Stephen Smoot's Vendetta

[Tom]

This is the face and expression of a very troubled soul who is struggling to hold it together. His countenance has anger and frustration. He's not happy. He's going to break.

“Neville-Neville Land” and Smoot represent the current “pinnacle” of Mopologetics. The best they are able to muster at this point in time is a blog aimed at destroying the faith of their fellow Latter-day Saints, helmed by a guy who has failed to get a PhD and who is posing as “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.” Honestly, you couldn’t invent a better satire of Mopologetics.

I think you are right, Shulem, that Smoot is “in deep,” and that he’s suffering a great deal. His connection to the Mopologists has been incredibly toxic and has him headed down a dangerous path. I join with the others on this thread in urging him to choose a different way.

What happened to Smoot and his doctoral program at Catholic University?

[Shulem]

In the last 20 years BYU and its LGT apologists have been forced to get in bed with a bunch of scientists who know for a fact that Darwinian evolution is true. In their haste to defend a 19th century fraud (Book of Mormon) they have been exposed to a lot more science than they intended. They discovered these same scientists believed humans had been in the Americas for at least 15,000 years. What Flood? Just recently Ugo Perego spoke of his belief that the human family is 200,000 years old. How do you reconcile this with the human family descending from one man who lived 6,000 year ago, then Noah 4,500 years ago? You cannot. And many BYU scholars are keenly aware of this problem.

All this is KEY in utterly devastating the narrative in the Book of Abraham chapter ONE which claims the Egyptian race and nation was founded shortly after the flood by a woman named "Egyptus" who settled her sons into the wet Delta and thus founded, EGYPT. The origin story provided by Smith's fantastical imagination is utter BS! The origin story of Egypt's making in the text of chapter ONE of the Book of Abraham is the greatest evidence to show the book is a total fraud and is absolutely untrue. Apologists don't discuss this because there is no apologetic for it. It's a slam dunk in proving the Book of Abraham is a piece of fiction created by an ignorant 19th century conman. Unfortunately, less informed critics have failed to use this key information to slam the Book of Abraham and have focused on other things that are far less important. There is absolutely nothing John Gee can say or do to defend the corrupt narrative of chapter one which attest that Egypt came into existence *AFTER* the flood in 2300 BC -- Abraham being born just 292 years later! Whoa!

I don't give a damn or a rat's smelly ass about how thick the papyrus rolls are or how many pieces are missing from John Gee's stupid missing roll theory! All that is small potatoes and a distraction. The real issue and the most POWERFUL argument against the Book of Abraham is the narrative Smith gives in chapter ONE about how Egypt came to be a nation after the flood in 2300 BC which was a date he used in his other writings to confirm biblical chronology.

It's the ultimate slam dunk, baby. The backyard Professor is hot on the trail! Radio Free Mormon knows too. It's over for the Book of Abraham. I (Shulem) the world's greatest Book of Abraham critic (according to Doctor Scratch) has utterly destroyed that fictitious work and has put Dr. John Gee in his place as a quack Egyptologist who lies and contorts/distorts information to deceive his ignorant readers.

Hey, John Gee: Kiss my ass you piece of #@*&% !!!!!!!

You don't know jack squat about how Egypt came to be! You are a liar at BYU which is the worst university on this planet to learn about ancient Egypt! You freaking liar! Go to hell!

[drumdude]

What I find strange is that people at BYU embrace our forms of liberalism without recognizing that it's absolute poison to your fundamental belief in the Book of Mormon, D&C, and Pearl of Great Price. Because certainly Joseph Smith and the early leaders of church did not embrace the kind of "Documentary Hypothesis" based idea that allows you to atomize the text of the Old Testament and say "well sure there are some texts that sound monotheistic but then you've got these over here, and you don't have to take them as a whole." That would end up destroying the reason, for example, why 17 chapters of The Book of Isaiah end up quoted almost verbatim from the King James Version of the Bible in the Book of Mormon. That was not the argument of the early LDS church, they were not utilizing our German Liberals as BYU is now.

Documentary hypothesis, evolution, geology, on and on.

You can’t be a true believing Mormon and also believe in science and scholarship. You have to pick one or the other, or lie to yourself and ignore that they are completely at odds with each other.

[Doctor Scratch]

In the quotes attributed to Neville he comes across as relatively polite, but he has a long history of ridiculing and attacking BYU and the LGT. I think Greg Smith's hit piece on Meldrum and the Heartlanders is largely responsible for this.

I think this is a very important point. So many of the Mopologists--and Dan Peterson in particular--justify their behavior by claiming that "They started it!" Is that true? Did Meldrum and the Heartlanders really "come after" the FAIR/FARMS/Interpreter apologists? I don't get the impression that that's the case. Instead, it seems more like Meldrum was doing his thing, and he wound up on the radar of Greg Smith, Allen Wyatt, Midgley, and other Mopologists, and they began attacking him. It's hard to say how far this goes back, but you can find exchanges dating clear back to 2008, such as this one. Down in the comments, Meldrum turns up to issue a complaint:

FAIR has continuously attempted to put words into my mouth that are blatently not there to deliberately misrepresent my statements.

He also (unsurprisingly) has a very different take on the infamous phone call from Louis Midgley:

Conjecture — such as Midgley’s assessment of my knowledge of the subjects based on a harassing phone call over a year ago which is utter conjecture and here-say non-sense on his and FAIR’s part.

