http://www.deseretnews.com/top/168/Top-10-LDS-6Intellectuals7.html

I thought intellectuals question ideas and formulate new ideas about the human existence.

Rubber stamping what the LDS church says as correct doesn't sound like a intellectual to me

You are correct, wellsville.

I shouldn't have looked at that list. Ugh. Even though I was a NOM, I somehow did think that Parley P. Pratt was some sort of intellectual when I was growing up. I didn't know About any of his shenanigans until after I started coming here.

I never had a class from him, but his compadre, Lewis M. Rogers, in the U of U philosophy department was the reason I never took another philosophy course at the school...

Lessee, about the rest? Well, Parley P. Pratt has been disposed of; I've got a letter from Will Bagley who's certain that Brigham Young told some about-to-depart missionaries that Parley had died because he went a whoring... (There is a Brigahm Young journal entry on the first part of that one).

Hugh Nibley has been accused of sexually molesting his daughter and falsifying his footnotes and endnotes... He also defended the Book of Abraham, a demonstrable fraud...

Joseph Smith "translated" that same Book of Abraham...

Orson Pratt's first wife Sarah accused Joseph Smith of trying to seduce her and Orson was excommunicated briefly over the matter...

Half then don't fare well under a reasonable searchlight of truth...

Shoot, the respect I had for donating his papers to Utah State University has diminished...

I was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Utah in the early 80s. Sterling McMurrin was one of my mentors. However, he was actually in the History Department at that time. In hindsight, I do not think that he was that intellectually gifted. His book, The Theological Foundations of Mormonism (I think that was the title) was much to accomodating philosophically, and at times almost apologetic. Moreover, its philosophy was shallow.

As you noted, McMurrin was a non-believer for most, if not all, of his later life. When I knew him, he was absolutely an atheist, and not shy about expressing his beliefs. (At least to me and I was TBM at the time) But for his friendship with McKay, Hugh B. Brown, and other Church leaders, and his jovial, accomodating demeanor, he might have been excommunicated at some point. I think he survived the purge of the early 90s because at that point he was old, irrelevant, and too much of an institution in SLC. Certainly, if currently in his prime he would not be tolerated in today's anti-intellectual climate. I also know firsthand that ETB was highly critical with McMurrin, the U of U philosophy department, and the U of U, generally.

As for the U of U philosophy department, I share your view of Rogers. But there were others there that were very good. My primary mentor was David Bennett (apostate Mormon), and Peter Appleby, an atheist, very active in the community, and vocally anti-Mormon. Bennett is a cousin of Truman Madsen. I have a interesting perspectives on these two philosophers (if you can call Madsen a philosopher) that I will share at some point.

I would be interested in your thoughts about the above.

Reed

I knew Bill Whisner slightly (had drinks with him on one occasion with another friend from the 70's), and he was a jovial sort who never took himself too seriously. I know he was a gifted and popular teacher. Another poster here was much closer to him...

Philosophy doesn't hold much appeal for me although I recognize how many Exmormons genuinely need a lot of exposure to critical thinking skills. My maternal grandfather, a contemporary and friend of O.C. Tanner's, majored in philosophy after he filled his mission and informally apostasized in the 1920's... So I was raised on that stuff; it led me to the sciences--where my aptitude is--and then to the humanities in order to save my sanity...

Most of the time my "cabdriver philosopher" persona is a gentle humorous poke at "angels on the head of the pin" discussions; I find anytime something becomes "too sacred" then it might well become toxic. Even science has huge political elements, and I kind of chuckle when someone says "That's not logical." Logic is merely one tool for "apprehending reality."

Which is what all of us have trouble doing to one degree or another...

Thanks again for your sharing; I know McMurrin was very close to Joseph Fielding Smith...

Number three was the most absolutely disgusting!!!!!!!!

And #9 damn well deserved his death!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2011 07:51AM by imalive.

Who would be on a contemporary list? Ash, Peterson?

Considering how they worship Horney Joe, I'm surprised he was only #3.

Maybe dead intellectuals are more important than living ones? That begs the question. Why no living ones?

This article made me laugh out loud.
A "group" points to a number of people to tell us how smart they were to validate it's existence.
Silly Mormons.
I lived in the same area with Lowell Bennion and he was a particularly bright man, an tremendous speaker and never took himself too seriously. I really liked him.

Did anyone else notice that most of these men (and they WERE all men....women having been silenced early on) died at least 50 years ago? The age of real doctrinal expansion and exploration died out decades ago---leaving only the apologists who bend and twist and lie in order to make sense of any of it.

That was the first thing I noticed, all of them were from a bygone era. Hugh Nibley died most recently (2005) but he was a notorious apologist and out right fabricator of lies. Even if we give the list the benefit of a doubt (which I do not!) then there are no living "intellectuals" left!

Also, I found it ironic that B.H.Roberts would be included. He debunked the Book of Mormon in a scathing expose to the Q12 but remained a lifelong member. I applaud him for the courage to expose the BoM as a fraud yet have to scratch my head in bewilderment that he remained TBM in spite of it. How does one comprehend such an "intellectual"?

BH Roberts book titled Studies of the Book of Mormon was my straw that broke the camels back... I highly recommend it as he never meant for it to be published but only presented his findings to the bretheren looking for answers. They had no answers. It discusses the correlation between the View of the Hebrews and the BOM and the similarities of Joseph Smith's surroundings, background, and experiences with the stories in the BOM.

Don't these dolts know that Boyd K. Packer has said that intellicultism and mormonism are at odds with each other?

