Here comes some difficult and sensitive material. For a long time, Ive put off finishing its preparation, because it is so difficult and sensitive. But the time to post it is now.

A better man than I am would have done, or would do, the work to include more and better examples than I will be able to right now.

We concern ourselves on this board with differences of belief. Differences of belief can lead to misunderstandings, and also to misconduct. Ad hominem, selective reading, twisting, distortion, and so forth are all forms of misconduct that can occur in debate. However, in the heat of battle participants can, because of differences in belief, misjudge themselves and one another, mistaking misunderstanding for misconduct. An impartial observer normally would be able to set things straight.

Profound differences of belief are more difficult in exactly this way, because people take their own profound beliefs so much for granted, theyre going to just assume the other folks define the same words the same way, and so forth. It can be really hard to get someone to make conscious for herself or himself that X and Y are in fact components of his or her belief; harder, to get the person to actually put that into words.

Prior to the meltdown, I launched a thread entitled Upping the Ante {1}, with these words:

On the "Like a lamb" thread at (4/21/05 3:15 pm), Sophiee posted:

The world would be a far better place if we all just dialoged and showed a little more respect to one another. Honesty.

It really is the best medicine.


Agreed. However:

Let me propose we set the standard one step higher, and so (I think) do ourselves all a big favor.

Let me propose the standard be LOVE.

If people act according to that standard, HONESTY and RESPECT take care of themselves.


A few weeks later, I posted this:

In the past several weeks, I have learned of differences in belief between Christians and Jews that are so profound as to make misunderstandings that will be perceived even by impartial observers as misconduct inevitable.


In this unhappy context, it seems to me that people who mean well, dont have a choice as to the premise of this thread.

In some ways, its a lot like breathing.




Simple........Possible........Necessary




{1}Obstacles to Belief thread
Upping the Ante
(6/30/05 7:56 pm)
http://p069.ezboard.com/fmessiahtruthfrm1.showMessageRange?topicID=1457.topic&start=75&stop=76