God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

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_Mormon Think
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God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Mormon Think »

The Daily Beast has a new piece up, "God vs. the Internet. And the Winner is…," by Michael Schulson (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... er-is.html) that touches on the recent LDS essays. His main focus is on how the internet has created a "crisis of authority" because of the shift in who frames the narrative of a religion. He features Mormonism and how the internet has caused the Church to make changes in how much information they disseminate to the general membership.

Schulson says,

"What’s at risk here, really, isn’t faith. Nor is it traditional leadership. It’s the illusion that our founding myths and our factual histories are somehow one and the same. It’s still possible to understand Joseph Smith as a transcendent figure with a powerful spiritual message (his mythic history) who was also a flawed human individual with a fourteen year-old wife (factual history). ... But it’s getting more difficult to pretend that the actual details of Joseph Smith’s life map perfectly onto that archetypal role."

He doesn't seem to cut the Church any slack when he point blank says

"Latter-day Saint authorities acknowledge that Joseph Smith, the church’s founder and first prophet, married between 30 and 40 women. Some of those women already had husbands. One of Smith’s wives was just 14 years old at the time of their marriage."

It's good he also acknowledges that many Mormons didn't know about Joseph Smith's polygamy:

"To historians, that’s old news. But church authorities have traditionally been hesitant to discuss controversial parts of Mormon history. Many Mormons did not know the details of Smith’s polygamy."

MormonThink got a little ink:

"Increasingly, official church historians share historical authority with people like Scott Carles, the managing editor of MormonThink, a website devoted to making information about Mormon history easy to find. Carles told me that MormonThink strives to be objective and impartial. They’re not trying to convert people, but they are trying to push the church to be more transparent. MormonThink’s visitors tend to be Mormons with doubts about the faith, looking for answers. The site gets two million visits per month."

He also links to MT here:

"As Mormons venture online, they’re finding information about the church that contradicts the history they learned growing up. They’re reading about Smith’s polygamy, the church’s troubled racial history, and some especially fishy translations." [The "fishy translations" is a link to MT's Book of Abraham page http://mormonthink.com/book-of-abraham-issues.htm]

Overall it's worth the read.

Bill
_Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Everybody Wang Chung »

Bill,

Keep up the good work. There are many LDS who feel you are doing a great service by keeping the pressure on the Church to be open and honest.

Thank you for your efforts.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."

Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
_Lloyd Dobler
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Lloyd Dobler »

Thank you and keep on doing what you all are doing. I am waiting for the most recent polygamy essay response. I have a couple people teed up to the point where I think the response will make a big impact. Thanks again!
_Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Everybody Wang Chung »

Lloyd Dobler wrote:Thank you and keep on doing what you all are doing. I am waiting for the most recent polygamy essay response. I have a couple people teed up to the point where I think the response will make a big impact. Thanks again!


Lloyd,

I don't know if you saw this, but Rollo wrote a very well reasoned and detailed response/analysis of the essay here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B22-zr ... view?pli=1
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."

Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
_mentalgymnast
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Lloyd Dobler wrote:Thank you and keep on doing what you all are doing. I am waiting for the most recent polygamy essay response. I have a couple people teed up to the point where I think the response will make a big impact. Thanks again!


Lloyd,

I don't know if you saw this, but Rollo wrote a very well reasoned and detailed response/analysis of the essay here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B22-zr ... view?pli=1


Rollo did say in response the question: "Are we to assume and/or accept that your essay does not contain faulty suppositions/assumptions?"

Rollo: No.

For what it's worth.

Regards,
MG
_Rollo Tomasi
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Rollo Tomasi »

mentalgymnast wrote:Rollo did say in response the question: "Are we to assume and/or accept that your essay does not contain faulty suppositions/assumptions?"

Rollo: No.

For what it's worth.

Regards,
MG
I think your question and my answer would apply to ANY essay ever written by a person ... for what it's worth.
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."

-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
_mentalgymnast
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Rollo Tomasi wrote:
mentalgymnast wrote:Rollo did say in response the question: "Are we to assume and/or accept that your essay does not contain faulty suppositions/assumptions?"

Rollo: No.

For what it's worth.

Regards,
MG
I think your question and my answer would apply to ANY essay ever written by a person ... for what it's worth.


That's probably true. Something we should always keep in mind.

Regards,
MG
_Fence Sitter
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Fence Sitter »

mentalgymnast wrote:Rollo did say in response the question: "Are we to assume and/or accept that your essay does not contain faulty suppositions/assumptions?"

Rollo: No.

For what it's worth.

Regards,
MG
Rollo Tomasi wrote:I think your question and my answer would apply to ANY essay ever written by a person ... for what it's worth.

mentalgymnast wrote:That's probably true. Something we should always keep in mind.

Regards,
MG


And I am sure you will be pointing that out whenever you refer someone to the essays from the church.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
_DrW
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _DrW »

Considering that the LDS Church reports the LDS.org website home page traffic at about 2.6 million hits per month, I would say that 2 million a month for Mormon Think is very good, indeed.

There can be little doubt that MT, and the accurate and truthful content it provides, is having a significant impact on the way many Mormons view the LDS Church.

Keep up the good work.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
_Mormon Think
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Re: God vs the Internet and the winner is...MormonThink

Post by _Mormon Think »

DrW wrote:Considering that the LDS Church reports the LDS.org website home page traffic at about 2.6 million hits per month, I would say that 2 million a month for Mormon Think is very good, indeed.

There can be little doubt that MT, and the accurate and truthful content it provides, is having a significant impact on the way many Mormons view the LDS Church.

Keep up the good work.


Thanks. They did make a typo in the article. Scott told them 2 million hits per month and they put 'visitors' instead of 'hits'. Still not bad for an informational site with no advertising or funding compared to the church buying ads and billions at their disposal.

Bill
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