MatthewG Stages an Ambush at MAD

[_Mister Scratch]

The aptly named MADboard has seemed a cheerier place as of late. With King Peterson safely ensconced in his well-padded throne, the amateur Mopologists have been stirred into what might be termed a jolly-having frenzy. Indeed, I have received some very interesting tips from my "informants." With Droopy, The Nehor, and The Good Professor all (foolishly) slinking back to the aptly named MADboard, I would imagine that we will in for some very tasty treats, as these hate-fueled apologists re-lower their guards and more fully reveal their true colors.

A case in point: a recent thread begun by the often embarrassing poster called MatthewG. Following in the wake of Dr. Peterson's call for stronger Mopologetic missionary efforts, MatthewG sent an invite to an "anti-Mormon" author named "Latayne." Well, Latayne naïvely accepted his offer, and she immediately found herself under assault as the bitterly angry, wound-licking Mopologists sunk their teeth into her.

MatthewG began the thread with the following provocative question/title: "Anyone know this Anti-Mormon/Author?, Met her on Twitter posting links..." And this was the OP:

latayne.com

I gave her the link to this website, maybe she'll register and discuss.

The first respondent was Dr. P.:

I've run across her before. She wrote for the BYU student newspaper when I was first an undergraduate at BYU.

I have her book The Mormon Mirage. It's not very good, but it's several cuts above the average evangelical anti-Mormon diatribe.

Before Latayne even has a chance to introduce herself, the rug is being pulled out from under her. MatthewG immediately reveals his ulterior motives in inviting this woman:

Shame. BYU newspaper to anti-mormon hate machine. Great career choice fool.gif

ttribe chimes right in:

Steve Benson went the same route...is there a pattern?

Next, Latayne herself materializes. Her response cannot be regarded with anything other than sympathy.

Well, here I am. I was invited on Twitter by you. Let's see, you had never heard of me and characterized me as

"Another bitter anti-mormon spewing hate! Gotta love you guys, you really have nothing better to do with your time..."

Then you alluded to my Website as full of "garbage."

Then you quoted Daniel Petersen when I asked you to look to see if other people who have read my books ever called me any such thing. (Just in case any of the rest of you would care to look at the reviews on latayne.com the one thing people say about me is that I am not bitter.)

I feel so welcome. Gee, don't know why I don't want to stick around here.

So much for any kind of missionary spirit! It seems, instead, that the Mopologists are now recruiting targets. DCP gets his butt handed to him here, so he retreats to the safe confines of MAD, where knobs like MatthewG "lure" innocents folks into the trap. And to think: MatthewG invited this woman. Here is how he responds to her post:

It is full of it. Nothing in the Anti-Mormon world is new or original, atleast since DNA testing, before that it's been 20 or 30 years since anything "new" and worth reading has appeared. It's all recycled, repackaged, and resold.

And yes you're welcome to stay and stick around. Maybe we can gain some "new" insight.

So... Why did he invite her? The answer is simple: he hoped the he and the other Mopologists could feel a giddy thrill over the gang-like pile-up on this Church critic. We have seen this behavior before on the skinny-l listserve.

Next, Latayne quickly bids the aptly named MADboard farewell:

Well, guess you better wait around to see the new edition of The Mormon Mirage, which will be out in a month. Maybe I'll want to come back and discuss it with you then. If not, you'll probably understand, after this hearty welcome, why I won't.

Praying, as always, for those of you who believe as I once fervently did.

Yours and His,
Latayne

MatthewG delivers a cheap shot:

A "New" edition? Why update and put a "new" edition? What's wrong with the old one?

Immediately afterwards, anti-Catholic PacMan shows up to stick in the dagger:

Oh, come now. Let us not get too defensive. The fun hasn't even started! [Heck, I haven't got banned yet. Isn't that evidence enough?]

So, I (and most others) know nothing about you. Were a once-mo, and now a no-mo turned EV, RCC, or agnostic/atheist?

[P.S. The title of your book, as snappy as it may sound, begs the question of delirium. I daresay that the premise of such a book opens your work up to all sorts of critique...and that's even before the first-page was read. If it's meant to be an editorial of sorts, then that's fine. So long as you don't expect people to look at it as academic. In other words, you are shooting yourself in the foot.]

