by
Gadianton P. Robbers, Phd
Chapter 3
The Insult
On January 8 of 2009, Dr. Peterson posted a "call for papers", advertising the upcoming SMPT conference. The link to this thread can be found in chapter two. Within the first hour of his thread's lifetime, only a couple brief comments were made, one by Cinepro, and a couple by California Kid, who showed a great deal of interest. Possibly, due to the lack of any "attacks" on apologetics, Doctor Peterson became frustrated, and opted to reveal his true interest in posting the thread,
I'm hoping, personally, for papers from collegeterrace/PP, Some Schmo, solomarineris, poor antishock8, and/or TAK.
I think this board deserves the kind of strong representation that they can provide.
Out of nowhere comes the sarcasm and hostility, or rather, the magnificent "sense of humor" the apologists speak of fondly. Much like the scene from Titanic where Cal invites Jack to a nice dinner in order to ridicule his lack of culture and education, DCP expresses phony interest in having people from this forum that he thinks are stupid submit papers to an organization far enough above them intellectually, that they'd look like fools even trying. Note that, none of these critics had posted a single word in this thread. It was as if DCP hadn't got the negative response that he was looking for, so he would up the ante. I wonder what Jersey Girl, Liz, and the "DCP is a victim" promoters think of this? Was there any reason at all for DCP to hurl out an insult at people who hadn't even participated or possibly even seen the thread? Moreover, was it fair to the SMPT for DCP to use their organization as a tool to settle a personal score?
It was only after this hit below the belt that Solaromis and then Doctor Scratch responded with any digs at Mopologetics. To Doctor Scratch's satirical proposal on the underhandedness of the apologists, DCP inflates the hostile rhetoric exponentially,
If you're nervous about proposing your paper to a group of academics focused on philosophy and theology -- which is probably appropriate, since your sketchy "proposal" seems to deal, rather, primarily in history, psychology, or, even just malicious gossip -- you might still consider the annual Sunstone symposium as a venue. Although it would be a longer drive for you, its standards are lower and, on the whole, its audience would be much more interested in and sympathetic toward your accusations. And I wouldn't be there to reply.
Whoah! Liz and Jersey Girl, how called for was that attack on Sunstone? Doctor Scratch isn't even remotely connected to Sunstone. There was no reason for him to cut down Sunstone like this. Don Bradley and others whom many of the apologists respect for their etiquette present at Sunstone. And again, the "Invite the rube to dinner in First Class to embarrass him" motiff gains traction here. The quality of the SMPT is exaggerrated, and the education of the critics the butt of a joke.
Doctor Scratch and Doctor Peterson debated for a while. Joey thew in his 2 cents. Droopy, the self-annointed philosopher king, stopped by to throw a few punches. And, now, two days after the thread began, I made my first post. I asked Droopy if he'd be submitting a paper. My intent wasn't pure, no doubt, I was interested in whether Droopy in all his bragging about having studied philosophy for 20 or 30 years while putting down critics for being philosophically unserious would have the interest in joinging his peers in First Class. To that, Dr. Peterson inquired as to whether I'd be submitting a paper.
I replied,
Well, I don't know. I kind of feel like the invitation has been extended here in the spirit of, "Ha ha ha, let's see you guys try to get into 'the society'".
Given DCP's uncalled for invitation/attack on some of the posters at MDB, and given his highbrow dismissal of Dr. Scratch and insults of Sunstone, it seemed quite obvious that the real point of DCP's invitation was to invite the rubes to dinner in First Class, so to speak, believing they'd be way out of their depth and embarrassed in the presence of the formidable academics affiliated with the SMPT.
I must confess, that while I am drawing allusions to the scene from Titanic here, that this scene had not yet flashed in my mind. I tell you that because, if I did it, since you all want to know very badly whether you admit it or not why and how I did it, you should know at what point the various thoughts I had came to be within my brain.