Daniel Peterson

Me too. (One of my all-time favorite movie sketches. Bill Hamblin and I have used it a few times in our interactions with critics. It's so eerily appropriate.)Thanks for having me here. I look forward to seeing how the board evolves.

Well, it's not as if the standard is all that high.It just has to be better conversation than: "I did not." "You did too." "I did not." "You did too. Why don't you just admit it?" "I did not." "Yes you did, and, until you admit it, I'm going to follow you around and demand that you admit it and apologize." And better than: "Justify your position." "I have. Here, and here." "I'm not going to read those things. Justify your position." "Read what I wrote." "No. See? You've got nothing. You're lying. And this is why you're lying." "I'm sick of this." 'You're sick of trying to justify your claim that Q." "I never claimed that Q." "Yes you did." "No, I didn't." "Yes you did." "I'm really sick of this." "By claiming that Q, you've smeared A, B, and C." "I never claimed that Q, and I've never smeared A, B, and C!" "Yes you did. Why don't you just admit it?" "I've had enough of this." "Oh? Running away, coward?"

laa imkaaniyya an ta‘rafii dhaalika bi-al-ta’kiid.(Sorry that I'm unable to put that in Arabic script here.) However, my natural viciousness and dishonesty, if they're as egregious and deeply rooted as some of my interlocutors on that other board assure me they are, should become apparent in short order. And that should allay any reasonable doubt.

I post under the name Daniel Peterson, but my real name, off line, is Daniel Peterson. I'm a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University, and I write on Mormon topics from time to time. I also travel a lot. For example, I'm going to be out of the country pretty much the entire month of September and into October, and pretty furiously busy, so I'm not likely to be too active here in the near and middle term. I'm teetering on the brink of deciding that participation on message boards burns up far more time than it's worth -- I've just ended a supremely pointless and exasperating stint on a certain well-shaded board that won't be named -- but I like what I think is the concept behind this one: A board where serious discussion can occur that might actually be helpful to some people. If it works, that would be worthwhile.