LDS "world famous scholar" publishes book
Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 4:55 am
I posted this on postmormon.org a few days ago. Here it is for further debate, if it warrants it.
Dan Peterson, salaried Mormon propagandist, recently published a book: "Muhammad, Prophet of God".
The good news is that Peterson finally decided to take a break from wasting his professional life defending a sociopathic charlatan. The bad news is, he just went and found another sociopathic charlatan to defend. Why such intense attraction to sociopathic charlatans? Hmmmmm...Hopefully I forget soon that D. Michael Quinn referred to "certain" apologists as "sociopaths", and that not one department head of America's top five Near Eastern Studies programs had ever heard of "the world famous NES scholar" in question - including the department head of the very program he got his Ph.D in! (UCLA) If I don't, I might start thinking that perhaps birds of a feather...no - impossible.
It's kind of surprising that Peterson saw fit to accord the title "prophet of God" to his other favourite sociopathic charlatan, just like he does is number one favourite. What next - "Jim Jones, Prophet of God"? I don't see why not. Jim Jones was a serial adulterer just like Joseph Smith, devised increasingly bizarre and extreme loyalty tests just like Joseph Smith, boasted as much as Joseph Smith, claimed total sovereignty over every aspect of his deluded followers' lives, liberty, and property just like Joseph Smith, tried to build and enforce a Utopia in which all things were in common just like Joseph Smith, was as ruthless in quashing leadership challenges as was Joseph Smith, was totally paranoid just like Joseph Smith...it is not so far-fetched to imagine that if a non-affiliated Peterson had been living in the Bay Area 35 years ago, that the People's Temple might have gotten him rather than Mormonism.
Don't laugh - the truth is, that anyone who can believe that Joseph Smith and Muhammad were actually "holy men", when their behaviour was identical to any conscienceless, power hungry man's behaviour, would have no real grounds for ruling anyone out. Joseph Smith, Muhammad, Jim Jones, David Koresh...they all sort of blur together after while. Anything can happen once you kind of start losing it, but don't know you are...your ability to think can really be affected. We all know that. Now. You can miss the most obvious things...
One example:
Last year, Peterson decided it would be a good idea to publish a negative review of Carl Sagan's primer on critical versus magical thinking "Demon Haunted World" in his church propaganda organ, thus explicitly (if, somehow, inadvertently) equating belief in Mormonism with belief in leprechauns, alien rape abductions, and giant monsters who live in your garage - but only when you're not there.
Anyway, it is very strange - the world famous scholar's book on Muhammad, only two hundred and thirty eight thousand, three hundred and forty three places out of first place on the Amazon sales chart, wasn't published by any university press, or any mainstream publishing company. It was published by a religious publishing outfit called Eerdman's.
Never heard of them? Ah - well, you should visit the website: http://www.eerdmans.com/shop/product.as ... 0802804457 Eerdman's is the proud publisher of The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, by one Anthony Hoekema.
Given its publishing of "Satanic" anti-Mormon literature, Eerdman's seems like a strange choice of business partner for any Mormon propagandist. But what can "strange choice" mean to someone who defends a Mormon testimony by referencing Kuhnian paradigms, publishes articles advancing the blatantly false claim that it was never church doctrine that the Native Americans were the blood descendants of Lehi, and concludes that the Old Testament is a "re-imagination" of Israelite history because of what all the archaeological findings show (no irony there, right?).
One last strange thing: though it was published four months ago, with review copies no doubt sent out some months earlier than that, several google searches failed to find any evidence of any reviews of "Muhammad, Prophet of God".
Once again - hmmmmm....
Dan Peterson, salaried Mormon propagandist, recently published a book: "Muhammad, Prophet of God".
The good news is that Peterson finally decided to take a break from wasting his professional life defending a sociopathic charlatan. The bad news is, he just went and found another sociopathic charlatan to defend. Why such intense attraction to sociopathic charlatans? Hmmmmm...Hopefully I forget soon that D. Michael Quinn referred to "certain" apologists as "sociopaths", and that not one department head of America's top five Near Eastern Studies programs had ever heard of "the world famous NES scholar" in question - including the department head of the very program he got his Ph.D in! (UCLA) If I don't, I might start thinking that perhaps birds of a feather...no - impossible.
It's kind of surprising that Peterson saw fit to accord the title "prophet of God" to his other favourite sociopathic charlatan, just like he does is number one favourite. What next - "Jim Jones, Prophet of God"? I don't see why not. Jim Jones was a serial adulterer just like Joseph Smith, devised increasingly bizarre and extreme loyalty tests just like Joseph Smith, boasted as much as Joseph Smith, claimed total sovereignty over every aspect of his deluded followers' lives, liberty, and property just like Joseph Smith, tried to build and enforce a Utopia in which all things were in common just like Joseph Smith, was as ruthless in quashing leadership challenges as was Joseph Smith, was totally paranoid just like Joseph Smith...it is not so far-fetched to imagine that if a non-affiliated Peterson had been living in the Bay Area 35 years ago, that the People's Temple might have gotten him rather than Mormonism.
Don't laugh - the truth is, that anyone who can believe that Joseph Smith and Muhammad were actually "holy men", when their behaviour was identical to any conscienceless, power hungry man's behaviour, would have no real grounds for ruling anyone out. Joseph Smith, Muhammad, Jim Jones, David Koresh...they all sort of blur together after while. Anything can happen once you kind of start losing it, but don't know you are...your ability to think can really be affected. We all know that. Now. You can miss the most obvious things...
One example:
Last year, Peterson decided it would be a good idea to publish a negative review of Carl Sagan's primer on critical versus magical thinking "Demon Haunted World" in his church propaganda organ, thus explicitly (if, somehow, inadvertently) equating belief in Mormonism with belief in leprechauns, alien rape abductions, and giant monsters who live in your garage - but only when you're not there.
Anyway, it is very strange - the world famous scholar's book on Muhammad, only two hundred and thirty eight thousand, three hundred and forty three places out of first place on the Amazon sales chart, wasn't published by any university press, or any mainstream publishing company. It was published by a religious publishing outfit called Eerdman's.
Never heard of them? Ah - well, you should visit the website: http://www.eerdmans.com/shop/product.as ... 0802804457 Eerdman's is the proud publisher of The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, by one Anthony Hoekema.
Given its publishing of "Satanic" anti-Mormon literature, Eerdman's seems like a strange choice of business partner for any Mormon propagandist. But what can "strange choice" mean to someone who defends a Mormon testimony by referencing Kuhnian paradigms, publishes articles advancing the blatantly false claim that it was never church doctrine that the Native Americans were the blood descendants of Lehi, and concludes that the Old Testament is a "re-imagination" of Israelite history because of what all the archaeological findings show (no irony there, right?).
One last strange thing: though it was published four months ago, with review copies no doubt sent out some months earlier than that, several google searches failed to find any evidence of any reviews of "Muhammad, Prophet of God".
Once again - hmmmmm....