Yeah, go f*** off you Goddamn son of a bitch! And take Facismile No. 3 and the silly Explanations and shove them up your hole. Let that be a sign at the holy temple altar! Oh God, hear the words of Joseph Smith's Explanations!



Paul O

Uh. Paul, Joseph is long dead. Trying to give him more ideas is a little insane. Perhaps you ought to get yourself checked again?

I didn't know what you meant by sticking my caboose somewhere. I thought you were offering another of those physical threats. It seemed to go well with your general hostility.

yeah, that's mean. Paul O. You are a meanie/bully type, i see. See ya.

I'll agree that my ideas for adding more Explanations to Joseph Smith's Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 are about as insane as the existing Explanations.

And my comment was meant to be extremely rude and offensive. Mission accomplished.

Paul O

Foot got stuck in your mouth again, Paul O? hoping no one recognizes your own insanity by thinking you can convince Joseph Smith to do something? Adorable stuff.

Does Ray want me to permanently stop posting? Would that help? It's not really clear to me what Ray wants, exactly.

If you laid down the Doctor Scratch persona to become Professor Scratch I'd lol.

I don't know what this issue is really about but a third party contacted me and asked me to clarify (i won't be checking further into this).

So, to be as clear as I possibly can, I have met, one time, Doctor Scratch in real life: no, we don't have each others' addresses nor even last names that I can recall so don't ask. I have interacted with Kishkumen IRL on matters quite a bit having nothing to do with this board, regarding our mutual hobby of music, and though I haven't personally met him, I followed his tragic IRL outing some time ago and nope, sorry to those who believe it, but this person is not Doctor Scratch, it's not possible. With all the info I know, including personal meeting/communication and technical paper trails associated with this, no apologist could construct a scenario by which I've somehow been fooled.

And lol, before y'all try to pull a "Cassius" argument on me, as if any of you would have a chance in an argument against me, yes, Cassius University is real. It is as real to me as the Celestial Kingdom is to the apologists and TBMs, so when I say I've met either IRL at Cassius daily, well, don't forget that ya'll say you lived IRL in the pre-existence with Jesus and Buddah and have IRL conversations with Heavenly Father at night. In the above paragraph I meant IRL in the sense that the computer before me I am typing on is real or the air I'm breathing is real.

Your hate for those on this board is noted.

What I don't understand is that we are evaluating posts that are close to four years old.

A lot can happen in four years. My son went from diapers to Elementary School in four years!

So what if Trevor created an alter-ego, Kish, and was having a little fun with it?

His posts have been very consistent since then.

Also, it seems that Ray's initial problem with Kish stemmed from, not the fact that Kish didn't defend Dan, but that he didn't defend Dan ENOUGH.

What would it take for this whole conflict to come to an end? Would Ray be satisfied if Kish never disagreed with Dan's work publicly again? Would Ray be satisfied if Scratch ceased to post about Dan?

Is Ray, now that he is friends with Will, adopting Will's philosophy that anyone who posts on MDB is evil and has a battle against the Church?

I hate to say anything about Ray, because there are so many aspects of him that I admire. But I also have seen him totally come unglued here on several occasions for reasons that I could not follow. On a few of these occasions I pleaded to him to step away.
The way he came undone on Kish here is worrisome, as I also view Ray as a friend and yet he has lashed out viscously to a lot closer friendship than I have with him, making an enemy.
Ray appears to be totally unpredictable, here on MDB anyway.
It is truly sad to hear that he has partnered up with Will

This certainly doesn't mean he hasn't been the cause of people's suspicion. he can't hold things against Carton nor Ray, in my estimation, for being suspicious of him. He did it.



I think Ray has clearly said he's not fond of the way Kish has attacked Dan, even though at times, Kish has said some nice things. Since Kish has been all over the spectrum of hating Dan to liking him, he's created the suspicion himself.



I think the last one would be a yes. Other than that, the first two are missing the boat, I'd say.



CFR on Will's philosophy here. he doesn't see me as evil and battling against the Church. And I ain't his friend.

This is silly in a way, though. Ray is not the only one who has come undone on others. He's not the only one who has lashed out viciously on people.

For the sake of accuracy, please note, it's the behavior, attitude and hostility from those on this board that I dislike. I wish more for them because I love them.

It has nothing to do with friendship. Will stated to me, personally, that anyone who posts on MDB is an enemy to the Church.

Where is Rock indicating that he is?

Silly, how so?

Note a couple key things;
1. aspects I admire
2. reasons I could not follow

For others that have lashed out, I had no aspects I admire (not considered a friend), so don't care or they had reasons I could follow, and I may have even joined in.

lol...where am I indicating the Rock is indicating? I'm just saying it's silly to get worked up for this when this is pretty normal fare here. I don't' see why one is creating enemies because someone lashes out on another. here's how I see it, my wife is a very loyal lady (lucky for me). If she came here and read what people have to say about me, she'd be pretty disappointed. But she'd love these hostile posters anyway. She'd probably just point out that they are just angry and hostile people who need some fixing (much like the rest of us), but she wouldn't make them her enemies.

