FairMormon board chairman on its purpose, mission

[consiglieri]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Reel is a good example of somebody who is always in turmoil and ever resistant to resolution.

Bill Reel strikes me as a good example of somebody who is always trying to find the truth.

(And yes, being in turmoil and ever resistant to resolution are frequent attributes of people who are trying to find the truth.)

 

[consiglieri]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

You're putting words in my mouth.

And I don't accept your accusation of dishonesty -- be it on my part, on Dan Peterson's or that of FairMormon.

I don't think you are being dishonest, Scott.

I just think you are playing with a stacked deck.

If a person has issues without being aware of FAIR research, they haven't studied enough.

If the person still has issues after reading the FAIR research, they need to study more.

At no point is there granted the possibility that the person has studied enough and still have issues.

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, consiglieri said:

I believe there is no substantive difference between the church "not focusing" on something and hiding it.

Why does the church "not focus" on something?

Because they don't want the members to find out.

Why would the church hide something?

Because they don't want the members to find out.

To me, they are similar means to achieve the same end.

Fine.

You failed to mention the prophecy in Nephi's vision because you're trying to mislead people about the interpretation of Daniel's vision and embarrass the Church leaders.

See how easy it is to impute sinister motives with no solid substantiation?

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

44 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

Or maybe they don't find the answers satisfactory.

Well, if the answer is reasonable, whether or not they find it satisfactory is a choice on their part, isn't it?

 

[Scott Lloyd]

41 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

I don't think you are being dishonest, Scott.

I just think you are playing with a stacked deck.

If a person has issues without being aware of FAIR research, they haven't studied enough.

If the person still has issues after reading the FAIR research, they need to study more.

At no point is there granted the possibility that the person has studied enough and still have issues.

Here is what I said, and I stand by it:

 

Quote

 

When encountering troubling information, it is a personal choice to rush to form a hardened conclusion without making the effort to seek clarification or to contextualize the information.

Once the hardened conclusion has been made, it is a personal choice to close one's mind to clarification or context one might later encounter.

And it is a personal choice to publicly make repeated public attacks against the Church of Jesus Christ without taking cognizance of rebuttals that have already been made.

And finally, it is a personal choice to conclude in advance that it is not possible to resolve troubling questions. Greg Smith phrased it well when he posted on here a couple of weeks ago, citing the scripture about people who are "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth" and applied it analogously to those who are ever in turmoil and never coming to a resolution.

 

 

[Scott Lloyd]

47 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

 

(And yes, being in turmoil and ever resistant to resolution are frequent attributes of people who are trying to find the truth.)

 

It's an attribute of a chronic fault finder.

Truth seekers, on the other hand, are alert to resolutions and inclined to embrace them when they find them.

[consiglieri]

10 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Fine.

You failed to mention the prophecy of Nephi's vision because you're trying to mislead people about the interpretation of Daniel's vision and embarrass the Church leaders.

See how easy it is to impute sinister motives with no solid substantiation?

 

This seems to me a different thing entirely.  But have it your way.

I do think this gives greater meaning, though, to President Hinckley's response when he was questioned about the teaching of "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become."

If memory serves, President Hinckley's initial response was, "I don't know that we teach that; I don't know that we emphasize it."

(Note he did not say whether it was true.)

Here, I see "emphasize" as synonymous with "focus."

From this, are we justified in thinking that perhaps the Church intentionally chooses to not "focus" on or "emphasize" certain teachings?

[consiglieri]

9 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Well, if the answer is reasonable, whether or not they find it satisfactory is a choice on their part, isn't it?

 

Oh, come now.

Reasonableness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

On many things reasonable minds can disagree.

For instance, would you agree that reasonable minds can disagree on whether the Book of Mormon is a historical record of a group of Jews in the Americas who migrated from Jerusalem about 600 BCE?

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, consiglieri said:

This seems to me a different thing entirely.  But have it your way.

