Kevin Graham Resorts to Intimidation Tactics

[_Kishkumen]

You know, it is my experience when Kevin says that a particular person is a proven liar, he usually has a decent reason for saying so. For example, Kevin has accused John Gee of dishonesty, and, although I would advise exercising more care in how he says these things, I have heard more than one LDS scholar call Gee's forthrightness on certain issues into question. I refuse to name names, but I would not say this if it were not true.

And, in William's case, I simply don't see how anyone could possibly contend, with a straight face no less, that the man isn't playing games and doing so dishonestly. Now, he may have rationalized all this in his mind. It could be that because he views us all as reprobates and lost souls who are out to destroy the LDS Church, he is able to justify a creative approach to the truth. But I really don't see how anyone could call his behavior honest.

[_Kishkumen]

I realise that Kevin will never let go of his monomaniacal obsession with Will Schryver, but I keep hoping your performance will someday live up to your self-promotion.

Huh. OK. Well, I too hope that I live up to my aspirations.

[_Pahoran]

You know, it is my experience when Kevin says that a particular person is a proven liar, he usually has a decent reason for saying so.

That might be your experience, but it is certainly not mine.

Years ago, there was a dispute between us about a brief review I wrote of a rather mediocre anti-Mormon book. I had mentioned, in the decent obscurity of a footnote, the real name of the author, who had published under a nom de plume.

At some point previous to that, I had been told that the author didn't want his real name known. I lost that information in the shuffling of notes. Subsequently we briefly corresponded by email.

As I recall it, I apologised for naming him in that footnote. However, the author says he never received the apology. That was enough for Kevin to pronounce me a "proven liar."

No possibilty of an honest mistake on my part.

No possibility of any mistake of any kind on his buddy's part.

No possibility of emails being lost or accidentally deleted.

No, in Kevin Graham's generous mind, the only possibility was that Pahoran was a "proven liar."

That "conclusion" being shared with, and enthusiastically adopted by, his fellow malefactors.

So don't try to tell me how Kevin always has a "decent reason" to throw that accusation around. I know better.

Regards,
Pahoran

[_Kishkumen]

You know, it is my experience when Kevin says that a particular person is a proven liar, he usually has a decent reason for saying so.

So don't try to tell me how Kevin always has a "decent reason" to throw that accusation around. I know better.

I invite you to compare your language with mine. I have bolded the important difference to help you out.

[_Dr. Shades]

I had mentioned, in the decent obscurity of a footnote, the real name of the author, who had published under a nom de plume.

Why did you do that?

[_Kevin Graham]

To address your obsession on this point: Will is not my "client."

Of course he is. His untimely demise is the only reason you've returned.

I have no responsibility to defend anything he did or did not say.

But you choose to anyway.

I did not come here to defend him

Then why are you?

I simply dropped in for a visit, as I do from time to time, and saw the dog-pile thread.

You see, the fact that you call it a dog-pile thread is evidence of your defence. He wasn't "dog-piled." The thread was created by a concerned female Evangelical and her thread was good enough to catch the attention of several Mormon scholars who agreed wholeheartedly with her. The only reason the thread has surpassed 50 pages is because of the silly attempts to defend Wilbur by people like you, along with his numerous sock puppets. And let's not forget your unprecedented claim that numerous LDS scholars have become "useful idiots" simply because they agree with MsJack's expressed concerns. Will Schryver must really be something special in your eyes, for you to throw so many of your scholars under the bus like this.

I took issue with matters that seemed questionable.

Yes, and then you used this as evidence that the entire case was faulty. You said so yourself in the initial thread. You complained about the C&E issue and then said that the more you look into this, the more you realize how weak the carefully crafted case against Schryver really is. So while you refuse to speak on the more condemning evidence against Schryver, you want to pretend you've somehow shown it to be suspect.

Actually you complained bitterly about it, as I reported in the OP.

Yes, only after you started calling me "Magdalena"!

You are manufacturing artificial justifications for your faux indignation. There is no-one who has more sockpuppets than you.

Prove it.

You regularly show up on MD&D with new sockpuppets

Hogwash. Averaging once per year is hardly regularly.

even had multiple identities here, or do you deny being "Dartagnan?"

Dartagnan was my original moniker from the days of ZLMB. I never once tried to hide the fact it was me. In fact, I've posted my own photo as the dartagnan avatar on numerous occasions. Are you telling me that you do not see the difference between 1) having a second moniker while letting everyone know from the get-go that it is you and 2) using another moniker to engage in a conversation with yourself, while pretending you're not who you really are? From day one everyone knew dartagnan was Kevin Graham. Wilbur is insulting everyone's intelligence by coming up with one sock puppet after another for the sole purpose of engaging in his own defense. He wants us to think there are more and more LDS folks crawling out of the woodwork to defend him. That is pathetic.

