The Top Ten Happenings in Mopologetics, 2023

[Kishkumen]

Attacking BYU? I thought he was supporting the requirement that faculty be faithful Latter-day Saints.

[Doctor Scratch]

Possibly one more honorable mention for 2023.

The proprietor is attacking BYU yet again. All while sharing a faith promoting story about how he was able to courageously get a former friend and colleague kicked out of BYU.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... f-BYU.html

I saw that. I wondered if the “friend” he was referring to was David P. Wright, who eventually became a mentor to David Bokovoy.

Meanwhile, who is The Last Danite? Mopologetics attracts a lot of unhinged people, but TLD is, by far, the most hate-fueled and vindictive person over there on SeN. it’s fitting that he’s so welcomed by DCP.

[Doctor Scratch]

Attacking BYU? I thought he was supporting the requirement that faculty be faithful Latter-day Saints.

I *did* read it as a criticism of BYU: he disapproves of the university’s relative “leniency” concerning unorthodox views. But the whole point of his rather gossipy story seems to be that he was glad that his “friend” was fired from BYU. He even admits that one of his *other* friends was leading the charge to get “Friend A” fired!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Possibly one more honorable mention for 2023.

The proprietor is attacking BYU yet again. All while sharing a faith promoting story about how he was able to courageously get a former friend and colleague kicked out of BYU.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... f-BYU.html

I saw that. I wondered if the “friend” he was referring to was David P. Wright, who eventually became a mentor to David Bokovoy.

Meanwhile, who is The Last Danite? Mopologetics attracts a lot of unhinged people, but TLD is, by far, the most hate-fueled and vindictive person over there on SeN. it’s fitting that he’s so welcomed by DCP.

It could have been David Wright, or any number of people DCP did this to. My best friend was subjected to this type of behavior for years from DCP.

[Gadianton]

That was an incredible entry. It literally read like, what if you were to re-write the book 1984 from the state's perspective?

I was trying to understand his theological position — candidly, I was struggling to understand that a person with his opinions could be, as I considered him to be, admirably honest and yet continue to be fully in both the Church and the University.

This is unreal. Normally when I have a theological conversation with someone, and I'm struggling to understand their position, my thoughts are what I might be missing to better comprehend what they are saying, not pondering over why they have not been jailed by the thought police.

“A prophet,” he replied, “is someone who stands in a particular relationship to his community.”

The same position that Juliann of FAIR and her associates repeated all the time on ZLMB; scolding the critics for not understanding it. Dan was part of those threads and never took issue with this idea then. This is stuff right out of the 2003 "Yale Conference" when the apologists turned to postmodernism to save their faith, went to Yale, and then patted themselves on the back for being nuanced thinkers. Dan praised all of this stuff.

Still, it was clear to me that he and those interviewing him for admission to the temple, and probably in his ecclesiastical hiring interview as well, were speaking different languages.

He's done this before also. He likes to imagine people (including his close friends!) in their ecclesiastical interviews sweating under the lights.

So, without wanting to advocate some sort of churchly McCarthyism, I found myself wishing that such interviews, in such cases, were more nuanced and, in a sense, more probing.

But that's exactly what he wants, a police state where achievement is measured in loyalty.

I still remember the day that my friend called to tell me that the University would not be renewing his contract. I immediately called another friend, in a different college, who had pretty much spearheaded the effort to get University administrators to act

good lord, the busybodying is off the charts.

Today, I’m grateful that, starting quite a few years ago, my wife and I have joined with neighbors and former neighbors for dinner at some chosen restaurant followed by a play at the Hale Centre Theatre, which is now located in Sandy

Well of course. The loyalists enjoy the good life, never needing to worry about experiencing discomfort.

The reason all of this could be construed to be an attack on BYU is:

destiny of this unique university” is to become an “educational Everest””

look for examples and mentors who successfully integrate the life of the mind and the life of faith.

^^^ these two things are fundamentally incompatible. BYU is respectable because it has a biology department that accepts evolution. It would lose even this basic respectability if it went the hardline path Dan wishes it to.

[I Have Questions]

Possibly one more honorable mention for 2023.

The proprietor is attacking BYU yet again. All while sharing a faith promoting story about how he was able to courageously get a former friend and colleague kicked out of BYU.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... f-BYU.html

So, without wanting to advocate some sort of churchly McCarthyism, I found myself wishing that such interviews, in such cases, were more nuanced and, in a sense, more probing.

This is Peterson judging that his so-called friend was not worthy to hold a temple recommend, and also judging himself to be a better judge of that than his so-called friend’s divinely appointed ward and stake leaders. The idea that Peterson thinks it’s okay to interrogate another person about their worthiness to hold a temple recommend, and that it’s okay to share that speculation within a tight circle of that persons friends and colleagues, is in itself sufficient to warrant the withholding of his own temple recommend. And then he goes and makes it public, knowing that some people would be able to joins the dots as to who he was talking about. It would be very hard to find someone with a higher opinion of Peterson, than Peterson…

[Kishkumen]

The things is: BYU is a kind of fascist Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. It is that way by design. The school, at the behest of leaders, regularly scrutinizes the beliefs of employees and students. It makes people sign loyalty statements. It fires people who truthfully say they don’t hold the appropriate views. As we can see from the comments section of DCP’s blog entry, there are people frothing at the mouth to purge BYU so it will be purer.

