If others refrain from attacking my beliefs, I’ll happily spend most of my time and effort in positively advocating those beliefs. But I won’t back down if they’re assaulted.
Still, even then, my focus is not, and never has been, on the personalities of others.
Well, except not in this exchange:
DanielPeterson Mod gemli • a day ago
gemli: "Joseph Smith had a history of committing frauds."
It seems that one reason behind poor, ignorant gemli's disdain for history and historical evidence is that they would interfere with his capacity for leveling false accusations.
That looks exactly like a focus on the personality of gemli, in response to what Peterson interprets as an attack on his religion.
It happens daily, multiple times, and Peterson has responded like this to anyone who disagrees with him for as long as I have been reading his blog. His statement above is a lie.
These are some sentences that have come out of the keyboard of Daniel Peterson just in the last 24 hours:
You're unusually prolific and unusually, aggressively, unpleasant tonight. Have you been drinking?
I think that I'll give you a night off, so that you can sober up. What can I say? I'm a merciful fellow.
Reading is still an option for you, FK. Honest. It's not illegal. Not even in Oregon.
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised to see you endorse poor scholarship.
I doubt, given your propensity to poison the well and engage in ad hominem fallacies -- demonstrated yet again in the lines quoted just above -- that they would be interesting in speaking with you. I certainly won't recommend it to them.
Shhhh! Everybody! Hide your smiles. Stifle your laughter. He really believes this about himself.
Brave words from somebody who knows very little about history, and even less about ancient history.
Unlike you, I routinely read books and articles that fundamentally challenge my views. I seriously engage ideas foreign to mine. I seriously consider evidence that works against my positions.
I daresay this goes well beyond simply defending the faith, and well into the territory of pathology. There is not a shred of charity within them, only vitriol and contempt.
DCP wrote:Has anybody out there seen evidence of this purported emigration from the LDS Church to the “Reorganization”?
But, if people want to surrender eternal marriage, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, a historical Book of Mormon, the concept of a physically embodied God to whom we humans are closely related, the doctrine of exaltation, the possibility of the redemption of the dead, and other such rich but peculiarly Mormon teachings in exchange for the thin gruel — I hope that my CofC friends will pardon my candor! — offered up by the Community of Christ (a.k.a. the RLDS Church), they’re welcome to it.
My understanding is that all these people have been talked to by their leaders. Let's see if it makes a difference.
We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have. They get rid of some of the people who have been there for 25 years and they work great and then you throw them out and they're replaced by criminals.
One of the funny elements of that exchange with Chewbarker is that the quotes he's posting are all archived at SHIELDS. DCP worked with Stan Barker to get all of those items posted there! If he doesn't want them "cherry-picked" and "archived," then perhaps he should ask Barker to remove them.
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
DCP wrote:Has anybody out there seen evidence of this purported emigration from the LDS Church to the “Reorganization”?
But, if people want to surrender eternal marriage, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, a historical Book of Mormon, the concept of a physically embodied God to whom we humans are closely related, the doctrine of exaltation, the possibility of the redemption of the dead, and other such rich but peculiarly Mormon teachings in exchange for the thin gruel — I hope that my CofC friends will pardon my candor! — offered up by the Community of Christ (a.k.a. the RLDS Church), they’re welcome to it.
"“Social media commenters: Your church has added strong wording to its General Handbook, condemning “threatening, bullying, degrading, violent, or otherwise abusive language or images online.”
I cannot see Dan's comments as fitting the condemned sort of communication. One might not like his style (It might come across as a bit smug)
"“Social media commenters: Your church has added strong wording to its General Handbook, condemning “threatening, bullying, degrading, violent, or otherwise abusive language or images online.”
I cannot see Dan's comments as fitting the condemned sort of communication. One might not like his style (It might come across as a bit smug)
This is in response to Daniel’s “plea” for us to be charitable towards his religion.
“Social media commenters: Your church has added strong wording to its General Handbook, condemning “threatening, bullying, degrading, violent, or otherwise abusive language or images online.”
No groups or individuals are specifically named, but there is no exception for those claiming to defend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . who frequently employ harsh rhetoric to attack church critics or Latter-day Saint progressives.”
They are no more going to comply with that than they do with wearing masks because it supposedly threatens their freedom. They are going to SCREAM Freedom of Speech!!! It would be amazing and miraculous if Mormons woke up just enough to the point to scream NO MORE REPEATING MILQTOAST TEACHING.
Modern companies who care about their brand image, including the church, conduct surveys to better understand how customers feel about product experiences, perceive brand values, and resonate with marketing messages. Utah is home to one of the largest "customer experience" intelligence companies, Qualtrics, and that company now takes in over $1 billion a year in revenue from businesses around the world who care enough to ask questions and hear answers.
Increasingly, business leaders everywhere are showing appreciation for the truth that without a complete intake of this customer experience information, they are flying blind in this fast-moving world. And flying blind guarantees eventual crash landing.
So here's the deal, folks. If those out on the forefront of online Mopologetics, such as FAIR, Interpreter, and Dan's prolific Sic et Non, really do care about how their activity and cyberspace personas land on member and non-member seekers, then they should be working just as hard to gather a full spectrum of "customer" perception data.
This isn't setting up an email address and waiting for "reviews" to come in. It means utilizing online tools to actively solicit feedback, on a continuous basis, from all consumers of the product. And then, taking that information to do a better job.
And yes, it goes without saying, there is the problem of critics spamming the survey base. So what? Every company has that problem.
But that's a lame excuse for not making an effort. You can't sort signal from noise without first gathering the data.
For Mopologists not make such an effort displays one of two things: reckless ignorance, or dangerous arrogance.
There is no alternative "good" explanation for those guys to foot stomp at critics while simultaneously sidestepping the arduous task of soliciting customer experience feedback, carefully combing through that data, and importantly, adjusting their product accordingly.
This isn't rocket science.
Lastly, simply declaring that one's activity is not demeaning or bullying doesn't reduce the feeling of being demeaned or bullied.
