[ExI] Do you have a secret family pass phrase?

[Darin Sunley]

Tl;Dr, you aren't remotely cynical enough.

On Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:20 AM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:

> The LDS missionary program is only secondarily about recruiting new
> members from the general population. Really, the people running the program
> don't care if the nice young people in the shirts and ties and nametags
> ever convince anyone of anything.
>
> The program is designed from the ground up to cement the lifelong
> emotional loyalty of the missionaries themselves, who are barely trained
> children spending two years living away from home in a commune under a
> complete media blackout.
>
> The carrot is that, after they finish their stint as a missionary (which
> they themselves paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege), they
> are on a track that, if they pursue it, can take them into
> senior leadership positions within the church..
>
> They are barely equipped to even present the elevator pitch for their own
> theology, much less grapple critically with anyone else's, because That Is
> Not The Point.
>
> On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 10:11 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On 27/12/2024 14:45, efc at disroot.org wrote:
>> > The mormons often seem more afraid of me, than I of them, when we
>> > start to discuss philosophy and they soon tire of the conversation. ��
>>
>> I've had a similar experience with Jehovah's Witnesses. It's odd that
>> the god squad seem most reluctant to talk to people who seem to actually
>> know something about religion! It's like mathematicians being leery of
>> anyone who shows any knowledge of maths.
>>
>> This may be my cynicism showing, but I suspect that it's because they
>> are more interested in compliance with their particular viewpoint than
>> understanding. If you want to understand things, you're obviously not
>> good convert material!
>>
>> I think it was Luther who said that reason is the enemy of faith. Seems
>> he was right.
>>
>> --
>> Ben
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20241229/ff648123/attachment.htm>