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I think it is good that we are taking allegations of sexual assault seriously. I think there are aspects of reactions that are problematic: the rush to judgment, the mobocratic rage, the inversion of the presumption of innocence, the vitriolic responses to suggestions that we dispassionately and fairly review the evidence, and so on. I don't think anyone is "defending" the accusers. The sexual licentiousness and behavior was deplorable. That said, one of the accused, Matthew Ingalls, has an apparently contemporary charge against Jane Doe: ‘Cornell 7’ frat bro claimed accuser ‘sodomized’ him and that school didn’t care he was sex-assault ‘survivor:’ report Jane Doe makes a claim of sexual assault, and is presumptively believed, and any other response (such as a proposal to set aside emotionalisms and rage and dispassionately examine the evidence) is shouted down as "enabling" rapists and rape culture. Mr. Ingalls makes a claim of sexual assault, and is ignored and/or presumed to be lying. I am troubled by the inverted and contradictory assumptions that seem to be in play. I am sorry you have been distressed. I'm not sure why you would participate in a conversation that is causing such distress. In any event, I and going to respectfully decline what I see to be an implied request, namely, to not ask any questions or express any concern about the facts of this case. I think we can and should have difficult discussions, as this is a discussion board. Thanks, -Smac

It’s relatively easy to flash a phone in front of someone’s face or grab their finger for Touch ID. Unless her phone is only password protected, I don’t see this as an issue. I have taken my husband’s phone and held it up in front of his face with him glimpsing it and it opened when he was too preoccupied to find something on it himself. Once it was even to send a text to our daughter. I did not have my phone with me. Eyes just need to be opened I believe and possibly focused on the screen, possible even with a semiconscious person if one waves the phone around as eyes will likely track it unless completely spaced. Many a crime show has fingers or thumbs cut off for this purpose or forensic scientists even ‘wearing’ the dead guy’s skin to open the victim’s phone to save the tech guys work. With a living body, even if passed out, seems like a no brainer. I can also see someone shoving a phone at her and telling her to respond “I don’t know”. Not sure how much conscious, focused brain power that would take with how often most people are messaging. I think there are quite a few possibilities once it is established her phone isn’t password protected. If it is, at that point, seems it would have to be not incapacitated, but coerced. Whether that could fit the timeline or not, I don’t know. Added: I change my mind, I just opened my phone with my eyes closed.

I think it’s more “the most consistent with the rest of his comments and behaviour, past and present, interpretation” and “the cherry picking, taken out of context interpretation” myself to be blunt.

Immediately before the disputed "sweet spot" statement, Dan describes having both supporters and detractors across the religious spectrum. He then explains that he is putting data out there and that people will interpret it in different ways. That context supports a reading in which he sees his role as providing evidence without dictating what conclusions people must draw from it. But smac is not unreasonable to focus on the words "doing something right." Those words express a favorable assessment of his position. The question in my mind, however, is what he (Dan) thinks he's doing right. There are at least two plausible interpretations: - The charitable interpretation: He's doing something right because he is presenting evidence consistently, without tailoring his conclusions to satisfy either religious believers or skeptics. - The critical interpretation: He's doing something right because his work supplies arguments that help people justify either maintaining or abandoning religious faith, and he considers both outcomes desirable. I don't think the quote alone can definitively establish which interpretation he intended. His accompanying explanation about presenting data and allowing people to interpret it supports the first, although it doesn't completely eliminate the second.

Not to me. But reasonable minds can disagree about such things. Thanks, -Smac

When you accuse him of being subversive about faith, etc over and over again and post a definition of “tending or intending to subvert, overthrow, destroy, or undermine an establishedsystem, government, authority, institution, or set of beliefs"” when he has said he’s not out to destroy anyone’s belief, that seems a pretty clear accusation of lying to me.

