Rough Stone Rolling analysis now in PoMoPedia!

[Jeff_Ricks]

I just took a look at PoMoPedia and see that Peter_Mary has done a fine job of entering and formatting his Rough Stone Rolling analysis. Thanks P_M!! Looks great!

Jeff

[Jeff_Ricks]

I just took a look at PoMoPedia and see that Peter_Mary has done a fine job of entering and formatting his Rough Stone Rolling analysis. Thanks P_M!! Looks great!

JeffIt looks like I spoke a little too soon. Sorry, Peter_Mary for announcing prematurely! When I got up this morning and looked again at the article I realized that you are still working on the formatting. In the wiki way I took the liberty to add a closing quote tag so the quote boxes start and end in the intended places, then saw that there are some missing quote tags, so I started adding them. Then the light finally turned on (keep in mind that it was 5:30 a.m.). I realized that you didn't announce the new article yet because you're still working on it. :o

Anyhoo, I added about 20 quote boxes to the article and stopped when I was at a place where I wasn't quite sure where a quote ended and your comments started.

In the process of skimming through some of the text as I was adding formatting I came to realize that the article is a very important addition to PostMormon.org (and it's a fun read too). Thank you so much P_M for the energy and time you put into reading the book, starting the thread, and now publishing the results.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

It looks like I spoke a little too soon. Sorry, Peter_Mary for announcing prematurely! When I got up this morning and looked again at the article I realized that you are still working on the formatting. In the wiki way I took the liberty to add a closing quote tag so the quote boxes start and end in the intended places, then saw that there are some missing quote tags, so I started adding them. Then the light finally turned on (keep in mind that it was 5:30 a.m.). I realized that you didn't announce the new article yet because you're still working on it. :o

Anyhoo, I added about 20 quote boxes to the article and stopped when I was at a place where I wasn't quite sure where a quote ended and your comments started.

In the process of skimming through some of the text as I was adding formatting I came to realize that the article is a very important addition to PostMormon.org (and it's a fun read too). Thank you so much P_M for the energy and time you put into reading the book, starting the thread, and now publishing the results.

Jeff
Yup, you are correct...I am slogging my way through to make sure the formatting is satisfactory...and it is T-E-D-I-O-U-S! But it'll get there, especially with you helping me out!!! :D

[dogzilla]

Yup, you are correct...I am slogging my way through to make sure the formatting is satisfactory...and it is T-E-D-I-O-U-S! But it'll get there, especially with you helping me out!!! :D

And now you know what I do all day, every day. Welcome to my World.

[peter_mary]

And now you know what I do all day, every day. Welcome to my World.
I know! YOU can help me, too! You're so good at it, and it would give you a chance to correct all my speling erors. :D

[dogzilla]

I know! YOU can help me, too! You're so good at it, and it would give you a chance to correct all my speling erors. :D


Uhh... for free? :confused:


I know! YOU work for free and let me know what your kids eat. :neener:

[peter_mary]

Uhh... for free? :confused:


I know! YOU work for free and let me know what your kids eat. :neener:
Oddly, all the work I actually ENJOY is utterly without monetary compensation. The job that feeds my kids...that's not so satisfying.

Okay, okay, you're off the hook...but you DON'T get to point out any speling erors in the final product!

[dogzilla]

See OCD thread: You're going to regret this, because I actually saw some typos and went in to correct them -- because I couldn't stand it -- and decided that I didn't agree with the way the quotes were coded. See, in a normal thread you code it like this ... So I started to "fix" some of those, so your Bushman quotes would stand out more and guess what?

:duh


I screwed up all the ones I touched. Thankfully, I didn't get too far past Chapter 4 before I realized the day is over and I aborted my well-intentioned botching of the coding.

Sorry, man. I will help, but you'll probably have to kick my ass for screwing up the quote coding thing. :slap: I'll fix my screwups later...

[peter_mary]

See OCD thread: You're going to regret this, because I actually saw some typos and went in to correct them -- because I couldn't stand it -- and decided that I didn't agree with the way the quotes were coded. See, in a normal thread you code it like this So I started to "fix" some of those, so your Bushman quotes would stand out more and guess what?

:duh


I screwed up all the ones I touched. Thankfully, I didn't get too far past Chapter 4 before I realized the day is over and I aborted my well-intentioned botching of the coding.

