Occasionally, I've had good faith discussions with him, and then he pulls this kind of bizarre bullshite. Malkie, there's obviously something wrong in me that always causes me to think that this time is going to be different.
I wouldn't say it's the result of something "wrong" in you - most of the time, most of us try to take others at their word, especially when talking about ideas and positions that are well established. You're extending grace, and suspending judgement - both good things, in my mind.
But this sort of insulting nonsense reminds me of why I'm reluctant to respond directly to MG: for me, it's a wasted effort. I had hoped, ever so briefly, that he might apologise to you, but his flippant reply to my "Exhibit" quickly quenched that little spark of hope.
Apologize for what? Please be specific and use my own words in context.
Rivendale wrote:Maybe there is confusion here between (Dennet's) cranes in biological evolution that explain complex biological phenomena and sky hooks (Dennet) that outsource explanations to imaginary, magical or supernatural supports?
Well that's just it, "scaffolding" sounds a whole lot like mythic literalism in Fowlers stages of faith, which MG subscribes to, apparently without realizing that the higher stages equate to abandoning the kind of dogma that he hotly defends. Literalism in Bible stories is the scaffolding that builds to a mature understanding of principles that don't require the stories themselves to be true.
It would be a hell of a foot-shooting strategy but I seriously wouldn't put it past him to try it. The ultimate problem with the argument is what Morley explained, that church is a small part of our moral education as people who mostly live in secular society. Very little from scripture made an impression on my thinking about life as a kid when compared to Dr. Seuss, Looney Tunes cartoons, Charlie Brown, and a whole lot more. And the funny thing is I didn't have to believe any of those were real in order to get their point.
I am not arguing at all that the scaffold that leads to the making/constructing of our own moral compass isn't a result of many different 'inputs' and connections.
If one leaves religion or God I am NOT arguing that some kind of moral framework/compass...scaffolding if you will...will be built in order to act as a foundation for one's decisions/actions.
One doesn't have to look very far, however, to see that some folks develop a scaffolding for their moral behavior and action that ultimately harms either themselves or others.
[quote=Rivendale post_id=2921224 time=1769276702
There are plenty of Sorites-style heaps to choose from as examples of when conscience should be setting off alarms well before any bright red heap marker lines on the wall are crossed.
I would agree. And that is where one's own moral compass comes into play. And that moral compass is going to be the result of one's own life experience, learning and understanding, and empathy for the life experiences and understandings of others...as far as we can make them out to be.
At that juncture, however, we are then making personal value judgements. A lot of that goes on, right?
As I mentioned earlier, when one leaves the church and God, they are left in a situation by which they must determine what their moral compass is going to be.
This is gibberish because you know better. You're just echoing a trope that you've heard mouthed in church--without really thinking about what you're saying...
It is gibberish, but embedded within is an admission from mentalgymnast that within his church he doesn't have his own personally developed moral compass--he just swallows whole everything his church feeds him. Why else would he state that leaving the lds church meant a person needed to develop a moral compass for themselves? Midgley admitted this as well when he stated that he wouldn't know rape was wrong without his church telling him it was.
Now that people have explained more, mentalgymnast suddenly flipflops, saying he believes people develop their own moral compasses, albeit he still assumes (and tells us) the non-lds are bad at it. He apparently doesn't see the inconsistency in this new opinion.
[quote=Rivendale post_id=2921224 time=1769276702
There are plenty of Sorites-style heaps to choose from as examples of when conscience should be setting off alarms well before any bright red heap marker lines on the wall are crossed.
I would agree. And that is where one's own moral compass comes into play. And that moral compass is going to be the result of one's own life experience, learning and understanding, and empathy for the life experiences and understandings of others...as far as we can make them out to be.
At that juncture, however, we are then making personal value judgements. A lot of that goes on, right?
Regards,
MG
Remind me again what your moral compass said about the perps protected by your “church” and the lack of protection and justice for the victims who were raped, abused, and otherwise assaulted?
Hiring a part-time news entertainment anchor as SecDef, what could go wrong?
I would agree. And that is where one's own moral compass comes into play. And that moral compass is going to be the result of one's own life experience, learning and understanding, and empathy for the life experiences and understandings of others...as far as we can make them out to be.
At that juncture, however, we are then making personal value judgements. A lot of that goes on, right?
Regards,
MG
Remind me again what your moral compass said about the perps protected by your “church” and the lack of protection and justice for the victims who were raped, abused, and otherwise assaulted?
This is an opportunity to apply what you’ve said MG—how does your personal moral compass reconcile this example?
MG. as you know from reading me, I left because it became apparent that I would have to sacrifice my own morality and integrity if I stayed. You've suggested elsewhere that you think that some leave so 'they can sin.' I'm genuinely interested in what you think that you've had to sacrifice to remain in the Church.
This is disingenuous. I’ve been pretty detailed and specific about why I left, some of it in direct reply to you. You don’t have to know me personally to appreciate my story.
