Today I was at lunch with the author of the Letter to the CES Director and the subject of how FAIR gives answers that are so nebulous and ambiguous that they could be a plot point on Star Trek.
That reminded me of one of my favorite books. One that explained people’s behavior to me like none other more or less in one line:
There’s a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it’s where most of life happens.
—Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
I’m not sure they need to read the whole book, because it’s pretty much summed up in that one line, but the book then sets about illustrating that principle very well with examples.
I might write one about “The Great Mormon Weasel” where I would illustrate this same idea in Mormon terms.
*i.e. Doing your home teaching is good. It builds community and makes sure the widow and fatherless are cared for in the neighborhood, which some might call “true religion”. It provides a feedback system for the organization and makes you take action on your faith.
Refusing to do it would be okay as well, as visiting smelly homes insincerely could actually harm the community and make people feel like the organization is keeping tabs on them
The way of the Mormon Weasel God is to shuffle your feet and look down whenever the Elder’s Quorum President mentions home teaching, and then report that you visited the family for that time you said a sentence beyond “hi” to them in church.
See how fun a book like that would be?
But where The Mormon Weasel God resides, like Zeus’ Mt. Olympus, is high on top of Mount FAIR.
Yes, that website where Weasel thinking is so prevalent it dresses up in clothing and masquerades as “rational thinking”, “Science” or just really long-worded essays.
For example, when asked “Did Joseph Translate out of a stone in a hat” FAIR could reply “yes” and cite sources. That would be a good answer.
They could reply “no” and quote a thousand talks where general authorities state otherwise. This could at least be fairly repudiated and proven false.
But instead they worship the great God of Mormon Weaselness by stating:
- Actually, there is much more than one “obscure” talk in the Ensign by Elder Nelson that mentions [translating out of a stone in a hat].
- For a believer’s perspective on this subject, see: The Spectacles, the Stone, the Hat, and the Book: A Twenty-first Century Believer’s View of the Book of Mormon Translation.
That’s right, even though the talk was basically a crumpled up piece of paper left over after a CES fireside to only seminary teachers left in a disused lavatory with a sign saying “Beware of the leopard” on it, the true way to worship the Weasel is to make the author of the letter look dumb by stating there are LOTS of talks in which Elder Nelson mentions this… and not provide any sources to these LOTS of talks.
But they do provide a link to this article in which the author states: Given that I am not a scholar, it is not my intention to draw any conclusions regarding this aspect of the translation
That’s right, skip providing sources to General Authorities or scholars. Worshiping the weasel means turning to a random dude’s opinion on the internet (who has no more authority in this matter, than say; I do.)
Or another example.
Ask FAIR was Joseph Smith into Polyandry and they reply:
In all cases, these women continued to live with their husbands, most of them doing so until their husbands died. These eternal [polyandrous] marriages appear to have had little effect upon the lives of the women involved
See that’s a Weasel answer. Simply saying “Yes” and perhaps citing marriage records would be good. Saying “no” and providing sources would be a bad answer but at least could be given a reply.
To Worship the God of Weasel, you have to not only admit that he did, but then downplay that the women were affected. Or another way to phrase that would be “.. but they enjoyed it”. Hell, at that point you could say “They were asking for it” and it would be just about as weasel-born an idea.
Anyway, if you haven’t seen the Donut charts on the letter to the CES director’s FAIR rebuttals, I urge you to do so. You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and worship of the Mormon Weasel god than in FAIR’s rebuttals.
Because honestly, I don’t believe they worship the Mormon God of Truth, Justice, Mercy and Love, but the Great Mormon Weasel God, who is okay with half-truths, misleading answers, and leaving off convenient source citation. They’ve started their own religion and are masquerading as Mormons online to fool the gullible members.
Read each comment and think about what a good answer might look like, what a bad answer might look like, and realize how much Weasel is sprinkled into each one.