Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[MG 2.0]

Because I don’t see faith as being irrelevant to reason. A reasoned faith is at the very core of how many of us conduct our life of discipleship. To strip that away strikes down one of the pillars that supports the worldview and views of eternity that a believer has in their repertoire of meanings and purposes for which we exist.

That’s a big ask.

And in the meantime the nonbelievers are free to refer to the ‘Mormon God’ in any way, shape, and form they choose. Caracature built on caracature.

To take away the voice of reason (even if flawed) from the believer while at the same time allowing for other voices to have a heyday in building their own possibly flawed caricatures in regards to anything ‘Mormon’ is on its face unreasonable and unfair.

I would rather come across as irrational (in your mind) than exempt myself from expressing my views that I believe have a foundation in Godly truth.

So no thanks.

But, we can agree to disagree and do so without vitriol or slamming the ‘other’. I would need to be more aware of when I might be saying something that might be offensive to someone that has particular sensitivities. This thread and others has helped me to understand what some of those sensitivities might be. Just as people of faith may be hurt by comments made derogatory of their faith or person, it works the other way around.

Even if those comments might be made, at least in some cases, somewhat inadvertently or innocently. We all say things that we later…after more introspection…realize would have been better left unsaid.

And there is such a thing as hypersensitivity.

I can do better. Others can do better.

Point is taken.

In spite of my preposterous, spur-of-the-moment, iPhone-composed rebuttal of him, I think you're missing the core of Res's point.

If I understand the essence of what Res is saying, I think that he's urging you to go ahead and make the full-throated defenses of Mormonism that you wish to make. He's just venturing that these arguments would be more effective if you didn't try to cloak them in bad citations, the pretense of logic, or half-understood science. If faith is good enough for you to base your opinion on, then it should also be good enough to work as an argument. Putting forth half-baked theories and flawed propositions, ones that you yourself think might be damaged or stillborn, reeks of desperation and convinces nobody.

Well…I’ll go with what I interpreted him as saying and I’ll stick to what I said. Each of us tends to read into what we read our own experience and thoughts that are triggered during the process of reading. It’s not a one size fits all.

Same holds true with what you might consider to be bad citations, pretense of logic, or half understood science. If I was to do what you’re asking I wouldn’t have anything to offer.

Pi A.I.:

"One man’s illogic is another man’s truth."

This highlights the idea that what appears to be illogical or irrational to one person may make perfect sense to another, based on their experiences, beliefs, and worldview.

It's a reminder that reason and logic are not always objective or universal, but can be shaped by cultural, historical, and personal factors.

Or to put it another way, to each his own. You can always take it or leave it…or point out any flaws. That way I can learn something.

I’ve learned a few things from Res Ipsa.

Anyone out there reading what he says and what I say can then do their own thinking and come to their own decisions/conclusions. That’s as it should be.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I think MG takes Ammon and his brethren among the Lamanites as his text. Yea, let us become their servants to show that we are common among them (golly, I'm just like you, but have a different perspective, shucks free will, etc., etc.). And lo, the posters' hearts at discussmormonism.com were softened and they feasted upon the words as they spewed forth from MG's fingers in his humble yet superior way. And it came to pass that the preaching of the word had the effect that Joseph Smith intended in his made-up Bible fan fiction and many souls were saved that day, supposedly.

Go forth in Christ MG 2.0! You surely have the superior perspective.

Yeah, I’m just faking good will and patience and pretending to be your humble servant in order to convert you wicked Lamanites.

Now, if you will follow Lamoni’s example and offer me anything I want…

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Both Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter say they pray for Donald Trump. If their prayers were answered would it mean interfering with Trump's free will. He confesses I slept with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

hauslern
My free will has been interfered with all my life and I am getting a bit along in years now. I have no reason to imagine interference will stop. It contributes to making free will interesting and useful. I would miss it should it stop.

Endure to the end, brother! I don’t think free will stops even with the last breath we take.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I am more puzzled as to what MG is pursuing…

A simple conversation about free will…that isn’t so simple apparently.

There might have been some other stuff mixed in there too. The thread has gone on so long I’ve forgotten.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

So, why not make faith irrelevant to reason and reason irrelevant to faith?

