Sic et Non wrote:Every once in a while, I have a disheartening encounter online with a virulently anti-Islamic person. It’s especially discouraging when that virulently anti-Islamic person is a Latter-day Saint.
I had such an online encounter just now, this evening, with two very ardent critics of Islam. It occurred on some sort of LDS-oriented “constitutionalist” Facebook page belonging to a woman named Lisa H. Smith, who was one of those involved in the discussion that concluded just a few minutes ago.
I was invited to the discussion by a third person. The other of the two anti-Islamic folks, Daniel Cox, responded to that invitation before I arrived by describing me as “a hack that denies the realities of Islam” and declaring that he “really question[s] [my] motivations.”
He’s obviously a very perceptive fellow. Maybe my extreme anti-Mormon critics are wrong in thinking that I earn my living by lying about the claims of the Restoration, either via gold bullion from the Church or from the donations of gullible supporters of the Interpreter Foundation, or from some combination of the two. Maybe I actually earn my living by lying about Islam! Perhaps I’m on the payroll of the Muslim Brotherhood or of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In any event and whatever the case, I’m plainly a lying mercenary hack. Clearly, there’s common ground here.
This last bit is interesting, no? I.e., that all critics are pretty much the same? And that Dr. Peterson has critics in just about all camps? Why is it, I wonder, that he has such difficulty getting along with people?
One answer might lie in the fact that he seems to lack empathy, or that he has a tin ear when it comes to understanding or responding to others:
Daniel Peterson wrote:Sister Smith further explained that she had nearly been raped by a Muslim once, and said, if I understood her correctly, that he had cited a religious justification.
I responded that, while I regretted that she had been obliged to endure such an experience, she should not generalize from it to the entirety of Islam, Islamic civilization, and the Islamic world.
She demanded to know whether I had ever been sexually assaulted in the name of someone’s god. I indicated that I had not, but that many FLDS women apparently have — and that their horrible stories no more reflect on the Restoration than her story, as such, reflects on Islam as a whole.
She answered that I was discounting her experience, and then she shut the exchange down and blocked me from viewing her Facebook page.
I had not discounted Sister Smith’s experience. But she plainly discounted mine. I don’t claim that my decades of study and teaching about Islam, and my years of residence in Islamic countries, and my numerous visits to the Islamic world, my many visits in mosques and with Islamic leaders, and my knowledge of the principal Islamic languages, and my intensive study of the Qur’an, and so forth, make me infallible on those or any other subjects. But — and perhaps this is sheer arrogance on my part — I think that maybe they should count for something when the topic of discussion is Islam.
Whoa! So we have an LDS woman who was sexually assaulted, and DCP basically said, "Gee, bummer for you! But you still have bad logic! Shut up and listen to me, Sister: *I* am the expert here." Yeah: that's not very empathetic at all. And to put icing on the cake: not only does DCP not seem to get why this would be upsetting to the woman, but he flips the whole thing around into a story about how downtrodden and "wounded" *he* is because they didn't bow down to his scholarly knowledge! Lol. Classic Mopologetic move there. Yeah: in the moral calculus of experience, I don't really think that failing to have your butt kissed is even in the same ballpark as getting sexually assaulted.
Perhaps not surprisingly, claims that Peterson had distorted the events emerged almost immediately:
Mrs ENFP wrote:At least HALF if not more of this article is twisted and made up and totally falsified. I know - I witnessed this conversation which took place in a Facebook group about the LDS last days prophecies. He didn't even get the type or name of the group right let alone a great many details.
But the truly interesting revelation was this one:
(emphasis added)Mrs. ENFP wrote:Where he is going with this is slandering the two people who dared to disagree with him in a conversation on his favorite topic. As a witness to the conversation in question, I can say that nearly all of what he says took place is fabricated to make himself look good and his facts are twisted in the extreme. He was angry that the conversation ended without praise to his specialty and instead in civil disagreement.
Basically this is a tantrum fit after he didn't win a discussion on the topic and persuade anyone. He's been removed from multiple Facebook groups because of how he speaks to people and the tantrums he throws just like this one. He didn't feel he had another recourse since the individuals he names and whines about would no longer converse with him so he wrote this as a means to get back at them. Read it again and look for the substance of which he is writing... where is the point other than to slander people who didn't agree with his view of things?
Why is he lying about the conversation that took place or even the name or type of group it was located within? Some tough questions to ponder.
Whoa! Kicked off of multiple Facebook groups? What is with this guy? I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who remember how he had to be censured on the old "World Table" message board because he couldn't keep things civil. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