Yes. Not sure I have accused him of lying. Thanks, -Smac

‘Cornell 7’ accuser sent roommate 3-letter text during alleged gang rape, newly released messages show The contemporaneous text creates a significant credibility problem for Jane Doe's account in her civil complaint, as well as in any criminal investigation. Reporting from the New York Post, TMZ, and other outlets confirms the exchange: the roommate texted Jane Doe around 3:05 a.m. asking if she was coming home, and she replied “idk.” That timestamp falls squarely inside the multi-hour window the complaint describes as an ongoing, incapacitating sexual assault in which she was too impaired to consent, her phone was across the room, and she felt she had no way to escape. To reconcile the “idk” reply with the complaint’s narrative she would need a coherent account of several things at once: During the very time she was being sexually assaulted, she was able to cross the room, locate and unlock her phone, read the incoming message, and send a coherent reply to it while at the same time being too incapacitated to consent or to send any message indicating distress or requesting help. There is a plausible reason the complaint omitted this text exchange and instead stated that the phone was on the other side of the room and that escape was not possible. The same level of functioning that allowed a short, context-appropriate reply to her roommate did not allow a different short reply that would have summoned assistance ("Help. Call the cops."). Those points are hard to square without additional evidence that has not been publicly reported. And if such supporting evidence existed, it stands to reason that she would have given it to her attorney, or her attorney would have asked for it, and it would have been included or at least referenced in the civil complaint. An alternative explanation, that someone else sent the "idk" text, would raise its own problems: modern phones are typically locked, the complaint does not mention anyone else using her phone, and any claim of spoliation or third-party use would need to be developed with the device itself. This message does not stand alone. Other reported texts from the days immediately afterward show her describing the events in terms that also conflict with the later “incapacitated / non-consensual” framing in the lawsuit (statements that the sexual activity was not illegal, that she liked being with certain of the men, and “our body our choice”). Those later messages are subject to the same trauma/processing explanations her counsel has offered, but they remain part of the contemporaneous record that defense counsel will use to test the complaint’s allegations. In short, the 3:05 a.m. exchange is a concrete, time-stamped data point that is difficult to reconcile with the degree of incapacitation and lack of opportunity alleged in the complaint. How much weight it ultimately receives will depend on the full evidentiary record, any forensic examination of the phone, and how the inconsistencies are explained under oath. On the information currently public, however, it is a material problem for the narrative that she was continuously too impaired to consent or to seek help during that period. Thanks, -Smac

Like calling someone a lying subversive wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Actually I'm not sure! I have heard that before, not sure how important it really is.

Is the advice to get your degrees at different institutions not as accepted as it once was?

Retain as BYU students

I would love to see a strong focus on better maternal and child health care, including prenatal and postnatal support. This should, imo, be tied tightly to welfare to help ensure pregnant women and children get their nutritional needs met no matter how or why they got pregnant, what their family situation is, or how many jobs, if any, parents have. (I wish we could do it for all, but believe we need to focus on the most vulnerable and dependent individuals first). With our focus on the value of family, it makes sense to support and invest in them. Maternal health is a high indicator of the health of the family and its individuals. Not only physical and emotional, but financial. And it extends way beyond the family. You want a safe bet for building a stronger economy? Invest in mothers’ health. Give them good medical care and good food at the very least. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4814064/

“Retain” In Utah or as church members?

I have no idea how to calculate probabilities here, so I'm not sure which is more probably. #1 seems as plausible as anything. As you note, it introduces the possibility of infinite regress, that seems to generally make us uncomfortable. I can't tell if my reticence to accept this theory is grounded in truth or my own discomfort with infinite regress. #2 seems to patriarchal to me. Why should the male God create His spouse instead of the other way around (the female Goddess creates Her spouse)? Of course, how much of my rejection of this one is grounded in real truth and how much is my own rejection of the complementarian/patriarchal notion that male is the default and female is a derivative of the male? #3 seems to also bring up the whole infinite regress thing, which, for me, seems to be its main sticking point. #4 would be my preferred belief, mostly because I prefer to believe God is truly self-existent and not dependent on some other being (like a parent) for His divinity. Again, how much of that is actual truth and how much is my preference to believe that God is in some way eternally self-existent? Of course, this tends to put an asterisk beside my own possible exaltation, in that my divinity at that point will always be derived from the divinity of my Parents and Their Christ rather than self-existent -- a kind of "lesser God" than my Parents. It often seems to me that this notion of "eternally self-existent" (or similar) is the main driver of our comfort/discomfort with whatever we come up with here, since so much of the broader Christian notion of God includes the ideas that He is in some way eternally existent as Himself. His existence and nature are not dependent on anything else.

