Calm

Just curious on how this happened? Are they currently residents of the US?

I wouldn’t be surprised. Large family with some weird power dynamics, nothing obviously abusive that I know of except in the case of my 7 year old mom who almost died of a burst appendix because her aunt taking care of her was dismissive of her pain and illness, said she was acting for attention (not mom at all, but I can see Grandma doing it). Mom was pretty sure that happened because her aunt was jealous of her mom, the popular teacher. Her aunt struggled badly with her weight and appearance was very important to all the sisters. Pity is not kind when it’s not wanted. Between that, a few other minor pecking order episodes I saw, and Grandma’s obsession with social status, my guess is that family had some big struggles before wealth came that left lasting effects. There might have been mental illness with the mother, though I have always assumed it was dementia that landed her in a mental institution later in life.

I have read it. I don’t see much value in trying to prove my sincerity if you start from a position of me lacking it or with the same assumptions about my reasoning as before since trying to demonstrate your misunderstandings before hasn’t worked at all on the thread so far even though I have invested a lot of effort and time into it already.

I am not working against his concerns even if it seems to be that way. Disagreeing with part of an argument is not dismissing or arguing against the whole of it. I share some of his concerns myself, others I do not but I am trying to understand why he and you are concerned in these ways. I can try to explain the one part of his current argument I have expressed having difficulty with if it makes sense to you I am approaching that part of his arguments not to confront, but to clarify.

Do you think it is possible that I was asking for clarification to see if I was interpreting your comments correctly out of simple curiosity at that point and there was no other emotion involved since I was refraining from judgment until I knew for sure what you meant? I don’t think it will help explain my reasoning behind the way I phrased it unless you can see it in that way.

It’s a historic place name, like the Mormon trail. 😛 Anything like this that is still around in the same basic form after 20 years on the internet definitely qualifies historic in my view. And urls are addresses.

Jay, I believe it’s fine if a particular faith has its own definitions or terms for religious concepts, even when the actual words are commonly used by others if they limit the use of those definitions to inside their own group since all understand the words in the same way. LDS certainly have multiple definitions for salvation and damnation, which can cause great confusion when we are talking to those not familiar with our way of speaking. The problem arises when a group or individual insist their particular definition applies globally, iow they interpret everything everyone says using their individual definition or reject any other definition as invalid, wrong, etc. If LDS insisted that every use of the word “damnation” has to mean only one thing and that is everything besides the state of exaltation as one of its usages, even if one has repented and is baptized, even our own theology would be a mess (exaltation is only one of the many mansions God promises us) with those living in Heaven still being described as damned (that this example is probably more confusing to you than illuminating is evidence that using unique definitions with those who don’t understand the words in the same way isn’t helpful in creating understanding). From the LDS pov, explaining why we don’t see the limiting of Christian to only those who believe sola scriptura, the creeds, or traditional Christian faiths: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/christians?lang=eng

Not really just that though. Many of the same people who deny LDS the right to call ourselves Christians treat Catholics the same because they aren’t sola scriptura…even though such a requirement isn’t really in the Bible (one verse—Deu 4:6 iirc— interpreted as talking against adding to the Bible would eliminate much of the Bible itself as written later, for example). A Catholic answer to the charge: https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-do-some-protestant-denominations-not-consider-catholics-to-be-christians-and-how-do-you

More of the amount of increased time and effort is required if one needs others to contribute to one’s care, whether it’s on the patient or the caregiver as well as disruption of one’s normal routines (if one becomes unable to physically do things or has frequent interruptions due to illness or just many doctor’s appointments). As soon as others are a necessity for day to day care, life gets so much more complicated…just in having to have an additional awareness of the other’s schedule and availability and what can impact that. I don’t drive very much due to issues of dizziness, which means I am very dependent on others to get to doctor’s appointments. I have to be sure before I schedule that someone is available, I have to remember to remind them, have to schedule extra time set aside to ensure if they are delayed getting to my place we will still be on time, etc. And that is one adjustment. If you have to pay for a service, then there is the worry of financial costs and trying to ensure it’s covered by insurance. Insurance is getting insane for the amount of time and effort it takes for something unusual. If you have to involved physical or emotional aids, another layer of complication and cost. Self care is no longer a couple of hours a day if one has hygiene and exercise routines plus the time involved in feeding and cleaning one’s residence, but could become the equivalent of a full time job.

