A clear, unalloyed historical fact, as anyone who has followed your posting history since the Carboniferous Period knows perfectly well, and as my post above shows to still be your modus operandi.
This has always been your rant, but the evidence doesn't support it. Your entire case about me being nothing but disrespectful is based on non-evidence. All you have are red comments by biased moderators who clearly operate with a double-standard. Again, to them, simply stating that [input an LDS apologist] doesn't know what he is talking about, is suddenly interpreted as a "gratuitous insult." The rest of yoru evidence is based on removed remarks which you have no idea what they were to begin with. I do, because I've saved all my original posts.
Why would we "need" to believe anything like that
Because that goes along with your caricature of all former LDS members. The Church tells you we're all a bunch of disgusting liars who invoke the spirit of contention, therefore everything we say is interpreted accordingly. And likewise, none of the despicable remarks by idiots like Schryver are ever interpreted by the same standard because he is, in your view, one of God's warriors, and so he is permitted to be repulsive and lie, because it is just a means to an end.
Apparently you didn't read my post above. I'd be happy to go back into the archives here, or over at the MDD board and dredge up posts and threads at random from any of several years past and bring them here for observation. I know what I would find, and so do you. However, I have far better things to do, including on message boards.
We're not talking about "archives" now are we? We never were and if you understood context you'd know this. You're only talking about digging into the archives because you know you cannot produce a single "gratuitous insult" by me in the recent threads at MAD. A few days ago "why me" lied to the forum by saying: "kevin is still posting personal insults galore and he hasn't been banned. If Will was banned it was for grossly ignoring board rules."
I challenged him to produce examples and his only response is that he can't because they've been removed. So all he has really is a moderator's say-so. He isn't interested in what was actually said because he knows that a reasonable analysis of my initial remarks would prove him wrong. Especialy when comparing them too wade's insults that littered and continue to litter the first page of the thread. So now you want tio dig through the "archives" to find some evidence that I've insulted people in the distant past. Fine, but you'll have no argument from me. We've all insulted others to some degree, and you've probably done this more than anyone. It is why no one can stand you anywhere you post. I mean for crying out loud, you have to come to this apostate forum to vent your frustration about the fact that the Mormon friendly forum keeps banning you from every thread you're in.
Did The Most Interesting Man in the World get a hold of you? He's got your ego, so you might find him welcome company.
What the hell kind of response is this? I state an established fact that those LDS folks in the know agree with me, and all you can do is accuse me of being egotistical. I didn't ask them to email me and thank me. They did that on their own. I mention it because know it pisses you off because it means you have no way in hell of accusing me of anti-Mormon bias. My refutation of Gee is based on evidence and sound analysis. The only people trying to salvage Gee is Wade, which is telling.
This sounds remarkably - remarkably - like what I and a number of others have been saying about you for a long time. I wonder...
So this is how you address wade's clear insults? ANd you expect to be taken seriously in discussion? You never deal with evidence. All you do is play the loyalty card for yoru home team. You don't deny thaat wade loaded the opening page with insults, all you do is agree with them. And the only "number" of people who agree with this are the few idiots you can count on one hand who can never support these claims with evidence. I've never been shown to "misrepresent" either Schryver or Gee, and if you want to argue otherwise, then you're free to do so. But we both know you won't because you cannot formulate a cogent argument supporting any of your nonsense. But hey, don't let that stop you from calling yourself an "intellectual."
You're right. There aren't any insults - on the first page. See my post above for all pages after the first.
You don't get to move the goal posts back two miles just because you want to. The fact is wade attacked me left and right on the first page and successfully derailed my thread. Your only response to this is to say his insults were accurate because you agree with them. But there still aren't any "personal insults" throughout that thread coming from me, except for maybe me telling wade he was making a fool of himself for pressing the issue without watching the presentation. I mean who ever heard of such a thing? Wade attacks me and accuses me of misrepresenting something he never saw or read!!!
