Repressed Church History?

[Daniel Peterson]

Oh, cmon, you underestimate our apologists.

One of the common refrains among the more sophisticated ex-Mormons (a pretty small group) is that "the apologists" have cynically redefined Mormonism and Mormon claims so as to place Mormonism beyond even the theoretical possibility of falsification.

It's not true. But it's possible that the folks who say that may actually believe it to be true. What might convince them otherwise? Nothing. (Ironic, that.)

[Garden Girl]

Hello rickg...

rameumpton made the point that you should read the book if you have a firm reference to compare it to... I agree... As an example, I told this experience here just recently... but... my inactive sister told me she was reading "The Godmakers." Being familiar with that book, I told her if she was going to read The Godmakers, she most certainly should read "The Truth About the Godmakers," by Dr. Gilbert W. Scharffs, and I promptly obtained and sent her a copy. She layed the two books side by side, comparing Dr. Scharff's line by line, page by page rebuttal... it did not take her long to see The Godmakers use of extensive "half-truths," "misinterpretations," "out of context," "sensationalism" and she tossed that book immediately...

I've read enough "anti" literature that I'm familiar with most of the issues, but I don't normally pursue it on a regular basis... I get too frustrated at the bias, etc., etc. I keep abreast of the major issues, and so far have found nothing to move me from my testimony...

The Garden Girl

[Dale]

I tried to find a book with an author with a similar testimony. I couldn't find an exact match. I looked at the names of Anti-Restoration authors that popped into my head. I also looked at the UTLM and MRM books for sale list. Inventing Mormonism by H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley Walters was one of my candidate book's.

My advice is to ask for the title of the book from your relative.

[Son]

my advice is to ask for the book and read it.

You are asking if anyone has an opinion on a book you know nothing about.

Can we stop trusting in the Arm of Flesh, and ask the spirit, why is the Holy Spirit there if we don't ask. Read it, ask the spirit, and grow, it is why we are here.

[freakin a man]

My point is that we put way too much trust in our feelings and emotions and not enough trust in our reasoning and logic. Yes, there is a time and place for emotion but at the same time we should not be devoid of common sense and sanity. Don't be deceived by smooth talking, polished productions whether they be for or against the church, do your homework, dig into the history, use your mind that is what it is there for.

I think some people put too much trust in their reasoning and logic. Some people think they are reasonable and logical on issues when in fact they are quite irrational in their views. My mother sometimes is this way. (Love you Mom). Moderation in all things. People who rely too much on their feelings and too much on logic and reason (especially regarding things of the spirit) put themselves in danger.

[Son]

I think some people put too much trust in their reasoning and logic. Some people think they are reasonable and logical on issues when in fact they are quite irrational in their views. My mother sometimes is this way. (Love you Mom). Moderation in all things. People who rely too much on their feelings and too much on logic and reason (especially regarding things of the spirit) put themselves in danger.

If one is relying on themselves then that would be contrary to relying on the spirit.

[rickg]

2 items here:

First, I think my friend T-shirt nailed it for me.

"An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" by Grant Palmer

I Googled the author, and read a couple bio's on him, and it all sounds exactly like what I've heard thru the family grapevine about what my bro read. Dunno if I'll read it though. I have a hard enough time reading what I NEED to read. Not afraid of it, just have more other important stuff to read.

Item #2:

I owe a couple of ya an appology(can't even spell the word!)

It wasn't a Tanner that helped teach my grandparents the gospel. It was Ezra T. Benson's brother. Gads. Oh well. I had the G.A. part right! I saw my uncle last weekend, and asked him about it, and he got me straightened out. Dunno where the heck I got the idea it was a Tanner. Getting old I guess.

I've learned when proven wrong, own up to it! So there ya go.

[solomarineris]

OK. Replying to Repressed Church History?

Reading the immense information in Sandra Tannner's UTLM site would be a good start. There you will find every information from the Church history from it's own sources.

Also you can read critics & comments from FAIR site and compare.

In this day&age everything is on your finger-tips.

All you have to do is look and decide for yourself.

[Dale]

You will find most Anti-Mormon book's repeat the same information, and Anti-Mormon commentary over and over. The Tanner stuff seem's to me to be the most prolific of Anti-Mormons. Every other critic's book is mostly just a summary of what they say. And I even suspected that many Anti-Mormon writers actually do not alway's buy LDS book's but borrow quotes from other critic's books.

Be cautious with the Tanners as they twist issues and can leave out parts of quotations. I have learned quotes in Anti-Mormon book's isn't the problem as much as the commentary that goes with the quote. The Anti-Mormon interpretation, and explanation makes LDS history worse than it is. Some matters of history have different explanations and interpretations.

