Letter To A Ces Director Problematic

[Calm]

This is why I sometimes want to say, "a plague on both your houses."

 

I understand Runnells is preparing a bloated, unreadable rebuttal to FairMormon's bloated, unreadable rebuttal to Runnells's readable but overlong Letter to a CES Director, with "critic" and "apologist" each continuing to play their respective parts to the point of caricature, neither side yielding anything to the other, each determined to learn nothing from the other. It's as predictable as it is depressing.

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9)

There are enough out there that want the extensive details that I think it is better to keep them, but always interested in how to organize information to help it appeal to multiple audiences. Any suggestions?

[TheSkepticChristian]

my late friend Allen Lambert assisted in the conversion of several scholars to Mormonism

 

How many? and how many used to be secular? and why so few?

 

 

  Indeed, Mormonism may be the religion most compatible with science and scholarship -- even though many Mormons do not realize the fact.

 

I like that

 

 

I hadn't thought of that. Hopefully for his family he has the type of job that it won't matter.

 

Runnells didn't like his former job, he was looking for a new one, he said, "While the CES Letter has its rewards, it mostly comes with a lot of responsibility and burden. I’ve lost so much of my privacy. My name is now in the public domain and has been used for both praise and disdain. I have lost employment opportunities here in Utah as a result of it."

 

I think that guy is not telling the truth. I don't think there are a lot of faithful LDS employers that are aware of his letter.

[Nevo]

There are enough out there that want the extensive details that I think it is better to keep them, but always interested in how to organize information to help it appeal to multiple audiences. Any suggestions?

 

I'm not an information architect, but I don't think annotating an 84-page PDF with brief comments (in Times New Roman!) directing readers to some 350 off-site links, which in turn only bring up more pages of brief comments and links, is a very elegant or effective way to deliver information. The reader is presented with literally thousands of links to sort through (of widely varying quality and relevance) with little or no guidance. Inevitably, many of these links lead to apologetic treatments that tend to side-step or downplay problems and apply considerable spin. For many readers—already suspicious of authority and feeling "lied to"—this approach will only alienate them further.

 

What would I suggest instead? A well-designed website that deals with the issues raised in the CES Letter directly and succinctly with Bushmanian irenicism, candor, and good grace. (Easier said than done, I know!)

[readstoomuch]

Mr. Runnells is prolific.  He has created the poison pill of arguments against the Church for this generation.  It is also readily available with the internet.  Long lists are hard to rebut.  Take the three volumes for Joseph Smith`s polygamy or even the condensed version Hales recently put out.  It is much more work to go through the information.  Does reading CES Letter bring you closer to God?  Does it make you feel the Spirit?  Is some knowledge about controversy important for Chapel Mormons?  Should it be made more of the curriculum?  Good questions, but looking for Christ in what I read always makes me feel better and brings me closer to God`s work.  

 

So, I don`t feel the Spirit as I read the CES Letter and I have been through most of it.  I don`t have the energy to keep up with his rebuttals of FairMormon`s rebuttals.  

 

It is a perfect straw man.  Somebody responds to his general selection of the worst of Mormon History with the most negative slant and assumptions of guilt on every issue.  The straw man does not answer the questions to his satisfaction and certainly not every issue.  Then he has responded to the rebuttal before most people know that there is a response to his CES Letter.  There are some excellent responses, but there isn`t the one volume book that answers all of the CES Letter questions.  It all reminds me so much of the Tanners work back in the 70s and 80s.  I respect Robert Smiths tender and human side to them that I did not know about until he brought them up.  They were the clearinghouse of anti-Mormon issues, though.  The anonymous response by a Church Historian and nonmember Lawrence Foster`s article about them as Career Apostates in Dialogue were helpful to me.  They  didn`t answer all of the Tanners questions, but it did qualify enough points that I started going through the challenge of reading footnotes and sources.  Boy were my eyes opened.  People make stuff up and if you read a few pages in the source, the context and big picture ideas are often so different than the implications of the footnote.  

