Is Pahoran a Hypocrite?

[_Mister Scratch]

[Note: This article will be double posted on Mister Scratch's Guide to FAIR]

No doubt many here are familiar with Pahoran, the nasty, fuming, bile-spewing "attack dog" of ZLMB and FAIR notoriety. Although he is occasionally capable of decent argument, for the most part his posts consist of personal attacks and invective. This puts him in a difficult spot, rhetorically speaking, and he is often challenged on the subject of his own personal integrity. After all, if you spend so much time launching personal attacks against other people, you are bound to be attacked yourself. But Pahoran always claims innocence. Pahoran always claims that he is a model of integrity and good behavior.

Case in point? His recent appearance on this MB. That he would show up to participate is praiseworthy, and I, for one, am glad to have him here. But perhaps we need a bit of a memory refresher as to why he showed up.

The reason he appeared, some will recall, had to do with the posting of his in real life name on Mr. Scratch's Guide to FAIR, which he claims "someone told him about," and which seemed like no big deal to your correspondents, as he has personally listed his name on the Web. But, Pahoran was apparently unhappy with this, and accused yours truly of "rank hypocrisy" on account of the fact that your correspondents disapproved of Prof. Bill Hamblin's "outing" of CKSalmon on FAIR, and demanded that his in real life name be removed. Here is Pahoran's explanation for why he showed up:

I'm here because one of my fellow-FAIRites was alarmed that peoples' real names were being posted on a site where normal psychology appears to be the exception. The level of paranoia, and the obsession with FAIR, you must admit, could be somewhat unnerving for some. I came over to see what was going on. I am unlikely to stay very long.

A bit later on, Pahoran elaborated his reasons for not wanting his in real life name on the blog:

Very well, I shall give you five (5) reasons.

1) Because you purport to be outraged, offended, shocked and scandalised by Professor Hamblin naming an Internet message board participant, and you might not want to be a complete and utter hypocrite.

2) Because you want people to believe that I have misjudged you, and that you are an all-around stand-up guy and a man of your word. And on Sun Nov 05, 2006 at 12:21 pm, in the "Mister Scratch, a word with you please" thread, you wrote:

:
As for Pahoran, I will happily remove his real name if he wants me to.

I want you to.

So are you a man of your word, or not?

Do you actually have integrity, or is your given word only to be relied upon as long as the person you gave it to is in your good graces?

3) As I said before, I choose to post pseudonymously for a reason. When in the past I posted under my own name, I was subjected to a rather nasty bout of cyber-harassment. If such a thing were to happen again, I might not be able to trace the party who actually did it, but I will regard your obsessive hate blog as the source.

4) Your obsessive hate blog contains a number of libellous falsehoods. The legal adivice I have received tells me that I can't do anything about that as long as you are referring to me only by my pseudonym. That would change if you were to put anything that would actually enable anyone to identify me in real life.

5) _____ might not want his in real life information to be put up on this forum.

I'm not going to suck up to you or try to negotiate with you. Your obsessive hate blog is yours; your decision is yours, and will reflect upon nothing but your own character.

It is interesting that Pahoran raises the issue of character in his concluding remarks. As it turns out, the issue of posting in real life names is not a new one. In fact, Pahoran himself appears to have been the one who established precedent in this arena. What follows is a post from ZLMB, from nearly six years ago.

LF of DCP
Posts: 366
(6/19/01 6:15 pm)

LDS Critics / Personal - The Arrogance of Anti-Mormonism
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, this isn't another discussion of the sins of the lovely Webguy. Rather, it is a quick survey of a number of our anti-Mormon participants, with a question: why is arrogance so conspicuous among them?

So as not to commit the fallacy of begging the question, let us start with this: is arrogance conspicuous among them?

Consider the case of Sr1030, who sneered at anyone who likes Dan Peterson, calling them his "little followers." Apart from the obvious envy in this barb--Sr seems to resent the fact that Dan has more credibility than he does, a state of affairs that Sr cannot change--it seems remarkably arrogant to belittle people for believing someone other than himself.

Consider also our friend Exegete, whose every statement is so very important that it requires an exclamation mark as an emoticon. How arrogant is it, to assume that every single statement deserves to be held higher than everything said by anyone else?

