Do Apologists Want to Destroy Critics' Lives?

[_Daniel Peterson]

What, you mean your long-winded re-envisioning of the history of Galileo, in which you try to gloss over the persecution he faced? The bottom line is that there was nothing inaccurate whatsoever about Murphy's characterization of your comment. You *did* endorse the DNA work as a "Galileo event." End of story. You can complain that Murphy didn't also support your weird, Mopologetic reinterpretation of Galileo's accomplishments, but that's pretty much it. As far as your remark that the sentences were "absolutely, wholly, completely false," well... I think you'd be best advised to retract it.

Nope. Incidentally, my long-winded, weird, Mopologetic reinterpretation of Galileo's accomplishments (did you mean "of his trial"?) and my attempt to gloss over the persecution he faced (did I even mention the persecution he faced?) is pretty much standard in contemporary scholarship on Galileo. The simplistic Church vs. science picture of his trial was never more than propaganda. It was really the Aristotelians versus the adherents of the new empirical science, and Galileo had both enemies and supporters in the Church, as well as outside it.

A very concise comment on this appears, handily, at

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=500

in the fountain of unspeakable evil known as the FARMS Review. Professor Cooper, who wrote it, holds a Ph.D. in the history of science (specializing in medicine and astronomy; he holds a degree in physics, as well) from Columbia University. His bibliography suggests some materials for further reading. If you could spare fifteen minutes or so from your holy crusade to blacken my character and assassinate the characters of my friends and colleagues, you might actually be able to read something about the Galileo case. The reality is considerably more complex and much more interesting than what you learned about it in junior high school.

Scratch is accusing me and many of my friends and colleagues of actually seeking to destroy the lives of other people and that slips right past you as unobjectionable while, instead, you attack me for something that didn't even happen?

That's because, in the above example, John Tvedtnes *was* pretty clearly out to destroy Murphy's professional life. That, coupled with the other examples I've pointed out, kind of makes you wonder just how widespread this sort of thing is.

I doubt that you really "wonder" at all. Our unspeakable and unceasing villainy is an article of dogmatic faith for you, and we all function, it seems, as some sort of collective mind, to which you can quite appropriately ascribe collective guilt.

[_cksalmon]

Our unspeakable and unceasing villainy is an article of dogmatic faith for you, and we all function, it seems, as some sort of collective mind, to which you can quite appropriately ascribe collective guilt.

I don't buy that Tvetnesss was dispatched by anyone. He needn't have been; I'm sure he is capable of acting like a jerk (as all of us are, I'm sure) without any external pressure.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I don't buy that Tvetnesss was dispatched by anyone. He needn't have been; I'm sure he is capable of acting like a jerk (as all of us are, I'm sure) without any external pressure.

I like John. Quite a bit, actually. I've known him for (gulp!) more than thirty years, having first met him in Jerusalem.

But I wouldn't have done what he began to do in this case. And, in fact, I didn't.

Nor did I order him or ask him to do it. Nor did anybody else, to the best of my knowledge.


.

[_Doctor Scratch]

What, you mean your long-winded re-envisioning of the history of Galileo, in which you try to gloss over the persecution he faced? The bottom line is that there was nothing inaccurate whatsoever about Murphy's characterization of your comment. You *did* endorse the DNA work as a "Galileo event." End of story. You can complain that Murphy didn't also support your weird, Mopologetic reinterpretation of Galileo's accomplishments, but that's pretty much it. As far as your remark that the sentences were "absolutely, wholly, completely false," well... I think you'd be best advised to retract it.

Nope. Incidentally, my long-winded, weird, Mopologetic reinterpretation of Galileo's accomplishments (did you mean "of his trial"?) and my attempt to gloss over the persecution he faced (did I even mention the persecution he faced?) is pretty much standard in contemporary scholarship on Galileo. The simplistic Church vs. science picture of his trial was never more than propaganda. It was really the Aristotelians versus the adherents of the new empirical science, and Galileo had both enemies and supporters in the Church, as well as outside it.

So what? How does any of this pertain to your labeling of Murphy's sentence as "absolutely, wholly, completely false"? Murphy's work also had/has supporters both "in the Church, as well as outside it." And none of this changes the fact that you *did* in fact endorse the "Galileo" remark.

A nice attempt at side-stepping the issue, though.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I want it to be known as a general rule that whenever I do something stupid it's because I was directed to do so by Dan Peterson.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I don't buy that Tvetnesss was dispatched by anyone. He needn't have been; I'm sure he is capable of acting like a jerk (as all of us are, I'm sure) without any external pressure.

I like John. Quite a bit, actually. I've known him for (gulp!) more than thirty years, having first met him in Jerusalem.

But I wouldn't have done what he began to do in this case. And, in fact, I didn't.

Nor did I order him or ask him to do it. Nor did anybody else, to the best of my knowledge.


.

Was Murphy's upcoming tenure evaluation discussed on any of the listservs? Was it discussed among members of FAIR, FARMS, or SHIELDS? How, I'm prompted to wonder, as I sit here, contemplating all of this, did Tvedtnes ever wind up finding out that Murphy was about to go through the tenure process? Wasn't Murphy in a completely different state at the time?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, LOAP, you may now stop twirling on one toe with your finger in the air. And take off the propeller beanie, too.

So what? How does any of this pertain to your labeling of Murphy's sentence as "absolutely, wholly, completely false"? Murphy's work also had/has supporters both "in the Church, as well as outside it." And none of this changes the fact that you *did* in fact endorse the "Galileo" remark.

A nice attempt at side-stepping the issue, though.

Whoosh. Air ball! You're completely missing the point.

