Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

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DrStakhanovite
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by DrStakhanovite »

I got a hot take on Kishkumen.

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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...
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...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.
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Kishkumen
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Kishkumen »

Dr Moore wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 1:17 am
To be entirely too reductionist, they love it because on some level, they've been kept in the dark by leadership. That is the point of this thread -- this painful dichotomy is the result of a calculated, conscious system of teaching. It may be subtle, sugar coated with belief in promised blessings and eventual reconciliation. It may even be heartfelt, even if arguably that is fear masquerading as love. But the strategy is proving disastrous, thanks to the gift of online community, because it is objectively an unethical customer retention model. The cost of their deceptive retention model is insanely high. Back to the "informed consent" mantra that many here seem to dislike.

It is by choice that church leaders
(1) hide critical important information from members in order to foster, as you describe, that love of the faith they have sacrificed so much for,
(2) impose negative "evil" or "wrongness" narratives on members who leave after discovering that information,
thus (3) creating a shame-based retention structure whereby those in doubt are gaslit en masse and forced to contend with the prospect that the fingers of blame will always point at them if they leave. That if you learn new information and change your beliefs, you must continue doing the same acts as before or else you risk losing everything.

Sorry to hear about your friend. Truly, that is an awkward feeling. My brother feels bad for sending me links to the gospel topic essays while I was a full fledged TBM.
Thanks, Dr Moore. We are OK. I think, however, that he is as done with my so-called and alleged in-betweenism as some people here are.

How does traditional religion translate into modern parlance? Not all that well. We now have completely different ways of thinking about communities to which we might belong or not. It is not just a democratic, voluntary model, but also a consumer model. I can decide that I don’t like the product that is a religious community and on that basis quit paying my dues and drop out of it.

The LDS Church only makes it easier for its members to do this by behaving like the big corporation that it is. And yet it claims to be more. It gets to have it both ways. It acts the part of a corporation in accordance with the law of the state, as much to its advantage as it possibly can, while expecting members to behave as though nothing has changed. And then, increasingly, people just leave when they don’t seem to understand that things don’t work that way.

There is no bad product, only the deception of Satan making you think that bad product is a workable viewpoint in the eternities.

In other words, there is a huge gulf here. One language does not translate well into the other. The Church plays both sides, fills both roles to the best of its ability, but the power of the consumer culture model is so strong that members judge it as a bad product and feel free to choose differently.

I can’t say that I blame them. After all, the LDS Church acts so much like a big business. Looks like one. Has a leadership that looks like a board of directors. What are people supposed to do?

The believers have to hold onto the view that the president of the Church is not a corporation sole but a prophet. Let’s talk about the Kingdom, not Ensign’s Peak. Ensign’s Peak is perfectly OK if you understand it is really all for the Kingdom, until you don’t believe that anymore.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Philo Sofee »

Kishkumen wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:01 am
Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:25 am
I must confess, Aristotle Smith's post has terrific shock value. Perhaps he doesn't know you well enough Kishkumen?
I don’t know. It looks like I rub some people the wrong way.
Well I mean, so do I... :D forgive, forget and move on I say...
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Kishkumen
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Kishkumen »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:46 am
What drives me away from the church is the leadership false philosophies of paying hush money of sexual abused persons by Mormons in leadership positions, but the top leaderships FALSE philosophy of protect the image of the church is far and away more damaging to my believing them than anything ever said by atheists. The leadership itself practices and teaches FALSE philosophy of which is also another reason why I have left Mormon apologetics. I cannot and will not defend that kind of morally cowardly hypocritical sexually perverted philosophy of the Mormon leadership when it comes to sexual abuse from leaders who then are defended by the church's own lawyers. The church pays its lawyers money to protect its image instead of cleaning up the immoral and sick, disgusting immorality which it allows to continue on for years and years.

And most astonishing of all of it, Jesus Christ himself apparently won't do anything about it either, and, based on the scripture, he certainly could do something, but instead lets so many innocent lives get ruined, and for what? Sexual perversion of HIS OWN CHOSEN LEADERS. This is seriously too hard for me to swallow. It really does make me wonder if he is real.
I am having a really hard time with this stuff too. They have found various ways of making it easy for me not to return. This is high on that list.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Kishkumen
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Kishkumen »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:23 am
Well I mean, so do I... :D forgive, forget and move on I say...
Glad you feel that way, Philo! I appreciate the grace.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Kishkumen
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Kishkumen »

DrStakhanovite wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:10 am
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...
Image
...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.
Thank you, DrStak. Your hot take seems pretty accurate to me. I don’t like an echo chamber. I get bored when I see more and more of the same. I like to try on different points of view. I try to understand what makes others think the way they do, even if I don’t agree with them. At the end of the day, I am a flawed person who does have bad days, sometimes goes too far, sometimes does not know when to stop, sometimes gets a bur in his britches, etc.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by huckelberry »

Kishkumen wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:34 am
DrStakhanovite wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:10 am
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. ......
Thank you, DrStak. Your hot take seems pretty accurate to me. I don’t like an echo chamber. I get bored when I see more and more of the same. I like to try on different points of view. I try to understand what makes others think the way they do, even if I don’t agree with them. At the end of the day, I am a flawed person who does have bad days, sometimes goes too far, sometimes does not know when to stop, sometimes gets a bur in his britches, etc.
I thought I would express a note of appreciation for Dr Stak's comment. May we continue to have different points of view.
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Marcus »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:23 am
I don’t know. It looks like I rub some people the wrong way.
Well I mean, so do I... :D forgive, forget and move on I say...
philo, you make good points. it does frustrate me however, as a fellow professor of Dr. Kishkumen, that i have only experienced the vicious personal attacks when i disagree with him. he insists on utter respect for his contrarianism, without giving the slightest respect back. if i am very careful to kiss his ass and only disagree in the very mildest of ways while effusively acknowledging his superiority (a strategy i learned from reading here), then i (sometimes) get the "nice" kishkumen. The problem is, i'm not willing to engage in that dishonesty in perpetuity, so his attacks continue.

As for Stak's suggestions, asking a female professor to "slide into" the private DMs of a fellow male professor, to "respectfully explain the issues you are having," in order to get him to "change how he interacts with you" because he personally and viciously attacks you, in public, every time you disagree with him is laughable, at best. i will assume he was speaking in generalities.

Being one of the few females here who is a fellow professor to the Dear Reverend, i can see the difficulty in him treating me as an equal, but it doesn't mean I have to tolerate it.

And as a final point, it's not "pedagogical" to be an ass to people. I also enjoy my teaching opportunities, but wielding it like a sword is not appropriate, in my opinion. There are far superior ways to take advantage of a teaching moment.
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Dr Moore »

Marcus wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:55 pm
Being one of the few females here who is a fellow professor...
I did not realize you were female until reading this just now. It doesn't change anything for me. Just noting. Glad as ever for your points of view.
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Re: Nelson: “Don’t pollute [your testimony] with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women…”

Post by Res Ipsa »

Dr Moore wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:51 pm
Marcus wrote:
Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:55 pm
Being one of the few females here who is a fellow professor...
I did not realize you were female until reading this just now. It doesn't change anything for me. Just noting. Glad as ever for your points of view.
I doubt DrStak did either.
he/him
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