At some point, somebody kindly posted the text of Dr. Peterson's FAIRMormon Conference talk. Here are some choice excerpts:
Alright, I’m told that it’s always good procedure to start with a joke if you’re giving a speech. I looked through the notes that I threw together. I’ve been traveling a huge amount and even missed the first day of this conference and part of the second day and so I just don’t have many jokes. So I thought of offering myself as the joke. And so these are some things that I’ve taken, actually my wife found them; she was delighted to find them on the web. These are some of the ones that are kinder from critics.
And yes, he goes on to post actual joke DCP memes that he's harvested off the Internet.
Now, there are people who are watching this conference. I’ve been watching their reactions already online. For example it’s said that yesterday during one speech there was an eruption of hatred from the audience towards all critics of the Church, and someone said that’s not the only time it’s happened here. They remembered a time a few years ago in a FairMormon Conference where I cited the name of a critic or someone who is not altogether happy with things here and the audience immediately broke out with cries of “Get him!” because he was apparently here; and so, also arriving with the books will be pitch forks and torches for the activity we’ve planned after this. We’re going to go get some of those critics because apparently, this is the equivalent of a Nazi rally to some of the critics because we’re all seething with hatred and wanting to go out and get those bad guys, namely people who don’t agree with us. So I just can’t wait to see what’s said about what I have to say now.
DCP wrote:The reason to do apologetics, the reason to try to advocate the gospel, is so that there will not be more suffering upon the earth; so that people will have the peace and knowledge and understanding that come with an understanding of gospel principles and the plan of salvation—the comfort that can come.
I can hardly believe that he said this with a straight face. There "will not be more suffering upon the earth"? Really?
Check out his dismissiveness in this passage:
I was in Iran once, for a conference, whereby hangs a tale in and of itself. It’s a very interesting place to be as an American—with “Death to America” painted on all the buildings and that sort of thing, you feel so welcome. I was there with a friend who is now Catholic but was a former Baha’i. The Baha’ís have been persecuted in Iran as being sort of apostate Muslims or something.
Right: "or something." (I guess this is the consequence of not actually *writing* a talk, and instead just winging it and hoping the transcription comes out okay.)
I don’t know if you’ve ever had experiences—I’ve had a few—where you think, “I should have intervened,” but I didn’t. You feel guilty for years afterwards. “ I should have said something, I didn’t say something.” This is a case where I didn’t know what to do.
We were driving, my family and I, down to California many years ago and we stopped off in St. George for a little bit of a break and thought we’d take the kids in and maybe see a film at the Visitor’s Center or something and give them a little gospel instruction on the way down. And we walked in and sure enough, we watched the movie there in the Visitor’s Center near the St. George Temple.
There was a German couple who were listening to somebody at the counter in the Visitor’s Center and he was speaking to them about Noah’s Ark and the dimensions of Noah’s Ark. When we saw this movie and it was probably, I don’t know, about 10 or 15 minutes long and we came out and he was still haranguing him on Noah’s Ark and how many cubits it was and all that sort of thing. And you could see from their faces—“how do we get out of here? We don’t want to offend this nice old fellow but this is excruciatingly boring,” and I was thinking to myself, “I served a German-speaking mission and could go over”, but I didn’t do it. I thought maybe I could save them. I didn’t do it and for all I know they’re there still. But I thought, “What are they going to take with them from this experience.” We stopped in, we just wanted to learn what this building is and who are the Mormons and now we know everything we never wanted to know about the dimensions of Noah’s Ark. Maybe he moved on to Leviticus and the dimensions of the tabernacle. There are years of work to be done there. I’m pretty sure that’s not what they were there to talk about. [?] I don’t think they ever said a word. They just kept shifting on their feet wondering how to get away and that sort of thing. Anyway, you need to listen to people, you need to be sensitive to them, listen to where they’re coming from. And it’s partially also related to listening to the Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit should tell you, “Shut up. You’ve gone on long enough.” You want to speak in the language they know and that’s not German or French or Chinese or something like that.
If only DCP's fellow LDS weren't so crass and stupid!
Here he is taking Elder Packer's old advice about funerals to heart:
Another thing, can we provide hope? I’ve had experiences–many of you have–with losing loved ones, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes very painfully, and at moments like that, the gospel offers very real hope. If we find out that people need that kind of hope—I don’t want us to be ghoulish, or vulturish, or that sort of thing. We can sometimes speak to them at those times and offer the comfort that we know the gospel can offer. Christ brings peace, and if we can share that with people they will listen.
