2 BYU-I Professors fired, even though their Bishops claim to have endorsed them

[bluebell]

11 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

I work with FM a lot in my stake calling. My group certainly isn’t perfect but they work their butts off, are relatively underpaid, and absolutely under appreciated. My stake would suffer immensely if we had to manage facilities on our own. 

We had a kid spray paint the F word on a couple church buildings and I'm not sure it's been removed yet, months later.  In their defense (I guess), it's in out of the way spots so you don't notice regularly.

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Ambrosia said:

The best thing?  What about revelation?  And the restoration of priesthood authority?  How about we compromise and say that postmodernism is maybe in the Top 10 list of best things that ever happened to religion?

You are exactly right, kind of.😉

It's the best thing for INTELLECTUALLY JUSTIFYING BELIEF in religion on a board like this, whereas clearly revelation IS religion itself

" HAPPENED TO" vs "HAPPENED IN"

It answers the intellectual question

"But how do you know you're religion is true?"

It is a new way to see truth, philosophically

Welcome!

 

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, MrShorty said:

According to Wikipedia's entry on postmodernism, postmodernism leans very heavily towards moral relativism, which would seem to me to be a very hard sell to a church/people that claim to have some ideas about eternal truth and/or absolute morality.

Not at all. Not much time available now but the best way of seeing truth yet is that one group of believers believe their truth from their perspective and others see it from their perspective.

How can both of these be true:

"The chair is made of solid wood  and will support my weight"

Vs

"The chair is made of constantly moving particles that have relatively large spaces between them"

Both are true from different perspectives yet may seem to be contrary

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

We had a kid spray paint the F word on a couple church buildings and I'm not sure it's been removed yet, months later.  In their defense (I guess), it's in out of the way spots so you don't notice regularly.

 

FM ?

Don't get me started!  Zip the lip time for me. 😶

[OGHoosier]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Not at all. Not much time available now but the best way of seeing truth yet is that one group of believers believe their truth from their perspective and others see it from their perspective.

How can both of these be true:

"The chair is made of solid wood  and will support my weight"

Vs

"The chair is made of constantly moving particles that have relatively large spaces between them"

Both are true from different perspectives yet may seem to be contrary

McGilchrist in other videos and writings (including his over 2000 pages worth of published books) notes that one of the most powerful, useful, and necessary capabilities of the right hemisphere is to look at apparent opposites on different levels of abstraction, thus reconciling the apparently unreconcilable. From simplicity to complexity and back again. 

Chapter 20 of The Matter with Things is dedicated to precisely this phenomenon.  

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

We had a kid spray paint the F word on a couple church buildings and I'm not sure it's been removed yet, months later.  In their defense (I guess), it's in out of the way spots so you don't notice regularly.

 

I think like many people that hold callings that need the cash for items out of the ordinary, it might be why there's a hold up. Very frustrating to be sure. Sorry your ward building got hit, disgusting. Kids can be idiots, it sounds like they were caught. If so he/she should help clean it. 

[2BizE]

I assume there are a number of BYU employees on this blog.  How does this affect you knowing that you may also be fired in the same method without ever being told the reason?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, 2BizE said:

I assume there are a number of BYU employees on this blog.  How does this affect you knowing that you may also be fired in the same method without ever being told the reason?

Why are you assuming that out of curiosity?

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

McGilchrist in other videos and writings (including his over 2000 pages worth of published books) notes that one of the most powerful, useful, and necessary capabilities of the right hemisphere is to look at apparent opposites on different levels of abstraction, thus reconciling the apparently unreconcilable. From simplicity to complexity and back again. 

Chapter 20 of The Matter with Things is dedicated to precisely this phenomenon.  

As always there are many ways see it; if you look at it as a logician would, these, as you know, are called "category errors" ; Wittgenstein would call each a "language game", also not to be mixed, doing so causes errors.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Buckeye said:

I work with FM a lot in my stake calling. My group certainly isn’t perfect but they work their butts off, are relatively underpaid, and absolutely under appreciated. My stake would suffer immensely if we had to manage facilities on our own. 