[TAK]

2 items here:

First, I think my friend T-shirt nailed it for me.

"An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" by Grant Palmer

I Googled the author, and read a couple bio's on him, and it all sounds exactly like what I've heard thru the family grapevine about what my bro read. Dunno if I'll read it though. I have a hard enough time reading what I NEED to read. Not afraid of it, just have more other important stuff to read.

The good folks at FARMS will tell you he (Grant Palmer) is not a true "insider" so what ever he has written or thinks is tainted thereby worthless and anti.

[LifeOnaPlate]

The good folks at FARMS will tell you he (Grant Palmer) is not a true "insider" so what ever he has written or thinks is tainted thereby worthless and anti.

Perhaps unwittingly, some folks review FARMS as they accuse FARMS of reviewing critics. It's an odd phenomenon, to be sure.

[Lightbearer]

I always find it quite humorous what these anti-mormon snake-oil salesmen say to try to get people to "believe it not." They will say anything, there is no lie too outrageous, no accusation too base, no explaination too ridiculous. The Church has "secret archives" about the "real history" of the Church...How utterly inane. It reminds me of Jeraldo Rivera's special on Al Capone's secret vault...I waisted an hour or was it two, for them to open that stupid thing on "live TV" and when they finally did all they found were a few old gin bottles! Do you think for one minute if the Church were a fraud that the authorities would be stupid enough to keep any evidence that proved it was?! I mean the first thing I would do would be to throw it into a fireplace and nobody would ever see it. Why would they keep "incriminating evidence" in a secret vault? Why not destroy it the moment it was found? Please give the authorities a little credit...even if you believe they are liars and decievers please don't add to the accusations that they are stupid too!

By the way...they are not liars or decievers and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is TRUE!

[ruski_canuk]

One of the common refrains among the more sophisticated ex-Mormons (a pretty small group) is that "the apologists" have cynically redefined Mormonism and Mormon claims so as to place Mormonism beyond even the theoretical possibility of falsification.

It's not true. But it's possible that the folks who say that may actually believe it to be true. What might convince them otherwise? Nothing. (Ironic, that.)

The fundamental flaw is deduction motivated by the implications. Certainly one apologist will hold more steadfastly to that motivation than another, with that I won't dispute.

[cdowis]

One of the common refrains among the more sophisticated ex-Mormons (a pretty small group) is that "the apologists" have cynically redefined Mormonism and Mormon claims so as to place Mormonism beyond even the theoretical possibility of falsification.

"Apologists have refuted everthing I can throw at them. The only argument left to me now is that there is no way to falsify Mormonism. It's not true, but there is no way to prove it false."

[cdowis]

Bagley makes the statement:

I had John D. Lee descendants come to me and say "You know, you gave me your notes, and I went up and tried to look at it, but they wouldn't let me see this stuff." So I got there, I think, at the right time.

And you know, to their credit, it's a very wise policy, because let's face it, Mormon archives do contain a lot of "embarrassing information", but they were long ago purged---I've been informed, and I've never seen his journal, but Andrew Jenson, long-time assistant church historian, describes "consigning documents to the flames" because they were so embarrassing. So, except for items that only a real specialist would recognize, many of the most incriminating documents have long since been destroyed. And this was even admitted by one of the authors of the forthcoming Mormon version of the book.

http://www.salamandersociety.com/interviews/willbagley/

[auteur55]

Are there historical issues that might help some to lose faith? Certainly. But they have nothing to do with anything hidden in the archives.

Oooh, Dan do you have some dirt to dish or is it the same thing hashed out on these boards every day?

[Daniel Peterson]

The good folks at FARMS will tell you he (Grant Palmer) is not a true "insider" so what ever he has written or thinks is tainted thereby worthless and anti.

I know all of the folks at FARMS. I've never heard of anybody making that argument.

Caricatures and straw men don't advance conversations, TAK.

Oooh, Dan do you have some dirt to dish or is it the same thing hashed out on these boards every day?

Absolutely nothing new.

[EVOLVING]

The good folks at FARMS will tell you he (Grant Palmer) is not a true "insider" so what ever he has written or thinks is tainted thereby worthless and anti.

TAK - please re-read the reviews at FARMS - there is nothing in them that would lead any logical reasonable person to believe that Grant Palmer is "worthless and anti"

then read Insiders View of Mormon Origins- research everything yourself, the footnotes are a great source, if you want the easy to listen to mode Google "Grant Palmer podcast" listen to the man himself there are 4+ hours of details in the Mormon Stories podcast alone.

