Stake Pres. Ditches Ethics to Smear Tal B.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Really Trevor, your pretensions to enlightened intellectual sophistication have worn down to the rim, and you're actually starting to throw sparks.

[_Coggins7]

Who's up for a good game of "Smear the Queer?" [in the old sense of the word]

Count me in (could we use one of those old inflated rubber balls they used to use in the sixties and seventies, the ones with the rough contours on the surface?)!

[_Trevor]

Trevor, I don't care what you think of coggins overall, this particular post of his is completely lucid, rational and accurate. I am reading this thread in complete and utter wonderment. Almost disbelief. I am literally fighting off doubts that Ms. Scratch is a real person and not some weirdo getting her kicks.

I don't care who Scratch is or what Scratch's intentions are. I am interested in the issue of Keyes' attempt to refute Tal's account of his interaction with Keyes over Bachman's flagging faith. It seems to me that the apologists I am reading are counting this as a clear and persuasive refutation of Bachman, as often, simply because it now exists. I think a great deal more is at work here, as I discussed in a rather lengthy post that Crocket and Coggins repeatedly demanded that I write, and have now utterly ignored. Now Coggins devolves into his usual puerile accusations and insults about my intellect and suspected political leanings. He is the one who has not dealt with my work. That should tell you something, as eager as you are to hold his hand in solidarity.

[_Trevor]

Nether [sic] do I. However, logically, if Joseph's experiences were fabrications, than [sic] the Church is nonsense from stem to stern.

And that has what to do with what? I do like the nautical metaphor, however. It is one of my favorites.

Your pants are smoking Trevor, and where there's smoke...

I prefer that you not continue to take interest in my pants.

I'm defending it, not protecting it.

The natural inference being something that Coggy wants to deny.

I still smell a leftie here. ahhhh...the bouquet...

Because surely no conservative would take issue with his sub-intellectual swill. That's why he peddles it on religion boards, where people are bound to scrutinize his half-baked opinions in detail (as they are clearly pertinent to the conversation at hand).

[Dr. Sunstoned]

I don't care who Scratch is or what Scratch's intentions are. I am interested in the issue of Keyes' attempt to refute Tal's account of his interaction with Keyes over Bachman's flagging faith. It seems to me that the apologists I am reading are counting this as a clear and persuasive refutation of Bachman, as often, simply because it now exists. I think a great deal more is at work here, as I discussed in a rather lengthy post that Crocket and Coggins repeatedly demanded that I write, and have now utterly ignored. Now Coggins devolves into his usual puerile accusations and insults about my intellect and suspected political leanings. He is the one who has not dealt with my work. That should tell you something, as eager as you are to hold his hand in solidarity.

1. It is a he said/he said situation. Upon what basis could one claim to take one side or another. lt would, seem, upon cursory inspection, and given the proclivities of this board, that TBM's are going to side with Keys a priori, and anti-Mormons are going to side with Tal, a priori.

Here's the rub. the overwhelming majority, if not all, Stake Presidents I have ever known were men of sterling reputations in their communities for whom it would be startling to discover intellectual dishonesty of this kind in a public row with a disaffected member. Tal Bachman, on the other hand, appears, according to DCP, to have a history, much like Scratch, of spreading less than accurate claims regarding apologists he considers his personal philosophical opponents.

His performance, here, as well, bespeaks a rather ravenous appetite for anything that deligitimates and impugns the Church and crushes the faith of its members. This does not appear to be either an honorable or necessary exercise for one who has left the Church. Many leave the Church and move on with their lives, taking from the Church what they will and leaving the rest. Tal is another of the few and proud who simply cannot leave the Church and its people alone after separating from it. He must now explain his apostasy not only to himself but to the world. He must now turn on the Church and purge his conscience and intellect of the gnawing, tormenting reality that millions of others find joy, happiness, and ultimate meaning in the same Church he now finds insulting to his intelligence. He must come to terms with the fact that others, as intelligent as he and, indeed, far more educated and wise than he, remain within its precincts. This must be explained as cognitive dissonance mounts to a throbbing crescendo.

A sticky wicket indeed.

[_Trevor]

OK, so you haven't dealt with what I wrote. True enough.

[_Coggins7]

There is no suspicion, by the way, about Trevor's political leanings. See his recent post in the LDS racism thread.

Leftism is in the dumpster of history, and everyone knows it, even the Leftists.

[_Trevor]

There is no suspicion, by the way, about Trevor's political leanings. See his recent post in the LDS racism thread.

Leftism is in the dumpster of history, and everyone knows it, even the Leftists.

The only dumpster of history that I care to comment on at this juncture is the one in Coggins's brain.

[_Bond...James Bond]

Leftism is in the dumpster of history

WTF does that even mean?

[_Trevor]

WTF does that even mean?

Like so many of Coggy's ideological quips and tirades, it means absolutely nothing.