DCP, living in the past.

[Marcus]

My last response....


Dan: There's no "cover-up." There was no embellishment. And I don't need RFM's discussion of it (which I wouldn't trust anyway) to know that neither Bill nor I lied. Because -- notwithstanding the demonology that's been created, nurtured, and carefully cultivated over at the Obsession Board -- I'm not a liar, and neither was he.

Markk: I have at least one letter from Watson (signed), addressed to me, answering a question I had when I was questioning my LDS faith some 30 years ago. The intro reads basically the same as the 1st Watson Letter; that he was asked by the brethren to answer a particular question. I also have letters from others, James E. Hartley and James L. Kimball Jr., on behalf of the brethren which all start the same way....that they were asked or referred to answer my questions.

So my question to you, given that you saw the 2nd letter....who was Elder Watson addressing? Was it Hamblin? Did Bill write Watson specifically for his paper? It seems odd to me that given the SoP the church had for answering questions, that Watson just wrote a letter out of the blue contradicting his earlier response.

Is it possible you saw something other than a letter from Elder Watson? Maybe the fax?

It will be interesting to see if you get an answer. It's like when you ask a little kid, their mouth covered in chocolate and two handfuls of cookie behind their back, "are you SURE you didn't eat any of the chocolate chip cookies before dinner?" Given one more chance to come clean, kids will 'fess up. Adult mopologists, not so much.

[drumdude]

No, it simply shows that I'm not interested in discussing the topic anymore, and that I won't permit my blog to be commandeered for accusations that I'm dishonest. The matter is really old. I really don't remember many of the details decades after the fact. It wasn't that big a deal for me at the time. It has become a big deal for a few people now because a relatively small handful of folks out there want to use it to demonstrate that Bill Hamblin and I lied. But I know that we didn't, because we weren't liars. And that's about all that I'm in a position to say with any confidence at this late date. And I've said it, multiple times. And repeating it over and over and over again doesn't make for very interesting conversation. It's merely tiresome.

Don't raise the matter here again. (I'm serious about that.) You folks have plenty of other platforms from which to level the accusation of lying against me, and I understand that some of you have been using them and intend to continue to use them in that noble cause. (Bill, alas, is not in a position to reply.) But you can't have my blog for you efforts. Sorry.

I think this really highlights the issues with Dan’s approaches to truth. For him, truth is whatever he says it is, because he’s not a liar by definition. Sometimes it’s really difficult to believe this guy was an academic.

[Markk]

No, it simply shows that I'm not interested in discussing the topic anymore, and that I won't permit my blog to be commandeered for accusations that I'm dishonest. The matter is really old. I really don't remember many of the details decades after the fact. It wasn't that big a deal for me at the time. It has become a big deal for a few people now because a relatively small handful of folks out there want to use it to demonstrate that Bill Hamblin and I lied. But I know that we didn't, because we weren't liars. And that's about all that I'm in a position to say with any confidence at this late date. And I've said it, multiple times. And repeating it over and over and over again doesn't make for very interesting conversation. It's merely tiresome.

Don't raise the matter here again. (I'm serious about that.) You folks have plenty of other platforms from which to level the accusation of lying against me, and I understand that some of you have been using them and intend to continue to use them in that noble cause. (Bill, alas, is not in a position to reply.) But you can't have my blog for you efforts. Sorry.

I think this really highlights the issues with Dan’s approaches to truth. For him, truth is whatever he says it is, because he’s not a liar by definition. Sometimes it’s really difficult to believe this guy was an academic.

True!

He's lied to me, or at the least about me, in the past. I believe he lies more because he can't admit when he is wrong. Pride I suppose.

Years ago on one of the old forums we were in a discussion and he called me Markkk a few times asserting I was a racist and a member of the KKK. If I remember correctly I had been talking about how as a saint I was raised a racist, at least in part because of the doctrine of the church.

One of the anomalies of being raised in the pre PH ban era, is that many saints can't admit that they were racist for buying into it as a teaching and doctrine, and for me to concede I was a racist for believing it, made me a true racist, I guess.

Anyways, he was jumped on by his critics, and stated something along the line that he just made a mistake, or was just joking. He just couldn't admit he made a emotional reactive comment, so he just lied his way out of it. Probably the same thing he did with the "letter."

[Doctor Steuss]

If nothing else, I guess this helps highlight that the vested interest in pedestalling witness testimony over evidence is multifaceted, and buttressing the Church isn't the only thing it is important for.

Have we taken time to consider that the 2nd Watson letter was taken by an angel into heaven, because of its divine importance?

[Doctor Scratch]

In the space of just a couple of days, he's gone from saying:

I would have to be a massively stupid fool, as a member of the Church and a professor at the Church’s flagship university, to have brazenly and publicly lied about a communication from the Office of the First Presidency. Moreover, as a believing Latter-day Saint who accepts the First Presidency as prophets, seers, and revelatory, I would simply never, ever, knowingly seek to misrepresent their position. Never.

