If I Did It: Chapter 6 - Crossroads
Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 6:50 pm
If I Did It: Confessions of an SMPT Imposter
by
Gadianton P. Robbers, Phd
Chapter 6
Crossroads
When I eventually dropped out of the SMPT "invitation" thread and let Dr. Peterson have the last words, if I did it, I would have been reasonably confident that letting him have his last say would be enough to let the issue go as that usually works, at least for me.
Well, I apparently had bet wrong as the escalation was underway over at MAD where he went from seeming to talk as if it were all a silly game to accusing me of lying. If I did it, and if I were to continue with my part in the game, he was going to blow what I was doing out of proportion and my acttions would slowly transform from a silly game that he thought was stupid to lying, deception, and later paint me to be a con man who had betrayed his friends. It could have been his plan all along to provoke me to dig myself deeper. It could have been that he's really naïve, and really thought that I was out to fool everyone into thinking I'd be presenting at the SMPT. I honestly don't know what he was thinking. But one thing was for sure, I needed to be very careful at this point.
For one, I don't have a problem with the SMPT. While the SMPT I'm 90% sure will one day be nothing more than an apologetics venue that is primarily just very angry at critics and congratulates itself in the backroom over cigars, that's not what it is yet. Ok, it's a little cheesy, but so what? I like Blake Ostler and some of the others associated with it and have had conversations with them online.
The main rule I would need to observe, if I did it, would be to minimize any storylines that could be interpreted beyond satire that would portray the SMPT as unethical or cruel. So, I couldn't develop any plotlines about my physical safety. I couldn't elaborate any more on the selection process, accusing it of being biased or unethical in that I was able to get preapproval for my presentation. I would basically just need to be as vague as possible, and not say things that could begin to legitimately make the SMPT look bad. This would be important also to ensure that DCP would have no legitimate reason to counteract my "sillyness". I mean, if I were saying things that were not only fantastic, but unduly made the SMPT look bad, then his interaction and bringing up the subject on MAD etc. could be justified on the grounds of protecting his friends -- even if it would be a stretch.
The next rule would be to keep him out of it, not make it about him, so that his all time favorite excuse that he had to defend himself to the lurkers would make no sense. I even avoided mentioning names of other apologists, though he filled in blanks on his own, over at MAD. In fact, If i did it, I would have made the "scathing review" eventually out to be at a deep philosophical level, such that no one would understand it, thereby being no consequence to the apologists. Perhaps trying to figure out the meaning of my presentation would have been like interpreting Jacques Derrida's Glas?
The fascinating thing was that, if I did it, as the outrageousness of my claims increased in ubelievability, and the stakes for the reputations of the apologists decreased to virtually nothing, there would have been only reason to ignore me, but instead, the accusations of my lies and deception only increased. Thus, if I did it, I would be further satirizing the seriousness of upper-echelon apologetics by demonstrating its commitment to making mountains out of molehills, and the time-worn escuses of apologists only defending themselves even more unbelievable than it already is.
by
Gadianton P. Robbers, Phd
Chapter 6
Crossroads
When I eventually dropped out of the SMPT "invitation" thread and let Dr. Peterson have the last words, if I did it, I would have been reasonably confident that letting him have his last say would be enough to let the issue go as that usually works, at least for me.
Well, I apparently had bet wrong as the escalation was underway over at MAD where he went from seeming to talk as if it were all a silly game to accusing me of lying. If I did it, and if I were to continue with my part in the game, he was going to blow what I was doing out of proportion and my acttions would slowly transform from a silly game that he thought was stupid to lying, deception, and later paint me to be a con man who had betrayed his friends. It could have been his plan all along to provoke me to dig myself deeper. It could have been that he's really naïve, and really thought that I was out to fool everyone into thinking I'd be presenting at the SMPT. I honestly don't know what he was thinking. But one thing was for sure, I needed to be very careful at this point.
For one, I don't have a problem with the SMPT. While the SMPT I'm 90% sure will one day be nothing more than an apologetics venue that is primarily just very angry at critics and congratulates itself in the backroom over cigars, that's not what it is yet. Ok, it's a little cheesy, but so what? I like Blake Ostler and some of the others associated with it and have had conversations with them online.
The main rule I would need to observe, if I did it, would be to minimize any storylines that could be interpreted beyond satire that would portray the SMPT as unethical or cruel. So, I couldn't develop any plotlines about my physical safety. I couldn't elaborate any more on the selection process, accusing it of being biased or unethical in that I was able to get preapproval for my presentation. I would basically just need to be as vague as possible, and not say things that could begin to legitimately make the SMPT look bad. This would be important also to ensure that DCP would have no legitimate reason to counteract my "sillyness". I mean, if I were saying things that were not only fantastic, but unduly made the SMPT look bad, then his interaction and bringing up the subject on MAD etc. could be justified on the grounds of protecting his friends -- even if it would be a stretch.
The next rule would be to keep him out of it, not make it about him, so that his all time favorite excuse that he had to defend himself to the lurkers would make no sense. I even avoided mentioning names of other apologists, though he filled in blanks on his own, over at MAD. In fact, If i did it, I would have made the "scathing review" eventually out to be at a deep philosophical level, such that no one would understand it, thereby being no consequence to the apologists. Perhaps trying to figure out the meaning of my presentation would have been like interpreting Jacques Derrida's Glas?
The fascinating thing was that, if I did it, as the outrageousness of my claims increased in ubelievability, and the stakes for the reputations of the apologists decreased to virtually nothing, there would have been only reason to ignore me, but instead, the accusations of my lies and deception only increased. Thus, if I did it, I would be further satirizing the seriousness of upper-echelon apologetics by demonstrating its commitment to making mountains out of molehills, and the time-worn escuses of apologists only defending themselves even more unbelievable than it already is.