I get it. My son in law used to work for them. And I have a relative who "got to" work - as an employee- in the temple- heaven on earth, right?

Not exactly.

On the other hand I can testify that "temple work" - ordinances etc IS heaven on earth.  I have done ordinance work for a total of 15 or so years off and on.

[Nofear]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

"The chair is made of constantly moving particles that have relatively large spaces between them"

 "...the legend goes that after discovering this fact  Rutherford was totally freaked out to learn that approximately 99% of the entire physical world he was standing in was composed of nothing but empty space. To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Rutherford was reportedly so freaked out that when awoke the next morning, upon trying to climb out of bed, Rutherford stopped his foot from hitting the floor and climbed back into bed, purely because he was scared his foot would slip through his floorboards, because hell, they were technically 99% empty freaking space after all." (http://www.factfiend.com/physicist-scared-falling-bedroom-floor/)

[bluebell]

10 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I think like many people that hold callings that need the cash for items out of the ordinary, it might be why there's a hold up. Very frustrating to be sure. Sorry your ward building got hit, disgusting. Kids can be idiots, it sounds like they were caught. If so he/she should help clean it. 

At least in our area the FM group isn't a calling. It's a job and they get paid.  But I agree, that kid should have had to help clean up.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Nofear said:

 "...the legend goes that after discovering this fact  Rutherford was totally freaked out to learn that approximately 99% of the entire physical world he was standing in was composed of nothing but empty space. To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Rutherford was reportedly so freaked out that when awoke the next morning, upon trying to climb out of bed, Rutherford stopped his foot from hitting the floor and climbed back into bed, purely because he was scared his foot would slip through his floorboards, because hell, they were technically 99% empty freaking space after all." (http://www.factfiend.com/physicist-scared-falling-bedroom-floor/)

I guess he was not worried that his body would float through the ceiling. 😱

Thanks for the reference, I use this quite a lot.  My father, an aerospace engineer, was explaining this to his grandmother and she honestly was positive that he had totally lost his mind.  "Call the doctor!" Call the doctor!"

It's hard to imagine today, we are so conditioned to discoveries that seem so bizarre.

Common sense is not common anymore; we don't know what is real and what isn't 

A flexible viewpoint is now essential.

Edited December 2, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Nofear said:

To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Another great point in itself. Think of Galileo.

Private experiences become public "facts" when words "create" them.

They become  real through human communication.

Do undiscovered species "exist" yet?

Is spirit really refined matter?

Does God really have a body?

[Analytics]

On 11/30/2022 at 10:03 PM, OGHoosier said:

Anyways, you commit an analytical error in believing that the "pursuit of truth" is incompatible with "promoting a particular set of doctrines." They are not contradictory insofar as the doctrines preached are preached in earnest belief. There's nothing wrong with getting like-minded people together to explore the ramifications of their beliefs with regard to the world, and I see no reason why the institution of the university is above that.

I apologize for belaboring the point, but I thought of a good example of my point here.

Let's say, hypothetically, that somebody wanted to learn the truth about the Bible. The actual, factual truth. If that is the goal, would going to Moody Bible Institute be conductive to that goal? The rules for students at Moody are as follows: 

Moody Bible Institute requires all faculty and administration to agree with, personally adhere to, and support the school's doctrinal statements. These distinctives identify what is believed and taught in our classes. 

The school recognizes, however, that its specific theological positions do not define orthodoxy for the whole of the body of Christ. For this reason, Moody Bible Institute accepts students from other theological traditions within conservative evangelicalism.

To be admitted and to graduate, students must personally adhere to and support the following doctrinal positions:

• the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture
• the Trinity
• the full deity and full humanity of Christ
• the creation of the human race in the image of God
• the spiritual lostness of the human race
• the substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection of Christ
• salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone
• the physical and imminent return of Christ

Moody Believes | Moody Bible Institute

If your objective is to learn the truth about the Bible, should you go Moody Bible Institute?

