Ante Pavkovic: Liar Extraordinaire

This will be my last blog posting for some time on this particular link. Maybe forever unless things change.

I think I'll simply put my hat on, get the keys out of my pocket, and walk tall out of the room. For whatever attempts might be made in the future to actually have a formal debate will likely be what has happened now for nearing nine years - nothing - and life is too short to worry about such things.

What HAS been conclusivley established however - beyond all refutation - is that Ante Pavkovic can shoot his mouth off boasting about his debate exploits and how smart he is. Finding evidence of this, however, is about like trying to find evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. Since such a thing doesn't exist in the first place there is no actual evidence of it.

Challenged to debate one on one - mano a mano - Ante Pavkovic turned tail and ran as fast as his little legs could take him away from LAD, CARM, and God Himself knows where else. These are NOT the actions of someone who is as accomplished in debate as Pavkovic THINKS he is. His use of the epithet liar seems to me to stem from TWO problems.

First of all it has become CRYSTAL CLEAR from my own documentation that Ante Pavkovic himself has a SERIOUS PROBLEM with lying. He has been caught over and over and over and over again just on his CARM posts. They are here for ALL to see. Confronted with this what does he do? He simply says that to PROVE he's lying is to actually prove that the one making the case against him is a liar. He appears to be guilty of psychological projection, a concept where the one actually committing the deed accuses others of committing that same deed as a personal defense mechanism. In Christianity, we call this type of defense HYPOCRISY.

The second point I make about this liar is the fact that this rhetorical use of the term liar, particularly in the unproven sense where Pavkovic uses it, is a sign of personal insecurity in his own position or ability to actually DEFEND it. This no doubt explains his aversion to an actual debate (as opposed to discussion board back-and-forths that he erroneously assumes constitute debates). Michael Patton drove this home recently on the "Parchment And Pen" blog. He noted the following that seems to address Pavkovic quite well. In discussing one of many emailers who wrote him and called him a 'liar,' Patton noted:

Extreme rhetoric such as this can often be a sign of personal insecurity about our own position and our ability to defend it. I see it all the time. If you are ignorant but passionate about your own position, things are often more black and white than they would otherwise be. I just tweeted this today, “Often, the more militant you are, the less confident you are. Calm down. Be cool. Excessive combativeness can evidence insecurity.”

There is, furthermore, evidence that Mr. Pavkovic's tactics are little more than devilishly clever schemes - his methodology. His slash and burn approach and immediate use of the ad hominem appears to be a contrived and intentional effort on his part to get threads removed. In all sincerity, it would not surprise me if he was the one who tore into someone with a personal attack - and then waited a few days to turn himself in under another name. It is after all an ESTBALISHED FACT that Mr. Pavkovic LIES and posts under more than one name, all the while pretending to be someone else. So this works in a simple way.

1) Post as your primary name.

2) Register a second name at another ISP.

3) Attack whomever under your primary name.

4) Sign in under your secondary name and turn yourself in.

Because folks remember the tiff but nobody really saves the details (more on that bizarre notion in a moment), you accomplish the mission of 'winning the debate' by insulting the other poster, providing no argumentation of your own, and then referencing the deleted thread (which nobody has) as proof of your superiority.

I would not have thought anyone - especially a professing Christian - would have been so evil and manipulative to do such things but then again when confronted with EVIDENCE that people might do that one must change his tune.

SAVING THREADS FOR EIGHT YEARS?

The most stunning development over the course of the last year, however, has been the notion that this obssessive-compulsive fool has actually saved threads from a message board from EIGHT YEARS AGO!! Now make no mistake - this makes some sense if you're say, James White (or another apologist), and you have interactions with KNOWN PEOPLE who are involved likewise in apologetics ministries. However - I honestly wonder what kind of sick mind would obssessively hold on to threads that were deleted for EIGHT YEARS.

His excuse CANNOT be, "Because this shows I won the debate" because if that were true then we would not be six months removed from his opening of a forum to impugn me - and eight months removed from his subtle suggestion that he actually possesses these threads. Let's face it - if this clown wiped the floor with me in an actual debate, do you HONESTLY think it would have taken him eight months (to this point) to follow through with his threat? Of course not. But you will learn when dealing with Ante Pavkovic, you throw 'honestly' out the window.

