Why I no longer trust DCP

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_dartagnan
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Post by _dartagnan »

If their method is the a large part of the problem, why would it be useful to imitate that method?


It isn't an exact imitation. It is an improvement on it I think. For example, a FARMS review will tackle a book, skip over dozens of valid points and scrounge for one or two things to whine about. The idea here is to show that author to be untrustworthy. I'm simply leaving it up to the apologists to follow their own logic and abide by their own standard when it comes to reading their own scholars, and it drives them nuts and renders them silent.

I mean if an amateur critic operating outside his field of expertise is to be considered untrustworthy - or as is most often the accusation, "deceptive" - simply because he got one or two things wrong in his book, then how much more are scholars operating within their field of expertise, to be considered untrustworthy when they get several things wrong?

As I said to Dan several times before: "If I am wrong on any given point about Islam, well, I'm not an Islamic scholar. So what's your excuse?" And this was assuming I had been wrong - which of course he never demonstrated.

What turns me off about what I am seeing here lately, or perhaps what turns me off lately about what I am seeing here is precisely this focus on the person instead of the argument.


The argument has been dealt with too many times to mention and it was always edited or deleted at FAIR. If that were the end of it, I doubt I would have continued. But Dan used these events to have my name tarnished for years now, all the while claiming victim status whenever I clarify my positions elsewhere and challenge him to explain his false assertions. You see, when you point out errors of the critics, it is considered good scholarship and a noble search for truth. But when the tables are turned, and it is the LDS scholar who is providing falsehoods, then you must walk on egg shells and never imply they were dishonest to any degree. Because if you do, they get offended and then use this as an excuse never to talk to you.

A few months ago at MADB people were saying John Gee doesn't respond to critics like Metcalfe because they offended Gee by suggesting he was being less than honest. Dan Vogel immediately drew everyone's attention to a FROB article Gee write which prettymuch said critics like Larson and MEtcalfe were being deceptive.

This was amazing because these guys like to play nice only when they are the ones guilty of sloppy scholarship. Otherwise they play by no rules whatsoever. When they are proved wrong, you're not allowed to take off the gloves with them because you'll be exiled and ignored forever. But it is OK for them to treat critics with as much contempt as is necessary to get readers to stay away from them. You see, they think theirs is the only noble cause. It isn't truth that they are interested in, it is only serving the interests of Church membership. The most effective method is that they pull one or two falsehoods from a book and then use it to paint a nasty caricatureof the author as deceptive. This is virtually all the FROB entails.

All I have done really is to point out the errors that continually take place at MADB as they happen. The problem is my name usually gets thrown in there because Dan made sure I was the poster boy for bigotry towards Islam.

That pissed me off, so I feel little symapthy for him when he squirms every time I post something about his poor scholarship.
“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
_Trevor
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Post by _Trevor »

Mister Scratch wrote:You know, Trevor, I see you whining a lot, complaining that the threads seem to lack substance, etc., and yet when was the last time you yourself fired up an interesting / entertaining / enlightening thread? I cannot recall the last time. Instead, you seem content to sit back comfortably and sanctimoniously in your chair, hand to chin, shaking your head in disapproval over those who are actually engaged with the contention that is so central to Mopologetics. You advise leading by example, and yet do you practice what you preach?


I see, if I criticize what you are doing, that must be whining. That's a good one, Scratch. You would almost think charity or juliann wrote your post. I have been involved in plenty of substantive posting over the years... Oh, since the mid-1990s at least. When I am in the mood to write voluminous, serious posts again, I'll do it. In the meantime, you won't find me wasting a lot of time starting threads that focus on the personal problems of other posters.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
_Trevor
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Post by _Trevor »

dartagnan wrote:It isn't an exact imitation. It is an improvement on it I think. For example, a FARMS review will tackle a book, skip over dozens of valid points and scrounge for one or two things to whine about. The idea here is to show that author to be untrustworthy. I'm simply leaving it up to the apologists to follow their own logic and abide by their own standard when it comes to reading their own scholars, and it drives them nuts and renders them silent.


