Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”
Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:10 am
I got a hot take on Kishkumen.
The board is dominated by Ex/Post-Mormons that have an atheistic bent, which is just fine with me, but an unfortunate effect is that we get little to no participation from people outside that perspective, much less people who readily identify as a Latter Day Saint. As a result, the conversations in threads usually end up with us dogpiling on someone/something and echoing nearly identical sentiments to each other. It can make for boring reading.
I find everything President Nelson has to say boring and shallow, but I will readily acknowledge that these kinds of texts/speeches can be interpreted in a lot of ways and that really intelligent and lovely people derive something positive out of them. Mormons are a group that is large and diverse enough that I think it is reasonable to assume that Nelson’s comments are going to be understood a lot of different ways by lots of different people.
At the end of the day, Kish is a literary guy and for him, the practice of trying to get out of his perspective and into another’s is his go-to activity. When he encounters a bunch of people essentially agreeing on a particular interpretation, his pedagogic habits kick in and he introduces alternatives for consideration. Disagreement is grist for the mental mill.
Other people don’t experience Kish like I’ve just described, obviously others see it as being unnecessarily disagreeable and dismissive. Given the nature of this medium, I’m not terribly surprised people take a dim view. The more one writes, the more one will be misunderstood, that is just the curse of the activity that is inescapable.
It is a regrettable situation, but I do have some advice that might be helpful.
First, on a personal level, Kish is pretty approachable. If you were to electric slide into his private messages...
...and respectfully explain the issues you are having, in the very least he’ll change how he interacts with you. Kish isn’t here to troll, aggravating people doesn’t excite him, and he definitely doesn’t want to drive people away from here. Sometimes you just need to tell people how you feel and there isn’t anything wrong with doing so.
Second, your opinions about people here can alter over time. I’ve said a lot of mean and hurtful stuff to members here that no doubt contributed to them limiting their participation over the years that I’ve come to personally regret. As time went on, whatever the nature of our various and heated disagreements was has completely faded, but I still remember the terrible things I said.
DrCam was one of those people and while he and I never hashed out whatever it was that brought us into conflict (I’ve long since forgotten), but after some time elapsed he started to make some kind remarks to me in spite of the nasty crap I told him and before long I started looking forward to his participation and gained a new appreciation for what he says. Cam didn’t have to do that, but I’m grateful that he did because it gave me an opportunity to behave differently and grow.
The board is dominated by Ex/Post-Mormons that have an atheistic bent, which is just fine with me, but an unfortunate effect is that we get little to no participation from people outside that perspective, much less people who readily identify as a Latter Day Saint. As a result, the conversations in threads usually end up with us dogpiling on someone/something and echoing nearly identical sentiments to each other. It can make for boring reading.
I find everything President Nelson has to say boring and shallow, but I will readily acknowledge that these kinds of texts/speeches can be interpreted in a lot of ways and that really intelligent and lovely people derive something positive out of them. Mormons are a group that is large and diverse enough that I think it is reasonable to assume that Nelson’s comments are going to be understood a lot of different ways by lots of different people.
At the end of the day, Kish is a literary guy and for him, the practice of trying to get out of his perspective and into another’s is his go-to activity. When he encounters a bunch of people essentially agreeing on a particular interpretation, his pedagogic habits kick in and he introduces alternatives for consideration. Disagreement is grist for the mental mill.
Other people don’t experience Kish like I’ve just described, obviously others see it as being unnecessarily disagreeable and dismissive. Given the nature of this medium, I’m not terribly surprised people take a dim view. The more one writes, the more one will be misunderstood, that is just the curse of the activity that is inescapable.
It is a regrettable situation, but I do have some advice that might be helpful.
First, on a personal level, Kish is pretty approachable. If you were to electric slide into his private messages...
...and respectfully explain the issues you are having, in the very least he’ll change how he interacts with you. Kish isn’t here to troll, aggravating people doesn’t excite him, and he definitely doesn’t want to drive people away from here. Sometimes you just need to tell people how you feel and there isn’t anything wrong with doing so.
Second, your opinions about people here can alter over time. I’ve said a lot of mean and hurtful stuff to members here that no doubt contributed to them limiting their participation over the years that I’ve come to personally regret. As time went on, whatever the nature of our various and heated disagreements was has completely faded, but I still remember the terrible things I said.
DrCam was one of those people and while he and I never hashed out whatever it was that brought us into conflict (I’ve long since forgotten), but after some time elapsed he started to make some kind remarks to me in spite of the nasty crap I told him and before long I started looking forward to his participation and gained a new appreciation for what he says. Cam didn’t have to do that, but I’m grateful that he did because it gave me an opportunity to behave differently and grow.