Paid Apologetics?

[Daniel Peterson]

Yep.

Whatever he teaches is the teaching load that his department asks him to teach.

Time spent in class isn't all professors do. There are office consultations and lecture preparation time and paper grading and department and college and university committees and research and writing and etc.

It can be a really easy job if one isn't conscientious or ambitious, but there's not enough time in the day for those who take it seriously and try to do things well. People like me work evenings and weekends, not just during the "workday."

[Robert F. Smith]

Yeah, I got the name wrong her name was Jan Shipps. Jan had her heart in the right place, and I knew some of the people she interviewed in the Church in her attempt to get things right -- but she never quite got the nuances right when she ventured into current Mormon culture. Is she still publishing?

.........................

She is speaking at a conference at Claremont Graduate University later today, March 15, http://www.cgu.edu/pages/5232.asp?item=6974 .

I have always thought that she got the nuances just right, but then there is no accounting for taste, is there?

[Pahoran]

What reasoning is there, Scott?

You have to ask?

On page 8 of the thread, Pahoran charges me with having nothing to say.

You tried to argue, from the fact that Professor Hamblin's earnings from his teaching post are actually less than they would have been had he not done apologetics, that he was being compensated therefor. Your argument was (at best) desperately strained and (unquestionably) contrived. It was an exercise in casuistry that demonstrated, at best, a kind of glib, superficial verbal cleverness. Your respect for such minor considerations as truth and fairness is rather less evident.

Not only did you have nothing to say, you would have been better of not saying it in the first place. And yes, you really were the "only one wondering."

He then alleges he can read my mind ("as you know"). And then to top it off he compares BYU professors who publish apologetic works with volunteer firefighters.

Nobody else had any trouble understanding the analogy. Clearly you cannot show any actual problems with it, since all you have to offer is a dismissive snort.

How can I (or anyone) make a "substantive response" to such stuff?

Maybe by actually engaging it?

If you want an example of a substantive dialogue, go back to my exchange with Robert F. Smith on the thread. He made a good point, and I conceded as much.

Well, here is a good point you have yet to acknowledge: Professor Hamblin told us that he earned less from his teaching position because his superiors disapproved of apologetics. No reasonable person concludes therefrom that he was "compensated" therefor. If that's compensation, then my bank is making mortgage payments to me once a month.

But I will admire your chutzpah on this. It's been a good while since anyone has tried to so brazenly argue that black is white and up is down in this forum.

It's also been a good while since anyone has fallen on their face quite so cheerfully.

Regards,

Pahoran

Edited March 15, 2013 by Pahoran

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

It's also been a good while since anyone has fallen on their face quite so cheerfully.

Regards,

Pahoran

Hooray!!! Hey guys, I fell on my face. How cool is that? Lol.

[escott3564]

If that's compensation' date=' then my bank is making mortgage payments to me once a month.[/quote']

OK, I literally LOL'd at this!

[escott3564]

Dan, it really amazes me how little these guys know about how academics work. Here is the latest from your favorite board and my response:

He set up an online journal to replace it' date=' and he seems to be getting static from the church/BYU from that also (see Hamblin's posts).[/quote']

Dan has not received static from the Church or BYU regarding the Interpreter.

Dan and Bill are professors in different departments. The Humanities department, where Dan's Islamic Studies division is housed, has no problem whatsoever with Dan's participation at the Interpreter.

Bill's division is housed under the Social Science department. It was his department chair, not Dan's, who voiced concern. And the concern really had nothing to do with Bill's participation. It was more about Bill not being able to receive recognition of scholarship for his writing there. It was Bill's choice to step down from his editorial role at the Interpreter due to time constraints; it had nothing to do with being muzzled by the Church.

MDB attack dogs will pounce on Liz for defending Dan in 5....4....3...2...

[Daniel Peterson]

You've nailed it. Bill is in the Department of History, which is located in the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. He has a different dean than I do, and a different department chairman. I'm in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages, which is located in the College of Humanities.

I'm not only not in disfavor with my college, so far as I can tell, but -- I don't think this is meant to be a secret -- have recently been asked by my dean to be the faculty speaker for its August convocation (that is, for the large, formal meeting in which graduates of the College receive their diplomas). This will be a first for me, as I didn't attend my own college graduation ceremonies -- not even for the doctorate.

And, for what it's worth, if the Brethren truly wanted to muzzle me -- which a number over there at the Contempt and Defamation Board insist has already happened -- I would definitely not be writing a regular weekly column (and co-authoring a separate semi-weekly column) for the Church's daily newspaper. At least, that's what my friend Joe Cannon, the immediate past editor of the Deseret News, tells me.

