What really is the expected outcome to this?
Not much really. At least not so far as a reaction is concerned.
I haven't kept up with all of Scratch's arguments and quibbles, but as far as this thread goes, my purpose is to simply educate those who want it. Those who need it. I'm particularly pissed off at the way Islamic educators have spread such nonsense about Islam. It is polictially correct stupidity and unfortunately Dan Peterson has become part of the problem, not the solution.
Beastie made a great point when she said for every vocal poster there are a dozen silent onlookers. Over at FAIR I had about four or five people PMing me begging me not to let up on the Islam issue. They found the whole thing completely fascinating and they were wondering then the same thing Jason Bourne is wondering now: Is Dan really wrong about this stuff and if so, will he ever own up to his mistakes?
These are honest questions.
But there is more to it than that really, because Dan played an important role in getting me thrown off the reservation at FAIR. Ever since then I have been misrepresented because too many people follow the tale he told. Explanations were in order, and those nuts didn't hesitate to misrepresent me in the worst possible way by saying absurd things like, I think a billion Muslims are terrosists. This of course, served teh purpose of making Dan look like the good guy. But I never said this. Even after noting I never said this, Dan kept repeating it as though I had. Charity recently said I was banned from FAIR for bashing Islam and then regurgitated Dan Peterson's rendition of how our debates played out. Most of my original posts have been edited or deleted, and I am no longer permitted to set the record straight over there, so I do it where I can.
While Dan claims he wants to distance himself from me at all costs, he doesn't hesitate bringing me up or alluding to me over at MADB, where he knows his word will be taken as gospel and I will not be able to respond. As a result of all this nonsense, too many people have assumed that my criticisms have had no merit whatsoever and that I am just some raving wolf in sheep's clothing. I think it is important for people to know that I stand on firm ground with my Islamic positions, and that Dan Peterson is the one who never documents his claims. I also think it is important to note the double-standards and hypocrisy involved in Dan'd back and forth Mormon-Islamic apologetics.
So, in order to demonstrate I am right and Dan is wrong. I simply did what FARMS reviewers typically do on a regular basis. They try to show how any given critic is untrustworthy by drawing attention to one or maybe two false assertions in some book they wrote. This is good enough for them to illustrate that the person is not only wrong, but probably a money-grubbing, demon possessed idiot who bought his degree from a mail-order service. How can the complain when I am simply adpting their own method? This is one of the reasons they'd rather just ignore me, that way they won't have to deal with that unpleasant scenario of explaining a double-standard (i.e. when critics get it wrong, it proves theya re unscholarly, dishonest, bigoted, Satanic etc. When LDS scholars get it wrong, it only proves they are human).
The examples of sloppy scholarship I provided from Dan Peterson are far more egregious than what you will find coming from most critics.
Do I think Dan is going to change his ways, accept his error and publicly admit that I have valid points?
Of course not. Courtesy such as this is taken as weakness in their world. As an apologist, you can't give in to critics even in the slightest, because it shows that a spiritless critic got something right and the Lord's annointed was wrong. This simply doesn't work in the Mormon model, and Dan knows it.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein