Ray A wrote:Mister Scratch wrote:
I'll tell you what, Ray. You head on over to MAD, and let them all have it. Tell them how sick you are of their smears, and their ad hominem attacks. In return, I will tell you, via PM, what my Church status is.
Deal?
First of all, I had my account on MAD deleted, and I don't use sock puppets. Just personally don't like the idea. Second, I do not consider their smears half as bad as what I've seen from exmos and antis, although it's possible the "net effect" is the same. You can still hurt people without telling them what bastards they are. What I can do, however, is a critique of some aspects of Mormon apologetics, without pretending to play prosecutor or interrogator. I have actually already done this, on the old MDB, and also on ZLMB, where I quoted lengthy verses from the Book of Mormon in regard to LDS approaches to critics. Maybe you missed that, too.
I might do this on my blog. Being a unprincipled "flip flopper", I understand both viewpoints. Maybe I'll end up like Wade in some respect. Believe it or not, I'd like to see more reasonable discussions. I couldn't do this on PostMo (nor could Wade) because of the more aggressive posters, so I left them. I have not hassled them since. It was a pity, because I encountered some very genuine posters who wanted sincere dialogue. Some of them felt I could contribute a lot, but most were not interested. Do you think you will solve any differences/disagreements with counter-attacks? This only encourages a cycle of endless aggression and point-scoring. For this reason I've said that I think dialogue is impossible. You want me, essentially, to go on MAD and "stir the pot", and inflame them. That won't happen. I have spoken my mind about lots of things I disagree with in the Church, when I posted there, not the least being polygamy. I was surprised, at times, I was not called on by the mods, but lots of LDS posters disagreed with me on some things. You don't seem to realise any of this, Scratch. Go dig into the archives if you have the time to go through several thousand posts I did, and what you see may surprise you! What turned me away from "speaking my mind", was what I felt were increasing attacks on LDS posters, and their religion, to the point where if I said anything critical, I felt like I was adding to the bombardment. They were sick and tired of increasing "exit stories" and hearing things like "ol' Joe was a fraud". Thus the aggression continued, and I eventually sided with them. When beastie and Juliann had the infamous "battle", however, I sided with neither of them, but I was right there in the midst of it. If anything, at the time, I was more sympathetic to beastie's viewpoints.
There will be no winners, unless there's give a take. (I have domestic work to do now.)
Well, Ray, my offer still stands. If you get yourself re-instated at MAD, perhaps by registering a new account using a different or longer variation on your name (e.g., "Ray Ago", like you used on ZLMB), then you could fire up the thread. By the way, I would expect it to be titled something like, "Calling for an End to the Ad Homs in FROB," or "Enough of DCP's Smears!!!" If you were to do this, then I will tell you my Church status. You have my word on that.