The State of the Evidence

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

That would make it exceedingly difficult and rare for anyone to change their minds, wouldn't it?

Not at all.  Why would you think that?

I have been Catholic, Atheist, Marxist Communist, Buddhist and Mormon all while following this general mode of thought, that paradigms change 

Have you noticed that paradigms change?  Different paradigms work at different times in our lives as we gain more information and grow as human beings.

The Perry Scheme itself explains that.  As we grow we understand changing paradigms as just that- different ways of seeing the world which work for a time and then change as we progress.   I would love to learn a new paradigm but haven't found one yet that takes all that into account.  I cannot envision a possible world in which anything like that view would fit.

[jkwilliams]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Not at all.  Why would you think that?

I have been Catholic, Atheist, Marxist Communist, Buddhist and Mormon all while following this general mode of thought, that paradigms change 

Have you noticed that paradigms change?  Different paradigms work at different times in our lives as we gain more information and grow as human beings.

The Perry Scheme itself explains that.  As we grow we understand changing paradigms as just that- different ways of seeing the world which work for a time and then change as we progress.   I would love to learn a new paradigm but haven't found one yet that takes all that into account.  I cannot envision a possible world in which anything like that view would fit.

What you seemed to be describing was confirmation bias. If we're conditioned to support what we want to believe, as you said, paradigm shift comes only when we absolutely can't support what we want to believe anymore. If we filter out information we don't like, it would be rather miraculous for anyone to change beliefs.

Of course, it's easier to dismiss other people's beliefs as what they want or need to believe, but it's not all that helpful. 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, James Tunney said:

1. Why would God go to the trouble of the pre-translation and having plates for that matter when God could have given the entire book of mormon to JS, without grammatical error, similar to how He gave us the Book of Moses?  Why not a more direct route to giving us the book of mormon?

A perplexing issue, James, and I have no ready answer.  I keep hoping that someone will come up with a rational explanation.  The facts leave us at an impasse.

8 hours ago, James Tunney said:

2. "impossible for even the best scholar of the Elizabethian era?"  Isn't that a little strong?\

That phrase refers solely and only to the secular, scientific (archeological, linguistic, historical, etc) items which could not have been known in Joseph's own time, but show up in the BofM anyhow.

Isn't it more likely that the poor grammar of a back woods boy combined with the desire to make his text look biblical be the reason for the way the language appears in the earliest drafts of the book of mormon?  Also, why all the changes to the text if God was involved with the supposed pre-translation (in heaven???) and transmission to JS?  One would think God would step in and make the corrections ahead of time?

The so-called "poor grammar" of the Original Manuscript, and of the 1830 edition of the BofM, are only "poor grammar" in Joseph's time, not in Early Modern English of previous centuries.  That is why Joseph Smith and his successors began making those massive changes as improvements, beginning in 1837.  However, it was not "bad grammar" at all, but rather acceptable Early Modern English usage -- extinct before Joseph's day, and not used by any backwoods or illiterate people in any known dialect in Joseph's day.  That is the quandary.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Within the Rortian paradigm, do you believe there is any point to the historical method or to the scientific method? Should scientists and historians pack it in and become postmodernists? I would guess that the answer is no, but the way you phrase things sometimes I think that's sort of what you're getting at. But perhaps you believe that science and history still have pragmatic value, even if they operate on a different (and indefensible) philosophic wavelength?

I would not pretend that is the "Rortarian paradigm" if there is such a thing- I disagree with him on many points, but agree on so many points of his general world view that it is just easier to point at him on fundamentals and also as an "argument from authority" since he is unquestionably an important figure with whom I agree on so much.

But yes of course there is a "point" to science and history- it is the interpretation of data and the organization of that data into a coherent paradigm which works for a given purpose.

If one wants to know the history of an idea, one looks at the predominant interpretations of the history of that idea and agrees or disagrees with them.  But this process does not pretend to be a discussion of "what really happened"- it is a discussion about possible ways of looking at ways to organize the data.

Same thing for science.  Atomic theory in different variations goes back to the Greeks, and we have a history of different interpretations of information and data which have grown more and more sophisticated.

