Do Apologists Want to Destroy Critics' Lives?
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:08 pm
Many of us have wondered about how much the Mopologists really want to "wound" critics. Despite their denials, it seems beyond obvious by now that, at the very least, LDS apologists want to harm critics' credibility. This has been seen time and time again both online, and in the pages of journals like the FARMS Review. But does this desire to harm go any deeper than that? Thanks to a recent tip, I learned that the answer to that is, "Yes."
Many here no doubt know the controversial poster known as "Infymus." Infymus is well-known for his often acerbic style, and his obvious disdain for the LDS Church. He's also extremely important in the world of ex-Mormons and critics because he maintains the high-traffic site, The Mormon Curtain, which received something like 7,000,000 hits last year. With that kind of activity, it makes sense that Infymus would have found himself targeted by the more aggressive apologists. Indeed, The Mormon Curtain received its own spot on SHIELDS's "Critic's Corner" page:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics.htm
Those who've read over this material before know that the Infymus link contained a now-infamous (yes, pun intended) email exchange between Infy and Dr. Peterson. In it, Peterson went on to claim that "not one dime" of his salary came from apologetics (except, one hastens to add, the $20,000+ that was apportioned for his FARMS work), and to request that Infymus re-write the DCP entry on The Mormon Curtain. Some of the text from the exchange had been edited out by the SHIELDS administrators, so we were always missing context, but the final entry showed an Infymus who had finally been provoked into using some profanity. In other words, DCP had engaged in a series of increasingly condescending and snide exchanges with Infymus until, at last, Infymus had had enough and utilized "strong" language.
This brings me to my main point. If you click on the Mormon Curtian link from the "Critic's Corner" page, you are taken here:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics ... urtain.htm
And if you click on the "Dr. Daniel C. Peterson and Infymus" link, you'll go here:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics ... ymus01.htm
Here is Stan Barker's lead-in to the exchange:
But, what follows is not the exchange. What you'll notice, instead, is that the old correspondence has been removed and has instead been replaced with this text:
Now, this is intriguing. Infymus has long been known to all of us as a guy who can be somewhat combative, but who tends to stand by everything he says. So what was going on here? I got in touch with Infymus to learn the details.
As with most of the email material on SHIELDS, Infymus's comments to DCP were posted without any kind of permission. Furthermore, as you can see if you click on the links, Infymus's in real life name is freely used---again, without any apparent permission. I asked Infymus why, after all this time, he wanted the material taken down. This is what he said:
Yeeouch! It seems that DCP's passing along of these private emails to SHIELDS, and SHIELDS's subsequent posting of the emails, has led to some serious in real life consequences. But, hey: sometimes these things happen. People are people, and one always hopes that things can be worked out in a reasonable way. And, per Infymus, that's the way things started:
You would think that, given the real-world problems that this caused, these Christian brothers would have immediately worked to remedy the situation. But, instead, Infymus's pleas were completely ignored. Sure: people might take issue with Infymus's sometimes harsh tone and tactics.... But is it really right to continue to do things that affect his ability to find employment? I think not.
According to Infymus, it was time to ramp things up a bit:
Indeed, that did the trick. Barker replied with one of his standard, grumpy replies:
Rather than doing the right thing---i.e., just deleting the material---Barker turns around and threatens to file a lawsuit of his own.
As Infymus shared these details with me, I wondered: Was Barker made aware of the fact that Infymus's employment was being affected by SHIELDS's unauthorized posting of the emails?
One can practically see the flecks of spittle flying from Barker's gritted teeth. The abject hatred here, the intense desire to see critics suffer, is overwhelming. And frightening. Barker clearly is a disturbed, violently hateful, and cruel individual. It boggles the mind that a Latter-day Saint would behave so callously as this.
