There has always been a network of Mopologists who have an obsessive need to pick fights with people. In the past, their attacks were mainly aimed at EV critics like James White and Walter Martin, along with anti-Mormon critics like Ed Decker.
It’s really striking that we’ve now reached the point where somebody like Smoot is running an openly anti-Mormon blog like “Neville-Neville Land” which is devoted to tearing down the Heartlanders’ faith, with Dan Peterson egging him on.
That is the primary audience, though: it’s that cadre of Mopologists who enjoy tearing into people.
It does seem like some serious hubris from the BYU cabal. A bit like the tail wagging the dog. They aren’t prophets seers and revelators, last I checked anyway. What authority do they have to challenge the heartland theory?
There’s as much archeological evidence for heartland as for mezo. Exactly zero.
I remember when the neville neville land blog first appeared. I found it a very strange hobby for Peter and Hook. At the time, I did a whois lookup and saw that it was registered in Canada, during Smoot's time studying there, just figured it was him. Here is a whois lookup I ran today, still showing Canada...
the match between peter pan and Smoot's plonialmoni blog seems to go far beyond just both being started in canada.
using masterdc's link, here is the information from the neville-neville.com site:
Administrative Contact Information:
NameContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
OrganizationContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
Address
96 Mowat Ave
City
Toronto
State / Province
ON
Postal Code
M4K 3K1
Country
CA
Phone
+1.4165385487
Email https://domains.google.com/contactregis ... leland.com
and using the same whois site and inserting smoot's plonialmonimormon.com information:
NameContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
OrganizationContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
Address
96 Mowat Ave
City
Toronto
State / Province
ON
Postal Code
M4K 3K1
Country
CA
Phone
+1.4165385487
Email https://domains.google.com/contactregis ... Mormon.com
same customer number, unless i'm missing something.
dates for plonialmonimormon:
Important Dates
Expires On2023-01-01
Registered On2015-01-01
Updated On2022-01-01
dates for nevilleneville.com:
Important Dates
Expires On2023-02-06
Registered On2019-02-06
Updated On2022-02-06
and from Smoot's blog:
In 2015 I graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and German Studies. In 2018 I completed a Masters degree in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto with a concentration in Egyptology.
Very interesting sleuthing, Marcus and master_dc! Robert Boylan stated quite plainly that "Neville-Neville Land" was operated by an "African-American apologist" living in Birmingham, AL. And yet, the information you've posted seems to say otherwise. What is more likely: that Boylan was telling a bald-faced lie? Or that he was *lied to* by "Peter Pan"?
His guest on his podcast--Spencer Kraus--surely knows the answer, since Kraus gave "Peter Pan" a shout-out at the end of one of his "Interpreter" articles on Neville. And remember--articles in "Interpreter" are supposedly 'peer reviewed'! So, they regard "The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up"--a cartoon character--as a legitimate scholarly "peer"? This ranks right up there alongside "Metcalfe is Butthead" in terms of the way that it epitomizes the seriousness of "Interpreter"'s so-called "scholarship." What a joke.
Last edited by Doctor Scratch on Mon Jul 25, 2022 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Kyler Rasmussen works as a policy analyst for the Government of Alberta, and holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Experimental Social Psychology from the University of Calgary, as well as a B.S. in Psychology from Brigham Young University.
Kyler Rasmussen works as a policy analyst for the Government of Alberta, and holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Experimental Social Psychology from the University of Calgary, as well as a B.S. in Psychology from Brigham Young University.
For what it's worth, I don't think that it's Rasmussen. Rasmussen strikes me as more easy-going and pleasantly goofy and disinclined to pursue the full-blown smear campaign that's at the heart of "Neville-Neville Land." The blog is an anti-Mormon endeavor that is meant to destroy the Heartlanders' faith and get them kicked out of the Church, and I don't see Rasmussen doing that sort of thing. Smoot, on the other hand, has a vicious streak and has deliberately modeled his prose and argumentative style off of DCP, who *does* engage in that sort of thing--at the very least, he encourages and supports that sort of behavior. Remember, too, that Gregory L. Smith is also Canadian.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
NameContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
OrganizationContact Privacy Inc. Customer 7151571251
Address
96 Mowat Ave
City
Toronto
State / Province
ON
Postal Code
M4K 3K1
[...]
Looks like this is a domain squatting outfit that appears to have a problem removing scam sites it's hosting.
I mean, it is just one of the many services out there to protect a site owner's personal information. If you own a domain, i highly recommend using a privacy service.
Of course, it should hardly be surprising that religious fanatics would say anything to gain power and prestige. You imagine meeting these people—surely blowhards the lot of them, unreliable, their testimonies wavering at the first sign of difficulty or internal strife.
On Sic et Non, Kyler has been so adverse to the heartlanders that he won't even mention the name FIRM in his comments:
Chewbarker • 8 months ago
Kyler wrote, “The Book of Mormon can help provide those latter reasons, but the best way to know their truth is to live them. Figuring out how to do that is likely to be a better use of our time and energy than continually re-appraising Book of Mormon authenticity.”
What are you trying to do? Put the Interpreter, FAIR and FIRM out of business?
Kyler Ray Rasmussen • 8 months ago • edited
"What are you trying to do? Put the Interpreter, FAIR and *redacted* out of business?"
When Book of Mormon authenticity becomes mainstream, Interpreter will have their hands full helping everyone understand what they've been missing.