 

Reading some of the old responses to the Tanners and Michael Ash`s book, Help Thou Mine Unbelief by Nancy Phippen Browne,  Terryl Givens books, FairMormon and you have most if not all of the CES Letter covered.  The straw man of no one wants to take the point by point of the CES Letter grows tiresome to me.  I wish there was a quick, more compact source of information that people could read as a proChurch alternative, but I don`t know if that exists.  Maybe some of the rebuttals we have talked about in this thread come close.   I wish this new generation didn`t get most of their information in podcasts or message boards.  There was something about digging into sources and having to do interlibrary loans that made it seem worthwhile and mind expanding.  The careful methodical way made the gospel come alive for me in a way that the Tanners machine gun delivery didn`t.  That`s it!  Jeremy Runnells is like a Thompson machine gun rattling off anti-mormon facts at us.  

[Calm]

Readstoomuch, we could propably use your description on how you dealt with the information overload and resolved it and why you think it worked for you over at FairMormon. Would you be interested in writing something up...probably not much longer than what you have here.

Thanks, Nevo. Making bookmarks so I can pass this on once I can format thoughts in a more complicated process again.

Edited September 5, 2015 by calmoriah

[readstoomuch]

Mr. Runnells is prolific.  He has created the poison pill of arguments against the Church for this generation.  It is also readily available with the internet.  Long lists are hard to rebut.  Take the three volumes for Joseph Smith`s polygamy or even the condensed version Hales recently put out.  It is much more work to go through the information.  Does reading CES Letter bring you closer to God?  Does it make you feel the Spirit?  Is some knowledge about controversy important for Chapel Mormons?  Should it be made more of the curriculum?  Good questions, but looking for Christ in what I read always makes me feel better and brings me closer to God`s work.  

 

So, I don`t feel the Spirit as I read the CES Letter and I have been through most of it.  I don`t have the energy to keep up with his rebuttals of FairMormon`s rebuttals.  

 

It is a perfect straw man.  Somebody responds to his general selection of the worst of Mormon History with the most negative slant and assumptions of guilt on every issue.  The straw man does not answer the questions to his satisfaction and certainly not every issue.  Then he has responded to the rebuttal before most people know that there is a response to his CES Letter.  There are some excellent responses, but there isn`t the one volume book that answers all of the CES Letter questions.  It all reminds me so much of the Tanners work back in the 70s and 80s.  I respect Robert Smiths tender and human side to them that I did not know about until he brought them up.  They were the clearinghouse of anti-Mormon issues, though.  The anonymous response by a Church Historian and nonmember Lawrence Foster`s article about them as Career Apostates in Dialogue were helpful to me.  They  didn`t answer all of the Tanners questions, but it did qualify enough points that I started going through the challenge of reading footnotes and sources.  Boy were my eyes opened.  People make stuff up and if you read a few pages in the source, the context and big picture ideas are often so different than the implications of the footnote.  

 

Reading some of the old responses to the Tanners and Michael Ash`s book, Help Thou Mine Unbelief by Nancy Phippen Browne,  Terryl Givens books, FairMormon and you have most if not all of the CES Letter covered.  The straw man of no one wants to take the point by point of the CES Letter grows tiresome to me.  I wish there was a quick, more compact source of information that people could read as a proChurch alternative, but I don`t know if that exists.  Maybe some of the rebuttals we have talked about in this thread come close.   I wish this new generation didn`t get most of their information in podcasts or message boards.  There was something about digging into sources and having to do interlibrary loans that made it seem worthwhile and mind expanding.  The careful methodical way made the gospel come alive for me in a way that the Tanners machine gun delivery didn`t.  That`s it!  Jeremy Runnells is like a Thompson machine gun rattling off anti-mormon facts at us.  

Cal,

I would be glad to help.  What I was basically saying is that I had to deal with the Tanners information 35 years ago and I was able to.  Much of the methodology I used applies to the CES Letter and FairMormon is a readily available source that I did consult as I read the CES Letter.  The CES Letter is more readable than the Tanners material and unfortunately can become Mormon Kryptonite to a poor soul without experience in reading critically.  It relatively short nature goes a long way in people actually reading it.  His story sounds sincere for the most part.  If you send me a private message I will work on something to help out.  The more specific about what you want the better my response will be for you.  

[Calm]

Give me a couple of days to get past the worst of the surgery recovery...it is so easy for the most part I can ignore it and then something happens and I realize he brain and body are still in sluggish mode after all.

