Everybody's welcome?

[_moksha]

Don't single me out because of him.

Could we single you out because you're cute?

[_Ray A]

The big question is: Why were you so upset over it in the first place?

Because at the time I had the same apostate spirit you now have.

Come on, Ray---I have already demonstrated that this is a baloney answer. If I were to follow up by asking, "Gee, Ray, how did you get rid of this so-called "apostate spirit"?" I would already know the answer. You admitted, in the thread "The Many Faces of Ray A," that your "shuffling off" of this "spirit" was a result of A) your daughter getting called a "crack whore" by someone on RfM, and B) DCP kissing your butt, or "stroking your ego"---a phrase which got to you so much that you went on and on using it in post after post.

Sorry, mate, but your "apostate spirit" retort doesn't cut it.

Mind reading again? Attributing to me motives I never held. That's your trademark, Scratch. So you are saying I changed my position because my daughter was maligned, and some "buttkissing". You are just a pathetic human being. I challenge you, first of all, to go through every post I did on FAIR/MAD and tell me if you can find ONE reference to the remark made about my daughter. Surely, it would have surfaced, would it not?

Let me, again, correct your devious insinuations and "conclusions", which have already been explained, but you are just too slow to comprehend.

1) My daughter was not called a "crack whore" on RFM. I have repeatedly said this occurred on Exmo-Social. Do you finally "get it"? I have said this at least half-dozen times yet it has eluded you. The great "investigator". I am amazed that though I clarified this many times, you still get it wrong.

2) To "conclude" that my change of heart towards the Church was because of this incident is malicious mind-reading. I have, again, already explained that it was my positive experience on FAIR which was the catalyst for this change, not some malicious remark about my daughter. The very first time I mentioned this incident was on Shades' old MDB, never on FAIR, and the context of that remark was in a reply to Kevin Graham. It was no hobby horse of mine, like your vindictive campaign against MAD, which you admitted!

3) Do I have to go through this again? I had changed long before DCP and I resumed communication! Do you understand, Scatch? He would not have resumed communication with me had he felt I was still antagonistic to him or the Church. So it was NOTHING he said which changed me. Are you so THICK that you can't understand something so simple?

[_Mister Scratch]

Mind reading again? Attributing to me motives I never held. That's your trademark, Scratch. So you are saying I changed my position because my daughter was maligned, and some "buttkissing". You are just a pathetic human being. I challenge you, first of all, to go through every post I did on FAIR/MAD and tell me if you can find ONE reference to the remark made about my daughter. Surely, it would have surfaced, would it not?

Let me, again, correct your devious insinuations and "conclusions", which have already been explained, but you are just too slow to comprehend.

1) My daughter was not called a "crack whore" on RFM. I have repeatedly said this occurred on Exmo-Social. Do you finally "get it"? I have said this at least half-dozen times yet it has eluded you. The great "investigator". I am amazed that though I clarified this many times, you still get it wrong.

Ah! You are right. Thanks, Ray, and you have my sincere apologies for confusing RfM with Exmo-Social. I had felt that the "crack whore" remark in and of itself was the more pertinent bit of information, but hey, that's just me.

2) To "conclude" that my change of heart towards the Church was because of this incident is malicious mind-reading.

Huh? How do you figure? How is conjecturing based on the evidence at hand "malicious"?

I have, again, already explained that it was my positive experience on FAIR which was the catalyst for this change,

In other words, the butt-kissing. Boy, I just hate being right!

not some malicious remark about my daughter. The very first time I mentioned this incident was on Shades' old MDB, never on FAIR, and the context of that remark was in a reply to Kevin Graham. It was no hobby horse of mine, like your vindictive campaign against MAD, which you admitted!

3) Do I have to go through this again? I had changed long before DCP and I resumed communication! Do you understand, Scatch? He would not have resumed communication with me had he felt I was still antagonistic to him or the Church. So it was NOTHING he said which changed me. Are you so THICK that you can't understand something so simple?

Actually, I don't think it was "long" before you "resumed communication". You haven't been on this insane tirade for all that long, after all.

[_Ray A]

In other words, the butt-kissing. Boy, I just hate being right!

That I do know.

Actually, I don't think it was "long" before you "resumed communication". You haven't been on this insane tirade for all that long, after all.

Naturally, because you're a dreamer who does not believe what other people say about themselves, calls them liars and dishonest when they reject, deny, and refute what you say about them. I was on FAIR for quite some time before DCP realised and accepted I had changed towards both him and the Church. If it was not two years (since Z.) it was not much less. Juliann also realised I had changed, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of substantial PMs we have exchanged - never emails. (At least not to my recollection, but if emails were exchanged in the distant past none of them are in my inbox)

And on that note, a working man has to get ready for work.

[_beastie]

I had changed long before DCP and I resumed communication! Do you understand, Scatch? He would not have resumed communication with me had he felt I was still antagonistic to him or the Church. So it was NOTHING he said which changed me. Are you so THICK that you can't understand something so simple?

I think this demonstrates how personal this is for all but the most (truly, not faux) liberal Mormons - relations depend upon one's stance toward the church. If someone is antagonistic toward the church, even without being antagonistic towards individual believers, they are the "enemy" and treated as such much of the time. This, in my opinion, is one of the underlying problems at MAD - this attitude and enmeshment is tolerated and even encouraged. (the pre-poisoning of the well I've spoken of frequently)

So if Ray had not begun to feel positively towards the church, DCP and Juliann (and likely others) would not have begun treating him differently.

In other words, they might still be the rude, dismissive, blithering, arrogant idiots Ray once flamed on Z.

What changed was that, for whatever reason, Ray became one of the "good guys", so he could now be treated with respect and courtesy.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Actually, just so you'll know, I get along perfectly fine with various critics of the Church.

On the evangelical side, feel free to ask Dennis Wright (formerly of Utah Missions, Inc.), or Richard Abanes, or several others if, in our personal relations, I've ever treated them rudely or with contempt.

On the secularist side, ask, say, Dan Vogel whether I've ever been uncivil to him on any occasion when we've met or spoken together. (Just, please, don't ask Shades. I still have to get a book back to him that he kindly loaned me a long, long time ago. Somehow, during a house cleaning, it got boxed up. It's still in the house, but I need to find it. I'm embarrassed, and, if he's angry with me, he has just cause.)

[_beastie]

So why did you begin to treat Ray differently?

[_Daniel Peterson]

We stopped corresponding because it had become high-tension and unpleasant. When it was clear that conversation could be civil, polite, and respectful again, we began corresponding again.

I have such correspondance with a fairly large number of people, some of them very vocal critics of the Church.

I hope that's not too disappointing.

[_Sam Harris]

Don't single me out because of him.

Could we single you out because you're cute?

If only I were single, I'd come after you...

[_Dan Vogel]

Actually, just so you'll know, I get along perfectly fine with various critics of the Church.

On the evangelical side, feel free to ask Dennis Wright (formerly of Utah Missions, Inc.), or Richard Abanes, or several others if, in our personal relations, I've ever treated them rudely or with contempt.

On the secularist side, ask, say, Dan Vogel whether I've ever been uncivil to him on any occasion when we've met or spoken together. (Just, please, don't ask Shades. I still have to get a book back to him that he kindly loaned me a long, long time ago. Somehow, during a house cleaning, it got boxed up. It's still in the house, but I need to find it. I'm embarrassed, and, if he's angry with me, he has just cause.)

So far, so good.