Benjamin McGuire

Mormonism's engagement with the "pure language" ended, eventually, with the Deseret alphabet. It was an outgrowth of the restorationist theology - that idea that the prophecies needed to be fulfilled before the second coming. And the prophecy in Zephaniah about the pure language was one of these (and it is referenced in early LDS material - Phelps did a write up of this in 1834). Although Michael Hull Barton's time as a member of the LDS Church was brief, he was also influential in this specific area (having written a book about it in 1833: Something New, - A New and Perfect Alphabet.

There is a difference between saying that there is work we need to do as part of the 'last days' and the idea that the Second Coming could be tomorrow as long as we get X, Y, and Z done today.

This isn't criticism. I am pointing out the fact that current leaders have such a different perspective than the leaders of the Church in the 1830s. This is only to be expected. But it means that when we look at some of the Articles of Faith, that difference in views needs to be taken into account - especially for questions like the one in the OP.

This illustrates my point. This has been a change in the theology of the Church. In the 1830s, the expectation was that the Second Coming would occur within the lifetime of many of those members, and that the members of the Church could change the time frame of the Second Coming through their actions.

This is a reference to the "ten lost tribes." This (at least historically) refers to the 10 tribes that were carried off when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom. The two tribes that were in the southern kingdom were Judah and Benjamin. The other thing to remember is that at least in this context, Levi isn't considered in all of this because they were distributed throughout all the tribes and didn't have their own territory. The twelve tribes had two slots taken by Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) to make up for this. So this is a reference to the restoration/return of the lost ten tribes. This was a significant prediction in restorationist theology (which early Mormonism participated in - and Mormons viewed the Book of Mormon and its peoples - who were descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh as a fore-runner for this return). There was a push in Mormon thought a while back to see the recovery of the tribes from the nations as a function of patriarchal blessings with their assignment (or adoption) into various tribes. I don't think it is a subject that we really discuss much these days. Mormon thought has largely pushed a physical return of the lost tribes into the Millennial period (along with the building of Zion in Missouri). To kind of put some perspective on this, in my infancy, my father (who was then a recent convert) decided to move the family to Missouri to be a part of the gathering and the building of Zion. We left a few years later when it became clear to him that this wasn't something he was needed for any time soon ... As Mormonism has further shifted away from those restorationist roots, this has all been moved into the back seat. And what I mean by this is that the restorationist movement believed that we (collectively) could accelerate the time frame of the second coming and the millennium by helping fulfill the prophetic conditions required. This was very much on the mind of early LDS - and there were a number of events that occurred in the context of early Mormonism that were a part of this effort. Mormon theology today essentially takes the view that there is a prefetermined time-frame for all of this, and that there isn't anything we can do to alter that time-frame. The return gets pushed into the millennium, the need to build Zion becomes an effort of the millennium, and so on. There is also a bunch of stuff on the returning tribes in Section 133. And in general, the "home" for these tribes is just referred to as the "north countries" (D&C 133:26).

