Amazon reviews of "Saints"

[deacon blues]

Check out the new reviews of the Church's new history book. https://www.amazon.com/Saints-Church-Ch ... filter-bar

I don't know what to say.....

[Palerider]

Interesting that most of the positive reviews mention how "easy" the book is to read because it flows like a story or narrative in a "simple" fashion.

This speaks volumes about the mental acuity of the people we're dealing with here. Critical thinking skills are not part of this equation. These are undoubtedly naive and lazy brains.

Really sad and at the same time indicative of who the church preys upon. No wonder the scammers have a field day in Utah and among Mormons in general...

[jfro18]

If you read Saints, you can see why it's "Easy to read." It really isn't presented like a historical document, but rather reads like a fiction novel (they use the term narrative non-fiction)...

It's watered down and the dialogue feels very over the top at least in the first 10 chapters, to a point where I would argue the target audience are teens who need the inoculation the most.

[deacon blues]

I'll share a thought. In the 1970's Leonard Arrington proposed a multi volume history of the Church, and I think it actually began, with different historians assigned different periods of Church history. Then it got shut down by the usual suspects in the Q15. I wonder if Arrington feels vindicated (yeah I do believe Arrington is still "feeling" things ) that the Church is finally doing what he proposed decades ago, or is he disappointed that the Church is doing it somewhat poorly.

[Rob4Hope]

I just read many of the reviews. The level of writing differed, at least from those I read, inversely with the STAR rating. Those giving less stars came across much more eloquent and educated in their use of language. As you move toward the top raters, objectivity vanished as did the level of prose.

Just from that terse review, I would agree that this book is about "inoculating" the youth who are already IN the church. This book would also be targeted for those who are less "intellectual".

One comment was interesting--it suggested reading Rough Stone Rolling, or Grant Palmer and Michael Quinn. Quinn's book is not for the mentally feeble.

PS: For a while, I was an educator. I learned that the United States, at one time, had the most literate people in the world. As time passed, literacy moved toward illiteracy and aliteracy in alarming numbers. The latter is the most concerning: people have the ability to read, but choose not to. I once read a statistic which I REALLY hope is false. It went like this: When people leave school, on average they read less than one full book the rest of their lives.

If that is true...God help this country! Those who read Saints and hold to it as "the answer to the hard questions" are easy prey. They may have the ability to discern between fact and fiction, but they lack the drive. How can you "talk back" to shitty history when you don't read anything yourself?