[escott3564]

You've nailed it. Bill is in the Department of History, which is located in the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. He has a different dean than I do, and a different department chairman. I'm in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages, which is located in the College of Humanities.

I'm not only not in disfavor with my college, so far as I can tell, but -- I don't think this is meant to be a secret -- have recently been asked by my dean to be the faculty speaker for its August convocation (that is, for the large, formal meeting in which graduates of the College receive their diplomas). This will be a first for me, as I didn't attend my own college graduation ceremonies -- not even for the doctorate.

And, for what it's worth, if the Brethren truly wanted to muzzle me -- which a number over there at the Contempt and Defamation Board insist has already happened -- I would definitely not be writing a regular weekly column (and co-authoring a separate semi-weekly column) for the Church's daily newspaper. At least, that's what my friend Joe Cannon, the immediate past editor of the Deseret News, tells me.

I hope you're OK with my bringing up your latest BYU graduation speech assignment in my latest response.

Apparently, Scratch is not the only one with "informants". LOL And, according to this exchange, it sounds like Wayfarer's are just as reliable as Scratch's were.

No, I am quite sure that Dan has not received such criticism, directly. In my conversations with whomever I may or may not have as contacts, the disfavor Dan is earning is palpable, and he will NOT see it directly. It's really too bad, too -- for his own sake. He was blind-sided by the firing from the Maxwell Institute, and that got very public. Going forward, the Church will not trust that anything said to Dan directly won't be published in his alternative media.

If the "disfavor" Dan is earning is so "palpable", then why wouldn't the Church take direct means, rather than indirect means to muzzle him? That makes absolutely no sense. If they are that concerned about him publishing things, then why allow him to continue his weekly article at Deseret News? If your "contacts" are BYU officials, and Dan is supposedly such an embarrassment, why was he recently asked to give a VERY public graduation speech for August 2013 Humanities Department graduates?

It sounds to me like your "contacts" may not be as reliable as you think.

[Calm]

I hope you're OK with my bringing up your latest BYU graduation speech assignment in my latest response.

Apparently, Scratch is not the only one with "informants". LOL And, according to this exchange, it sounds like Wayfarer's are just as reliable as Scratch's were.

It is always amusing to me as how all this stuff is going on behind the scenes in convoluted conspiracies to silence him when all it would take is one of the many church leaders he has been acquainted with over the years just coming out and giving him some solid direction.

Boy, our church leaders must be overly fond of the cloak and dagger stuff to go out of their way to avoid an easy fix to all this horrendous public embarrassment that is Dan and his buddies....

And the accusation that Dan is the guy who is leaking confidential information....nice touch.

[Five Solas]

But I will admire your chutzpah on this. It's been a good while since anyone has tried to so brazenly argue that black is white and up is down in this forum.

It's also been a good while since anyone has fallen on their face quite so cheerfully.

Regards,

Pahoran

Back on post 144, I acknowledged to Robert F. Smith, “At this point I'm willing to concede BYU may be a special case & that I've read it wrong.”

One might reasonably conclude that would have been the end of it. But not for you! You go on & on with your allegations, as though you were nursing some personal grudge (I assume we've never met and I doubt you'd be so hostile if we had).

Let me add, if kicking off a thread that leads to 10 pages of (mostly) interesting dialogue constitutes falling on my face—may the good Lord grant that I do so often!

As for being cheerful, guilty as you charge. I’ve a fire in my fireplace (it was a little chilly as we walked back home from the farmers' market this morning—and my 4-year old daughter suggested it). I’ve a cold beer next to me. And later this afternoon, we’ve a babysitter coming over and I’m getting a “date night” with my wife. And in the back of my mind, I know full well I could still be in the single adult program in a certain local stake, but for the Grace of God.

So blast away as much as you please, Paharon. Know that you can't possibly wipe the smile off my face.

:0)

--Erik

[Scott Lloyd]

Back on post 144, I acknowledged to Robert F. Smith, “At this point I'm willing to concede BYU may be a special case & that I've read it wrong.”

I know you are trying to save face, but it's not a matter of BYU being a special case. It's a matter of your reasoning not making sense.

[Robert F. Smith]

Back on post 144, I acknowledged to Robert F. Smith, “At this point I'm willing to concede BYU may be a special case & that I've read it wrong.”

