I would like to thoroughly discuss this topic, especially since Tom himself is being involved. It will be invaluable to actually have the author comment and explain things as we have ideas and questions to ask. The idea of an entire new section is a good one. However, why is it closed? In the meantime I am reading the various threads about Tom's book. Perhaps I need to start my own. I know I am going to want to make sure I have Tom's views correctly as I share this book and talk about it with various Mormon apologists. So far I know of one who has it, so I want to make sure I understand Tom's points of view, because I suspect his ideas will be warped. It will be an excellent control against misrepresenting what it is about or what he thinks. And I have very strong suspicions that it will be misrepresented, and more than likely misunderstood. But it is an important book! Tom you are a very nice man to share your extra copies to those who asked. I am glad I bought mine at Sunstone last year. I have gone through it twice, and am on my way through it again. My copy is so marked up that I wish I had purchased two of them to keep one clean. Ah well, the wisdom of hindsight eh?

I was wondering that myself.

I thought it was an excellent idea.

Ana

I think they're just setting it up. It isn't closed. It's just that it isn't open yet. (I'm in apologetics mode, lol).

In the lull, some of us are taking advantage of the time to read our copies. You are well ahead of most of us at this point. It'll be a better discussion if we've read the book first.

BTW, backyardprofessor, the last I heard and saw of you, you were an apologist of a different sort. I'm so surprised to see you on this side of the fence. I guess a lot of people have said that. How's the view from over here so far?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2013 02:10AM by Nightingale.

backyardprofessor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... My copy is so marked up that I wish I had
> purchased two of them to keep one clean. Ah well,
> the wisdom of hindsight eh?

I'm tearing the binding off mine and running it all through
the scanner, to do a little OCR magic upon the contents.

You're welcome to the loose pages, once that task is done.

That is, if the Pony Express is still in service between
Hilo and Eagle Rock, once I get the digital text finished.

Uncle Dale

Uncle Dale,

If you know about Eagle Rock, you must have known the Backyard Professor personally.

Can you confirm that he is really and actually aka the Late Backyard Professor?

I can't find a single obituary on the dear man, but it seems all the evidence indicates he is deceased.

Please advise.

George Brooks
Facebook ID: GeorgeOfTampa
GBrooks9@outlook.com

To give people time to read.
Because Tom isn't ready to start yet.

I'm ready when all of you are Susan. Last I read, there was a proposal on the table by SC, who volunteered to facilitate the first thread on the Betrayal of Doubt Intro. to the book by calling for questions and setting a date.

Assuming those who want to participate are reading when they can at a pace that suits them, and that I will be notified when there is a collective readiness to begin.

Am I missing something?

Thx.

Tom

Yes, I thought you were writing up some kind of introduction and to say you were ready to roll. I will put up a note and everyone can start in Monday.

Start Monday? Eek. I thought we were getting time to read it first. This is going to be a crash course I see. :)

Aren't you the guy whose review on Amazon sparked this interest in "Deconstructing Mormonism"?

You've been an apologist for Mormonism for years and have done a gazillion youtube videos? And this book caught you by surprise? Right?

Your review was powerful.

Glad to see you here, 'professor, I have often said I thought you'd be a hoot to sit down and a (root)beer with.

I raise a frosty cybermug to you and look forward to the discussions.

Slightly off topic but very relevant, Kerry (The Backyard Professor) has a new video up on you tube, explaining where he is at now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfA_4LyJuOM



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2013 11:40AM by zeezrom.

zeezrom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Slightly off topic but very relevant, Kerry (The
> Backyard Professor) has a new video up on you
> tube, explaining where he is at now.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfA_4LyJuOM


I enjoyed listening to this video.
Very well "reasoned" info around 12:00
Pride (ego) truly is the achilles heal of the apologetic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2013 11:20PM by joan.

