Happy Valley Photo Essay

[_Kishkumen]

I wasn't 100% sure, which is why I didn't attach you specifically to the comment. Your recent commentary is not far off that, either. But feel free to correct me. You pledged to cease overly and intemperately criticising DCP, but I haven't seen any let up in it.

So you would call this post above "openly and intemperately criticising DCP"?

And I don't know about you, but I see a hell of a huge difference between lampooning his rhetoric and accusing him of hate speech. A HUGE difference.

Mind you, I understand that I can be pretty merciless in sending up some of the rhetoric I have taken issue with. But HATE SPEECH? Really?

I just don't get it. What I do think is that until I am silent on the subject of apologetics, I can expect to receive the criticism and accusations of anti-Mormonism I have fielded for years, from the time that I was a temple-attending, tithe-paying, card-carrying, believing Mormon. The problem was not me; it was that I dared to persist in disagreement with apologists. Who the hell are they anyway? Are they called and set apart as apologists? Let them say so, if they have been. Who made them gods?

[_RayAgostini]

I just don't get it. What I do think is that until I am silent on the subject of apologetics, I can expect to receive the criticism and accusations of anti-Mormonism I have fielded for years, from the time that I was a temple-attending, tithe-paying, card-carrying, believing Mormon. The problem was not me; it was that I dared to persist in disagreement with apologists. Who the hell are they anyway? Are they called and set apart as apologists? Let them say so, if they have been. Who made them gods?

Join the club. My first criticisms began in 1985. I read every edition of the FRB from 1989 to the mid-'90s, and agreed with some of it, disagreed with other aspects. I think we tend to get a bit carried away here, and tend to go a bit overboard. Maybe we should do some soul-searching of our own instead making posters like DCP scapegoats for every apologetic sin under the sun?

Just a thought.

[_Chap]

Maybe we should do some soul-searching of our own instead making posters like DCP scapegoats for every apologetic sin under the sun?

Just a thought.

No-one in this thread is making DCP any play any role that he has not already chosen to play online in a variety of settings with extreme relish.

[_Kishkumen]

Join the club. My first criticisms began in 1985. I read every edition of the FRB from 1989 to the mid-'90s, and agreed with some of it, disagreed with other aspects. I think we tend to get a bit carried away here, and tend to go a bit overboard. Maybe we should do some soul-searching of our own instead making posters like DCP scapegoats for every apologetic sin under the sun?

Just a thought.

I am not sure what soul-searching has to do with this. I soul-search on a regular basis. It almost seems to me that you are saying that, based on some kind of spiritual principle, I should recognize that I have no standing to express my views. It is fine for some apologists to visit TIME Lightbox and express their umbrage that Shumway is evidently making Mormons look bad, but far be it from us to have the same right to express dissatisfaction with the manner in which they do so. What kind of lopsided standard is that?

Is freedom to discuss Mormonism the unique purview of LDS apologists? What of the active members that did not take kindly to the apologists' approach? Must they, too, keep quiet while the apologists go about the important business of being very defensive about Shumway's photos and captions?

And, I don't really see that Dr. Peterson is made the scapegoat because anyone has a personal beef with him. Rather, he is the person who will argue way past the threshold of others' stamina in defense of himself as an apologist and of the LDS Church. How many posts did Bill Hamblin and Will Schryver expend on the photo essay? Do you think there is any relationship between the amount of attention Dr. Peterson has gotten and the amount of attention he has given to the issue? Remember, he has contributed nearly a third of the posts in that comments section (assuming the count was accurate). How often is it that one person singlehandedly contributes that many posts in a blog's comments thread aside from the author of the initial blog entry?

Yes, people do get carried away here. Some of them say ugly things with little or no provocation. Is Peterson treated as a bete noire by some folks here? Will such people say idiotic and mean things "just because"? Will they try to provoke others into conflict by attaching another person's name to an ugly post? Yeah, there are some pretty crappy behaving people here. I don't believe that I am really one of those people. What I tend to respond poorly to is dishonest, belittling, and aggressive apologetics. Dishonest as in the kind of thing that Belmont the sociopath does on an almost daily basis. And the funny thing is, the most unreasonable fools get very little attention outside of Belmont's endless hypocritical carping.

