Thread: As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
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As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 3 Sep, 2013 10:16 AM
Part of the reason a very small number of people can dominate this forum is because only ten posts appear on the first page. Most other Christian forums have at least twenty posts on their first page.
This forum has been read by some who never post here, and one of the reasons they never post here is because of too much quarreling. Now it seems worse, and the heightened quarreling is probably turning off people who would continue to read the forum if it were not for so much quarreling.
Paul in Romans 1: 28-30 lists several characteristics of the reprobate mind, such as covetousness, deceit, pride, backbiters and - debate, from the Greek eris. But the 1881 British Revised Version changed the translation of eris from debate to strife, and most recent English versions use strife. Those who defend the new versions say the meaning of the English word debate has changed and therefore debate is no longer something a Christian might not want to do. The older translations use different words for instances in which Christians verbally defend the truth of scripture, as in Acts 15: 1-2, using dissention and disputation instead of debate, though the NIV has sharp dispute and debate.
But the new versions leave the word contentious in their translations of I Corinthians 11: 16, "If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom..."
And if you look at the argument closely that tries to justify replacing debate with strife for Romans 1: 29, it does not really make sense.
If the English word debate has changed in usage from something closer to a quarrel, to something supposedly more polite as in high school or college debating teams, then the English word closest in meaning to eris should be substituted for debate, not a more general term, strife.
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 3 Sep, 2013 12:36 PM
Well, I would reframe that this way "The Bible Questions and Discussion" forum is dominated by........." It certainly is not all of CDFF nor all of the CDFF forums.
Having said that, this reflects what I will refer to as majority position- those holding to "free willism, humanism, Arminianism, Semi-Pelagianism and a host of other heresies including dispensationalism, premillennialism, anitnomianism, and so on. All daughters of the Harlot.
On the other side, you have those holding to and promoting a
minority position - those holding to God's sovereignty, the doctrines of grace, "Calvinism", covenantalism, and so on.
**Noting here that I am using these terms differently than you have used them in the past.
Ultimately, my reflection is that this involves more than just six people. In point of fact, there are others who come out in support of those who hold the majority position because they are predisposed to hating the minority position because it exposes the flaws and gaps in their own heretical positions.
Having said that, this forum has been consistently dominated by those who hold the majority position. They suffer from what I will refer to as "groupthink". In doing so, they will only permit passive engagement from those who hold a minority position. If there is an active engagement from the minority crowd, the hostilities will immediately come right to the surface. This history goes back all the way to 2009 on this forum. It also involves some of these very same six people.
One solution will be to ban everyone involved. If I am included, than so be it. It's a fair solution and it holds everyone accountable at the same level. I would favor this solution. In point of fact, there are some here who have never been held accountable despite numerous and repeated offenses. I have been systematically calling attention to the actions of these individuals with the hopes of holding them accountable. These individuals are ALL hypocrites who possess a double standard of behavior. I've highlighted this again and again.
Groupthink----
"Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences."
"Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of their opponents (the "outgroup")."
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 3 Sep, 2013 12:56 PM
:applause:
"Ultimately, my reflection is that this involves more than just six people. In point of fact, there are others who come out in support of those who hold the majority position because they are predisposed to hating the minority position because it exposes the flaws and gaps in their own heretical positions.
Having said that, this forum has been consistently dominated by those who hold the majority position. They suffer from what I will refer to as "groupthink". In doing so, they will only permit passive engagement from those who hold a minority position. If there is an active engagement from the minority crowd, the hostilities will immediately come right to the surface. This history goes back all the way to 2009 on this forum. It also involves some of these very same six people.
One solution will be to ban everyone involved. If I am included, than so be it. It's a fair solution and it holds everyone accountable at the same level. I would favor this solution. In point of fact, there are some here who have never been held accountable despite numerous and repeated offenses. I have been systematically calling attention to the actions of these individuals with the hopes of holding them accountable. These individuals are ALL hypocrites who possess a double standard of behavior. I've highlighted this again and again. "
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 3 Sep, 2013 01:26 PM
I would like to proffer the following list of quarrelers
From the majority position:
LetThisMind2 - who only comes to this area of the forum with intent to stir up and engage in quarreling.
