DiscussMormonism.com

Lately it seems to me that the terrestrial forum lacks substance. Many of the threads are like gripe sessions (trying to refrain from using an expletive).

Yeah, go ahead and throw the rotten tomatoes. Maybe I'm just frustrated because I don't' seem to be achieving eternal progression or it 's late or something. :-P

I can't imagine what you are talking about. I know that I, for one, and posting much that is shocking, revealing, and shockingly, revealingly substantive.

msnobody wrote:Lately it seems to me that the terrestrial forum lacks substance. Many of the threads are like gripe sessions (trying to refrain from using an expletive).

Scratch triumphans.

Daniel Peterson wrote:

msnobody wrote:Lately it seems to me that the terrestrial forum lacks substance. Many of the threads are like gripe sessions (trying to refrain from using an expletive).

Scratch triumphans.

Did a little bell go off waking the Maytag repairman?

Sorry, I should probably just go to bed and be nicer tomorrow.

Daniel Peterson wrote:Scratch triumphans.

msnobody wrote:Lately it seems to me that the terrestrial forum lacks substance. Many of the threads are like gripe sessions (trying to refrain from using an expletive).

Yeah, go ahead and throw the rotten tomatoes. Maybe I'm just frustrated because I don't' seem to be achieving eternal progression or it 's late or something. :-P

Sometimes true. I touched on this recently here. The main reason I think people are soo willing to slide off into discussions about "he said she said" and personal picadillos of people, and "who's a liar" and whatnot is that it is easier [and sexier sometimes] to talk about that stuff. You don't have to gain any type of knowledge about issues, just read what someone said about someone and give an opinion. It's easier, and it has alot more colour than a debate about horse bones or whatever. It's quite attractive material. Apologists can sidestep covering actual substance [or lack thereof] and critics can talk about sexy issues like sex and masturbation and whatnot. Supply and demand though, some people like that type of stuff.

msnobody wrote:Lately it seems to me that the terrestrial forum lacks substance. Many of the threads are like gripe sessions (trying to refrain from using an expletive).

Yeah, go ahead and throw the rotten tomatoes. Maybe I'm just frustrated because I don't' seem to be achieving eternal progression or it 's late or something. :-P

Throw rotten tomatoes? Why, I wouldn't think of such a thing. Why throw a tomato when I can throw a Mormon. Here, catch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWc6QQ9JlMc

Bond...James Bond wrote:Apologists can sidestep covering actual substance [or lack thereof]

How many "apologists" are even here?

I, for one, wouldn't bother to come here for genuinely substantive extended discussion. (Sorry!) For such discussion, I publish and I read others' publications. There is a broad serious conversation going on, far superior to anything that I've ever seen on message boards and to anything that I can conceive of seeing on message boards.

To make it quite personal: Some people here accuse me of fleeing discussion. I don't. I'm involved in very big on-going discussions. Heavily involved. I just don't have those here. Some of the people who make that accusation seem entirely unaware of the bigger, slower, deeper, more substantive dialogue.

Too bad all that bigger, slower, deeper dialogue, at least that about the LDS church, is in the service of defending what is indefensible. There's opportunity cost in participating in these message boards, that's for sure. Imagine the intellectual opportunity cost being paid by people spending entire lifetimes defending what in the end is just a manmade organization propogating a false and fictitious worldview and cosmology.

Whenever you have a loose moderating, there will be a high noise to signal ratio. However, there is still substance to be found. TD's thread "the best reason to sin" is one, for example.