If I Did It: Chapter 4 - "Business and Politics"

[_Daniel Peterson]

I think it's only fair to tell you, Professor Peterson: people are starting to see through the strawman you've been trying to make of me.

Right. PMs supporting you and endorsing your crusade are flooding into my in-box by the hour.

How stupid do you think I am?

I've complimented you many times on your cunning.

I'm not telling you a damn thing about these people.

They don't exist.

People prominent in the world of Mormon apologetics who hate me and favor you? Numerable on one hand, I'm guessing, with four or five fingers left over.

Wow, you must really be blind. Page after page of the FARMS Review contains ad hominem attacks on these people, their work, their character.

Not true.

But what you're really saying is that many critics of the Church dislike me.

What an enormous surprise. I never suspected it.

When you said that billions and billions (or whatever) of "people of every rank and stripe and level of accomplishment in the world of Internet apologetics" were pouring juicy gossip into your eager and insatiable maw, I thought you were claiming that prominent Latter-day Saint apologists were signing up to serve on your creepy network of anonymous "informants."

Now I realize that you were just talking about a few of the predictable RfM types.

I take a strong position in controversies, and this makes me controversial. What a stunner.

You know perfectly well how many people dislike you on RfM and on other LDS-related messageboards.

Yes, I'm aware that I'm hated on RfM and in similar locales.

So that's all it is?

For just a few minutes, I thought you were claiming something interesting.

And these are the prominent scholars that you have in mind?

Or they dislike your grim humorlessnes.

LOL. Now I know you're lying.

And your qualifier "people who actually know me"---what's that supposed to mean, exactly?

It's supposed to refer to people who actually know me.

I don't confuse virtual reality or message boards with reality. I don't think message board exchanges replace actual human interactions. Do you?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

GoodK, Gadianton and maybe beastie are the three I believe Scratch is referring to as the scholars who PM him. I could be wrong about beastie, though.

Or it could be John Charles-Duffy or whatever his name is from Sunstone!

[_Daniel Peterson]

GoodK, Gadianton and maybe beastie are the three I believe Scratch is referring to as the scholars who PM him. I could be wrong about beastie, though.

Or it could be John Charles-Duffy or whatever his name is from Sunstone!

Yes, those may be among the more prominent scholars who provide research support for His Humorousness.

I can also easily imagine John-Charles Duffy being involved in Scratchism, either in the background or, even, more on the front line.

Duffy really, really doesn't like me.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

And a final LOL. Now that is funny!

I thought that sort of comment was a joke of course, but just Gad trying to make a joke in the context of actually claiming to present. For instance, I could make the same sort of joke and actually present there.

[_Gadianton]

Ahh, but this isn't the case. While I don't even know who most of Scratch's informants are because he would never, ever tell me even if I were to ask, I can say this. On occasion I get PMs from posters---or not posters but registered members, looking for me to fill in if Scratch is on hiatus. I never do because, lt's face it, Scratch is the master, i don't even want to try and substitute. I just work humbly on my own material. On one occasion, I got a PM from someone I was very, very surprised to see delivering information. I felt a little awkward, and directed this person to my top scholar. But man, if there's not just this person, but more, then apologetics has made more enemies than I would personally have imagined.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I believe and trust everything Gadianton says.

[_Paul Osborne]

I believe and trust everything Gadianton says.

I don't think you do. I think you're just saying that. Look, the bounds of honesty and dishonesty can meld into one.

Paul O

[_Kishkumen]

While I don't even know who most of Scratch's informants are because he would never, ever tell me even if I were to ask, I can say this.

I just asked Scratch in a PM about the identity of the "scholar" to whom he had recently referred, and he refused to tell me. Yet he did provide evidence that such a person exists.

[_Dr. Shades]

I can also easily imagine John-Charles Duffy being involved in Scratchism, either in the background or, even, more on the front line.

Duffy really, really doesn't like me.

What evidence do you have for that? In his famous Sunstone piece on the influence of apologetics on orthodoxy, I didn't note anything hostile toward you.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I think it's only fair to tell you, Professor Peterson: people are starting to see through the strawman you've been trying to make of me.

Right. PMs supporting you and endorsing your crusade are flooding into my in-box by the hour.

???? Why would they tell you?

I'm not telling you a damn thing about these people.

They don't exist.

People prominent in the world of Mormon apologetics who hate me and favor you? Numerable on one hand, I'm guessing, with four or five fingers left over.

1. I never said "Mormon apologetics."
2. I never said that these people "hate" you---that is your own hostile spin. I said, instead, that you'd made "enemies."
3. The number of people who've given me information runs into the dozens.

When you said that billions and billions (or whatever)

I said "dozens." It's easy enough to scroll right up your screen and confirm.

of "people of every rank and stripe and level of accomplishment in the world of Internet apologetics" were pouring juicy gossip into your eager and insatiable maw, I thought you were claiming that prominent Latter-day Saint apologists were signing up to serve on your creepy network of anonymous "informants."

No, that's not what I was claiming at all. How dense are you?

Now I realize that you were just talking about a few of the predictable RfM types.

No.... Not exactly. What is a "predictable RfM type" anyways? You know that people ranging from The Dude and Beastie to Bob McCue and Tal Bachman and pretty much everyone in between has posted on RfM at some point, right? Blixa has participated there and she is a tenured professor. (Not that these people have fed me information. Some of them may have. I'm not going to say one way or another.)

And these are the prominent scholars that you have in mind?

Who? People with Ph.D.s who've done significant work on Mormonism? Yes: those are the people I have in mind. Whether any of these also happen to be practicing Latter-day Saints is something that you're going to have to guess at, I'm afraid.

And your qualifier "people who actually know me"---what's that supposed to mean, exactly?

It's supposed to refer to people who actually know me.

I don't confuse virtual reality or message boards with reality. I don't think message board exchanges replace actual human interactions. Do you?

I think you are over-simplifying things. Is conversing on a messageboard the exact same thing as speaking face-to-face? No, of course not. Does that mean that messageboard exchanges lack an element of "reality"? Also: no, of course not.

Then again, I guess your comment makes sense if you are a totally different person outside the boards. Are you? Do you treat people in-person in a totally different way than you treat them online?