Yes I am the reviewer, and yes I am in the process of analyzing all kinds of things, the actual honest way to go in my opinion. And I will sit down and have some rootbeers with you. LOL! I think Riskas has done a memorable thing by getting us to think outside the box.
I hope I haven't caused a ruckus around here about the book, but it's Tom's fault - LOL! (That's a compliment Tom).
I am simply pondering and looking for the truth. It is a most astonishingly fascinating journey to do so actually. I am producing more videos now beginning with Charles Harrell's utterly astonishing honest, though he still pulls punches, book "This is My Doctrine." As time goes along, I continue to learn, I mean hey, ain't that the beauty of brains? Woo hoo! I'm still Mormon, not an atheist as others have supposed. I'm very inactive at the moment though. I am reading voraciously in all the other literatures I didn't read as an apologist. I think Joseph Smith said it the very best, but apologists actually don't take him all that seriously, and they should. "By Proving Contraries, truth is made manifest." The meaning to me is clear, Tom's book is PROVING the CONTRARIES. That is, seeing all sides, not just one. BY using our reasoning abilities, assessing evidence, and using the rational, justified knowledge (gawd I LOVE how Riskas puts this over and over again in his book!) of what we already know, we can assess the reality, as it were, of what is asserted, proposed, or to use one of Tom's favorite words in his book "putatively" presented. It is absolutely necessary to have, as a basis of understanding, our (fallabilistically) knowledge of what we know at this point to be accurate, true, whatever, be the basis of what is asserted as being true.
So anyway, sorry to ramble. I was told Tom was beginning a discussion here, and I most defiinitely want to assess his assessments, get some clarification of some tings, and show what parts of his book absolutely gonged me like the tolling of a great bell. I had many DUH moments as I realized his criticism was expecially the egregious errors I was making as a one time apologist. I am looking very forward to the discussion.

> I am reading voraciously in all the other literatures I didn't read as an apologist.

Isn't that wonderful? I was never an apologist, but I have had a paradigm shift in my life, and that seemed to open up a whole new world of books that I was never motivated to read before. So many new things to learn and experience.

It actually is VERY wonderful! I honestly thought I was motivated to learn as an apologist, but now.....NOW! Holy schmoly man! The piles of materials I am purchasing and the headaches I am causing my dear wife (LOL!) are really sumthin! I literally at this very moment have 50 different books I am making my way through, trying to takes notes, etc. My what videos THESE will make for me to talk about eh? GRIN!It will make for some interesting discussions here also.

Welcome. Best wishes on your research. Reading widely made a big difference for me as well. My particular interests at the time were history, especially early Mormon and Christian history, comparative religion, mythology, psychology, and social psychology. My reading gave me some new frameworks through which to understand and reinterpret my Mormon experience. They also freed me to understand in ways that made the most sense to me. It was disorienting for a while and exciting. It continues to be exciting :-)

I hope your wife can tolerate the changes. Spouses often are taken by surprise when the other spouse begins to change and question. It can take some time to catch up and find a workable pace. I hope it works out happily for you both.

That's very nice of you to offer Unka Dale, but give it to someone who doesn't have it already. I can still read through my scribbling - LOL! Ya gotta admit it's quite a read eh? I will say, now that I have read the first few "mandatory" chapters (the most difficult parts of the book) several times, I can see what Tom was meaning, and it is quite powerful reasoning. His man handling of Millet was very powerful for me. I have personally had some serious doubts and issues with Millet's writings myself, and Riskas appeared to me anyway to be spot on with the criticisms and carrying the logic all the way out. And when we get around to it in the discussions, the issues of the incoherence of the God concept was electrifying to me, as was his analysis of revelation as a concept. So much to talk about and learn, so little time! GRIN!