My only beef is the idea that at any point any of these theories or paradigms or interpretations have corresponded to the "way things really are"!   Clearly modern science has given us enormous practical (pragmatic) insights on virtually everything, enabling us to achieve unbelievable medical advancements, and in other areas, permitting space travel etc.

What I object to is the idea that science or history "discovers more about how the world really is" instead of organizing our thoughts into more efficient ways of solving practical problems.   Ultimately all these "explanations" are verbal expressions of paradigms.   What is reality?  Are tables and chairs atoms and quarks or strings?

Quote

 

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. It describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to thegraviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-containedmathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows to choose the details.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

We all look to physics and other rigorous sciences to tell us about "reality" but those who are closest to these issues and understand them the best know that they are not about "reality" at all, but finding the best theory that will work for a while until another one comes along.

So we do not know if chairs or tables are "made of strings" but we know how to sit on them and eat a meal.  The entire question of string theory is pretty irrelevant in daily life.

The same thing is true in historiography.  That is an entire discipline in itself which discusses what "history" even IS- and its interpretation of data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography

And yet again, like it or not, we do not make daily decisions based on history "as it was" as if it is even possible to know that- but on our interpretations and prejudices about what we THINK history is about.

I doubt anyone will vote for Trump because he is from the "Party of Lincoln" and therefore confuse his positions with those of Lincoln.  And that is not a remark about Trump, but about the way we think about him- I don't mean that politically at all.  Those who oppose him are not thinking they are opposing the "Party of Lincoln"- after all Lincoln is an iconic figure almost seen as religiously "holy" in American politics.   Criticizing Lincoln is like criticizing the flag itself.   Yet of course we know that Lincoln was a very human person with his own problems and prejudices and who made mistakes.

I like one way William James described the difference between different views of reality and the way we organize them in our minds- by using the difference between a menu description of a steak dinner in a restaurant and a more scientific way of seeing it.  The menu might refer to a "sizzling steak smothered in onions and mushrooms" while another view might be "a slice of the corpse of a dead steer, now in cold storage in the back of the restaurant to prevent putrefaction, mixed with various fungi and pieces an edible plant bulb with a strong smell which grows in concentric circles."*

Which description is the "reality"?  Of course both are- but each description might have different purposes to be used at different times

So yes of course science and history as disciplines are incredibly important to the development of our culture and thereby mankind itself.  We just have to bear in mind that all human descriptions are created by the human mind and the human mind it self creates the WAY humans interpret data and can only give us "humanized reality" and NOT "the way things really are" as independent of human knowledge.

We can only know and see what we can know and see.  That seems pretty straightforward to me!

 

 

*I hereby admit taking several liberties with James description of the steak dinner.

[mfbukowski]

49 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

What you seemed to be describing was confirmation bias. If we're conditioned to support what we want to believe, as you said, paradigm shift comes only when we absolutely can't support what we want to believe anymore. If we filter out information we don't like, it would be rather miraculous for anyone to change beliefs.

Of course, it's easier to dismiss other people's beliefs as what they want or need to believe, but it's not all that helpful. 

Only if you assume you are more right than they are, which again presumes Cartesian dualism, that there IS a "way things are" independent of our views of them.

There cannot be.  It is not possible to get "outside" our human intellects to compare what the world is outside our intellect to what it is "inside".

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

Only if you assume you are more right than they are, which again presumes Cartesian dualism, that there IS a "way things are" independent of our views of them.

There cannot be.  It is not possible to get "outside" our human intellects to compare what the world is outside our intellect to what it is "inside".

I wasn't opining on where we get information, just that it seems obvious that if all we're doing is looking for ways to support what we already believe, changes in belief will never happen. Kuhn argues that paradigms shift when our current paradigm doesn't account for all we observe. Some people seem to rephrase it into just reformulating the paradigm at will to avoid what we don't wish to see.

[mfbukowski]

24 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I wasn't opining on where we get information, just that it seems obvious that if all we're doing is looking for ways to support what we already believe, changes in belief will never happen. Kuhn argues that paradigms shift when our current paradigm doesn't account for all we observe. Some people seem to rephrase it into just reformulating the paradigm at will to avoid what we don't wish to see.