Because I don’t see faith as being irrelevant to reason. A reasoned faith is at the very core of how many of us conduct our life of discipleship. To strip that away strikes down one of the pillars that supports the worldview and views of eternity that a believer has in their repertoire of meanings and purposes for which we exist.

I get it. I would describe the faith I had when I was LDS as reasoned faith. But I’m asking you and my 19 year old self, why require your faith to be reasonable? Doesn’t it diminish the importance of faith when we force it to jump through hoops of reason?

I think about what Jesus asked of his followers. He didn’t present them with a reasoned argument. He told them not to concern themselves with things of this world, to give worldly possessions and even family, and to follow him. That’s a huge leap of 100% faith.

Did God present Job with a reasoned explanation for why Good had ruined his life? I don’t think so. Did God explain to Abraham why killing his son as a sacrifice was a reasonable thing to do?

I could tell you my deconversion story through a faithful LDS lens. It would be a cautionary tale that illustrates why “reasoned faith” is not what God asks of his children. Reason is human — the arm of the flesh. What this life is testing is the strength of your faith in the face of your fallen human brain. That’s the test — not when your human reasoning tells you that you’re doing the reasonable thing, but when your fallible, mortal brain is screaming at you that what you believe is completely unreasonable. In this version of the story, my faith in God was weakened by leaning on the moral crutch of reason. When my crutch shattered, my faith was too weak to keep me on the straight and narrow?

Is it possible that demanding faith to submit to reason is s simple but huge mistake?

I don’t speak for anyone but myself. But I find it easy to respect someone who says “I don’t know it all works, but I have faith ….” I really do believe that all people should be given space to figure out their place in the universe. If someone takes the existence of God on faith, trying to reason them out of it makes little sense to me.

But the reasoned part of reasoned faith is, in my view, fair game for reason based arguments. Reason isn’t individual, unless you are arguing with yourself. And not all reasoning is equal. There are sound arguments and terrible arguments. (Faith based reasoning is filled with the terrible ones.)

So, in another thread, Ajax and I have been talking about God’s love. It’s interesting to me to hear how he thinks about that. In fact I find it interesting to talk with people of faith about what their faith means to them in their personal lives. How it fits into their constructed reality, if you will. Ajax isn’t presenting me with an argument. We’re just talking and sharing how we think. I’ve had tons of discussions, sometimes over extended periods of time about people’s faith. I’ve enjoyed them all.

The common thread in all of those conversations is that no one is trying to reason anyone into thinking differently. It’s a completely different kind of interaction — one that I would suggest would be in the magisteria of faith, not reason.

That is actually the kind of interaction Brooks promotes in his book. Everyone lives in a constructed reality. Nobody has a special hot line to the “truth.” That kind of interaction is far more meaningful than the ones you and I have had in the past.

So, what exactly wrong with standing on your faith as opposed to trying to prop it up with reason?

That’s a big ask.

And in the meantime the nonbelievers are free to refer to the ‘Mormon God’ in any way, shape, and form they choose. Caricature built on caricature.

That leads me to ask a couple of questions. If your faith is strong, why do you care what a few randos on the internet say? Or even a thousand randos. Jesus anticipated that you would be treated very badly for his sake. What did he tell you to do? And what’s wrong with that?

To take away the voice of reason (even if flawed) from the believer while at the same time allowing for other voices to have a heyday in building their own possibly flawed caricatures in regards to anything ‘Mormon’ is on its face unreasonable and unfair.

I haven’t proposed taking anything away from you. Maybe what I’m suggesting that you have been doing here is kicking against the pricks. You’ve already acknowledged the fundamental problem with trying to construct reasoned arguments to defend your religious beliefs. Why spend so much time and effort playing to your weakness? Isn’t faith your strength? Why not play to that?

As far as fairness goes, who promised you fairness in your moral probation? The plan of salvation is unfair as hell if you just look at this life. Baby torture is fair, right? Surely there are billions of people ahead of you in the unfairness complaint line. “People said mean things about my religion” is about the tiniest bit of unfairness in the entire unfairness catalogue.

Jesus told you about the part where you get fairness. It’s in the next life.

I would rather come across as irrational (in your mind) than exempt myself from expressing my views that I believe have a foundation in Godly truth.

