In part. But what I am suggesting is that sentiments against Mormonism overall are unhealthy. And the sentiments against Dan Peterson are ignominous, hateful, prejudiced, inflammatory, and could lead to unstable people going further.
"The man is a barracuda! . . . He is a mean spirited person of the highest order. I have no sympathy for this poor excuse for a human being at all! Blech!!!" (Lucyfer, on the RFM board, 26 December 2006, regarding Daniel Peterson)
"DCP likes to spend his time degenerating others. . . . All DCP is doing is hiding behind the curtain . . . all the while turning gears and flipping switches to make sure that he isn't exposed for the bigoted fraud he is." (from the ironically titled Mormon Discussions Board, 4 February 2007)
”I'm not excusing his pompous diatribes or attacks on ex-Mormons or his twisting of church history and bizarre Kantian relativist leanings, but still, I feel sorry for him.” (Kimberly Ann [on the "Recovery" board, 26 December 2006], regarding Daniel Peterson)
Why all the attention and focus on Prof. Daniel Peterson [on the 'Recovery' board]?"
Mr Daniel Peterson issued a challenge to a poster here. DP has ran off
That's why.
DP is a blowhard moral coward, in my opinion, as he called for a debate and when the call was answered, DP ran away like a craven cur.
You do not need to say sorry to DCP. He . . . is a bad, wicked man. One day the Devil will claim him for his own . . .
(Matt, "Recovery" board [7 March 2006])
I don't know if you've noticed, Agassiz, but you're approaching Dan Peterson in popularity ratings on here. And comments like this are why. . .
Look around you. Jesse Jackson's a joke. Jimmy Swaggart's a joke. The Pope's a joke. The Mormon prophet, who claims to be a Christian, is a joke. Albert Mohler, Jr.'s a joke. Even Mother Teresa was a joke, cozying up to all those inhuman dictators, and letting people die so she could "work out her penance", rather than using the millions she had donated to her to erect a modern health care facility. THEY'RE ALL A JOKE.
-- Tal Bachman (RfM, 10 August 2006)
"Prof. P is a coward and a few other things I could name, but I will not stoop to his level." (from the ironically-named Mormon Discussions Board, 3 February 2007)
Daniel Graham may have done some brilliant stuff - but that's entirely irrelevant to this issue, isn't it? He could be Martin Heidegger himself (in fact, judging by the fascination with anti-realism BS Mormon apologists seem to have, he probably loves the guy).
-Tal Bachman (RFM, 12 June 2006)
The smell around Daniel Peterson and his ilk at FARMS are symptoms of an ideological system in distress as much as the smell of decaying flesh is of a dead body. They are Derridian postmodern fog machines whose purpose is to make the terrain around the borders of Mormonism so hard to find and to appear so baffling and unattractive that the faithful who wander in that direction will turn back in dismay.
Don’t hold your breath (though it is hard to resist doing this) while waiting for Peterson or FARMS to clarify anything. But even smelly fog shows can be enjoyed at a distance. Peterson and his FARMSy friends put out some spectacularly pungent fog.
(Bob McCue, on the “Recovery” board, 13 March 2006)
in my opinion, no honest, rationally-thinking person can read FARMS' and FAIRS' apologetics and remain a TBM. To maintain belief, one has to be as dishonest and/or unhinged as the apologists themselves are. (Randy J., “Recovery” Board, 22 November 2006)
“the scamsters game that . . . began with Joseph and continues to Daniel Peterson” (Luman Walters, RFM, 31 August 2006)
For Mormonism, there is safety only in stupour. Not in hard, brave thought.
-- Tal Bachman, RFM (13 June 2006)
Peterson is an idiot and a hack. . . . The man is not really a man he's a snake. -brian-the-christ (RfM, 10 January 2006)
"I truly believe that DCP is intellectually corrupt. He was a *MAJOR* catalyst for my wife and I to study our way out of the church. He relies on bloviating with large words in an attempt to obfuscate the subject matter at hand and when called on it he takes his ball and runs home."
(BornUnderPeaches, 28 June 2006, "Recovery" Board)
I don't have much to say about DP & Co.