GodsJude
Teach_ib
TruthCarrier
Prophetic774- who has never responded appropriately or maturely when his false teaching has been exposed. If you have ever tried pointing out this man's error, you will quickly find out what he is made of. You will also be forced to wade through repetitious spamming of the forum. Extraordinarily juvenile. As a result, we are left with no ability to confront his error in a productive manner.
DontHitThatMark - to a much lesser extent but also involved
From the minority position:
IWalkAlone (myself)
Dljrn04
Halfback, I truly appreciate you standing up and speaking out. If CDFF wishes to be fair and just in it's distribution of corrective action, then it must either allow all of the above members to stay and continue to participate or it must ban them all. Selective justice is NO justice at all. I would personally favor banning everyone on this list from the forum.
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 3 Sep, 2013 01:57 PM
To be fair, when I first signed up to this site, it was dominated by your "side", but they all left or were banned for violating the forum rules.
And to halfback, I would be afraid to be in a church led by what I understand of your principle on "debate", because it would be so full of unresolved errors over time that it would explode into fractions. I agree that vain disputes about the law or feast days, etc are not edifying, but never addressing any error or abandoning the defense of the truth at the first sign of contention will destroy the body of Christ thru contamination and error just as quickly as "vain debate" will. That being said, this is a forum for discussion. If some become frustrated or insulting or angry, that does not invalidate the purpose of this board. If you post something, and someone brings questions and discussion against it, is that considered debate? Would the apostle Paul be in error for sending letters of correction and creating contention and separation in the church? Or only if he had became emotionally irrational?
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 4 Sep, 2013 07:06 AM
And just so it's noted, quarreling and debate and disputes are not violating the public forum rules, it's mainly insults that will get you banned, and just for the record, calling someone a "false prophet" is a pretty huge insult to someone who believes they're following Christ and it can definitely get you on people's bad side.
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 4 Sep, 2013 11:56 AM
John Darby said that the "Church has sought to settle itself here, but it has no place on the earth... [Though] making a most constructive parenthesis, it forms no part of the regular order of God's earthly plans, but is merely an interruption of them to give a fuller character and meaning to them..."
John. N. Darby, 'The Character of Office in The Present Dispensation'
Collected Writings., Eccl. I, Vol. I, p. 94.
"Them" are all physical Israel. The church, for Darby exists to "give
fuller character and meaning to all physical Israel." Darby thought that the purpose of the
Christian church, the ekklesia as a meeting, assembly or congregation
of Israel reborn in Christ as a spiritual house (I Peter 2: 5-9), the Israel of God, made into The Body of Christ like the Catholic capital C Church, was to honor all physical
Israel.
Suppose that a Christian who wants to follow scripture instead of man
made theology points out that Jesus Christ in John 10: 16, teaches as
fact that "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be
one fold and one shepherd."
The Christian who has a love for the truth of God's word instead of
man made theology might also cite Paul in Romans 12: 4, I Corinthians
10: 17, Galatians 3: 28, Ephesians 2: 14-16, and Ephesians 4: 4 all of
which say there is one Body of Christ, not two.
Then what Paul says in Romans 2: 17-29, Romans 9: 6-8 and Galatians 4: 25-26
about physical Israel obviously makes John Darby's theology false.
The dialectic begins when facts such as John 10: 16 conflict with the man made theology
that a person has accepted. The dialectic type of dialogue then tries to argue against
the absolute truth of scripture, such as John 10: 16, to overthrow that absolute truth and replace it with compromise, and with man made false doctrines. The person who, for example, follows
John Darby's doctrine that Christianity's purpose is to honor physical Israel, and that God now has two peoples, physical Israel and the church, has invested emotion, feelings and heart in this following of Darby. To defend that relationship of feeling he then enters into the dialectic process of quarreling with those who hold to the truth of scripture.