No, I am not. You appear to expect me to perfectly communicate, but I don’t. I often type as if I am talking, which means the tone in my head shapes how I hear what I write and it would have been obviously a question if you had heard me speak it. It was a question…one full question, but if you want to see me as a liar, so be it. I will try and remember not to put so much effort into explaining what I actually mean when you misunderstand me because it looks like it will be a waste of effort. I could have had a good walk if I hadn’t let myself get distracted by this today for the time and attention I put into it. That’s on me, I need to shift my priorities. Got to say it’s really weird to me it’s important enough to you to dismiss my comments that you prefer to see me as a liar, someone willing to risk my salvation through knowingly sinning for something so trivial in the scheme of things as is this conversation rather than someone who is unable to convey her ideas in a way you get it…which would be no big deal except you defaulted into lying. I hope that Smac trusts me enough to realize it’s a communication problem and not a lack of honesty. added: @smac97, since it appears my communication is faulty here, I want to make it clear to you and anyone willing to believe me (yes, I am pissed off at Longview for choosing to believe it’s a moral failing rather than a communication error) that I don’t believe you are trying to be emotionally manipulative. I am pretty sure I used “appears” when I spoke of emotional manipulation, but it probably isn’t clear I meant using highly emotionally baggaged procedures was giving imo a false impression of what you were trying to do. I believe it looks like emotional manipulation because there is major emotion attached to amputation and paralysis/spinal injury. Paralysis, even partial, is many people’s worse nightmare from what I have heard some people say over the years as well as how it’s portrayed culturally in dramas, etc. Amputation, of course, has disgust added to it because the cause is usually tremendously injured flesh, shattered flesh and bones beyond repair, gangrene. Any conversation where they get inserted is going to be hard to avoid strong emotional undertones and inferences, imo. However, I assume you are using these examples because they would be seen as clearly an irrational choice by the vast majority of people, a very bright line for decision making, not for their emotional impact. And they make a very good bright line. I just don’t see them as in the same category, so I believe a better argument could be made by using procedures of comparable risk and medical and functional impact. I am not claiming this is why though as I may be wrong about why you are using them as at this point I am not trusting my interpretations of your comments since there is so much misunderstanding happening, just explaining here my guesses.

If that is so, it’s very unfortunate. It is much more hopeful to see something that appears to have worked to improve things even though humans mess things up so easily.

Possible partial reason: So yes, this looks like they had been carrying while at the funeral, which is against church rules iirc. https://kutv.com/news/local/shooting-investigation-salt-lake-city-funeral-church

I was asking a question. I made it clear it was a question, a serous one. I was not putting words in your mouth. As far as the rest of your response to my post, you are not arguing about what I said, but what you think I said and I don’t see how I can be any clearer than I have been and I have already addressed your criticisms in previous posts as to why you are misinterpreting, so I won’t be responding any more. I am going to add one more comment…there are a number of arguments made by less than proficient apologists for the Restored Gospel (older claims about archeological finds for example) that make me royally cringe. This does not mean I am antimormon, rooting for the anti Mormons, or soft on antimormonism or any less a devout Saint. In fact, I see it as beneficial to the Church for its defenders to drop the lesser quality defenses in order to put effort into refining the better ones. Claiming plural marriage was practiced primarily because there were more women than men in the Church or to take care of the widows and children did us no favors, for example. Much better to simply state it was practiced because members believed it was a commandment of God. And then include a realistic picture of it, warts and blessings, including the testimonies of those who actually lived it. I believe I first read it presented this way in Widtsoe’s Evidences and Reconciliations, which was my first real exposure to defending the Church I believe. It held a honored place on my parents’ library shelves, Widtsoe is a favorite of our family. If you can’t see the difference between disliking one specific argument about an issue because I see that one argument as a logical fallacy of false equivalence and rejecting all arguments supporting a particular position, that’s not my issue, but yours.