One might reasonably conclude that would have been the end of it. But not for you! You go on & on with your allegations, as though you were nursing some personal grudge (I assume we've never met and I doubt you'd be so hostile if we had).

Let me add, if kicking off a thread that leads to 10 pages of (mostly) interesting dialogue constitutes falling on my face—may the good Lord grant that I do so often!

As for being cheerful, guilty as you charge. I’ve a fire in my fireplace (it was a little chilly as we walked back home from the farmers' market this morning—and my 4-year old daughter suggested it). I’ve a cold beer next to me. And later this afternoon, we’ve a babysitter coming over and I’m getting a “date night” with my wife. And in the back of my mind, I know full well I could still be in the single adult program in a certain local stake, but for the Grace of God.

So blast away as much as you please, Paharon. Know that you can't possibly wipe the smile off my face.

:0)

--Erik

Please don't lose any sleep over this, Erik.

It's not worth it. And I hope date nite went well.

Bob

[Pahoran]

Back on post 144, I acknowledged to Robert F. Smith, “At this point I'm willing to concede BYU may be a special case & that I've read it wrong.”

One might reasonably conclude that would have been the end of it. But not for you! You go on & on with your allegations, as though you were nursing some personal grudge (I assume we've never met and I doubt you'd be so hostile if we had).

It's not a question of a "personal grudge." It's a question of respect for truth and fairness.

The problem is not whether BYU might be a "special case." It is whether a punishment is "really" a reward; whether being held back is "really" a promotion; whether docked pay is "really" compensation; whether up is "really" down, black is "really" white or true is "really" false.

Reread your own OP. You claimed you were countering some "argument," of which you did not cite any examples, about LDS apologists not being paid; and in order to beat up that straw man, you formed an untenable argument, based upon slippery logic, to try to claim that they really are.

This isn't about a "personal grudge," Erik. Your argument would still be a shell game even if you were my best friend. Actually that throwaway line about a "personal grudge" looks a lot like a red herring.

And for someone who honestly can't find a single thing to substantively respond to in any of my posts, you certainly type a lot of words in response.

Let me add, if kicking off a thread that leads to 10 pages of (mostly) interesting dialogue constitutes falling on my face—may the good Lord grant that I do so often!

As for being cheerful, guilty as you charge. I’ve a fire in my fireplace (it was a little chilly as we walked back home from the farmers' market this morning—and my 4-year old daughter suggested it). I’ve a cold beer next to me. And later this afternoon, we’ve a babysitter coming over and I’m getting a “date night” with my wife.

Good for you. I hope it went well.

And in the back of my mind, I know full well I could still be in the single adult program in a certain local stake, but for the Grace of God.

You know, for someone who's so wonderfully cheerful, that little anti-Mormon back-hander looks suspiciously like evidence that there might be just the tiniest tinge of annoyance among all that cheerfulness.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Louis Midgley]

She is speaking at a conference at Claremont Graduate University later today, March 15, http://www.cgu.edu/p...2.asp?item=6974 .

I have always thought that she got the nuances just right, but then there is no accounting for taste, is there?

I think I once demonstrated that one "they" liked to call the "Den Mother" never quite got anything right. See the following: http://maxwellinstit...7&num=2&id=194. This essay is entitled "The Shipps Oddysey in Retrospect," FARMS Review 7/2 (1995): 221-252.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Louis Midgley

[escott3564]

After reading the OP and the first few pages of this thread which I didn't have the opportunity to do earlier, I think that a lot of the misunderstanding involving payment for apologetics comes from the fact that unless you have worked in academia, you really don't understand how it works.

This is not a slam to anyone. It's just the truth. Academia and the corporate world are just two completely different animals. Having worked in both mediums, I understand where both modes of logic come from.

If you work for a company, you think under the guise of "company policies are consistent throughout departments".

In the academic world, that is just not the case at all. It isn't the case for the university I teach at, and it is much smaller than BYU.

Like I tried to explain to Wayfarer, each department has its own set of rules. What is acceptable in one department can be completely unacceptable for another.

The reason that the Peanut Gallery was salivating over Bill's announcement was because they just assumed that Dan would be treated the same way. And then they jump to these grand assumptions that the Church as a whole is trying to "muzzle" Dan, and any form of aggressive apologetics.

These assumptions are absurd to those of us who understand how academic politics work, but it is futile to try to explain it to those who really only hear what they want to hear.

[Five Solas]

Please don't lose any sleep over this, Erik.

It's not worth it. And I hope date nite went well.

Bob

:0)