From the MA&D house: LDS have no respect at funerals

[Guest]

This is his favorite form of insult (like he does by referring to GoodK as "goodkid" -- he doesn't mean to be nice). It's rather juvenile, but I'm fine with it.

It's not an insult at all.

I've begun to suspect that Kishkumen might perhaps possibly be a Scratch sockpuppet.

Which, once the possibility is admitted, opens the door to the thought that Gadianton (another member of the Scratch Mutual Admiration Society whose name happens to be related to Kishkumen's) might be another one.

Which, given your unrelenting personal hostility to me (very much like Scratch's, but, on the whole, unequaled by the other more or less grown up participants on the board [in other words, leaving PP and poor antishock8 and Some Schmo out of the reckoning]) and your seemingly obsessive interest in my crimes (again, rather uniquely like Scratch's except that, whereas he focuses on my alleged viciousness toward Mike Quinn and on his hatred of the FARMS Review, your area of responsibility appears to be my alleged viciousness toward GoodK and, beyond me, on issues relating to homosexuality), opens the door, at least a little bit, to the thought that you, too, might be just another voice for Scratch.

[_Daniel Peterson]

A question arises: are all accounts of evidence and argument based changes of views on matters of fact to be labelled as "conversion stories"?

No. But sudden epiphanies in which one fundamental worldview is exchanged for another and in which the previous worldview is suddenly realized to have been obviously false, are clearly conversion experiences of a kind.

[_Daniel Peterson]

This is his favorite form of insult (like he does by referring to GoodK as "goodkid" -- he doesn't mean to be nice). It's rather juvenile, but I'm fine with it.

Feeling rather alone now that GoodK has expressed a quite understandable desire to escape the endless and pointless back-and-forth concerning my viciousness, Scrollo seeks to inflame GoodK yet again by reminding him of one of Eeevil Peterson's many crimes against him.

I was standing by the window
On a cold and cloudy day
When I saw the hearse come rolling
To carry my hobby away

Will the circle be unbroken
Bye and bye Lord bye and bye
There's a bitter home a waiting
In the sky Lord in the sky

I said to the undertaker
Undertaker please drive slow
For that hobby you are carrying
Lord I hate to see it go

Well I followed close behind it
Tried to hold up and be brave
But I could not hide my sorrow
When they laid it in that grave

I went back home Lord that home was lonesome
Since my hobby, it was gone
All my other interests crying
What a board so sad and alone

[_Chap]

A question arises: are all accounts of evidence and argument based changes of views on matters of fact to be labelled as "conversion stories"?

No. But sudden epiphanies in which one fundamental worldview is exchanged for another and in which the previous worldview is suddenly realized to have been obviously false, are clearly conversion experiences of a kind.

That seems to be a softening of the original reaction of this poster to Sethbag's account of why he ceased to believe that the doctrines of the CoJCoLDS were true.

Let's look at the terms used here, to see how the rhetoric works:

"epiphany": that is a word used commonly in religious contexts, but it only comes from the Greek for "showing forth". So let it pass, though it is clearly intended to direct our perceptions in a certain direction.

"Sudden" and "suddenly" are however different. Is it essential to something being a "conversion" that it should take place in a short space of time? So if Sethbag's change of views about the validity of the doctrines of the COJCoLDS had been slow, it would not have counted as a conversion?

"Obviously false" as opposed to just plain "false" again plays a rhetorical role - would a slowly dawning suspicion, maturing over time to conviction but avoiding any flash of "obviousness" at any point enable one to come to disbelief in the CoJCoLDS without having the process described as a "conversion"?

"fundamental worldview ... exchanged for another" just seems another way of saying that a change of view took place, but using a rhetoric that pushes us towards thinking of this event as simply swapping one object for another, like putting a different game cartridge in the console. But an evidence and argument based change of view towards disbelief in certain factual claims is surely not analogous to doing that.

It seems that the only way to avoid one's change of view being described as a "conversion experience" by this poster is to ensure that it happens rather slowly. (Or perhaps one would be safe so long as the change of view did not lead to disbelief in the CoJCoLDS?)

[_Sethbag]

A question arises: are all accounts of evidence and argument based changes of views on matters of fact to be labelled as "conversion stories"?

No. But sudden epiphanies in which one fundamental worldview is exchanged for another and in which the previous worldview is suddenly realized to have been obviously false, are clearly conversion experiences of a kind.

It wasn't quite like that. I realized the flaw in my previous worldview, but it wasn't instantly replaced by another, and really, still hasn't been. Further, the realization of the flaws in my previous worldview itself grew over time. The instant in time represented a step from one side of a balance beam to the other, and things progressed from there.

I still haven't settled on a worldview, other than a requirement that taking evidence seriously has got to be a fundamental part of it.

[Anonymous]

I, for one, deeply regret that any thread DCP participates in (and many he doesn't) inevitably devolves into attacks on DCP himself, rather than whatever topic was being discussed.

That's one aspect of this board's history I would very gladly do without. Indeed, whenever I recognize that a thread has gotten to that point, I usually just zone out and stop paying attention.

[_Trevor]

I, for one, deeply regret that any thread DCP participates in (and many he doesn't) inevitably devolves into attacks on DCP himself, rather than whatever topic was being discussed.

I do too, and I refuse to take part in it anymore.