In that loose, informal, off-the-cuff oral presentation, I endorsed in ironically, in a sense wholly different than that espoused by Tom Murphy's more fevered disciples. In various publications, I lampooned it as ridiculous, inaccurate, misleading, and overblown.

These things weren't done in a corner. Have one of your creepy network of anonymous "informants" find the relevant passages for you.

[_The Nehor]

Some of the text from the exchange had been edited out by the SHIELDS administrators, so we were always missing context, but the final entry showed an Infymus who had finally been provoked into using some profanity. In other words, DCP had engaged in a series of increasingly condescending and snide exchanges with Infymus until, at last, Infymus had had enough and utilized "strong" language.

Finally been provoked? Infymus hurled obscenities at me the first post he directed at me. My provocation? I was LDS.

There's no evidence suggesting that Infymus can interact with LDS on a personal level without howling obscenities.

[_Daniel Peterson]

SHIELDS edited out all of the cooing terms of endearment that Infymus used in his exchange with me, solely from a desire to make the poor dear fellow look less cuddly.

The sheer viciousness of their -- of our -- mistreatment of this innocent lamb deserves international condemnation.

[_Ray A]

This was where The Good Professor, rather famously, declared that "not one dime of [his] salary" came from apologetics. Well, we now know this is a whopper. In fact, over $20,000 of his teaching salary was diverted over to his Chairmanship of FARMS. Retrospectively, then, it was DCP who contacted Infymus in order to try and perpetuate this falsehood about apologists not receiving money.

The “not one dime” statement may be inaccurate, but I doubt that apologetics is financially rewarding, even minimally. Offenders For a Word is also now online, and again I very much doubt that it was widely read, even by grassroots Church members. What bothers me is the Gerald Lund types, and those who do try to profit financially, in my opinion. Would anyone accuse Nibley of chasing the dollar for his numerous works of apologetics? I doubt it. I have no real reason to believe that DCP writes apologetics for financial gain, but I can understand why any writer would still like financial stability to enable him/her to continue writing. I know this because I have a brother who has been a writer since 1961, but has never been able to survive on writing alone. His entrepreneurial income from other work has allowed him to keep writing. He would certainly never say he hadn’t received a dime for his writing, but it hasn’t been near enough to live comfortably on.

But let me reiterate again, Doctor, you and I approach this differently. In regard to DCP’s “world travels” I say good luck to him. Whether it be Hawaii or the Middle East. I’m not jealous, and really don’t care. I hate traveling anyway. That income supports apologetics, apologetics I mostly disagree with by the way, doesn’t particularly bother me because I don’t think that even a $million a year is going to make apologetics any more effective. It already has what I consider “fatal flaws”, and money can’t rectify fatal flaws. As I’ve said before, I’m more concerned with the Meldrum-type apologists who offer Caribbean cruises where they give lectures on “Book of Mormon archaeology”. That’s worth investigating far more than FARMS. What’s even weirder is that they don’t even believe that the Book of Mormon occurred in Mesoamerica!! LOL. But Meldrum is apparently getting off scot-free. The exmo-critics just aren’t touching him, and we all know why.

I'm not sure. My sense is that The Mormon Curtain had begun to draw attention (it covers a whole range of ex-Mormon topics; I think you'll agree that it is among the most in-depth clearinghouses for ex-Mormon-related information), and that's why DCP emailed Infymus. While he (i.e., DCP) used the occasion to try and diffuse the (at base true) claim that he gets paid for apologetics, I'm sure that he was also interested in trying to bait and attack Infymus, perhaps in the hopes of getting material for SHIELDS.

The latter is mind-reading, Doctor. I’m not at all sure that was his motive.

Second: I'm not sure which of the Mormon Curtain stuff you're referring to as "smearing." The material that DCP wanted corrected....turned out to be correct. Their was no smearing at all. In actuality, DCP was trying to get Infymus to alter statements that were true.

Finally, if there *was* legitimate smearing going on (which is arguable) then I think that DCP may have had a point. But, as far as I can tell, he was the one who was responsible for picking the fight. In the end, it is really SHIELDS that is primarily responsible for the job-related stuff, IMHO.

There is quite a lot of not only smearing, but exaggerations. I pick just one fairly benign example from the 42 entries:

Peterson lives in a fantasy world where everybody shares his interests and his passions for the minutae of Mormon hisotry [sic] and doctrine. He, like other apologists, refuse to concede that they are unique among membership, the elite of the elite, if you will.

DCP isn’t an expert on the minutiae of MMM, nor Mesoamerica, and has avoided going too deeply into other subjects. Mormon history isn’t even his forté. His forté is Arabic and Islam, which will also be his focus at the Parliament of World Religions. He’s not going there to defend Book of Mormon historicity, nor argue for the LGM. Did we miss something here? Can we aim for more accuracy instead of innuendo?

His view is so warped , his head so high up in the clouds, that he is incapable of seeing the church from the level of the rank & file, and particularly the rank & file in the developing world, most of whom will never even have the chance to read any of this stuff in their native language, assuming they can read at all.

I presume like any bishop he understands the “rank and file”, because a bishop is among the “rank and file”.

I accept legitimate, fair and balanced criticism, Doctor, but we need something we can really get our teeth into, not finances, not exchanges with Infymus, or endless discussions of SHIELDS. The least we can aim for is more accuracy and less exaggeration. What are we supposed to do at the end of all this? Stamp his forehead with “corrupt and untouchable”? And with 42 entries on one man, you have to wonder who’s trying to demonise who. Has the FROB ever focused this much attention on one man? If they did, we know they'd be sent before a firing squad.

(Disclaimer:Nothing that I’ve written above need be taken as my support of apologetics.)