I have been thinking about this thread for a bit. I don't agree with Paulsen much on this question. I haven't agreed with him for years. There are a couple of things that I think are important. (1) It is hard to have a discussion about "the problem of evil" without defining evil. (2) There is a strangeness (at least for me) in going to the King Follett Discourse when we discuss Joseph Smith and the problem of evil. I have several reasons for saying this - but perhaps the most important two are these - 1) the KFD shows no indication that Joseph Smith was trying to address the problem of evil, and 2) had Joseph Smith lived more than three months after giving it, he would almost certainly have changed some of the ideas that he presents in this sermon. The KFD is a glimpse into a process of thought, and it isn't some sort of finished product. (3) In contrast, the Book of Mormon provides us with texts that are very much interested in the problem of evil, and provide very different solutions to that problem than what Paulsen reads into the KFD. (3A) The Book of Mormon argues that evil is necessary. (3B) The Book of Mormon also argues that agency (especially moral agency) is very limited - there is no such thing as absolute agency (moral or otherwise). There are whole classes of people, the Book of Mormon suggests, who have no moral agency. (3C) Consequently, the Book of Mormon argues, we are only held culpable when we actually exercise agency (which means, of course, that some with no agency have no consequences for their actions). And here we run into our first set of problems - problems that require us to define evil. Why? Because of 3A. Any definition which links the notion of evil to God creates a circular argument. Paulsen writes this: But the Book of Mormon (specifically Lehi) argues something entirely different - and these are arguments that find their way into broader Mormon thought - including Joseph Smith. The whole premise of the pre-existent war in heaven is the argument that (4) God could prevent evil. We see this in Moses 4:1 - And yet, this idea, of creating a world of all good (of preventing evil) was itself evil - as 2 Nephi 2:17 points out: So God could (at least in theory) create a world without evil. But the desire to do this is also evil. The argument becomes problematic because instead of confronting the traditional question of the problem of evil, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith make an entirely different argument - that good and evil should be determined not by the moral or ethical dimensions of a specific act in context but by the relationship of that act to God's purposes. God's purposes include the notion that what we traditionally define as evil (on ethical and moral grounds) is a necessity - and that acting in an unethical or immoral way is only subject to accountability when the individual has sufficient agency to make a moral or ethical choice. Further, the Book of Mormon suggests that many of our choices are sufficiently influenced by our mortal condition as to remove that element of agency (2 Nephi 2:27). The King Follett Discourse can be read in line with this thinking. And so it is difficult for me to accept Paulsen's perspective that Joseph Smith answers the problem of evil. I don't think that Joseph Smith even attempts to answer that problem. Joseph's assertion is that the traditional understanding of evil is necessary: the fall is necessary, the veil of forgetfulness is necessary, the conditions of the mortal body - "the flesh" is necessary, suffering is necessary, and so on. The Book of Mormon goes on to provide specific examples in various contexts. The death of Laban is one such example. Even more important is the necessity of the suffering of Jesus. The example of Jesus is even more telling in the Book of Mormon, which, in Alma 7:12 points to the necessity that the Messiah had to experience suffering: This is a natural extension of Lehi's opposition in all things. Only by experiencing suffering does the Messiah become capable of completing the necessary sacrifice and subsequent judgment. It is necessary that Jesus experience this traditional evil. Again, the Book of Mormon turns this traditional view of evil on its head. For Joseph Smith, the effect is that the problem of evil is asking the wrong questions. It is the desire to have no suffering that becomes evil. At any rate, I have beat this horse half to death. There is a final thing that has to be said in all of this. None of this really replaces our own understanding of ethics and morality. Paulsen says something that I find interesting: "All of us have struggled, or likely will struggle, in a very personal way with the problem of evil." I think that very few of us do what should come next, which is to discover for ourselves the meaning of ethics or morality and to produce our own ethical and moral code. There is a real risk in our lives of asserting that people deserve to suffer. When our actions cause suffering, we are the ones who may be held accountable for that suffering. And this is especially true when we do so deliberately. It is just as true that if we allow others to suffer when we could alleviate that suffering we may also be held accountable. I think that on judgment day, there will be many who will be shocked that the actions (or non-actions) that they took which they felt were in line with some "higher principle" yet resulted in suffering or the continuation of suffering will be accounted to them as evil.

I think that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that in that first generation, every single Mormon began their spiritual journey as something else.

This covers a lot of ground. So first, the revelation of the Book of Mormon - Joseph Smith's favorite phrase was that the Book of Mormon was translated by the "gift and power of God". But, when Joseph Smith uses this phrase, he is quoting from the Book of Mormon. And this means that what Joseph Smith meant by it incorporates how he understood the phrase (how he interpreted it) from the text of the Book of Mormon. I think that this contains within it a distinct sense of revelation. Although not conforming to later practice, the Book of Mormon was presented to the early LDS movement in what was called the Articles and Covenants (dating is uncertain - but it was approved by the new church on June 9, 1830) There is, in that document another discussion which is central to your question about canon - You can see (and this is really early) that already there is a concern about how to open the canon and where to put the Book of Mormon. This is the beginning of where it settles - something that is not added to the Bible (and so doesn't conflict with the statement on scripture in the Revelation of John - no matter how you understand it), and the reference to what will come later. But here there is an awareness of the forthcoming Book of Commandments (the contents were chosen in late 1831). Now, on the issue of "prophet, seer, and revelator," this formulation isn't the original version. It's source comes from what is now Section 21 (April 6, 1830): The exact formula would take longer to put together. In Section 107, for example (early 1835) we get this (and you can see here a shift towards the later usage): In 1841 (Section 124) that we see the formula more or less as we see it now - and it is applied to others (not specifically to Joseph Smith). There is some fluidity for a while, and it isn't really until post Brigham Young that we get this formula applied consistently. I think (personal opinion) that in general, none of Joseph's counselors or successors considered themselves as "translators" and so we follow the formula as it was spelled out in Section 124 (and perhaps the notion of translator begins to be embedded in the notion of revelator). Even Brigham Young, who was recognized by the Church as a prophet, seer, and revelator, did not (apparently) like to use the phrase to describe himself. Having said all of that, I think that Joseph really understood what he did as the "seer" part of all of this (and certainly we have his use of seer stones). In Section 127 (a letter he wrote in late 1842), he closed it with this: "And I subscribe myself your servant in the Lord, prophet and seer of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." I think that Section 107 is really a good place to start in terms of how Joseph Smith understood his role. There his role is described like Moses - and the calling of the Seventy in that section reminds us of the seventy elders called out by Moses as prophets. The connection there should be evident - much like Moses, Joseph could not oversee the Church in its every detail and every place. So this is a complex question not just in terms of the history of the phrase but also in the sense that the LDS Church was growing from a small movement (pre-1830) to a church (1830), to a large organization which was geographically diverse. And with these changes, there is, I think, a natural reunderstanding of what it meant to be a "prophet, seer, and revelator". To put this question to Joseph Smith is to recognize that there are different Joseph Smiths who might answer this question - and each one would answer this question in different ways. And, of course, I realize that I haven't really answered your questions.

