Featured What Others Believe

I hope I am not sidetracking this but in the vein of the first sentence there is also the thing where this is said "since you claim to believe such and such what that means is you really believe this and that..." yet another way of misrepresenting what others believe.

I do not care what label people want. If they want none at all I am good with that. It is really best to just have conversations based on a single doctrine at a time not labeling whole groups.

 

The problem is you (not you personally) do not get to tell me what I believe even if you think that what I believe means such and such. If I am not arguing that and deny it then no one gets to saddle me with it. We need to stick to what is actually being said and argued rather than trying to pin the worst case scenario on someone in order to win a debate. Especially since they deny the worst case scenario. Debate what they are actually saying and nothing more.

 

Great point. It is important to be able to accurately state what your opponent is saying without putting any spin on it.

If we could do that, I believe it would lead to more respect, better debates, and greater understanding of various positions that people have.

peace to you

 

Sometimes you ask clarifying questions to break down the response.
Often when someone starts feeling they are not able to defend their view, they avoid it by saying that that is not their position even though it is.

Such persons avoid any label saying it does not explain what they believe.
the problem is when they never articulate their belief, and twenty dentists could not extract the truth from them.

Sometimes these same people suggest that their view is so nuanced it is not possible to define it,

Do they really desire truth and honest discussion at that point?

 

Let me just add reading the minds and unspoken intentions of others and declaring them as known fact.

 

More specifically:

"Often when someone starts feeling they are not able to defend their view, they avoid it by saying that that is not their position even though it is."

 

Unless that person says that is what has happened no one knows that is what happened. It is mind reading as well as calling someone a liar.

 

Moving the goalpost is disingenuous.
If a person posts whatever he believes, he should be able to explain it, or not post it in the first place, or deny he believed any such thing when people dismantle those portions that are not biblical.
Error needs to be exposed and corrected if progress is going to happen.

 

Or maybe they just do not know what they are talking about. Either way we do not need to try and read their mind nor assume the worst about them. Maybe we should say something to the effect that "there very thing you say you do believe defines that word. Not sure how you deny believing in it". However, such an event is not what I am talking about.

 

Error can be exposed, however charitable that may be, without mind reading their intentions. Which by the way we cannot do neither can we know so one runs the risk of being a false witness against a brother. Of which we need to be careful of.

 

I get it and I am with you. Shh don't tell anyone

 

All the responses are wonderful to read.

I enjoyed the lack of rancor.

There is a small aspect I would like to add.

There are times when some don’t know a label. When a presentation is “named” it gives the respondent something in which to research and learn for themself the parameters and pitfalls.

There are times when some are testing the waters of a view to find either support or refutations.

At times labels just don’t hold all that much authority unless you are in to sciences and mathematics, perhaps grammar and theology.

I remember long, long ago, when a pastor candidate was ask to declare his eschatology view. He paused for a bit, far off look, and said, “Let’s see. I think you are asking about end times.”

There are some who sit on the cutting edge of discerning where things are made, how they are engineered, the strengths and weaknesses, ....

Yet, is it not true, that in the trenches, it is far better to know your own weapon of warfare, your own strengths, and the enemy you are confronting?

My career was surrounded by labeling and most of which I long ago purposed to set aside.

Labels may help after a diagnosis in which a patient can use to help them understand. Ultimately, unless there is treatment and hope, no labels really help.

 

jonc, are there consequences for certain beliefs? I mean if you believe what calvinists teach about election can you say the conclusion of that is fatalism? If you believe what arminians teach about free will then can you say that ultimately salvation rests on what the person does? I mean arent those consequences of the belief systems?