Sorry, man. I will help, but you'll probably have to kick my ass for screwing up the quote coding thing. :slap: I'll fix my screwups later...
This just makes me SMILE :D ! You have my utmost gratitude for fixing any typos you observe. And I tried the quote attribution thing, too, but I figured out it didn't work the FIRST time!

I am SO looking forward to kicking your ass. Or perhaps spankings would be preferred? You gonna be in my neck of the woods any time soon? :D

[elder_nomo]

It looks like I spoke a little too soon. Sorry, Peter_Mary for announcing prematurely!
.......

Ooooh, premature congratulations... sorry, Jeff, but don't feel too bad, it happens to all guys now and then.. Maybe you could have a little talk with your doc. :duck:

[Jeff_Ricks]

Ooooh, premature congratulations... sorry, Jeff, but don't feel too bad, it happens to all guys now and then.. Maybe you could have a little talk with your doc. :duck:Reminds me of an LDS book title a friend sent me yesterday. She got quite a hoot out of it. It took me about an hour after I read her email before I got it. Yes, sometimes I can be slow...but on the other hand...

http://images.deseretbook.com/product-images/large/490/4906839.jpg


-Jeff


:duck:

[elder_nomo]

Reminds me of an LDS book title a friend sent me yesterday. She got quite a hoot out of it. It took me about an hour after I read her email before I got it. Yes, sometimes I can be slow...but on the other hand...
http://images.deseretbook.com/product-images/large/490/4906839.jpg


-Jeff


:duck:
HAHAHA!!! ROFLMAO :D
That's the funniest book title I've ever seen!

hmmm... I got the joke immediately... I guess that says something about me... something like, "dirty minded perv".

[dogzilla]

Yeah, well, the band Puscifer has a song called Rev. 22:20. I plan to buy the t-shirt.

[Jeff_Ricks]

I was reading the Rough Stone Rolling article (http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/pomopedia/Rough_Stone_Rolling/) this morning in PoMoPedia and would like to offer my two bits worth on Bushman's final quote in the article.

Richard Bushman:
The New York Herald's florid picture [of Joseph's role in history] came close to describing Joseph's own ambitions for the Latter-day Saints, although he would have preferred "Zion" or "the Kingdom of God" as a name rather than "empire." Almost from the beginning, he wanted more than a church. He was not satisfied with the conversions or building up a congregation. Six months after the organization of the Church, the revelations directed him to organize "Zion." The word implied a society, and in Joseph's revelations, Zion became a city. The unit of organization was not the parish or the synod but the community. He worked all his life to organize communities, and in the end he succeeded. The judgment of history has been that Joseph's great achievement was the creation of the Mormon people.(Emphasis is mine)Yes, Joseph created the Mormon people and the Mormon people include Warren Jeffs, Tom Green, the Kingston clan and the various fundamentalist communities that oppress women and children. It also includes the likes of Brian David Mitchell (the wingnut who abducted Elizabeth Smart) who, in the tradition of Joseph Smith thought he was a prophet who was above the law and was therefore free to exploit young women. It also includes a people who rank high in personal bankruptcy, use of antidepressants, rate of suicide among teenage males, child sex abuse, and whose divorce rate is no better than the national average and at times is higher. Bushman should be a little more honest by acknowledging the bad with the good when sizing up the Mormon phenomenon that Joseph is responsible for seeding. But, of course, doing so wouldn't be faith promoting.

Jeff

[helemon]

I was reading the Rough Stone Rolling article (http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/pomopedia/Rough_Stone_Rolling/) this morning in PoMoPedia and would like to offer my two bits worth on Bushman's final quote in the article.

Yes, Joseph created the Mormon people and the Mormon people include Warren Jeffs, Tom Green, the Kingston clan
Don't forget Ted Bundy!

So how exactly does one go about asking history what it's judgements are? Did Bushman do a poll of american history professors or professors of religion? His statement seems to be reaching a bit to me. Besides it wasn't JS that "created" the Mormon people it was BY who had the ability to rally the largest percentage of Mormons under his leadership and then proceeded to isolate them in the wilderness of Utah where they were able to develop a unique identity apart from the influence of competing ideologies and allegiances. All JS did was act as the front man for a religious con. It was BY's leadership as MP in the British Isles and when he over saw the perpetual migration fund that sold thousands on the promise that awaited them in the new world. I wonder if many of the early saints from Europe didn't have a stronger testimony of America as the land of promise than of any promise of Zion made by Mormon missionaries.

