Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
User avatar
Res Ipsa
God
Posts: 9569
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2020 6:44 pm
Location: Playing Rabbits

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

DrW, I understand the argument. Based on your education, experience, and training as a pilot, the story (by which you mean every detail in every version is included) is absurd on its face. I started out from the position that it was extremely unlikely that all of the details were accurate.

But that has nothing to do with my criticism of how you have handled evidence throughout the thread. The point is that, when you posted over and over and over about conclusions you’d drawn from absence of evidence, you did it wrong and posted unjustifiable conclusions. Believing that Nelson’s story is ridiculous on its face does not change the rules of logic or the principles of sound reasoning from evidence.

If you’re going to purport to reason from the absence of evidence, do it right. That’s all.
he/him
When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.

Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
User avatar
DrW
Priest
Posts: 297
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:25 pm

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 3:28 pm
DrW, I understand the argument. Based on your education, experience, and training as a pilot, the story (by which you mean every detail in every version is included) is absurd on its face. I started out from the position that it was extremely unlikely that all of the details were accurate.

But that has nothing to do with my criticism of how you have handled evidence throughout the thread. The point is that, when you posted over and over and over about conclusions you’d drawn from absence of evidence, you did it wrong and posted unjustifiable conclusions. Believing that Nelson’s story is ridiculous on its face does not change the rules of logic or the principles of sound reasoning from evidence.

If you’re going to purport to reason from the absence of evidence, do it right. That’s all.
Agree.
No further argument from this side.
Peace?
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." (David Hume)
"Errors in science are learning opportunities and are corrected when better data become available." (DrW)
User avatar
Res Ipsa
God
Posts: 9569
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2020 6:44 pm
Location: Playing Rabbits

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

Peace.
he/him
When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.

Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
User avatar
Morley
God
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 6:17 pm
Location: detail from Alice Neel's 1980 self portrait

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Morley »

Humans have difficulty remembering discreet events unless we fit them into larger narratives. We're unlikely to remember going to dentist. We're more likely to recall "that day I got a root canal and I bumped into the person I would later marry."

Traumatic or unusual events are also more likely to be remembered, but even with those, we tend to frame them in some meaningful way. The framing or narrative we employ can change how those events impact us. For instance, someone may remember their older cousin touching their woo-woo, but they may not, until much later, frame it as sexual abuse. As they frame it differently, the emotions shift, and memory around it may shift, too.

Many soldiers who fought in Vietnam felt like they had the narrative shifted around them from one of 'patriotic duty' to that of 'baby killer.' The shift from hero to potential war criminal resulted in higher levels of personal trauma than, say, for soldiers who fought in WWII, which was consistently seen a noble and necessary cause.

We tend to embroider or fill in details that don't exist to give our narratives credibility, fill in blind spots, make them interesting, and justify our behavior. That doesn't mean we believe everything we're saying. Yes, memory can change over time, but sometimes we prevaricate to make our memories more palatable. Our pride demands it. Even though we, ourselves, may not believe all the details of the stories we tell, we're almost certain to defend them as the one true version. After all, why would we lie?

I doubt Nelson believes that everything in the story he tells is accurate in a literal sense. I imagine he feels like he's appealing to a higher truth, as he constructs a kind of parable in order to share what he's certain is a spiritual reality. Jesus told parables, so can he.

In some ways, a part of my mind doesn't have any problem with that. We know what he's doing. His acolytes and allies know, in their hearts, what he's doing. His followers are willing to accept this way of looking at the world, even as many here see this approach as reprehensible. They're two different ways of looking at the world, and never the twain will meet.

However, the by far larger portion of my brain has a very real complaint with the larger, corrupting mythos that results from this form of narrative building. This is just one strand of a truth-is-relative-as-long-as-it-serves-our-purpose way of creating a constructed reality. And I'm not a fan of, what I see as, this 'ends justifies the means' shite.

.
Last edited by Morley on Mon May 03, 2021 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Res Ipsa
God
Posts: 9569
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2020 6:44 pm
Location: Playing Rabbits

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

Morley wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 5:07 pm
Humans have difficulty remembering discreet events unless we fit them into larger narratives. We're unlikely to remember going to dentist. We're more likely to recall "that day I got a root canal and I bumped into the person I would later marry."

Traumatic or unusual events are also more likely to be remembered, but even with those, we tend to frame them in some meaningful way. The framing or narrative we employ can change how those events impact us. For instance, someone may remember their older cousin touching their woo-woo, but they may not, until much later, frame it as sexual abuse. As they frame it differently, the emotions shift, and memory around it may shift, too.

Many soldiers who fought in Vietnam felt like they had the narrative shifted around them from one of 'patriotic duty' to that of 'baby killer.' The shift from hero to potential war criminal resulted in higher levels of personal trauma than, say, for soldiers who fought in WWII, which was consistently seen a noble and necessary cause.

We tend to embroider or fill in details that don't exist to give our narratives credibility, fill in blind spots, make them interesting, and justify our behavior. That doesn't mean we believe everything we're saying. Yes, memory can change over time, but sometimes we prevaricate to make our memories more palatable. Our pride demands it. Even though we, ourselves, may not believe all the details of the stories we tell, we're almost certain to defend them as the one true version. After all, why would we lie?

I doubt Nelson believes that everything in the story he tells is accurate in a literal sense. I imagine he feels like he's appealing to a higher truth, as he constructs a kind of parable in order to share what he's certain is a spiritual reality. Jesus told parables, so can he.

