DCP "Jokes" Yet Again About His Wealth

[_Daniel Peterson]

Equivocation once again, Professor Peterson. Not very nice! Not very honest!

I'm sure there's something sinister here, and you're just the one to find it.

The fact is that the Maxwell Institute makes some money from its books, and I call profits from books "royalties."

If this is true, then one would have to assume that the MI carefully and strategically calculates which books will best help to increase its profit margin. Would you say that's the case?

No.

The Maxwell Institute is a non-profit organization, and, while it has to meet its expenses, it can do so from a combination of royalties (or, if you prefer, book profits) and donations and etc. The fact that it is not ultimately market-driven allows it to devote its resources to projects that it deems academically important though unlikely to be profitable (e.g., Royal Skousen's fifteen-plus-year critical text project).

No, of course you don't. Secrecy is the order of the day. (As usual.)

You actually seem to imagine that you have a right to know the details of my personal finances. I disagree on that, I'm afraid, and I expect that the overwhelming majority of normal people (e.g., not on this board) would agree with me rather than you on that point.

As for the Church's and the University's finances, you may like their policy of not disclosing details or not, but I didn't set it and I'm not inclined to violate it.

Why don't you invite him over? Oh, wait---that's right. You are terrified that he might stumble upon all this evidence against you.

ROTFL. Right. That's it.

[_antishock8]

Ok. Maybe I'm missing something, but this BYU professor of blah blah blah's BYU webpage is filled with apologetic material, is an editor for the MI, which lists, as its first bullet "Describe and defend the Restoration through highest quality scholarship.", and is a FARMS reviewer and editor.

And he's not a paid apologist? C'mon, now. The sky isn't blue, the grass isn't green, and fat men don't like donuts. C'mon, now.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Ok. Maybe I'm missing something

Yes, you're missing something, and it's the same thing that you've been missing (and that I've been pointing out) from the first time you launched this particular attack:

The list of my FARMS publications to which you refer is a list of my FARMS publications, and does not list my non-FARMS publications. Accordingly, to look at a list of FARMS publications and announce, triumphantly, that it contains not a single non-FARMS publication, is very much like conducting a careful survey of 100,000 bachelors and then revealing with breathless excitement that there isn't a single married man among them, or like casting a net with a six-inch mesh over the side of your boat and, after a reasonable length of time, pulling it back in, inspecting the contents, and declaring that the lake contains no fish smaller than 6".

You might also notice that the list of my FARMS publications to which you continually refer doesn't list things that I've edited, but only things that I've written. Thus, my work in editing the FARMS Review shows up only obliquely, when my "Editor's Introductions" (which I've contributed to most, but not quite all, numbers of the Review) are listed. Thus too, my work in founding and directing the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative goes unmentioned in the list of my FARMS publications. And yet, if you were to actually look at any of the fourteen bilingual books produced thus far by the Middle Eastern Texts Initative (you can order them from the University of Chicago Press, if you're interested), you would find my name on them as editor-in-chief.

Here's a little mental exercise for you: On the second page of this thread, incidental to a discussion of my allegedly suspicious, luxurious, and lavish travel history, I passingly mentioned a couple of my Islam-related publications. I supplied their full bibliographical data, and their existence can thus be verified. You (or someone more fair-minded than you, perhaps) might want to examine the list of my FARMS publications to which you constantly refer and check to see whether those two Islam-related publications are mentioned on it. Then, when that question has been answered, you (or that more fair-minded person) might want to consider the implications of what you (or that more fair-minded person) have found for the question of whether the list of my FARMS publications is an exhaustive list of all of my publications.

Here's another little mental exercise: I just received in the mail yesterday a copy of a new book -- Jane Marie Law and Vanessa R. Sasson, eds., Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) -- which contains an essay that I wrote about legends regarding the period between the conception and birth of Muhammad. Watch the list of my FARMS publications over the next month or two. Check to see whether this Oxford publication ever shows up on the list of my publications with FARMS. After a reasonable interval has passed, reflect on the significance of what you (or a fairer-minded person) have discovered in that respect for the issue of whether or not the list of my FARMS publications is a list of all of my publications.

Finally, by the way, I agree with the characterization of socialism that appears in your signature line. I'm an economic libertarian.

[_antishock8]

Look, Sir, you like apples? I'm not the one with a profile at my employer's website that says I do apologia, even though I have a completely different job description. How do you like them apples?

Here's the bottom line:

1) You are employed by the Mormon church via BYU.

2) You do A LOT of Mormon apologia.

3) You do A LOT of other stuff for BYU.

4) You do some freelance stuff, too.

No one is saying that you don't do #3. What you refuse to acknowledge, even though its RIGHT THERE ON BYU'S WEBSITE under YOUR profile, is that you are paid to do #2 & #3. Granted, you claim you could stop doing #2, but that ain't happening. Why you insist on claiming that you only do #3 & #4, but #2 is just a hobby, not a part of your professional responsibilities, is strange. It's more than strange. It's lying.