The way it was described as religion not being involved it leaves open, imo, the possibility that it wasn’t related to the funeral itself, it was more the neighborhood…though perhaps people who went to the funeral were targeted given so many were injured. But maybe it was just being at the right place at the wrong time. Shooting wasn’t random, so either someone was targeted or someone got angry over something happening it seems to me. They were taking people into custody even though they said the people weren’t suspects. Did they return fire or were they being detained for something else (if gang related?) I wonder who the funeral was for and how they died. Too many things to speculate about. That is one of the things that makes it ridiculous imo, that we have so many likely options for shootings to choose from and they are apparently not uncommon in that area (at least firing off guns). Hopefully we will get more details soon on the what and why.

I am old enough I remember when mandatory minimum lengths for sentencing was pretty much reserved for crimes like murder and rape. I don’t see it as that hard of a change to flip back somewhat after the failed experiment (imo) of such sentences, at least for less serious crimes.

Yes, they apparently developed a cultural bias against long prison terms due to their experiences with Nazis, plus they have figured out that prisons stays don’t deter crime, but primarily remove criminals from society with the results of high costs for housing those who will simply commit crimes when they get out because of lacking decent employment opportunities, a more positive support system and necessary skills to live outside of prison. Convicts possibly are even more violent after incarceration due to living in an often violent prison culture as well as having a larger network of criminals to work with (social networking is not limited to business). The Netherlands appear to have better success with house arrest and community service and major rehabilitation efforts.

I don’t think it’s the laws that are too lax if by that you mean we need more punishment and imprisonment. If you mean more support to overcome poverty, food scarcity, etc, that will likely help a great deal imo. The Netherlands is shutting down prisons due to low occupancy. Maybe we should be looking at them to see how to drop violent crime, etc. Or any other of a number of economically developed countries with significantly lower violent crime rates than we have. PS: Violent crime is dropping in many areas, but other forms of crime, especially online crime, may not be for these countries. Added later: it makes sense to me not to use a form of punishment that makes it more likely for nonviolent offenders to not only reoffend, but become more dangerous…Iow, try other options rather than long term prison stays for these types of crimes.

I don’t understand how our lawmakers are not pursuing the most effective ways to change this kind of thing. We accept significant limits on freedom of religion when it puts others in danger, such as a parent refusing necessary medical treatment for a child.

So you find face lifts and nose jobs as unwarranted and dangerous and if the discussion was about them you would come out as strongly against them ? Serious question as still trying to understand your reasoning, if it’s actually all procedures to help with BIID are wrong no matter the level of impact or something else that is your premise here. ——— You are still completely missing my point. The only thing I am trying to grasp is a better framed, less emotional argument for Smac. Please go back and point out where I have been supportive of GD procedures or BIID procedures. I have said I would prefer those desiring them to wait until 25, but that is the same reason I would prefer other potentially dangerous things like alcohol intake and gun use to be not allowed prior to age 25…brains are not fully mature yet and tend to be more impulsive, etc. I do not see alcohol intake as a good thing, even moderate now the science supports there is no safe level of consumption. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health I have never claimed it was inappropriate to compare BIID with GD. I have said compare like procedures of GD with like procedures of BIID, meaning compare less impactful with less impactful procedures and high impact and dangerous procedures with high impact and dangerous procedures rather than some of the less impactful with the most impactful. I don’t see why this focus is so difficult for you to comprehend. I am not even asking you to agree with me, it just would be nice not to get criticized for an argument I am not making over and over again.

