Dan Peterson breaks Church Rules in pursuit of Mopologetics

[_Darth J]

Robuchan, let's say hypothetically that Peterson had found out Everybody Wang Chung really was a bishop. Based on past experience, what do you suppose would have been the most likely course of action had our Mormontologist friends discovered Everybody Wang Chung's real identity?

[_Jaybear]

Don't get me wrong. DCP's an asshole. He deserves the crap people give him. But I'm starting to think you guys are serious about how offended you are about what he actually did. Let's say you catch DCP jaywalking. And you make posts about it him jaywalking, and everyone's pretending to go nuts about it talking about how offensive it is for him to jaywalk. And DCP's upset. And his minions come over to fight and get in logic wars about whether or not what he did was wrong. It's all hilarious, right? Unless you're really upset over the jaywalking and it's not a gag and you really are serious. Then the joke is on you and it becomes unintentionally hilarious.

Who would have guessed.

Stemelbow doesn't care that that Dan encouraged a Bishop to violate Church rules and disregard his duty of confidentiality to the members of the Church. Yet, Rollo and Darth would have the Bishop removed from his post.

[_Jaybear]

Robuchan, let's say hypothetically that Peterson had found out Everybody Wang Chung really was a bishop. Based on past experience, what do you suppose would have been the most likely course of action had our Mormontologist friends discovered Everybody Wang Chung's real identity?

Is there any doubt. Dan would have outed him publicly. That just who he is.
Didn't he play some role in having Quinn fired from BYU for being gay?

Nonetheless, your concern is pointless. If pressed by the powers that be, Dan will simply say "I was bluffing". End of inquiry.

[_MrStakhanovite]

In answer to the original statement "Dan Peterson breaks Church rules in pursuit of Mopologetics" the answer is 'no he did not'.
However, his friend the Bishop who went seeking out information from the Church databases, certainly did.

So lets do two analogies:

I ask Stormy Waters to confirm or deny that Stem’s ISP number is on a list of numbers that I have and he searches and tells me no, it is not on the list. Only Stormy should be banned and I’m in the clear?

I ask Kishkumen to break the law for me and he does so. I do not have to be held accountable for asking someone to do something illegal?

[_Kishkumen]

Didn't he play some role in having Quinn fired from BYU for being gay?

No, he did not.

[_Bazooka]

In answer to the original statement "Dan Peterson breaks Church rules in pursuit of Mopologetics" the answer is 'no he did not'.
However, his friend the Bishop who went seeking out information from the Church databases, certainly did.

So lets do two analogies:

I ask Stormy Waters to confirm or deny that Stem’s ISP number is on a list of numbers that I have and he searches and tells me no, it is not on the list. Only Stormy should be banned and I’m in the clear?

I ask Kishkumen to break the law for me and he does so. I do not have to be held accountable for asking someone to do something illegal?

You make a good point in terms of the moral obligations of the situation.
But in terms of actually breaking Church rules, only the Bishop friend did that.

[_robuchan]

Robuchan, let's say hypothetically that Peterson had found out Everybody Wang Chung really was a bishop. Based on past experience, what do you suppose would have been the most likely course of action had our Mormontologist friends discovered Everybody Wang Chung's real identity?

I don't know. You're taking a hypothetical out about five steps further than you need to.

But let's wait till he actually commits a crime to hang him. Remembering, if we're doing this for fun it's hilarious, go for it, crucify the bastard, he has it coming to him. If you're serious about it, then you have issues.

[_Darth J]

Nonetheless, your concern is pointless. If pressed by the powers that be, Dan will simply say "I was bluffing". End of inquiry.

Yeah, lying about using church resources for your personal stalking pleasure, in order to scare an anonymous nobody on a message board, makes it so much more reasonable.

Look, Ed Decker and Sandra Tanner: just turn off the lights and go home. You don't need to work on anti-Mormonism any more. Simply refer people to Mormon Dialogue & Discussions, and let rational adults from the outside looking in draw their own conclusions.

[_MrStakhanovite]

No, I would not be OK with that. But I also don't find it relevant to DCP messing with Everybody Wang Chung who claimed to be a bishop taking his cruise.

But he wasn’t just messing with him. Here is the broader context of this:

It has long been an accusation that Mopologists hunt down the real identities of anonymous people who are critical of the Church. What they really like to do is find anonymous people who really are active members of the Church and who are critical of the Church online and then expose them to their families and Church leadership, or try to embarrass them.

Usually this plays out where it wasn’t clear just how Mopologists got the information, and they are vague enough about it so we can only guess how. An example would be Pahoran dropping hints about he knows some potentially embarrassing facts about Darth J. Or Dan posting Chino Blanco’s name on his blog in an accusation that he is Scratch, how the hell he came to that conclusion we don’t know.

In this instance, we not only have Dan clearly admitting that he was trying to discover someone’s identity, but that he asked a Bishop to break clear Church policy to assist him.

That is a big deal, a BYU Professor asking a Bishop to break Church policy about private information to seek out the identity of some anonymous jackoff on a message board is not something that happens every day.

[_3sheets2thewind]

Bazooka,

All parties to a conspiracy to commit an act are equally guilty.

Dans own words could be interpreted as he approached the Bishop friend to search the records, thus the apparent misuse of Church records was Dans idea.

Dan, I believe a former bishop, would have known or should have known, that searching the records violated the usage of the records.