And I did not "label you a woman." You know that to be false.

As I said, I only knew you were calling me Magdalena, and I didn't understand why until you raised the issue over here. Calling me a woman seemed like a logical interpretation of what you were doing at the time.

I asked -- legitimately -- whether you used "Magdalena" as a posting handle on CARM

You asked a bunch of FAIRites who hate my guts. Which shows you were not interested in a real answer, you were clearly interested in bashing me on a forum where you knew I couldn't defend myself. That makes you a coward, among other things.

Recall that "Athanasius" on CARM really is a woman, but she uses a male name; why couldn't the same thing be done in reverse? The fact that you are so dramatically overstating your case is suspicious.

My case is quite simple. You raised this "question" on a forum where you knew you'd never get the real answer, which undermines your stated reason for asking it. Why would my enemies at MADB "know" if I were truly posting as a woman on some obscure Evangelical forum? What seems clear is that you weren't interested in the answer. You were only interested in trying to belittle me in some way. If you really wanted the answer you could have asked me directly, which you did only after I complained about you calling me Magdalena. And let's not forget, you jumped to the conclusion that we were one and the same, before you ever asked me or received your answer.

I realise you are counting upon your audience, and fellow-members of the Malefaction, to uncritically accept your version of the discussion you are so freely misrepresenting; but you clearly have no respect for their intelligence. If they scroll back just one page to the OP, they'll see the very first passage I quote from you, to wit:

Yes, but when you pounded home the point the second time, you deleted that portion and emphasized "you'll regret it." Clearly, you were focused on a context-free comment in order to justify your paranoia. The context illustrates that this was not a threat or intimidation. It was a simple matter of fact that you asked me never to associate your name with your online persona. And then you turn around and start associating me with some strange Bible-thumping woman I've never met in my life.

So I explicitly included the portion you explicitly accused me of leaving out.

And then you explicitly deleted the portion I explicitly accused you of deleting, when it was pointed out to you that there was no "intimidation."
Oh dear.

Either I can do a Kevin Graham, and accuse you of being a "proven liar," and on that basis simply brush aside everything you've said, or else I can be better than that, and accept your explanation as the only actual evidence before us.

Do whatever you want, just don't pretend this and your false claim to have apologized to JP Holding are equivalent. As Chap and others have pointed out, a casual perusal of Magdalena's posting style, habits, frequency, etc, would quickly disabuse anyone of this silly notion that she and I are the same person. So not only was there scant reason to believe we were connected, there was substantial evidence to the contrary which you didn't address. So I suspect you never really intended to argue that we were one and the same because that was a lost cause from the start; rather, you tried to make a stink over the insinuation that I merely cut and pasted her short comment because I was too lazy to write up my own. That, or another guilt by association, saying I was, at teh very least, reading anti-Mormon Evangelical forums. That, or the insinuation that I "lied" about not posting at CARM for more than a decade. Either way, only a complete moron would read Magdelana's posts and say "That's Kevin Graham!"

But I maintain the question was worth asking.

On a forum where I was not only absent, but forbidden to participate.

Years ago, there was a dispute between us about a brief review I wrote of a rather mediocre anti-Mormon book. I had mentioned, in the decent obscurity of a footnote, the real name of the author, who had published under a nom de plume.

At some point previous to that, I had been told that the author didn't want his real name known. I lost that information in the shuffling of notes. Subsequently we briefly corresponded by email.

As I recall it, I apologised for naming him in that footnote. However, the author says he never received the apology. That was enough for Kevin to pronounce me a "proven liar."

Yes, because I actually have the email you sent me in response to Holding's complaint. To say the least, there wasn't an apologetic vibe throughout your post. In fact, you seemed to ridicule and even question his argument for needing to remain anonymous. Here are a few choice remarks from you, during the time you now claim to have been sympathetic and even apologetic.

"I doubt that anyone would be having hissy fits if I referred to Mark Twain as Samuel Clemens...I got his real name from the internet, so I hope his nemesis is computer-illiterate....if Mr. Holding is trying to make me feel guilty by association, it didn't work...I could have tweaked him as 'the terror that quacks in the night,' as he once described himself on an internet discussion forum..."

No possibilty of an honest mistake on my part.

