My Experience With Daniel Peterson

[_zeezrom]

On a somewhat different note, does anybody take this claim (regarding me) seriously?

snip

I don't, mostly because I have not kept track of your FARMS writings.

However, I have interacted with you a little bit on the MDD board. Over there, I felt you were being a little distant and unfeeling towards me. That is my honest opinion but I still like you and look forward to our meeting.

Please understand that I realize I was being a little unfeeling in my words I used to describe Joseph Smith. I realize now that I said things in a way that offended many people over there. I've been trying to change since then.

I hope that comes across the way I meant it...

[_MCB]

I have no bad feelings about Joseph Smith. He was a product of his dysfunctional environment. And I have always had that attitude. I do have bad feelings towards Mormons who discriminate against people for the various well known reasons. And the less well-known reasons.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I felt you were being a little distant and unfeeling towards me.

It's possible. I'm more busy and distracted some days than other days. And, frankly, sometimes I react negatively when people seem to be hostile or to mock things that I hold sacred. I don't mean to be unkind. If I was, I apologize.

But do you think this a fair characterization of the way I treated you: "a torrent of unkindness and sadistic mockery"

It's Scratch's over-the-top, totalizing, seemingly hate-fueled rhetoric that, quite honestly, baffles me. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who has hated, despised, and loathed me the way Scratch appears to do.

[_truth dancer]

Y'all are funny!

I'm sure Dan and pretty much everyone here is great in real life!

Sometimes these sorts of discussions can bring out the, less than best in each of us.

I get the impression we are all trying to improve our online personas (is this a word?), a tad!

It is nice!

~td~

[_sock puppet]

A few years back I was visiting BYU in the middle of winter. I had accidently left my lights on and my battery was dead. Soon a a kind, portly mustachioed man asked if I needed assistance and gave me a jump start. After cleaning off my windshield of the snow he noticed my wiper blades needed replacing and removed the ones from his car and placed them on mine. He said he didn't live very far and had some new ones at home. I went to thank him, but he rushed off and I couldn't ask his name, could this have been him?

I wander the roads every night in the winter, seeking to help those with defective wiper blades.

But I'm not sure this was a case that I was involved in. There are many of us. We're called . . . "the Danites."

Of course. Dan, leader of the Danites. I wonder if maklelan if one of your merry band of Danites?

[_sock puppet]

I have no bad feelings about Joseph Smith. He was a product of his dysfunctional environment. And I have always had that attitude. I do have bad feelings towards Mormons who discriminate against people for the various well known reasons. And the less well-known reasons.

Is not everyone a product of his or her environment, dysfuntional or not? I mean, that really absolves each of us of any responsibility for what we do, doesn't it?

[_Wisdom Seeker]

It's Scratch's over-the-top, totalizing, seemingly hate-fueled rhetoric that, quite honestly, baffles me. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who has hated, despised, and loathed me the way Scratch appears to do.

I think a lot of people get stuck-in and or return to that anger stage from the 5 stages of grief and loss, or he simply does not like the apologetic in you.

[_sock puppet]

It's Scratch's over-the-top, totalizing, seemingly hate-fueled rhetoric....

Do you think that's a fair charcterization of Dr Scratch's writing?

[_zeezrom]

It's possible. I'm more busy and distracted some days than other days. And, frankly, sometimes I react negatively when people seem to be hostile or to mock things that I hold sacred. I don't mean to be unkind. If I was, I apologize.

But do you think this a fair characterization of the way I treated you: "a torrent of unkindness and sadistic mockery"

It's Scratch's over-the-top, totalizing, seemingly hate-fueled rhetoric that, quite honestly, baffles me. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who has hated, despised, and loathed me the way Scratch appears to do.

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I know you are busy and can't take the time to try and understand all the complexities of the lives of online posters. I know now that you weren't trying to be unkind. This is actually the main reason I would like to sit down with you - because I look at you differently than I did when I was suffering on MDD. No, I would not say that comment (cited above) is a fair characterization of you.

It has been a long road for me, DCP. I have made some mistakes and learned over the past year about how to be more respectful to people that hold the beliefs I used to cherish as they do. Admittedly, I have a ways to go... I think there is a two-way street here. I need to be respectful of my loved-one's cherished beliefs and they need to be respectful of mine. Just as it hurts you to hear mean words directed at Joseph Smith, it hurts me to hear unfeeling words directed right at myself.

[_Daniel Peterson]

It's Scratch's over-the-top, totalizing, seemingly hate-fueled rhetoric....

Do you think that's a fair charcterization of Dr Scratch's writing?

Not always, no. Typically not. But, from time to time, yes. Sometimes, particularly when the subject of Michael Quinn comes up, the pretense of amicability falls away and the boiling white-hot anger is unmistakable. It still shocks me when that happens.

Usually, his tone is just relentlessly, aggressively negative, cool and methodical but also implacable. Toward me, at least.

But that passage was remarkable. And there've been three or four longer passages over the past two days that have really stunned me, even after five years as his target.

I'm puzzled at the level of hostility. I can't think of anybody toward whom I feel such animosity. Not even close. And I can't imagine maintaining it for so long.