Indeed you do lash out at people. I just don't see the reason for the hate, so I comment. If you like it, by all means, continue on. I urge you to reconsider.

It is my experience that the human mind is very, very uncomfortable with ambiguity of any kind. We all want clear answers, and we get a real sense of satisfaction when we are finally able to tie that loose thread, or place that peg in the right hole. I guess I am like that too in my own way.

But there is a side of my personality which I see as closer to my core, which is my fascination with contradictions and exceptions, and it is coupled with a desire to understand. My mind spends much of its time focused on the greys in the world, not the black and white.

Now, I am not here to tell you about how I am my own special snowflake. But I am really not surprised when this kind of s*** happens. Why? Because someone always wants me to join the white and reject the black. And "we" are always the "white" while "they" are always the "black." Hey, I am not saying that I never do that. But I don't seem to be able to join anyone's team in the way they want (whether because they "kinda" like me, or just want the issue settled).

So, I spent a lot of time as the questioning, active member. Then the Prop 8 crap hit the fan, and I was dealing with being a new father, as well as trying to finish my degree in an environment that had become somewhat negative after my dissertation adviser took a new job at Princeton. It was a "clusterfuck," as they say. And I quit going to church. I also got sick as s*** of apologists attacking me and others online for what I thought were serious questions and issues.

So I became Kishkumen. Yep. It is not that I ceased being reasonable. It is that I ceased being reasonable about apologists attacking people with real questions. Being an aspiring academic, I knew the questions were real. I knew the history well enough to know that nothing is simple. If you are under any illusions that I have become more dismissive over time just because I have continued to criticize certain apologetic activities which certain people have some authority over, then you are confused.

Why? Because more than ever I understand that Mormonism is complicated. I have watched my best friend (aside from my Dear Wife) in the world get rebaptized into the LDS faith--a process that involved me as an interlocutor in discussions over Mormon history and the significance of its foundational events. I don't dismiss Mormonism out of hand as a "cult." I don't think Joseph Smith was "evil" or that he was a sexual predator. Charismatic religious leaders constitute a very complex and unsettling phenomenon that polarizes people.

I tried to talk about that at Sunstone, only to get attacked afterward by a particularly noxious personality with real problems. BIG SURPRISE.

I don't make fun of my endowment or share my new name because I hold those things sacred to me. I don't reject my spiritual experiences as mere emotion. I don't regret my mission, my time at BYU, or my time taking classes with Hugh Nibley, whom I still admire, in spite of the accusations against him. I am not saying that I understand these things, or that I agree with others who say that I am obliged to rejoin the fold as a happy, active Mormon. My dissent about certain things is serious, and I am serious enough about it that I refuse to betray the principles involved. Those principles are sacred to me too.

My story is complicated. I don't fit into a neat box, and I am not going to do what you or anyone else demands of me because you think something is right for me to do. Go screw yourself if you think I am going to dance to your tune.

I am an evolving person. Like you are, whoever you are. Like Daniel Peterson is. Like Ray Agostini is. Like Will Schryver is. Like Scratch is. Like any of you are. So, can you go to some post I wrote three years ago and read me unloading about something that I might not vent about today? Uh, yeah. And so what? Ray has said some unbelievably off the hook s*** in his time. But he wants me to be the same today as I was three years ago.

Sorry, reality doesn't change on Ray's whim. I do not magically transform into a person who lives many days travel away from me and knows a body of literature and cinema I can't even begin to catch up on (probably some languages I can't read too). Hey, I would love to be where he is geographically. But there is that reality thing.

I find it terribly ironic that it is immediately in the aftermath of the Dehlin debacle and when I had finally settled on what I believe to be a fair and reasonable conclusion about the FARMS Review (namely, that they should not publish personal criticisms of members in good standing) that Ray enters here and attacks me with a vengeance, accuses me of being Scratch--his own obsession, I suppose--and ends our friendship. Makes no sense to me, unless someone was egging him on, or something has gone terribly wrong in his life.

I still care about Ray as a person. I hope he sorts this out (whether "this" is his misapprehension about me or it's a personal demon that's got a hold on him). If this is about something he is going through, I deeply regret that he will not allow me to be there for him as a friend. But, I haven't changed my mind about anything regarding LDS apologetics and its problems (or its virtues!). I am not going to jump into the "not ever criticizing anything connected to Mormonism" box, nor am I going to reject my personal experience as an LDS person and attack everything that has anything to do with Mormonism to hop into the "ex-Mo" box.

Deal with it. I am.

And to those who have stuck up for me, thank you. You are good people. I won't forget it.