 

 

Is that specific environment conductive to the pursuit of truth?

[2BizE]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Why are you assuming that out of curiosity?

An educated guess. I might also guess that the majority of people on this blog live within an 14 hour drive of Salt Lake City.  

[Eschaton]

45 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

An educated guess. I might also guess that the majority of people on this blog live within an 14 hour drive of Salt Lake City.  

This is a forum, not a blog, surely. A blog is almost always a website featuring one author's self-published articles/posts/thoughts. 

[mfbukowski]

23 hours ago, MrShorty said:

An interesting assertion, and obviously solidly off the main point of the OP. According to Wikipedia's entry on postmodernism, postmodernism leans very heavily towards moral relativism, which would seem to me to be a very hard sell to a church/people that claim to have some ideas about eternal truth and/or absolute morality.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. In some ways, some of my own questions about the church and truth and morality could possibly be explained and/or understood best in terms that God's truth/morality is relative to time and place and circumstance. But I have been too conditioned in my lifetime in the church to also believe that there is absolute, eternal truth to be known and sought after. That sort of thing is not easily dismissed.

But there still is- and that eternal truth is REAL because you have experienced it.   You have a testimony that the commandments work in your life, that belief in what the church teaches IS the "Plan of Happiness" .   You KNOW that because YOU have the evidence inside you and that is all you need.   These are not scientific questions and science doesn't HAVE such answers!!

But yes, well that is the problem all right.  Everybody who goes through school thinks that way because we are culturally conditioned to think that all-powerful science studies a "reality" beyond what is obvious to us, and in a sense, it does.   But in another sense science is "useless" to help us with what makes life a joy!

Here's the problem: SCIENCE DOESN'T STUDY REALITY AT ALL, it studies how the CAUSES of human perceptions are perceived by humans and then CALLS this "reality".  But how can you step out of "reality" to check it against "what is true"?    Is that color "really red"?

Prime example is always color for me.   Color isn't "real" for scientists! - in a sense.

According to science, color is "actually" light waves bouncing off "objects" at certain wavelengths which we PERCEIVE as "red" or "Green" but color itself does not "exist" in the world.

YET obviously in our lives color DOES exist.  All over the world red lights mean stop and green lights mean go- so is that real enough to say that red is "real"?  EVEN THOUGH it only exists "in your mind"?

So the question becomes ARE EXPERIENCES as we experience them called "TRUE" or not?     In court imagine: "Was the light red or green?",    "Uh, not sure your honor because I was not watching my light wave meter"!   I don't think that would be a satisfying answer!

OF COURSE we know that RED is REAL in REAL Life.   Yes technically it is caused by something "outside" the mind but the MIND MAKES IT REAL IN OUR PERCEPTIONS.

You are camping in the woods and hear a sound of xyz decibles, pitch abc and whatever other measures are used in sound.   What should you do?   Is it your wife coming back to the tent with some nice hot soup, or a grizzly bear growling wanting to eat YOU rather than some soup? 

You know the difference after an eon or two of evolution - or God's design- that those decibles and pitch literally mean DANGER

So now what is the whispering of your conscience?   How does that differ REALLY from the growl?  Do you feel it in your gut or do you need a sound-meter-device of some kind to figure out what is "real"?

But wait!   Something inside you, not unlike what tells you that "red" is real tells you it is wrong to kill puppies for fun, or steal the old lady's purse when she is not looking.   Absolute truth = both are wrong. 

 Something inside you tells you and you don't need science to figure it out!   But in all three cases, the color red, the sound in the tent, and the old lady's purse, it is something INSIDE you that you KNOW is TRUE without need for any objective verification at all, and yet all 3 are "only in your head"   

But someone else disagrees!   Surprise it's the internet!  Do you spend your life telling him why it's wrong to kill babies or steal purses?  Is it because of your biases generated as a child?

