With Malice Aforethought

[mfbukowski]

Wow. Do you have evidence of this or is this just another attack from someone who claims to be a Mormon and hold to LDS ideals?

Come on- you post over there and probably know scratch better than all of us- heck you might even BE scratch

He definitely does not claim to be Mormon or hold to LDS ideals.

[mfbukowski]

Atticus,

I'm going to invite you to avoid cluttering up this thread with your provocative one-liners and veiled accusations. If you persist, then I am likely to respond in kind; then one of us may well end up being banned from the thread.

And given that I am the thread originator, it is unlikely to be me, however well you manage to camouflage your baiting and goading.

Regards,

Pahoran

Sorry.

I replied to that before I read this. I won't respond to him here again.

[Joseph Antley]

Wow. Do you have evidence of this or is this just another attack from someone who claims to be a Mormon and hold to LDS ideals?

Have you ever read his posts at MDB?

[Nemesis]

Stay on topic please.

Nemesis

[erichard]

...

I could not get myself to read your whole post, but maybe you are misreading the author. Possibly this book is MEANT to be comedy?

Richard

[MCB]

I could not get myself to read your whole post, but maybe you are misreading the author. Possibly this book is MEANT to be comedy?

Richard

Aahhh! Most of the regular posters here lack a sense of humor.

Of course there are comic elements in it!! Sheesh!!!

[yesucan2]

The most strenuous stretches of any and everything LDS by those who hate it are, as usual, tired and have become for me, quite frankly, boring.

The longer I'm around the wiser the counsel to remain mainstream in the Church becomes.

[Honorentheos]

Come on- you post over there and probably know scratch better than all of us- heck you might even BE scratch

He definitely does not claim to be Mormon or hold to LDS ideals.

MFB -

I asked Dr. Scratch directly on a thread if he was mormon, and still considered himself such. He responded yes, he is mormon and has never hid this. His claim, as I understand it, is only to be against "mopologetics" however one wished to define it. Convoluted? Yes. But there you go.

[CQUIRK]

Of course there are comic elements in it!! Sheesh!!!

Yeah, like the accuracy of the claims in it.

[MCB]

Yeah, like the accuracy of the claims in it.

And the accuracy of the claims of the BoM is abysmal, in comparison.

I am thinking about revisions, based on Pahoran's review. I thank him, again.

[volgadon]

I am thinking about revisions, based on Pahoran's review. I thank him, again.

Edmund Blackadder: It's very moving sir. Would you mind if I change just one tiny aspect of it?

Prince Regent: Which one?

Edmund Blackadder: The words.

[why me]

I am thinking about revisions, based on Pahoran's review. I thank him, again.

If the book has been published it is a little late for revisions. Such revisions should have been made before the book went to print. Hard to have a totally revised second printing without putting your reputation on the line.

Your book seems to be antimormon drival. But then again, after reading your posts on CAF and on MD, I can see why.

[Daniel Peterson]

I asked Dr. Scratch directly on a thread if he was mormon, and still considered himself such. He responded yes, he is mormon and has never hid this. His claim, as I understand it, is only to be against "mopologetics" however one wished to define it. Convoluted? Yes. But there you go.

I don't recall his ever having said anything positive about the Church, its leaders, or its scriptures. He's had a large number of negative things to say, though.

"Mopologetics" -- a rather odd category of things, real and imagined, that he's defined/invented on his own -- is his major theme, of course (a theme that is virtually always couched in terms of personalities rather than substantive issues), but it doesn't appear from his posts that he has any great love for Mormonism or for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[Calm]

Aahhh! Most of the regular posters here lack a sense of humor.

Of course there are comic elements in it!! Sheesh!!!

Right because it's so funny to compare or call people Nazis and anti-semites.

[Pahoran]

And the accuracy of the claims of the BoM is abysmal, in comparison.

In comparison to what, exactly?

The claims of the Book of Mormon are controversial, and a matter of religious faith. They can never be proven one way or another. By contrast, the accuracy of your claims about what the Book of Mormon says and means is within reach of objective analysis, and as such it is not controversial at all; everyone who has read it and understands it, and has read any part of your book, unanimously agrees that you get everything wrong.

And you don't seem to be learning anything, either; as witnessed when recently, on another forum, you claimed the Book of Mormon advocated "bigotry" because the Nephites destroyed Ammonihah!

If you have to laugh at your own jokes, maybe they aren't all that funny.

I am thinking about revisions, based on Pahoran's review. I thank him, again.

You are most welcome. But again, the best revision you can make to the chapter under review is to apply the "equine medicine" approach.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Honorentheos]

I don't recall his ever having said anything positive about the Church, its leaders, or its scriptures. He's had a large number of negative things to say, though.

"Mopologetics" -- a rather odd category of things, real and imagined, that he's defined/invented on his own -- is his major theme, of course (a theme that is virtually always couched in terms of personalities rather than substantive issues), but it doesn't appear from his posts that he has any great love for Mormonism or for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I won't disagree. But I asked him this directly in response to our disagreement over his treatment of LOAP last spring on a thread on MDB.

