I can't reply at any length now either, as I'll be grabbing about three hours sleep and hitting the road again.
Briefly however, I think the point about examining both sides was well made. It is true that the Church does not offer investigators both sides. Consequently many converts become Mormons with a lop-sided view of Joseph Smith and the Church. I most certainly did, but I also corrected that failing about 8-10 years after I joined. How we choose to apply that new knowledge is entirely up to us. With all of his faults and failings, the believer sees past Joseph's imperfections, and some might well argue that they are willing to go to extra-ordinary lengths to forgive him of things they would not forgive in others. I do think I understand this phenomenon, and I at times have wondered why I still feel hesitant to apply the word "fraud" to Joseph Smith (forget about my antics with Will for a moment), and Muhammad. Why? Well because I think, and have always thought, there's more to this than the "prophet/fraud" dichotomy. Not that I think Joseph was a "true prophet", except in some nebulous Harold Bloom sense. My point is that sometimes we need to go beyond "black and white" thinking.
As fate would have it, I know Dan Peterson about three hours more than I know Eric Norwood, if you rate face to face conversations heavily. I am totally unable to ascertain what either might do "out of the public eye" so to speak, or what may lie in the past of either. And the same could be said of all of us. Do we know there aren't rapists posting amongst us? What do we really know about the private lives of those we mingle with publicly? Next to nothing. We judge them by how they treat us, talk to us, "socialise" with us, and how they present themselves publicly, etc.
I'm just making this point for those who seem to think that I approach Eric naïvely. I don't know Eric any better than I know Dan Peterson, but I have three sons and I can honestly say that they are probably no different than Eric, not one whit. Nor were they "saints" in their teenaged years. Eric, however, is considerably more well-read and articulate than any of my sons. Not that I think that's a poor reflection on them. They never had to battle with Gulags, and I was strong on discipline when my sons stepped out of line, sometimes perhaps a bit too physical, and of course they were and are my own flesh and blood. I am quite confident that were I under some kind of physical threat today, my sons would beat to a pulp anyone who tried to assault me, without hesitation. This respect was earned, and they know that I do and have always loved them. When I encountered an emergency a few weeks ago while working ("driver under possible attack"), my eldest son saw the message on his that night borrowed car's (as I was driving his) on-board computer, rang me (three males had been threatening), and told me he was "ready to come over and take them all on" (I didn't doubt him because I've seen him do it, and he was a boxer). Like a good father I told him to stop worrying, finish up and go to bed, the police would take care of it. Loyalty like this isn't accidental, in spite of bringing him up without "sparing the rod", and even without the Church.
So now to Dan's observation:
Daniel Peterson wrote:Simple point: In a contentious dispute between A and B, those who have heard only A's side or only B's side run considerable risk of failing to understand the situation completely and, if they presume to pronounce judgment on the dispute, of judging incorrectly.
Simple and obvious.
That's fair enough, but I wonder how much "face to face" time Dan has spent with Eric (or is willing to spend), and just how much of Eric's publicly untold story he really knows? In short, has he heard Eric's side properly, or just what Eric's mother and step-father told him?
I also took to heart Mary's verses from a song I've always loved, "The Living Years". And it is true, we often do not admit our faults to others, are unwilling to see our own liability in situations, and we are too proud to examine ourselves and how we may have affected others negatively, because we "knew" "our way" was the "right way", or in the case of some, "God is on our side".
I think that Eric is a sensible young man, and a young man I like because he reminds me much of my own sons, but I also believe he has had far too many of the wrong buttons pressed in his life, without someone really taking him under his wings, as a former heavyweight champion boxer-turned-police officer did to my sons when they were at equally vulnerable age, skirmishing with the law - and turned (or inspired) all three of them into boxers. Perhaps something like this is what Eric needed, someone who could really understand him, but most important of all - accept him for who he is, not what anyone else thought he should be.
