Allen Wyatt, Mike Parker & FAIR: A Growing Fear of Dehlin?

[_RayAgostini]

Well, as I've said, it would be very easy for you to email DCP and find out.

It would also be easy for me to email DCP and ask him whether he approves of ex-Mormon Universalists, or people who believe in aliens and UFOs (I shudder), or whether people who struggle with Book of Mormon historicity are going to hell. Come to think of it, there must be a million things I could ask him by email that are far more relevant to me.

[_Kishkumen]

I've done a great job, haven't I? I've bombarded all of your recent threads/criticisms of him. I've really done all I can to make sure you never start another DCP thread criticism. And it's been a roaring success. I've finally shut you up and you never say another critical word about DCP. Yep, that's me all right.

I suppose you are right. You haven't tried to shut down all of my criticisms of what Daniel Peterson writes. Of course, I hardly think it abusive to critique his writing, and I don't think I was mean spirited in offering my difference of opinion. It is not as though I criticized his ideas out of some sort of vendetta against him. I find his blog interesting. I don't always agree with it, and sometimes I write about it.

He's lucky my wife doesn't lay into him for his risible views concerning taxation. Now that would be harsh. At least the things she said to me about his political and economic comments on his blog were fairly sharp. Much worse than what I said about some of his apologetic arguments. She also wasn't too fond of his various swipes at me. Well, she is biased in my favor there, so that probably doesn't count.

[_Kishkumen]

Just my personal experience, but I am going to agree with Ray.

Fair enough. I am not changing my mind based on your say so, but you are entitled to your opinion. In my view, it is not the statistics that count; it is the cavalier way in which the lives of others are treated by those who take it upon themselves to defend the LDS Church. It could very well have landed Dehlin in very hot water, and I don't see why any one of us who care about him should be comforted by assurances based on DCP's purported obscurity. It is the journal that matters, not DCP personally. DCP is just an agent in producing the journal. The influence of the journal does not rise or fall on his personal celebrity in the Church, or lack thereof.

[_RayAgostini]

I suppose you are right. You haven't tried to shut down all of my criticisms of what Daniel Peterson writes. Of course, I hardly think it abusive to critique his writing, and I don't think I was mean spirited in offering my difference of opinion. It is not as though I criticized his ideas out of some sort of vendetta against him. I find his blog interesting. I don't always agree with it, and sometimes I write about it.

He's lucky my wife doesn't lay into him for his risible views concerning taxation. Now that would be harsh. At least the things she said to me about his political and economic comments on his blog were fairly sharp. Much worse than what I said about some of his apologetic arguments. She also wasn't too fond of his various swipes at me. Well, she is biased in my favor there, so that probably doesn't count.

Guess what, Kish, I don't agree with some of the things he writes either. It's an entertaining, and often educational blog (particularly his expertise on Islam), and it's interesting to learn a lot more about his background (family, etc.), but I don't swell to some of his politics (because I probably do have some "socialist tendencies").

My time for today is nearly up, and reality bites tonight.

[_RockSlider]

But the difficulty is that what Scratch has done to Daniel is nothing compared to the power of the LDS Church, its authority, and its resources in the hands of its intellectual Danites.

An embittering thing which I have a hard time letting go, my friend Hyrum Andrus. But take your pick of the many sacrificed for the good of the whole. BYU's honor code, what an offensive name/title. A fairly recent one being the likes of Chad Hardy comes to mind.

[_Doctor Scratch]

But the difficulty is that what Scratch has done to Daniel is nothing compared to the power of the LDS Church, its authority, and its resources in the hands of its intellectual Danites.

An embittering thing which I have a hard time letting go, my friend Hyrum Andrus. But take your pick of the many sacrificed for the good of the whole. BYU's honor code, what an offensive name/title. A fairly recent one being the likes of Chad Hardy comes to mind.

The Mopologists have publicly targeted a lot of people: Mike Quinn, Grant Palmer, Tom Murphy, Brent Metcalfe, Dan Vogel, Rodney Meldrum, and many, many others. I don't think I would describe any of these people as actually wanting to do "harm" to Mormonism, but that hasn't stopped the Mopologists from wanting to destroy their reputations in Mormon circles. One very prominent Mormon scholar once told me that Midgley, Peterson, and Hamblin view all of this as "a game." To them it's fun to attack these people, to tear them apart and watch as the "unwashed masses" lap all of it up. So it must really sting for somebody like DCP when he is castigated by the younger guys, like LoaP and the narrator. The good news seems to be that change is on the horizon. Yes: they've handed off the torch to Greg Smith, who is really turning out to be extraordinarily rotten, but apart from him, I don't think there will be many others who will be willing to perpetuate this "rotten enterprise."

[_Kishkumen]

The Mopologists have publicly targeted a lot of people: Mike Quinn, Grant Palmer, Tom Murphy, Brent Metcalfe, Dan Vogel, Rodney Meldrum, and many, many others. I don't think I would describe any of these people as actually wanting to do "harm" to Mormonism, but that hasn't stopped the Mopologists from wanting to destroy their reputations in Mormon circles. One very prominent Mormon scholar once told me that Midgley, Peterson, and Hamblin view all of this as "a game." To them it's fun to attack these people, to tear them apart and watch as the "unwashed masses" lap all of it up. So it must really sting for somebody like DCP when he is castigated by the younger guys, like LoaP and the narrator. The good news seems to be that change is on the horizon. Yes: they've handed off the torch to Greg Smith, who is really turning out to be extraordinarily rotten, but apart from him, I don't think there will be many others who will be willing to perpetuate this "rotten enterprise."

Unfortunately, I think there will always be those who, while professing sainthood outwardly, somehow find a way to trash other saints who don't "measure up" in terms of loyalty, orthodoxy, or what have you. Greg Smith is the latest informal inquisitor in a long line of attack dogs. I doubt he will be the last. What matters in the end is how the apostles feel about all of this. If there is ever a time when the most influential apostles are those who do not buy into the notion of cannibalizing fellow saints in the name of doctrinal purity and absolute obedience to authority, that is when people like the Mopologists will truly be put on the defensive, if not shut out entirely from this kind of self-indulgent hobby. Until then, I can guarantee this will continue. Hitler always has his willing executioners.

[_Stormy Waters]

Dan Peterson comments on this thread

[_Drifting]

Dan Peterson comments on this thread

On the message board where my Malevolent Stalker holds forth, he and several of his acolytes have been hyperventilating for seven outraged pages now -- and the thread may actually be picking up steam -- about an alleged "smear" or "hit piece" that not a single one of them has even laid eyes on. And the Stalker himself, who has been anonymously engaged in a ceaseless, malignant campaign of character assassination and defamation against me for the past six years, claims that I'm a "coward" for not responding to this idiocy.

These "weasels," the Stalker's most faithful disciple predicts (referring to me and some of my associates), "will continue to do their dirty work. . . . They will continue on their smear parade in whatever sneaky, underhanded ways they can." We're villains, he explains, because we hold those who disagree with us "up to public criticism, lampooning, and ridicule."

I'm struggling to see a denial from daniel....

[_SteelHead]

You will note DCP does not deny the existence of the hit piece, just notes that youse guys have not seen it.