Posted on 07/03/2008 7:42:55 PM PDT by Grig
A three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of FairLDS, Scott Gordon, and Allen Wyatt and against Sandra Tanner and Utah Lighthouse Ministry.
This lawsuit was an effort to limit free speech by making an online parody websites legally actionable. The case was previously thrown out in summery judgment by the Tenth Circuit Court for the District of Utah, but Mrs. Tanner appealed.
You can read the full court ruling here:
http://www.ck10.uscourts.gov/opinions/07/07-4095.pdf
You can read a write-up from the Citizen Media Law Project on the judgment here:
http://tinyurl.com/58dvho
Here is the original District judge's ruling that was affirmed:
http://www.thelen.com/tlu/UtahLighthouseVDiscoveryComputing.pdf
Yeah; you merely ACCEPT a book that is NOT 100% translated correctly as canon and REJECT a book that your Founder and Prophet 'translated'!
They are so sec uh; SACRED that they don't even appear in ANY of their 'scriptures'!
I haven’t sued anbody ever in my entire life to stop them from making saracastic comments about me. I guess Sandra Tanner can’t say that, can she?
What you preach is not that well known.
Free speech? Golly, I though all Americans knew about that. Are you sure you are an American?
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This suggests to me that you only have a book knowledge of God's word and no personal witness.
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Have you studied the allegation to the original documents, and surrounding pertinent documents, and compared that to what the Tanners say, or do you have faith that what they say is true?
“Ive read a great deal of the Tanners material. They dont use subterfuge and trickery to make thier case against Mormonism.”
If all you read is what they and their echo chambers produce, you are not going to have the weaknesses of their their work pointed out to you. They are not so solid as you think, they are just good at making you think they are so good.
“Looks like Mormonism cant defend itself from the truth, so they use subterfuge to hide.”
According to anti-Mormons Carl Mosser and Paul Owen (who produce works far more scholarly than the Tanners), Mormons are doing a better job of defending itself than Evangelicals are doing in attacking us. (http://www.cephasministry.com/mormon_apologetics_losing_battle.html) Sites like FairLDS and the FARMS etc. do an excellent job.
If a couple Mormon guys decide that on top of that they want to toss anti-Mormons a small fraction of the mockery they heap on us, it is their right to do so whether you think it is in bad taste or not.
As long as smearing the Tanners is allowed, here is some interesting material about the LDS apologist at FARMS and FAIR. They are becoming known as the kooks they truly are.
Everyone is ensured their right to believe in kooky beliefs by the Constitution, and so I will defend their right too. I wonder if any of them post of FreeRepublic.
DANIEL PETERSON
Professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU
Regarded by many apologists to be assuming Nibleyesque (lay prophet) status.
Unheard of by leading scholars in his professional sphere as Tal Bachman discovered when he contacted academics in his field in five US universities. The head of the department at UCLA where he obtained his PhD hadnt heard of him! Yikes!
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon458.htm
D. JEFFERY MELDRUM
Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology, Idaho State University
Meldrum appears in the deeply flawed FAIR DVD (The Book of Mormon and New World DNA, 2008). Meldrum is the foremost authority on BIGFOOT. He is considered a joke among his peers and dozens of scientists at ISU have called for his dismissal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15548356/
JOHN TVEDTNES
Career apologist with FARMS and retired scholar from BYU. Masters degree in linguistics, but self-appointed expert on DNA studies. Tvedtnes has written at length on the DNA issue.
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ancients/050713dna3.html
He was recently forced to retract two of the boldest claims he made in the above mentioned FAIR DVD they were so blatantly incorrect.
WARREN ASTON
Travel agent and UFO expert. No formal training.
Aston runs a travel agency (Bountiful Tours) that conducts tours to Arabia after discovering what Terryl Givens and Daniel Peterson consider to be the strongest archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. In his book “By The Hand of Mormon,” Terryl Givens touts Astons work as the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.”
Aston is also an internationally recognized expert on UFOs.
Aston speaking at a UFO Symposium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikV6YDW4Lk
Aston claiming UFO cover-up at Pine Gap (US military base in Australia)
http://www.ufoinfo.com/ufoicq/auforn4.shtml
Astons tour company
http://www.bountifultours.com/tour.html
RODNEY MELDRUM (no relation to Jeffery Meldrum but you must wonder)
Studied marketing for one year at Utah State University.
Self-appointed senior scientist promoting Great Lakes Geography theory. He is also firmly in the creation science camp, which believes the earth is only 6,000 years old. Currently involved in a stoush with FAIR apologists who are firmly in the Mesoamerican geography camp.
http://www.bookofmormonevidence.org/index.php
STEVEN JONES
Professor of Physics at BYU. He was let go from BYU because even they were embarrassed by his behavior.
Widely known in the US as one of the scientists who believes that the US government was behind the demolition of the World Trade Centers.
Jones was a scientific adviser for a group of Great Lakes apologists and has dabbled in Book of Mormon archeology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones
ALLAN WYATT
FAIR watchdog and webmaster with no publicized academic background. According to FAIR Wyatt’s words should not be interpreted as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.
MICHAEL ASH
FAIR apologist with no publicized academic background. Author of newly published FAIR book Shaken Faith Syndrome http://www.shakenfaithsyndrome.com/#about
According to FAIR Ash’s words should not be interpreted as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.
WARREN ASTON
_________________________________________
The man behind the Yemen discovery is Australian apologist Warren Aston and his wife Michaela. Why is it that when you dig a little deeper into the background of LDS apologists you find crackpots at almost every turn?
Warren Aston runs a travel agency that conducts tours to Arabia. He is also an internationally recognized expert on UFOs!!
