Ray A: The Gandhi of Internet Mormonism?

[_Trevor]

Of course I'm like Paul: Stoned, beaten, persecuted, ridiculed.

I'll go even further: Paul never had to deal with anti-Mormons on the Internet. I boast that I am better than Paul! I boast that I didn't even found a Church, and wasn't even an apostle. I boast, because boasting pisses off anti-Mormons.

Well, you are one thing for sure: a drama queen.

[_Mister Scratch]

What should not get lost in this is the fact that Scratch evidently altered a personal message that he had sent, and pretended that he had not said vicious things that in fact he had said, in order to avoid embarrassment.

It's déjà vu all over again, as the saying goes.

Malevolent mendacity. The pattern never varies. The leopard doesn't change its spots.

No, what shouldn't get lost is your continuous refusal to fully deal with the critique of your claim that Church scholars aren't "embarrassed" about certain controversial theories. You continue to dodge. Yme, it turns out, was essentially right, but just needed to add a small bit of qualification to his/her main claim.

Spin and dishonesty. The pattern never varies. The leopard doesn't change its spots.

I get that you really, REALLY crave vindication on this one very minor point, since the landslide of evidence pointing to YOUR misbehavior is so huge. Plus, on this very thread, you have shown what a capacity for vengefulness and grudge-carrying you possess. Honestly, what must that do to your head? To be continuously thinking of ways to take revenge on Church critics? Your unethical behavior has been documented at length and in great detail, and yet you continue on in your denials. Why not just apologize? Don't you think that this would be better for your credibility? Don't you recall how upset A Light in the Darkness was when s/he discovered your "mendacity" in using the "FreeThinker" alias? This will only go on. Struggling members will see how you've behaved, and will wonder why the Church continues to allow you to serve as Apologist-in-Chief. As their testimonies crumble, they will be left scratching their heads as to why the Big Cheese of Mopologetics couldn't keep it together.

[_KimberlyAnn]

I'm not sure who's telling the truth and who's lying, but I do know for sure I won't be sending Mr. Scratch any PM's or emails. I think posting private correspondence is utterly inappropriate.

KA

[_Daniel Peterson]

Back to my other question: Were you aware that, during one of his disaffected phases, Ray PMd the Z mods with an harassing, vulgar message that included, among other things, the threat that: "YOUR F***KING MISSIONARIES ARE DEAD".

No, I was not. Not until very recently. In the past few days, I've seen references to this apparent message once or twice here, but I know nothing about it and I haven't paid much attention.

What is your reaction to this, how does it reflect upon Ray's general ethics and emotional stability, and how do you feel now having him as one of your most fervent defenders?

I doubt that you expect me to say that I admire the sentiment.

However, I'm not interested in demonizing Ray, nor in attempting amateur psychoanalysis. (I'm also not interested in pretending that I have any ability to diagnose Josh Skains, or to pronounce psychotherapeutic judgment on him.)

Further, I don't think that a few posts on a message board provide enough basis for a judgment against someone's "general ethics." This sort of slash-and-burn total-war personal polemic holds no interest for me whatever. I leave such things to the likes of Scratch, who plainly enjoys demonizing people.

I might add that I suspect that I'm the only person here who has actually met Ray Agostini (and his daughter) and been in his home. We've been in contact with each other, off and on, for years. I like Ray. A lot. We disagree on some things, religiously speaking. But I respect his integrity, and I believe him to be honest to the point, sometimes, of causing discomfort. (Which is not, in my view, necessarily a fault.)

I get that you really, REALLY crave vindication on this one very minor point, since the landslide of evidence pointing to YOUR misbehavior is so huge. Plus, on this very thread, you have shown what a capacity for vengefulness and grudge-carrying you possess. Honestly, what must that do to your head? To be continuously thinking of ways to take revenge on Church critics? Your unethical behavior has been documented at length and in great detail, and yet you continue on in your denials. Why not just apologize? Don't you think that this would be better for your credibility? Don't you recall how upset A Light in the Darkness was when s/he discovered your "mendacity" in using the "FreeThinker" alias? This will only go on. Struggling members will see how you've behaved, and will wonder why the Church continues to allow you to serve as Apologist-in-Chief. As their testimonies crumble, they will be left scratching their heads as to why the Big Cheese of Mopologetics couldn't keep it together.

Sometimes I'm tempted to think that Scratch actually believes in this alternate reality (Bizarro Scratch World) that he's so diligently created for the small audience of his readers here.

But then I run across a specimen of shameless mendacity such as his brazen alteration of his personal post to Ray A. (revealed on this thread), and the temptation passes.

In this dispute, I believe Ray. I have no reason to believe that Ray would lie. But the notion that Scratch would deliberately falsify a personal message in order to avoid embarrassment at his own foul language is entirely, strikingly, consistent with a couple of other incidents (one of them remarkably similar) that I've observed in Scratch's past behavior. What Scratch's motivation may be for his continual campaign of slander against me, I really can't guess. And I'm just not interested enough in it to give it much thought. It's enough to know that Scratch is both mendacious and malevolent.