[peter_mary]

I was reading the Rough Stone Rolling article (http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/pomopedia/Rough_Stone_Rolling/) this morning in PoMoPedia and would like to offer my two bits worth on Bushman's final quote in the article.

Yes, Joseph created the Mormon people and the Mormon people include Warren Jeffs, Tom Green, the Kingston clan and the various fundamentalist communities that oppress women and children. It also includes the likes of Brian David Mitchell (the wingnut who abducted Elizabeth Smart) who, in the tradition of Joseph Smith thought he was a prophet who was above the law and was therefore free to exploit young women. It also includes a people who rank high in personal bankruptcy, use of antidepressants, rate of suicide among teenage males, child sex abuse, and whose divorce rate is no better than the national average and at times is higher. Bushman should be a little more honest by acknowledging the bad with the good when sizing up the Mormon phenomenon that Joseph is responsible for seeding. But, of course, doing so wouldn't be faith promoting.

Jeff
While this is true, the same could be said for any community. The founding fathers of the United States created "the American people," which includes the highest murder rate of industrialized nations, a bully-state that pushes it's will on the world, industrial giants that milk us at the gas pump while padding their pockets, Jeffry Dahmer, and frankly, the very environment that spawned Mormonism. Communities of people are messy. They always have been, and they always will be. I don't think Bushman was trying to whitewash anything when he made the statement you highlighted above, I think he was in fact stating an important fact: Joseph Smith laid the groundwork for a new community of people, one which managed to take hold (under Brigham Young's dictatorship, as Helemon pointes out), but which nevertheless was the product of Joseph's vision...and no one else. Sure, there were weird things that resulted (as you pointed out), but show me a community that has NO weird things, and I'll show you a community that is either less than an hour old, or that exists only in fiction.

We're a messy species, we human beings...

[Jeff_Ricks]

While this is true, the same could be said for any community. The founding fathers of the United States created "the American people," which includes the highest murder rate of industrialized nations, a bully-state that pushes it's will on the world, industrial giants that milk us at the gas pump while padding their pockets, Jeffry Dahmer, and frankly, the very environment that spawned Mormonism. Communities of people are messy. They always have been, and they always will be. I don't think Bushman was trying to whitewash anything when he made the statement you highlighted above, I think he was in fact stating an important fact: Joseph Smith laid the groundwork for a new community of people, one which managed to take hold (under Brigham Young's dictatorship, as Helemon pointes out), but which nevertheless was the product of Joseph's vision...and no one else. Sure, there were weird things that resulted (as you pointed out), but show me a community that has NO weird things, and I'll show you a community that is either less than an hour old, or that exists only in fiction.

We're a messy species, we human beings...Maybe I was in a pissy mood when I wrote that. ;)

What I meant was that I would have liked Bushman to qualify his statement a little and acknowledge that while the Mormon people is Joseph's most significant contribution to humanity, he should get both the praise and the blame for it, depending on which aspect of Mormonism you look at.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

Maybe I was in a pissy mood when I wrote that. ;)

What I meant was that I would have liked Bushman to qualify his statement a little and acknowledge that while the Mormon people is Joseph's most significant contribution to humanity, he should get both the praise and the blame for it, depending on which aspect of Mormonism you look at.

Jeff
I agree...it's really just a matter of which side of the coin you look at. Bushman, as a friend of the Church, is looking at one side. It's the job for the rest of us to point out the other side...which we do! In fairness, though, how inclined are those of us who are critics to be very forthcoming on the positive aspects of Joseph's community?

In the big picture, "fair and balanced" is probably an unachievable ideal...

[Born Free]

I agree...it's really just a matter of which side of the coin you look at. Bushman, as a friend of the Church, is looking at one side. It's the job for the rest of us to point out the other side...which we do! In fairness, though, how inclined are those of us who are critics to be very forthcoming on the positive aspects of Joseph's community?

In the big picture, "fair and balanced" is probably an unachievable ideal...
I think we are more capable of acknowledging JS's virtues than TBMs are of acknowledging his weaknesses! :Crazy:

So, to that extent I would argue we more closely approach 'fair and reasonable'. Most fundies won't even read critical material, automatically labelling it as 'anti'.

On the issue of 'spin', has anyone seen the movie 'Thank you for smoking' which has just been released here?

Daryl