This IS a pretty funny list. It made my day to see how serious the mormons take themselves and just how shallow their pool of intellectualism is.

The better list would be: The Top Ten Obedient Mormons. Obedience is the first law of heaven, and thinking is not.

1. Orrin Porter Rockwell
2. Wild Bill Hickman
3. John Dee Lee
. . .

Mormons and herd-types love to argue about little details as if that proves intellectualism. Actually, it proves pettyness.

Real intellectuals don't flock to a conclusion, then create a mind maze to reach it. They start with a premise and let the evidence lead them to new discoveries and groundbreaking conclusions.

It's like any other edict from any group or organization. They dictate to the peons. Nothing has changed in thousands of years.

JS was no intellectual. Just charismatic. The rest are jokes.

WHY would Mo Minions prop up intellectualism?

why I ask you when Profits have gone so far to demean it, original thought/thinking outside the box, etc.

MoIrony, that will explain a lot of the confusion dis-aray we observe & describe.

I just got hit over the head with it Last Nite, and I'm still smarting!

I guess that says it all. There are no intellectuals in the LDS church any more.

Didn't LDS Inc. get rid of their intellectuals with the excommunication of the 'September Six' in 1993? I believe that shows exactly what the Corp. thinks of intellectualism.

He was, like others before him, practicing polyandry and ran off with the wife of a jealous man. The husband caught up with the perpetrator, and using the law of the day, shot him dead. I don't see martyrdom in this at all. Yes, murder, but the Mormons are leaving out the meat of the story, as usual.

You see .... these men are so much smarter than you and they are mormons therefore the mormon church is true.

and that is why the people on it are dead.

"In 1969 Leonard Arrington asked 50 prominent Mormons to identify the 'five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.' The following list is taken from his list first published in the LDS journal Dialogue."

Was any one of the list known outside of Mormonism? Joseph Smith, yes, but I've never heard of anyone calling him an intellectual.

I'm surprised Joseph Smith wasn't number one on that list for them.

Here is my favorite. Note: I do not know if this is well done satire or if this is true beilef. Either way it is fun to read.

Joseph Smith may have started an ignorant farm boy. We all come into this worldly experience ignorant. As a result of gazing into heaven for quite a bit longer that five minutes, his grasp of everything from theology to physics became profound. Joseph Smith was truly a "Renaissance man, also called Universal Man, Italian Uomo Universale, an ideal that developed in Renaissance Italy from the notion expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti (140472), that 'a man can do all things if he will.'" (quote from Encyclopedia Britannica)

Joseph Smith was a Universal Man in his person, but a Prophet by his calling. We can only imagine what he might have been if he had been schooled by academia instead of by angels. Thankfully, that was not his calling, but rather he gave his life serving his Lord and his fellow man.

Believe it or not, I actually have right here on my trusty computer, a pdf file of the hand-written notes that were the edits to Pratt's "Keys to the Science of Theology," that I think is now just "Keys to Theology," since all of his phony "science" was taken out of it. I have to admit Pratt was a deep thinker, but he was also a very good bullshitter.

Anyway, these notes show everything that was taken out, changed and added when they released a new version of the book back in the 1960s. I know the Tanner's once got the original version and the current version and did a paper showing the changes. I've been going to get a copy of that to compare it to the file I have (I scanned it into the pdf myself) to make sure these were the original notes of the BYU professor who did the editing. But the person who entrusted me with it wanted to make sure that someone had a copy of it to corroborate the fact that all this "original" church history and manuscripts that they are releasing, has still been greatly edited and whitewashed. And then they are saying that they are being open and transparent with their history.

But the "science" stuff that Pratt put in there (things like the "science" of how the holy spirit works), obviously had to be taken out in 1960 so no one would know what nutcases the original church attracted.

Just looking at this pdf file again and here's one that I'm sure they would never want people to know the Mormon leaders taught:

Current version:

"This priesthood, including that of the Aaronic, holds the keys of revelation, of the oracles of God to man upon the Earth; the administration of ordinances for the remission of sins and for the gift of the Holy Ghost."

The original version written by Pratt:

"This priesthood, including that of the Aaronic, holds the keys of revelation, of the oracles of God to man upon the Earth; THE POWER AND RIGHT TO GIVE LAWS AND COMMANDMENTS TO INDIVIDUALS, CHURCHES, RULERS, NATIONS AND THE WORLD; TO APPOINT, ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH CONSTITUTIONS AND KINGDOMS; TO APPOINT KINGS, PRESIDENTS AND GOVERNORS OR JUDGES, AND TO ORDAIN OR ANNOINT THEM TO THEIR SEVERAL HOLY CALLINGS; ALSO TO INSTRUCT, WARN OR REPROVE THEM BY THE WORD OF THE LORD. IT ALSO HOLDS THE KEYS OF the administration of ordinances for the remission of sins and for the gift of the Holy SPIRIT."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2011 06:26PM by NormaRae.

What a shocker.

Why are Navy ships usually named after dead people? They are no longer in a position to do anything embarrassing.

Disappointing. Nothing about my favorite - Philo Farnsworth. But I guess that's because his work wasn't "faith-promoting." And Joseph Smith Jr. in the top-3? Whatever...

I think the meaning of the word "intellectual" has been lost in the mists of mormon time.

Funny how Joe is spoken of not only for good or evil but dumb and dumber as well.

Not many hail Joe as an Intellectual that believe him a prophet. If he was smart as a whip he would be shown as what he really was - a conman.