Policy Anger and Apostle Surprise

[Zakuska]

1 minute ago, Teancum said:

Sure.  And Obama's PR guy gives you the full picture are as well.

 

I suggest your approach is colored by your faith, testimony and is naïve.

According to Obama's PR department and the Liberal Media... Obama can do no wrong.  Kind of like our church leaders when push comes to shove.

[Teancum]

Just now, ksfisher said:

I imagine that if I said no I would be chided for my lack of faith in the brethren.  While if I said yes you would trot out example of when church leaders have been wrong. 

Yep. Tough to be in a no win situation.

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

Do you think the general membership of the Church had a more in-depth understanding of the Restored Gospel as compared to the post-correlation membership?

Put another way, how would you go about substantiating the claim that "correlation has led to a dumbing down of the average member"?  It seems that the failure of some Latter-day Saints to give their faith more searching study and analysis has not been only a post-correlation problem.

Thanks,

-Smac

That's a good question.  I think some evidences could be provided, but it would require a LOT of research.  My first step would probably be to compare the minutes of the multiple branches of the Schools of the Prophets in Utah against the Sunday School manual.

[Russell C McGregor]

1 minute ago, Teancum said:

Sure.  And Obama's PR guy gives you the full picture are as well.

Ah. Guilt by association. What a rigorous argument.

Quote

I suggest your approach is colored by your faith, testimony and is naïve.

Better than having an approach that is poisoned by cynicism and apostasy.

 

[Zakuska]

6 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

Better than having an approach that is poisoned by cynicism and apostasy.

Huh?

• Judging others worthiness, questioning sincerity, mind reading or psychoanalyzing

[Zakuska]

10 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I imagine that if I said no I would be chided for my lack of faith in the brethren.  While if I said yes you would trot out examples of when church leaders have been wrong. 

In practice to many internet posters... Church leaders are never wrong... even when they are (ie "priesthood and blacks.)

[Teancum]

18 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

Ah. Guilt by association. What a rigorous argument.

Better than having an approach that is poisoned by cynicism and apostasy.

 

Ahh the apostate hurled insult once again. Well better that I think for myself than mindlessly following dogma.  Life is much better as a result. Try it Russell. It is risky and painful but you will be a better person for it.

[Teancum]

12 minutes ago, Zakuska said:

Huh?

• Judging others worthiness, questioning sincerity, mind reading or psychoanalyzing

That is about all Russell can do these days. All his other arguments fail.

[smac97]

26 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Sure.  And Obama's PR guy gives you the full picture are as well.

 

I suggest your approach is colored by your faith, testimony and is naïve.

My approach is also "colored" by my training in evidentiary analysis.  The relative probative value of Mr. Otterson's statements, and the corollary lack of value of Zak's guesswork, are pretty easy to see.

Meanwhile, your approach is colored by your hostility to the LDS Church, and is unreasonable as a matter of evidentiary analysis.  If you have evidence undermining Mr. Otterson's credibility as a witness, let's have it.  But I suspect you don't.  I also suspect that you don't care that you don't have any such evidence.  You are hostile to his statements because he is LDS, that's all.  There's a word for that ...

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited December 23, 2015 by smac97

[carbon dioxide]

"A second similarly-connected source insisted that the policy came from Monson himself, with assistance from church attorneys and other staff members.

Both reports maintain that in a fleeting lucid moment the 88-year-old Monson approved the policy, an endorsement that was immediately supported by his counselors. Most of the remaining apostles were surprised when the new policy was introduced for the first time to them at their regular Tuesday meeting, where they too obligingly sustained it."

Maybe this is true and maybe its a bunch of crap.  I hope it is not true as the bold part would bother me the most. The job of the President of the Church is to listen to the Lord and his fellow apostles.  Church lawyers should never be part of the discussion and they should never be ahead of the other apostles.   The Church will not succeed in the long term by listening to lawyers on critical decisions.

[Russell C McGregor]

8 minutes ago, Teancum said:

That is about all Russell can do these days. All his other arguments fail.

