How about an Alaskan Cruise with Dr. Peterson?

[_Dr. Shades]

Yup. It seems clear that BYU has paid for your family to have a "gay ol' time" on the nickel and dime of LDS tithe payers.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT--I really mean it--in light of the post by DCP just above yours, I feel compelled to ask: A) are your questions being asked in good faith, B) are you having some fun at Daniel Peterson's expense, or C) are you trying to hound him off the board?

Feel free to answer honestly. I guarantee that I won't go MA&D on you.

[_Mister Scratch]

Yup. It seems clear that BYU has paid for your family to have a "gay ol' time" on the nickel and dime of LDS tithe payers.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT--I really mean it--in light of the post by DCP just above yours, I feel compelled to ask: A) are your questions being asked in good faith, B) are you having some fun at Daniel Peterson's expense, or C) are you trying to hound him off the board?

Feel free to answer honestly. I guarantee that I won't go MA&D on you.

Come now, Dr. Shades: "C" is against the rules, and thus I would never do such a thing!

I suppose my answer would have to be a combination of A & B. On the one hand, I feel confident that DCP is using equivocation and sophistry in order to try and create the impression that he never "profits" from Mopologetics. On the other hand, I'm sure that many of his travels are completely legit from an academic and professional standpoint.

Finally: Harmony is right! I sure would like to be jet-setting all over the place, checking out the Hermitage and the Louvre, and whatever else! Plus, I'd love it if BYU, or FARMS, or whoever else was picking up the tab!

[_solomarineris]

What does lecturing on a Baltic cruise have to do with apologetics? How is taking my children to Paris at my own expense (and to my old mission areas in the Swiss Alps, and to the concentration camp in Austria that my father helped to liberate at the end of the Second World War) a venture in "paid ministry"? How is leading a tour of Israel and Jordan for a commercial travel company "apologetics"? How is directing an intensive Arabic language program in Jerusalem a "paid ministry"? How is it apologetics to participate in dialogues between western and Arab intellectuals in Spain and in Malta at the invitation and expense of a New York City foundation? How is lecturing at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, on their dime, anything remotely approaching a "paid ministry"?

And why, Ray, do I have to justify my life to you or to Scartch?

Really. I think I've had it with this place.

This is simply ridiculous.

If you really want to see my tax returns and my personal financial documents for the past ten or twenty years, sue me.

I've had enough, and more than enough, of this endless, absurd, intrusive, invasive Scartchoscopy. Seeing you join in it, Ray, is the last straw.

It would be a shame if you leave.

Dan,
I truly feel sorry for you.
Because you cannot free yourself from the scrutiny of Scratch, us, even worse, from your faith, your leaders and some degree your own family. This is not a fair price to pay but you are subdued for so long with a cognitive dissonance, you have no idea that you are spending your life in a 3sq foot cubicle, your every move being carefully watched by everybody.
I honestly don't know if you can ever wake up from this stupor and regain your independence.
I wish you luck Dan.

[_Ray A]

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT--I really mean it--in light of the post by DCP just above yours, I feel compelled to ask: A) are your questions being asked in good faith, B) are you having some fun at Daniel Peterson's expense, or C) are you trying to hound him off the board?

Feel free to answer honestly. I guarantee that I won't go MA&D on you.

Mister Scratch has already replied, but I'd like to add my 2 cents. Obviously Dr. Shades would be concerned about anyone leaving the board (I'd feel the same way if I owned the board), and DCP is obviously "big fish" on any board. Dan has correctly pointed out Scratch's "two year campaign", but I'd suggest that one of the reasons it has gone on so long is because, for some reason, he can't but take Mister Scratch seriously. He has dispensed with other critics at the flick of his hand, but Scratch remains a thorn in the flesh for him. Why, I don't know. Scratch isn't the first one to make these charges. Infymus did it long ago.

