Does DCP want a discussion?

[Rivendale]

Interesting take on gemli's performance art. I don't think he considers his posts as attempts to change Peterson's mind, but rather an attempt to accomplish what Jenkins defined as an obligation to call out the falsely manufactured gravitas of psuedo-science for what it is.

I think that exactly that, calling out the fake gravitas, is indeed well worth doing. It is fake. All this “You haven’t engaged with all our weighty scholarship” is just trying to snow people.

Really substantial disciplines don’t just complain that you haven’t done your homework. They have a good six or eight show-stopping examples, at least, that any expert can explain in just a few lines, in a way that a lay person can clearly understand, and that will immediately make any casual mocker step back and admit that there must be something here after all. Math and science can do this, but for a field like ancient history I still think of Kishkumen’s quick mention here, in rebuttal to N.T. Wright’s claim that the historical evidence for Jesus is as good as for any ancient historical figure, that the Res gestae divi Augusti are still there carved into rock in Turkey.

Mormon apologetics has nothing like that. As we’ve all seen many times now, any seemingly impressive claim that they make always collapses on close inspection into trivial mistakes, like writing about evidence for wine grapes in ancient Mexico from a thesis in Spanish and confusing modern Spanish words with Latin botanical terms.

I just think Gemli may have gone on too long. When simply calling out doesn’t induce repentance, I’d either shake the dust off my sandals and move on, or dig deeper in taking people to task.

But maybe it is performance art on Gemli’s part. I guess that’s something else and maybe I just can’t judge.

Thanks for this post. The part about stating compelling reasons in a few bullet points was always my first thought. The usual apologetic response is almost always personal revelation. There are never specific target items from all the literature suggested. Instead it is just a type of gish gallop listing of primarily Mormon authors. Does DCP read all the flat Earth literature? Does he read all the alien abduction literature? Crystal healing literature? Bigfoot literature?

[Dr. Shades]

I just think Gemli may have gone on too long. When simply calling out doesn’t induce repentance, I’d either shake the dust off my sandals and move on, or dig deeper in taking people to task.

Isn't that exactly what he's done?

But maybe it is performance art on Gemli’s part. I guess that’s something else and maybe I just can’t judge.

Or maybe he's just having fun, like we're doing here.

[Dr Moore]

Gemli is clearly very intelligent and spends a lot of time online in message boards. I think he's just having fun. Like a cat owner with a laser pointer, and the cat never tires of chasing the laser around on the floor like it was the first time.

[Physics Guy]

By "digging deeper" I meant making the effort to read something that the apologists insist is impressive and take it apart in some detail, in their own terms. Persistent dismissal isn't the same, and although it may be a reasonable attitude, if the apologists are sure that they have this chess-like subject then you might as well talk to rocks. Their gravitas may be fake but it's going to take more than mere dismissal to disturb their serenity. They've been role playing scholars for years.

Gemli might well just be having fun with Peterson and company like a cat owner playing with a laser pointer. Before our cat emigrated to our neighbours to avoid our dog, I spent a while one evening sending him racing up and down the hall trying to pounce on the red dot. He didn't get bored, but I eventually did, and I also started feeling bad about making poor Mimo run so hard and never get anything. If you think about it from the cat's point of view, it's legitimately annoying.

[Marcus]

... Before our cat emigrated to our neighbours to avoid our dog, I spent a while one evening sending him racing up and down the hall trying to pounce on the red dot. He didn't get bored, but I eventually did, and I also started feeling bad about making poor Mimo run so hard and never get anything. If you think about it from the cat's point of view, it's legitimately annoying.

Just to clarify, no, it is not "legitimately annoying" from the cat's point of view. They live in the moment, get physical exercise, and have fun. You might as well say playing pick up basketball year after year after year is "legitimately annoying" from an individual player's point of view. Spoiler: it's not.

So...why exactly did your cat emigrate to your neighbors?

(No judgment, I've had a cat do that also. My neighbors loved our mutual cat, and I actually gained a friend from a completely different generation out of it. We used to meet over the low fence, and she told me amazing stories about how our little town was 50 years earlier, and how it had evolved. One time, as we were weeding and talking, she reached over, casually grabbed a snake from under me that I hadn't noticed, and tossed it into the back foliage. "they're harmless...mostly," she said, and then picked up our conversation. She got her knees replaced in her 80's and picked up kayak fishing on the Delaware River. Her kayak on top of her Volkswagon was ubiquitous in our neighborhood for more than a decade after that. I missed her dearly when she moved away to become a nanny for her twin grand-nieces.)