The fact that they're intellectual charlatans pales beside their lack of fundamental human decency. --”et in Utah ego”(RFM board, 25 September 2005)
Daniel Peterson, "a lowballing trashtalker who deals in smear tactics" ("Mister Scratch," on the Dr. Shades board)
Mormonism is really a break off Islam They don't think Jesus is the god , they cover up their women and give them no rights, They hate all other religons and you must convert to their religion or go to hell. They get violent tempers when you question their beliefs. They want to take over the earth. The two groups have too much in common. -fromplanet13, "Recovery" board, 31 October 2006
I remain a huge fan of Daniel Peterson's. I can't think of anyone else over there, with perhaps the exception of Midgley, who so consistently makes the church, and Mormon belief, look idiotic.
(Tal Bachman, on the "Recovery" board, 13 March 2006)
DCP is alive and ticking. Slippery Joe and Briggy are long gone, and so it's not quite the same to pick on them. There's something that is more satisfying---in a nebulous but reaffirming sort of way---about calling Peterson a lard ass and a douche bag, as opposed to talking trash about Polygamy Joe.
-- “Mister Scratch,” The “Recovery” Board (7 March 2006)
"Daniel Peterson is not a second rate hack academic. He doesn't rate. In the slightest. Without BYU I wonder what he would be doing? Flipping burgers? No, he would be training people to flip burgers at a burger flipping academy, somewhere..." (Matt, "Recovery from Mormonism" board, 12 January 2007)
This man has the biggest persecution complex I have ever seen. He can't write anything without mentioning his detractors. He is pathetically insecure. His writings are all self-serving and do nothing to illuminate the so-called "subject". His ONLY purpose for EVER writing ANYTHING is to assuage his own fragile ego.
Peterson without an enemy is like natural gas without the stinky additive to warn people of its presence. He's invisible, colorless, tasteless and heavier (waaaaaay heavier) than air. The only way anyone even knows he's around is because of the "stink" that he makes sure surrounds him at all times because he knows he's nothing without it!
Put THAT in your tagline mr. Peterson
("Undetectable Odor," on the so-called "Recovery" board, 30 January 2007)
That both DP and Nibley are nothing more than merely average scholars needs to be pointed out more often. That neither of them can fairly be called "intellectual" should be obvious, but isn't (which is more an indictment of american education than it is testament to any great powers of imposture in either of them).
I'm not sure that DP even makes much of a claim to intellectual status. While he sometimes vaguely alludes to his "other" scholarly life, what he produces for the LDS apologetics market is usually just a loose pastiche of quotations which provide the jumping off point for petty ad hominem attacks. The true objects of his "criticism" are individual persons, not ideas or arguments.
Nibley, on the other hand, at least possesses the trappings of an "intellectual," if only on the level of caricature. He reads like an anti-intellectual stereotype of a "professor:" convoluted verbiage, "big words," and allusions to classical literature dropped in every other sentence.
-- “et in Utah ego” (“Recovery” board, 29 October 2005)
“Maybe I have issues of my own that make me take pity on the most despicable of people, but I really do feel for Mr. Peterson.” -- Kimberly Ann, "Recovery" board, 26 December 2006
Peterson still seems bewildered and hurt when people observe that he focuses so often on everything but what is really at issue, in his poor, mad scribblings. . . . If we had any doubt the church was a fraud, that it actually has guys like DCP "defending" it should confirm it beyond any doubt. (Tal Bachman, RFM, 8 June 2006)
IMHO [Peterson] has sociopathic/borderline psychopathic tendencies. Guys like him give me the willies because they don't have any ethical/moral compass to guide what they do in life. He has no boundaries on who is fair game in his nasty attacks against everyone who might disagree with him. Objective reasoning does NOT exist in his world.
--”Rebel Scholar” (RFM Board, 26 September 2005)
I would like them to speak and publish as much as possible, because their stuff strikes everyone but totally gone Mormons as bloody daft. I don't know of any way to better illustrate to people that there is something profoundly screwed-up with Joseph's church than to show them Mormon apologetic writing. That's one big fat difference between me and them: They'd shut all of us up forever if they could, whereas I'd put Dan Peterson and Gee and the other dudes over there on TV as much as possible, especially with sharp interviewers. To most people, they sound like madmen. (Tal Bachman, RFM, 31 March 2006)
"But once you publish in FARMS your tainted for life. Let's face it. . . . And only the weak-minded find the FARMS rag to have any value."
Tom Kimball, of Signature Books, on RfM (11 May 2005)
“One great thing about Bro. Peterson is that even when he may have a point, he seems congenitally unable to express it in anything like a sane, convincing way.” (Tal Bachman, RFM, 22 December 2006)
And YOU exmos sit back and say NOTHING!!! And whine and complain about whenever you are attacked in the slightest. You are bigots! First rate bigots!