No, I am not. I am not addressing purpose at all as the focus of my criticism though it does apply to the greater context, but simply how a particular procedure affects day to day functioning, whether with little functional impact or extreme and then I am suggesting it’s better to compare like with like. Comparing low impact to high impact is inappropriate, similar to someone comparing the best behaviour of one group to the worst behaviour of another and acting as if both are equivalent, standard behaviour of these groups or equating inoffensive behaviour with destructive behavior. I would be making a similar argument if someone was arguing our faith is dangerous and inherently evil by claiming our temple covenants were equivalent to following the leaders of the MMM in massacring the victims. The issue is for me claiming equivalence where it doesn’t exist, I am not claiming all GD treatments are not extreme any more than I would claim no Saint has engaged in destructive behaviour. Using extreme, radical treatments as equivalents also appears to me to look like emotional manipulation even if unintended. False equivalence and emotional manipulation are both signs of weak arguments…so it’s best imo to avoid such comparisons and use others that are more appropriate to present a stronger argument. No, I have asserted the specific medical interventions you have chosen for examples of BIID are extreme in their disruption of life while the examples you have chosen for GD are less disruptive to life. There are no doubt procedures of BIID that are not extreme in my view (such as a nose job) and procedures to treat GD that are extreme, very extreme imo…perhaps someone with GD is quite tall, which is more typical for males than females and so in transitioning from man to woman, they desire to decrease their height by having significant parts of their leg bones removed etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/1fq18q4/height_reduction_surgery/ I would not say a nose job that shaves a bit of bone and removes cartilage is equivalent to removing parts of leg bones and having to plate them together, relearn how to walk, etc. Your reasoning in saying you saw top surgery for example as equivalent to spinal severance seems to me to imply you would also see a nose job for BIID as equivalent to limb reduction surgery for GD. If I am wrong, perhaps you will want to explain why you don’t see those as equivalent, but I am okay if you don’t believe it will clear up where we are missing each other’s reasoning. I feel the same way at this point as when I am discussing math with others who can’t see the logical steps I am using. Doesn’t mean they are stupid or anything because mental blocks can occur with anyone for pretty much anything in my experience. I know I have had to simply accept a person’s own summary of what and why they are reasoning a certain way that is obscure to me when I can’t connect the dots for whatever reason (I sometimes find out later it’s because I didn’t understand the premises they were using). And sometimes, back to my math example, I discover that I instinctively understand the math and skip the usual logic steps demonstrating why a function works or a proof is valid, which means it has been not a mental block for the other, but an incomplete explanation/argument on my part…which this might be, but it seems relatively straightforward to me. The rest of your comments don’t apply to my reasoning since you are using different premises than I am, so I am not going to address them, but it appears I may have a mental block with your reasoning as well because I don’t see how you are avoiding arguing the irrationality plainly seen in the extreme procedures that remove healthy tissue should be applied in the same way in the nonextreme (in terms of functionality) procedures that also remove healthy tissue (since you are not arguing using the examples of facelifts or nose jobs which to me would be a much closer equivalence). In one last attempt to understand your premises, I will ask if you see your argument as essentially the same if you did use face lifts or nose jobs as the examples of procedures addressing Body Integrity Identity Disorder*** and if so, I am asking why you chose not to use them, but the more radical ones. We are definitely talking past each other at this point in my view. It’s always an interesting discussion though, so thanks for putting up with me. ***just to be clear, I am assuming you see all treatments that alter the body for BIID as inappropriate because they address a symptom and not the cause, but I am wondering if you are okay with procedures such as a nose job if their only BIID was seeing their nose shape as wrong and surgery resolved that issue for them or you see it as medically unethical even if therapy to address why they had that sense of wrongness was also part of their longterm treatment? Iow, remove both the immediate source of anxiety while still addressing the cause of anxiety.

No, I am not defending or rationalizing the procedures. I am not arguing anything about gender dysphoria either. I am strictly discussing whether it’s justified or not to describe these procedures as “extreme” procedures while comparing them to major surgeries—with life altering results in terms of care and day to day functioning—that would qualify as extreme because of their effect on someone’s functioning. It has nothing to do with the ultimate purpose of these procedures, but rather comparing the physical (and you could include financial here) impact/cost of them. The argument is essentially whether or not they are justified if not needed for an immediate need such as gangrene in a limb is a different argument or if anyone who desires them is irrational. Blinding oneself would also fall in this category, but I had forgotten to used it as an example. They were among several other examples you also see as irrational. I am not even discussing in these set of posts if the other examples are irrational or not (I might have mentioned animal identification depends on whether or not it’s literal or a more symbolic identity, but I think that was a different post). You are using, if I understand correctly, the examples of limb removal and spinal severance and blinding because the physical cost of all is so high, even crippling at least initially for two, permanently for spinal severance, that that it seems ridiculous/irrational to most to allow someone to voluntarily choose to intentionally cause these states in themselves. It would be seen as sadistic to do it to others just to experiment or curiosity or whatever. Both limb and spine procedures are such major injuries that “extreme” is not that much of a stretch. Blinding also has a major life changing impact. That is their value as examples as far as I see, that everyone agrees those should not be desirable states and anyone seeking them intentionally is mentally disturbed. Linking other procedures to such by labeling them as similarly extreme means you don’t have to argue mental disturbance, it’s a given. Problem is the other procedures you are linking do not have the same impact on someone’s life, so they are not extreme in that way where it shows inherent mental disturbance to desire them. It is not a double standard to accept one as okay but reject the other as a sign of mental illness on this basis. This does not mean someone who desires the gender affirming procedures I mentioned is not suffering from mental illness, but just that using this one line of reasoning is faulty. This is also not saying those who accept gender affirming care for trans individuals don’t have other double standards either, just that theses are not examples of a double standard.