Both, I think. I'm not sure how much one will be prioritized over the other. I have a brother-in-law, Matthew Cornish, who is a pediatrician (now professor of medicine at Augusta University) who has had fairly extensive international experience (he spent several years providing medical services in Vanuatu, where my sister - his wife - served her mission). I had a good discussion with him about the medical school during his visit to Utah over the July 4 holiday. He previously practiced in Utah County, but now lives in Georgia. My understanding is that he has been consulted for input about the school. The things he said were very encouraging and exciting. I suspect those areas that cater to the most important and fundamental international needs. So yes, that would involve areas such as those you have noted. I think many Americans would be shocked at just how much of the world lives with only limited access to medical care. My BIL's comments did not seem to involve any confidential information, but I nevertheless don't want to publish them without his consent. Suffice it to say, though, that I think the Latter-day Saints will be very pleased with the efforts of this project, and the international community will benefit from it a lot. I suspect the school will require vast sums of money to open and operate. This will be particularly acute where, I think, many of the students will have limited financial means. So the Church will be subsidizing a lot. That money will come from the coffers of the Church, which funds in turn originated, directly or derivatively, from the tithes of faithful Latter-day Saints. I hope they will see these expenditures as being worthwhile. Thanks, -Smac

I know so many BYU pre-med students who came to our area for med school, and then move back to Utah once they graduate. I'm sure they'll retain a lot more students with this new program.

Of course #4

I am looking forward to seeing where they take this. Given how they have approached global education with Pathways and other programs, I am very excited as that approaches a great need in an effective, far reaching way as far as I can tell (I don’t have personal experience with it nor talked in detail with someone who has).

Perhaps you have a point. I will think on it. Same here. My participation on this board has greatly strengthened my faith through this very process. I don't know. Did your parents call that result a "sweet spot?" That the family member's abandonment of his faith was evidence that they were "doing something right?" Did they go on an anti-Mormon podcast and accept accolades from opponents of the Church ("On behalf of so so many of my listeners and friends, we're all just loving what you do, in awe of it, and cheering you on" / "Well, thank you so much")? You might be right. My personal interactions with Dan were really quite unpleasant and offputting, so perhaps personality conflicts have unduly affected my assessment of him. Baseless and inflammatory accusations from online strangers from the likes of anonymous posters like some on this board are standard fare for online discussions, but I guess I expect more from a scholar of Dan's stature. I also find fair portions of his social media content to be grating insofar as he mixes personal invective and dunking and ridicule into his commentary on biblical scholarship. Nevertheless, you've made some solid points. Thank you for your input. Thanks, -Smac

Okay. Not sure how ends up being a "sweet spot," as an indicator that he is "doing something right." As bishop years ago, I attended a training session with Elder Bednar, who said that the role of bishops is not to tell people what to do in their lives, but rather to encourage them to discern what the Lord wants them to do, and then encourage them to do that. I'd like to think that all Latter-day Saints would have this posture. Perhaps Dan does. If they try hard enough, yes. If I said something that ended up persuading a fellow Latter-day Saint to abandon their faith, I would hope that it was an error on my part, whether intentional or otherwise. Either way, I would not rejoice in it. If intentional, I would hopefully repent. If inadvertent, I would regret the outcome. I would not call it a "sweet spot" or evidence that I am "doing something right." Thanks, -Smac

I honestly don't know if this would have any relevance to the discussion or not, but I just happened across it in my cybertravels. https://jewishworldreview.com/1026/unndetected_pain.php For what it's worth. (Did I violate your copyright, @Kevin Christensen? Heh-heh!)