I do think this gives greater meaning, though, to President Hinckley's response when he was questioned about the teaching of "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become."

If memory serves, President Hinckley's initial response was, "I don't know that we teach that; I don't know that we emphasize it."

(Note he did not say whether it was true.)

Here, I see "emphasize" as synonymous with "focus."

From this, are we justified in thinking that perhaps the Church intentionally chooses to not "focus" on or "emphasize" certain teachings?

This is another thing that antagonists and critics repeatedly misrepresent.

Looking at the interview in context and in light of what President Hinckley taught elsewhere, one realizes that the "I don't know that we emphasize it" pertained to the portion of the couplet that says "As man is God once was." And what he said is true about that portion of it. Indeed, we don't know a lot about that concept, and hence, we indeed do not emphasize it.

The part about man's potential to be like God we emphasize a great deal. President Hinckley recognized that is something we do emphasize.

Don't misinterpret the man's statement and proclaim your misinterpretation as fact. That is at least as bad as what you accuse the Church leaders of doing.

Edited to add:

FairMormon has a noteworthy analysis of this perennial attack and misrepresentation by critics and antagonists against the Church.

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

9 hours ago, consiglieri said:

Oh, come now.

Reasonableness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

On many things reasonable minds can disagree.

For instance, would you agree that reasonable minds can disagree on whether the Book of Mormon is a historical record of a group of Jews in the Americas who migrated from Jerusalem about 600 BCE?

If it's something on which reasonable minds can disagree, then taking a position one way or the other is a personal, uncompelled choice. Right?

I repeat: Choices carry consequences.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[juliann]

On 12/26/2015 at 2:13 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

I don't believe that it is their goal to keep people in the Church.  That is best done by other organizations.  Instead, simply to judge by what they in fact do, their goal is to provide accurate information.  What people choose to do with that correct data is their own responsibility.  I would like to know whether the leadership of FairMormon agrees with that point of view.

Anyone who believes and values the Church hopes to see people remain. FM members do try to assist those who ask on an individual basis.  One way of doing that is to provide easily accessible information. FM began in the 90s when Evangelical ministries had a huge head start online. When I went into religion forums it was ugly and mean. There was so much bad information and out and out lies being pushed as Mormon belief. But there was no one place to go to counter the cut and paste from ministry sites. Thus, the acronym FAIR. It was not FAIR to block Mormon access to sites talking about them (AOL allowed Christianity Online to do this) without giving those they considered not to be Christian equal protection from evangelical zealots on sites where the rest of us were allowed. FAIR was not so much about the quality of representation, it was about being able to be represented.

As to above claims that FM is the reason for people leaving because we provide too much information, it is in direct opposition to the claims that FM isn't truthful about "problems."  I've always scratched my head over accusations of evasiveness. How are we to respond to critics if we don't acknowledge what they are saying?   In general the whole thing seems like somebody complaining that they went to the doctor and learned things they didn't know before and that caused them to feel poorly.

3 hours ago, Buckeye said:

 

FWIW, I think the underlying beef with FAIR isn't so much because they're jerks (my experience, on average, they're just like the kids of Lake Wobegone - above average). No, the problem is that members in the middle of faith crises tend to be looking for objective information and they fail to realize that FAIR's purpose is expressly not to be objective. FAIR's purpose is to address tough issues, but always give the faithful answer. Basically, it's the same thing as the church essays, just done by an informal group of well-intentioned amateurs. That's not a critique of FAIR. But it is a critical point that leads to a lot of frustration. Struggling members are looking for validation of their conclusions, not just facts, and if those conclusions do not match with current church teachings, then they're just setting themselves up to be disappointed by FAIR.

 

You are correct on most of what you say. But what you leave out is the ideal example of why communication bogs down. You are able to see that FM makes no claim to "objectivity." But you do not see that those that do, aren't objective either. Anyone who claims to be should be a huge warning. And that is why you will be frustrated by those who do recognize this and reject anyone engaging in this fallacy out of hand.