[_The Nehor]

No response? Scratch, are you going to stop characterizing Hamblin as an anti-Semite now?

[_Mister Scratch]

You have a weird world-view scratch. This is my friend we are talking about. I spoke to him about it. He said the analogy was strained meaning he thought the analogy was bad.

Let's cut to the chase here. What do YOU think was "strained"/"bad" about the analogy, Nehor? Further, what do you think your friend meant by "strained"/"bad"?

I'll explain what I think he meant and what he said he meant. He meant that anti-Semite bigotry and anti-Mormon criticism are very different in modern society. While both defame their target the threat of physical attack on Jews worldwide and Israel on the whole is much more likely. Therefore he believed that anti-Semite bigotry was much more a cause for alarm than anti-Mormon bigotry and that comparing anti-Mormonism to anti-Semitism involved very different things. He did not think the person who used the rant had any bias against the Jews whatsoever. In fact it is more likely the author (being a Mormon himself) identified with them.

(Some of the above information comes from e-mailing him a while ago to ask for more information)

Is not the false comparison in and of itself somewhat "anti-semetic"? (What "very different things" do these two things involve?) I mean, we observed this with DCP as well: he said, "Jews have few friends in the world," and went on to say that Jews ought to kiss up to Mormons, since, according to The Good Professor, Mormons are "philo-semetic."

Let me ask you this: If Professor Hamblin's outburst had been leaked to the media, how do you think it would have been received? Do you think that the bulk of Americans would have dismissed it with a shrug? Would it have been akin to Michael Richards's or Mel Gibson's angry outbursts? Or Halle Berry's unfortunate slip-up on The Tonight Show?

[_Mister Scratch]

However, I'm not interested in demonizing Ray, nor in attempting amateur psychoanalysis. (I'm also not interested in pretending that I have any ability to diagnose Josh Skains, or to pronounce psychotherapeutic judgment on him.)

You have pronounced "psychotherapeutic judgment" on me, Prof. P.

Further, I don't think that a few posts on a message board provide enough basis for a judgment against someone's "general ethics." This sort of slash-and-burn total-war personal polemic holds no interest for me whatever. I leave such things to the likes of Scratch, who plainly enjoys demonizing people.

And you and your FARMS pals don't? Tell me, are you really this blind to the stuff that occurs in the pages of FARMS Review? Do you really think that Bill Hamblin's claim that Mike Quinn is a "bad historian" is anything but a "demonization"? You have been letting this stuff go on for years, and it has destroyed people's lives!

I get that you really, REALLY crave vindication on this one very minor point, since the landslide of evidence pointing to YOUR misbehavior is so huge. Plus, on this very thread, you have shown what a capacity for vengefulness and grudge-carrying you possess. Honestly, what must that do to your head? To be continuously thinking of ways to take revenge on Church critics? Your unethical behavior has been documented at length and in great detail, and yet you continue on in your denials. Why not just apologize? Don't you think that this would be better for your credibility? Don't you recall how upset A Light in the Darkness was when s/he discovered your "mendacity" in using the "FreeThinker" alias? This will only go on. Struggling members will see how you've behaved, and will wonder why the Church continues to allow you to serve as Apologist-in-Chief. As their testimonies crumble, they will be left scratching their heads as to why the Big Cheese of Mopologetics couldn't keep it together.

Sometimes I'm tempted to think that Scratch actually believes in this alternate reality (Bizarro Scratch World) that he's so diligently created for the small audience of his readers here.

But then I run across a specimen of shameless mendacity such as his brazen alteration of his personal post to Ray A. (revealed on this thread), and the temptation passes.

<Ahem.> And where is the 2nd Michael Watson Letter?

Face it, Dan: you have never believed me on anything. When a man steps on your neck for long enough, eventually you are going to stop politely asking him to take it off.

In this dispute, I believe Ray. I have no reason to believe that Ray would lie. But the notion that Scratch would deliberately falsify a personal message in order to avoid embarrassment at his own foul language is entirely, strikingly, consistent with a couple of other incidents (one of them remarkably similar) that I've observed in Scratch's past behavior. What Scratch's motivation may be for his continual campaign of slander against me, I really can't guess. And I'm just not interested enough in it to give it much thought. It's enough to know that Scratch is both mendacious and malevolent.

Why should I be embarrassed at my own "foul language"? There is nothing "foul" about stating things plainly and directly. Certainly, I feel no shame in calling you and your "friends" rumor-mongering assholes---which, let's face it, you are. You guys helped to destroy people's lives. I feel no shame at called Ray A a "deranged prick" who blackmails people and breaks promises.

by the way: you still are not addressing the issue re: LDS academic embarrassment.

[_Daniel Peterson]

If Bill Hamblin is an anti-Semite, I'm a turnip.

And Scratch's charming attempt to turn me into an anti-Semite is every bit as malevolently mendacious.