The Astons ran a travel agency in Brisbane in the 1990s and published the Yemen discovery in 1994 In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi’s Journey across Arabia to Bountiful Deseret Book Company. Aston has a vested interest in promoting his Yemen myths because he manages a tour company called Bountiful Tours that runs tours to, you guessed it, the Arabian Peninsula.
His next tour in October 2008 has been promoted in Meridium Magazine 2008 Tour - “In Lehi & Sariah’s Footsteps” 13 days exploring Israel, Jordan and Oman
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/gospe...
Here are some weblinks to his tour company
http://www.bountifultours.com/tour.ht...
You can read a short bio of Aston here.
http://www.bountifultours.com/about.h...
But this is what FARMS would prefer you did not know about Warren Aston. Aston is an internationally recognized expert on UFOs.
Aston speaking at UFO Symposium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikV6Y...
Aston describing a UFO encounter in a DVD sold at International UFO Congress
http://www.ufocongressstore.com/servl...
Aston claiming UFO cover-up at Pine Gap (US military base in Australia)
http://www.ufoinfo.com/ufoicq/auforn4...
Quote: Aston examines the duality within the UFO phenomenon, exobiology, contactees, and question what is really happening in abductions while suggesting new reasons for government cover up.
Aston lecture to Queensland UFO society
http://www.uforq.asn.au/articles/hard...
Lecture entitled Finding the hard answers to Earth’s greatest mystery within a scientific paradigm - Warren Aston’s interests include travel (he runs his own travel business in Brisbane), photography, music, theology, feminism and quantum-physics.
Quote: The evidence that something is happening which defies conventional science is abundant, unambiguous, and is readily available in every category imaginable. UFOs are a long-term, world-wide, multi-cultural reality with much more physical evidence available than most of us realise. The mounting evidence that UFOs and aliens are real and are part of the future for all of us deserves our most serious attention and best efforts to understand it.
Aston: UFO researcher hunting for truth
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2007...
Aston: Are Extraterrestrials Already Among Us? A Review of Historical Accounts. Go to page 8 at this link
http://www.theblackvault.com/encyclop...
UFO’s?
Oh, I get it! That’s how the “quakers” end up on the moon... with space craft of some sort. ;)
Yeppers...
Revelation from tiny green prophets..
:)
Uh huh. Mmmm kaaaayyyy.
And the Mormon-bashers are bastions of honesty I suppose?
Then you agree that George W. Bush's actions in 1999 were equally reprehesible, right?
Do you agree with Bush's assessment that there 'ought to be limits to freedom'?
Not just liberals. George W. Bush reacted in exactly the same fashion in 1999 when someone parodied his campaign web site.
He, too, is an enemy of free speech.
I have found Utah Lighthouse Ministry far more credible than the LDS Church
For example, on the matter of the First Vision, the Tanner's have documented with annotations direct from Mormon historical documents the nine different versions of the vision. You can review them at your convenience HERE, where you will see rather profound differences. You will also note the first account did not appear until 1830-31 and the official account did not appear until 1838 a full eighteen years after it purportedly happened and at the exact moment when Joseph Smith greatly needed a magnificent event to shore up his authority and silence critics.
Mark Hofmann was a documents forger who foisted several dozen fake documents onto Mormon Church Leadership. Hofmann's amazing discoveries were purchased by devout Mormons and the donated to the Church. Writings favorable to Mormonism were placed on prominent display writings deemed damaging to the cause were secreted away.
Hofmann's most famous fabrication was the Salamander Letter. In this writing, supposedly by Book of Mormon Witness Martin Harris, a tenth version of the First Vision surfaced. Fortunately for the Mormon Church, the first account of the visitation was extended back in time a full five years to the mid-1820's. Unfortunately for the Church, in this telling Joseph was visited by an elf who took the form of a salamander.
Mormon leadership verified the authenticity of the letter, apparently relying in large part on the opinion of forensic documents examiners. Based on his vast knowledge of Mormonism, Gerald Tanner on the other hand immediately denounced the document as a fraud. Tanner was proven right.
The effects of the Salamander Letter haunt the Mormon Church to this day.
As can be seen in the photograph above, two Mormon Prophets, Ezra Taft Benson and Gordon Hinckley, were among the duped.
President Hinckley would later candidly admit:
I accepted [Hofmann] to come into my office on a basis of trust I frankly admit that Hofmann tricked us. He also tricked experts from New York to Utah, however I am not ashamed to admit that we were victimized. It is not the first time the Church has found itself in such a position. Joseph Smith was victimized again and again. The Savior was victimized. I am sorry to say that sometimes it happens. Dew, S. (1996). Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, p. 432.But according to LDS doctrine at the time, this was impossible.
In his February 26, 1980 speech at BYU titled Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, LDS President Ezra Taft Benson maintained the Mormon Church President spoke with inerrant authority on "any matter, temporal or spiritual ," was "not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time," and "would never lead the Church astray".Following the Hofmann debacle, less than a decade after President Benson's pronouncement, an embarrassed Mormon Church was forced to proclaim:
Prophets are mortal men who have been ordained and chosen by God to be a mouthpiece for revelation and guidance, but that revelation only comes when God wills it, making it somewhat sporadic in both ancient and modern times. There is no expectation that every act, every decision, and every purchase by a prophet will be divinely and infallibly guided. As Joseph Smith said, "a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such." Jeff Lindsay, The Salamander Letter and Mark HofmannThe incident also led to the founding and naming of the Salamander Society, an organization founded by disgruntled Mormons for the purpose of Lampooning the LDS faith.
If you desire, I would be pleased to provide additional examples where the Tanner's were more truthful and/or accurate than LDS church leaders.
Huh?
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