Dan: "And if we don't let it operate on its own terms, we're not really giving priority to the Bible as an authority." Also Dan: “The Bible has absolutely no authority. … the only authority the Bible can ever possibly have is whatever authority groups of people agree to assign to it and then to honor, and then they will usually impose the threat of certain consequences should members of the in-group fail to honor that authority. But the Bible has no authority." There is, I think, some tension in Dan's rhetoric, but not a strict logical contradiction once his framework is clear. His core claim is consistent across the videos you referenced and many others: the Bible as a text has no inherent or metaphysical authority. Any authority it has is assigned by communities of people according to their needs, traditions, and identity politics. Meaning and authority are negotiated; they are not properties that inhabit the syllables or pages themselves. He has also said he loves the Bible, that it contains both wonderful and deeply problematic material, and that if one actually wants to prioritize the text (rather than prioritize what the text does for one’s community or identity), one should let it “operate on its own terms” or “function on its own terms.” In context, “its own terms” means a historical-critical reading that tries to recover what the texts were doing in their original settings, without later dogmatic filters that force contradictory passages into harmony or suppress material that conflicts with modern ethical commitments. How he holds both together: Denying inherent authority does not, for him, prohibit a community or an individual from assigning the Bible a form of authority and then trying to honor that assignment more faithfully. When he says people are not “giving priority to the Bible as an authority,” he is usually criticizing those who claim biblical authority while, in practice, subordinating the texts to their received tradition. In his view, they are not actually letting the Bible operate as an authority; they are using selected parts of it as a proof text for conclusions already reached by other means. “Taking it on its own terms” is his preferred way of assigning and exercising whatever authority one chooses to grant the collection. It is still a human decision about how to treat the texts, not a discovery of metaphysical authority already present in them. So the two statements operate at different levels. One is a meta-claim about the absence of inherent authority. The other is a normative claim about how, if one decides to prioritize the Bible, one should go about it. The tension is mainly rhetorical: he frequently speaks as though certain readings fail to treat the Bible as authoritative, while maintaining that the Bible never possessed that authority in the first place. Whether that tension amounts to an inconsistency depends on how strictly one reads the language of “priority” and “authority” in each context. Seems like Dan could do a better job at explaining stuff like this, particularly for people not trained in biblical scholarship. I love that he teaches the Bible this way because he wants to respect its authority. I think he is spot on there. And his comments about his experience in the Church is what I would expect. Dan's language here is difficult to square cleanly with the stronger formulations of his “no inherent meaning / negotiated meaning” position stated frequently elsewhere. When he says he has “always just approached it as I’m going to let it operate on its own terms, even if I don’t agree with it,” and that graduate training constantly reaffirmed that stance, he is describing a methodological preference for historical-critical reading. In practice, I think this means: Trying to recover what a text was doing in its original literary, historical, and cultural setting. Resisting later dogmatic filters that force contradictory passages into harmony or suppress material that conflicts with modern ethical or identity commitments. Allowing the text’s own tensions, emphases, and silences to stand even when they are inconvenient. That is a coherent scholarly posture. The friction appears when that posture is placed next to his repeated claims that the biblical text has no inherent meaning, that meaning is only generated in the encounter between text and reader, and that all interpretation is a negotiation shaped by social, historical, and rhetorical circumstances plus received tradition. Under a strict reading of the “negotiated meaning” thesis, “letting the text operate on its own terms” is itself a negotiation, or sure walks and talks like one. It is a decision to prioritize certain constraints (original languages, ancient contexts, literary form, comparative data) over other possible constraints (doctrinal coherence, ethical utility, identity-political salience). Those constraints are real and can be more or less tightly controlled by the available evidence, but they do not escape the broader claim that meaning is produced by the interpreter rather than discovered as a property already residing in the text. The phrase “on its own terms” still implies a distinction between the text’s terms and the interpreter’s, which is precisely what the stronger anti-realist formulations of his position tend to collapse. He appears to hold both ideas by treating “data over dogma” as a regulative ideal rather than a fully consistent theory of meaning. In the ideal, the scholar tries to minimize the influence of identity politics and received tradition so that the historical and literary data can exert more pressure on the interpretation. In the theory, even that minimization is a form of negotiation, and the resulting interpretation remains one among many possible socially situated readings. The practical advice (“let it operate on its own terms”) is useful for criticizing selective or anachronistic uses of the Bible. The theoretical claim (“meaning is only ever negotiated”) undercuts the suggestion that there is a stable set of “own terms” waiting to be allowed to operate independently of the reader. The tension is therefore real in the rhetoric, even if it can be softened by distinguishing a descriptive claim about how meaning works from a normative preference for certain interpretive constraints. The two sets of statements pull in different directions about whether the text possesses any priority that is not ultimately granted by the interpreter. Thanks, -Smac

