Apologies if this has been posted before, but those who have not found this on lds.org (and it is very well hidden) may find this interview on the authorship and process of the production of Essays to be of interest.

https://www.lds.org/topics?lang=eng#media=11373505780672488714-eng

Then click on the 3rd option "What about historical questions?"

This is what a smug, kool-aid-drinking fool looks and sounds like. Puke



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2013 07:11PM by smo.

He went to high school with my mom. He was typical student government, on every page for his dashing good looks, etc. Married his high school sweetheart. His son went to school with me. Same thing. Perfect (on the outside) family. He was a lawyer in our town. Maybe I am bitter. I hate 'perfect' people.

OMG!! I hate being patronized! He reminds me of that "Chucky" doll when he talks.

What a condescending ass--he is just talking in circles, saying nothing!!

What cunning little bastard.

Anyways I noticed an interesting claim he makes that these essays were "approved" by the twelve and First Presidency, so if any TBM claims the essays aren't reliable or official then you can just point them to this video.

Paraphrasing:

"For our intelligent faithful members, they've always understood the more subtle nature of the history and because they're so smart, they don't have any problems with it. It's our stupiderer members who need this extra-special, special-ed material cause they were too lazy or too stupid to understand it. They're not bright enough to know bullshit when they read it, so we've created this place they can go and get the truth. We've got neatly packaged, correlate answers in one little place, so members won't have to worry about all the bits of information out there. Wasn't that special of us?

"People smarter than you have worked on this, so if you have doubts about it, it's cause you aren't at their special level. And, oh, it's the first time anyone has EVER looked at these issues historically ;).

"It's not surprising that we haven't worked on this before, because we spend ALL of our time ministering the sick, the hungry, the downtrodden, and preach only Jesus. But now, a bunch of faithless members are going to make us divert our energies away from those more important things :(.

"Let's just call all the bullpucky "tapestry"--Don't that sound neato?"

Namely, that the essays were a correlated product written up by non-General Authorities.

That fact of the matter is that the end result is not "accurate," "good" or "reliable" information.

The essays are not "faith-promoting," "inspiring" or an example of the "beauty of the tapestry which is our history."

Instead, they are manifestations of selective "history" writing that are being offered to troubled Church members but are not being identified as to authorship in order to protect the behinds of the GA editors who didn't write them.

As my sources have told me (and as Stevens is now finally acknowleding), the Mormon Church primarily went to "LDS scholars" outside the LDS Church Historical Department who were willing to anonymously author the essays. He also admits that "the Brethren" (meaning the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve) didn't write them but, rather, only reviewed draft productions of the essays and then made editing changes.

Cowards, liars and conspirers.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2013 08:37PM by steve benson.

but much less attractive and extremely annoying. Don't ask me why I remember Kevin Tighe's name. I can't even tell you what show(s) he was in ... some cop show.

The essays and the video introduction are a total insult to my inteligence.

I got the distinct impression that Mr Snow was deliberately lying. Are there any body language experts that can tell for certain?

yes, his lips were moving

I'm usually willing to look at both sides of an issue. This time, though, I'm not going to read any of those "essays," because I know what they are already. Apologetic tripe.

About halfway through it occurred to me this buffoon's spiel was as factually based as a talk about "Star Wars" or a symposium discussing course offerings at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft.

But less entertaining.

given these essays are answers that are approved by the brethren, where does that leave all the other appologists?

does this shut down the whole mormon appologist industry? given all the answers are now being provided by the brethren?

This guy continually looking to the right and down to the right would suggest that he was not comfortable with the narrative.
His eye movement could indicate that he was not being totally honest in his delivery.

His smug look of authority was a typical priesthood posturing. He was coming across as though he had the final word of what you were to think. No reason to go any further in your questioning, he was going to tell you how to process the information by his standards and you can now quit thinking for yourself.

The real story is that they are going to give up some information. The content of the essays prove that TSCC will continue with whitewashing history to promote a positive story that can almost be believed.

When the leaders feel they need to whitewash the history, it would seem that they can't trust how the savior unfolded his gospel to mankind. Clearly, they do not have "faith in The Lord Jesus Christ". Or, they know JS was a con man that made the whole thing up and they will continue to lie for power and control. In their sick little minds they could believe that the church is better than other churches a continue to peddle a crappy product.

