To Mr Scratch

[_Daniel Peterson]

Pull your head out already, Professor Drama Queen. Boo hoo! Poor Dan can't admit when he's wrong! What's next: are you going to announce to all of us that you have an upcoming trip, so that you can bail out of the thread, and then turn up later, claiming ignorance? I, for one, have grown very, very sick and tired of your endless pretend ignorance, condescension, arrogance, equivocating, and sophistry. Maybe it's *you* who should retire.

Your obsessive personal hostility is usually a bit better masked than this, Scratch,

Sit down, put your head between your knees, and count to ten.

Again: my claim is simply this: Dan got paid for apologetics. Whether this was fifty bucks for an article, a hundred bucks for editing, or $20K for being the Chair of FARMS, the fact remains: Dan was paid for apologetics. *That*, and that alone, is my claim. We can get into the particulars if you like, since that seems to be where your beef lies, but, to reiterate, I am not claiming anything beyond the very simple, straightforward, unadorned fact that DCP has gotten paid to do apologetics.

And I've never ever denied that I've occasionally been paid for apologetics -- in some years fifty bucks, in a few exceptionally bounteous years all the way up into the very low three figures.

This is scarcely a big discovery.

[_moksha]

If there was something to what Scratchopolis said, then why was Scratch banned from MAD? Does MAD lack the power of discernment or does 'polis, since keeping him there would have helped MAD's cause if 'polis was correct?


by the way, you guys pick on Dr Peterson too much.

[_moksha]

If there was something to what Scratchopolis said, then why was Scratch banned from MAD? Does MAD lack the power of discernment or does 'polis, since keeping him there would have helped MAD's cause if 'polis was correct?


by the way, you guys pick on Dr. Peterson too much.

[_harmony]

I, for one, have grown very, very sick and tired of your endless pretend ignorance, condescension, arrogance, equivocating, and sophistry. Maybe it's *you* who should retire.

Ahem. Big deal. So you're sick and tired. So you're very very sick and tired. There are those here who are sick and tired of you, and to them I say the same thing: big deal.

Get over yourself.

[_Yoda]

Again: my claim is simply this: Dan got paid for apologetics. Whether this was fifty bucks for an article, a hundred bucks for editing, or $20K for being the Chair of FARMS, the fact remains: Dan was paid for apologetics. *That*, and that alone, is my claim. We can get into the particulars if you like, since that seems to be where your beef lies, but, to reiterate, I am not claiming anything beyond the very simple, straightforward, unadorned fact that DCP has gotten paid to do apologetics.

And I've never ever denied that I've occasionally been paid for apologetics -- in some years fifty bucks, in a few exceptionally bounteous years all the way up into the very low three figures.

This is scarcely a big discovery.

OK....the crux of this whole issue of bickering seems to be this. Please, Scratch, correct me if I'm wrong.

Scratch claims that DCP stated that he was NEVER paid for doing apologetics.

DCP claims that he never said that. DCP claims that what he said is that he was never paid what could be considered a substantial amount of money from his apologetic work...that he HAS, in fact, not only admitted to being paid, but never denied being paid.

So which is it?

[_The Nehor]

You haven't proven anything. A person would have to be deliberately dishonest, completely stupid, or so biased as to be a drone, in order to not see that you engaged in malicious gossip. Likewise, only an extremely sympathetic sophist would ever see any problem in telling the plain truth, which is that you have gotten paid for apologetics. Over and over we shall go, until you simply man up and accept responsibility for this.

So I'm an extremely sypathetic sophist? Out of curiosity am I deliberately dishonest, completely stupid, or a biased drone?

[_harmony]

So I'm an extremely sypathetic sophist? Out of curiosity am I deliberately dishonest, completely stupid, or a biased drone?

Only the Shadow knows.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Scratch claims that DCP stated that he was NEVER paid for doing apologetics.

DCP claims that he never said that. DCP claims that what he said is that he was never paid what could be considered a substantial amount of money from his apologetic work...that he HAS, in fact, not only admitted to being paid, but never denied being paid.

So which is it?

Scratch is wrong. I've absolutely never said that I have never been paid for doing apologetics. I've picked up $50-$100 on several different occasions for articles that I've written over the years.

I've always said that no part of my salary has been paid to me for doing apologetics, that apologetics has never been a part of my job description, that none of my deans or department chairs has ever asked me to do apologetics, and that my salary would be utterly unchanged if I never wrote an apologetic line.

[_antishock8]

Mr. Peterson stated, and this isn't verbatim, that he hasn't received one dime from apologetics. This was repeated often until Mr. Scratch uncovered that he was, indeed, paid in the form of petty cash, travel, accommodations, and... Possibly upwards of $20,000. All this is ignoring the fact that he is a paid professor in ME studies that devotes large amounts of his time, during the work day, to producing apologetic material, managing an apologetic institution, and defending the Mormon church via publications and lectures (not to mention spamming discussion boards). Let's not forget any small monies he may have made selling apologetic material, too.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Mr. Peterson stated, and this isn't verbatim, that he hasn't received one dime from apologetics. [first emphasis mine]

No, that wasn't verbatim. But if you're going to accuse me of dishonesty on this matter -- and, of course, being you, you are -- precision is everything.

I never, ever, said that I had never received a single dime from apologetics. I said, very accurately, that not one dime of my salary comes from apologetics.

Possibly upwards of $20,000.

No.

All this is ignoring the fact that he is a paid professor in ME studies that devotes large amounts of his time, during the work day, to producing apologetic material, managing an apologetic institution, and defending the Mormon church via publications and lectures (not to mention spamming discussion boards).

Unless Scratch and his minions (e.g., his creepy network of anonymous "informants") are tracking me even more closely than I suspect, nobody out there can have a very clear, exact, and detailed idea of what I spend my days doing. Why do I post throughout the day? Because I'm working at my computer -- editing, writing, producing notes for lectures, interacting with colleagues around the world, etc. -- throughout the day.

And throughout the night. And on weekends.

Academics don't typically work a neat 9-5 schedule, Mondays through Fridays.

Leaving aside my own personal Islam-related writing, teaching, and speaking: Four bi-lingual books will appear in my Middle Eastern Texts Initiative this year, to be distributed by the University of Chicago Press: Ibn Sina's massive Physics, a treatise by Moses Maimonides On Poisons, Qadi ‘Abd al-Jabbar's Critique of Christian Origins, and an anthology of classical Islamic texts on the philosophy of education. Those books don't just happen. A three-day conference will be held in Kuwait City in mid-November, jointly sponsored by BYU and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science, to celebrate the publication of the Physics. Scholars will participate from North America, Europe, and the Middle East. That conference isn't going to just happen, either. And that's not all there is.

Let's not forget any small monies he may have made selling apologetic material, too.

Immorally and unethically, I have, yes, it's true, received royalties over the past decades from a few apologetic items. A few hundred dollars, altogether. Usually not, though.

Have I accepted them? Yes, I have. I've had kids to clothe and feed, and home repairs to do, and fifty bucks here and there comes in handy.

Decent people who write things don't get royalties, I suppose.