How?

[Elisabeth R.]

I tried to enter a topic in General Discussions, but was blocked from doing so. The only forum option open to me was "Social Hall."  I added my post nonetheless. It became clear from responses that my post was too "political," so I rephrased my post in a more non-political way, speaking of Spiritual and Truth related issues, NOT political ones. I don't care who people vote for. I do care if the people who ostensibly share my faith, don't seem to share the same idea of what constitutes Truth as I do, and that this becomes a matter of contention:

...And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been.

29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.

30 Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.

3 Nephi 11:28-30

 

 

I do not want to be contentious. However, if I say to someone, for example, the earth is round, and they come back with, "Well, that's just YOUR opinion," what am I to do? This is the nature of discourse in a so-called "post-truth" society. It is not "political" to object to this new state of affairs, it is spiritually critical. 

 

My initial post, even with my corrections and clarifications was SHUT DOWN.  I don't know where there is a forum for honest, heart-felt, searching for answers, but apparently this ain't it.

 

 

 

[ksfisher]

10 minutes ago, Elisabeth R. said:

I tried to enter a topic in General Discussions, but was blocked from doing so.

You need to have 25 posts before you can enter a topic in general discussion.  I imagine that rule is in place to discourage drive by trolling.

[ksfisher]

12 minutes ago, Elisabeth R. said:

I do care if the people who ostensibly share my faith, don't seem to share the same idea of what constitutes Truth as I do

People come from different backgrounds, life experiences, relationships, etc.  No one is going to see an issue or even understand a truth in the exact same way as I do. 

It is true that the Book of Mormon is a second witness of Christ, for example.  However, what that means to each person and how it fits into their lives is different for everyone.

it is true that every country faces challenges and issues.  It is a matter of opinion which issues are most pressing and who is best suited to deal with those issues and in what manner.

No disputations doesn't mean we should agree on every issue, especially complicated ones like how to run a country.  Shoot, my wife and I don't even brush our teeth the same way.

[Elisabeth R.]

I absolutely recognize that there are so very many things that people can disagree about and still maintain good relations. I agree that, of course, people are entitled to their "opinions." But what do we do when people can no longer agree about what are common, irrefutable facts and what is simply a matter of opinion? Taken to not to not too unrealistic extremes, people will be able to assert that 2 + 2 =4, or, the earth is round, is just "my opinion." Well, no, those are facts. Simply insisting they are just opinions does not make it so. And yet, that is where we are these days. 

I am concerned with this trend in the wide world of so-called post-trutherism. But I am more concerned as it relates to a community of Saints that are supposed to SHARE a body of Truth based on the gospel. If all sorts of real world facts are dismissed as a matter of opinion,  how long until gospel "facts," as in, the truths we are supposed to believe in and share, become, in the view of facts are just opinions folks, just opinions, and not doctrine and the basis of testimony. I see great danger in this trend and it goes far beyond issues of polital party or national autonomy,  or anything like that.  Is Truth merely a matter of opinion, in regards to the teachings of Christ, or do we actually believe in the Truth as truth. If not, we have no business sending missionaries out into the wide, non American, world.

 

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Elisabeth R. said:

I do not want to be contentious. However, if I say to someone, for example, the earth is round, and they come back with, "Well, that's just YOUR opinion," what am I to do?

Disregard anything they have to say, because they are seriously off their rockers. About the flat earth thing, I mean.

There are plenty of people, seemingly normal, who appear to suffer from factophobia. You can feel free to engage with them on topics that do not impinge upon their particular phobia, and you can have useful conversations with them on other topics. But there's little point in engaging with them on the trigger topic. There are people in this forum that suffer from various factophobias (mainly political, but not exclusively). In fairness, they think that I am factophobic in those topics. 

I have learned (mostly) when to just leave them to their issues without comment. Of course, this has been helped by my being suspended for politics a few times.

[Elisabeth R.]

Thanks for the tip.

 

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Elisabeth R. said:

I don't know where there is a forum for honest, heart-felt, searching for answers, but apparently this ain't it.

 

 

 

 

Not if it's political.  Board rules. 

Political discussions always cause too much contention.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, ksfisher said:

You need to have 25 posts before you can enter a topic in general discussion.  I imagine that rule is in place to discourage drive by trolling.

And spam advertising. We still get a few in here from time to time, but we used to get quite a few in the main forum, I am guessing because that is the high traffic area. 

[edvantageous]

I'm a new poster to the board but have been a long-time reader and if I understand what Elisabeth R. is looking for, I thought it was worth creating an account to share something I've recently found that addresses this issue of truth and having conversations with others who may not agree with you. There's a series of six or seven articles published on Public Square Magazine by Arthur Peña, Charles Randall Paul, and Jacob Hess, the first one titled "Why Persuasion Should Be a Sweet (Not a Dirty) Word" you can access it directly here. I have greatly appreciated this article series. There's another more recent article, similarly themed but directly related to the AP article about child sex abuse in the church, titled "Is Personal Experience the Final Arbiter of Truth?" which I found helpful as a way to discuss these emotional and complex topics with people who have different perspectives. I hope these might help.

[Stargazer]

You can find implacable souls everywhere and on every subject. People who are just not worth talking to. Not so much here, though.

A loooonnnnnggggg time ago I had an AOL account and the Christianity discussion board the powers-that-be grudgingly allowed a Mormon subboard. The mods allowed antis full reign to say what they wanted, but any LDS response was subject to severe curtailment. It was wonderful. Anyway, I thought something some anti said was rather inaccurate as to what the Bible says and what we believe, so I spent a good couple of hours crafting a decent response, filled with logic and Bible scriptures to back up what I was saying. What was the response I got from the miscreant? "B...S..t!"  That was it.