Clearly it's not "all we are doing".  Ambiguity John.  This is not dogma- stop thinking dogmatically.  There is no such thing as perfectly clear language.  We are organizing matter unorganized.  It is a PROCESS on a continuing basis.  My beliefs today are different than my beliefs a year ago.but the tweaks are too small to put into words.  Orthopraxis not orthodoxy
I throw out a comment, you reify it into concrete. 

Quote

 

Hume famously sets himself in opposition to most moral philosophers, ancient and modern, who talk of the combat of passion and reason, and who urge human beings to regulate their actions by reason and to grant it dominion over their contrary passions. He claims to prove that “reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will,” and that reason alone “can never oppose passion in the direction of the will” (T 413). His view is not, of course, that reason plays no role in the generation of action; he grants that reason provides information, in particular about means to our ends, which makes a difference to the direction of the will. His thesis is that reason alonecannot move us to action; the impulse to act itself must come from passion. The doctrine that reason alone is merely the “slave of the passions,” i.e., that reason pursues knowledge of abstract and causal relations solely in order to achieve passions' goals and provides no impulse of its own, is defended in the Treatise, but not in the second Enquiry, although in the latter he briefly asserts the doctrine without support. Hume gives three arguments in the Treatise for the motivational “inertia” of reason alone.

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#inmo

What we "already believe" changes daily based on our experiences

Edited August 16, 2016 by mfbukowski

[jkwilliams]

Just now, mfbukowski said:

Clearly it's not "all we are doing".  Ambiguity John.  This is not dogma- stop thinking dogmatically.  There is no such thing as perfectly clear language.  We are organizing matter unorganized.  It is a PROCESS on a continuing basis.  My beliefs today are different than my beliefs a year ago.but the tweaks are too small to put into words.  Orthopraxis not orthodoxy
I throw out a comment, you reify it into concrete. 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#inmo

 

Well, I appreciate the clarification, as you had seemed to be discounting any reason for paradigm shift. Tweaks are of course a part of daily life, but I'm talking about what Kuhn would call a revolutionary paradigm shift. Those generally don't come because we want them to come, at least Kuhn didn't think so. 

[mfbukowski]

I might actually like you one day

[jkwilliams]

Just now, mfbukowski said:

I might actually like you one day

I have stopped worrying about it, honestly, or at least I am trying. 

[Thinking]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been Catholic, Atheist, Marxist Communist, Buddhist and Mormon all while following this general mode of thought, that paradigms change.

You are in the super minority IMO.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Thinking said:

You are in the super minority IMO.

My rep point count says otherwise.  Look at Givens, Bushman, Ostler, Adam Miller, Paulsen, Mason, our own Kevin C, Faulconer, and others too numerous to mention- all these have variations of the position I am holding.  Phenomenology and Pragmatism.  "Higher Criticism".  "Postmodernism"

My view is the core of contemporary culture- it is not as if I made it up myself.  I am convinced it is the future of the church and the new generation of thinking Mormons

Bruce R just doesn't work any more.

How about John Sorrenson?  Is he "Mormon" enough for you?  This is perhaps the best summary of it all published right here on this board

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66428-john-leon-sorenson/?p=1209560993

 

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Thinking said:

You are in the super minority IMO.

Our church is based on personal revelation.

William James has put together by far the most reasonable philosophical account of how religious experience functions in our lives, and the epistemology and even some metaphysics of religious experience and its implications

And surprise surprise!  What is the core of William James view?  Pragmatism and the contextualization of truth.  Pragmatism- Alma 32.  What is "sweet" and works in our lives is "true".  Contextualization of truth?  D&C 93.   "Truth operates in its sphere"

It's all there.  William James coheres perfectly with Mormonism.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66428-john-leon-sorenson/?p=1209560993

 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/18126

 

 

 

[Thinking]

To mfbukowski:

I think you may have misunderstood my post. I was calling attention to your dramatic changes in belief.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

To mfbukowski:

I think you may have misunderstood my post. I was calling attention to your dramatic changes in belief.

Not really.

All were in the search for a rational explanation of spiritual experience. I was following the history of philosophy and paralleling its development

 Catholic Scolasticism was Plato and Aristotle which I rejected for a dialectical atheism, a period of rebellion.

That wasn't satisfactory. It did not explain enough.