To saying:

Could there have been a mistake? I don't know. Maybe. But Bill is gone, and I have no idea who the proofreader for his article was, thirty-two years ago. Nor would that person, even if located, likely have any specific memory about the "correspondence."

So he "*un*knowingly" misrepresented what happened? ("Maybe"?) He also (now) says that it was not a "letter" at all, but rather a note:

I saw it briefly, once, in his office. It had arrived shortly before and was still atop the surface stratum of his book- and paper-strewn work space. That was it. And that's why I say that I'm not in a position to say much more about it.....And it wasn't a "paper." It was just a brief note.

It probably *was* the "Carla Ogden Fax," then. So why did Hamblin and DCP both say, repeatedly and in print, that it was "correspondence" from F. Michael Watson? Watson himself has gone on the record to say that there was never any "second letter," and that FAIR et al. have misrepresented what happened.

It's important to remember the context. Hamblin obtained this correspondence primarily for Mopologetic reasons: critics were hammering away at the LGT, accusing FARMS of being 'Internet Mormons' who believed things contrary to the Brethren, and here was this endlessly bothersome 1st Watson Letter saying that Cumorah was in the USA. Hamblin and the rest of the Mopologists needed a new, "fresher" Watson letter in order to counter the original one, so once they got this Ogden Fax, they, uh, "pretended" that it was basically the same as the 1st Watson Letter. There is really no getting around the fact that they misrepresented the "correspondence": like I said, even Elder Watson himself has said that they got it wrong.

[Doctor Scratch]

If nothing else, I guess this helps highlight that the vested interest in pedestalling witness testimony over evidence is multifaceted, and buttressing the Church isn't the only thing it is important for.

Have we taken time to consider that the 2nd Watson letter was taken by an angel into heaven, because of its divine importance?

Eventually, there will probably be some functionary who will find the copy of an old document which will prove that Joseph Smith didn't translate "The Book of Mormon," but instead something called "The Novel of the Son of Helaman" that was intended as faith-based fiction, but they really only glanced at the plates, and this was like 30 years ago and so their memories are fuzzy, and besides, critics will just say that they're lying about it no matter what. And it's really of only minor importance. Oh, and if you bring it up again, you'll be banned.

[Morley]

I think this really highlights the issues with Dan’s approaches to truth. For him, truth is whatever he says it is, because he’s not a liar by definition. Sometimes it’s really difficult to believe this guy was an academic.

You need to meet more academics.

[Markk]

My final interactions.....maybe?

Dan: This is now the third time, , Markk, that you've directly and flagrantly violated my polite request that you drop this subject. It's a clear demonstration of your open contempt for me and for my hospitality here. Not cool.
________
Markk: "I have at least one letter from Watson (signed), addressed to me, answering a question I had when I was questioning my LDS faith some 30 years ago. The intro reads basically the same as the 1st Watson Letter; that he was asked by the brethren to answer a particular question. I also have letters from others, James E. Hartley and James L. Kimball Jr., on behalf of the brethren which all start the same way....that they were asked or referred to answer my questions."

Dan: You kept them busy, it seems!

But I'm not surprised that you were given that answer. Most everybody who grew up in the Church in those days grew up with the assumption that the final Nephite and Jaredite battles occurred in upstate New York. I certainly did.
________
Markk: "So my question to you, given that you saw the 2nd letter...."

Dan: According to footnote 70 of Bill Hamblin's (superb) article (https://scholarsarchive.BYU..., it was an item of "correspondence" dated 23 April 1993. That's going on thirty-two years ago. I saw it briefly, once, in his office. It had arrived shortly before and was still atop the surface stratum of his book- and paper-strewn work space. That was it. And that's why I say that I'm not in a position to say much more about it.

When they realized the potential of this issue for attacking my character a number of years ago, my Malevolent Stalker and a few others began to devote time and energy to building a case against me (and Bill) of having lied. At that time, I sent a few inquiries around, thinking to respond, but I couldn't really reconstruct what had occurred. And I haven't thought about it much since. I have no new information about which to think, and Bill, unfortunately, has been dead for several years.
________
Markk: "who was Elder Watson addressing?"

Dan: Bill, as I recall.

And Brother Watson wasn't a General Authority at the time.
________
Markk: "Was it Hamblin?"

Dan: It certainly wasn't me.
________
Markk: "Did Bill write Watson specifically for his paper?"

Dan: I think that Bill wrote to him. And it wasn't a "paper." It was just a brief note.
________
Markk: "It seems odd to me that given the SoP the church had for answering questions, that Watson just wrote a letter out of the blue contradicting his earlier response."

