The Wisdom & Faith of Lehi Cranston

[_Daniel Peterson]

What I deny is that I am or have been especially cruel.

I think the many people you taunted and ridiculed on RfM would tend to disagree.

?????

I've scarcely ever posted on RfM, and I don't believe I've ever done it to taunt and ridicule.

Just like Lehi Cranston deserves to be treated, in your eyes, as an insincere and dishonest troll.

What???

Just as Mike Quinn "deserved it," just as Prof. Ritner "deserved it." And so on.

I've done nothing to either of them, and bear neither of them any ill will.

My supposed evil plots against them are nothing but fiction of your own weird devising.

you "unintentionally" helped to seriously damage Mike Quinn's (and Robert Ritner's, and Steve Benson's, and Tal Bachman's, etc., etc., etc.) credibility among a pretty significant number of Latter-day Saints.

What on earth are you talking about?

a simple apology, for your bad behavior online and in print (in the FARMS Review) would permanently end my career on the messageboards.

Desirable as that would be, I won't posture or lie to bring it about.

[_Ray A]

As always, I invite people curious about the FARMS Review to actually read it:

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/review/

I think I may have conveyed the wrong impression here. My post wasn't supposed to be specifically about the Review, but the approach to apologetics in general.

I confess I've only read the Review up to about 1998, and some assorted articles thereafter. My "beef" with FARMS actually goes back to 1987, when I wrote John Welch that long letter explaining why I felt FARMS was becoming nothing more than "an apologetic arm of the Church" (but then, maybe I was just mistaken from the beginning?). I must try to dig up that letter again as I know I still have it in hardcopy.

Frankly, I don't know if it's realistic to expect anything else from FARMS. It's definitely not going to publish anything that would put another nail in Mormonism. I read the Review up to 1996 very closely, but as I've mentioned before my "downward" opinion of it began with Volume 6, the rebuttal to the Metcalfe book.

[_Droopy]

Those are harsh and hurtful accusations Droopy, I hope you fill bigger now that you've made them.

The truth can be, indeed, harsh and hurtful for those who have difficulties with the truth.

[_Droopy]

Well---surprise, surprise!---you "unintentionally" helped to seriously damage Mike Quinn's (and Robert Ritner's, and Steve Benson's, and Tal Bachman's, etc., etc., etc.) credibility among a pretty significant number of Latter-day Saints. Do you feel "terrible"? Probably not. In fact, I have strong reason to believe that you probably found it "funny," and laughed about it with Bill Hamblin as the two of you watched silent anti-Mormon films for FHE.

Quinn didn't damage his own credibility among most LDS long ago with his overtly tendentious scholarship?

Tal Bachman? Tal Bachman has allowed himself to become a victim of the pop music business and culture of which he is a part. The parable of the Sower. Should his wanna-be Dawkinsesque romper room atheism be taken seriously by faithful LDS or confronted for what it is? Is Bachman credible as a critic of the LDS church? Why?

[_Mister Scratch]

I think the many people you taunted and ridiculed on RfM would tend to disagree.

?????

I've scarcely ever posted on RfM, and I don't believe I've ever done it to taunt and ridicule.

Have you sent emails to RfM posters? Have you posted mocking signature lines, in which you yanked comments from them? Have you bashed RfM posters from the safety of MAD, where they couldn't ever possibly respond?

Just like Lehi Cranston deserves to be treated, in your eyes, as an insincere and dishonest troll.

What???

Did you not put his name in "scare quotes"? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you did put his name in scare quotes, correct? Thus suggesting that the posters name, in reality, was not actually "Lehi Cranston"? Y/N?

Just as Mike Quinn "deserved it," just as Prof. Ritner "deserved it." And so on.

I've done nothing to either of them, and bear neither of them any ill will.

BS. You tried very hard to suggest to TBMs that Quinn's excommunication was the result of "homosexuality," rather than Brethren anger over his historical publications. (All while neatly excusing all of it by saying, "Ah, well, no one really knows what goes on in Church Courts.") You spent a lot of time telling people, "His history cannot be trusted."

With Ritner, you suggested that the generally believed story---that he left Gee's committee due to Gee's work with the BoA---wasn't true, and that it instead had to do with some "malpractice" on Ritner's part. You were nearly sued by Prof. Ritner over this. Remember?

And yet, still, you want to suggest that you've "done nothing"? Your stubbornness and intransigence is so bizarre that I am beginning to wonder if you are doing it for legal reasons---i.e., your lawyer told you to never admit to any wrongdoing, so that it couldn't be used against you in court, or something of that nature.