So, what is the point of all this? For one thing: maintain your anonymity if you are a critic. As this incident shows, the apologists do not care in the least if you suffer, or if your life takes a downturn due to their smear tactics. Be careful if you engage in emails with them. We already know that many of the main apologists pass around critic emails via skinny-l and other means, but beware that you may be baited into an outburst which will then find its way over to SHIELDS. Ultimately, I hope that the SHIELDS apologists opt to shut down their site, or at least to remove the problematic material that is harming peoples lives. I hope, too, that DCP, Hamblin, Midgley and others reconsider their practice of passing emails along to S. Barker and company. If enough people get hurt (and there is a long list of individuals on that SHIELDS page), there could be some serious trouble.
In any case: be on alert. These apologists want harm to befall you.
Many here no doubt know the controversial poster known as "Infymus." Infymus is well-known for his often acerbic style, and his obvious disdain for the LDS Church. He's also extremely important in the world of ex-Mormons and critics because he maintains the high-traffic site, The Mormon Curtain, which received something like 7,000,000 hits last year. With that kind of activity, it makes sense that Infymus would have found himself targeted by the more aggressive apologists. Indeed, The Mormon Curtain received its own spot on SHIELDS's "Critic's Corner" page:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics.htm
Those who've read over this material before know that the Infymus link contained a now-infamous (yes, pun intended) email exchange between Infy and Dr. Peterson. In it, Peterson went on to claim that "not one dime" of his salary came from apologetics (except, one hastens to add, the $20,000+ that was apportioned for his FARMS work), and to request that Infymus re-write the DCP entry on The Mormon Curtain. Some of the text from the exchange had been edited out by the SHIELDS administrators, so we were always missing context, but the final entry showed an Infymus who had finally been provoked into using some profanity. In other words, DCP had engaged in a series of increasingly condescending and snide exchanges with Infymus until, at last, Infymus had had enough and utilized "strong" language.
This brings me to my main point. If you click on the Mormon Curtian link from the "Critic's Corner" page, you are taken here:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics ... urtain.htm
And if you click on the "Dr. Daniel C. Peterson and Infymus" link, you'll go here:
http://www.shields-research.org/Critics ... ymus01.htm
Here is Stan Barker's lead-in to the exchange:
Critics of the LDS Church hate Dr. Daniel C. Peterson. In fact, it seems from looking at certain places on the Internet that many of them have an obsession with Dr. Peterson. One wonders why the venom from these apostates? Can it be that they have got him "dead to rights?" We resoundingly shout NO! They are not close to telling you about the real Dr. Peterson, a man with incredible humor and kindness. This we know from firsthand experience with him. From our experience, critics like to insult and lambaste Dr. Peterson, but think he is mean when he responds to them calling them on their actions.
Such an experience is reproduced below in an exchange wherein Dr. Peterson attempts to get Mr. Hoenie to correct his lie about Dr. Peterson in his The Mormon Curtain internet blog:
But, what follows is not the exchange. What you'll notice, instead, is that the old correspondence has been removed and has instead been replaced with this text:
We have removed said correspondence due to [Infymus] threatening a law suit. Apparently Mr. Hoenie is ashamed of what he had to say and while he maintains similar correspondence on his website, it appears that like most critics they take actions then are ashamed of them and seeminly the only way to handle it is a law suit.
At a future point we will reconsider what to do with the material of this correspondence.
Now, this is intriguing. Infymus has long been known to all of us as a guy who can be somewhat combative, but who tends to stand by everything he says. So what was going on here? I got in touch with Infymus to learn the details.
As with most of the email material on SHIELDS, Infymus's comments to DCP were posted without any kind of permission. Furthermore, as you can see if you click on the links, Infymus's in real life name is freely used---again, without any apparent permission. I asked Infymus why, after all this time, he wanted the material taken down. This is what he said:
Infymus wrote:Obviously my problem is that when you search for my name, SHIELDS research comes up #1. Two prospective employers have informed me that information obtained by first page searches on Google for my name led to their selecting another candidate. These two searches were both from SHIELDS. While I am not aware of the religious affiliation of those I have interviewed with, I am sure it has something to do with Mormonism (as I live in a very Mormon State).
