Using a metaphor of "used care dealer" is gratuitously provocative according to you? Does that standard apply consistently? It's not a flattering comparison, bu

Using a metaphor of "used care dealer" is gratuitously provocative according to you? Does that standard apply consistently? It's not a flattering comparison, but it is not even remotely gratuitous. Used car dealers are real people earning perfectly acceptable livings. It's also a perfectly apt metaphor. I understand that used car dealers have a job to do and that it involves convincing me to buy a used car. I also understand that they may not see it important or relevant to their situation to tell me the bad along with the good, and that it is in my best interest to have the car inspected by someone with no skin in the game. It's an obvious case of making sure incentives do not align against you. It applies perfectly well to Mormonism. If you had only trusted me to tell you about my religion when I was a missionary for 2 years in South America convincing people to become Mormon, you would have gotten a very whitewashed and carefully selected story. This is not because I intentionally deceived people. It was not out of self-interested deception. It was because I felt it important to my God-sent mission that people learn to love the church so that they can be baptized. There were so many facts that hadn't been taught to me, and in addition there were plenty of facts that I didn't see necessary to teach people. You think I'm demonizing my own people and myself when I use the used car dealer metaphor? That is simply an incorrect and strangely motivated interpretation of what I said.