One base rule I have learned is to always be able to support what I say if I am going to attribute anything to a group of people I disagree with. FM is not just "amateurs" and it is certainly not informal. I make a distinction between organized apologetics and individual defenders or loosely organized arenas such as FB , message boards, or blogs.  If you aren't familiar with Evangelical Mosser and Owen's groundbreaking article about Mormons winning and Evangelicals not knowing it, you need to before you categorize "apologists."  What the Evangelical attackers lacked was scholarship. They couldn't defend themselves effectively without it. Most of all, they couldn't see that the very attacks they launched weakened their own position when applied themselves. And you see the results today with their absence on Mormon message boards.

There was a recent thread on ZLMB and the golden days of message board apologetics. Try telling anyone that was there that scholarship wasn't key....the reason ZLMB boomed was because there were scholars there. My intent with FM was to bring FARMS "hard" scholarship to the layman level. And it is about near impossible because what makes it scholarship is the hard stuff. So we constantly fight that battle. FM only exists  because of scholars that give us content, help us run FM, train those amateurs, and much more. The very reason why FM frustrates so many is because they lack the scholarship....just as the EVs did.(That is why the CES letter has had to be under constant revision.) I am seeing greater efforts to bring in scholarship but all that does is raise the bar for everyone.  My exmo sister who frequents RFM says even they are no longer always tolerant of  those who try to pass off folklore as Mormon doctrine. 

In other words, I think there is a growing sense of the need to accurately represent what we criticize. That is a good thing.

Quote

 

 In  short, the problem many members have with FAIR is that they're looking for helping finding the "truth" but FAIR's primary purpose is to help people reach the conclusion that the "church is true."

 

Wrong again. Can you not see how this sort of thing shuts down communication? There has never, ever been any claim that "truth" can be found through anything but the Spirit! I am dumbfounded that this idea is still circulated. It is nonsensical, it violates church teachings, and it is just plain impossible. FM exists to respond to critics. Back to why the name FAIR came about....it is about our side being represented.

Edited December 29, 2015 by juliann

[consiglieri]

7 minutes ago, juliann said:

Anyone who believes and values the Church hopes to see people remain. FM members do try to assist those who ask on an individual basis.  

Thank you for confirming my thought on this issue, Juliann.

It only makes sense to me that FM is going to all this trouble with the goal of helping members remain in the Church.

By the way, it is good to "see" you, and I hope you are well.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[juliann]

3 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

Thank you for confirming my thought on this issue, Juliann.

It only makes sense to me that FM is going to all this trouble with the goal of helping members remain in the Church.

By the way, it is good to "see" you, and I hope you are well.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

It was fun to see your moniker again!  If people leave, I hope they do it calmly and with an acknowledgment that there are good reasons to believe as well as reasons to disbelieve. I also hope that they are able to adjust well to their chosen life and don't spend years online in a sea of negativity. 

[consiglieri]

6 minutes ago, juliann said:

It was fun to see your moniker again!  If people leave, I hope they do it calmly and with an acknowledgment that there are good reasons to believe as well as reasons to disbelieve. I also hope that they are able to adjust well to their chosen life and don't spend years online in a sea of negativity. 

Thanks!

I do hope I don't come across as terribly negative.  But I suppose there may be some of that.

I intentionally wanted to post about my MTC Christmas experience as a signal of sorts to let everybody know that I do see good reasons to believe, and have actually experienced some for myself.

So no, I do not see everything about Mormonism as negative, though I know there are some who do.

If I come across that way, it is probably because those are the things I want to discuss with members of this board.

But I do recognize, and would like to openly acknowledge here, that there is much good in the LDS Church and especially in its members.

And that most definitely includes you, Juliann.

 

[DBMormon]

3 hours ago, consiglieri said:

Or maybe they don't find the answers satisfactory.

impossible, they just haven't stayed with it long enough.

[DBMormon]

3 hours ago, consiglieri said:

Bill Reel strikes me as a good example of somebody who is always trying to find the truth.