I think of our site like this great feast that gives so much choice people get lst in it and either pull back or may miss something better in another topic for their need. Have guidance especially by example from someone who figured what works for him to make the search meaningful can encourage others to put the effort in. So much info can easily lead to either extreme of thinking 'overload' and just dropping it or thinking it is all going to be handed to you, which doesn't really accomplish anything.

[carbon dioxide]

Mr. Runnells is prolific.  He has created the poison pill of arguments against the Church for this generation.  It is also readily available with the internet.  Long lists are hard to rebut. 

All he did was repackage the same old stuff.  He did not create the arguments.  All those things have been available on the internet for years and years.  Long lists are not hard to rebut.  They just take time to rebut.  The problem is do people have the patience for it.  One can write a nice lie in 50 words or less.  It might take 500 words just to show the claim was false and a lie.  Do people have the attention span these days for that or it is easier to take the quick lie and leave it at that.  Add 100 quick lies and one might have to write a response that is 5000-10000 words.  This is what I call the cluster bomb approach.  Drop so many bombs on your opponent at once that it is almost impossible to address all of them in a reasonable time and some people just give up and accept the 100 lies as being legit.  The CES letter is simply a cluster bomb.  Each small bomb is small and worthless but taken together it has an effect because people tend to be fairly lazy these days.

Edited September 5, 2015 by carbon dioxide

[bluebell]

Give me a couple of days to get past the worst of the surgery recovery...it is so easy for the most part I can ignore it and then something happens and I realize he brain and body are still in sluggish mode after all.

I think of our site like this great feast that gives so much choice people get lst in it and either pull back or may miss something better in another topic for their need. Have guidance especially by example from someone who figured what works for him to make the search meaningful can encourage others to put the effort in. So much info can easily lead to either extreme of thinking 'overload' and just dropping it or thinking it is all going to be handed to you, which doesn't really accomplish anything.

 

I like FM and i use it often.  I do however find myself going to Jeff lindsay's LDSFQA more often (and almost always first) just because his answers are generally so much shorter and easier to peruse.    Sometimes having less to choose from is a real bonus. 

[Robert F. Smith]

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

........................................ The anonymous response by a Church Historian ...........................................................\

................................. 

The Tanners were likely correct to deduce that the anonymous historian was none other than Mike Quinn.

[provoman]

I agree with carbon dioxide, that the CES Letter is a repackage. I am not impressed with Runnells effort nor with a portion of a rebuttal I have read.

[Robert F. Smith]

I like FM and i use it often.  I do however find myself going to Jeff lindsay's LDSFQA more often (and almost always first) just because his answers are generally so much shorter and easier to peruse.    Sometimes having less to choose from is a real bonus. 

Are you saying that less is more?

[Jeanne]

Give me a couple of days to get past the worst of the surgery recovery...it is so easy for the most part I can ignore it and then something happens and I realize he brain and body are still in sluggish mode after all.

I think of our site like this great feast that gives so much choice people get lst in it and either pull back or may miss something better in another topic for their need. Have guidance especially by example from someone who figured what works for him to make the search meaningful can encourage others to put the effort in. So much info can easily lead to either extreme of thinking 'overload' and just dropping it or thinking it is all going to be handed to you, which doesn't really accomplish anything.

Cal...please get better!  Thinking of you and hope your recovery is quick!

[bluebell]

Are you saying that less is more?

Sometimes less is a lot easier, which makes me use it more often.

And I suppose that if that is the measuring stick, then yes. Less is more.

But sometimes the measuring stick is something completely different. For those instances I don't think that less is more at all.

[Calm]

That is why we need a variety of options on how to use it available.

Now if only I could learn to focus my time into helping organize it all rather then just coming up with ideas on what others should do, lol.