It would indeed be odd (as you point out) for the text to to make claims about itself in its entirety. Words of Mormon probably comes as close as you can get to it - and only verses 1-11. Verses 12-18 are likely pulled from the last bit of Mosiah Chapter 2 (original manuscript chapter numbering) - the fragment of chapter 2 that was left - most of Chapter 2 would have been on the manuscript that was loaned out and lost. But, if you want to have some sense of where I go with the question - I have only really discussed in detail the text's display of its own phenomenological self in 1 and 2 Nephi, and I do it in this essay here. I think that there is something really interesting that occurs there with regard to the way that the text uses Isaiah (so much of which is quoted in 2 Nephi) that it might lay some foundation for the idea of more texts. I might also point out the fact that the way that the Book of Mormon editors/authors put together the text isn't all that similar to what our modern historians do. I like what Moroni writes in Ether 1:1-2 - Especially when we contrast this with Ether 6:1 There is stuff between these two sections that isn't the Jaredite record at all - Moroni (like Nephi in my essay) is resetting the expectation, and starting over (having recognized that what he provided isn't what he said he was going to). And while this is a really noticeable example, if we look we can find all sorts of editorial insertions and comments in the text where Mormon and Moroni are providing something that wasn't in their sources as a way of explaining or enhancing the narrative. In a way, this means that we don't have a joining of sources into one, we have a history that is being composed new but which relies on earlier sources. Some of those sources are identified as separate documents (letters, texts which are quoted) but most are not. And even when we get a source (like the Jaredite record) we are often being given a highly redacted version. The potential exception to this is the small plates, which WoM verse 6 where Mormon writes: "But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder of my record, ..." and which we usually understand as meaning that he simply took the small plates and placed them at the end of his (and later Moroni's) text. And of course, then we have the question of translation. We need to be careful not to conflate the Book of Mormon with the Gold Plates.

This would be incorrect. President Oaks followed a different path is all. He was President of BYU for nearly a decade (1971-1980). Generally speaking, this would actually be considered parallel to or a little above a Mission President (perhaps even above the current area 70s). His ten years there (mission presidents are called for 3 and are usually chosen from Stake Presidents and their counselors) would provide not only extensive experience working with the Quorum of the Twelve, but regular contact with them in his role. His time as a Supreme Court Justice (he would likely have stayed there if not called as an apostle) was also appealing to then First Presidency, and is reflected in his assignments as an apostle. So, I would argue that while his route to General Authority was a little less traditional, it wasn't out of the blue.

Actually, statistically, this isn't that out of the ordinary. Since I work with geriatric populations, you could say that even though I work in what is often a palliative (end-of-life) setting, that the high percentage of people who are super old at our facility is not normal either. There are some things to remember. Life expectancy is always skewed. A third of men in the US, for example, will die by the age of 70. But once you get to 70 (we generally choose new apostles in that mid-60s to early 70s age range), your chances of making it to 85 are really very good. Those who are in poor health, or who have other obvious factors that would limit lifespan simply don't make it into that small group of apostles. The selection criteria has already created a group with a high chances of long lifespan. And, while our apostles have largely been in their 80s and 90s when they died (at least in my lifetime), there are some notable exceptions: Richard L. Evans was 64. Harold B. Lee was 74. Alvin R. Dyer was 74. Marvin J. Ashton was 79. Bruce R. McConkie was 70. Neal A. Maxwell was 78. But these are exceptions. Mormons (and Mormon leaders) tend to live healthy lifestyles. And of course, they get great medical care and have constant good social interactions. If we look at the statistical factors for older Americans that we know from research correlate with earlier death, we see a number of things that are relevant. The biggest factors that reduce longevity are high BMI, being unmarried, current and past smoking, high alcohol consumption, and low physical activity. When we look at apostles, they tend to never have smoked, the generally have good BMI, they don't smoke or drink, and they generally remain active until very late in life.