That’s not what I suggested at all. All I suggested is that you stop requiring your faith to genuflect to reason. Maybe even just stop trying to wring out some kind of concession that your faith is reasonable. Moroni’s promise isn’t a reasoned argument. Why not allow yourself to be okay with that?

You can’t come across as irrational if you don’t try to make something that you believe by faith into something you arrived at through reason. Why not simply make let your faith flag fly?

Using NOMA as a model, trying to attack faith with reason would itself be irrational. That’s the point of non-overlapping magisteria — the two domains don’t overlap. Leave reason out of the domain of faith and faith out of the domain of reason.

From my perspective, faith is not rational, meaning it is not grounded in reason. It’s something else. And that’s okay. We may be animals who can reason, but we are not rational animals.

So no thanks.

Okay, you set’ em up and I’ll knock ‘em down.

But, we can agree to disagree and do so without vitriol or slamming the ‘other’. I would need to be more aware of when I might be saying something that might be offensive to someone that has particular sensitivities.

OK, if you’re sincere about wanting to reduce the vitriol, this is the kind of bullcrap that you need to stop doing. What gets you sideways with people every single time is your passive aggressive process comments.

The problem is not that other people are “sensitive” and take “offense” easily. That’s simply the excuse that dicks use to justify dickish behavior. It’s an arrogant, rhetorical trick that allows you to simply dismiss someone’s words without addressing what they actually said.

Take “I’m okay, you’re okay” seriously. People react emotionally to words, AND THEY’RE OKAY. What’s not okay? Attacking them personally by dismissing what they say because they’re “too sensitive.” Address the words people say, not the people who say the words.

That one simple trick (no process comments) will reduce the rancor. Well, you might need a second simple trick: ignore other people’s process comments — don’t be trolled into giving up on the first simple trick.

This thread and others has helped me to understand what some of those sensitivities might be. Just as people of faith may be hurt by comments made derogatory of their faith or person, it works the other way around.

If the lesson you’ve learned here is that other people are sensitive, you’ve learned exactly nothing. I’m dead serious. If you can’t grasp that, the tone of your conversations here will never ever ever ever change.

Even if those comments might be made, at least in some cases, somewhat inadvertently or innocently. We all say things that we later…after more introspection…realize would have been better left unsaid.

And there is such a thing as hypersensitivity.

I give up. You’re doomed. One last try.

STOP TALKING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOR. STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR. YOU CAN ONLY CHANGE YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR. ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE — THEY’RE OKAY.

I can do better. Others can do better.

Point is taken.

Nope. Point missed completely. If you can manage to say “I can do better. Full Stop.” You can say “Point taken.”

[Res Ipsa]

The problem you face, MG, is that everything you said about Sock Puppet applies to you. What you said here pretty accurately captures what I think about you:



And this is the part that really gives the symmetry away: "That is if we’re not dealing without outright half truths and lies" Those are not the words of someone whose world view is "I'm OK, You're OK."

I’m coming around to accepting the fact that I’m OK, you’re OK. And really meaning it.

You’ve put in a lot of thought along the way that has brought you to where you are at. From what I can put together you are coming from a place of integrity.

Some folks haven’t, in my opinion, put in the same sweat and tears that you seem to have. My dad is another person who has put in the time, the sweat, and tears, in trying to determine if Mormonism is ‘true’. He, like you, determined that it wasn’t. For him. We’ve had lots of lively discussions.

You have changed substantially the way I view some ( not all) of those that have left the church or are no longer attending. Some post Mormons are jerks. Some Mormons are jerks.

I try not to be a jerk but may come across that way at times. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. But I come from a ‘good’ place. I’m seeing that others here do too.

You don’t seem to be a jerk.

And I say that with respect for you and the way you conduct yourself on this board. Although at times I think we’ve riled each other up.

I did take exception to what sock puppet said and how he said it. I did take it personally because I don’t think it describes me. But yes, I may have done some ‘right back atcha’ in my response.

Regards,
MG

Yes. There are jerks everywhere and lots of us are jerks from time to time.

in my opinion, most people are good people trying to be good people.

Was it hard for you when your dad decided Mormonism wasn’t for him?

[Res Ipsa]

There is very strong evidence that our brains make choices before any conscious awareness that there is even a choice to be made. Then, our brains make up a story to rationalize the choice. The story includes the feeling we have that we made a conscious choice. That doesn't mean that we never make conscious decisions. But it does mean that the subjective feeling we have of making choices is not a reliable indicator that a conscious choice has been made.

