I'm a Woman?

[_Drifting]

Harmony, Liz,

Perhaps you should research the two threads that DCP was active on prior to his evacuation.

One was, I believe a Stak thread.
And the other was Buffalo's on the Book of Abraham.

Go through them and see if DCP was asked reasonable questions, see if he answered them.

[_Yoda]

Harmony, Liz,

Perhaps you should research the two threads that DCP was active on prior to his evacuation.

One was, I believe a Stak thread.
And the other was Buffalo's on the Book of Abraham.

Go through them and see if DCP was asked reasonable questions, see if he answered them.

I read those threads. I agree that the questions were reasonable. However, Harmony's point is that more times than not, what she described has happened repeatedly.

DCP is a busy man. I think he just felt that devoting time to elongated explanations which would more likely than not be ridiculued just wasn't worth the effort.

Also, keep in mind that he, no more than the rest of us, is under no obligation to answer questions here. We all participate based on the extra time we have allotted in our schedules. This should be a leisure board of choice. Once it starts to feel like work is the time to take a step back.

[_Drifting]

Harmony, Liz,

Perhaps you should research the two threads that DCP was active on prior to his evacuation.

One was, I believe a Stak thread.
And the other was Buffalo's on the Book of Abraham.

Go through them and see if DCP was asked reasonable questions, see if he answered them.

I read those threads. I agree that the questions were reasonable. However, Harmony's point is that more times than not, what she described has happened repeatedly.

DCP is a busy man. I think he just felt that devoting time to elongated explanations which would more likely than not be ridiculued just wasn't worth the effort.

Also, keep in mind that he, nor more than the rest of us, is under no obligation to answer questions here. We all participate based on the extra time we have allotted in our schedules. This should be a leisure board of choice. Once it starts to feel like work is the time to take a step back.

Liz, that's exactly the point.
DCP always had the time to participate in ridicule and nonsense and trivial arguments etc. Always. He joined in that type of thing.

It was reasonable questions and discussion that he deliberately avoided.

Lack of Time was an excuse he used that most people on this board saw through.

[_harmony]

Liz, that's exactly the point.
DCP always had the time to participate in ridicule and nonsense and trivial arguments etc. Always. He joined in that type of thing.

It was reasonable questions and discussion that he deliberately avoided.

Lack of Time was an excuse he used that most people on this board saw through.

If he chooses to spend his time doing what he likes to do, I'm not going to harass him and tell him to do something different. It's his time, not mine.

I don't care how "reasonable" a discussion looks to me or to you... he's not obligated to discuss, answer, whatever--ANYTHING. He's repeatedly stated he has no interest in Book of Abraham anything. So why should he be obliged to answer questions about something he's not interested in? Why should he be obliged to answer anything at all, if he doesn't want to?

Engage him about Islam and he's right there in the discussion with substance and interesting information. Engage him about a bishop's duties, and he's quite open. Don't bother to attempt to engage him about closed financials though, because he won't do it (and I don't blame him... he has to protect his paycheck, after all). And the same goes for Book of Mormon geography, Book of Abraham anything, etc.

He picks the topics he responds to, not me, not you, not anyone else. Whining that he won't engage only makes the whiner looks stupid, not Dan. Why should he? For the vast majority of threads here, what good does it do him to engage here, where the wolfhounds are always throwing crap at him, derailing thread and thread into a discussion about him, his opinions, his editoring skill, his agenda, his bias, something he said YEARS ago, instead of sticking to the topic of the thread? Yes, I know Dan derails threads... he especially derails threads if I'm complaining about financials... but he can't have a true discussion here, because most posters won't let him.

Own it, people! You know who you are and you know what you do.

Good grief!

[_Chap]

No-one is saying that DCP is obliged to answer any question whatsoever. He is not a witness in court under oath.

On the other hand, having taken notice of his many, many quite voluntarily made posts for some time, I give as my humble opinion that he is generally very reluctant to discuss substantive questions about the scriptures and doctrines of the CoJCoLDS, even with people who are perfectly courteous and scholarly in their approach.

Instead, he has spent a very great deal of what is presumably his valuable time engaging in really quite trivial backchat and mockery, often about his alleged sense of persecution at the hands of a number of posters.

Having come to those conclusions of fact (with which others' experience may lead them to disagree) I don't feel obliged to refrain from saying that it seems odd that the leading Mormon intellectual of his day (and if it is not DCP, who is it?) behaves like that. If the internet had existed in the time of, for instance, Ronald Knox (Catholic) or C.S. Lewis (Anglican), I can't see them acting that way.

[_harmony]

No-one is saying that DCP is obliged to answer any question whatsoever. He is not a witness in court under oath.

Right. Uh huh. Sure. Have you actually read some of these posts, Chap?

On the other hand, having taken notice of his many, many quite voluntarily made posts for some time, I give as my humble opinion that he is generally very reluctant to discuss substantive questions about the scriptures and doctrines of the CoJCoLDS, even with people who are perfectly courteous and scholarly in their approach.

Why should he, when 25 other posters are calling him names, throwing jabs at him, nagging at him?

And why should he? He's not a general authority. His expertise is Islam. His opinions don't amount to diddly.