I have no idea who you are. You are hiding behind an anonymous name here. It doesn't impress. I am curious though why you are jumping in on this thread. Is it that you don't like the idea that the administration is moved by money and the promise of alignment with its ideology? I would also say this. The fact that there is always choice doesn't make even partial monopolization of that choice a good thing. If anything, modern technology (and I am a technologist by profession) has taught us that lies become more believable when they come from many different sources. You may think that you are one of the savvy news consumers. That you are capable of differentiating between the truth and the lies - but what does that mean. There is a complete hypocrisy on the part of the administration that was willing to hold up a merger on the basis that one of the companies involved had too much of liberal slant - that it wasn't being fair to conservatives. And yet, at the same time, to not ask that same question in the other direction - that becoming too conservative should also make the merger untenable. None of these political issues are ones that are typically addressed by these government regulatory agencies until the present. And as someone who practiced FCC law in D.C. (whatever you mean by that), you should recognize that. Instead, you keep going off on these tangents that really seem immaterial to the discussion. Do you agree that the promotion of Weiss was primarily made for political reasons to placate the administration and help encourage the FCC to approve the merger? Or do you disagree? Do you agree that the settlement of the lawsuit with the administration (which likely would not have been won by the administration on merits) was done to placate the administration and to help encourage the FCC to approve the merger? Perhaps you could answer these questions.

Perhaps your distinction has merit. In any case, the FCC has a history of trying to keep broadcast media markets separate. The FCC held up the Paramount-Skydance deal because of news distortion (a complaint that had been dismissed by the FCC under Biden). But this isn't really the basis of what I am saying. The reality is that Ellison isn't stopping with with the Paramount buyout. He is currently working to purchase Warner Bros Discovery - and with this move, Ellison's properties would become a media behemoth. And now that they have the blessing of the administration (who controls the DOJ, the FTC, and the FCC), and the expectation is that by taking steps like this one (making Weiss the editor at CBS), they are working to get the administrations blessing on any purchases they make. If it had been a liberal leaning media corporation that had attempted to purchase Paramount, the expectation is that the FCC would have blocked it. And this is all a tangent to what I was really saying, which is that giving Weiss that role was done at least in part (if not in its entirety) to placate the current administration. Weiss's views on DEI had everything to do with her promotion - but not because DEI is actually bad - rather, it was to appease the White House.

Familiar enough to know that the FCC has to approve these kinds of acquisitions. But don't take my word for it: My perspective isn't particularly controversial - it's a widely recognized reality. The fact remains that Ellison is making a big push to acquire as much media as he can while the FCC can be relied on to approve it for political reasons. The two parties mentioned in the quote are Paramount and Skydance Media, and the concessions have nothing to do with anything that the FCC has regulatory jurisdiction over. This was a merger that only happened after the political skids were greased ...

By the way, this deserves one more comment. Larry Ellison is in the process right now of building a media behemoth - large enough to warrant monopoly scrutiny. Apart from any personal political views he may have, it is clear that with the current administration, getting mergers and acquisitions approved when they might be challenged over this issue of monopoly simply involves catering to the administration. In August, Ellison acquired Paramount. Ellison is currently expected to get approval to take over TikTok in the US. He is currently negotiating to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery (which would add CNN to his ownership of CBS). All of this adds a dimension to the reason why Bari Weiss became the editor at CBS. And it doesn't suggest any sort of journalistic integrity at its core ...

This would be interesting if it were remotely true. It's not. According to Pew Research, "Both men and women under 30 align with Democrats by about a two-to-one margin." When you live inside that ultra-conservative bubble, you miss out on something called reality. The most notable reason is the fact that Ellison (Skydance Media) bought CBS ...

This is the nonsense Robert. It is purely ideological myth. The real reason why (white) men are being outnumbered in the university setting? They are simply choosing not to get a college degree. It isn't that they are being excluded. It's that they aren't applying for college. The only ethnic exception to this is Asian men (especially those whose families are relatively recent immigrants - a generation or two). And it isn't men who come from poor economic conditions. The fastest shrinking group is middle and upper class men (who are predominantly white). The numbers seem to be roughly the same independent of ethnicity (except for Asians as I already noted). And this tells us that it isn't really about the economics - except for those who have the most to gain. Just a few days ago, my father sent me an article about the son of Jim Farley, the CEO for Ford Motor Company. He wanted to be a mechanic: "I don't know why I need to go to college". The most economically advantaged are the one that are leaving. So it isn't the economics - it's not the idea that scholarships are transitioning to women (which is an understandable shift when enrollment changes). There are a lot of discussions about the perception of value relative to the cost. There is a growing awareness of the problem of male flight - not just in terms of individual college degrees, but of college more generally as a global phenomenon. Part of this idea is that many men can't tolerate being in a competitive environment and being behind women: "The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives can be seen as an effort to reclaim a sector where women are outperforming men." I think that we need to ask what the real "toxic taint" is. But I think that the idea that it is a feminist agenda or a diversity agenda that is the root cause is nothing more than an attempt to deflect the real root causes - it is a way for men to claim to be the victims of a system that isn't treating them fairly.

