Out of control

RC_NewProtestants said:

I can't answer for Stormy but what I have found by experience is that there are certain people who really dislike any questions that make them think about other possibilities then they are used to. As you go to Sabbath School classes you usually can easily see those people in fact they will frequent themselves to a particular class or teacher. They will then only discuss the things that are within their doctrinal traditions.

Now on forums you will see these same kind attitude in some people when they ignore reasonable questions or statements. They will ignore what is said and point to something else that agrees with their doctrinal traditions. A good example was the Kellogg is a pantheist idea that was discussed a while ago. (I will post a thread on the subject soon but I have to put up the documents on my website first) When pointed out what Kellogg said in context versus what the critical books which take out a small bit of material from the much larger whole and then say see this means he is a pantheist. In the Kellogg example the other person simply ignored the larger section of the Kellogg statement and pointed to some other places which agreed with his tradition. Instead of dealing with the specific they choose to point out other general statements that they think agree with their tradition.

That is how you know people don't want to hear your questions, because they ignore dealing with the specifics of the questions and try to avoid the very subject being discussed. Of course there is always going to be the people who ask foolish questions and they are ignored but is usually seen by the context of the conversation and the way a question is asked. So there will always be other questions that are not asked in sincerity or may be meant to belittle someone etc. Through experience people usually can identify such things. But as with any conversation written or spoken there is a good deal of interpretation done on both sides. You will never avoid the process of interpretation and making judgments the best you can do is develop a reasonable method of making those interpretations and judgments. That is why I so frequently encourage people to work on their critical thinking skills.

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woobadooba said:

On the other side, what if the person that is asking the questions is clearly in the wrong, and they just don't want to address the issues because they've been down that road too many times before and find such discussion to be futile, or non-productive? What then?

You see, it goes both ways. Just because a person does not want to deal with an issue that doesn't mean that person is refusing to think outside of his tradition, nor does it mean he is wrong for only wanting to think within his tradition. After all, his tradition very well may be right. And if that is the case, why should anyone expect him to entertain false ideas?

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sentipente said:

We have really gone off the deep end when the gatekeepers report my threads in the Bible Study forum in which I only post texts from the Bible on the ground that this violates their rule that only registered teachers can start Bible studies. Whoever said legalism was dead needs to pay me a visit.

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mjona3 said:

I will say this, I saw the train wreck this was going to be, and so didn't agree to run for moderator.

JM

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