Yes, you made a mistake for publishing his identity and by not apologizing for it. But lying about it years later counts as a lie. In 2006 the matter was raised on the forums and you told me that Holding responded indignantly to your apology. Holding not only denies responding indignantly to your apology, he denies having ever saw one. I then decided to investigate further into the old email exchange between the three of us. If I recall correctly, you eventually admitted you probably didn't send it, but tried to chalk it up as a mental error on your part.

But the problem with that explanation is that you didn't just goof on your memory about something you didn't write. Your faulty memory must have also created this false narrative based on a nonexistent apology, describing how Holding responded to something that never happened. That is what did it for me, and I felt compelled to no longer give you the benefit of the doubt about your sincere belief that you had actually apologized to him. Also, if you had apologized, I suspect FARMS would have graciously removed his name from their online version of your "review." But they wouldn't. I pushed the matter with Dan Peterson for weeks and he eventually stopped responding to my emails.

No possibility of any mistake of any kind on his buddy's part.

Possibility? Sure. But probable? No. The only "mistake" he would be if he lied about an apology, which I do not see him doing. And I know him well enough to know that any apology from you would have been immediately sent to me. However, Holding said it is "possible" that you sent an apology, but that it was robbed by hackers - which seems highly improbable.

No possibility of emails being lost or accidentally deleted.

What? So after sending a smart-ass response to his stated concerns, we're supposed to believe a subsequent email carrying a completely different, sympathetic and apologetic tone, got lost in the mail somewhere. And you never claimed to have apologized until several years later , when your integrity was in the hot seat. You wouldn't respond to him at all if memory serves. You sent ME your response to his emailed complaint.

No, in Kevin Graham's generous mind, the only possibility was that Pahoran was a "proven liar."

That's because I think that is what the evidence suggests.

That "conclusion" being shared with, and enthusiastically adopted by, his fellow malefactors.

Probably because they know how to weigh the evidence and process inductive reasoning.

Anyway, I can't let this thread go without pointing out how utterly ironic Pahoran's complaint really is. He and his ilk have been doing for years precisely what he accuses me of doing, and I would be lying if I said this didn't influence my reluctance to give him the benefit of the doubt. His "review" is a perfect example of it too. In fact, half of what FARMS produces is based on the argument that the anti-Mormon author is being dishonest, disingenuous, deceptive, or worse. I don't remember any of these folks, Pahoran included, having a very charitable view about alternative "possibilities" when it came to explaining whatever minor and (usually) irrelevant error their targeted authors commited in whatever work they are "reviewing." No, the author is not only immediately defined as "anti-Mormon" but he is immediately painted as a callous individual - hence, Pahoran's need to throw in the fact that Holding was not providing his in real life identity. This is all part of the standard apologetic well-poisoning process. Roughly two-thirds of his review consisted of attacks on Holding's sincerity and the rest was dismissive rhetoric that can be summarized with "don't read this book because this guy is an anti-Mormon who can't even be honest about his true identity."

[_MsJack]

I just wanted to say, I don't see what's to be gained from re-visiting the controversy surrounding Pahoran's review of J. P. Holding's book. I think we all said our peace last year, I doubt we're going to cover any new ground this year, and Daniel C. Peterson offered a formal apology to Holding on behalf of the Maxwell Institute and had the offending footnote removed from the online version of the article.

I vote for letting bygones be bygones.

Not that either of you has to listen to me, but there's my two cents. Take it or leave it.

[_TrashcanMan79]

I had mentioned, in the decent obscurity of a footnote, the real name of the author, who had published under a nom de plume.

Why did you do that?

Interesting question.

[_Chap]

I just wanted to say, I don't see what's to be gained from re-visiting the controversy surrounding Pahoran's review of J. P. Holding's book. I think we all said our peace last year, I doubt we're going to cover any new ground this year, and Daniel C. Peterson offered a formal apology to Holding on behalf of the Maxwell Institute and had the offending footnote removed from the online version of the article.

I vote for letting bygones be bygones.

Not that either of you has to listen to me, but there's my two cents. Take it or leave it.

I think you will find that it was not a critic of Pahoran who re-visited the controversy on this thread, but rather Pahoran himself who brought it up. Once that had been done, it was reasonable of Kevin Graham to retort. The result would seem to show that Pahoran might have done himself more good by 'letting bygones be bygones', as you urge.

[_MsJack]

I think you will find that it was not a critic of Pahoran who re-visited the controversy on this thread, but rather Pahoran himself who brought it up. Once that had been done, it was reasonable of Kevin Graham to retort. The result would seem to show that Pahoran might have done himself more good by 'letting bygones be bygones', as you urge.

I saw that and I don't disagree, but I thought I would put my vote in just the same.

In any case, I'm certainly not going to get involved in it again.