Generally speaking, there are no DEI laws. Governments can direct governmental agencies to use DEI principles when hiring, but, government generally cannot dictate how companies hire. We do have laws about discrimination that can affect hiring practices - but in general, these are only applicable in terms of dealing with why someone isn't hired. Current battlegrounds occur when there are DEI programs that intersect with federal or state funding - with college applicants, for example. The funding can then be used as a way to influence whether these programs exist. For corporations there isn't anything that the government can do. With privately owned corporations, there is an even greater level of security against interference. The big battle ground this year was efforts to threaten publicly traded corporations to get them to drop or reduce their DEI programs. Dozens of major publicly traded companies this year saw attempts to convince shareholders to vote for the removal of DEI programs. When shareholders voted on these efforts, they all failed - and the votes weren't even close - Costco saw a vote of 98-2, Apple was 97-3 and Coca-Cola was 99-1. Coca-Cola in particular made the statement that it's personnel policies looked to mirror the communities they serve (much as you suggest above). These policies are generally seen as good for business when they are given strong corporate support and are implemented effectively. I will say, for the record, that I think that the way that you represent gender and industry does have sexist components - I don't think that gender is the issue you suggest it is. At the same time, I think that generally speaking, there are certain industries that have much higher representation with certain genders. I work in one of them (healthcare). Men are a distinct minority in my workplace. I think that there are a host of issues which make these types of disparity higher than they ought to be. This includes a public perception related to what jobs should be considered a woman's job or a man's job. Again, this is more of a emotional argument than anything that represents reality. DEI works in a lot of different ways - but it doesn't generally change the job requirements. The NBA is never going to hire women as professional basketball players in the NBA. However, the NBA does have a strong DEI program. Only about 10 percent of employees of the NBA are athletes. That leaves a lot of jobs where this isn't an issue. Of course, from a different point of view, MLB is roughly opposite the NBA in terms of athlete diversity. I am sure, if we wanted to grow a more diverse pool of athletes, we would need to do so by creating more opportunities much earlier in the process. Percentages of professional players tend to follow a pattern created by college players. But colleges don't generally represent the same player base that we see in high schools. It isn't just about skills - its also about opportunities. It is an interesting factoid that of young participants in equestrian sports, 99% are white. I think that if there is a reason why DEI programs struggle it is because the loss of opportunity for minorities doesn't begin in college or in the workforce, but much earlier in childhood opportunities. And in that context, it is more a function of government than it is private organizations and their policies. I think it is much less of a mixed bag than you do.

But let's point out the obvious that hasn't been discussed. DEI is demonstrably good for business. Businesses who use DEI as a tool generally do better than those that don't. Studies like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. There are lots of others. The problem that we have here is that this other narrative - that questions competency of individuals is a way of ignoring some of the real reasons why corporations engage in DEI - it is good for business. The idea of highlighting pilots is itself a way of turning the narrative away from the evidence based research that consistent and managed application of DEI creates better businesses. There is a reason why, when questions of DEI are put to shareholders that anti-DEI proposals are overwhelmingly defeated. Even in situations where DEI is poorly managed and superficial, there isn't any evidence to support any decline in the business. To me, this generally points out that when we have individuals or groups who focus on this sort of engagement (do we really want a DEI pilot flying a plane), what we really have is an emotional attack on DEI that isn't actually supported by any data at all. This approach is necessary because of the failure of studies to consistently provide real evidence of the failure of DEI. And let's be realistic. If it isn't about gender and race, it would be easy enough to include in DEI statistical quotas for white men. Let's create that target and make sure that we are meeting it, right? But this is never offered as a solution for those who are anti-DEI. Why? Because the anti-DEI voice is still trying to paint the narrative that the sole purpose of DEI is to correct alleged historic inequalities. And because it exists to correct these historic inequalities, that there is a societal willingness to pay a price (in terms of poor qualifications or performance) to balance out that history. Reality shows that this isn't the case. In the minds of many anti-DEI proponents, if we simply make it a meritocracy - one that completely ignores gender and race - the expectation is that white men will be the most deserving group for all of the most significant jobs and roles. So to have this sort of one sided discussion isn't actually some sort of evidence of having a neutral stance. It is its own form of bigotry. I think that if we were serious about addressing historic inequality we would stop trying to address symptoms and instead correct the underlying problems. Let's have free preschool. Let's have free four years of college. Let's educate everyone. If we can create real equity in education, then we wouldn't have this debate over merit and hiring, and we could see DEI as the valuable tool that it is for building successful business.