Thesis and antithesis

But there I met the German philosophers, but they had no praxis. All words, no application.

So I went East, into Buddhism. That was all practice and no words!

Then I found William James and did grad school. There was enough Kant there and just the right mix of theory and application. Pragmatism was the answer philosophically!

But no theology!

Then I found Moroni 10 and Alma 32 and D&C 93 and had a major experience to drive it home. And here I still am. Pushing 40 years now and happly as a clam.

So really it was a classical dialectical journey to the home of "opposition in all things", which is quite appropriate! 

It may seem like jumping around, but I see it as a straight line

Edited August 16, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Abulafia]

So, now I am going off to check those 3 chapters to try and understand...unless you want to help me out!

 

[jkwilliams]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Not really.

All were in the search for a rational explanation of spiritual experience. I was following the history of philosophy and paralleling its development

 Catholic Scolasticism was Plato and Aristotle which I rejected for a dialectical atheism, a period of rebellion.

That wasn't satisfactory. It did not explain enough.

Thesis and antithesis

But there I met the German philosophers, but they had no praxis. All words, no application.

So I went East, into Buddhism. That was all practice and no words!

Then I found William James and did grad school. There was enough Kant there and just the right mix of theory and application. Pragmatism was the answer philosophically!

But no theology!

Then I found Moroni 10 and Alma 32 and D&C 93 and had a major experience to drive it home. And here I still am. Pushing 40 years now and happly as a clam.

So really it was a classical dialectical journey to the home of "opposition in all things", which is quite appropriate! 

It may seem like jumping around, but I see it as a straight line

You have had an interesting journey, to say the least. It sounds to me like you've pretty much had the same paradigm all your life, with "tweaks," of course. You were just looking for something that matched your paradigm, and Mormonism does. It makes you happy as a clam, and that's a good thing.

Edited August 16, 2016 by jkwilliams

[Robert F. Smith]

19 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

What you seemed to be describing was confirmation bias. If we're conditioned to support what we want to believe, as you said, paradigm shift comes only when we absolutely can't support what we want to believe anymore. If we filter out information we don't like, it would be rather miraculous for anyone to change beliefs.

Of course, it's easier to dismiss other people's beliefs as what they want or need to believe, but it's not all that helpful. 

Riddle me this, John:

If everything was simply "confirmation bias," as you seem to believe, no one would ever change.  Yet, people change all the time, and both you and Mark Bukowski are prime examples of that fact.

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Riddle me this, John:

If everything was simply "confirmation bias," as you seem to believe, no one would ever change.  Yet, people change all the time, and both you and Mark Bukowski are prime examples of that fact.

That was exactly my point. Mark said this:

Quote

No John there is no evidence, only conclusions conditioned by what we want to believe, and justifications for those beliefs

If that's true, then as you agree, no one would ever change. That people do change their minds suggests that we are doing something other than reaching "conclusions conditioned by what we want to believe, and justifications for those beliefs." Mark has since said that's not what he meant, but I think you can understand why I read it the way I did.

[RevTestament]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Not really.

All were in the search for a rational explanation of spiritual experience. I was following the history of philosophy and paralleling its development

 Catholic Scolasticism was Plato and Aristotle which I rejected for a dialectical atheism, a period of rebellion.

That wasn't satisfactory. It did not explain enough.

Thesis and antithesis

But there I met the German philosophers, but they had no praxis. All words, no application.

So I went East, into Buddhism. That was all practice and no words!

Then I found William James and did grad school. There was enough Kant there and just the right mix of theory and application. Pragmatism was the answer philosophically!

But no theology!

Then I found Moroni 10 and Alma 32 and D&C 93 and had a major experience to drive it home. And here I still am. Pushing 40 years now and happly as a clam.

So really it was a classical dialectical journey to the home of "opposition in all things", which is quite appropriate! 

It may seem like jumping around, but I see it as a straight line

I would be interested in speaking with you on your take of the influence of philosophy on Catholicism, if you have anything to say on the matter particularly in regards to the Catholic scriptures. I can PM my number and email or vice versa.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I would be interested in speaking with you on your take of the influence of philosophy on Catholicism, if you have anything to say on the matter particularly in regards to the Catholic scriptures. I can PM my number and email or vice versa.