In some ways, a part of my mind doesn't have any problem with that. We know what he's doing. His acolytes and allies know, in their hearts, what he's doing. His followers are willing to accept this way of looking at the world, even as many here see this approach as reprehensible. They're two different ways of looking at the world, and never the twain will meet.

However, the by far larger portion of my brain has a very real complaint with the corrupt and corrupting larger mythos of the modern CoJCoLDS that results from this type of narrative building. This is just one strand of a truth-is-relative-as-long-as-it-serves-our-purpose way of creating a constructed reality. And I'm not a fan of all of this 'ends justifies the means' B.S..

.
Great points, Morely. Another part of this that I think about is how my brain remembers an event, especially one that is frightening and confusing. If you ask me immediately what happens, I won't describe to you each separate bit of sensory information. Instead, I'll give you a narrative of what happened. My brain has already taken all that sensory data and stitched it together in a way that makes what happened understandable to the brain. So, from the beginning, my memory of the events is a mishmash of what I actually saw, heard felt, etc. and information supplied by my brain to make it all make sense.

So, we this narrative memory, which can fade and change, although our recollection of the emotions we felt seems to stay more stable. But when we take that narrative and turn it into a story that we tell others, I think there's a pretty significant change. We take that narrative and give it a meaning that transcends the words of the narrative. And, as we tell the story, the meaning we give to the events shapes how we tell the story.

In the Preface to Heart to Heart, the only significance he gives to the event is as the precipitating cause of his writing of the book. We haven't seen the book, so maybe there's more in it. One of the things I wonder is whether Nelson told some version of this story early on when the purpose was just to relate something scary that happened to him on an airplane one time. Then, at some later point, he imbued it with the meaning that turned it into a faith-promoting story.

And I agree with you on the greater importance of the impact of faith-promoting stories in general.
he/him
When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.

Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
User avatar
Morley
God
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 6:17 pm
Location: detail from Alice Neel's 1980 self portrait

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Morley »

Thanks, Counselor.

Nelson is a Prophet of God. Stories from his life are supposed to be inspiring. It must be tough to retrofit a pretty regular, privileged life--one in which you were never fighting the Nazis or those Democrats--into something that's supposed look like it's part of a Medieval passion play.

.
kairos
CTR B
Posts: 149
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:31 pm

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by kairos »

We really don’t know how Rusty came to write this parable, including a potential death scenario. Hints have been made on how and maybe why he concocted it.
Some like myself believe he has piled lie upon lie to generate a fact story in which he is a superior follower of Jesus because he implies he has all the gospel bases covered. Why should he be allowed to foist this fable on the faithful? Where is the fraternal correction that should hold all of the 15 apostles to telling the truth. All these years he gets away with because no one of them is willing to shut down the PSR.
User avatar
Gadianton
God
Posts: 3843
Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2020 11:56 pm
Location: Elsewhere

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Gadianton »

Morley wrote:We tend to embroider or fill in details that don't exist to give our narratives credibility, fill in blind spots, make them interesting, and justify our behavior. That doesn't mean we believe everything we're saying. Yes, memory can change over time, but sometimes we prevaricate to make our memories more palatable. Our pride demands it. Even though we, ourselves, may not believe all the details of the stories we tell, we're almost certain to defend them as the one true version. After all, why would we lie?

I doubt Nelson believes that everything in the story he tells is accurate in a literal sense. I imagine he feels like he's appealing to a higher truth, as he constructs a kind of parable in order to share what he's certain is a spiritual reality. Jesus told parables, so can he.
fascinating. thanks for finally weighing in.
User avatar
DrW
Priest
Posts: 297
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:25 pm

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 4:48 pm
Peace.
Great.

Now that we have that settled, I think many of us would appreciate a few pointers from you as to how you would recommend handling an argument from lack of evidence, just in case something like this comes up again. If you don't mind, a set of bullet points or rules would suffice.

Thank you.
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." (David Hume)
"Errors in science are learning opportunities and are corrected when better data become available." (DrW)
huckelberry
God
Posts: 2579
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 3:48 pm

Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by huckelberry »

Morley wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 7:05 pm
....
I doubt Nelson believes that everything in the story he tells is accurate in a literal sense. I imagine he feels like he's appealing to a higher truth, as he constructs a kind of parable in order to share what he's certain is a spiritual reality. Jesus told parables, so can he.

In some ways, a part of my mind doesn't have any problem with that. We know what he's doing. His acolytes and allies know, in their hearts, what he's doing. His followers are willing to accept this way of looking at the world, even as many here see this approach as reprehensible. They're two different ways of looking at the world, and never the twain will meet.

However, the by far larger portion of my brain has a very real complaint with the larger, corrupting mythos that results from this form of narrative building. This is just one strand of a truth-is-relative-as-long-as-it-serves-our-purpose way of creating a constructed reality. And I'm not a fan of, what I see as, this 'ends justifies the means' shite.

............. AND THEN......
Thanks, Counselor.

Nelson is a Prophet of God. Stories from his life are supposed to be inspiring. It must be tough to retrofit a pretty regular, privileged life--one in which you were never fighting the Nazis or those Democrats--into something that's supposed look like it's part of a Medieval passion play.

.
Well Morley that is a pretty good summation.

Any bets on how many more pages will pile up after this completion?

And you have me stumped with your newest image. Maybe its there on the far edge of my memory.......
Last edited by huckelberry on Mon May 03, 2021 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply