Gadianton wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:40 am
It would be better to just own the whole thing, and admit that all of Christianity is in league with the devil, just as Joseph Smith said it was -- the whole thing is an abomination. So what if that would make him bigoted, if God hath decreed it in the scriptures? Why does he care what the fallen think of him?
A good and pertinent question, Dr. Robbers. Despite the recent spate of "holier than thou" posts at "SeN," I think you're right that the Proprietor doesn't care if, at the end of the day, he's "bigoted." Just look at this exchange:
Daniel Peterson wrote:CK4L: "I've been more than discouraged watching the infighting between supporters of the Heartlander/Meso-America issue and many other issues.
"I’ve been saddened by the personal attacks from LDS scholars on various people and organizations."
I'm feeling generous today, CK4L, so I'm going to give you an A for effort.
In the future, though, you might want to try to hide the obvious straining. Try to make it look more natural.
Of course, CK4L's comment is referring to Rodney Meldrum, Jonathan Neville, and the Heartlanders. I'm curious why Dr. Peterson refers to this as "straining." I guess his position is that since Greg Smith, Midgley, and "Peter Pan" are doing the direct smearing, that he himself isn't culpable? Well, last I checked, he's the one who continuously is giving air time to "Neville-Neville Land." He's the one who, as Editor in Chief of the old
FARMS Review and current President of the Mormon Interpreter Foundation, oversaw the Dehlin "hit piece," the Greg Smith-authored Meldrum "hit piece," and many other articles (including recent ones by Gee) that could also be characterized as "hit pieces." I mean, Midgley is really digging in his heels over this:
Midgley wrote:I know Rodney Meldrum. He once phoned me just a few minutes after 9:00PM to inform me that he could not accept my invitation to have me pay for a nice lunch for him. He had two reason: (1) he did not trust me, and (2) he was far to busy to have a "free" lunch with me. Nine and a half hours latter, after he had frequently accused me of being an atheist, our phone conversation ended. My wife listened on her phone for three hours, and was delighted that I never once raised my voice and only sometimes asked Rodner a question that stumped him. Rodney seems to me to be a mercenary trying and perhaps even succeeding in making a living selling mock wisdom for real money.
In addition, Meldrum insists that the Book of Mormon took place only within the current boundaries of the USA. He thinks those Latter-day Saint scholars, and those who like me, tend to agree with those scholars are atheists. I don't think Dan has ever once said a single thing about the geographical location of the Book of Mormon, except those instances where he has pointed out on sic et non that Volcano Seismologists have held that Mesoamerica as having a reasonably good fit for what is described in the Book of Mormon.
The story is absurd. 9 hours? Plus he had his wife listening in for three hours? Don't these people have better things to do with their lives? Regardless, this is the sort of thing that Midgley is openly posting on "SeN" in the midst of the Editor's attempts to portray himself as this "Lamb of Christ" who carefully tiptoes around others' feelings, and who never has an unkind word for anyone.
This line is an absolute classic:
Daniel Peterson wrote:My views on tribalism and nastiness and lack of charity are quite clear, CK4L, and have been consistent over decades.
Please stop trying to score embarrassingly obvious points.
Sure: of course. They *have* been "consistent over decades," as evident in the pages of the old
FARMS Review and on SHIELDS (which Cobra Kai quoted), clear on through his posting on ZLMB, the FAIR board, MAD, MD&D, Interpreter, and now "SeN." Picking fights, taking digs at the Maxwell Institute and at Gerald Bradford and Loyd Ericson and Blair Hodges, and now Jonathan Neville. It's not as if this sort of thing has subsided over the years. But he's so delusional--so caught up in this fantasy about being "saintly"--that now he's slamming the Interpreter donors that got chased off by his politics:
SeN wrote:Yes. My public lack of enthusiasm for a certain political figure cost the interpreter Foundation the support of two (probably relatively modest) potential donors, led to one extended-family member breaking off his/her relationship with me, and has (I suspect) caused two or three friendships to cool. None of this happened at my initiative, and I'm saddened and dismayed by it.
"probably relatively modest"? In other words: "They can go screw themselves!" Seriously: why the need for the petty cheap-shot here?
But the public piety has now been going on for, what, a week? The latest tidbit involves
dismay over people who are glad that Rush Limbaugh died:
DCP wrote:I simply cannot understand rejoicing at the death of anybody.
There’ve been a few occasions when I’ve grimly said to myself that, well, a death was justified. Or that it would end a problem. Or that it served justice. But I’ve never been delighted.
Midgley has said that the apologists were basically waiting around for Elder Mark E. Petersen to die so that they could advance the LGT. Sure: that's not quite "delight." Maybe Dr. Peterson feels that "justice" was "served," then? Or that Elder Petersen's "death was justified," since the LGT is the only way to maintain faith?
In any case, this passage is telling:
But I almost always agreed with Rush Limbaugh, and I thought him extremely entertaining and often very, very funny. He was, I thought, a genuinely happy warrior.
Which explains why DCP liked him: a "warrior." Always about the fight, eh? And right on cue, the Editor wraps up the entry thusly:
Yesterday, I posted the following little note in a blog entry:
“Finally, I’m happy to report that I’ve accepted an invitation to write a column (bi-weekly or, anyway, as bi-weekly as I choose to make it) for Meridian Magazine. It will start when I start it.”
I’m being attacked for it, at the usual place.
Quelle surprise!
It was, apparently, an arrogant, bizarre, and childish outburst.
Here’s what happened: The editors at
Meridian asked me to write a regular column for them. I agreed to do so. And I asked when they wanted me to start. (I’m going through an uuusually busy two weeks just now.). Whenever you’re ready, they responded, asking me simply to tell them when I intended to begin, so that they could adjust their internal scheduling accordingly. Hence my comment that “It will start when I start it.”
This is a minor and trivial example of precisely the continual and seemingly reflexive demonizing of The Enemy that I so lament in today’s discourse.
Does he really "lament" this? If so, then he can prove it: no more links to "Neville-Neville Land" for the rest of 2021. No more attacks on the JSPP in "Interpreter."
Once upon a time (it seems that people have already forgotten), Dr. Moore offered the apologists $10,000 if they could knock off this behavior for a mere matter of months. We all remember how that went. The show must go on, I guess.