IRRELEVANT!   You have your truth and he has his.  Live and let live.   There is no way to "prove" that one set of perceptions is "better" than the other because we all have our independent worlds in which we live.   Truth exists only in a community of like- minded thinkers and observers, each group establishing their standards.

Nothing better has been found in 2500 years of western philosophy to define truth- but diversity and which paradigm works better for the purposes for which it is designed.

We may have our own "eternal truths" for our LDS world and they have theirs.   

Diversity.  In today's world that is the best paradigm we can come up with and still get along.   We believe in our embodied God and you believe in your cloud of "spirit", fine, have a nice day!   There is nothing to decide between the two but our hearts.

We just have to get over it and "put aside childish things" !

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, 2BizE said:

An educated guess. I might also guess that the majority of people on this blog live within an 14 hour drive of Salt Lake City.  

14 hours?   That's two days!  I drive from LA to houston in 24 hours of driving, and it takes 3 days, 8 hours a day.

That means that MOST people here live in the Western USA, and considering where the bulk of members who speak English live....  it doesn't make much of a point.  It's the western half of the country.

Pretty safe assumption.

But no. I would not work at BYU.  10 hours is a heck of a commute unless you have your own plane but I still don't want a two hour commute, odd person that I am.

Nah, your point doesn't work

Edited December 2, 2022 by mfbukowski

[bluebell]

duplicate

Edited December 2, 2022 by bluebell

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, 2BizE said:

An educated guess. I might also guess that the majority of people on this blog live within an 14 hour drive of Salt Lake City.  

What is the 'educated' part of the guess?  (sincere question).

I live in northern Utah near the base (the majority of my neighborhood is nonmember which I've liked as it's more what I'm used to), but we've only been here for the last 9 years.  When I first joined the board (through FAIR), I lived in a different state.  And I've lived in three others since that one, not counting Utah.

 

[Calm]

7 hours ago, 2BizE said:

An educated guess. I might also guess that the majority of people on this blog live within an 14 hour drive of Salt Lake City.  

I highly doubt the BYU employee guess.  As far as I am aware, no one currently posting on a regular basis works for BYU and the occasional posters who worked for BYU haven’t posted in eons that I remember, though such posters may not have shared their employment details or only did it a few times so I have forgotten.  In the past there have been a few regular BYU posters (Dan Peterson the most obvious) and a few more occasional (I am pretty sure Mark Wright posted a few times).

The majority within 14 hours of Utah possibly since that includes California, Oregon, Arizona and includes even where I used to live when first posting on the board, Calgary, Canada.

Even FAIR, which owned the board that transmuted into this one, I believe I am now the only regular posting member.  Either those posting from FAIR no longer post or are no longer FAIR members.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

If your objective is to learn the truth about the Bible, should you go Moody Bible Institute?

 

Oh my.  What IS truth?

It's the wrong paradigm for MY taste, but I'll wager that is this true for you, too.

I cannot understand why you persist in your metaphysics when positivism cannot even pass it's own criteria for truth.

What is your evidence for "evidence?" Talk about cognitive bias.

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/1/2022 at 5:18 PM, bluebell said:

Some are better than others.  It seems like our building currently has "others".

The FM groups work for the Church, not the other way around. If you have problems with their performance, take it up with Church leaders, be it on a local, regional or general level.
 

At the end of the day, these workers are fellow Church members. What you don’t do is publicly disparage them on the Internet, and you certainly don’t threaten their lives — not even in jest. 

[MustardSeed]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The FM groups work for the Church, not the other way around. If you have problems with their performance, take it up with Church leaders, be it on a local, regional or general level.
 

At the end of the day, these workers are fellow Church members. What you don’t do is publicly disparage them on the Internet, and you certainly don’t threaten their lives — not even in jest. 

You’re stretching.  There’s nothing wrong with what Bluebell said IMO.