I was just directed to the combox of Peter Lumpkins’ recent blog post, which I addressed briefly at the end of the last Dividing Line. I find there one of the clearest examples of how hatred (in this case, hatred of yours truly) can bring together so many amazingly different people. Think about the rogues gallery of folks who have come together to celebrate their hatred of James White: Peter Lumpkins, Timothy Rogers, “Dr. Ach,” Diana Penn and now, a true blast from the past, Alexander the Coppersmith himself, Dr. Paul Owen. Goodness, even Ehteshaam Gulam re-entered Twitter as a spammer today for the first time in nearly a year just to spit at me. But when you can manage to draw together two people as utterly different as Paul Owen and Timothy Rogers, you’ve accomplished something!
Once again, the contributions of Rogers, Penn et al are beneath contempt and disgusting on a level that is shocking. Nothing new for them. But Owen managed to take a shot at the nature of the gospels themselves that, of course, not only went past the majority of those who post at Lumpkins’ blog, but which likewise shows us why folks in his realm of the world could care less about lying in the pulpit. Hey, the gospel writers did it, too! Shocked? Here’s his comment:
Posted by: Paul Owen | Dec 31, 2013 at 05:25 PM
Let’s think about what Owen has said. First, he likens Caner’s claims to have been born in Istanbul, always lived in majority Muslim countries, coming here as a teenager (all lies) as “story-telling generalizations, conflations, and topical chronology.” That’s absurd, of course, but the following comment should have resulted in an avalanche of response (it didn’t; no one even raised an eyebrow in response): “The very sort of thing one finds repeatedly in the gospel narratives.” There you go, folks. The faux-Arabic speaking, hasn’t debated a single Muslim in a single mosque, never met Shabir Ally, wasn’t born in Istanbul, can’t speak Arabic, came here from Sweden jihadi was just doing what, well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did! And Lumpy’s Brigade just kept on beating the war drums and smiled—Diana Penn even commended him for his comments. Incredible! But again, biblical integrity, inspiration, etc., is only relevant to this crowd when they are using it as a club to promote their own agenda. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen my enemies jump in bed with liberals just because they thought it would help their cause.
Next, Owen seriously suggests Caner just jumbles his words—when he did so, repeatedly, in different places, in different contexts, for years and years on end. Using Owen’s reasoning, we should not have laws against perjury since, well, you can state the same thing over and over again, for years, and just say you were jumbling words. Brilliant!
You can always tell when you are reading or listening to a politically correct person. They won’t say “He lied.” He uttered “misstatements of fact.” Ironically, Caner himself preaches against just this kind of squishy liberalism all the time.
Then finally we are told that he “puts rhetorical flourishes on his stories” that show he is attempting to “entertain and keep the attention of an audience.” Remember the nature of these “flourishes” folks—in the olden days, back when language had meaning, we called them lies. But Owen then adds, “The biblical narratives are full of lies if judged by the same standard.” Remember, folks, dozens of comments have been added since this was posted on Lumpkins’ site, and nobody, most importantly including Lumpkins himself, has said “boo” to such an absurdity. Nobody. They are too busy venting their hatred toward yours truly.
Then Owen plays the persecution card. Poor Brewton-Parker College! They are trying so hard, we should help them out! Of course, the fact that the trustees, knowing about Caner’s problems, said they elected him because of them, seems to have eluded the great Dr. Owen. Amazing is too mild a term once again.
Finally, I see that Lumpkins himself, showing his continued difficulties with that thing called truthfulness, commented that we (myself and Tom Ascol) pulled out of the 2006 debate. He well knows which side kept, and posted publicly, full documentation of what took place. He well knows the Caners violated their own signed documents and unilaterally changed the entire agreement. But again, facts and honesty are pretty low on the Lumpkins scale of priorities. He goes on to say “That’s actually the origin of this whole fiasco the way I see it.” He claims I have been “harassing” Caner ever since then. Again, we have proven, as in documented, that this is a lie, and Lumpkins knows it. So I have a challenge for ol’ Petey: document this harassment from, say, February of 2007 for, oh, what, 2.5 years or so? Till mid 2009? Let’s see what you can come up with, shall we? Ah, those crickets sound so lovely this evening!
