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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Deconstructing Mormonism
Response to "Deconstructing Mormonism"
| A FAIR Analysis of: Deconstructing Mormonism: An Analysis and Assessment of the Mormon Faith, a work by author: Thomas Riskas
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Response to claims made in Deconstructing Mormonism by Thomas Riskas
Summary: Ex-Mormons online were initially quite excited to read this book when it first appeared, but it appears that few were able to actually understand what it was saying. As the author noted in an online ex-Mormon forum in May 2013, "The paradigm application of such deconstruction applied interpersonally (and "intra"-personally) is some version of the "Instructive Deconstructive Conversation" found in Chapter 1. And the metaphor I like to use for such deconstruction, when applied to Mormon and other theistic beliefs, is the taking apart of an "object of great price" piece by piece, as also presented in Ch. 1." [1] In summary, the author believes that he has, once and for all, "deconstructed Mormonism," and that one has to dedicate serious effort to reading his book in order to understand how that has been accomplished. Online discussion about the book in the ex-Mormon fora appear to have died out near the end of 2013, with the author periodically reappearing in an attempt to spur further discussion.
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Reviews of this work
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Sophic Box and Mantic Vista: A Review of Deconstructing Mormonism"
Kevin Christensen, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (October 11, 2013)Riskas’s Deconstructing Mormonism claims that believers are trapped in a box for which the instructions for how to get out are written on the outside of the box. He challenges believers submit to an outsider test for faith. But how well does Riskas describe the insider test? And is his outsider test, which turns out to be positivism, just a different box with the instructions for how to get out written on its outside? Ian Barbour’s Myths Models and Paradigms provides instructions on how to get out of the positivistic box that Riskas offers, and at the same time provides an alternate outsider test that Mormon readers can use to assess what Alma refers to as “cause to believe.”
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Notes
- ↑ Thomas Riskas, posted in Recovery from Mormonism (May 31, 2013).