Mormon Studies Collection

If you are interested in apologetics and you have friends who are mormon and you want to discuss the "real" Jesus with them - not what is taught in mormonism. Then anything you can get your hands on to guide you and the converation is most helpful. I had electronic versions in L3 that would be great in L4.

Anything more on Jehovah Witnesses would be great to. I already have what is currently available.

This may be too soon to ask, but will the Journal of Discourses and History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have page numbers?

Is it worth emphasising that as these works are out of copyright, purchasing these works will not be giving money to Mormonism?  I suspect that the low number of bids reflects the low number of Mormons who use Logos and the low number of people who are not Mormons but can see the usefulness in having this set.

Stoking the fires of controversy again, George?

So long as you didn't take my post as indicating that Mormons are bad, I'll walk away now.  I hope that wasn't implied in what I wrote, even if I suspect that some Logos users will hold that belief...

Note to all: Logos forums aren't for theology debates or putting others down...

George Somsel said:

I'm not convinced that the Mormons are that bad.  Yes, they have an extra book and some strange ideas, but how does that make them so very different from dispensationalists?

Fairly narrow interest (among Logos' customers) CP's like Catholic ones tend to go for $3-6/volume.

Really popular ones can go around $1/volume.

You're trying to get a very narrow interest bundle through CP at $0.67/volume! Possibly the lowest we've ever seen. There's no way that's going to succeed in the next 2-5 years unless you find someone to walk the streets of Salt Lake City and get people to bid on the spot. At that price even getting as far as you have must have taken a considerable amount of bidders.

Those of you who really want this should move your bids to the far right. That's still less than $2/volume. I'd be delighted if the CP's I want went for that.

George Somsel said:

Yes, they have an extra book and some strange ideas, but how does that make them so very different from dispensationalists?

Now that's funny [:D]

Paul Golder said:

George Somsel said:

Yes, they have an extra book and some strange ideas, but how does that make them so very different from dispensationalists?

Now that's funny

Yes, that is funny.  I am not a dispensationalists either.  But Mormons do not just have an extra book.  They have extra books, including the "Pearl of Great Price" and other writings of Joseph Smith that are regarded as Scripture.  More importantly, they have extra Gods.  In fact, they teach that God was once a mere man, and you have the potential to become a God, too.  So they have a very different understanding of the nature of God.

I am not arguing pro or con about their theology.  But Momon theology is a little different from my dispensational friends, who are just a little wierd, but still within the bounds of orthodox Christianity. 

And I have bid on the Mormon collection.  With the publicity this election is giving the Church of Latter Day Saints, it is important that we be prepared to guide our congregations about the Mormon faith.  People are interested in them, and will be more so if a member of that church becomes President.  If you have not bid on this collection, I urge you to do so.

I am not trying to attack the Mormon Church or theology.   I would not let theology keep me from voting for a Mormon.  I share many values with Mormons.  By and large they are great people.  Just saying.

Listen - I did not read through the 9 pages of comments here, however I'd like to toss my hat in:

I would love a way to categorize text(s), both collections and individual works, as apologetically interesting, only. Mitigating the risk of reading something and thinking it's from a collection or work I agree with.  This is relevant to this collection - that's a LOT of indext'd materiel that I'd like parsed away from my normal searches and visibly flagged, I'm not certain that Prioritization will do all that I'd need in order to add this collection to my library.

What are your thoughts, all?

George, you're the superior person.

That said, to other users or community / members, is there a function for flagging resources as apologetic in nature, currently? 

If not, are there other users interested in the same functionality?

Thanks a ton!

John

John ... how exactly would your apologetic flagging work? If you put a 100 people in a room and ask their theological opinions, you're going to get at least 100 different views. I think that's what tagging, short titles and long-title edits are for, along with collections, etc?

Here are some I use: Agrees-with-Me, Said-It-Better-Than-I-Could-Have, Lost-in-Space, Why-Isn't-This-in-Hidden-Resources, Nutty-Author, Nutty-AuthorTimes2 and so forth.

 This way, I simply put 'Agrees-with-me' in the library filter or search filter, and I always get the right answer. Can any OTHER software do that??

Kind of joking ... I'm trying hard to figure out what it is you're recommending.

DMB said:

John ... how exactly would your apologetic flagging work? If you put a 100 people in a room and ask their theological opinions, you're going to get at least 100 different views.

Same with opinions on bottled water. "Apologetic flagging" for anyone other than one's self is useless. That is true unless you are doing the thinking for others who are mindless......[:|]

George, that's not likely to work well. If I put your 'Agrees-with-me' in with my 'Agrees-with-Me' then they're going to get all mixed up, thereby risking not always getting the right answer.

Andrew Baguley said:

...

-- This will depend on what you consider 'Apologetic Only'.  See the wiki for ideas on rules (http://wiki.logos.com/Example_Collections) ...

I'm not sure if George and DMB are deliberately mocking or teasing, though it comes across that way from here.

Among other things, they're trying to point out that different people will have different ideas of what would be in 'Apologetic Only', so Logos cannot mark sets to help here.  A long time ago I suggested that Logos added theology tags, so that we could search just Arminian works, Calvinist works, pre-millennialist works, etc., but this seemed too controversial at the time.  I suspect that this would help you here but, in the absence of such fields, you would have to add your own tags.