The response from the (few) TBMs I know who have found this and the Essays seems to be along the collective line of "What? You didn't know this? But everybody knows this! Maybe you should have studied more diligently etc etc"

I am, ironically, reminded of that Institute manual illustration of the Iron Rod and the people laughing and sneering from the Great and Spacious Building. I just never realized they were TBMs.

bs they "knew" it already. That's a defense mechanism for "oh shit, now everyone knows!"

things like this just make me want to cry. He basically says that through the internet age these things have become more known, thus leading the church to write these essays. This says they kept quiet for so many years that I was a member. If I had not gone searching, and found RFM I would still be in the dark, because they are still not OPENLY teaching these things.

Good point about him saying that this was a response to the internet and people having information available to them.

A lot of people have left the church because of the internet.

Where was prophecy then? Shouldn't prophecy warn and pre-empt these kinds of problems?

Hmmm. Maybe there was no prophecy, which leads us back the original problem: The church is a lie!

What I dislike most about TSCC is that it encourages good people to believe their own lies. It demands that you lie to yourself.
I know of no greater crime.

Is there a transcript of this video? Or does someone have the patience to prepare a transcript? Seems to me that it could be useful to have a transcript to compare with the essays...the transcript would have the advantage of being stripped of Snow's voice and nonverbal communication.

Most who study our history well understand the context of these matters, and, as far as time and place. Uh, but some members of the church many really are surprised by some of the things they learn in our history and we want them to be able to go to a place where they can read accurate information and be able to, uh, seek to understand those historical chapters in the context of time and place, and understand that those answers have been approved by the presiding brethren of the church. I think that will give many of our members, uh, confidence that they can rely on these answers.

We have actually retained, uh, outside the church history department, we’ve retained scholars, for the most part outside the church history department, uh, known, uh, LDS scholars to, to, do some very extensive research and this is been groundbreaking in a way. These issues, uh, have not always had academic attention. They haven't really been researched carefully. So we, we’re very pleased that these scholars would, uh, agree, uh, and, uh, to do this research. They've then submitted a draft of their, uh, paper to a committee of, uh, historians here in the church history department as well as general authorities who have reviewed their work, suggested some edits. Those edits, uh, are made with the permission of the original writer and that's then submitted to the presiding quorums of the church, the Twelve and the First Presidency for approval and then it's published in Gospel Topics under lds.org.

Much of what's written now, these arguments and these issues have been around for decades, hundred and fifty years and it's the same maternal repackaged, and, uh, we understandably have not spent a lot of time in the past worrying about these issues because our mission is to promote faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. But as the information age is now upon us we feel with all of this information out there, we owe it, particularly to the rising generation to provide, uh, uh, good reliable information, uh, about these matters.

Those stories, I feel is they’re interwoven together provide a beautiful background or history of the church, or tapestry if you will, uh, uh, that really is remarkable to look at. Uh, if you stand back and view that in its entirety it's very faith promoting and inspiring. Now if you look at a very close closely you may find some, threads that you'll have a question about. But if you focus just on the threads that may seem a bit different to you you're going to miss the beauty of the, the tapestry, the beauty of all of these stories woven together which is our history.

"If you stand back and view that in its entirety it's very faith promoting and inspiring...if you look at a very close closely you may find some threads that you'll have a question about.. you're going to miss the beauty of the tapestry, the beauty of all of these stories woven together which is our history."

This literally says, "Don't look closely at church history."

Jesus.

The Devil is in the details, eh, Brother Snow?

And he's using the "can't see the forest for the trees" argument, which is hilarious to those of us who have discovered that the "trees" of Mormonism are carefully-crafted cardboard cutouts meant to hide the nasty truth of what LDS Inc. is all about.

There's really nothing of substance in any of the church's correlated materials, these essays, or the talks given by modern prophets in General Conference.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2014 03:04PM by En Sabah Nur.

Thanks left4good. I greatly appreciate you doing this.

Thanks for that, left4good. Beyond the call of duty!

The final paragraph of that transcript says it all really. Still saying "don't ask too many questions". Whatever happened to all the "study it out in your own mind" stuff?

Won't he feel like an idiot when he realizes that everything he is saying is bullshit. Just more bs and lies from tscc. I've learned to expect nothing else; that is what makes it so "true."

Again, ESSAYS are supposed to be NON-FICTION.

It's a "Modified limited hangout" to borrow a phrase from Watergate:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1116522,1116522#msg-1116522

As an old hippie, I resent the use of the word tapestry to describe Mormon history. I was accused of evil by Mormons who didn't like my tapestries in the early seventies.

Hew can't possibly believe what he is saying. Right? I mean seriously, the lies and the condescending attitude. He can't possibly believe his own words. When you look at his eyes it's like those women from the flds when they were interviewed after the women and children were taken in Texas.