People voluntarily choose to go to BYU, to work at BYU, to send their kids to BYU. When I went there its Big Brother environment went from bad to worse.

The thing to do is what I ended up doing: absent yourself. Don’t contribute to it. If it is contrary to the dictates of your conscience, stay away.

BYU is for people who want to police their neighbor’s views, so they can be around others who are “of one heart and one mind” in a somewhat more Orwellian sense. We find it horrifying, but they don’t. For them, this is great stuff.

I choose a different product. I keep walking down the aisle. My biggest worry is that the real zealots—like the Last Danite commenting on DCP’s blog—win 2024 and establish a dictatorship.

[Rivendale]

The things is: BYU is a kind of fascist Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. It is that way by design. The school, at the behest of leaders, regularly scrutinizes the beliefs of employees and students. It makes people sign loyalty statements. It fires people who truthfully say they don’t hold the appropriate views. As we can see from the comments section of DCP’s blog entry, there are people frothing at the mouth to purge BYU so it will be purer.

People voluntarily choose to go to BYU, to work at BYU, to send their kids to BYU. When I went there its Big Brother environment went from bad to worse.

The thing to do is what I ended up doing: absent yourself. Don’t contribute to it. If it is contrary to the dictates of your conscience, stay away.

BYU is for people who want to police their neighbor’s views, so they can be around others who are “of one heart and one mind” in a somewhat more Orwellian sense. We find it horrifying, but they don’t. For them, this is great stuff.

I choose a different product. I keep walking down the aisle. My biggest worry is that the real zealots—like the Last Danite commenting on DCP’s blog—win 2024 and establish a dictatorship.

This is spot on. I know a Engineering professor currently at BYU. He showed up at my house and visited with me for about an hour. He was extremely frustrated with the perfection culture his students displayed and was dumbfounded as to how to handle it. He didn't like my answer.

[Gadianton]

There is a faithful view of BYU at odds with Peterson's vision. I've mentioned my jovial Book of Mormon teacher from Freshman year before, the Harvard theologian who taught us that if the prophet commands you to kill somebody, then you've got to obey it. And you'll be blessed for it, even if he was wrong. That's certainly the loyalty Peterson values. But my teacher had a more realistic view of BYU's mission. Peterson's pipe dream of "greatness" is obviously silly, and it's especially silly for his own department, which intersects directly with Book of Mormon claims. BYU is not going to be a world hub of ancient learning with faculty engaged substantially in proving the Book of Mormon to be real history. What a riotous laugh festival such beliefs are. A renowned school of faithful scholars -- lol, give me a break.

My Book of Mormon teacher took up the jokes and stereotypes such as, "girls go to BYU to get their Mrs. degree" or "EE meets EE". Indeed, what would be a better mission than that, to provide a place for faithful young people to get their lives going together within the faith? According to him, that should be the mission. And it was with certain costs. BYU didn't have much of a graduate school to speak of, it doesn't have a medical school at all, but it does have a pretty good undergrad school. It's emphasis is where it counts to produce a quality basic education for aspiring young members.

And it even draws in some good talent. Teachers who could teach at more prestigious schools but feel called to teach at BYU for the Church, or because of family. Clearly, David P. Wright had the talent to teach at a better school than BYU, and when Peterson's network ousted him, did the replacement take them closer to being a world-renowned center for Hebrew learning?

It's very difficult to secure talent and faith at the same time when subject matter intersects directly with faith. I remember a chemistry teacher who had to do damage control in class one day when learning about carbon dating. He had to emphasize inaccuracy the further you get back in order to make room for a young earth. Well, that's no big deal, because it was an uncomfortable ten minutes and that was that. Look at how many Harvard professors make the news for their bat-crap crazy beliefs. This is all one-off stuff. On the other hand, a culture of teaching Intelligent design within the biology department would be quite detrimental, but no doubt Dan would celebrate such a thing.

For my religion education credits, I took a history of Christianity class and a world religion class. Oddly, both teachers were former protestant ministers who converted to Mormonism, and both made comments shooting down the Book of Mormon. They made it clear it had nothing to do with their conversion. As the one put it, "I already knew about Jesus from the Bible". That guy in particular, defended the religious leaders called prophets of other faiths as actual prophets, and seemed to enjoy the flustered looks of students when he made it clear that their encounters with the divine actually happened. I'm sure Dan would have been outraged. My favorite phil professor, who also apparently was in pretty good with FARMS, he'd get in trouble because he taught the book of Job was "a bunch of boloney".

It's easier for an engineering professor to be a 6-day earth creationist and still be a good teacher then it is for real Bible scholar.

[Doctor Steuss]