Next, we can observe that Professor Peterson's signature arrogance has returned in full force:

My serenely confident guess is that whatever changes are made in the new edition won't fix the book's fundamental problems.

But we'll see!

Further along, MatthewG, who is showing himself to be a real charmer, further elaborates on his motives:

I guess had I been a bit more tactful we could have gotten more out of her. I had no idea who she was when I saw her Tweet on Twitter, just a jab at the church and a link to an anti-mormon site. Didn't think she'd end up here. Lesson learned.

"Get more out of her"? What, one wonders, does he mean by this?

Lightbearer also offers up a dismissal:

Don't worry, a small loss. After a quick inspection of her web site, it is as already sited an Anti-Mormon "hate-speak" site and I really love the references to Hitler and the Nazis (she would have been done in on a Godwin's law violation anyway!) As for her book the "Mormon Mirage" seems like I recall seeing a copy of it on my Mission (79-81) although I thought the Tanners were the authors but I may be mistaken. It was rather forgettable from what I remember of it.

Well, do you think that the MADites have had their fun with Ms. Scott? Let me ask you this: has there been an egregious, "uproarious" assault on her credentials and character yet? No? Then read on!

I just spent some time browsing through Latayne's resume...
starting at Trinity Southwest University, Albuquerque, New Mexico,
from which she received her PhD and where she is chair of the
"Department of Biblical Representational Research."

Then spend some time at

http://www.representationalresources.com/

What a fascinating world we live in!

This post really piqued the interest of Daniel "Let's Be Missionaries" Peterson. On a separate thread, Joey (If I recall correctly) stated that DCP seldom posted anything of substance. Indeed, when one asks him to supply specific examples, say, in support of Mopologitic semantic analysis of the word "magic," he demurs. But, when given the chance to smear a critic and to go after the critic's credentials, look at how the logorrhea flows forth:

Wow. We're entering the territory of "Dr." Walter Martin and "Dr." John Ankerberg and "Dr. Dr." John Weldon and "Dr. Dr." James White. There's a whole evangelical subculture of this sort of stuff. I discuss it in the last section ("Disarmed by Degrees") of an essay entitled "Constancy amid Change" that appeared in FARMS Review 8/2 (1996):

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/revie ... m=2&id=225

And here's a passage from an earlier essay ("Chattanooga Cheapshot, or The Gall of Bitterness," FARMS Review 5/1 [1993]) with one of its accompanying footnotes:

Some readers will recognize John Ankerberg as the silver-haired "Phil Donahue" of "Christian" television, star and impresario of a Chattanooga-based talk show that he frequently devotes to exposés of any and all religious viewpoints with which he disagrees.3 John Weldon is less well known, and his name appears on the cover in noticeably smaller print. He is currently employed as a "Senior Researcher" for Ankerberg's TV show, and one suspects that this book is substantially his, with the more marketable name of his boss appended for sales and ego purposes.4 (On the copyright page of Everything, we are told that "This text constitutes an expanded revision of chapter 50 of Dr. Weldon's unpublished 8,000 page 'Encyclopedia of American Cults and Religions.' ") At any rate, Weldon has more degrees than Ankerberg. He has a suspiciously large number of them, in fact—including two masters degrees, two doctorates, and some sort of religion degree from an unnamed law school (p. 14).5 However, a search of the Comprehensive Dissertation Index in the Brigham Young University library turned up no mention of Weldon, which appears to indicate that his doctorates were earned at the kind of institution that either (a) does not require a dissertation or (b) is not represented in the Comprehensive Dissertation Index. (Or, alternatively, that his dissertations were submitted prior to 1861.)6 And Weldon has been as prolific as a writer as he has been in collecting degrees. From 1975 to 1984, he either wrote or cowrote ten books—most of them dealing with occultism and the demonic—besides contributing to various magazines and to a guide to "cults."7 In 1986, he published Psychic Forces and Occult Shock.8 And, presumably, if his unpublished "Encyclopedia" really totals anything like 8,000 pages, the frenetic pace has continued. (What other books he may have published since 1986 I cannot say; the libraries to which I have access do not seem to assign a high priority to collecting his writing.)