Here's a fascinating and rather frank admission:
Maybe you’ve had the experience, I certainly have, of occasionally saying something when the Spirit was kind of telling me, “No, don’t do this” and it just is a disaster. I’ve seen people on Facebook try to share a sacred experience and I think, “No, don’t do this.” There are people out here who will “…turn again and rend you” and it won’t help. So, there are times when you just pass by. “Whosoever shall not receive you,” the Lord says in Matthew 10:14, “nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” Just leave. It’s not the right time, the right place. Maybe later on, you don’t know. Avoid the spirit of contention. When it starts getting bad, you know it’s the wrong time. And yet I’ve seen people online especially just keep going because at a certain point the ego kicks in, I’m not going to be defeated by this person. I happen to think that it may be testosterone in a lot of cases—almost never women. They just keep at it and at it and at it and you think that the chance of actually having an impact on this person was lost three hours ago and this has just turned ugly. There’s no point. And there are a lot of people in this world that you could be talking to but not this one, not right now.
Perhaps this next bit explains why he keeps picking fights with Gemli:
I had an experience in Switzerland that was meaningful to me. Early on in my mission there, I went with a companion (I think it was my first week in the mission field) and we hadn’t gotten in any doors and finally we got in one and the fellow brought us in. He just wanted to argue. He just argued and pushed back at every point. But I was thinking that at least we’re in an apartment and we’re talking to somebody. My companion stood up and said, “Thank you very much it’s been great talking with you. We’re going to move on now.” We got outside, and I said, “But Elder so and so, why are we leaving? At least we were talking with him.” Then he said, “Look, there are hundreds of thousands of people in this particular canton of Switzerland who haven’t heard the gospel. We don’t have time for this kind of thing. We have to keep moving.” That was a powerful lesson for me. So when it grows contentious, move along. Little if anything will be gained by sticking around and fighting. Be responsive to the Spirit, to promptings.
I can't stop laughing about this one:
Also, another principle to keep in mind is that you don’t need to die on every hill. Some principles are really important and some are not. If somebody doesn’t like Mormon hymns, fine. It’s not that important. If they don’t like Mormon architecture (“Your chapels are stupid-looking”), fine. It’s not worth arguing about. There are certain issues that are really important and again spend the time where the time is best spent. There are limited numbers of us and millions, billions of people we haven’t reached. Don’t waste time. Be sensitive, move on.
(Our discussion on LDS temples and Stalinist art, by the way, took place after Dr. P. delivered this talk....)
As for this, D'oh!:
So, you may think, “I can’t do this, I have nothing to contribute.” You can and you do. So, I encourage you to volunteer and if we’re slow on the uptake, volunteer again. Because we’re volunteers ourselves with lots on our plates and things fall between the cracks. I’ve had people unfortunately who’ve written to me saying, “Gee, I’d like to offer my services” and I’ve lost the emails. I feel guilty about that.
More strange revelations about the editorial processes at Mormon Interpreter:
And so you can help out in this cause in so many ways: missionary fund, all those sorts of things, but also by volunteering, by donating to these organizations, by writing, If you feel like writing, for one of our groups, for Interpreter for example. I don’t control the peer review process. They once rejected the man that I home taught. That was a really uncomfortable home teaching visit. He’d just gotten the news that day. The first line when I walked in was “Why did you reject my article?” (which I had encouraged him to submit, by the way). It was very embarrassing.
In the Q & A portion of the talk, he's asked about the criticism he gets:
Q5: How can you handle all the criticism you receive? Don’t you get discouraged at times?
A5: You have to be really thick skinned. I admit sometimes it astonishes me. It really does astonish me how obsessive some people are. I’ve become sort of a lightning rod. I don’t know why but I get it. Charming personality… that’s it. Usually I don’t get discouraged, because I think, “Why didn’t I study abnormal psychology? Some of this is just distinctly weird.” This malevolent stalker that I talk about, I don’t know who he is, I don’t think we’ve ever met. He’s never given any indication that we know each other or had a personal interaction. He’s been at it for 15 years. Fifteen years! I mean every week, most days, I get obscene emails, I suspect from him, most weeks, sometimes three and four. I just don’t get it. It’s been going on for a long time. Anyway, distinctly weird.
So, simultaneously a rambling yet very candid talk from him. Lots of bizarre material here, that's for sure.