From knowing his posting style, I suspect he is using “offering reasons” in the sense that people can find reasons by themselves to stay or leave. Perhaps one of his explanations leads them to see the Church claims as unsupported or another finds his approach as informing their faith, giving them more reasons to study scripture and seek God (my own reaction). Anyone can do the same (find their own reasons) to yours and my own and anything FAIR, the Church itself, or anyone else puts out. All it really indicates when both those who stay and those who leave tell him they can find reasons in his comments is that he is likely not exclusively promoting one view. My husband taught how to start a business, entrepreneurship to university students (also high school and community). Actually he teaches as he is currently the start a business specialist at the local employment service the Church runs; it’s his service mission, just started a few weeks ago. He has had students come up and tell him he’s taught them they don’t want to be entrepreneurs after all. He has done this not by promoting the evils of having your own business, but by sharing the facts and letting them decide if that’s something that resonates with them or not. One has to work, imo, to interpret Dan’s efforts as intentionally telling people to leave their faith. Examining their premises and correct their own misinterpretations does not inherently lead to loss of faith. If it did, you never would have seen me here. Would have been looonnnng gone from the Church. Instead it has led in my case and in the case most of my family to be stronger in our commitment to our faith. Except for one member who heard and saw the same things from our parents and yet decided to leave and points to family as one of the drivers of I understand them correctly. Does this mean my parents sought to undermine our faith? Yeah, only to someone who wants to see it that way.

Smac, do you believe Dan is lying here when he states he has no intent, no “goal” to try and destroy anyone’s faith? Dan: "{A}t no point have I ever had the goal to try to destroy anybody's faith, to try to hurt anybody's feelings, to try to do anything like that." Also Dan: "As long as I have supporters and detractors across the entire spectrum, I'm probably sitting in a sweet spot. I'm probably doing something right if I'm offering reasons for people to remain faithful and reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful" (emphasis added). Not sure how to reconcile these. Is he just accidentally offering reasons for his fellow Latter-day Saints "to feel justified in not remaining faithful?" He doesn't have "the goal" of doing so, but he ends up in that "sweet spot" through inadvertence? As for his not having the goal of "try{ing} to hurt anybody's feelings," a big part of his social media content is tied up in dunking on amateurs. He can't just disagree with them, he puts them down with denigrating editorializing. This is one of the key flaws that have lessened my assessment of him as a scholar. Same goes for his politicized stuff. He imputes all sorts of horrible things and blanket condemnations onto people who disagree with him on controversial sociopolitical issues, with no real attempt to demonstrate the accuracy of his characterizations and imputed sentiments/motivations. I'm an attorney, so I am acclimated to seeing unsubstantiated and conclusory allegations in the preliminary stages of a lawsuit. As the lawsuit proceeds, the claimant is obligated to provide evidence to substantiate their position. Dan does this very well in terms of presenting straightforward biblical scholarship. Outside and beyond that, however, he runs into serious problems IMO. He mixes in his personal opinions and presuppositions and ideological commitments with "the data." He seems to want to leverage his expertise in biblical scholarship to bolster and add credibility to his opinions about sociopolitical matters substantially unrelated to biblical scholarship. And he seems to be, by his own admission, both subverting the Church's efforts and pleased about it. From a previous post: And: According to Dan, by his "offering reasons" for his fellow Latter-day Saints "to feel justified in not remaining faithful," he is "doing something right." That seems . . . subversive (that is, "tending or intending to subvert, overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established system, government, authority, institution, or set of beliefs"). He is free to do this, of course. I just find it problematic. This has been my assessment, and having watched a fair amount of his content during this time, my assessment has not changed much for the last few years. Thanks, -Smac