I am puzzled as to why a conscious choice should have more to do with free will than a pre conscious choice. They both work the same by the same person do they not. Well conscious may focus more on certain aspects of decision. As the quote suggests it may create excuses though the preconscious probably can do that as well. It may be that the conscious aspect is a bit of a traffic control perhaps sending some ideas back for reconsideration. Of course that may be controlled by the pre or unconscious portions of a person thought as well. Humans do not function with only one end of this relationship do they?

I may be wrong on this, but I think a conscious choice is something like a choice made by the part of the brain that thinks it’s Res Ipsa. If some other sneaky part of my brain makes the choice before I’m even aware of making a choice, that seems different than “me” making a choice.

It is true that we may not fully understand what the pre-conscious brain is doing before the conscious brain is aware that a decision has been made. One possibility I’ve read about is that the pre-conscious activity is the brain mapping out the choices. The conscious brain then makes the choice.

The weeds seem to get pretty deep pretty fast.

[Res Ipsa]

Because I don’t see faith as being irrelevant to reason. A reasoned faith is at the very core of how many of us conduct our life of discipleship. To strip that away strikes down one of the pillars that supports the worldview and views of eternity that a believer has in their repertoire of meanings and purposes for which we exist.

That’s a big ask.

And in the meantime the nonbelievers are free to refer to the ‘Mormon God’ in any way, shape, and form they choose. Caracature built on caracature.

To take away the voice of reason (even if flawed) from the believer while at the same time allowing for other voices to have a heyday in building their own possibly flawed caricatures in regards to anything ‘Mormon’ is on its face unreasonable and unfair.

I would rather come across as irrational (in your mind) than exempt myself from expressing my views that I believe have a foundation in Godly truth.

So no thanks.

But, we can agree to disagree and do so without vitriol or slamming the ‘other’. I would need to be more aware of when I might be saying something that might be offensive to someone that has particular sensitivities. This thread and others has helped me to understand what some of those sensitivities might be. Just as people of faith may be hurt by comments made derogatory of their faith or person, it works the other way around.

Even if those comments might be made, at least in some cases, somewhat inadvertently or innocently. We all say things that we later…after more introspection…realize would have been better left unsaid.

And there is such a thing as hypersensitivity.

I can do better. Others can do better.

Point is taken.

In spite of my preposterous, spur-of-the-moment, iPhone-composed rebuttal of him, I think you're missing the core of Res's point.

If I understand the essence of what Res is saying, I think that he's urging you to go ahead and make the full-throated defenses of Mormonism that you wish to make. He's just venturing that these arguments would be more effective if you didn't try to cloak them in bad citations, the pretense of logic, or half-understood science. If faith is good enough for you to base your opinion on, then it should also be good enough to work as an argument. Putting forth half-baked theories and flawed propositions, ones that you yourself think might be damaged or stillborn, reeks of desperation and convinces nobody.

I think that’s a pretty fair summary. I wonder sometimes if the whole FARMS “No uncontested slam dunks” Mopolegetic enterprise was a huge unforced error. If someone’s faith is shaky and they turn to Mopologetics to shore it up, I think the faith gets weaker.

I think of it like Sun Tzu’s advice: fight your battle on the terrain that gives you the most advantage. For Mormonism isn’t that ground faith and spiritual witness? Why choose evidence and reason when the critics have a significant advantage?

Maybe a better comparison is separation of church and state. Combining them just creates bad religion and bad government. Combining faith and reason leads to poor reasoning and shallow faith.

It just may be best not to put the lime in the coconut.

[Res Ipsa]

I’ve learned a few things from Res Ipsa.

God help you.

[I Have Questions]

If I understand the essence of what Res is saying, I think that he's urging you to go ahead and make the full-throated defenses of Mormonism that you wish to make. He's just venturing that these arguments would be more effective if you didn't try to cloak them in bad citations, the pretense of logic, or half-understood science. If faith is good enough for you to base your opinion on, then it should also be good enough to work as an argument. Putting forth half-baked theories and flawed propositions, ones that you yourself think might be damaged or stillborn, reeks of desperation and convinces nobody.

Not even himself, methinks.