Some users get confused by the word 'Collection' being used in two different ways by Logos.  The collections they sell are just groups of resources that sometimes don't actually have that much in common, so they are not specially tagged in your library.  Collections within the Logos application cannot be created by referring to a collection as it is sold.  Therefore, you would need to create your own rules for collections like this one.  In this case, the most promising fields are publisher and author, since anything published by 'Deseret News' or authored by 'Brigham Young' is likely to fall into this category and there are a limited number of publishers and authors within this collection.  Of course, if there is another author also called Brigham Young that you particularly like, then their works will also be included in the 'Apologetic Only' collection, so popular sounding names may lead you to manually add resources to a collection.

Hope that helps.

Super Tramp said:

Have you ever found your interests or needs in study subjects change? The objects of my study focus in 1975 are markedly different from those that piqued my interest in 1985 or in 1995. Today I study things I never would have found interesting in previous decades. 

Well, since I'm soon to turn 39, I haven't been around that many decades.  [;)] [;)]  [:D]

George Somsel said:

But if you get "agrees with me", i.e. George Somsel, then you KNOW you have the right answer. 

Do you really have any books in your library that altogether "agree with you"?[6]

fgh said:

George Somsel said:

But if you get "agrees with me", i.e. George Somsel, then you KNOW you have the right answer. 

Do you really have any books in your library that altogether "agree with you"?

Unfortunately, not one.  All are in error.  [:(]  [;)]  [:D]

George Somsel said:

Unfortunately, not one.  All are in error.     

You could write your own PB, [;)] though I guess there would be a risk that you change your mind tomorrow.[:D]

Andrew Baguley said:

George Somsel said:

Unfortunately, not one.  All are in error.     

You could write your own PB,  though I guess there would be a risk that you change your mind tomorrow.

Me change my mind?  When I'm right, I'm right.  [;)]  Just because I was once a dispensationalist doesn't change anything.  [:D]

DMB said:

thus the challenge facing George

But how can this be a challenge for George if he is correct?  FYI... Of course I agree with George (because he is correct).

John R. Weathersby said:

Andrew - I must tell you I'm very disappointed in the type of 'banter' that happens in these forums - I simply asked if there is a way I can mark items as, apologetic in nature, IE Mormon commentary - if commentary from tagging comes up that's discussing a legitimate reference to a 66 book canonical reference however, from a point of view of the LDS I want to see that immediately rather than 'discerning it' through reading. Else, I don't want the works in my collection - digitally.    It is not something I'd like to be convinced of otherwise - its just how I land on the subject.

Maybe I'm thick and less scholarly or intelligent than the majority of people using Logos, I'm fine with that.  I did not seek to enter into debate regarding how much others agree about the use of this, rather, to find if it was possible. 

Thank you for working to redeem this forum with, actual assistance and thoughtful posting, but I think it's just far gone.

Grace and peace,

John
Ephesians 5:4

Hi John

Thanks for coming back to the forum to post again.  I'm not sure the issue is about how intelligent people on the forums are, so much as how much those who use the forums regularly like to entertain themselves with 'banter'.  Between regular forum users, it can be quite enjoyable, especially as they understand better what is being unsaid, as well as what is being said.  The personalities expressed on the forum can be quite strong at times and can be misunderstood out of context.

I remember when I was newer to the forums feeling that it was unfair to those who were new and just trying to get simple answers to their questions.  Your post has served to remind me that things haven't really changed.  It's just that I've got used to how things are, and grown to understand the regular forum users better.

NB.Mick is right that genuine questions are better on new threads, but it was an appropriate thread for your question, so I'd be happier if the regulars could try to help in a friendly way before the regular banter takes over.  Maybe the banter is often a bad thing and goes in negative directions, but it's a way for regular users to keep up their interest in the forums, and there aren't many regulars who don't offer help and good advice to people at other times.

I agree with a number of the suggestions that have been made, saying that it is hard for Logos to make a decision on what constitutes heresy or apologetic, with such a wide user-base, but I also think that it is easy to understand where you are likely coming from and feel that other forum users should respect that and answer the question accordingly.  I understand that some may want to question your view of heresy and/or apologetic, but I'm not sure the Logos forums are the right place to do that.  Ideally, others would simply help you see that Logos are unlikely to mark resources as heretical and that they have good reasons for not doing, as well as providing help on alternative ways to do what you are trying to do.

I'm sorry you've been disappointed and hope that you won't completely give up on the forums.  I also hope that the suggestions I gave before have proven useful.  It's good to hear that NB.Mick thought they were along the right lines.

Andrew

MJ. Smith said:

I think it would be difficult to flag items as apologetic in nature...

I'm not quite sure what you're describing here, MJ.  I haven't played with PBs, but can't we embed links to other Logos resources, which will open on anyone's computer, so long as they have the resource?

Question for MJ (or anyone else for that matter):

What's the biggest problem with Logos using 'theology tags'?  I'm fairly sure that a Mormonism tag would be uncontroversial here and I think it would go some way to solve John's problem.  I'm only suggesting tags go on resources that are self-proclaimed.  Some resources try to promote particular views, such as Wesleyan commentaries and Roman Catholic Missals.  So long as Logos is willing to market resources with labels, why not tag them as such as well?  Yes, we'll need to be sensible about how we use them.  (There's no such thing as an official Wesleyan view, for example.)  However, if we want to search just anabaptist resources for uses of the word martyr, for example, then I'm not sure why we should need to categorise all of our resources ourselves.