Novak's Rule

[Guest]

DCP: Blah, blah, blah.....

Pokatator, apprentice Scratch, inserts fingers firmly into ears and loudly hums his favorite boy-band tune.

Then, assuming the role of defensor fidei, he attempts a rather feeble apologetic for the master:

My point is you are as obsessed with Scratch as he is with you.

As demonstrated, say, by the fact that I've started roughly 0.001% as many threads about him as he has about me?

Blaming the victim, eh, Pokatator Scratch cand.? The old French saying Cet animal est très méchant; quand on l'attaque, il se défend always comes to mind in such cases: "This animal is very wicked; if you attack it, it defends itself."

Come on. Discuss the opening post. Show us how it's to be done.

[_Pokatator]

DCP: Blah, blah, blah.....

Pokatator, apprentice Scratch, inserts fingers firmly into ears and loudly hums his favorite boy-band tune.

Then, assuming the role of defensor fidei, he attempts a rather feeble apologetic for the master:

My point is you are as obsessed with Scratch as he is with you.

As demonstrated, say, by the fact that I've started roughly 0.001% as many threads about him as he has about me?

Then he must be in control here and you must be his monkey on a chain.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Then he must be in control here and you must be his monkey on a chain.

Another clear attempt at distracting from the opening post, and yet another watershed moment in the history of Scratcholepsy.

X launches 100 message board threads attacking Y. Y launches no message board threads attacking X, but does sometimes respond to X's specific allegations against Y, contradicting them. Thus, X and Y are equally responsible, and Y is X's monkey on a chain.

Welcome to Scratchworld.

[_Mister Scratch]

An excellent and important post, Dr. Robbers. Gary Novak is an interesting figure in the world of Mopologetics. He was spurned by Lavina Fielding Anderson, and was subsequently tossed a bone by FARMS, and he has been their lapdog ever since. But, it seems to me, his bitterness never subsided. He is still very, very angry at the "anti-Mormons," and indeed this is very much an impotent rage, since the best he can do to combat the criticism is to level silly insults such as "Ha ha, you're dumb!"

And of course DCP supports this stuff. SHIELDS exists precisely so there is an outlet for the fundamentally juvenile basis of Mopologetics as it is practiced by DCP & co. FARMS, as many have observed, is the "front"---it is relatively nice and shiny and it offers up the patina of respectability. If the Brethren and BYU administrators were ever to wise up and boot out DCP, Hamblin, and Midgley, and to replace them with the likes of Terryl Givens and Richard Bushman, then I suspect that we'd finally start to see a useful, honest, and genuinely "humble" apologetics.

[_Daniel Peterson]

An excellent and important post, Dr. Robbers.

I'm a prophet.

(See above.)

Gary Novak is an interesting figure in the world of Mopologetics. He was spurned by Lavina Fielding Anderson, and was subsequently tossed a bone by FARMS, and he has been their lapdog ever since.

?????

This is news to me. Did he propose marriage to her, or something?

But, it seems to me, his bitterness never subsided. He is still very, very angry at the "anti-Mormons," and indeed this is very much an impotent rage, since the best he can do to combat the criticism is to level silly insults such as "Ha ha, you're dumb!"

Here are links to articles and reviews that Gary Novak has published with FARMS or the Maxwell Institute. Serious readers with reasonable minds will quickly be able to discern whether, in them, Mr. Novak is able to muster anything above "silly insults such as 'Ha ha, you're dumb!'" and whether they were written in a state of "angry, bitter, impotent rage":

http://farms.BYU.edu/authors/?authorID=221

And of course DCP supports this stuff.

Of course!

With apologies to the prophet Amos: "Shall there be evil in a city, and Peterson hath not done it?"

SHIELDS exists precisely so there is an outlet for the fundamentally juvenile basis of Mopologetics as it is practiced by DCP & co.

Actually, as even a cursory examination of the SHIELDS site will demonstrate, it seems to serve largely to publish apologetic essays generated by its own people and to provide an on-line archive of materials, mostly historical publications, that its management possesses and thinks important:

http://www.shields-research.org/

[_Pokatator]

Then he must be in control here and you must be his monkey on a chain.

Another clear attempt at distracting from the opening post, and yet another watershed moment in the history of Scratcholepsy.

X launches 100 message board threads attacking Y. Y launches no message board threads attacking X, but does sometimes respond to X's specific allegations against Y, contradicting them. Thus, X and Y are equally responsible, and Y is X's monkey on a chain.

Welcome to Scratchworld.

DCP the only mention of Scratch in the OP was that a previous thread by him got Gad thinking. The thread was not about Scratch but the very next post is by you addressing Scratch and Gad and all the disciples. You are such a victim here. You don't start threads you distract from them. You are just noise. I am not sure why Scratch bothers with you you are aren't worth it. But you play the game. Two to Tango.

So go ahead and play your X, Y and Z games and maybe add some ABCs if you like. Since you aren't the scissors grinder just go on being the monkey.

[_Mister Scratch]

An excellent and important post, Dr. Robbers.

I'm a prophet.

(See above.)

Sometimes I rather generously feel like obliging your Victim Complex, and your sense of self-importance. Your calling as a bishop has to be useful for something, right?