(And yes, being in turmoil and ever resistant to resolution are frequent attributes of people who are trying to find the truth.)

 

I like this guy!

[DBMormon]

3 hours ago, consiglieri said:

I don't think you are being dishonest, Scott.

I just think you are playing with a stacked deck.

If a person has issues without being aware of FAIR research, they haven't studied enough.

If the person still has issues after reading the FAIR research, they need to study more.

At no point is there granted the possibility that the person has studied enough and still have issues.

There are always more books to read and more plausible answers just ahead

[Scott Lloyd]

9 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Fine.

You failed to mention the prophecy in Nephi's vision because you're trying to mislead people about the interpretation of Daniel's vision and embarrass the Church leaders.

See how easy it is to impute sinister motives with no solid substantiation?

 

 

9 hours ago, consiglieri said:

This seems to me a different thing entirely.  But have it your way.

 

It's not a different thing entirely. It's deliberately leaving out essential information because it would weaken your argument to acknowledge it -- the very thing you accuse the Church leaders of doing.

Unless you were totally oblivious to the prophecy in Nephi's vision. It would surprise me if you were.

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[salgare]

I assume that is John Dehlin's sister?  I heard recently he has an active sister who is a bit known in her own right.  The questions were pointed and John Lynch represented himself and the organization well.  One of the questions and a fair amount of time was spent on what was obviously based on the some recent issues with Bill Reel.

 

btw, could someone tell me who wikiwonka is, maybe via pm?  I have not seen him on the web for a few years now it seems.  He always maintained a good reputation among the critics.

Edited December 29, 2015 by salgare

[Scott Lloyd]

8 minutes ago, salgare said:

I assume that is John Dehlin's sister?  I heard recently he has an active sister who is a bit known in her own right.  The questions were pointed and John Lynch represented himself and the organization well.  One of the questions and a fair amount of time was spent on what was obviously based on the some recent issues with Bill Reel.

On Dehlin's recent podcast interview with Bill Reel, he mentioned he has a sister who is involved with FairMormon. I think it's a safe assumption this is she. 

She's a good interviewer and, I understand, a professional broadcaster. 

Some of Lynch's comments seemed to allude to Reel, though he was never mentioned by name. 

[salgare]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

On Dehlin's recent podcast interview with Bill Reel, he mentioned he has a sister who is involved with FairMormon. I think it's a safe assumption this is she. 

She's a good interviewer and, I understand, a professional broadcaster. 

Some of Lynch's comments seemed to allude to Reel, though he was never mentioned by name. 

Yes it was very professional, no names and all questions it seemed geared to criticisms.  The loyalty and dedication of members of the Church is an amazing thing.  Our lives are already so full of demands and stresses.  I hope it brings them joy and not regrets.

[Buckeye]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

As a FairMormon member I can categorically deny that FM in general equates "too soon" with "never".

 

15 hours ago, juliann said:

...

You are correct on most of what you say. But what you leave out is the ideal example of why communication bogs down. You are able to see that FM makes no claim to "objectivity." But you do not see that those that do, aren't objective either. Anyone who claims to be should be a huge warning. And that is why you will be frustrated by those who do recognize this and reject anyone engaging in this fallacy out of hand.

One base rule I have learned is to always be able to support what I say if I am going to attribute anything to a group of people I disagree with. FM is not just "amateurs" and it is certainly not informal. I make a distinction between organized apologetics and individual defenders or loosely organized arenas such as FB , message boards, or blogs.  If you aren't familiar with Evangelical Mosser and Owen's groundbreaking article about Mormons winning and Evangelicals not knowing it, you need to before you categorize "apologists."  What the Evangelical attackers lacked was scholarship. They couldn't defend themselves effectively without it. Most of all, they couldn't see that the very attacks they launched weakened their own position when applied themselves. And you see the results today with their absence on Mormon message boards.