Sure- anytime.

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

You have had an interesting journey, to say the least. It sounds to me like you've pretty much had the same paradigm all your life, with "tweaks," of course. You were just looking for something that matched your paradigm, and Mormonism does. It makes you happy as a clam, and that's a good thing.

Bold added

You are still doing it John.  You cannot see anything without Cartesian dualism.

You make a general statement which ignores nuances and then reify that statement into concrete, and take that statement as the only way to see the "truth"

In the baptism discussion you did the same thing.  There is a clear difference between "forgiveness" and "remission of sins" as Consig pointed out on the other thread.

You lumped them together as one- and yes- they are often seen as one, but you could not see the distinction.  Your conclusion then was that there could be no forgiveness of sins without baptism because only baptism brings "remission" of sins.

You ignore the distinctions being made and define your terms without the distinctions to make your argument work.

That is not so bad if you understand that is what you are doing, but repeatedly it seems you do not

In this case, I said I went through many paradigm shifts to get to Mormonism.  Your position is:

Quote

If that's true, then as you agree, no one would ever change. That people do change their minds suggests that we are doing something other than reaching "conclusions conditioned by what we want to believe, and justifications for those beliefs." Mark has since said that's not what he meant, but I think you can understand why I read it the way I did.

which also supports your assertion above that 

Quote

it sounds to me like you've pretty much had the same paradigm all your life, with "tweaks," of course. You were just looking for something that matched your paradigm

So that because you think that finding "conclusions conditioned by what we want to believe" ENTAILS "no one every changing" you believe that I have "had the same paradigm with tweaks" and made no real changes.

So again- you state your position ignoring nuances, make it into concrete and re-iterate your original assertion.

I don't actually care if you count my "paradigm shifts" as none, one, or a hundred, I am looking at the logic here.

Let's apply your logic to science.  Let's remove all the nuances and state a general position about science and cast that into concrete as the objective of science, and then use that paradigm to prove that there have been no paradigm shifts in science because science is looking for something that matched its paradigm.

So now let's create our general paradigm, ala John logic, which both obliterates real nuances in science and justifies our own position.

Let's make the paradigm "Science seeks to discover the nature of the universe"- that is general enough.

So now because the paradigm for science is "seeking to discover the nature of the universe" then there was NO paradigm shift between Ptolemy and Copernicus because after all, both were still "Seeking to discover the nature of the universe"

So because scientists wanted to believe they had discovered more about the nature of the universe and they did, there was no paradigm change.

Wrong logic John.

Paradigm shifts are shifts in ANSWERS to questions, not the questions

My one QUESTION was "What is religious experience?" and I took on several paradigms to answer that question, just as science takes on different paradigms to "discover the nature of the universe"

Catholics couldn't answer it

Atheists couldn't answer it, though they tried but their theory didn't fit my interpretation of the data.  My empirical observations were unaccounted for in that view.

The Buddhists could answer it, but in my mind not fully, leaving major questions unanswered, like what the utility of such experience was.  Yeah it's real but what is it good for?

Pragmatism as a philosophy answered everything, but THEN the question itself changed.  It became "Is there a theology which accounts for this philosophical view?"

I found that in Mormonism.

So I don't really care if you see that as one, none or a hundred paradigm shifts- that is in YOUR head not mine

I know my life went through several major changes- my actions, my beliefs my practices changed big time.  If you think there is no difference between being a Catholic altar boy and sitting zazen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen then good for you.  From there to a Mormon bishop?

Good.  Then I made no paradigm changes.

Whatever!

But your logic of ignoring nuances just doesn't work.  Linguistic nuances are all we have between liberty and tyranny, and good and evil.   Is it "freedom of choice" or "murder"?

Only linguistic nuances separate the two.  Is it the "liberation of the proletariat" or tyranny by the masses?  

Ya gotta watch those nuances John.

 

 

[jkwilliams]

42 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Bold added

You are still doing it John.  You cannot see anything without Cartesian dualism.

You make a general statement which ignores nuances and then reify that statement into concrete, and take that statement as the only way to see the "truth"

In the baptism discussion you did the same thing.  There is a clear difference between "forgiveness" and "remission of sins" as Consig pointed out on the other thread.

