Key point: As an optimist, I would like to see the Interpreter change its name and become a serious academic resource that respectfully considers multiple faithful points of view. I don't think that's possible so long as it's under Dan's thumb.
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The other day on his blog, Dan Peterson (aka Slander Dan) was complaining again. He wrote, "For an unpleasant few days recently, a zealous and pseudonymous advocate of the "Heartland" model for the geography of the Book of Mormon was active in the comments section..."
This is the same Dan who for years on his same blog has eagerly promoted a blog by "a zealous and pseudonymous advocate" of Dan's theories. The blogger there goes by the name of Tinker Bell, or Peter Pan, or some such. He named his blog using my name, which should be enough of a clue that what he writes is full of logical fallacies.
One time I looked at that blog and it was so ridiculous that I've ignored it, but sometimes people send me excerpts. The person(s) who writes there chose an apt pseudonym because the arguments and claims are childish and foolish. Delusional, really. That author(s) writes so poorly and angrily that it's no wonder he/they uses a pseudonym. And he's even a contributor to the Interpreter.
Which is actually not surprising.
I'd welcome an honest exchange and debate, of course. But not with a pseudonymous fool.
The question is, why does Dan love his pseudonymous blogger? And, since he endorses pseudonymous bloggers, why does he simultaneously complain about "a zealous and pseudonymous advocate" who apparently challenges Dan's theories?
The answer is evident in Dan's entire apologetic career.
I've explained before that I used to respect Dan, back in the day. I used to attend the FARMS conferences, FAIRMormon, etc. He was always a lot of fun. A great guy.
Dan was popular then. Apparently he still is, although I can't figure out why. His cantankerous, thin-skinned approach to apologetics was mildly humorous decades ago, but has worn thin with overuse. After all these decades, he still plays the victim. It's tiresome, goofy, and reflects badly on other Latter-day Saints who engage with critics.
When he was removed from FARMS years ago, I was initially sympathetic with his complaint. But then I saw how he took those who followed him and started his own organization, which he named The Interpreter Foundation. That name distilled Dan's apologetics. He and his followers, as exemplified by the pseudonymous blogger he loves, consider themselves superior to ordinary Latter-day Saints. They think they, as the credentialed class, are entitled to interpret Church history, scriptures, and doctrine for the rest of us. As they've claimed, they've been hired by the Church to guide us in these areas.
That's all a bunch of nonsense, IMO.
And then there was the Witnesses movie that promoted SITH to the world....
To be clear, there are some thoughtful, honorable people working at and contributing to the Interpreter. They put out some good material. Others, not so much.
Regardless of the original intent, which may have been honorable, the Interpreter has become a strident gatekeeper and enforcer of dogma. That's why I include them in the M2C/SITH citation cartel and that's why I started this blog in the first place.
True, the Interpreter did publish my response to the two Kraus reviews of two of my latest books, albeit long after the original reviews. A legitimate journal would have published my response with the original reviews. But that's not how the Interpreter operates.
In writing my response, I complied with the word count and editorial input they gave. Fair enough. But when they published my response, they simultaneously published a rejoinder by Kraus that I hadn't seen. And they didn't let me respond to the rejoinder!
They said I could post a response as a comment, which of course would not appear in their print version and would be buried in the online version even if they did permit it (and their webmaster screens comments anyway).
So I posted my response here, where few will see it.
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2022/11/my-response-to-kraus-rejoinder.html
Consequently, readers of the Interpreter will be misinformed again, as usual, thinking I had no response to the Kraus rejoinder.
The Interpreter is a laughably fake journal, a digital Potemkin village designed to look serious and academic while rejecting the hallmark of actual academic journals: reasonable, considered debate from multiple perspectives.
To repeat: As an optimist, I would like to see the Interpreter change its name and become a serious academic resource that respectfully considers multiple faithful points of view. I don't think that's possible so long as it's under Dan's thumb.
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