Post your CV that covers, say, the last ten years. That would end this discussion one way or another.

[_cinepro]

A royalty is a profit on the sale of a book or work of art or music. The Maxwell Institute publishes books. It sells these books. It sells these books for money.

The books cost money to produce, but they are often sold for a wee bit more money than they cost to produce. The difference is the royalty. The Maxwell Institute uses these royalties to fund its operations.

Its operations cost money. Its people work in buildings. These buildings cost money. They have heat and air conditioning and lights. Heat and air conditioning and lights cost money. Also, books cost money to produce. Books must be edited. They must be printed on paper. Printing costs money. Ink costs money. Paper costs money. The Maxwell Institute must pay for these things. The Maxwell Institute also funds research and publication projects, gives out scholarships, and sponsors conferences. Scholarships, too, involve money. Conferences sometimes cost money, too.

Ya know, if you put that to music, it could be on Schoolhouse Rock

[_Daniel Peterson]

Look, Sir, you like apples? I'm not the one with a profile at my employer's website that says I do apologia, even though I have a completely different job description. How do you like them apples?

There's no question that I do apologetics. That's not at issue.

Here's the bottom line:

1) You are employed by the Mormon church via BYU.

So is my non-Mormon French professor friend and colleague.

2) You do A LOT of Mormon apologia.

That's true, and not in dispute.

3) You do A LOT of other stuff for BYU.

4) You do some freelance stuff, too.

No one is saying that you don't do #3. What you refuse to acknowledge, even though its RIGHT THERE ON BYU'S WEBSITE under YOUR profile, is that you are paid to do #2 & #3. Granted, you claim you could stop doing #2, but that ain't happening. Why you insist on claiming that you only do #3 & #4, but #2 is just a hobby, not a part of your professional responsibilities, is strange. It's more than strange. It's lying.

Freddie does a, b, and c.

He's paid.

He says that he's paid for a.

But he also does b and c. Which proves that he's paid for b and c, and that he's lying about it.

A watershed moment in the history of logic.

Post your CV that covers, say, the last ten years. That would end this discussion one way or another.

No it wouldn't.

You already know that I'm a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic. You already know about those two Islam-related articles mentioned previously on this thread. (There are many more, but they make my point.) You already know about the chapter on Muhammad in the brand-new book from Oxford University Press. You already know about my 2007 biography of Muhammad (which you say you despise). You know about the fourteen dual-language books published thus far in the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, which I founded, which I direct, and which I edit. Yet you persist in pretending that I'm really just a Mormon apologist who doesn't do much Islam-related work. If twenty-three years of teaching Arabic, Arabic literature, Middle Eastern history, Islamic philosophy, Islamic humanities, and the like, accompanied by fifteen books on Islam and three articles on Islam, won't change your mind, adding some more articles into the mix isn't likely to make much of a difference. But if a fair-minded person happens to run across this message board and reads this thread, he or she will easily know what to make of things.

[_The Nehor]

I have to conclude that BYU cloned you and set your clone to doing Islamic texts so you could do your 'REAL' job with more time on your hands. It's the only conclusion that fits both the facts and Scratch's theories/guesses/delusions.

I demand that you post a photo of you and your clone and delineate which of you does what complete with financial forms or I will conclude my theory is correct.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, antithought8, were you aware that, late last year, I was named the 2007 Utah Academy Fellow and a lifetime member of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters?

Now, you may be impressed or, more likely, unimpressed. I'm fine with either. (I don't place that much stock in it myself.) But I can guarantee you that my efforts in Mormon apologetics had not the slightest thing to do with that designation. Many if not most of the people involved in my selection are either non-LDS or effectively non-LDS, and are based, not at BYU, but at the University of Utah, Weber State, Utah State, Southern Utah University, and etc.

[_The Nehor]

Incidentally, antithought8, were you aware that, late last year, I was named the 2007 Utah Academy Fellow and a lifetime member of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters?

Now, you may be impressed or, more likely, unimpressed. I'm fine with either. (I don't place that much stock in it myself.) But I can guarantee you that my efforts in Mormon apologetics had not the slightest thing to do with that designation. Many if not most of the people involved in my selection are either non-LDS or effectively non-LDS, and are based, not at BYU, but at the University of Utah, Weber State, Utah State, Southern Utah University, and etc.

Come now Prof P. You surely bought them off with your secret exorbitant Apologetics salary earmarked for that purpose to maintain your cover. You're not fooling anyone.

[_Brackite]

I really wish that I had enough money to fly and travel as about much as DCP does. I love to fly and travel. I am hoping that maybe someday, DCP can take the Brackite flying and/or traveling with Him sometime.