Really, what is the point of such a personal attack, Will?
William Schryver wrote:It has now been a little over a year since I first encountered "Kevin Graham" on the old FAIR board. While conscious of the fact that others have known and interacted with him much longer than I ever did, I am still quite amazed at the the precipitous nature of his downfall in the past year. Of course, he doesn't see it at all. He simply thinks he's become wiser as time as passed. We are the blind; he the sighted.
And now he's found a home here, where he is flattered at every turn by a crowd more than willing to welcome him with open arms. You would think that there would be some spiritual warning light flickering on the dashboard of his soul when he looks around himself and sees nothing but ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons in the ranks of his acolytes – but I guess he has adopted the philosophy that “to rule is worth ambition, though in hell.” From his perch beside the scummy little pond of the mormondiscussions.com message board, one can almost picture him looking back to his former apologist comrades, and in particular to Dan Peterson, and shouting with his fists clenched and raised to the sky:”Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
this the seat that we must change for heaven,
this mournful gloom for that celestial light?
Be it so, since he who now is sovereign
can dispose and bid what shall be right:
farthest from Him is best:
Whom reason hath equaled,
force hath made supreme above his equals.
Farewell happy fields where joy forever dwells:
Hail horrors, hail infernal world,
and thou profoundest hell – receive thy new possessor!
One who brings a mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than He
Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least we shall be free;
The Almighty hath not built here for His envy,
Will not drive us hence: here we may reign secure,
and in my choice to reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”
In the long run, his tragic demise will mean little except to him and his family. He doesn’t have the calm deliberateness of a Brent Metcalfe or a Dan Vogel in order to make of himself an effective critic of the church. His propensity for brittle intellectual rigidity and shockingly condescending rants will eventually marginalize him in the ex-Mormon community as effectively as it did in the community of apologists.
But I’m sure he’ll always have a home here in Shadyville.