But let's get real. Is this REALLY a "personal insult? I was doing wade a favor and trying to give him room to educate himself on the presentation and correct himself. But he refused to do it because, like most old school apologists, he isn't interested in finding out what is true. He is only interested in having a rhetorical pissing contest to put on a show for his imagined audience. You do this too. He can never afford to concede when he is wrong because that disrupts the "kicking anti-Mormon butt" perception that these idiots think they're constantly projecting.
Wade was allowed to state his opinion, an opinion that you misrepresented an LDS scholar, an opinion hardly unlike, and far less strongly worded, than exactly similar accusations you lob at apologists on a regular basis
It wasn't just an opinion. It was an opinion which he admitted was made in completre ignorance. He accused me of this before reading Gee's argument. He did this before watching Gee's presentation. I've never done this. I've always based my accusation of misrepresentation on the evidence and I always provide evidence. Wade did no such thing. He eventually got around to citing three sentences from the transcript but once I dropped teh bomb on him with screen shot images, he started squirming and never refused to retract his initial accusation. Given enough rope, wade will always go hang himself. But the mods suddenly didn't want to see thsi play itself out because it became perfectly clear his intended goal was backfiring on him.
Actually, he realized, yet again, that you were purposefully pretending not to "get" the point he was trying to make and plowing through the criticism like a runaway concrete truck, and he gave up.
Wade has no point. He never has a point. He always rants for pages and then promises to return so we should "stay tuned" but he never really provides anything of substance. If you think otherwise, then why don't you go ahead and tell m,e the "point" I didn't get. You don't know either, all you know is that this is what Wade said in order to wriggle his way out of his mess, and you just accept it uncritically. The same way you blindly accept anything any loyal member of your cult says. Wade "gave up" because he knew that if he were to address my comments then he'd have to come to grips with the fact that he misrepresented Gee and that he had falsely accused me of doing precisely what he had been doing all along.
This is the calling of a degreed scholar and Egyptologist ( M.A. in Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. in Egyptology at Yale University) an ignorant dunce on a subject upon which he has spent considerable intellectual time and which has direct bearing on the Egyptological discipline, and all by a near continually raving apostate critic of the entire church (let alone the Book of Abraham) venting his personal neurosis in public and who has no credentials in any subject related to the Book of Abraham whatsoever.
ROFL! I can understand why someone with your education, or lack thereof, would fall to worshipping those who have obtained doctorate degrees (as if it were akin to landing on the moon or walking on water!) but all you've done here is prove the point that you have no critical thinking skills. Anyone vaguely familiar with these subjects knows that a knowledge of Egyptian is irrelevant since no one is arguing that Joseph Smith properly translated the Book of Breathings text. Instead, we get all kinds of convoluted apologetics that try to claim the source for the Book of Abraham is eternally "missing." These arguments can be weighed, measured and refuted with very little resources. All one needs is a critical mind and the will to go check up on their claims. You refuse to do that because you're intellectually lazy. The apologists have tried to ride on the "authoritative" coat-tails of John Gee for too long, but the fact is he has been exposed by not only me, but also by his Yale professor. The entire depts of Egyptology and Brown and the University of Chicago think he is an absolute joke. He has no credibility outside BYU. Just wait until you read some of the hilarious smack-downs Ritner provides in his upcoming book. I've read a draft of the book and I can tell you it is going to be a serious blow to not only Gee and Rhodes, but to FARMS altogether. The issue isn't a level of knowledge of Egyptian. The issue is credibility, and the fact is liars get graduate degrees all the time. Gee jumped into this subject for one reason alone, and that was to claim the throne as the sole LDS egyptologist and defender of all things related to the Book of Abraham. It is why he was promised a BYU position before ever finishing school. He is just another Church employee who is willing to lie at teh drop of a hat just like Nibley and Muhlstein have done. There are no credible LDS authorities on this subject. None. The evidence is just too overwhelming on this point. All you are left with is appealing to their so-called authority.