[Doctor Scratch]

The answer to the opening question is “No.” DCP has never been interested in “conversation” online; he has, almost 100% of the time, been interested in Mopologetics. Things changed somewhat once he moved over into blogging, but his interactions with other people online has been defined by condescension, hostility, and mockery. You can find copious examples of this all over SHIELDS, and on archived posts both here and at Mormon Dialogue & Discussion. And think about the way he manages comments at SeN. He has banned just about every critic that ever turned up over there except for gemli, and his interactions with gemli are exactly as I described: condescending, hostile, and mocking.

Meanwhile, consider what his “fan base” looks like: he doesn’t really engage or interact with Ideeho or TLD or Michael Hoggan. He’s not interested in “conversation” with them, either, and they mainly seem to be hanging around for nuggets of Mopologetics: esp. opportunities to trash critics, or affirm why Mormonism is a superior lifestyle, or whatever else. You seldom ever see any of them commenting on the material that makes up 99% of his posting—I.e., reports about what Interpreter is doing, his astonishingly tedious travelogues, or the “Hitchens File.” There is a huge amount of “fluff” on SeN, but the hardcore fans stick around for the Mopologetics, and DCP knows this, and ultimately his biggest desire has not changed since his mission days: he wants to be the “tough guy” celebrity who trashes Church critics in front of the poor, simpering, weak Latter-day Saints.

[drumdude]

I do enjoy watching DCP explain history to Gemli, it’s not only wrong but it’s wrong in the naïve way an 8 year old would understand history.

“Atheist bad, Christian good.” -DCP’s TL;DR

[Dr Moore]

he doesn’t really engage or interact with Ideeho or TLD or Michael Hoggan.

They simp for him, aggressively. Why let meaningful engagement ruin a good thing?

[drumdude]

Now, I’ve been fairly extensively mocked online over the past few weeks for my openness to evidence for “extraordinary knowing.” A few have vowed that they will never waste their time reading such worthless drivel. Several have informed me that there simply is no evidence for ESP or clairvoyance or anything of the sort.

But that seems to me to be the very question at issue — and refusing to read about the subject seems to me a very poor way to develop an informed view on the matter.

I beg to differ with the PhD professor Daniel Peterson here.

I think you can develop, for example, a well formed opinion on the historicity of the moon landing without reading a single shred of conspiracy theory drivel which asserts otherwise.

ESP seems to me to be no different. It’s based on the same “whataboutisms.” What about the flag waving, what about the lack of stars, what about the shadows? In ESP land- what about this or that slight statistical anomaly? What about these NDE stories?

These “whataboutisms” seem very weighty when you don’t have a sufficient understanding of anything but the conspiracy theory. And ESP evidence fits all the tropes of a conspiracy theory.

Daniel hasn’t posted any critical reviews of ESP. Daniel is openly hostile to criticism of ESP. He gives great weight to his subjective personal experience, the water dowsing story.

But most importantly of all, the ESP hypothesis being true would validate what he desperately wants to be true. It is simple wishful thinking, dressed up with his bit of academic flair. An 8 year old could make a similar argument that his imaginary friend could actually exist. And it would garner the same eye rolling from any objective reader.

[Physics Guy]

Maybe ol' Mimo wasn't as frustrated by chasing my red dot as I imagined he was. He's the only cat I've ever had, he only stuck around with us for about a year, and he was always a grumpy creature. If you tried to pet him, he'd scratch. Getting him to the vet was a nightmare, and he had to go fairly often because he kept getting into fights with something. Our younger daughter wanted a cuddlier pet so we got a little dog, and Mimo took umbrage and just stopped coming home to us. He's still around in the neighbourhood and I think he's actually living his dream. He lives mostly outside, terrorising birds and mice, but he has free food and shelter whenever he wants at the neighbours. He hasn't looked injured in years so I expect he has either wised up about fighting, or won.

So maybe Gemli isn't just annoying. I guess Peterson must be getting some version of fun and exercise out of dealing with Gemli, or he would just have banned the guy long ago.