6. Incidentally, a search for the late anti-Mormon luminary Walter Martin in the Comprehensive Dissertation Index failed to turn up any entries between the years 1861 and 1992. This is interesting in view of a small brochure that was recently sent to me by Ms. Clodette Woodhouse, a dedicated anti-Mormon located in Whittier, California. The pamphlet is entitled "Does Dr. Walter Martin Have a Genuine Earned Doctor's Degree?" and is published by Martin's own "Christian Research Institute." It makes a rather passionate case against the assertion of Robert L. Brown and Rosemary Brown, They Lie in Wait to Deceive, vol. 3 (Mesa, AZ: Brownsworth, 1986), that Martin's doctoral degree is suspect. "Dr. Martin completed all his graduate studies at New York University," says the brochure, "and simply submitted his thesis at [California Western University or, alternatively, California Coast University]." But, to repeat, no such thesis or dissertation is listed with the Comprehensive Dissertation Index. Furthermore, the brochure runs aground on yet another point: Speaking of "facts which are not disputed concerning Walter Ralston Martin," the brochure features the claim that "he is an ordained Baptist minister and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention." However, on pp. 1-18 of their book the Browns dispute precisely those two "facts."

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/revie ... m=1&id=112

I wonder whether Latayne Scott has a dissertation listed in the Comprehensive Dissertation Index.

My educated guess, based upon considerable experience with this somewhat weird aspect of contemporary fundamentalist Protestantism is No, although I could be wrong. Perhaps, if I get around to it, I'll look.

On the first of James White's alleged doctorates, see

http://www.shields-research.org/Novak/james.htm

and

http://www.shields-research.org/Novak/james2.htm

(Incidentally, for the record, there's absolutely nothing wrong with not having a doctorate; some of the brightest people I know don't have one, while some genuine idiots do. Still, degree mills and bogus, unaccredited Ph.D.s do tend to attract my unfavorable attention.)

I find all of this quite distasteful---disgusting, even. She was "invited," after all, as JSFuller points out:

Hey People. She was invited. Take it easy on her. If you can't be civil don't invite her.

And DCP agrees (after the fact, unfortunately):

I echo the calls for civility, and don't believe in "trashing" Ms. Scott. She's presumably a decent person who sincerely believes what she believes.

This is all very interesting, of course. I knew (obviously) that the aptly named MADboard was a bad place, but this was a new one for me---inviting people to join in the discussion so that they can be egregiously attacked, smeared, and "trashed."

[_cinepro]

That board is having a serious identity crisis if they are banning people like The Dude on the one hand, and inviting published anti-Mormons to participate on the other.

[_Gadianton]

Incredible. What better way could there be to finish off my day of rest, than with a fresh article from Mister Scratch? A masterful synopsis of this recent shameful display by the apologists.

Well, Latayne naïvely accepted his offer, and she immediately found herself under assault as the bitterly angry, wound-licking Mopologists sunk their teeth into her.

I think you really hit the nail on the head here, my friend. Remember how Midgley recently admitted in The Review that he began his path as an apologist by getting creamed by a minister in a debate? Well, these bruised and injured souls it appears are going to quench their cankerous thirst for vengeance by doing to others what they feel has been done to them.

It's pretty predictable, unfortunately. They lure their prey into their midst and the biting and clawing ensues promptly. Then when the prey struggles and breaks free, they mime karate moves and pelvic thrusts and jeer stuff like, "Hey, why didn't you stick around to get some of this!".

Finally, with adrenaline waning and the damage already done, someone blurts out, "C'mon guys, let's be nice." And some of the crowd followers like DCP, "echo" that call to "cool down".

Big thumbs up guys. Online apologetics is turning a new leaf --- apologetic missionary effort in action.

[_Dr. Shades]

It was rather forgettable from what I remember of it.

Didn't he just contradict himself?

I find it interesting that MA&D has banned so many critics that it now has to recruit them, as Mister Scratch pointed out.