I wonder if there is any way we could get Kai Nielsen to come and participate in the discussion? Now I would PAY for that to happen! I thought Kai's introduction was quite well done also. In fact, when I picked up the book at the Sunstone there last year (I met Loyd Erickson of Greg Kofford Books, a very COOL guy! Now I'm friends with him on Facebook also) I read through the Nielsen part and then simply flipped the book open and began reading. It just happened to land on p. 93, the bottom half of the page. What intrigued me was WHY use an unnamed source? But what REALLY intrigued me was WHY NOT say who came up with that thought?! It is ASTOUNDING!!! I bought the book, I was waiting to meet my dear friend Joe Steve Swick III (the entire reason I went in the first place) and re-read that and several pages before and several pages after and I knew.....I KNEW I was in for a paradigm shift. I kept saying to myself, HOLY CRAP MAN, how as an apologist am I *EVER* going to refute this?
His comments against Blake Ostler's ideas also quite frankly intrigued me, because Ostler, as you may or may not know, is one of the seriously more intelligent of the Mormon scholars. For Riskas to show his weak assumptions was an eye opener for me as well. I suspect as a lifelong Mormon and a 20 year veteran apologist I became so enamored with authority that that has what has held me up in learning. Isn't that odd that such a thing can do that to a person? Well anyway, I ramble...... good to touch bases with you again and say hi! Yer still my favorite "Unk".....

backyardprofessor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if there is any way we could get Kai
> Nielsen to come and participate in the discussion?
...

Probably not at first. But we human beings tend to get
Just a bit curious when our names get dropped a bunch.
Keep talking about Nielsen and, maybe something will
turn up -- to quote Chuck Dickens.

> I suspect as a lifelong Mormon and a 20
> year veteran apologist I became so enamored with
> authority that that has what has held me up in
> learning. ...

Just wait until you've been a 40 year veteran of defending
Latter Day Saintism. Which I still do in such a diminished
capacity as to be a fringe oddity. RfM's tamed theist
and lover of all things Wasatch.

Now, back to my morning exercise, of enticing Br'er Bear
and Br'er Fox into sacred briar patches.

UD

backyardprofessor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I suspect as a lifelong Mormon and a 20
> year veteran apologist I became so enamored with
> authority that that has what has held me up in
> learning. Isn't that odd that such a thing can do
> that to a person?


In the winter of 2013 I listened to the John Dehlin/Tom Phillips interview about Tom's calling and election made sure. I recognized the same thing in Dehlin at one point when he sounded giddy with delight.
A person grows up with an almost hero-worship within the lds community and being enamored with authority and especially goals like a 2nd annointing can ignite an aspect of one's ego which I used to erroneously think was a testimony of truth.
Many of us have gone through that very passageway....you're "not alone."
:)

Susan, Do you have an approximate time frame you were thinking of before opening the DconMoism board for posts?

Kerry, It's great to see you found your way here. If you haven't gathered, we will have a separate board set up by Susan - it's set up, just not open for business at the moment.

Heh, thanks Joan, yeah I heard that podcast also. Interesting to me was that the one time....I mean THE ONE TIME that Jesus really sincerely OUGHT to shop up is during a Second Anointing. And he didn't.

I have always thought the whole idea of a 2nd anointing, (what the first one anointing you to prophet, priest, king, queen, GOD isn't enough?!?) is just arrogant egotism. I think it obviously is man stroking his own ego about being even MORE special and privileged than the mere regular folk and regular gods beneath them.

Any chance this book is going to be available in Kindle or Nook anytime soon?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 09:03PM by josie.

I think that would ROCK! ANd I would ALSO buy that version! Is there anything you can do do influence that Tom? I suspect it'd sell many thousands of copies...... publishers need to realize this.

Ego-driven fraternal orders - like Masonry and Mormonism - always need to have another "level of incentive" to keep leaders motivated - another title, award, degree, sash, badge (whatever) to keep feeding the member's upward ambitions and pride.

So you end up with titles like "The Grand Exalted Wizard of the 32nd Degree, Ancient Order of the Sons of Pythias", or "The TRUE order of Prayer" (as opposed to the previous FALSE one?), or "The Secret Second Anointing".

All of this begins with the title of "Deacon's Quorum President, Supreme" (every Mormon seems to be a "president" of something).


Tom P. simply blew the whistle on all of this prideful stupidity.