Like I said, I don’t know you personally. If I can be misjudged and/or be ascribed certain character flaws that have no basis in reality…my guess is that I am subject/prone to same error of not being able to see/determine the ‘full picture’ of any one person. I could even judge them as a truth teller when in actuality they are not.
What you're implying is that you don't trust my word as to why I left the Church.
If I told you that I had cornflakes for breakfast, you'd take me at my word. You wouldn't say, "I don't know whether or not you had cornflakes for breakfast, because I don't know you personally." Likewise, if you had typed that you, yourself, have a daily craving for French toast, I'd see no reason to offer push back that you might be lying. I wouldn't need to know you personally in order to believe you.
On this board, when you've suggested that you hold fast and stay in the Church for reasons of ethics--that you think staying is the one path that most closely hews to the values of integrity and morality--I take you at your word. Why would I doubt it? I believe that, at least in the long run, most of us try to act in what we think are the most moral and ethical ways possible.
However, when I say I left the Church for reasons of integrity and morality, you brush me aside and intimate that I might be lying. You've got to be kidding.
You are not engaging in a good faith discussion. More than that, you're being a disingenuous ass.
Let me say it this way. I would LIKE to have full trust in folks on this board. But for the reasons mentioned it is almost impossible to have full trust. I will say that I have more trust in some than I do others.
You are towards that end of the scale. You seem to come across as a man of integrity and not a disingenuous ass.
Limnor wrote:Yes—when does scaffolding become a cage? The irony, for me, is what Fowler describes is more “milk before meat” than any of the doctrinal innovation found in Mormonism, and that scaffold can serve as a cage to keep you from the meat.
Well, precisely in the case of MG, for instance. It is a cage. MG is a stage 2 mythic literalist. I don't mean that as an insult, as I do know that MG considers himself as having achieved a high stage. He's read quite widely outside of typical TBM confines. So how does this happen?
I think there are a couple big concepts here and unfortunately I need to explain both. The first involves an econ term I'll borrow, rational expectations, and the second is making careless and untenable divisions between ontology and epistemology.
Rational expectations says that exposure to the model changes the model. When Jesus rewarded the widow for her mite, she hadn't been first exposed to the story of the widow's mite. Once we know the story about the mite, we can't give the mite in the same purity that the widow did. This is a huge problem for psychologists or psychiatrists who come to understand the science behind mind and relationships and the magic is eliminated. I saw a humorous graphic that showed a percentage breakdown of personality types on Facebook, which inverted the actual distribution such that the least common types were the most common. The humor was that people of Facebook learn about personality types, become interested in the ones most rare, and then answer personality test questions in such a way as to make themselves as special as possible rather than to understand who they really are. And that's what's going on when apologists get a hold of something like Fowler. Becoming an apologist for one's own assumed high station in life is the most confining cage that there is.
For the second: ontology is about what's really out there. Epistemology is about what we can know. Apologists become postmodernists to obfuscate what we can know in order to protect what they personally wish to believe is real. Perhaps that's even the whole point of straight/vs. crooked, apologists are epistemically crooked in order to preserve ontology as straight. In other words, MG believes quite literally in God as a man who lives on a planet with his wive(s) near the star Kolob. This is mythic literalism -- stage 2. Yet at the same time, he a vast interest in Sorites paradox and all things skepticism, such that no human could ever make the empirical case that God isn't a man who lives on a planet near Kolob. We can see how apologists have stunted their growth by pursuing knowledge, or in this case the study of the impossibility of knowledge, as a way to protect the sanctity of their favorite crayon drawing of sky daddy.
Interesting stuff, gadianton. Yeah, I remember going towards stage four/five when I think back far enough to the time I was trying to pigeon hole myself into categories.
Now I can go from stage two to stage six on any given day or theological topic/doctrine.
More or less I hang loose and have a gravitational pull towards stage six with wiggle room for two through five.
My drawing of sky daddy wouldn't be a crayon drawing of a stick figure standing on a circle shape labeled Kolob.
Regards,
MG
Last edited by MG 2.0 on Sat Jan 24, 2026 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I would agree. And that is where one's own moral compass comes into play. And that moral compass is going to be the result of one's own life experience, learning and understanding, and empathy for the life experiences and understandings of others...as far as we can make them out to be.
At that juncture, however, we are then making personal value judgements. A lot of that goes on, right?
Regards,
MG
Remind me again what your moral compass said about the perps protected by your “church” and the lack of protection and justice for the victims who were raped, abused, and otherwise assaulted?
Perps should be nabbed and hung upside down until dead.
Remind me again what your moral compass said about the perps protected by your “church” and the lack of protection and justice for the victims who were raped, abused, and otherwise assaulted?
Perps should be nabbed and hung upside down until dead.
Regards,
MG
That’s half the question. How does your moral compass react to the institution that protected the perps and failed the victims?