Finally, Meldrum notes a long-standing tactic of the Mopologists--which is to bait people into a conversation which they then turn around and publish:

Be it known that any use of my personal, private email by FAIR is being done without my concent or authorization. I have requested that they hereby cease and desist in their continued use of that document voluntarily. We will see if they will honor that request, which would, of necessity, remove 90% of their attack article as thus far that has been the thrust of their personal character assasination against me.

And:

Fair board members Scott Gordan, John Lynch, Bob White, and Greg Smith (and possibly Allen Wyatt) and I had a phone conversation on Tuesday, July 1st from 7-8:30 AM from which I initiated a dialoge with them to address any issues they might have with my research. We determined to work together to correct any flaws that they saw were needed. This was what was understood from the conversation. Then less than 48 hours later this scathing review (which must have been already prepared in advance of our conversation) appeared on their website, completely blind-siding me and our agreement to work together because they wanted to ‘help a brother’ in the gospel. Lies, conjecture and innuendo are not generally accepted as the way to help someone.

Backstabbing, eh? What a shocker! In any case, it's clear that the acrimony goes clear back, at least 15 years or so. And it seems like the instigators in the hostilities were the Mopologists--and not the Heartlanders. It seems that the Heartlanders were simply going about their business, and FAIR saw them as "competition" (Greg Smith claims that they intervened because they care about "the truth" which is a massive howler of a statement) and decided to go on the offensive.

Meanwhile, there are email exchanges between Greg Smith and Meldrum archived at the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum, where Smith comes across as a power-hungry, sadistic asshole, hell-bent on getting Meldrum to "kneel before Zod," as it were.

The arrogance here is remarkable: where do Smith or any of the Mopologists get off in thinking that they have the right to "correct" a fellow Latter-day Saint in this manner? Who would want to belong to a church where people treat one another this way? Quite shameful.

[Dr Moore]

Did Smoot fail to earn a PhD, or has he simply not finished his studies at Catholic University of America?

[Dr Moore]

DNA has done far more damage to the church than expose the true origin of Indigenous Americans. Smoot knows this. In order to defend the Book of Mormon on the DNA front, BYU apologists were forced to recruit DNA scientists (Perego, Woodward, Parr, Whiting, Crandall etc) into the apologists ranks. But these same life scientists have opened up a whole can of worms for the apologists because they brought with them uncomfortable beliefs in other areas of science that are troubling for lots of Mormons.

Fascinating view on the real war at hand. Thanks, Simon!

[Philo Sofee]

Nihil est nisi ultio....



Above: A pensive Stephen O. Smoot reflects on his future as a Mopologist.

God Almighty! Can you please tell us more about that picture? How did you find it?

I predicted a long time ago that Smoot would leave the church( and made the prediction again last month).

“Neville-Neville Land” and Smoot represent the current “pinnacle” of Mopologetics. The best they are able to muster at this point in time is a blog aimed at destroying the faith of their fellow Latter-day Saints, helmed by a guy who has failed to get a PhD and who is posing as “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.” Honestly, you couldn’t invent a better satire of Mopologetics.

That is very sad. Smoot probably wasted more than 30 thousand hours of his life doing apologetics, so it's not surprising he failed to get the PhD.

The poor guy needs help, I hope he leaves the church soon. He can easily become an exmo star.

What? Smoot FAILED to get his Phd??? Where was this discovered? I have not heard of it.

[Doctor Scratch]

Did Smoot fail to earn a PhD, or has he simply not finished his studies at Catholic University of America?

I’m not sure. I would assume he’s still enrolled, and yet he appears to be working for Josh Coates at the B. H. Roberts Foundation and mormonr.org. That may explain the “Peter Pan” pseudonym: I get the impression that Coates would prefer to stay away from toxic, aggressive Mopologetics.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

DNA has done far more damage to the church than expose the true origin of Indigenous Americans. Smoot knows this. In order to defend the Book of Mormon on the DNA front, BYU apologists were forced to recruit DNA scientists (Perego, Woodward, Parr, Whiting, Crandall etc) into the apologists ranks. But these same life scientists have opened up a whole can of worms for the apologists because they brought with them uncomfortable beliefs in other areas of science that are troubling for lots of Mormons.

Fascinating view on the real war at hand. Thanks, Simon!

In a bit of serendipitous timing Science Daily just hung this:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 145052.htm

tl;dr - East Asian DNA hits home run inside of NA DNA

The researchers compared the genome of these fossils to that of people from around the world. They found that the bones belonged to an individual that was linked deeply to the East Asian ancestry of Native Americans. Combined with previous research data, this finding led the team to propose that some of the southern East Asia people had traveled north along the coastline of present-day eastern China through Japan and reached Siberia tens of thousands of years ago. They then crossed the Bering Strait between the continents of Asia and North America and became the first people to arrive in the New World.

Can’t fake the funk on early Amerind spunk.

- Doc

[doubtingthomas]

What? Smoot FAILED to get his Phd???

I hope not.

I’m not sure. I would assume he’s still enrolled, and yet he appears to be working for Josh Coates at the B. H. Roberts Foundation and mormonr.org. That may explain the “Peter Pan” pseudonym: I get the impression that Coates would prefer to stay away from toxic, aggressive Mopologetics.

The guy is wasting too much time, he needs to get serious about getting his PhD.