Because of course there was nothing judgmental, and no psychoanalysing or mind-reading, in what you wrote to Smac, was there?

Your hypocrisy is only exceeded by your double standards.

 

[Russell C McGregor]

11 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Ahh the apostate hurled insult once again.

An insult? I thought you'd be proud of it.

Quote

Well better that I think for myself than mindlessly following dogma.

You mean -- like the dogma that the brethren are always untrustworthy?

Mindlessly following the dogma of the "herd of independent thinkers" is not obviously superior to mindlessly following any other dogma.

Quote

Life is much better as a result. Try it Russell. It is risky and painful but you will be a better person for it.

I don't take advice from anonymous anti-Mormons. Sorry.

[smac97]

37 minutes ago, Teancum said:

So in other words... yes.

First, I've never claimed to be unbiased or impartial in terms of the LDS Church.  To the contrary, I feel safe saying that I have presented myself as a member and defender of the LDS Church.

Second, I have no qualms with my bias.  I feel pretty good about it.  But I don't think my bias in favor of the Church has led to an inaccurate or rose-colored perception of the Church.

Third, I am actually smiling at the thought of someone so manifestly and in-your-facedly hostile and prejudiced toward my faith accusing me of "bias".

Fourth, "bias" is a natural part of the human condition.  We all have our biases.  They can become problematic when we let them skew our perception of the truth, but that is a struggle we all work against.  For example, I know a guy who is so consumed with animosity toward the LDS Church that he rejects out-of-hand the first-hand observations of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles by Michael Otterson because . . . Michael is a Mormon and therefore presumptively untrustworthy. And he simultaneously uncritically accepts as presumptively true the hostile and utterly unsubstantiated pieces of gossip posted online by someone hiding behind a pseudonym, who is profoundly hostile to the LDS Church, and who is not a percipient witness in any sense to how the Quorum of the Twelve functions.  And this uncritical acceptance is based solely on the gossip being hostile to the LDS Church.

That, young squire, is a "bias" that is problematic.  Skewed.  Unreasonable.  Unfair.  Foolish.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited December 23, 2015 by smac97

[Teancum]

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

My approach is also "colored" by my training in evidentiary analysis.  The relative probative value of Mr. Otterson's statements, and the corollary lack of value of Zak's guesswork, are pretty easy to see.

Meanwhile, your approach is colored by your hostility to the LDS Church, and is unreasonable as a matter of evidentiary analysis.  If you have evidence undermining Mr. Otterson's credibility as a witness, let's have it.  But I suspect you don't.  I also suspect that you don't care that you don't have any such evidence.  You are hostile to his statements because he is LDS, that's all.  There's a word for that ...

Thanks,

-Smac

My approach is colored as much by my training in evidentiary analysis as yours. I know your profession. You may or may not know mine.  But my discipline requires analysis of data as well as evidence as much as yours thank you. As well as a skeptical approach and avoidance of things that taint a position.

 

 For you to simply dismiss mine as hostile because it challenges your faith and testimony (two things I understand as much as you do) is simply a silly weak argument.  Can you analyze evidence without the taint of dogma, faith, testimony and your a priori assumption the Church is true and that whatever comes from the GAs is from God?  I couldn't ten years ago, Today I can and do.

As noted my evidence is the book I mentioned by Gregory Prince which clearly demonstrates that things like what was discussed in the linked article are common place in the church leadership.

[Russell C McGregor]

38 minutes ago, Zakuska said:

Huh?

• Judging others worthiness, questioning sincerity, mind reading or psychoanalyzing

Question, Zak:

Why is all of that okay when one of your team-mates does it?

 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Do you believe everything the Church sources say?

 

49 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I imagine that if I said no I would be chided for my lack of faith in the brethren.  While if I said yes you would trot out examples of when church leaders have been wrong. 

Among the antagonists of the Church, the loaded question is as much a hallmark as the out-of-context quotation.