It’s been quite awhile since I have engaged with his arguments. The accusation against Holland is so riddled with errors based on lack of follow through plus his refusal to address criticisms that it stuck in my head (especially what is to me a sign of disrespect for Bathsheba Smith, not only getting her husband wrong but refusing to take the wee moment it would need to correct the spelling of her name…but he never cared). It is a prime example, imo, of how he used others’ claims and rather than doing the research himself and just repeated it with more drama before ensuring it was accurate….or if he actually did look at the actual video and complete news articles rather than the cherry picked version on the anti site that first posted the info (assuming he got the stills from there, but he might have seen them after someone else posted them), just not bothering to question the criticisms once he adopted them himself. I think that one topic serves for many examples myself, shows his methodology at least up to that time, but I also watched him in action overtime while he was here and at FAIR and saw him arguing with those much better versed in sociology, etc and refusing to alter his opinions and methods when better options were suggested and gaps pointed out to him. That’s sloppy to me. He had his pet arguments and would rarely alter them to improve them from what I saw. He pulled in a lot, but either didn’t make the effort to organize so he could see the weaknesses and do something about them or perhaps lacked the skill but wasn’t willing to accept others’ constructive criticism. Not a major issue if pursuing a topic for fun…unless one sets oneself up as an authority or well of knowledge and insight or worse, engages in moral judgment of others based on faulty conclusions. (And I have mentioned before that if something is a bad argument, I don’t care what the point of the argument is; it falls into the category of ‘bad argument, should not be used’ if it’s not decently structured with solid claims, not because I don’t agree with its conclusion.) The only other thing that pops into my head since he brought it up a lot once he stumbled across it was his overdependence on Fowler, which lacked to the best of my knowledge when I researched it strong empirical support (iirc its earlier stages which he borrowed from others had the best support, the latter not so much) and it’s limited in its usefulness. In my view, it’s a rather overly simplistic, Western/Christian-centric, hierarchical framework of faith development too focused on the abstract and not behavior, so it’s weighted heavily in favor of higher education levels. Spirituality is seen as more mature more if one says the right things rather than if one lives a compassionate, faithful life. Perry’s approach is better supported empirically and has much broader application. It did have the same problem of using a limited sample size, but others have remedied that issue a great deal in areas of gender, culture, economic status, etc. I don’t remember him ever engaging with the benefits of using Perry over Fowler when others tried to open the conversation into that direction, but I may be wrong on that. If you require more specific examples, that would take time and interest I lack at the moment, so I wouldn’t count on more, but who knows, it might happen if your request takes up residence in my brain.

My bad, something was telling me I needed to double-check that.

The mind is an odd, twisty thing. Gut reaction wise, I would say definitely yes everytime and probably be rather indignant about it, but unfortunately I have seen evidence that people can unintentionally block out or misunderstand or most likely misremember what seems clear to me and that includes corrections. I assume being human I am doing the same kind of misinterpretations, etc. I base my judgment about intentional ignoring on behaviour (do they disappear as soon as a correction is made, is there any recognition of a correction at all, if they can explain their reasoning of why they didn’t include the correction without downvaluing it, etc), but generally the more opportunities to encounter corrected info and the simpler the correction, the more likely I judge it as intentional.

That is quite kind of you to say. I have the time to put into it, including corrections. I am sure that makes a major difference….that and the amount of posts I make. I have twice as many posts as the next highest (Mfb), eminency is rather automatic at that point, lol.