I am virtually impossible to offend - just so you know. I frequently have good discussions in my personal life with those of different views than I have. In these internet discussions, there is often a disconnect because all that we have to really gauge each other by is language. I want you to understand two things. The first is that the language that you use has been consistently the language of the far-right moving into the alt-right. This is what I have to judge you by. I don't have access to your voting record. My reality is a bit different. I am in my mid-50s. Most of my life I have consistently voted republican. Lately I have voted far more often for Democrats because the Republican party today reflects virtually none of the values that it reflected during my younger years. It is odd to see you claim to be Libertarian. Why? Because Libertarians are, as a general rule, fiscally conservative and socially liberal. But you don't come across as socially liberal at all. And this means that I don't really think that you are all that Libertarian. Perhaps in a very narrow sense of the term you might be. I also would suggest that if your perspective on what Democrats believe comes from biased sources, you are going to consistently misunderstand and misrepresent Democratic views in the United States. There is a strong suggestion that my view here is right (at least to me) because of the language that you use to describe Democrats. It is the language used by the far-right. You describe a Democratic party which is alien to me and to others that I know who align with the Democratic party. There is a strange problem here. Why? Because a moderate and respected group like the Anti-Defamation League identified Charlie Kirk's organization as extremist six years ago. You keep demanding that people provide evidence for the fact that Kirk had views that were divisive - and yet you seem to refuse to recognize any evidence that this was the case. But there is a problem. Most people who are moderate conservatives - even those who are politically active - don't generate the kind of divisiveness that Kirk generated. There is in your rhetoric a complete disdain for "antifa" - for anti-fascism. Do you think that fascism is something we should should oppose? Do you believe that anti-fascism is an appropriate response for those who live in a democracy? If you agree with this, then the disagreement isn't about being anti-fascist, but about who gets that label. Why is it that it is okay for conservatives to consistently label Democrats as socialists (when in fact Democratic policies aren't particularly socialist - especially when compared with governments that are socialist)? There seems to be very little difference between this and the Democrats referring to the far right as fascist. Is the Democratic fear of authoritarian government any less valid than the Republican fear of authoritarian government? Aren't they largely two sides of the same coin? I have never claimed not to have bias. It is part of the reason why I try to introduce things that are external to my belief when discussing these issues. That way it can be clear that I am not simply talking from my personal perspective. I would never expect you to take my personal opinion as some sort of gospel truth. I have claimed to be centrist. Of course there also aren't absolutes. The whole concept of being moderate or centrist depends on the population as a whole. But as a general rule, the center in our society has been moving much more slowly than the extremes. And to support same-sex marriage, as an example, is not an extreme position in our society - it is actually a centrist position (it was much more an extreme position in my childhood). Those who want to paint something like support for same-sex marriage as extreme have lost sight of the center. Again, this points back to my comments. And yet you are using the language of the "far-right" and you are using the talking points of the "far-right". There isn't a cover that you can give yourself by saying, I didn't know that this was far-right ideology and language - because in the end, you are still adopting these issues. If we had some sort of objective way of taking language and identifying it as belonging to the far-right, perhaps this would be clearer to you. This isn't, of course, the same as calling you a Nazi. It is interesting, reading back through your comments over the last 14 years, and watching in recent years your radicalization. You make my point. Except they aren't. And again, you illustrate my point. Your basis for where something is on the ideology spectrum seems more based on yourself as the center and not on some attempt at objectivity. A final thought - A while back you wrote this: "Given the recent spate of fatal violence committed by trans persons, wouldn't it be reasonable for there being a legitimate concern that some members of that community may be dangerous both to themselves and others? Obviously blanket institutionalization of persons with gender dysphoria is ridiculous, but on a case by case basis there may be some justification for concern. Or do you feel there's no cause for concern?" For giggles, I asked ChatGPT this question: Prompt: An acquaintance recently sent me this message: "Given the recent spate of fatal violence committed by trans persons, wouldn't it be reasonable for there being a legitimate concern that some members of that community may be dangerous both to themselves and others? Obviously blanket institutionalization of persons with gender dysphoria is ridiculous, but on a case by case basis there may be some justification for concern. Or do you feel there's no cause for concern?" Could you analyze this for me and compare it to any other political rhetoric in the last century? ChatGPT responded: This is what I mean when I discuss the language that you use. The language itself is harmful. Since you seem to be overly worried about comparisons with the Nazis, perhaps you could ask ChatGPT this same question but instead, ask it if the rhetoric of your statement has any similarities to the rhetoric used by Nazis about the Jews. You might be a bit surprised at what comes back.