Rather, take a person like beastie who has real substance to her criticisms and she is treated like total garbage by apologists. My soul-searching has little or nothing to do with any of that. I don't think my soul searching will change most of the behavior of most of the posters here.

[_RayAgostini]

I don't think my soul searching will change most of the behavior of most of the posters here.

Agreed. Nor will mine. Carry on.

[_sock puppet]

Hey, wait, my bowels are filling with inspiration from the Holy Ghost.. or something like that. Here's what I hear whispering in my bowels:

"Other LDS are not generally subjected to the same treatment as DCP because they have not quite mastered the art of wittily conveying superiority, condescension, and disdain."

Wow, beastie. That's the most accurate thing I've ever heard reported and attributed to the Holy Ghost.

Are you trying to make a believer out of me--again?

[_MrStakhanovite]

As for the alleged "character assassinations" in which I've supposedly engaged here and elsewhere: I've been called a "goon," insane, arrogant, a "hack," a "buffoon," a liar, and etc., my professional career has been dismissed as "pathetic," and so on and so forth, here in this very "discussion," but I've made no similar comments about any of those who have treated me in this fashion. And, for that, I've been accused (while, significantly, they haven't) of having a bad "tone," of having ruined the "discussion" here, and of having a persecution complex. I posted some initial comments about the photos, the captions, and the accompanying essay, and then the personal attacks (against me) began.

[_RayAgostini]

To all of you who have bashed, criticised and denounced Dan Peterson, here is my formal challenge to you:

If it's possible (it may not be in many cases), I invite you (sounds better than "challenge", I suppose) to spend several hours with him in face to face discussion.

Do not utter another word of criticism, until you do this. If, after this meeting, you still feel the same way about "DCP", then by all means reveal to the world why you feel he's a "hack", and a "dumb Mormon apologist", a "liar", "dishonest", "self-deceived", a "deceiver", an "anti-Semite", "potentially violent", "pretending to believe", "proud, arrogant and vain", and so on and so forth.

Make your solid case, after you've spent several hours in face to face discussions with DCP. With eye contact, and a sharp eye for deception or pretense, it shouldn't be any problem to expose the "real DCP".

Let me know the results of this face to face meeting. Let me know if you really think he's an "evil mopologist", intent on destroying the lives of others unless they accept Mormonism.

You can PM me the result of this face to face encounter, or publish it on this board so that all decent people "with morals" can scrupulously avoid Dan Peterson like the plague.

[_Jersey Girl]

To all of you who have bashed, criticised and denounced Dan Peterson, here is my formal challenge to you:

If it's possible (it may not be in many cases), I invite you (sounds better than "challenge", I suppose) to spend several hours with him in face to face discussion.

Do not utter another word of criticism, until you do this. If, after this meeting, you still feel the same way about "DCP", then by all means reveal to the world why you feel he's a "hack", and a "dumb Mormon apologist", a "liar", "dishonest", "self-deceived", a "deceiver", an "anti-Semite", "potentially violent", "pretending to believe", "proud, arrogant and vain", and so on and so forth.

Make your solid case, after you've spent several hours in face to face discussions with DCP. With eye contact, and a sharp eye for deception or pretense, it shouldn't be any problem to expose the "real DCP".

Let me know the results of this face to face meeting. Let me know if you really think he's an "evil mopologist", intent on destroying the lives of others unless they accept Mormonism.

You can PM me the result of this face to face encounter, or publish it on this board so that all decent people "with morals" can scrupulously avoid Dan Peterson like the plague.

No. You're missing the point, Ray. The posters who have leveled criticisms toward Peterson have done so because of what he projects online.

beastie virtually nailed it when she wrote:

"Other LDS are not generally subjected to the same treatment as DCP because they have not quite mastered the art of wittily conveying superiority, condescension, and disdain."

[_Jersey Girl]

You know, I should have just shut the computer down, but no. I looked in on the comments section. This Barton person raised the issue of Jack's Schryver thread. To this, Peterson asks what his comment has to do with "the photos, the captions, and the accompanying essay". He continues to repeat that phrase as if he's consistently commented on "the photos, the captions, and the accompanying essay."

Question: What did his bringing up Scratch have to do with "the photos, the captions, and the accompanying essay"?