Yeeouch! It seems that DCP's passing along of these private emails to SHIELDS, and SHIELDS's subsequent posting of the emails, has led to some serious in real life consequences. But, hey: sometimes these things happen. People are people, and one always hopes that things can be worked out in a reasonable way. And, per Infymus, that's the way things started:
Infymus wrote:I sent a DMCA (digital millennium copyright act) notice to the three owners of SHIELDS stating they had 1 week to take the material down, or at least change it to a fair use. I claim my emails as being copyright (c) by ME, 2005.
I have not heard anything nor have they taken it down.
You would think that, given the real-world problems that this caused, these Christian brothers would have immediately worked to remedy the situation. But, instead, Infymus's pleas were completely ignored. Sure: people might take issue with Infymus's sometimes harsh tone and tactics.... But is it really right to continue to do things that affect his ability to find employment? I think not.
According to Infymus, it was time to ramp things up a bit:
Infymus wrote:Today I sent a DMCA take down notice to their ISP. Their ISP then immediately contacted them, which forced Stan's hand. I emailed him four days ago and heard absolutely nothing. So I pushed him, HARD with this DMCA take down.
Indeed, that did the trick. Barker replied with one of his standard, grumpy replies:
Stan Barker wrote:What the heck is your problem? In your email to me on 6/11/2009, you
> gave us one week to remove the article. We are working on it to do a
> Fair Use as your provided in your email. If the request below, in any
> way affects the SHIELDS website, we will move to sue you for such
> action as well as sue you for copyright infringement on your site
> wherein you have included photos that are copyrighted from the SHIELDS
> website as well as our logo. You have 1 week to remove them from your
> site.
Rather than doing the right thing---i.e., just deleting the material---Barker turns around and threatens to file a lawsuit of his own.
As Infymus shared these details with me, I wondered: Was Barker made aware of the fact that Infymus's employment was being affected by SHIELDS's unauthorized posting of the emails?
Stan Barker wrote:[Infymus],
It seems you do not understand context. So, let me be specific:
[SNIP!]
4. Lost job opportunities: Apparently they did not look at your site. You have
essentially the same garbage-mouthed stuff there that you wrote in your own email.
5. Originally, we had decided to just remove the page altogether because you were such a
small fish in the pond. Now, however, we are reconsidering and may very well put up a
Fair Use version of your stupid nonsense.
For that matter, on your page (since you are prone to criticize what I threw up in a
minutes notice) you can't even get the attributions correct. Stuff I wrote you attribute
to Dan Peterson. Yet, it was very clear on our site that Dan didn't write it. And you
should be very ashamed of what you wrote to Dan. It was not only full of errors about
Dan's employment, but it was so full of venom and gutter-class language that any normal
human being would blush. Since you seem to not have enough class to be able to
communicate with any higher level language than what the dregs of the earth use, then
perhaps, just perhaps that may be the reason you were denied a job. But be that as it
may, I leave that to your miserable life.
Stan Barker
One can practically see the flecks of spittle flying from Barker's gritted teeth. The abject hatred here, the intense desire to see critics suffer, is overwhelming. And frightening. Barker clearly is a disturbed, violently hateful, and cruel individual. It boggles the mind that a Latter-day Saint would behave so callously as this.
So, what is the point of all this? For one thing: maintain your anonymity if you are a critic. As this incident shows, the apologists do not care in the least if you suffer, or if your life takes a downturn due to their smear tactics. Be careful if you engage in emails with them. We already know that many of the main apologists pass around critic emails via skinny-l and other means, but beware that you may be baited into an outburst which will then find its way over to SHIELDS. Ultimately, I hope that the SHIELDS apologists opt to shut down their site, or at least to remove the problematic material that is harming peoples lives. I hope, too, that DCP, Hamblin, Midgley and others reconsider their practice of passing emails along to S. Barker and company. If enough people get hurt (and there is a long list of individuals on that SHIELDS page), there could be some serious trouble.
In any case: be on alert. These apologists want harm to befall you.