He(Grant Palmer) is a humble man, as a seminary/institute teacher that spent 25+ years of studying LDS doctrines and history. He found "things" in LDS church history that shed additional light on the origins of the LDS faith, that he could not discuss these "things" openly bothered him. He wrote a book about said "things" FARMS took more than a year to review and try and refute his perspective, the reviews are more of a ad hominem attack on him that a book review. The issues he brings to light for LDS faithful are still there staring every apologist in the face waiting for an answer.

~evolving

[Daniel Peterson]

FARMS took more than a year to review and try and refute his perspective,

A bit misleading.

Authors can't just think something and have it appear immediately in print. There is the act of writing, the process of editing, the waiting for all of the relevant materials to come in (besides the specific reviews in question) in order to put together an entire volume, the editing of those other materials, the printing, the binding, and etc. And, at any rate, the FARMS Review appears only semiannually.

What evidence do you have to demonstrate that this person named "FARMS" took a year to write the Palmer reviews?

the reviews are more of a ad hominem attack on him that a book review.

That is flatly untrue.

While the claim might have a superficial plausibility if it were made about the reviews by Louis Midgley and Davis Bitton, it is manifestly and even slanderously false if made about the statement by the Smith Institute and about the reviews by Stephen Harper, James Allen, and Mark Ashurst-McGee.

Is there really any point in asserting claims that are so easily demonstrated to be untrue?

The issues he brings to light for LDS faithful are still there staring every apologist in the face waiting for an answer.

Balderdash.

(A good word, that. Underused, but, in this case, plainly obligatory.)

[stargate]

Many events or incidents in Church history are not usually that important in terms of the gospel so they are not discussed in Church meetings. If one wants to learn about Church history, they either have to take class on church history or do it on their own.

Or just buy volumes 1-6 (I think there are that many) of the official Church

history.

Jeff

[LifeOnaPlate]

TAK - please re-read the reviews at FARMS - there is nothing in them that would lead any logical reasonable person to believe that Grant Palmer is "worthless and anti"

then read Insiders View of Mormon Origins- research everything yourself, the footnotes are a great source, if you want the easy to listen to mode Google "Grant Palmer podcast" listen to the man himself there are 4+ hours of details in the Mormon Stories podcast alone.

He(Grant Palmer) is a humble man, as a seminary/institute teacher that spent 25+ years of studying LDS doctrines and history. He found "things" in LDS church history that shed additional light on the origins of the LDS faith, that he could not discuss these "things" openly bothered him. He wrote a book about said "things" FARMS took more than a year to review and try and refute his perspective, the reviews are more of a ad hominem attack on him that a book review. The issues he brings to light for LDS faithful are still there staring every apologist in the face waiting for an answer.

~evolving

I'd like to review the review you speak of, but noticed there are several reviews of the book on FARMS. Can you refer me to the review you say has all the ad hominem arguments? I'd like to read through it and see if what you are saying about the review is truthful or accurate. Thanks!

By the way, I read History of the Church vols 1-6 on my mission, and it was not the most energetic selection I read. I want get a hold of Roberts' Comprehensive History and take a gander at that, but the DI thus far has yielded no results.

[TAK]

I know all of the folks at FARMS. I've never heard of anybody making that argument.

Really Dr Peterson? I find that comment quite curious considering whoever wrote this overview of FARMS material:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display-pr...ghts&id=370

With attempts to eviscerate Bro. Palmer with quips such as:

Palmer is a retired CES employee whose outsider, revisionist polemic against Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism has been publicized as (in the words of reviewer Steven C. Harper) "the benevolent act of a knowledgeable, official church teacher, self-commissioned to save the Saints from ignorance."

Palmer's duplicity in masquerading as a church insider and reliable "spokesman for a virtual unanimity of scholarly opinion." Bitton demonstrates the emptiness of that position and takes Palmer to task on many points: his trivialization of personal inspiration, selective disbelief of Joseph Smith's teachings and history, misrepresentation of opposing scholarly views, dismissal of relevant facts and scholarship, and overall disingenuousness and incongruity of method.

Palmer's take on the witnesses of the gold plates, priesthood restoration, and the first vision and concludes that Palmer's tendentious book "bespeaks incongruity. It feigns objectivity. It defines incredibility."

Palmer had swallowed, 'hook, line, and salamander,' the revisionist anti-Mormon propaganda popular at that time." Midgley also fleshes out Palmer's pertinent career background and explores how Palmer has filled the void created by his disbelief with a vague "sentimentality about Jesus.

DCP

Caricatures and straw men don't advance conversations, TAK.

Neither does character assassination and yet it seems to be a key tool in Mormon Apologia ..

