadn't followed this area of study at all? Now it appears you are a well-read expert. Interesting....

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by homeboy

Didn't you say a while back that you hadn't followed this area of study at all? Now it appears you are a well-read expert. Interesting....

Hmmm. I think that's my point, isn't it? You can capture essentially the width and breadth of real substance that they put out in almost no time at all.

By the way, I do find it personally offensive, even creepy that FARMS tries to appropriate the Dead Sea scrolls as a means to advancing their agenda. They have added zilch to genuine Dead Sea scrolls research.

Really they've just interfered with honest pursuit of knowledge by many people. I once took one of my sisters in law to the Metropolitan Museum in New York; we went into the specimens from Mesopotamia, relics of literally the first known peoples who organized themselves in cities, had law codes, farmed, etc. Talk about feeling "the spirit"; it's there if you're attuned to it. She had a genuine curiosity about things that I admired. But at an age well over 30 she kept trying to correlate what she saw to what she'd read in the Book of Abraham (Abraham being a native of Ur, after all), FARMS commentaries, etc. I found it supremely annoying, and very sad.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Hmmm. I think that's my point, isn't it? You can capture essentially the width and breadth of real substance that they put out in almost no time at all.

Um, sure... And if you carry some bias with your excess baggage, you can cut your study time down to almost nothing and still come to a firm, confident conclusion.

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

By the way, I do find it personally offensive, even creepy that FARMS tries to appropriate the Dead Sea scrolls as a means to advancing their agenda. They have added zilch to genuine Dead Sea scrolls research.

Why is this "personally" offensive? And why do you automatically assume that the sole purpose of the interest in the scrolls from that group is to "advance their agenda"? Could it be that they simply find it a fascinating object of study (like thousands of other scholars)? I am not an authority on the FARMS books on this topic, but I am starting to suspect I may have studied it as much as you have.