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Daniel Peterson wrote:[*quote="liz3564"]

DCP wrote:I always get a kick out of amateur attempts to psychoanalyze strangers.

This is a well-coined phrase. I think it deserves some time as my new sig. Thanks, Dr. P!
[*/quote]
De nada.

Kabbe.

Daniel Peterson wrote:I always get a kick out of amateur attempts to psychoanalyze strangers.

So, are you are admitting you do it just for the kicks?

I get a kick out of seeing it attempted.

Professional psychoanalysts have a poor enough track record based on hours of face-to-face interviews, and then self-appointed amateurs, having (maybe) read a pop-psych article or watched an episode of Oprah, presume to psychoanalyze complete strangers. . . . Priceless.

Daniel Peterson wrote:I get a kick out of seeing it attempted.

Professional psychoanalysts have a poor enough track record based on hours of face-to-face interviews, and then self-appointed amateurs, having (maybe) read a pop-psych article or watched an episode of Oprah, presume to psychoanalyze complete strangers. . . . Priceless.

I haven't read the thread yet. I'm assuming you are criticizing Wade England here? Is Wade back?

Daniel Peterson wrote:

Gadianton wrote:Fine, but, would you agree then that anything involving Dr. Walter Martin's personal circumstances, specifically his manner of passing, was not the business of SHIELDS?

I wouldn't have written about this situation -- and, as a matter of fact, have not written about it -- but, if Martin's supporters were circulating a false faith-promoting story about the manner of his passing, I can see why some might have chosen otherwise.

Why does it matter enough to write anything, let alone a scathing article, to SHIELDS or any LDS-related organization where he died? Because he was a critic, does that allow LDS apologists leave to ridicule him in death? How can that ridicule hurt him? He's dead. The person that's going to hurt the most is his family... what did they ever do to warrent such treatment?

What is at the base of this article is a lack of respect. My daddy died naked in his easy chair after an early morning session of enjoyment with my momma. No one made fun of him, not even the EMTs who loaded him onto the gurney and in their haste to save his life, would have taken him out with out the blanket my momma threw over him as they sprinted for the door. I never heard a whisper around the neighborhood about his position when they found him. An elderly LDS neighbor died under very sad circumstances, naked with a plastic bag tied around his head; no one made fun of him and I'm certain his wife still doesn't know the circumstances around his death.

These people were shown respect. No one connected with SHIELDS who didn't protest this article shows any respect for Dr Martin's family.

Tragedy is tragedy, whether you agree with the person or not. Stan's article is lower than low, and deserves to be stomped on repeatedly until repentence has been shown.

If it had been Joseph Smith rather than Walter Martin, and if it had been the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spreading the (per hypothesis) false faith-promoting story about his passing, anybody revealing the far less edifying truth about the circumstances of his death would have been celebrated by many here and elsewhere as a cultural icon and a hero.

I think you are wrong. Had Joseph been a contemporary, and had he died of natural causes, and had his family still been living, I think anyone showing that kind of disrespect here would have been severely chastised and their words would not have gone unchallenged.

Would you abhor such "curiosity" as intensely if it exposed a prominent Mormon leader as much as you abhor it when it seems to expose a prominent evangelical anti-Mormon?

We've had several prominent Mormon leaders die since this board was born. I don't recall disrespect of this caliber directed towards them or their families. Had there been, it would have been challenged on the spot. Please point out where you think this happened.

Stan Barker has his own life. If he maintains "creepy dossiers" in the Scratch style, I'm unaware of them.

Which is not to say that they don't exist, just that you don't know about them.

Mister Scratch wrote:It may be that Barker has been specifically assigned by Top Dawg Mopologists to assemble "creepy dossiers" on Christian critics of the LDS Church.

Nope.

Unless you are the "Top Dawg Mopologist", how can you know this for sure? You've taken great pains to distance yourself from knowing what every LDS apologists does, yet now you feel comfortable speaking for the actions of all the rest?

Daniel Peterson wrote:

Chap wrote:Soldiers from civilized countries, whose job is to kill those countries' enemies, feel obliged to treat their dead bodies with respect and give them a decent burial. It appears however that the SHIELDS writer thought it a better policy to mock and spit on his adversary - at least in intention - even in the moment of his death.