Dan: I don't believe that he did.
______
Markk: "Is it possible you saw something other than a letter from Elder Watson? Maybe the fax?"

Dan: I suppose. It's been nearly thirty-two years, and my encounter with the document probably lasted considerably less than sixty seconds.

By the way, one of your fellow cast members over at the Peterson Obsession Board apparently imagines that, in saying that I know that I didn't lie in the matter because I'm not a liar, I'm announcing that truth is relative, that truth is simply whatever I say it is. But, as he typically does, he misunderstands: I'm confident that I didn't lie in this particular case because I'm not a liar, in the same way that I'm confident, despite having no specific memory of any visit to a supermarket in 1993 that I didn't ride a unicycle to the grocery store in April of that year because I've never ridden a unicycle in my life. Similarly, if somebody reports having seen me drunk in 1993 I can firmly reply that the report isn't true because I've never consumed alcohol even once. Lying isn't in my character. It isn't in my nature. I don't do it. And, if anything, Bill Hamblin was straightforward, candid, and honest to a fault. He didn't lie.

Could there have been a mistake? I don't know. Maybe. But Bill is gone, and I have no idea who the proofreader for his article was, thirty-two years ago. Nor would that person, even if located, likely have any specific memory about the "correspondence."

There. Three times. That's enough, Markk. You can attack me on this matter elsewhere. There's no shortage of platforms that would eagerly welcome such behavior from you.
________

Mark :Fair enough Dan. You are not sure what you saw, if anything at all. But I Believe it is safe to say that there was never a second Watson Letter.

Have a great New Year!

[Doctor Steuss]

Query: If someone were to take another person's written work, and pass it off as their own, would that person be a liar?

Just a random question, totally unrelated to anything in this thread.



----
(On a more serious note, the way memory works, and how every time we recall something it is unstable and susceptible to being altered before being rewritten back into our long-term memory, I do think it entirely probable that whether there was a 2nd Watson Letter or not, Dr. Peterson genuinely remembers seeing one. Memory is a rascally thing. My brothers and I regularly, when reminiscing, have completely different versions of the same events... and at this point, there's no telling whose version is the "true" one.)

[Tom]

I recall that Dr. Hamblin unsettled the matter almost exactly 15 years ago. From a post by Dr. Peterson on MDDB dated Smithmas Day 2009:

Ho ho ho!

So irritated have I become by repeated accusations that I'm a liar or that I'm losing my mind, that I actually did call the Office of the First Presidency yesterday, and a secretary there was kind enough to search through their records for me. I gave her the 1993 date. This was fine, she said, since the records of their correspondence go back to 1987. When she called back, though, she said that she was unable to find any such letter on that date in 1993, or on any date in the vicinity, although she had looked under Hamblin, Hall, and FARMS. I found this extremely puzzling, and so, she said, did she, because, she told me, the language I had reported to her sounds very much like a standard letter that they have sent out for many years now.

So I wrote to Bill and asked him, again, whether there was any chance that I was misremembering. My memory on certain things was distinct: I knew that I had seen and read and held the letter, and that it was a letter, and that it was a letter from Michael Watson.

As I've said before, though, I wasn't clear as to exactly how Professor Hamblin had made contact with Michael Watson. I had assumed that he had written to him shortly before I saw the letter, but I was always a bit hazy on that.

Now (cue drum roll), Professor Hamblin has just surprised me with something that I hadn't known, and hadn't suspected: “You are senile," he writes from Cordoba, Spain (my emphasis). "I published the letter in 1993. However, I received it while still in graduate school =before 1985."

This will certainly give rise to a whole new flurry of accusations of deception, incompetence, and etc. The Maxwell Institute is about to fall, and blah blah blah. I'm sure I'll be accused of lying, as will Professor Hamblin. We're only in it for the money. We'll say absolutely anything, because we have no integrity, etc., and etc.

I simply report the facts as they are known (or become known) to me.

According to Wikipedia, F. Michael Watson was secretary to the First Presidency from 1986 until his call as a General Authority in 2008, but had served as an assistant secretary to the First Presidency from 1972-1986.

Incidentally, the secretary reported that somebody else had called them and requested a search for the letter about a year ago, and that the office had failed to find the "1993" letter at that time, too. It wasn't yours truly, and, so far as I'm aware, it wasn't Professor Hamblin. My bet is that it was my Malevolent Stalker, or somebody of that ilk. But who knows?

As to why the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies apparently gives the date of the Carla Ogden fax as the date of the letter from Michael Watson, I could not begin to say. I am not, and have never been, the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

And why did Michael Watson write something else to Bishop Brooks in 1990? Again, I cannot say. I simply report the facts as I know them or learn them. And then I'm accused of being a lying fool. That's pretty much how it works.

(bolding added)