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, Teancum said:

My approach is colored as much by my training in evidentiary analysis as yours. I know your profession. You may or may not know mine.  But my discipline requires analysis of data as well as evidence as much as yours thank you. As well as a skeptical approach and avoidance of things that taint a position.

 

 For you to simply dismiss mine as hostile because it challenges your faith and testimony (two things I understand as much as you do) is simply a silly weak argument.  Can you analyze evidence without the taint of dogma, faith, testimony and your a priori assumption the Church is true and that whatever comes from the GAs is from God?  I couldn't ten years ago, Today I can and do.

As noted my evidence is the book I mentioned by Gregory Prince which clearly demonstrates that things like what was discussed in the linked article are common place in the church leadership.

Ah yes, the cry of the enlightened anti-Mormon lecturing to the benighted believer: "I was where you were once, but hallelujah, I became born-again intellectual. And I read a book, so now I know everything."

It grows tiresome.

 

 

[Teancum]

26 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

Because of course there was nothing judgmental, and no psychoanalysing or mind-reading, in what you wrote to Smac, was there?

Your hypocrisy is only exceeded by your double standards.

 

Oh please.  And there is no judgment in you posts at all right?  You simple call everyone who disagrees with you an apostate.  It must be nice to be so righteous.  I will take my so called hypocrisy and double standards over your over the top self righteousness and piety any day.

 

Come back to me when you have some substance rather than your typocal bloviating.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Teancum

[Teancum]

7 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Ah yes, the cry of the enlightened anti-Mormon lecturing to the benighted believer: "I was where you were once, but hallelujah, I became born-again intellectual. And I read a book, so now I know everything."

It grows tiresome.

 

 

And your constant "I will defer to whatever the brethren say"  and "The spirit speaks to me so I know I am right" is tiresome as well.  Pot and Kettle Scott though I am sure you cannot see it nor will you admit it.

[Russell C McGregor]

3 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Oh please.  And there is no judgment in you posts at all right?

There may be. But it is highly hypocritical for someone who is throwing around hasty judgments to get all pious when someone makes a judgment you don't like

Quote

You simple call everyone who disagrees with you an apostate.

That assertion is flatly false. 

Quote

It must be nice to be so righteous.  I will take my so called hypocrisy and double standards over your over the top self righteousness and piety any day.

I've never claimed to be "so righteous." You are clearly projecting.

Quote

Come back to me when you have some substance rather than your typocal bloviating.

I don't think I'll bother.

 

[Teancum]

I think I need to bow out of this thread for a bit. I see the posts are degenerating and I do not like it when mine go down that path as I later regret it.  If I don't jump back in I will tell you all I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and goodwill and happiness in your noble pursuits.  And this for you no matter which side of the debate you are on.

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

My approach is colored as much by my training in evidentiary analysis as yours. I know your profession. You may or may not know mine.  But my discipline requires analysis of data as well as evidence as much as yours thank you. As well as a skeptical approach and avoidance of things that taint a position.

 

 For you to simply dismiss mine as hostile because it challenges your faith and testimony (two things I understand as much as you do) is simply a silly weak argument.  Can you analyze evidence without the taint of dogma, faith, testimony and your a priori assumption the Church is true and that whatever comes from the GAs is from God?  I couldn't ten years ago, Today I can and do.

As noted my evidence is the book I mentioned by Gregory Prince which clearly demonstrates that things like what was discussed in the linked article are common place in the church leadership.

The pieces of evidence at issue are 1) statements regarding the absence of "factionism" in the upper echelons of the Church made publicly by Michael Otterson, a first-hand and percipient witness regarding the functions and behaviors of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and 2) the sheer, unadulterated speculation that factionalism exists as presented by Zakuska, a poster who is hiding behind a pseudonym, who is extremely hostile to the LDS Church, and who presents no basis for his speculation.

You accept Zak's speculation at face value because Zak is hostile to the Church.  And you reject Otterson's first-hand observations and experiences because he is LDS.

So yes, I am dismissing your assessment of the evidence.  It it not fair or reasonable.  it is absurdly distorted and biased.

Thanks,

-Smac