Some people are just not worth engaging with. The flat-earthers of the mind.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, edvantageous said:

I'm a new poster to the board but have been a long-time reader and if I understand what Elisabeth R. is looking for, I thought it was worth creating an account to share something I've recently found that addresses this issue of truth and having conversations with others who may not agree with you. There's a series of six or seven articles published on Public Square Magazine by Arthur Peña, Charles Randall Paul, and Jacob Hess, the first one titled "Why Persuasion Should Be a Sweet (Not a Dirty) Word" you can access it directly here. I have greatly appreciated this article series. There's another more recent article, similarly themed but directly related to the AP article about child sex abuse in the church, titled "Is Personal Experience the Final Arbiter of Truth?" which I found helpful as a way to discuss these emotional and complex topics with people who have different perspectives. I hope these might help.

Thanks for the links. They sound very useful. 

[Amulek]

5 hours ago, Elisabeth R. said:

My initial post, even with my corrections and clarifications was SHUT DOWN. 

As you should have expected had you followed the advice of the site owners and read the Board Guidelines prior to posting.

Check them out and then look around to get a feel for what sort of topics are allowed and which are not.

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, edvantageous said:

I'm a new poster to the board but have been a long-time reader and if I understand what Elisabeth R. is looking for, I thought it was worth creating an account to share something I've recently found that addresses this issue of truth and having conversations with others who may not agree with you. There's a series of six or seven articles published on Public Square Magazine by Arthur Peña, Charles Randall Paul, and Jacob Hess, the first one titled "Why Persuasion Should Be a Sweet (Not a Dirty) Word" you can access it directly here. I have greatly appreciated this article series. There's another more recent article, similarly themed but directly related to the AP article about child sex abuse in the church, titled "Is Personal Experience the Final Arbiter of Truth?" which I found helpful as a way to discuss these emotional and complex topics with people who have different perspectives. I hope these might help.

Thanks for joining.  Great post.  I have read one of these, will check out the others hopefully (brain like a sieve right now).

I was listening to an interesting podcast (a novelty…me listening to a podcast, not that it was interesting) on how we are wired to think of people as us vs them, confirmation bias, and what that leads to.  It could be helpful in explaining the ‘why’. 

https://armchairexpertpod.com/pods/woo-kyoung-ahn?

This is the guest’s book:

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-101-Reason-Better-Live/dp/1250805953/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?

 

 

[blackstrap]

To say the earth is round is true-ish . Some truth is more true than other truth. 

https://earthhow.com/shape-of-the-earth/

not to put too fine a point on it , of course, but both sides of any debate may have some truth and some falsehood. Most honest scientists will use words that allow for nuance around their conclusions. Two people can see the same set of data and  interpret it in slightly or often vastly different ways. Thats one of the reasons lawyers exist. 

I will let mfbukowski take it from here. 😁

Edited August 25, 2022 by blackstrap

[blackstrap]

In court one could swear to " tell the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth " which is objectively impossible unless the words " as I believe it to be." are added.

To adjust a well known statement, " there are close-minded people on both sides. "  

 

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, blackstrap said:

To say the earth is round is true-ish . Some truth is more true than other truth. 

Yeah, it would be distinctly false-ish to say that it is flat.

2 hours ago, blackstrap said:

https://earthhow.com/shape-of-the-earth/

There is no perfect sphere anywhere in the universe.

2 hours ago, blackstrap said:

I will let mfbukowski take it from here. 😁

I pray Mark never finds this thread. We'd never hear the end of it.

[blackstrap]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

it would be distinctly false-ish to say that it is flat.

Then again, there is Kansas !     And trailer parks after a tornado . 

Edited August 26, 2022 by blackstrap

[Calm]

33 minutes ago, blackstrap said:

Then again, there is Kansas !     And trailer parks after a tornado . 

Reminds me of my bil when we were living in Kansas. For some reason we had a map of Wichita on the table and he ran his finger across it saying, “Cool, a three dimensional map!”  
 

We always laughed driving across College Hill, it was College Bump to us. 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Calm

[blackstrap]

Near me there is a place that they said got an inch of rain and it flooded 300,000 acres ! Now that's flat !

[bluebell]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

Reminds me of my bil when we were living in Kansas. For some reason we had a map of Wichita on the table and he ran his finger across it saying, “Cool, a three dimensional map!”  
 

We always laughed driving across College Hill, it was College Bump to us. 

Sounds like the ski “hill” we saw when we were living in North Dakota. 

[Calm]

When I lived in Illinois for a few years as a kid, they built what we called a ski hill out back of my elementary school (a 12 year old’s memory, but maybe as high as the roof of the school and not that long so not sure it worth the effort even to hop up it…it was fun riding our bikes down though till they fenced it off because of erosion).  I am laughing my head off thinking about it.  Haven’t thought of that in decades.  I had been impressed by effort of moving all that dirt until I got back to California and was reminded what real hills were like.

Ha!  The ‘hill’ is still there but the trees block my view so I can’t see how high it is.  I remember when some of those trees were twigs.  Most of them weren’t even there last time I saw that place.  So disoriented with all those huge trees.  Otherwise the road looks pretty much the same.  (Except the road itself needs paving, it was a brand new subdivision when we moved in.) All white siding and red brick.  They have kept it in good shape.  But they put up fences. We weren’t allowed to originally so it made the back yards look endless…to an 8 year old (when we moved in).

Edited August 26, 2022 by Calm

[Stargazer]

7 hours ago, blackstrap said:

Then again, there is Kansas !     And trailer parks after a tornado . 

There is always Kansas, indeed!