I think that this is part of the issue. That grid pointed out two different things (the media bias link that I provided earlier). The left//right positioning was about bias. Bias can be completely truthful (even if the record is incomplete). Bias can be deceptive even it is the truth. But the vertical measure was one of accuracy (truthfulness). A new source can be completely unbiased and totally fictional. The two measures are largely independent of each other. If you want to get all of the perspectives, as long as the sources are accurate, the bias can be accounted for in the different (accurate) versions of the story that we see. In my perspective, the goal shouldn't be about avoiding bias (which is in many ways unavoidable) but rather to avoid inaccuracy. And it is hard sometimes to differentiate between fabrication and reality - because with the help of AI in particular, we are getting really good at producing fabricated reality that looks like factual reality. I agree. It isn't a duality. This is part of what is at least mildly interesting about a news media source run by Falun Gong. If we measure using our normal duality look (right/left or liberal/conservative) then they don't exactly fit into such a measurement because Falun Gong doesn't directly identify itself within our spectrum. Because of this, the issue of accuracy is given perhaps a greater significance. But even there, we have issues. There is a recognition that the Epoch Times has engaged (and perhaps still does) in the practice of using click-bait to drive advertising revenue. Click bait is almost always skewed (has some degree of inaccuracy). It is a question deserving attention in any particular discussion of an article whether or not it was intended as serious news or merely as click bait. And for ourselves, we have to ask the same question - do we expect legitimate media sources not to engage in those kinds of practices (an ongoing issue as AI definitely favors click bait, and is increasingly being used to insert it into even traditional media resources).

Wikipedia has a number of challenges that make it difficult to use in an academic context. Among them are the fact that it functions more as an encyclopedia - its articles never represent original research (in fact, Wikipedia rejects content of that sort). Pages change regularly, they can be vandalized, and so on. At the same time, in this sort of environment, Wikipedia works really well. It usually has decent summaries of existing material, it has lots of references that can be looked up, and the crowd sourcing tends to help correct biased material. For example, the Epoch Times that we have been discussing. You can read the Wikipedia page here. And you can see that there are 161 footnotes to sources. But then you can also look at this history page. And here, you can not only see documentation for every change ever made to the page (at least since they began tracking changes in this way), but you can also have it prepare for you the historical page by date. So, there is certainly a great deal of disclosure about the pages, who made the changes, and so on. It's not a bad system. You can look at the history of some of the LDS pages as an interesting exercise to see how contested content works. But, all of this just illustrates why an academic institution wouldn't want it to be used in formal academic writing (and really why it shouldn't be used in academic writing) - while also pointing out that its inappropriateness in an academic setting doesn't have a lot to do with the reliability of the material. I think Wikipedia actually works quite well to deal with your CFR. It provides documentation for the claims that are made in the article. Of course, this isn't to say that these kinds of blanket statements are necessarily useful. After all, we are never really interested in the general context but in specifics. Is a specific article accurate? Is the presentation accurate but biased? And so on. I think that it is all relative. Epoch Times is a paragon of accuracy when compared with the Alex Jones show, or the Charlie Kirk show, or (on the left) the Jimmy Dore show, or the Palmer Report. I am not sure @Calm that the specifics of the methodology are all that important - unless we are trying to determine where the center really is. Just about anyone can tell that there are things that are way off of center, and very inaccurate - and those that are aren't particularly surprising. Where you get complaints is not so much about the bias, but about the accuracy. The Epoch Times has accuracy issues - but they are not extreme. The challenge in these discussions is that there is often a wide gap over what is accurate. To a vaccine denier, the science of vaccines is what is inaccurate. To our medical system (as a whole), the vaccine deniers are projecting fantasy. Having said that, the Epoch Times was widely known for its spreading misinformation in the context of Covid19. I could produce more detailed CFR types of references, but inevitably, we all run into the same problems. Without some sort of objective criteria for determining what is left leaning or what is right leaning, it is hard to find anything that is acceptable - once it contradicts someone's narratives, it is immediately labeled in a way that attempts to dismiss it. This is a real problem with the whole conspiracy sort of thing. The highly respected anti-defamation league suddenly goes out of style when it is discovered that it had label Charlie Kirk's group as an extremist group way back in 2019. Suddenly, the ADL is a leftist group. And yet, historically, the LDS Church has had a phenomenal relationship with the ADL. After all, they were aggressively pointing out the wrongness of groups fighting Mormonism - especially during Mitt Romney's campaign. You can see some of the LDS News releases here, here, here and here. And a couple from the ADL here and here. Somehow, the moment it disagrees with a group, they decide that there is something heinous about their crusade against hate. At any rate, I am sure he can provide you with the CFR you want. But, let's be real. If my reply with Wikipedia is a lazy response, so is your challenge. You don't attempt to address anything the Nehor wrote - you merely posted a CFR as a response - even lazier than looking at a Wikipedia page, I think. I don't really have a go to. I am a very casual news consumer. The news I am most interested involves the the sciences. The recent steady drip of new information coming from the James Webb telescope has been fascinating to me. I enjoy reading Scotusblog (I am a Supreme Court junkie). As I explained earlier: I am not going to read through a news e-mail that I get. I am much more likely to search for a specific piece of news that I want to know more about. My agenda is my own. When something seems a bit off, I just keep reading until I feel that I can draw some reasonable conclusions on my own. I have a few basic rules. For example, anything that is fearmongering is usually written off immediately (and so I usually don't get bogged down with conspiracy theories). I think, to get to what @Calm is looking at, there has been a shift in The Epoch Times in recent months. Part of this seems to be an economic decision. Since it has become a profitable venture, there is a need to maintain a certain level of reliability. However, a shift in this direction when it seems to be getting what it wants isn't particularly convincing. Given the role this news outlet has played in election coverage, it will be interesting to see how it handles the 2028 election cycle. And it may also be able to distance itself from its origins as the public relations arm of Falun Gong.