You lumped them together as one- and yes- they are often seen as one, but you could not see the distinction.  Your conclusion then was that there could be no forgiveness of sins without baptism because only baptism brings "remission" of sins.

You ignore the distinctions being made and define your terms without the distinctions to make your argument work.

That is not so bad if you understand that is what you are doing, but repeatedly it seems you do not

In this case, I said I went through many paradigm shifts to get to Mormonism.  Your position is:

which also supports your assertion above that 

So that because you think that finding "conclusions conditioned by what we want to believe" ENTAILS "no one every changing" you believe that I have "had the same paradigm with tweaks" and made no real changes.

So again- you state your position ignoring nuances, make it into concrete and re-iterate your original assertion.

I don't actually care if you count my "paradigm shifts" as none, one, or a hundred, I am looking at the logic here.

Let's apply your logic to science.  Let's remove all the nuances and state a general position about science and cast that into concrete as the objective of science, and then use that paradigm to prove that there have been no paradigm shifts in science because science is looking for something that matched its paradigm.

So now let's create our general paradigm, ala John logic, which both obliterates real nuances in science and justifies our own position.

Let's make the paradigm "Science seeks to discover the nature of the universe"- that is general enough.

So now because the paradigm for science is "seeking to discover the nature of the universe" then there was NO paradigm shift between Ptolemy and Copernicus because after all, both were still "Seeking to discover the nature of the universe"

So because scientists wanted to believe they had discovered more about the nature of the universe and they did, there was no paradigm change.

Wrong logic John.

Paradigm shifts are shifts in ANSWERS to questions, not the questions

My one QUESTION was "What is religious experience?" and I took on several paradigms to answer that question, just as science takes on different paradigms to "discover the nature of the universe"

Catholics couldn't answer it

Atheists couldn't answer it, though they tried but their theory didn't fit my interpretation of the data.  My empirical observations were unaccounted for in that view.

The Buddhists could answer it, but in my mind not fully, leaving major questions unanswered, like what the utility of such experience was.  Yeah it's real but what is it good for?

Pragmatism as a philosophy answered everything, but THEN the question itself changed.  It became "Is there a theology which accounts for this philosophical view?"

I found that in Mormonism.

So I don't really care if you see that as one, none or a hundred paradigm shifts- that is in YOUR head not mine

I know my life went through several major changes- my actions, my beliefs my practices changed big time.  If you think there is no difference between being a Catholic altar boy and sitting zazen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen then good for you.  From there to a Mormon bishop?

Good.  Then I made no paradigm changes.

Whatever!

But your logic of ignoring nuances just doesn't work.  Linguistic nuances are all we have between liberty and tyranny, and good and evil.   Is it "freedom of choice" or "murder"?

Only linguistic nuances separate the two.  Is it the "liberation of the proletariat" or tyranny by the masses?  

Ya gotta watch those nuances John.

I'll just say again you read a lot into my comments. I recognize you have gone through major and radical changes, but it sounds like you have always valued the same things and sought the same goals. Mormonism is a perfect fit for you. I didn't think you would take that as an insult. 

Like I said, I've tried to overcome my natural need to be liked, and I'm getting there. But I hope you understand that what I said was meant as a compliment. 

It's probably a good time to go back to avoiding interaction. 

Edited August 17, 2016 by jkwilliams

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I'll just say again you read a lot into my comments. I recognize you have gone through major and radical changes, but it sounds like you have always valued the same things and sought the same goals. Mormonism is a perfect fit for you. I didn't think you would take that as an insult. 

Like I said, I've tried to overcome my natural need to be liked, and I'm getting there. But I hope you understand that what I said was meant as a compliment. 

It's probably a good time to go back to avoiding interaction. 

You mean you want to see other people?  

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I'll just say again you read a lot into my comments. I recognize you have gone through major and radical changes, but it sounds like you have always valued the same things and sought the same goals. Mormonism is a perfect fit for you. I didn't think you would take that as an insult. 

Like I said, I've tried to overcome my natural need to be liked, and I'm getting there. But I hope you understand that what I said was meant as a compliment. 

It's probably a good time to go back to avoiding interaction. 

Rep point. Because I disagree with your last sentence.