Instead, he has spent a very great deal of what is presumably his valuable time engaging in really quite trivial backchat and mockery, often about his alleged sense of persecution at the hands of a number of posters.

So why is his sense of fun and humor a problem? This is not his job; this is something he does for fun. Why should he be at the beck and call of anyone at all, let alone a pack of wolfhounds?

Having come to those conclusions of fact (with which others' experience may lead them to disagree) I don't feel obliged to refrain from saying that it seems odd that the leading Mormon intellectual of his day (and if it is not DCP, who is it?) behaves like that. If the internet had existed in the time of, for instance, Ronald Knox (Catholic) or C.S. Lewis (Anglican), I can't see them acting that way.

His paycheck comes from the COB. He's not going to say anything that may come back and bite him... and I don't blame him a bit.

[_Simon Belmont]

I said nary a word about him for a four or five week span in October, and what do you know? He was busy launching threads about me over on The Cafeteria--threads which ultimately precipitated the end of that board.

But this is the problem: DCP has never started a thread, nor made any comment, ever, about you. He has begun threads and made comments about an online pseudonym ("Mister" or "Doctor Scratch"). In contrast, you start threads and make comments about the actual person, since DCP posts under his real name.

So, all that said, I'm more than happy to continue commenting upon his Mopologetics and online antics for as long as he keeps it up.

You are welcome to do that, of course. I just wanted to know how you justified it.

Simon--

You asked why Scratch has chosen to follow around Daniel for the last five years.

In all fairness, I do think that Scratch has sufficiently answered the question on multiple occasions.

I give him a lot of credit for his "two cents" comment on this thread. But I do not believe he has sufficiently demonstrated that the actions or words of DCP justify a 5+ year crusade of slander, name calling, and reputation tarnishing. I just want the truth, and I am willing to listen.

However, I think that you do bring up a good point that newcomers might not be aware of the reasons.

My understanding is that what prompted Scratch to go toe to toe with DCP to begin with, was Daniel's mistreatment of apologetic critics. There are other apologists who have, in my opinion, treated critics far worse than Daniel. Pahoran and Will come to mind. However, since Daniel is the editor of MI (formerly known as FARMS), and has a great deal of influence in the apologetic world, he has been identified by Scratch as the leader of these actions.

Liz, the behavior of critics and anti-Mormons over the last 180+ years has been far, far worse than any apologetic ribbing done by all LDS apologists combined. It's no contest. Instead of complaining about it for 5+ years, it would be more logical to do something to change the behavior of critics, or at least be a voice for change. But what do we see instead? The Buffalo's, the schreech's, the Infymus's, the Rollo Tomasi's, the Darth J's, and etc. -- going 180 years back -- display some of the worst behavior.

The greatest affront, according to Scratch, has to do with DCP's supposed treatment of Michael D. Quinn. I say supposed because DCP insists that there is no wrong-doing on his part. Scratch insists that there is.

Don't get me wrong: D. Michael Quinn seems like a brilliant historian and an upstanding guy. I have no issue with him (I've never even met him). I do take issue with the DCP/Quinn connection, for which there is little evidence. Scratch himself has said he doesn't believe there has been any mistreatment by DCP, aside from gossiping.

Nowhere did I or Rollo (so far as I know) ever single out Prof. P as the “impressario” of the whisper campaign. For some reason, Shades and others seem to have gotten the impression that I thought DCP was the “chief engineer” behind the Quinn smear campaign. I never believed such a thing, and to my knowledge never stated such a thing either. My position all along—based on the facts and statements at hand—has been that DCP [url]merely participated in the gossip[/url], and that this was a rather unethical thing to do.

Emphasis Mine.

Scratch is welcome to go into more detail, or refer you to old threads describing more details into why this crusade has taken place for five years, but I believe I have captured the gist.

I would love it if I could get some more information on it, even just links to old threads, but I am grateful that Scratch said even what he said on this thread.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Hi there, Simon.

The thing is: you've read most of my posts/threads. You've made that pretty clear--i.e., that you've gone back, combing through old threads, sifting through them in the hopes of finding....something. So you really don't need me, or Liz, or anybody else to give you "a link." You've seen all of it, and it hasn't made a dent. You don't "get it"; you "don't understand"; you "don't see it." What else is new?

ETA: if you're genuinely interested in trying to understand my perspective, Simon, then let's get some reciprocity here. Go ahead and lay out the following things:

The top ten most evil acts that have been perpetrated by the LDS Church.
The top ten worst things that Mopologists have done.
The top 5 nasty / malicious / spiteful things that DCP has done.

I'll go ahead and say that my assumption in advance is that you won't put up these items, because your assumption / belief is that these groups/orgs./people haven't ever done any of these things. Which, again, should just remind you yet again that you don't get it, and that you'll never see eye-to-eye with critics.

[_asbestosman]

The top ten most evil acts that have been perpetrated by the LDS Church.

I'm game. See here.

[_Yoda]

Since Abman has already started a thread about top ten evil things the Church has done, how about another thread highlighting these?

The top ten worst things that Mopologists have done.
The top 5 nasty / malicious / spiteful things that DCP has done.