Now consider Sr1030 again. He has a theory about the origin of the Book of Mormon. He won't tell us what it is, but he still demands that we give it privileged status, treating it as if it were already on the table; and not only on the table, but established and accepted. How arrogant is it, to suppose that a notion never articulated in public should be treated as the default position?

Then there was the short-lived posting career of "Lord" [in real life name deleted], the man who single-handedly (according to him) forced the Church to extend the Priesthood to Blacks.

Evidently God is still not entirely sure that he has [in real life name deleted] wholehearted permission, since the Temple still stands.

Any discussion of anti-Mormon arrogance would be incomplete if it left out the amazing [in real life name deleted]. Note that he rarely engages any counter-arguments brought by any Latter-day Saints; rather he simply abuses us for disagreeing with him. In common with many other anti-Mormons, he arrogantly tells us what we believe; with equal arrogance, he presumes to tell us what our scriptures mean. And if anything bad happens to a Latter-day Saint--such as being wounded four times while a friend is murdered--then instead of showing that the victim is a person of integrity and conviction, it proves that God was trying to tell that person "something." If it is possible to get much more arrogant than this, I'd like to know how!

This pattern can be seen repeated hundreds of times over. One anti-Mormon I know about is so arrogant that he thinks his name is copyright, so that he can sue anyone who mentions it.

Now if this were merely a catalogue of villainy, it would quickly become wearisome; so rather than multiply examples--as it would be trivially easy to do--I will return to the original question: why is arrogance so conspicuous among them? Is it essential to the whole polemical enterprise, or is arrogance simply one of the character flaws that produces religious haters?

(deletion of in real life names added, along with the bold and underlined emphasis)

Interestingly enough, DCP drops in to offer up a "high-five" to his good friend Pah:

Re: The Arrogance of Anti-Mormonism
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One anti-Mormon I know about is so arrogant that he thinks his name is copyright, so that he can sue anyone who mentions it."

I KNOW that guy!

Not only did Pahoran help establish a precedent in announcing in real life names on LDS-related messageboards, he ridiculed them for not wanting him to do it, and happily accepted praise from his idol and mentor, Prof. Peterson. Really, I've got to say, I am just blown away by the integrity of Pahoran's shining character. What a great example he sets.

[_Runtu]

Silly Shades. Hypocrisy is a vice only among 'vile' anti-Mormons. Among apologists, it's just another weapon in the fight for truth and justice.

[_MormonMendacity]

He engages in tu quoque because others did it first, of course.

One might ask about the arrogance of someone claiming they have "the only true and living church" but I wouldn't want to be accused of arrogance or anything.

[_Phaedrus Ut]

I didn't know his identity was secret. He should write his bad apologetics under the pseudonym Pahoran instead of his real name. Those in the know have known him since ARM and zlmb. Plus his articles in FARMS like "Letters to an Anti-Mormon" have made him public.

Phaedrus

[_Runtu]

I didn't know his identity was secret. He should write his bad apologetics under the pseudonym Pahoran instead of his real name. Those in the know have known him since ARM and zlmb. Plus his articles in FARMS like "Letters to an Anti-Mormon" have made him public.

Phaedrus

I didn't think it was a secret. I've known Pahoran since '95 or so on a.r.m. It was kind of surprising to me that he objected to being "outed."

[_Kevin Graham]

The hypocrisy runs deeper than you know. take for example his review of JP Holding:

"Holding"1 takes up the theme introduced by Mosser and Owen's essay on the need for better quality evangelical apologetics2 and promises to deliver the goods in the form of "top-notch Biblical scholarship" (p. 10)

Notes

1. I have reason to believe that James Patrick Holding is a pseudonym for Robert Turkel.

[deletion of actual link since it contains Pahoran's in real life name]

JP informed me that he was very upset that Pahoran mentioned his real name in publication. I emailed Dan Peterson and everyone at FARMS and requested that this be edited out. Apparently they decided against it. Why?

JP Holding is a pseudonym. His real name was made known to the web because of his arch nemesis, Farrell Till, the athiest from infidels.org. He had privately investigatd JP and even harrassed his wife with phone calls. After they changed their number he found out again so they had to cut off their phone entirely. I know because I used to call him.