You are welcome. This thing you wrote - This isn't true. But when you have moved as far to the right as you seem to have, everything (including the entire center) seems to be leftists. Research into wikipedia suggests that it isn't significantly left leaning. But it is recognized that the individual editors do tend to include some bias. The challenge with this is the point I just raised. When you get far enough to the right, then nearly all of the Wikipedia contributors become left leaning. If most of the population tends to be left of where you are, then even truly unbiased sources become left leaning. This has been for a while part of the challenge facing the far right and the far left. The problem is, at least from my perspective, is that you don't actually seem to have an objective bone in your body. It doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who is not in agreement with your far right perspectives, that you would appreciate something like the Epoch Times. For me, there were several issues with it. One of my issues was the fact that I suddenly ended up as a subscriber without my ever having asked for it. I suspect this is part of how its readership grew so dramatically. But, it was also about its choice of news - whether or not it is unbiased in its coverage, it is certainly biased in what it chooses to cover. And really, once I start reading the conspiracy theory stuff in it, I figured my time was better spent elsewhere. The thing about internet news is really that simple for most people. We don't have the time to actually read everything, and so we look for those sources that tend to cover the news we want to read, and which aligns with our perspectives. Of course, we can measure all of this, right? This website measures all sorts of media for bias. Wikipedia isn't there because it doesn't present itself as a journalistic content provider. But the Epoch Times is in there. You can select more than one provider and compare them. So when I put in NPR (National Public Radio) and compare this with The Epoch Times, the Epoch Times comes out as significantly more biased than NPR. The reason why a comparison like that is interesting is because I expect that you believe that NPR is terribly liberal (far left). But, whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times Yeah ... this is not really a news source but a PR machine.

I think that if we are trying "to insert" an idea into a text, we are usually doing something that creates anachronisms (to a lesser or greater degree). The problem isn't in reading a text like Moses 7, and reading pre-mortality into it (this is, in fact, what early Mormonism eventually does). What is anachronistic is the suggestion that in what we read, a pre-mortality was meant all along. This isn't a fair suggestion. In fact, all language, generally speaking, is ambiguous and may contain layers. Authors sometime make use of this deliberately. The problem that you have with this suggestion is the implication. Normally when authors use ambiguity to create multiple meanings, they do so in a way that their intended audience can make sense of it and understand the text better through the ambiguity. But what you are suggesting here is that the original audience could not be the intended audience because they weren't competent enough readers to either understand the ambiguity or to understand how an author could be introducing a range of meanings through that ambiguity. There are a few additional assumptions in this that I simply reject. One of the more important of these is that this situation requires that the author of a text be God (in some sense) because only God can envision the future audience that the text is actually written for. And to be clear, every audience who read such a text generally believes that they are uniquely competent to read the text and so they are the audience that God intended. We can see that this removes any sense of human authorship from the text (of necessity) and requires that the human author (to the extent that we can call the animator of the text an author) be an incompetent reader themselves. From a theological perspective, modern LDS believe that personal revelation is a far more important principle than the idea of an inerrant text. And this would point to the idea that since we believe revelation is on ongoing and open process (and that this Book of Moses was a part of that expansion of revelation) that there isn't a need to encode information in such a way on the part of God. So, unlike the position of sola scriptura, LDS views don't require us to continuously reinterpret the text to keep it valid in contemporary circumstances or to match contemporary beliefs. It is never a problem (at least in LDS theology) to constantly reinterpret our texts to match our current contexts (likening the scriptures). It is only a problem if we try to assert that the meaning that we come to must be what was originally intended. There is a lot of philosophical back discussion about all of this - and while I wouldn't mind having that discussion, this thread probably isn't the best place for it.