It also begs the question as to why he's so afraid of an actual debate. He was declaring victory on opening threads in CARM, without even engaging the issue. When I confronted him with EVIDENCE that Donald Waite LIED about Westcott and Hort's positions on numerous things, he simply dismissed the evidence and asserted that I was the one who was lying. (Ante posted here as Servetus; kind of fitting he'd take the name of an anti-Trinitarian heretic).

WHAT EXACTLY IS LYING ANYWAY?

A bigger problem for Ante, however, is that he is more concerned in the labeling of his opponent than in the actual exchange of information. Yet even his attacks are not just overstatements, they reveal a deficient grasp of the English language. A LIE - by definition - is characterized by an INTENT to deceive. You know, like registering under other names on a discussion board and PRETENDING to NOT be who you are, which Ante has done numerous times. Clark Pinnock, for example, is an excellent Arminian scholar. His writings show an intellectual depth that few attain in this life. However, he is also an annhilationist. The reason he is an annhilationist is because he believes - sincerely and with all his heart - that that is what Scripture teaches. I believe - with all of my heart - that Pinnock is wrong on that issue. But that does not make him a 'liar' because lying would entail Pinnock saying something intended to deceive his audience (for example, declaring himself to be a Bible-believing atheist). Thus, while Pinnock may be deceived, his intent is not deceiving itself.

This repeated use of such tactics really makes me think that Ante must have - for whatever reasons, fair or not - never finished high school. I can hardly bring myself to believe that a person with even a minimal college education would "communicate" in the third-grade way he does. Feeling intellectually inferior to others, he can assert his (in his mind) "superiority" by insulting you more than you insult him. If you turn him in, you're a big baby who can't take it. If you respond in kind, he calls you a hypocrite. If you don't respond at all, he accuses you of being a coward. Beat him senseless with information - and he'll simply lie himself and fall back on, "You didn't refute anything I said."

I say that because not only did Ante ADMIT he had never proven I had lied about anything - yes, he actually admitted that on CARM (December 15, 2008) - "He has been shown much patience, as I did not bother trying to prove he was as I have asserted for a long time." - but his 'proof' on his Slander Maestroh site falls so far short of proving deception that I seriously wonder if the man doesn't need a dictionary. His proof? Maestroh said in his initial response that Ante called him a liar, but it wasn't the initial response. Even assuming Ante is right about all this (because, after all, he did keep the threads for eight years), that doesn't prove I'm a liar; it MAY prove I'm MISTAKEN as to how quickly he said it - but it doesn't change the facts that: a) He attacked me first by calling me a liar REGARDLESS of whether it was the next post or the one after it; and b) there is no INTENT to deceive on my part. (Again - what difference does it make whether it was one or three responses afterward? The bottom line is that Ante attacked me as a liar and - BY HIS OWN ADMISSION - never PROVED it).

Thus - out of all his deceit, lies, and hypocrisy - was born the Ante Pavkovic website. And now the ENTIRE WORLD knows that Ante Pavkovic - who accuses others of lying but never proves it - is himself a liar. Much as Haaman made his own gallows upon which he was hanged, Mr. Pavkovic made the mistake of his life by crossing swords with someone who simply knows a whole lot more than he does.

I would have let it go. I didn't care. Keep in mind that I'm not the one who kept deleted threads from a discussion board eight years ago to fill what must be a very boring life (his, not mine). But his posting of an attack piece on Amazon (where he referred to himself as 'scholarly' and claimed he 'pummeled' me in a debate) revealed that Ante Pavkovic himself would not let it go.

Maybe he's upset because I compared his actions to that of terrorists. (Given his loud threats that suggest he may inflict bodily harm on me, the only difference in Ante and Al-Qaeda is that they are actually willing to die for their stupidity while he isn't). Or maybe he's upset because of the veracity of the comparison. Either way, life is too short to waste any more time on third grade juvenile argumentation like that advanced by Ante Pavkovic.

Therefore, I will no longer make posts here for the forseeable future. There are, of course, two exceptions. The first one is obvious - if he updates his blog and smears me then that will be met with retribution as need be. The second one will never happen - Pavkovic actually grows the balls to defend his KJV Only position. But if by some quirk of fate such a miracle happens, I also reserve the right to reply.

Therefore - until duty calls again - I am officially retired from beating the dead horse that is lying Ante Pavkovic.