But the point here is that Pahioran knew JP wanted to keep his name hidden, yet decided to reveal it anyway. Why? What purpose was there in this? JP publishes himslf as JP Holding, so what good was done by mentioning Robert Turkel? Just to be a prick.

FTR, the reason JP uses a fake name is because he worked in the prison system as a librarian. Apparently some inmates wanted to find him after they got out.

I informed Pahoran of this information but he decided that he either 1) didn't buy it or 2) didn't care.

So now he is complaining because Scratch uses his real name, which he himself publishes under?

Wow.

[_Runtu]

Kevin, that really is terrible. I wonder if Pahoran cares to explain why he did that (or DCP can explain why FARMS let it go).

[_Mister Scratch]

The hypocrisy runs deeper than you know. take for example his review of JP Holding:

"Holding"1 takes up the theme introduced by Mosser and Owen's essay on the need for better quality evangelical apologetics2 and promises to deliver the goods in the form of "top-notch Biblical scholarship" (p. 10)

Notes

1. I have reason to believe that James Patrick Holding is a pseudonym for Robert Turkel.

[deletion of actual link since it contains Pahoran's in real life name]

JP informed me that he was very upset that Pahoran mentioned his real name in publication. I emailed Dan Peterson and everyone at FARMS and requested that this be edited out. Apparently they decided against it. Why?

JP Holding is a pseudonym. His real name was made known to the web because of his arch nemesis, Farrell Till, the athiest from infidels.org. He had privately investigatd JP and even harrassed his wife with phone calls. After they changed their number he found out again so they had to cut off their phone entirely. I know because I used to call him.

But the point here is that Pahioran knew JP wanted to keep his name hidden, yet decided to reveal it anyway. Why? What purpose was there in this? JP publishes himslf as JP Holding, so what good was done by mentioning Robert Turkel? Just to be a prick.

FTR, the reason JP uses a fake name is because he worked in the prison system as a librarian. Apparently some inmates wanted to find him after they got out.

I informed Pahoran of this information but he decided that he either 1) didn't buy it or 2) didn't care.

So now he is complaining because Scratch uses his real name, which he himself publishes under?

Wow.

I vote "2) he didn't care." And that's a pretty astonishing story, Kevin. You know, I felt a little bad after I learned that people were getting so upset about Pahoran's in real life name being on the blog. I immediately took it down, and thought that would be it, and then he showed up and started kicking up a stink. But I suspected there was more to what he was saying (and his behavior), and sure enough, there in the archives of ZLMB, is his hypocrisy, on full display.

But what you're describing goes way beyond simple "outing." I used to think that Pahoran was just ornery and mean, but what he did to JP Holding was downright evil.

[_asbestosman]

Am I the only one who thinks it's a bad idea not to edit out those in real life JP Holding even though Pahoran didn't do so? Doe JP Holding approve of giving out this information now that the damage has been done?

[_Kevin Graham]

Another interesting fact that I have never shared before is that I actually emailed Pahoran and asked him if he would be interested in joining in on a project I started that responded to JP Holding's book.

http://www.kevingraham.org/md.html

It involved LDS names like Ben McGuire, Bickmore, Hopkins, Barney and Ostler.

I only wanted him to review chapter six, which covered "Salvation."

Pahoran responded by declining the invitation. His reason was that he did not have access to the material needed to provide a thorough response to Holding's arguments. Yes, less than a year later FARMS offers him the chance to review the whole book, and he accepts.

What confused me wasn't his interest to write for FARMS. His initial claim was that he did not have access to the needed materials to respond to one measely chapter, yet here he was without required resources, tackling the entire book because FARMS asked him to. That confused me a tad.

But what totally confused me was the fact that in his FROB review he claims JP Holding offers the "same ole stuff" we have already seen from other anti-Mormons. But this is belied by the fact that Holding's chapter six was so intricate and scholarly that Pahoran didn't feel like he could adequately respond to it given his lack of resources in Australia!

You see, FARMS reviews have a particular style. You don't really need any research material to do a FARMS review. All you need is a talent in rhetoric, and that is precisely what he provided in the FROB.