DCP's First "MI" Article is a Flop

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Excellent review, Dr. Scratch.

So far the MI's articles have been so unbelievably bad that they are almost guaranteed to become collector's items.

I would recommend everyone print these articles and put them somewhere safe for a few years. I promise that collectors of Mormon history will pay big bucks for them as relics of an unfortunate, but short lived era of the Mopologists.

[_sock puppet]

It would be great to know the readership (or even the number of hits) that his latest article gleans.

That's what the younger ranks of Mopologists are for. Clicking their computer mice to make it look like there are more hits than there are actual viewers.

[_sock puppet]

This is also true for his little clique of old school FARMS apologists like Russell McGregor and Bill Hamblin. They don't debate because they know they'd lose. So instead they hide out at the other forum and whine forever and a day about how they're victims of persecution. Get real.

Indeed. Schryver--accept Vogel's debate challenge!

Until you do, everyday is a red letter C day for you: Coward.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Here's a pop quiz: To whom does Dr. Peterson suggest that readers should extend charity?

a) The Mopologists
b) Figures from Church history
c) The Brethren
d) Non-LDS Christians
e) Everyone
f) Atheists
g) "Elite" Critics, such as Plato
h) Relief Society Sisters in Parowan
i) Anti- and Ex-Mormons
j) Gerald Bradford

Check all that apply. For extra credit, indicate who is supposed to be extending this "charity."

[_Kishkumen]

I’ve encountered a few people who believe that the sheer writing of a less-than-positive book review constitutes an illegitimate attack. But I can’t possibly agree. Writing such a review is no more intrinsically wrong than is penning a critique of a play or a musical composition, writing a critical restaurant review, or, for that matter, assigning a less-than-perfect grade to a student paper.

He has also encountered a few people who have pointed out that a number of the reviews he published were neither charitable nor academically rigorous. The substantive complaint lodged against him, but utterly ignored by him, was not that the reviews were sometimes negative, but that they more than once descended to character assassination and the illegitimate questioning of the faith and belief of his co-religionists.

Still, he remains incapable of confronting the substance of these criticisms, or even acknowledge them, and prefers to set up straw men like the laughable representation he typed, and I have quoted above.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Wouldn't surprise me if, at some point, the reviews of his articles have a larger readership than the articles themselves. Certainly the reviews are shorter, more informative, and make for better reading.

I wouldn't be surpised in the least if Dr. Scratch's reviews have a much larger readership than DCP's articles.

DCP has really become a parody of himself. DCP had so much potential, but squandered it all on ego, pride and self-delusion. It makes me sad.

When the final chapter of Mopologists has been written (and I think we are getting very close), DCP will be remembered as the Willy Loman of Mopologetics.

[_sock puppet]

When the final chapter of Mopologists has been written (and I think we are getting very close), DCP will be remembered as the Willy Loman of Mopologetics.

Scathing, but appropriate.

[_Yoda]

Wouldn't surprise me if, at some point, the reviews of his articles have a larger readership than the articles themselves. Certainly the reviews are shorter, more informative, and make for better reading.

I wouldn't be surpised in the least if Dr. Scratch's reviews have a much larger readership than DCP's articles.

DCP has really become a parody of himself. DCP had so much potential, but squandered it all on ego, pride and self-delusion. It makes me sad.

When the final chapter of Mopologists has been written (and I think we are getting very close), DCP will be remembered as the Willy Loman of Mopologetics.

Oh, come on. Really? I guess in your mind, and in the minds of other fans of Scratch, it would be a great fantasy to suggest that his readership would be larger than DCP's, but let's face it; that's all it is...fantasy.

As entertaining as Scratch is, he is never going to have the readership draw, particularly to serious scholars in the apologetic world that Dr. Peterson has. Let's face it. Outside of MDB, Scratch's claim to fame is the obsessive anonymous guy who has stalked DCP for over five years.

[_Kishkumen]

When the final chapter of Mopologists has been written (and I think we are getting very close), DCP will be remembered as the Willy Loman of Mopologetics.

I find the Willy Loman story to be a very human one. We are all subject to the forces that brought Loman down. The world is a brutal place, and it has been no less brutal to Daniel Peterson. The blindness of Daniel to his own foibles is shared by many. I am subject to my own set of blind spots and delusions. I am weak. I am egotistical. I am human.

I have no trouble pointing out what I think is lacking in this essay or how I disagree with Daniel Peterson in certain ways. On the other hand, I don't want to be too comfortable and complacent with the idea that he is wrong, I am right, and I have nothing to learn from him.

This is not a correction of what you have written, but a response by way of reflection.

[_lulu]

readership draw, particularly to serious scholars in the apologetic world that Dr. Peterson has.

Oxymoron.