Again, if I believed that Jesus would one day be my judge, I would hesitate to treat an enemy in a way that might remind that judge how he had been treated as he hung dying.

But this kind of thing is worse than irreligious - it is less than human.

It seems rather ridiculous to me to compare the SHIELDS article to mutilating or desecrating a corpse.

Mocking and desecrating aren't that far apart. And Chap didn't mention mutilating or desecrating a corpse. That's you, exaggerating again.

Harmony brings up some valid points, Dan. My thoughts are this. Obviously, you find the article disrespectful, as we all do.

I know that Scratch started this thread in his typical "witch hunt against DCP" fashion, but let's move beyond this, for a moment.

1. It's obvious that this is an article that was written a long time ago, and was only recently brought to your attention.

2. You find the article to be in poor taste.

Since you are obviously respected among the SHIELDS and FARMS crowd, it might be nice for you to put out some type of statement saying that this older article that was recently brought to your attention is in poor taste, and you certainly hope that this type of writing is no longer happening.

I think that even if you made that type of statement informally on perhaps MAD, or here, it might be a nice gesture.

liz3564 wrote:Harmony brings up some valid points, Dan. My thoughts are this. Obviously, you find the article disrespectful, as we all do.

I know that Scratch started this thread in his typical "witch hunt against DCP" fashion, but let's move beyond this, for a moment.

1. It's obvious that this is an article that was written a long time ago, and was only recently brought to your attention.

2. You find the article to be in poor taste.

Since you are obviously respected among the SHIELDS and FARMS crowd, it might be nice for you to put out some type of statement saying that this older article that was recently brought to your attention is in poor taste, and you certainly hope that this type of writing is no longer happening.

I think that even if you made that type of statement informally on perhaps MAD, or here, it might be a nice gesture.

Well, Liz, that was one of the chief purposes of this thread. I thought that it was rather stunning that DCP would insist that criticism akin to Lehi Cranston's was false, anti-Mormon, or whatever else. The best condemnation of this sickening Barker article that DCP is willing to offer up is, "I'm not enthused about it," or something along those lines.

Bottom line: I would be completely stunned if he were to actually condemn it with any kind of moral force. I think that the lukewarm dismissal is all we'll get.

Mister Scratch wrote:I thought that it was rather stunning that DCP would insist that criticism akin to Lehi Cranston's was false, anti-Mormon, or whatever else.

Emphasis on the "whatever."

I said that I disagreed with it. (Which I believe I'm permitted to do.) I never said a single word about it being "anti-Mormon," which would have been ridiculous.

Mister Scratch wrote:The best condemnation of this sickening Barker article that DCP is willing to offer up is, "I'm not enthused about it," or something along those lines.

Bottom line: I would be completely stunned if he were to actually condemn it with any kind of moral force. I think that the lukewarm dismissal is all we'll get.

I've said that I wouldn't have written or published such a thing, and that, in fact, I haven't written or published such a thing.

I can see the point of the piece -- again, if ex hypothesi some evangelicals were manufacturing and distributing a false hagiographic account of Mr. Martin's death -- but wouldn't myself have touched it.

I don't think it was a horrible sin.

It's several years old, and I don't see much point in saying much about it. Every once in a while a friend will tell a joke that I regard as being in poor taste, or some such thing. I might comment on it at the time. I'll probably just let it pass in silence and then try to change the subject. I almost certainly won't rebuke him for it several years later.

Feel free to disagree or to condemn. And feel free to write to SHIELDS yourselves, expressing your opinions.

In the meantime, I've got a plane to catch. (Scratchists may want to fantasize about it being Mopologist One, a Gulfstream IV private jet equipped with platinum fixtures and provided to me by the SCMC. That should be good for some fun while I'm away.)

Daniel Peterson wrote:In the meantime, I've got a plane to catch ... it being Mopologist One, a Gulfstream IV private jet equipped with platinum fixtures and provided to me by the SCMC.

I thought only the FP or a few special apostles got to use the Hunstman private jet?