In a rather hilariously titled
new blog entry (it's called "What Persists?" Gee, dare we answer that question?), Dr. Peterson is clearly incensed over our discussions here, and he apparently spent a rather large chunk of time looking up the various marriage vows from different religious denominations. Why did he do this, you might ask? It's because he's a Mopologist, of course! Here is his strange explanation:
One of the charges against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that invariably surprises and puzzles me runs more or less along the following lines: “The Mormon Church separates people at death. It teaches that families won’t be together in the afterlife, and it divorces husbands and wives. But then it offers to permit spouses and families to be together again if and only if they submit to it and fork large chunks of money over to it.”
Note that, while he's including text in quotation marks, this isn't a verbatim quote. Instead, it's him inventing things that "critics" have said, or something along those lines. ("What Persists?" Dishonesty, maybe? Disingenuousness? A cowardly refusal to simply link to the original comments that one is responding to?) Recall, though, that it was Dr. Peterson himself who said that Frenchy and his wife would no longer be married in the next life. In this latest blog entry, though, he's spending a lot of effort to blame this situation on
all the other religious denominations:
This charge surprises me because it seems to presume that the default setting in Christendom is, and has historically been, that families will continue as families in the world to come, and that marriages will continue (unless, of course, they’re somehow broken up by malign Latter-day Saint interference). Amazingly, I’ve even seen indignation on this front from atheistic naturalists — as if they themselves believed that such relationships continue beyond the grave in any meaningful way. (If, as naturalistic materialism typically insists, human consciousness and personality cease at death, it’s difficult to see how family relationships or marriage would be very likely to persist in their absence.)
I’ve encountered this charge again over just the past few days. But here are some examples of Christian (and other) marriage vows that I’ve easily located online. They demonstrate that the default assumption among Christian denominations is that marital (and, therefore, family) relationships terminate at death, if not before.
I admit that I don't get the "if not before" addendum here. But an interesting tactic, no? Mopologetics by way of "blaming" all the other denominations? Interesting? Or merely
typical? I will let you be the judge.
But, naturally, he is still missing the point. The point all along has been that Frenchy's has been put in a disadvantageous position in the afterlife thanks to Dr. Peterson's laziness/selfishness--his apparent unwillingness to do the requisite temple ordinances. (Is *that* what persists? Self-interest "uber alles"?) Yet another vacation to the Swiss Alps or to Hawaii takes precedent over a few minutes helping to make sure that Frenchy can stay married in the afterlife? Maybe so--since, you know, Frenchy has already served his purpose: DCP was able to squeeze at least two Easter-themed blog posts out of Frenchy's death and subsequent "celestial divorce."
And here is some additional food for thought: from the standpoint of Mopologetics, it does not matter one iota what all the other denominations believe about "beyond-the-veil divorce," since, from an LDS perspective, only LDS theology is true and correct. So DCP can blame the other belief systems all he wants, but when push comes to shove, he ultimately believes that LDS theology is what's truly responsible for dissolving Frenchy's marriage.
Furthermore, he once again is painting himself into a corner:
Latter-day Saints didn’t introduce the notion that marital and family relationships end at the grave. They introduced a cure.
Okay.... So if this is true, then why didn't he--DCP--hit "Pause" on the endless vacations and horsing around in order to provide this "cure" to Frenchy?
"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