Gary Novak is an interesting figure in the world of Mopologetics. He was spurned by Lavina Fielding Anderson, and was subsequently tossed a bone by FARMS, and he has been their lapdog ever since.

?????

This is news to me. Did he propose marriage to her, or something?

Nope. Check it out:

In May 1986, I delivered a paper at the meetings of the Mormon History Association titled "The Function of Naturalistic Terms in Environmental Explanations of the Book of Mormon." After the session, Lavina Fielding Anderson, then associate editor for Dialogue, requested that I submit the paper for publication, which I did. To make a long story short, for the next two years, Dialogue stalled and delayed publication. The most interesting comments came from the "blind referees." Although the paper had been delivered to them without an author's name, one came back with my name pencilled in at the top. One of the comment sheets referred to me by name. After the two years without a commitment to publish, I finally gave up on publishing the essay in Dialogue.17

And here's the endnote (note Novak's hubris in thinking that anyone would give a toss about this saved correspondence):

17. I have, of course, saved all the correspondence from this small adventure and will no doubt make all of the materials available to a university archive sometime in the future.

Just think: Someday someone will be able to walk into BYU and request the "Novak Collection"! Or, will this be stashed in the First Presidency's vault?

Serious readers with reasonable minds will quickly be able to discern whether, in them, Mr. Novak is able to muster anything above "silly insults such as 'Ha ha, you're dumb!'" and whether they were written in a state of "angry, bitter, impotent rage"

See the above quotes. Also check out his "Best of the Anti-Mormon Web" feature on SHIELDS. I think that the latter gives a pretty solid insight into the kind of person Bro. Novak is.

And of course DCP supports this stuff.

Of course!

You said you did, by implication, in your response to Lehi Cranston's criticism.

SHIELDS exists precisely so there is an outlet for the fundamentally juvenile basis of Mopologetics as it is practiced by DCP & co.

Actually, as even a cursory examination of the SHIELDS site will demonstrate, it seems to serve largely to publish apologetic essays generated by its own people and to provide an on-line archive of materials, mostly historical publications, that its management possesses and thinks important:

http://www.shields-research.org/

It's good to know that SHIELDS (and you?) find the "Critics Corner," and J. Tvedtnes's "spoofs" and Novak's "Best of the Anti-Mormon Web," and your l-skinny correspondence to be "important."

[_Daniel Peterson]

DCP the only mention of Scratch in the OP was that a previous thread by him got Gad thinking. The thread was not about Scratch but the very next post is by you addressing Scratch and Gad and all the disciples.

It's difficult to distinguish the Scratches.

They all draw on the same McCarthyite quad, as it were, for their inspiration and method.

Gadianton Scratch, it's true, expresses far more personal affection for Mister Scratch than Rollo Tomasi Scratch does -- in this context, I love the title of Bernard Goldberg's new book about the media's infatuation with Barack Obama, A Slobbery Love Affair -- and Kishkumen Scratch appears, for the moment, to have gone into occultation, but on the subject of the titanic, monolithic evils of "Mopologetics" and my disreputable role in all of alleged wicked deeds of darkness, I don't think there's any daylight between them. Their posts could all have been (and, in at least one case, I suspect possibly were) written by single rather obsessive mind -- one that sometimes likes to post maudlin endorsements of its own recent posting.

You are such a victim here.

Yup.

You don't start threads you distract from them. You are just noise.

If you want to post something substantial, please do so. I'm not stopping you.

If you can find something worth discussing in the opening post of this thread, go ahead and do it. You've had several opportunities already, but you haven't availed yourself of them. You'd rather whine about my supposed lack of substance.

Have you ever posted anything substantial? If you have, I apologize for having missed it.

I would be pleased to be convinced that you don't belong down in the bottom tier of MDB posters that includes collegeterrace/PP, Some Schmo, solomarineris, poor antishock8, Mercury, and a few others.

I am not sure why Scratch bothers with you you are aren't worth it.

LOL. I don't think the prospects of your being admitted into the Scratchite cult were ever very good, but that comment certainly hasn't helped them. If you don't accept the central dogma of Scratchism, that I'm the slimy fount of all evil in the wicked world of "Mopologetics," it's not even clear why you would want to join.

So go ahead and play your X, Y and Z games and maybe add some ABCs if you like. Since you aren't the scissors grinder just go on being the monkey.

Back to the boy-band tune.

That's probably for the best.

[_Gadianton]

DCP the only mention of Scratch in the OP was that a previous thread by him got Gad thinking.

This is true, this thread was not meant to be a thread about Mister Scratch, or Dr. Peterson for that matter. Peterson's quote was used because of his authority status as an apologist. This thread brings into question all apologists who try very hard to make it sound like they aren't being dismissive or insulting by lumping anyone who has uttered a criticism of the Church into one monolithic category of "anti-Mormon", "anti-Mormons" being the dumbest people on the planet, according to the apologists.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The apologists, according to the Scratches, being a monolith. If one apologist makes a joke, all apologists know of it, endorse it, and take it very, very seriously.

It's all part of their fiendish secret plan.