OK. I see what you are driving at, and I do appreciate the difference.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
_guy sajer
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Post by _guy sajer »

I grow weary of the constant DCP-themed threads. Granted, I contributed my share in the past, but I found that I reached my satiation point

DCP is who he is, and he isn't going to change. He has his faults (as do we all), but he's not a demon. I agree (and I think I've been very explicit on this) that his scholarship, as it were, is suspect, and perhaps he gossips here and there (but I think most of us do--I do at times to my chagrin); he sometimes likes to take on airs and talk down to people (it's clear to a degree that he considers these on-line debates a game of sorts, and he likes to play); he appears fairly unreflective and unwilling/unable to turn his own sharp intellect on himself and his sacred cow beliefs; he can be arrogant but in turns also humorously self-deprecating; he is not above engaging in ad hominem attacks when it suits his purposes or out of spite; he appears to have an inflated sense of self-importance; he likes to impress people by dropping names and inferring that he belongs to an important and tight inner circle of Mormon heavy hitters; etc.

Okay, he’s not perfect. He has his faults. Can we concede this without dwelling ad nauseum on them?

Can we go a week or two without a DCP thread? Please????
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
_Trevor
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Post by _Trevor »

guy sajer wrote:Okay, he’s not perfect. He has his faults. Can we concede this without dwelling ad nauseum on them?

Can we go a week or two without a DCP thread? Please????


Better watch out, guy, or someone is gonna call you a "whiner."
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
_Gadianton
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Post by _Gadianton »

guy wrote: Can we go a week or two without a DCP thread? Please????


I'm inclined to agree. Unfortunately, it seems like the alternatives often aren't much better. It seems like it's either these personalized threads, or debating some absurd point with Charity and being left asking while typing, how on earth did I manage to get sucked into this again?

What I think we all ought to do is pick a different thread of interest on MAD where the believers are having too much of a good time discussing in their typical unreflective ways, and type out thorough responses, sans any personal attacks, with sharp and pointed rebuttal of the absurd beliefs along with scathing commentary on the poor thinking skills which goes into formulating such beliefs. Then when we all have our responses ready, in the middle of the night on Christmas eve, like Santa Clause (or the grinch, hehehe) we'll register our MDB board names on FAIR/MAD with a "2" or something trailing in case the real name is banned, and all together, post our responses. We'll call it "Operation Christmas Firebomb". And in the morning, what a delightful outpouring of presents they'll all have received from their concerned friends over at MDB. It's more badly needed than those socks or the latest FARMS DVD, it will be the gift of critical thinking.
_dartagnan
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Post by _dartagnan »

Hey, if you guys want to criticize Scratch's method, then please do it on one of his threads. It seems you guys are lumping the two of us together illicitly. I don't start threads that psychoanalyze something DCP happened to have said on some forum.

If I start a thread about Dan it is usually because of some current event that involves him. He is either talking about me at MADB, he is about to have a debate with an Islamic scholar, or I received unexpected information from another scholar that said Dan is slandering him (RItner). The point is, I don't sit around thinking of stuff to say about Dan. This stuff just comes to me and I relay it as it happens.

I just did a search of all the threads I have started that had anything to do with Dan and the results were a whopping six threads over tha past year. We're talking about one every two months. And half of them were merely responses to things he had been saying about me on MADB at the time.

So don't color me with this brush as an "obsessive" guy who does nothing but think of ways to "attack" DCP. I have been on the defensive for too long to buy that nonsense, and I think I am doing pretty well when it comes to restraint. Here are the titles of the other threads I have started this year:

DCP thinks I'll attack him (response to his MADB post) - April 6, 2007

Dan Peterson vs. Robert Spencer - March 6 2007 (nothing more than an announcement of their radio debate)

DCP: RFM on the path to Nazism - March 30, 2007

Peterson and Gee's libel against Ritner? - June 8, 2007 (this is the one that pissed him off, but it wasn't as if I planned on Ritner telling me he had lied)

Congratulations DCP - Aug 30, 2007 (another response to a MADB thread that mentioned me)

Now every time we raise the issue of Dan Peterson on this forum, he goes over to MADB and talks about it. He doesn't respond to our arguments, he just complains that he is talked about. So why is it that when I note discussion about me at MADB, and I actually respond to the arguments head-on, it must be a sign of "obsession" on my part?

