beastie wrote: Beastie argued that the context of the discussion more or less required that Gino Manna must be the sole individual in view, because he was an ex-Mormon while his brother Joseph was not.
The entire topic of the thread was whether or not apostates who claim that the church broke up their marriage are possibly telling the truth.
This is true. Hence what I wrote:
Re-reading that discussion, it is clear that my brief remarks tended to not preserve the distinction between apostates and anti-Mormons in general. Since these are frequently overlapping sets, I have not always been as careful as I might have been about that.
This of course means that, since the discussion was mostly focused upon apostates rather than anti-Mormons in general, the Manna case was not the best possible example of the phenomenon I was describing.
On MA&DB, when DrW made a similar (but more limited and grudging) concession regarding his use of what he called the "Christine Jonson" case, Beastie showered him with kudos. Given her fair-mindedness and even-handedness, I now await a similar shower of kudos coming my way.
So where's all that kudos, Beastie?
beastie wrote:Your position was that they would be lying, and this was one example you shared to bolster your claim. The topic of the thread was not some generic “the lies anti-mormons tell”. Your insistence that Gino’s brother was the sole focus of your comments does not correlate with the entire topic, nor does it correlate with your statements that Gino’s schizophrenia was irrelevant in regards to the assertion you were making.
But it is supported by details of the discussion which
you provided.
beastie wrote:I do think that today you believe you weren’t talking about Gino, and that this somehow absolves you of being guilty of the same exploitation of which you accused Dr. W. Memory is a fallible thing, and our own personal memories tend to accommodate whatever our current needs may be. Your current need is for my charge of hypocrisy to be false.
Which it is. But in fact the "hypcocrisy" charge -- coming from you, of
all people -- is distinct from the dishonesty charge. You know, where you accused me of "contradicting" what was previously said; which accusation has been
demonstrated to be false. And where you accused me of "rewriting history;" an accusation which is unavailable on the evidence.
beastie wrote:I think that the context of the thread is sufficient for folks to make their own judgments.
And I think you are
counting on them overlooking the details of what was actually said.
Such as when I
clearly and unmistakably conceded
your point that Joseph Manna was the source of the anti-Mormon version of events.
That's not about the fallibility of memory, because I was relying upon the
direct quotations supplied by you.As, I am certain, you are sufficiently intelligent to grasp.
beastie wrote:Besides, I don’t understand why you believe that focusing on Gino’s never-been-mormon brother (in a topic discussing apostates in particular) absolve you from the charge of being willing to exploit a tragedy caused by mental illness in order to make a polemic point. Even if the brother were your focus, you were still exploiting a tragedy caused by mental illness to make a polemic point – which is exactly what you accused Dr. W of doing.
Please note:
(1) DrW's argument relied heavily upon an event that
would not have happened without the mental illness of the main participant. My argument -- that apostates (and by fuzzy extension, anti-Mormons) falsely blame the Church for events where the real cause lies elsewhere, and usually closer to home -- did
not rely upon any mental illness.
See if (just this once) you can actually follow the argument, Beastie.
Gino Manna killed his family because he was mentally ill. He did
not, as was alleged, kill them because "the Mormons brainwashed him." Therefore, the fact that he was mentally ill is not directly relevant to the argument that I was making, because I
was not talking about the event--I was talking about the false story that was
told about the event.
The two things are not the same.
2) The allegation that "Christine Jonson" killed her children as a "perfectly logical" application of a reasonable interpretation of LDS doctrine lies at the heart of DrW's argument. If you don't believe me, check out his blog at
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/pomopedia/Magical_Thinking_and_Why_Facts_Matter/By contrast, the Manna case was just one of several cases I cited; my argument would have been just as good (perhaps better) without it.
beastie wrote:by the way, bringing up this thread one time in the past five and a half years since it occurred does not constitute “stalking”. Unless, of course, you agree with bob in which making a joke about his wife laying back and thinking of England also constitutes “stalking”.
That was not a "joke," except in some particularly foul-minded anti-Mormon locker room. It was an inexpressibly
vile and filthy thing to say.
It also demonstrates what passes for "class" around here.
Regards,
Pahoran
