Gisteron

Actually Khaos, I quite enjoy our discussions...

Gisteron too, and a few of the other, uh, well, I'm lacking a term for you guys, lol....

And, I looked into joining your home site, but, just as you are not a fan of how we discuss, your home site didn't impress me...

If I wanted insulted, and to have folks attempt to belittle me, I would have stayed married to Mrs. Jestor #2... lol...

I was amused to see in your link, the comparison to court jesters... It is where my username originated.. Although, tbh, the fiction of SW is sort of lost on me... lol....

Khaos wrote: Again with this offering nothing that is my own....I do not sure what you mean by this as again, no one has put forth anything original here.

lol.. Who is being difficult here?

There is little that is new in the world, hence the "monomyth" that gets poo-pooed from other jedi sites...

I'm sorry, perhaps I didnt say it highbrow enough?

Let me rephrase..

You don't start a thread with your thoughts for us to examine... And allow us to question your ideas... (I lump others in here too... lol)

Instead, you see one of us become brave enough to post a thought, a half formed idea, or one that perhaps we lack the ability to fully elucidate, and instead of helping to figure out what they might mean, help refine a half-ass thought, you question someone to the point they don't want to post, lol... Way to help, lol...

There are some people here, Star Forge comes to mind, who will post their thoughts, extreme as they may be, and open themselves up to criticism in a site that is not in agreement with the majority of his views...

Just an observation, I've been wrong before, lol,

Apparently, you are all so enlightened that you need not question, or God forbid, disagree

Your "god forbid" made me chuckle... For someone who says what they mean generally, are you really asking for "god to forbid"?

I mean, in the above example of "you not contributing anything of your own" you wanted to be literal, so are you just setting rules for me, for us?

Just yanking your chain, but, either we speak one way, or the other... According to you "logical thinkers, we just bounce around anyway... lol...

Anyway, no, lol, I dont think anyone here is enlightened...

Although some are further along than others....[/quote]

Khaos wrote: Take what is useful, discard what is useless,etc,etc.

Things do need to be torn down occasionally, but not to the point of rubble...

Sometimes there are salvageable things in an idea.... And while maggots do have to eat away the old rotten stuff, new material needs added...

And, that's how I help... I offer ideas and alternative ways to look at things, so that a person can evaluate their ideas, and measure them against mine.... Not that mine are perfect, lol, but, you have to have a starting point...

As opposed to tearing it down, and then standing back, and waiting for it to build back up, and then "helping" by tearing down the bad again....

And, that's sorta what you appear to do...

Tear stuff down, step back, and wait to tear down the next idea...

That doesn't help growth, that stunts growth...

Khaos wrote: could show you a comparison if you would like, but be sure you want to see it and assure me of not getting banned by giving an example and I will show you how forums with a....Darker, theme actually tear into each other.

And how do any of you grow?

Always tearing down....

What is the pinnacle of the "darker" studies?

Nihilism?

Scientific Materialism?

Or in my case, you put it back together, it still runs, but there are leftover pieces...

When I come across new concepts I find myself challenging and poking holes in them, its partially how I makes sense of things, and partially because I'm stubborn and am unable to accept new things until I've settled them in my mind.

No, I am fine accepting new things.

Just not all new things, or just because they are new.

Certainly, I am stubborn, but not in accepting new ideas.

Though o suppose it can come off that way with being inquisitive.

I think the whole Temple is built around questioning and learning and discovering. I haven't seen on any thread lately where a particular Jedi's close minded views were endorsed officially. We should make sure we're not generalizing the whole Temple based on a few posters that are given free voice.

Some people treat this place as a debate forum (and there is a place for; it's not banned) when foremost it's a religious Temple where people are here to learn and not get beat over the head by their worldviews that are possibly still in the process of being developed.

All that being said, I love reading the opposing sides of a debate, and more often than not I'm nodding my head along with our more scientific minded posters, but posters on both sides need not be belligerent in making their points.

Arcade wrote:

steamboat28 wrote:

ren wrote: Most conversations in this forum are popularity contests where the goal is to sound more appropriate, politically correct, mystical, spiritual, wise and whatnot.

This is one of those rare, earth-shattering times I'm going to agree with ren.

I haven't observed this in the people that I interact with on the forum, and the majority of members in this community are very sincere about the words they post and mindful of the kinds of things that ren mentioned.

So, I respectfully disagree. I think this may be largely about how the reader interprets what is written. Most of us are here because we want to learn something about ourselves, others, and our connection to the Force.