And the dialectic also begins when, among those who are not in the truth of scripture and oppose the absolute nature of scripture, have very different doctrines. They clash because each has a love affair with their own denomination's doctrines.
What is the difference between a debate, an argument, a quarrel and bickering? When the topic is Bible doctrine, this difference becomes important. Paul's doctrine in Romans 1: 28-28 in which he lists the Greek word eris, as a trait of those with a reprobate mind is not overthrown by substitution of the English word strife for debate in the new versions. There are at least four other places where Paul states this doctrine in more general terms.
Read these verses: I Corinthians 1: 11, where Paul says there were contentions among those in this ekklesia. Read Romans 2: 8 , where he says "..unto them that are contentious, but do not obey the truth...indignation and wrath." See I Corinthians 11: 16, where he says "If any man be contentious, we have no such custom." And look at II Corinthians 12: 20. Here Paul says he fears that when he comes back to his people at Corinth that he will find them in debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults." The NIV has quarreling for the Greek word eris. This is one of a few places where the NIV supports a doctrine that some other recent versions diminish.
The dialectic mind deals in relationships of feeling, with emotions
and opinions, and opposition to absolutes to defend those feelings and opinions.
Remember that the self psychologists, especially Carl Rogers, were not interesting in
cognition, in how accurate a person's perception is, but only in what he feels. Rogers only asked,
"How do you feel?"
The dialectic mind starts from a position that there are no
absolute truths or absolute morals. It is a mind that
accepts yea and nay about doctrines taught in the scripture. Those who
use dialectic arguments or quarrels against the facts of scripture are always looking for
loopholes, shades of grey, contradictions and verses where the meanings and implications
are not spelled out in great detail to hit at with their rejection of
the absolute.
And those who use the dialectic often do not start an attack directly against the doctrine they are opposing. Instead, they often attack the doctrine from the side. They start an argument against some one small part of the doctrine, or a related doctrine, thinking that in so doing they can somehow, by a kind of witchcraft, defeat the entire doctrine of truth they oppose. The person who habitually has trouble refraining from use of the dialectic in carrying on a dialogue over issues of disagreement often represents the position of the opponent. Sometimes the misrepresentation is obvious and at other times more subtle. A user of the dialectic may also make statements for the purpose of causing the opponent to feel the desire to refute the statement, in order for the argument or quarrel to go on and on. In other words, the dialectic is used as part of an argumenative or quarrelsome stance or attitude. And statements within this quarrelsome mind set are sometimes made just to annoy the opponent, though name calling is avoided. The user of the dialectic may enjoy arguments or quarreling, and may be more interested in taking part in arguments than in trying to find what is true and not true for a topic.
So the dialectic can easily become a dishonest process of argument. This aspect of the dialectic is widespread in politics, in government and in other areas at the present time, and if it were not so widespread could be seen as a manifestation of the psychopathic personality disorder.
Those who operate with the dialectic - which is now almost everyone in
our culture - try to justify themselves before men (Luke 16: 1).
The dialectic as an argument, sometimes a more contentious argument which becomes a quarrel, a way of changing the absolute truth
that one's opponent holds to, historically has come out of a system of
thought which teaches that there is no God.. It comes out of Hegel
and Marx. But before Hegel and Marx it came out of the second beast of
Revelation 13: 11, who has two horns like a lamb but speaks as a
dragon, and from the dragon himself whose use of the dialectic was on
Eve in Genesis 3 to fix her obedience to the absolute authority of God over her.
As of September 3rd CDFF Is Dominated By Quarrels Involving Only Six People
Posted : 4 Sep, 2013 02:47 PM
Halfback,
Perhaps you could provide us a real world example of the use of Hegelian dialectic in doctrinal debates in the form of a conversation.
For example:
Joe states his doctrinal position
Bob responds by starting an argument against some one small part of the doctrine, or a related doctrine, thinking that in so doing they can somehow, by a kind of witchcraft, defeat the entire doctrine of truth they oppose
And so on..........
Please feel free to use any of my posts here as an example if you would like. I am asking for you to make this whole concept more accessible for everyone. Thank you.