[readstoomuch]

CES Letter gets to the points fast.  Defending them with quick, sufficient answers isn`t as easy as pointing out flaws.  With CES Letter, the writer just takes the party line that the Saints/Church/Prophet was deceived, lying or just plain wrong.  In the truly balanced defense you would point out the the points that the other side got right, explain your side and why it should be weighed in the Church`s favor.  Cal was implying to me that FairMormon has extensive resources, but people get hung up in where to start.  So, ultrashort answers that are trustworthy and reliable for the short attention span folks would help.  If there are issues that really bother someone, then they can dig into those in further detail.  I think Cal was hoping that I could write an introduction (or at least how FairMormon worked for me) about looking into doubts and questions no matter what the source.  CES Letter is a repackage, but a very good and brief repackaging.  Grant Hardy`s book is a favorite among the anti-Mormon, doubting crowd because of its brevity.  It suffers many of the same errors that CES Letter has.  Grant Hardy started out making it sound like he wanted to help the LDS Church and has evolved to being overtly hostile to the the Church.  

[Nevo]

Grant Hardy`s book is a favorite among the anti-Mormon, doubting crowd because of its brevity.  It suffers many of the same errors that CES Letter has.  Grant Hardy started out making it sound like he wanted to help the LDS Church and has evolved to being overtly hostile to the the Church.  

 

Wrong Grant.

 

Grant Hardy's book is the best thing I've ever read on the Book of Mormon.

[Jeanne]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_and_the_criminal_justice_system

 

I know I'm at fault for not knowing the details in church history, but would I have liked those details, not so much.  If you look at the history of JS's arrests it doesn't paint a very good picture.  As a child I remember the stories of him being hounded by the law.  In all that time, I know I was naïve, I thought they were persecuting him for his religious beliefs, not for actually breaking any laws.  Another hidden fact to me.  No truth in religion here.  No disclosure.  Primary manuals failed me as a child. Or teachers....or my parents....heaven knows.    

In all of this, as my experience too, I fail to see why "we" are at fault.  I spent a few classes in church thinking "poor Joseph"  they just wouldn't leave him alone.

[Calm]

I have the urge to volunteer to be first line of offense against spammers....this guy is really annoying.

[Teancum]

I agree with carbon dioxide, that the CES Letter is a repackage. I am not impressed with Runnells effort nor with a portion of a rebuttal I have read.

 

 

It may be a repackage and one that all that good.  But there is plenty in there that that while out there has really not been dealt with all that well. What you and Dioxide say is a common complaint and while apologists may think they have done a great job answering the issues other find the answers falling short.

 

But I guess ultimately it is a matter of perspective.

[Teancum]

CES Letter gets to the points fast.  Defending them with quick, sufficient answers isn`t as easy as pointing out flaws.  With CES Letter, the writer just takes the party line that the Saints/Church/Prophet was deceived, lying or just plain wrong.  In the truly balanced defense you would point out the the points that the other side got right, explain your side and why it should be weighed in the Church`s favor.  Cal was implying to me that FairMormon has extensive resources, but people get hung up in where to start.  So, ultrashort answers that are trustworthy and reliable for the short attention span folks would help.  If there are issues that really bother someone, then they can dig into those in further detail.  I think Cal was hoping that I could write an introduction (or at least how FairMormon worked for me) about looking into doubts and questions no matter what the source.  CES Letter is a repackage, but a very good and brief repackaging.  Grant Hardy`s book is a favorite among the anti-Mormon, doubting crowd because of its brevity.  It suffers many of the same errors that CES Letter has.  Grant Hardy started out making it sound like he wanted to help the LDS Church and has evolved to being overtly hostile to the the Church.  

 

 

So what are the errors? List the top five.

[readstoomuch]

Wrong Grant.

 

Grant Hardy's book is the best thing I've ever read on the Book of Mormon.

Yes.  You are right!  Grant Hardy`s book is awesome, but Grant Palmer`s book is not.  So it should be Grant Palmer.  Grant Hardy`s book is not a quick read though.

[readstoomuch]

So what are the errors? List the top five.

Not going to go point by point.  That would probably be a great torture akin to Chinese water torture.  How about tone, balance, presentism, fairness and humility?  If you want a bone to gnaw on, I don`t think it is any better when hagiography of our past is produced by well intentioned people either.

[cinepro]

Yes.  You are right!  Grant Hardy`s book is awesome, but Grant Palmer`s book is not.  So it should be Grant Palmer.  Grant Hardy`s book is not a quick read though.

 

Thought I had missed something...

[Brian 2.0]

When I read apologetic work, especially reviews/defenses against other content, I sometimes have to weed through the arrogant, condescending stuff to get to the meat of their argument.

I have to do the same thing with the CES letter.