When I rolled out this site, there were problems with email notifications... To track down the issues I'd look at the "mail queue" page, which listed all emails being sent, including the PM notifications which contain the actual PM... I eventually tracked down the code to disable this as I got sick of witnessing how so many people were being two-faced and how this could become a problem if any of the other admins found this "mail queue" page...
And it's not even surprising really, that's how it works outside totjo. people want to feel important, respected, smart, etc... And what we do is make things even worse.... "click here to become a recognized Jedi knight in an official church! You get to conduct weddings and everything!""Spend a year with us and gain a free 'say cool stuff like yoda without spewing out quotes' kit! Impress your friends and impressionable minds who wish to learn from you so they too can one day be called 'master' ". It's like one of those crappy late-night TV adverts...And they do work on people, that's why they exist.

ren wrote:
When I rolled out this site, there were problems with email notifications... To track down the issues I'd look at the "mail queue" page, which listed all emails being sent, including the PM notifications which contain the actual PM... I eventually tracked down the code to disable this as I got sick of witnessing how so many people were being two-faced and how this could become a problem if any of the other admins found this "mail queue" page...
And it's not even surprising really, that's how it works outside totjo. people want to feel important, respected, smart, etc... And what we do is make things even worse.... "click here to become a recognized Jedi knight in an official church! You get to conduct weddings and everything!""Spend a year with us and gain a free 'say cool stuff like yoda without spewing out quotes' kit! Impress your friends and impressionable minds who wish to learn from you so they too can one day be called 'master' ". It's like one of those crappy late-night TV adverts...And they do work on people, that's why they exist.

lol. If you didn't like it, why'd you read them? Or maybe just, why'd you read them?

And i think that the majority of the active core of members dont believe that or feel that why.

That's a very interesting comment from you ren as you have a more unique position than almost all considering your behind the scenes admin work and time on the Council.

Why did you serve on the Council as long as you did and support the community with your time and hard work for so long if you feel the way you do?

(Maybe that's a better question via PM.)

lol. If you didn't like it, why'd you read them? Or maybe just, why'd you read them?

I didn't. Things just catch my eye. People act holier than thou in public, but truly are vile in private. Including "core" members.

That's a very interesting comment from you ren as you have a more unique position than almost all considering your behind the scenes admin work and time on the Council.

Why did you serve on the Council as long as you did and support the community with your time and hard work for so long if you feel the way you do?

(Maybe that's a better question via PM.)

If you felt as I feel, would you not do the same? You only waste time and energy if you don't use them for anything. One of the reasons behind putting the A.Div as requirement for knighthood was to have a guaranteed set of lessons that would ensure all have gone through high quality apprenticeships, making future generations of masters "better", hopefully creating a path to the end of something that has quite frankly been plaguing the jedi community since it began. This hasn't worked out well. Came with some side-effects too. On top of that it got a choppy takeoff due to people misunderstanding or trying to cheat... Though I must say it was quite something to see an apprentice report their master for degree points fraud

ren wrote: And it's not even surprising really, that's how it works outside totjo. people want to feel important, respected, smart, etc... And what we do is make things even worse.... "click here to become a recognized Jedi knight in an official church! You get to conduct weddings and everything!""Spend a year with us and gain a free 'say cool stuff like yoda without spewing out quotes' kit! Impress your friends and impressionable minds who wish to learn from you so they too can one day be called 'master' ". It's like one of those crappy late-night TV adverts...And they do work on people, that's why they exist.

And yet, here you are. Posting on the very site that has so disappointed you. It begs me to ask, why? To admit your disgust at the behavior you witnessed while spying on PMs only begs me to question even further. Perhaps I could find a quote from Yoda to trivialize this statement as you have grown accustomed to, but I'd rather hear what you have to say.

if we didn't have people constantly questioning, keeping us in check, checking our own belief patterns, etc. there my be something wrong...
I think we are doing something right...
We cannot have all our cake and eat it too... If we all drank the Jediism "kool aid" we would all have a boring bland drab of a time, no criticism, where is the fun in that?
I like my faith being tested, I tested others faiths... If I dish it out, I better be prepared to be served as well...

Senan wrote:

ren wrote: And it's not even surprising really, that's how it works outside totjo. people want to feel important, respected, smart, etc... And what we do is make things even worse.... "click here to become a recognized Jedi knight in an official church! You get to conduct weddings and everything!""Spend a year with us and gain a free 'say cool stuff like yoda without spewing out quotes' kit! Impress your friends and impressionable minds who wish to learn from you so they too can one day be called 'master' ". It's like one of those crappy late-night TV adverts...And they do work on people, that's why they exist.

And yet, here you are. Posting on the very site that has so disappointed you. It begs me to ask, why? To admit your disgust at the behavior you witnessed while spying on PMs only begs me to question even further. Perhaps I could find a quote from Yoda to trivialize this statement as you have grown accustomed to, but I'd rather hear what you have to say.

The behavior here is no different from the behavior elsewhere, and although somewhat more disheartening here, it is no more disgusting. Besides, hopefully things can still turn for the best... Also I resigned from my offices because I grew tired of it all.... Not because I lost interest in Jediism or totjo. And if people are in it for the "glory", I'm not, and I'm not responsible for their thoughts either... So it's their loss, really. This is a discussion I've had many times with Jestor... he'd argue we have to act the part (of councillor) whilst I'd argue we should be authentic and make sure playing the part doesn't make us near-gods (as it sometimes did) in some people's eyes. Funny how with the right rank people suddenly agree with you more and such. I think the only person who thought being on the council meant all we did all day was eat M&M's is Wescli, and now that he's on it he knows that for a fact