Happy to go blind

[_ozemc]

If someone came to you and said that your particular country (USA, in my case) was an evil country hell bent on taking over the world, but if you knew this, you would be exiled, would you want to know?

What are those Republicans up to now....

"Same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!"

[_Runtu]

I think it helpful to remember that individual perceptions (including yours) are not fact. Whether the supposed flaws of the house are trivial or monumental is a matter of perception. Each of the things you mentioned about the house, are a matter of individual perception. Two reasonable people can come to entirely different conclusions about each of those things, and about the house in general.

Correct, which is why I objected to your trivializing our perceptions of the church as mere nitpicking.

I think it also helpful to remember that I was attempting to explain things from the wife's perspective, not yours or Bond's. While your shared perspectives may explain why you and Bond may have concerns about living in the house and may wish the wife would investigate further, your shared perspectives likely do not explain why the wife (who evidently has a different perspective) has declined investigating further. Since it is the wife's actions and intents that are in question, then it is her perspective, and not your's and Bonds, that is pertinent. I am just suggesting that by investigating her perspective, it seems reasonable to suggest that her disinclination to investigate further may not be because she wishes to bury her head in the sand, but because may have found little or no cause to investigate further, and may even have rational reasons and priorities not to. In other words, her disinclination isn't for want to hide from the supposed "truth", but because she believes she has already found it, and wishes to proceed accordingly. I am trying to respectfully give her and other family members the benefit of the doubt and credit for behaving rationally.

Actually, Wade, you're not exactly explaining the wife's perspective. It isn't declining to investigate further; rather, my point in the OP (and others have echoed this) was that it was declining to investigate at all. There's a big difference. I can try to respectfully give my wife the benefit of the doubt, and I think I did that in the OP, but let's be clear that we're not talking about people declining to investigate further. We are talking about people who do not want to know anything at all.

[_wenglund]

Actually, Wade, you're not exactly explaining the wife's perspective. It isn't declining to investigate further; rather, my point in the OP (and others have echoed this) was that it was declining to investigate at all. There's a big difference. I can try to respectfully give my wife the benefit of the doubt, and I think I did that in the OP, but let's be clear that we're not talking about people declining to investigate further. We are talking about people who do not want to know anything at all.

I don't see how anyone can attain a testimony of the Church, let alone grow in strength therein, absent some investigation.

Are you suggesting that your wife has never, nor does she now, involve herself in such investigative practices as reading/studying the scriptures, thoughtful and inquiring prayer, humble participation in lessons during Sunday School and listening carefully and self-reflectively to speakers at Church?

To hark back to the "house" analogy, there had to have been at least some investigation on her part in order for the wife to determine that that specific house is the house of her dreams, and that house is what she loves and wants, and that house is well suited to accomplishing her familial wants and need, etc. etc. These sorts of evaluative conclusions don't happen through osmosis. They occur through some level and degree of investigation and reasoning--a level and degree of investigation that, evidently, was satisfactory enough for her to need not investigate elsewhere or any more indepth or in areas not previously under investigation. In other words, its not that she is burying her head in the sand, but rather she no longer sees a need to investigate further. She has already found what she wants.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Gazelam]

I asked myself both of those questions Tal posed 18 years ago, when I was in the mission field. (Church clothes everyday? No music? what am I doing here?)

I got my answer loud and clear.