Here is another good quote for Dr Peterson to consider:
The basic Mormon belief is one that comes out of the morning of the earth, from the most primitive and even infantile attitude. Their chief dogma is that God is material, not that He was materialized once, as all Christians believe; nor that He is materialized specially, as all Catholics believe; but that He was materially embodied from all time; that He has a local habitation as well as a name. Under the influence of this barbaric but violently vivid conception, these people crossed a great desert with their guns and oxen, patiently, persistently, and courageously, as if they were following a vast and visible giant who was striding across the plains. In other words this strange sect, by soaking itself solely in the Hebrew Scriptures, had really managed to reproduce the atmosphere of those Scriptures as they are felt by Hebrews rather than by Christians. A number of dull, earnest, ignorant, black-coated men with chimney-pot hats, chin beards or mutton-chop whiskers, managed to reproduce in their own souls the richness and the peril of an ancient Oriental experience. If we think from this end we may possibly guess how it was that they added polygamy.
Chesterton is being a bit naughty here with his Orientalist tropes, but it's still a nice passage.
Well played, Johannes. Clearly, Chesterton is an anti-Mormon, so why is Dr. Peterson cherry-picking quotes from him? Why isn't he warning readers to avoid his work? The answer seems obvious: DCP loves reading anti-Mormon literature; he loves to appear smart and well-read; he also thinks that the bulk of his readership is a bunch of morons, so why not quote from an anti-Mormon author like Chesterton? It ticks off all the boxes with in one fell swoop.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
Sic et Non needs a good song to sing against the rebels.
Oh come tell me Elder Smoot, "Tell me why you hurry so? Hush my brother, hush and listen" Of tales from long ago I bear orders from Dr. Peterson "Get you ready quick and soon For white shirt and ties must be together By the rising of ex-Mormons"
"Oh come tell me Elder Smoot Where the gath'rin is to be? At the old spot by the Institute Quite well-known to you and me One more word for signal token Singing Prophets praises true With your Quad case on your shoulder By the rising of ex-Mormons By the rising of ex-Mormons
With your Quad case on your shoulder By the rising of ex-Mormons"