Can someone explain that for me please?
“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
_Mister Scratch
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Post by _Mister Scratch »

Trevor wrote:
Mister Scratch wrote:You know, Trevor, I see you whining a lot, complaining that the threads seem to lack substance, etc., and yet when was the last time you yourself fired up an interesting / entertaining / enlightening thread? I cannot recall the last time. Instead, you seem content to sit back comfortably and sanctimoniously in your chair, hand to chin, shaking your head in disapproval over those who are actually engaged with the contention that is so central to Mopologetics. You advise leading by example, and yet do you practice what you preach?


I see, if I criticize what you are doing, that must be whining. That's a good one, Scratch. You would almost think charity or juliann wrote your post.


I see, if I criticize what you are doing, I must be like juliann or charity. Good one, Trevor.

I have been involved in plenty of substantive posting over the years... Oh, since the mid-1990s at least. When I am in the mood to write voluminous, serious posts again, I'll do it. In the meantime, you won't find me wasting a lot of time starting threads that focus on the personal problems of other posters.


No; instead you'll "waste a lot of time" griping about the extant threads. No one is forcing you to read these threads, Trev-meister. As Shades has said many times: the board is whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be a perfectly civilized place where very proper tweed-jacket-wearing chaps can have a jolly good time engaging in worthwhile chat, why then, by all means, fire up the threads!
_Trevor
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Post by _Trevor »

Mister Scratch wrote:I see, if I criticize what you are doing, I must be like juliann or charity. Good one, Trevor.


Now you are channeling josh skains. It just keeps getting better.

Mister Scratch wrote:No; instead you'll "waste a lot of time" griping about the extant threads. No one is forcing you to read these threads, Trev-meister. As Shades has said many times: the board is whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be a perfectly civilized place where very proper tweed-jacket-wearing chaps can have a jolly good time engaging in worthwhile chat, why then, by all means, fire up the threads!


I might feel sensitive about this, if I were the only one who thought you were behaving in a juvenile fashion. And news flash: I am not reading most of your smackfest threads. Doesn't mean I am excluded from sharing my opinion about what you are up to. There are many ways people can help shape the board. And last time I checked, I am free to tell you when I think you are acting like a dipwad.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
_Mister Scratch
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Post by _Mister Scratch »

Trevor wrote:
Mister Scratch wrote:I see, if I criticize what you are doing, I must be like juliann or charity. Good one, Trevor.


Now you are channeling josh skains. It just keeps getting better.


Look. Trevor. I'm not really all that interested in fighting with you about this, but come on: How useful is it to show up on threads in order to gripe about them? In all honesty, this has to be one of the very few things that irritates me in terms of poster behavior.

Mister Scratch wrote:No; instead you'll "waste a lot of time" griping about the extant threads. No one is forcing you to read these threads, Trev-meister. As Shades has said many times: the board is whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be a perfectly civilized place where very proper tweed-jacket-wearing chaps can have a jolly good time engaging in worthwhile chat, why then, by all means, fire up the threads!


I might feel sensitive about this, if I were the only one who thought you were behaving in a juvenile fashion. And news flash: I am not reading most of your smackfest threads. Doesn't mean I am excluded from sharing my opinion about what you are up to. There are many ways people can help shape the board.


Yep. You sure are right about that.

And last time I checked, I am free to tell you when I think you are acting like a dipwad.


Hey, right back atcha Professor T. How about we shake hands: I'll agree to be less mean, and you can agree to be less of a whiner? (Or maybe I should say, "Board Nanny", since I'm so much like juliann?)
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