I spent a year (must be, at least) criticising Mister Scratch, but I reached a point where I concluded it wasn't worth the effort any longer. So rather than continuing on this course, I wanted to understand Scratch better. I haven't escaped Scratch's scrutiny and criticism, but I think the old scriptural adage is true, "there's a time for war, and a time for peace". The time for war was over, as far as I was concerned. If Dan feels that MDB is a "blip in cyberspace", and Scratch is a "non-entity" posting on that blip, then his excessive attention to Scratch doesn't correlate with that perception of cyber-irrevelance.

I've been critical of Brent (Metcalfe) on boards as well, and on FAIR I've defended Dan Vogel when Dan and Bill (Hamblin) had run-ins with him, and when Schryver called him (Vogel) an "anti-Mormon". I've also questioned Dan on Simon Southerton's excommunication, and why the Church did this "retrospectively" (Southerton was inactive for years, but the Church never acted until he started speaking out). Yet, I've never been a "disciple" of Southerton, nor have I agreed with some of his points of view.

Am I biased? Of course. Because I don't believe the Book of Mormon is historical, and I think those who promote it as such are doing a disservice to the facts we have at hand, especially the glaring anachronisms that even Blind Freddy can see. So I'm not supportive of an apologetic arm that reinforces this idea by only presenting "evidences in favour", and neglecting evidences to the contrary, or rather, "answering" them with faith-boosting apologetics only.

I think the Church could well learn a lesson or two from the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganised Church), who have rejected polygamy. That they deny (some at least) that Joseph ever engaged in polygamy, is just another symptom of believing what suits your religious fantasy.

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read another boring ad....

[_Mister Scratch]

Dan, I'm going to be a little blunt here, in the name of political correctness, but I think you should stop referring to Mister Scratch as "Scartch". Polemics have a use-by date, and this sort of thing does nothing positive for you. In fact, it looks a bit ridiculous, and infantile.

I don't really care, Ray.

What he's been doing to me for the past 2+ years is wholly unreasonable and unjust. Yet he continues to do it, and evidently with the approval, explicit or implicit, of many here.

What you have been doing to critics of the Church for 20+ years is "wholly unreasonable and unjust." And yet, you continue to do it.

I've been far more civil to him than he deserves, and have been far more forthcoming with information than he has had any right to expect.

Yes, that was a really poor tactical move on your part.

Yet the end result, completely predictable, is that I'm supposedly revealed every time as an unscrupulous profiteering mopologist hack, etc.

It's simply ridiculous. And anybody who doesn't see that it's ridiculous just isn't worth my attention any longer.

Do you recall the anecdote you told in your talk "Humble Apologetics," in which you described "bashing" with a (If I recall correctly) Jehovah's Witness? What did you learn from that encounter, Professor Peterson?

I know what *I* learned.

[_harmony]

I think Scratch is like a mosquito. Eventually you either squirt it with Raid or you give up and go inside. I'm afraid Daniel is giving up and going inside.

[_Mister Scratch]

I think Scratch is like a mosquito. Eventually you either squirt it with Raid or you give up and go inside. I'm afraid Daniel is giving up and going inside.

What, you mean he's not going to engage in Mopologetics any more?

[_Ray A]

I'm kind of even questioning the idea of "humble apologetics". Would it have made any difference if the Pope had been "humble" in having Galileo house-arrested? And how would the Inquisition have "humbly" burned Giordano Bruno at the stake?

[_Mister Scratch]

I'm kind of even questioning the idea of "humble apologetics". Would it have made any difference if the Pope had been "humble" in having Galileo house-arrested? And how would the Inquisition have "humbly" burned Giordano Bruno at the stake?

You are 100% right, Ray. A genuinely "humble" apologetics would involve concessions and apologies. But how often do Mopologists---and especially DCP---ever do this?

[_Ray A]

I think it may come back to Seth's "Diax's rake". The issue here isn't so much "personal integrity", but whether reasonable people can continue to sustain questionable literalist apologetics.