This is where Graham's delusional and self justifying state of mind takes off and soars. As I've repeated said many times, it is precisely the critics who have carried haughty airs of certainty around for years while the apologetic community speaks of plausibility and tentative conclusions. A major difference between them is that the critics think they can prove the Book of Abraham a fraud through scholarly research. Apologists wouldn't dream of claiming that the Book of Abraham could be demonstrated to be what the Church claims it to be, or proven to be otherwise by those methods.
Do you think apologists don't make declarations of certainty? Just how stupid are you? This is all Schryver has ever done. Do you really think these expensive tomes pumped out by FARMS or these DVD productions by FAIR, all trying to prove there are "evidences for the divine authenticity of the Book of Abraham," is really just their way of saying "go pray about it... take it on faith"? Of course not. They make absolute claims all the time. The fact is there is nothing wrong with declaring certainty when the evidence demands it. The problem is there is never going to be enough evidence to dissuade some old school apologists from their dogmatic positions. We could find an authenticated document signed by Joseph Smith, stating clearly that the whole thing was a fraud, and you'd still be rejecting the evidence as a ploy by Satan or whatever. There is no amount of evidence that you're willing to consider to challenge your own theological presuppositions, and this makes you unreasonable to the core. It places you firmly outside the realm of intellectual discourse because you're not willing to go where the evidence leads. Few LDS apologists are. Instead, all you're willing to do is fight tooth and nail against the evidence because your predtermined belief that the "Church is true" has to win out at all costs.
As I've pointed out before, if your world is not one of fantasy, but of reality, your attitude and approach to the principled disagreements of others would appear out of place, as much of is indicative of deep and pervasive insecurities in your own position - and the perceived high stakes of being shown to be in error.
The realtiy vs. fantasy remark was in reference to John Gee's claim, but if you had watched the presentation you'd know that. He said it was a fantasy that the characters were taken in sequence from the papyrus. What I proved is that Gee was the one indulging fantasies. William Schryver agrees, so what's your problem? If you or anyone else thinks you can show that I am in "error" then I welcome the challenge. But you never do because, well, you don't have truth on your side. You cannot make a case against me or else you would have done so by now. As it is, my presence on that forum causes the entire lot of "authorities" to run for the hills, Schryver included. You have to leave it to Wade Englund, a guy whose greatest value to the club is his willingness to humiliate himself, a guy who in reality, has absolutely no business speaking as an apologist for your side because he is constantly embarrassing the lot of you. Wade left this forum a year ago because we figured him out and no one wanted to beat up on someone with his cognitive handicap. But over at MAD, I'm forced to "deal" with him because he is the only apologist dumb enough to engage my threads and claim I am misrepresenting everything under the sun. This is a standard tactic when you cannot refute the evidence. Just claim something is being misrepresented and leave it at that!
I understand Will has this in the works. Perhaps Wade does to. Patience is a virtue...
Enough patience is one thing I'll never have for William or Wade. But then again, I'm not alone. William has alienated himself from enough LDS scholars to make me comfortable to be in the same group. That you would believe anything William says about an upcoming refutation is funny. William has been telling us for years, not weeks, not months, YEARS, that his publication is just around the corner. William is a coward and an intellectual fraud. He gloated for months and months about his Cipher nonsense, daring anyone to challenge his arguments,. claimin no one had ever done so, knowing perfectly well I had already done so on this forum. He fled this forum a year ago when I proved he was an idiot to go this route and then when I was invited back to MAD my refutations of his presentation got him in such a twist that he had to ban himself as to excuse himself from responding. He is an intellectual coward, which is a coward of the worst kind. You're just a blind follower of the old school apologetic mentality. Once you old farts die off, hopefully you'll take that philosophy with you. The younger generation of critically thinking apologists leaves at least some hope of future bridge building. Right now that is impossible with the die-hards like you, Pahoran, Schryver, Hamblin, Gee, etc..