[EVOLVING]

I'd like to review the review you speak of, but noticed there are several reviews of the book on FARMS. Can you refer me to the review you say has all the ad hominem arguments? I'd like to read through it and see if what you are saying about the review is truthful or accurate. Thanks!

to be clear -- I these are "my opinions" and most of my opinion is based on perspective. I have read Insiders View and checked the sources, I have read all of the FARMS reviews. I have listened to every podcast/radio interview I could find. I have had email communication with Grant Palmer. I have made these decisions for me, on my own.

as Dr Peterson pointed out the "Louis Midgley and Davis Bitton" reviews are interesting. the Mark Ashurst-McGee review is also a good read. all of them have a little venom towards Palmer. I believe in episode three Mormon Stories Podcast Grant Palmer discusses in details his opinion of the FARMS reviews. it's a good listen.

[cdowis]

Really Dr Peterson? I find that comment quite curious considering whoever wrote this overview of FARMS material:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display-pr...ghts&id=370

With attempts to eviscerate Bro. Palmer with quips such as:

Palmer is a retired CES employee whose outsider, revisionist polemic against Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism has been publicized as (in the words of reviewer Steven C. Harper) "the benevolent act of a knowledgeable, official church teacher, self-commissioned to save the Saints from ignorance."

Palmer's duplicity in masquerading as a church insider and reliable "spokesman for a virtual unanimity of scholarly opinion." Bitton demonstrates the emptiness of that position and takes Palmer to task on many points: his trivialization of personal inspiration, selective disbelief of Joseph Smith's teachings and history, misrepresentation of opposing scholarly views, dismissal of relevant facts and scholarship, and overall disingenuousness and incongruity of method.

Palmer's take on the witnesses of the gold plates, priesthood restoration, and the first vision and concludes that Palmer's tendentious book "bespeaks incongruity. It feigns objectivity. It defines incredibility."

Palmer had swallowed, 'hook, line, and salamander,' the revisionist anti-Mormon propaganda popular at that time." Midgley also fleshes out Palmer's pertinent career background and explores how Palmer has filled the void created by his disbelief with a vague "sentimentality about Jesus.

Neither does character assassination and yet it seems to be a key tool in Mormon Apologia ..

Excuse me.

These are general comments found in almost any review -- movies, book, music, etc. These are not attacks on his person nor his integrity, but on his logic and thought process. He promised an independent, insider view, and all he gives is the rehashed antimormon stuff.

You find that offensive that they point out the broken promise the author gives to his readers?

[LifeOnaPlate]

Really Dr Peterson? I find that comment quite curious considering whoever wrote this overview of FARMS material:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display-pr...ghts&id=370

With attempts to eviscerate Bro. Palmer with quips such as:

Palmer is a retired CES employee whose outsider, revisionist polemic against Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism has been publicized as (in the words of reviewer Steven C. Harper) "the benevolent act of a knowledgeable, official church teacher, self-commissioned to save the Saints from ignorance."

Palmer's duplicity in masquerading as a church insider and reliable "spokesman for a virtual unanimity of scholarly opinion." Bitton demonstrates the emptiness of that position and takes Palmer to task on many points: his trivialization of personal inspiration, selective disbelief of Joseph Smith's teachings and history, misrepresentation of opposing scholarly views, dismissal of relevant facts and scholarship, and overall disingenuousness and incongruity of method.

Palmer's take on the witnesses of the gold plates, priesthood restoration, and the first vision and concludes that Palmer's tendentious book "bespeaks incongruity. It feigns objectivity. It defines incredibility."

Palmer had swallowed, 'hook, line, and salamander,' the revisionist anti-Mormon propaganda popular at that time." Midgley also fleshes out Palmer's pertinent career background and explores how Palmer has filled the void created by his disbelief with a vague "sentimentality about Jesus.

Neither does character assassination and yet it seems to be a key tool in Mormon Apologia ..

Read: Pointing out faults in Palmer's methods or reasoning is an ad hominem attack.

I disagree.

to be clear -- I these are "my opinions" and most of my opinion is based on perspective. I have read Insiders View and checked the sources, I have read all of the FARMS reviews. I have listened to every podcast/radio interview I could find. I have had email communication with Grant Palmer. I have made these decisions for me, on my own.

as Dr Peterson pointed out the "Louis Midgley and Davis Bitton" reviews are interesting. the Mark Ashurst-McGee review is also a good read. all of them have a little venom towards Palmer. I believe in episode three Mormon Stories Podcast Grant Palmer discusses in details his opinion of the FARMS reviews. it's a good listen.

You said the FARMS reviews were ad hominem attacks. Please refer me to the review, I'd like to take a look at the one you most feel represents ad hominem. Otherwise, it seems your claims on the reviews are based only on Palmer's take on them in his podcast.