Question for admins....

[Kathleen]

(05-28-2012, 03:10 PM)MakersDozn Wrote: OTOH, we don't think that designating individual posts as discussing a specific set of beliefs constitutes affiliating the forum as a whole with a specific set of beliefs.

I was prolly unclear. I did not think that marking posts as being of a particular belief set marked the forum as being of that same mind set. My thinking was that having to state ahead of time that XYZ spiritual belief system was going to be discussed was a bit like saying that we need to warn each other that we have strong beliefs.

I think we ought to all understand that in a forum such as this most of the folks DO have strongly held beliefs (is that redundant? they call it BELIEF for a reason, right?), but I think that we also ought to be wide open to the idea that probably none of our strongly held beliefs exactly matches anyone else's. What we tend to do, I think, is to sort of "team up" with people who share roughly the same beliefs.

If we were to start out with the idea that this is a mystery, and we may have very strong beliefs, but they are based on understanding and faith and mental imagery, etc... and that we DON'T have the same ideas about these things... I think it puts us in the frame of mind to really hear one another -- like "this is what I think, and the thought processes that brought me to this point", and "I think it is kind of like this...".

Maybe it is because I don't have any very strongly held beliefs, just wonderment and awe at lots of things, and some rough ideas about how the whole shebang might work, that I see that most of the people who "agree" with each other, in fact, don't (agree with each other).

I know what you were asking, though, and you and The Warren are right... it just conveys information. But I guess sometimes I think using shorthand loses something in the process.