Personally, I bear Scratch no malice and find him to be generally insightful. But we disagree on behaviour, and having received this response I generally chalk it up to his continued involvement with a religion for which he seems to bear no pure love.

But who knows, perhaps he is more like the Scratch/Satan of the Koran, refusing to bow down to what he saw as a certain damaging element within the faith. A Judas Iscariot of the current view, chosen for a most difficult task that the others were not prepared to fulfill -

In Hell there grew a Judas Tree

Where Judas hanged and died

Because he could not bear to see

His master crucified

Our Lord descended into Hell

And found his Judas there

For ever haning on the tree

Grown from his own despair

So Jesus cut his Judas down

And took him in his arms

"It was for this I came" he said

"And not to do you harm

My Father gave me twelve good men

And all of them I kept

Though one betrayed and one denied

Some fled and others slept

In three days' time I must return

To make the others glad

But first I had to come to Hell

And share the death you had

My tree will grow in place of yours

Its roots lie here as well

There is no final victory

Without this soul from Hell"

So when we all condemned him

As of every traitor worst

Remember that of all his men

Our Lord forgave him first.

[mfbukowski]

MFB -

I asked Dr. Scratch directly on a thread if he was mormon, and still considered himself such. He responded yes, he is mormon and has never hid this. His claim, as I understand it, is only to be against "mopologetics" however one wished to define it. Convoluted? Yes. But there you go.

Convoluted nothing. They have ads on their site and get paid to stir up controversy. They are just aspiring to make some real money but everyone has to start somewhere. You can buy anything in this world for money.

[Honorentheos]

[mfbukowski]

Well at least it should be good for a thread or two over there.

[Joseph Antley]

I won't disagree. But I asked him this directly in response to our disagreement over his treatment of LOAP last spring on a thread on MDB.

And of course Scratch has never been guilty of insincerity.

Scratch is a fictional character. Whether the character Scratch is a "Mormon" or not is completely up to the convoluted mind who's been role-playing as the character for the past several years. Almost more pathetic is that the anonymous gem of a human being posting as Scratch has strung a band of degraded followers into his game.

[Daniel Peterson]

Personally, I bear Scratch no malice and find him to be generally insightful.

LOL. You might feel a bit differently if you had been a regular victim of his anonymous slanders and misrepresentations for several years, as I have been.

I used to find him irritating and somewhat puzzling. But after four years (or more, now? I haven't really calculated) of being incessantly targeted by him for character assassination, I've come to find him mostly a predictable albeit vile bore.

He has an audience in the low to middle double digits, I'm guessing, and a following of probably four or five (of whom at least one and possibly two may be spoofing him). Some on his board find him as absurd and as wearisome as I do; they've written me privately and told me so. It finally dawned on me that there was really no great value in spending much effort on rebutting his never-ending distortions and accusations -- to say nothing of the out and out fictions that his "informants" have been foisting off on him over the past several months -- and, since that was essentially the only reason I was over on his message board, I quit posting there.

Life is better, paying less attention to his malicious foolishness.

[Programmer]

Uh, this is a pretty big post. Shouldn't this rather be on a wiki page, or part of the FAIR library somewhere? You know, someplace more accessible?

[mfbukowski]

Life is better, paying less attention to his malicious foolishness.

I am convinced that at least two of his closest "followers" are mere sock puppets. Their styles are too close to his to be credible as other real people imo.

[Daniel Peterson]

1.

I am convinced that at least two of his closest "followers" are mere sock puppets. Their styles are too close to his to be credible as other real people imo.

You may be right.

One of those whom I suspect to be spoofing him (and who has privately told me that he has strong reservations about Scratch's methods and positions) is, however, definitely a real and distinct individual. So 1-3 of what I estimate to be his small handful of disciples may be, in one sense or another, bogus.

That's funny.

2.

Wow. I've just now had a chance to skim through Pahoran's opening post. It's definitely worthy of preservation somewhere.

I take it that MCB isn't joking, right? This isn't just a colossal, wildly over-the-top send-up of anti-Mormon excesses?

If she's not playing a practical joke, her book appears to deserve a place in the pantheon where the works of anti-Mormon loons and wack-jobs like Bill Schoebelen, Ed Decker, and Loftes Tryk dwell. That's pretty stratospheric territory. I've been paying a lot less attention to the fever swamps of low-brow anti-Mormon bigotry in recent years, but I don't think that we've had such a promising new entry for quite a while now.

[mfbukowski]

You may be right.

One of those whom I suspect to be spoofing him (and who has privately told me that he has strong reservations about Scratch's methods and positions) is, however, definitely a real and distinct individual. So 1-3 of what I estimate to be his small handful of disciples may be, in one sense or another, bogus.

That's funny.

You know what would be hilarious is to do some "word print" studies (or whatever the current technology is) and see how many are sock puppets and who else (NOT on that board) has the same style. I think you have some connections in that area....

Probably not worth the effort, but still....!!