The fact is that anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the world. The Saudi government distributes the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion, warning Arabs and Muslims globally against a purported conspiracy to establish a worldwide Jewish dictatorship. Editorials and editorial cartoons throughout the Arab and Muslim press adopt overtly anti-Semitic stereotypes, going well beyond mere political disagreement with the government of Israel or even with Zionism. Palestinian school curricula, influenced by Hamas (and, less directly, by the Islamic Republic of Iran), have veered from political criticism of Israel into expressly anti-Jewish rants, and not a few European sympathizers with the Palestinian cause (to which I myself am not wholly unsympathetic) have followed that frightening trend. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are vandalized across Europe. Synagogues and Jewish community centers are vandalized and bombed even in Latin America. French cabinet ministers feel free to tell grossly anti-Semitic jokes, and European politicians, viscerally hostile to Israel in many cases (while relatively friendly to Castro's Cuba, Ahmadinejad's Iran, and even Kim Jong Il's North Korea), scarcely trouble themselves to hide the anti-Jewishness of their attitudes. Even many American clergy from the mainstream and liberal denominations, once reliably sympathetic to Israel, have now become fashionably pro-Palestinian.

I simply commented -- as someone who (particularly by the standards of his chosen academic discipline) is relatively friendly to Israel, as someone whose father participated in the liberation of one of the European concentration camps at the end of World War II and who grew up hearing about its horrors, and as someone who is appalled by the upsurge of unabashed anti-Semitism in many circles -- that it seemed unwise, to me, for some Jews to risk alienating groups (like the Mormons and, for that matter, American evangelicals) who have a strong history of philo-Semitism and of support for Israel over an issue relating to the afterlife.

[_The Nehor]

You have a weird world-view scratch. This is my friend we are talking about. I spoke to him about it. He said the analogy was strained meaning he thought the analogy was bad.

Let's cut to the chase here. What do YOU think was "strained"/"bad" about the analogy, Nehor? Further, what do you think your friend meant by "strained"/"bad"?

I'll explain what I think he meant and what he said he meant. He meant that anti-Semite bigotry and anti-Mormon criticism are very different in modern society. While both defame their target the threat of physical attack on Jews worldwide and Israel on the whole is much more likely. Therefore he believed that anti-Semite bigotry was much more a cause for alarm than anti-Mormon bigotry and that comparing anti-Mormonism to anti-Semitism involved very different things. He did not think the person who used the rant had any bias against the Jews whatsoever. In fact it is more likely the author (being a Mormon himself) identified with them.

(Some of the above information comes from e-mailing him a while ago to ask for more information)

Is not the false comparison in and of itself somewhat "anti-semetic"? (What "very different things" do these two things involve?) I mean, we observed this with DCP as well: he said, "Jews have few friends in the world," and went on to say that Jews ought to kiss up to Mormons, since, according to The Good Professor, Mormons are "philo-semetic."

Let me ask you this: If Professor Hamblin's outburst had been leaked to the media, how do you think it would have been received? Do you think that the bulk of Americans would have dismissed it with a shrug? Would it have been akin to Michael Richards's or Mel Gibson's angry outbursts? Or Halle Berry's unfortunate slip-up on The Tonight Show?

I explained above that he thought that anti-Semitism and anti-Mormonism were different in that the former are much more violent and more dangerous. That's it. I don't think the comparison is at all anti-Semitic and neither did he. If anything (as I stated above) he thought this meant that Hamblin was identifying with the Jews by comparing their difficulties to his own. When you want to show a strong distaste about something you don't identify yourself with the persecuted party that you supposedly hate.

Since by comparison to those above Professor Hamblin is a media nobody I don't think it would appear at all. Though if such a thing did come out (with full context) I don't think it would be interpreted as horribly offensive. Also depends on spin. I'm not sure what an appeal to popular response proves though. People who would hang others based on 30 second media bytes are not worth listening to in any case (unless of course you're trying to start a riot or are in politics).

[_Mister Scratch]

If Bill Hamblin is an anti-Semite, I'm a turnip.

I simply commented -- as someone who (particularly by the standards of his chosen academic discipline) is relatively friendly to Israel, as someone whose father participated in the liberation of one of the European concentration camps at the end of World War II and who grew up hearing about its horrors, and as someone who is appalled by the upsurge of unabashed anti-Semitism in many circles -- that it seemed unwise, to me, for some Jews to risk alienating groups (like the Mormons and, for that matter, American evangelicals) who have a strong history of philo-Semitism and of support for Israel over an issue relating to the afterlife.

This suggests that Mormon philo-Semitism is predicated on whether or not Jews will shut up about proxy baptisms---i.e., "We'll be nice to you, but you've got to compromise your beliefs and allow us to baptize you into the LDS Church." I find this attitude incredibly disrespectful. Further, I doubt that Jewish groups much appreciate(d) the various pro-Nazi sentiments which were expressed by WWII-era Brethren.