Honestly, why would a bishop in the Lord's Church act this way? And feel no guilt or shame over it?

My supposed evil plots against them are nothing but fiction of your own weird devising.

I didn't say anything about any "evil plots." I referred to very specific public utterances, made by you, on these messageboards.

you "unintentionally" helped to seriously damage Mike Quinn's (and Robert Ritner's, and Steve Benson's, and Tal Bachman's, etc., etc., etc.) credibility among a pretty significant number of Latter-day Saints.

What on earth are you talking about?

Do you really think that your comments about these people had zero impact on the MAD/FAIR TBMs? Do you really think that the majority of these TBMs say to themselves, "Ah, well, that's simply DCP's opinion...." Or, instead, do you think that they simply take you at your word? Do you think that they look at you and think, "Well, DCP is a professor, a well-respected one, and a member of the Church! He hangs out with kings and magistrates! I believe what he's saying."

a simple apology, for your bad behavior online and in print (in the FARMS Review) would permanently end my career on the messageboards.

Desirable as that would be, I won't posture or lie to bring it about.

Huh? Are you saying that you did not suggest that Quinn's sexual orientation had something to do with his excommunication, as opposed to, say, his historical writings? Are you saying that you never flung juvenile insults in the course of an l-skinny exchange? Are you saying that you told the full and absolute truth about what happened between Robert Ritner and Gee? Are you saying that you openly told Infymus that you had received payment for your Mopologetic articles and editing work? Are you saying that you never collected and held on to quotes from RfM? Are you saying that you never notified your l-skinny pals that you'd "caught one"?

[_antishock8]

What's brilliant about Mr. Scratch's approach is his ability to turn the tables on Mr. Peterson's apologetic style. Defending Mormonism is about making every argument a personal attack on the critic while ignoring or brushing aside facts or doctrinal points. Mr. Scratch engages Mr. Peterson on a personal level, the area in which Mr. Peterson operates in defense of his religion, but gives Mr. Peterson no quarter. Mr. Scratch has an uncanny and uniquely tuned sense to the Mopologetic's mindset and posting behavior, and simply turns the tables on them.

In the end, while Mr. Scratch looks a little pathological, it's the buffoons who are allowed to be ensnared by their own methods that end up looking worse for the wear. It's THIS kind of back and forth that makes this board so compelling and irresistible. Good job, Mr. Scratch.

[_The Nehor]

What's brilliant about Mr. Scratch's approach is his ability to turn the tables on Mr. Peterson's apologetic style. Defending Mormonism is about making every argument a personal attack on the critic while ignoring or brushing aside facts or doctrinal points. Mr. Scratch engages Mr. Peterson on a personal level, the area in which Mr. Peterson operates in defense of his religion, but gives Mr. Peterson no quarter. Mr. Scratch has an uncanny and uniquely tuned sense to the Mopologetic's mindset and posting behavior, and simply turns the tables on them.

In the end, while Mr. Scratch looks a little pathological, it's the buffoons who are allowed to be ensnared by their own methods that end up looking worse for the wear. It's THIS kind of back and forth that makes this board so compelling and irresistible. Good job, Mr. Scratch.

[_Daniel Peterson]

What's brilliant about Mr. Scratch's approach is his ability to turn the tables on Mr. Peterson's apologetic style. Defending Mormonism is about making every argument a personal attack on the critic while ignoring or brushing aside facts or doctrinal points. Mr. Scratch engages Mr. Peterson on a personal level, the area in which Mr. Peterson operates in defense of his religion, but gives Mr. Peterson no quarter. Mr. Scratch has an uncanny and uniquely tuned sense to the Mopologetic's mindset and posting behavior, and simply turns the tables on them.

In the end, while Mr. Scratch looks a little pathological, it's the buffoons who are allowed to be ensnared by their own methods that end up looking worse for the wear. It's THIS kind of back and forth that makes this board so compelling and irresistible. Good job, Mr. Scratch.

Reasonable and sane people who may wonder whether "defending Mormonism is about making every argument a personal attack on the critic while ignoring or brushing aside facts or doctrinal points," or whether "Mr. Peterson operates in defense of his religion" only and entirely "on a personal level," are welcome to test that hypothesis by actually examining some of the relevant evidence.

A very substantial proportion of that evidence is available at http://farms.BYU.edu/.