If anyone still has an active account at MA&D, would one of you brave souls kindly send MatthewG an invitation, and a link, to this site? If he's itching so badly to sink his teeth into a critic, then he'll find a veritable smorgasbord here.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I echo the calls for civility, and don't believe in "trashing" Ms. Scott. She's presumably a decent person who sincerely believes what she believes.

Does Dr. Peterson just not notice that this goes against everything he had already said in that thread?

[_antishock8]

Truth be said, it's not like the luminaries at MAD are invited to post here to engage in polite conversation. I think in your own way you "invite" Mr. Peterson and his ilk here with your insights and observations about their Mopologetic behavior. :D Once lured into a discussion they're quickly set upon by hostile posters who have little regard for their shennanigans. It's awesome they can't help themselves, though. The thorough drubbing their Mopologia receives is a beautiful thing. From boorish Mopologetic behavior to outlandish interpretations of Mayan glyphs... Mormon apologists are exposed as passive-aggressive peddlers of hate and disinformation. The relentless desire on their part to destroy the reputations and careers of honest historians, and critics, is Scientologian at heart. What a scary little cabal of character assassins the Mormon church has put together with FARMS, the MI, and FAIR.

[_The Nehor]

Why does everyone seem to think I left with DCP?

[_EAllusion]

That board is having a serious identity crisis if they are banning people like The Dude on the one hand, and inviting published anti-Mormons to participate on the other.

They like to have critics. Not to say this is a preplanned thing, but they just want critics they can best routinely. Ideally, they'll get critics who will praise them for their intellect and the reasonableness of their views. In short, the ideal "critic" is someone like David Waltz. They're also looking for punching bags and walking strawmen to comfirm the stupidity of criticism of the LDS faith to them. But they burn through those, not reuse them. To that end, sectarian evangelical criticism of the Mormon faith provides a much, much stronger chance for that than the secular critics do.

Someone like The Dude is a serious problem. He used to be able to avoid being banned because he was 1) extremely civil and 2) didn't get people like DCP to announce he's "tired" of him. But he still could run circles around them on some key issues because he's a bright, well-educated person and their general apologetics are fundamentally really bad because they are defending indefensible things. Obviously many of the posters/mods don't see the situation as the Dude poking holes in their arguments. Instead, the Dude is just really frustrating. And that's a dangerous thing to be on a board run by obtuse people given to Orwellian habits.

[_harmony]

That board is having a serious identity crisis if they are banning people like The Dude on the one hand, and inviting published anti-Mormons to participate on the other.

They like to have critics. Not to say this is a preplanned thing, but they just want critics they can best routinely. Ideally, they'll get critics who will praise them for their intellect and the reasonableness of their views. In short, the ideal "critic" is someone like David Waltz. They're also looking for punching bags and walking strawmen to comfirm the stupidity of criticism of the LDS faith to them. But they burn through those, not reuse them. To that end, sectarian evangelical criticism of the Mormon faith provides a much, much stronger chance for that than the secular critics do.

Someone like The Dude is a serious problem. He used to be able to avoid being banned because he was 1) extremely civil and 2) didn't get people like DCP to announce he's "tired" of him. But he still could run circles around them on some key issues because he's a bright, well-educated person and their general apologetics are fundamentally really bad because they are defending indefensible things. Obviously many of the posters/mods don't see the situation as the Dude poking holes in their arguments. Instead, the Dude is just really frustrating. And that's a dangerous thing to be on a board run by obtuse people given to Orwellian habits.

If all the critics on MAD were Evangelical, the LDS apologists would be in seventh heaven. However, MAD is not the real world. In the real world, the church is losing the battle and gradually losing ground from the sectarian critics. Evangelicals try to poke holes in Mormon thought. Sectarians want to burn it down.

[_moksha]

Truth be said, it's not like the luminaries at MAD are invited to post here to engage in polite conversation.

I thought Shades invited Dr. Peterson back.

What a scary little cabal of character assassins the Mormon church has put together with FARMS, the MI, and FAIR.

Hey, we resemble that remark and the majority are not Mormons!!!