There was a recent thread on ZLMB and the golden days of message board apologetics. Try telling anyone that was there that scholarship wasn't key....the reason ZLMB boomed was because there were scholars there. My intent with FM was to bring FARMS "hard" scholarship to the layman level. And it is about near impossible because what makes it scholarship is the hard stuff. So we constantly fight that battle. FM only exists  because of scholars that give us content, help us run FM, train those amateurs, and much more. The very reason why FM frustrates so many is because they lack the scholarship....just as the EVs did.(That is why the CES letter has had to be under constant revision.) I am seeing greater efforts to bring in scholarship but all that does is raise the bar for everyone.  My exmo sister who frequents RFM says even they are no longer always tolerant of  those who try to pass off folklore as Mormon doctrine. 

In other words, I think there is a growing sense of the need to accurately represent what we criticize. That is a good thing.

Wrong again. Can you not see how this sort of thing shuts down communication? There has never, ever been any claim that "truth" can be found through anything but the Spirit! I am dumbfounded that this idea is still circulated. It is nonsensical, it violates church teachings, and it is just plain impossible. FM exists to respond to critics. Back to why the name FAIR came about....it is about our side being represented.

Calm and Juliann, I was going off of Scott's earlier comment where he quoted both John Lynch and Dan Peterson (two FM board members) as saying (correctly, I will add) that often church members leave "too soon." In trying to pin down Scott on whether a member could ever find good reason to disbelieve, I started to mix together Scott, Dan, and FM. My apologies. I should have left FM out of that part of the discussion. Thanks for correcting me.

From what you're saying here, it seems like FM - or at least some FM members - are comfortable with members reaching a point where they reasonably conclude that the church is not true. In other words, there is reasonable ground to stay and there is reasonable ground to leave. If that's not what you mean, please correct me (again  ).  

PS (Juliann), I am aware of the Mosser/Owen articles. Or at least I have in mind an article from the mid-1990s that my mission president had us all read regarding "mormons winning the war."

Edited December 29, 2015 by Buckeye

[consiglieri]

15 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

It's an attribute of a chronic fault finder.

Chronic fault finders are typically those certain of the truth.  They chronically find fault in those who disagree with them.

Truth seekers, on the other hand, typically find fault with those who think they already know what the truth is.

[Buckeye]

Scott,

I've listed to the podcast. Here are some thoughts (in no particular order):

• I wasn't as impressed as you were with Ms. Hatten as an interviewer. Her bio lists some impressive credentials. But in this podcast she seemed to just be reading questions off of cards, not asking probing follow-up, and certainly not trying to challenge the interviewee. FWIW, I'm also often disappointed with John Dehlin for similar reasons. He seems to have his set views and is most interested in finding confirming information rather than exploring what the interviewee brings to the table. At least this is true recently. His early stuff was better.

• I agree that Bill Reel was certainly a strong undertone for this interview. While he wasn't mentioned by name, much of the discussion related to where FM draws lines and edits out content from its authors, which to me seems mostly about Bill.

• I was a little troubled to learn that FM is sometimes asked by the church to provide information regarding certain individuals. It sounded sort of like an extension of the SCMC.

• I was very glad to learn that Kevin Barney is a FM board member. I've been a fan of his for a long time.

The most interesting thing I took away is this. Apparently FM draws a line between Bill Reel's comments about the new church policy and those of the Kevin Barney. Bill's comments got him excluded from the group and his contributions expunged. Kevin remains a FM board member (one of four). The best I can understand from this is that FM doesn't have a problem with members who publicly disagree with the policy, even calling it "a terrible idea." But they do have a problem when members actively encourage opposition to the policy.

From Brother Reel: http://www.wheatandtares.org/19575/duty-bound-to-reject-it/

From Brother Barney: http://bycommonconsent.com/2015/11/24/were-i-ever-to-leave-the-church/

[volgadon]

http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2015/12/quick-thoughts-from-patrick-mason-on.html?spref=fb&m=1