@Matthew I tested very high in neutral evaluator on the belbin team composition metrics.

I think I do it naturally though

For my side, I've argued both sides of the Creationism and Materialism debate. Though I've not done it in the style that Matthew does.

@Wyrsa Really? I would probably agree that Trump seems (keyword) "like an evil type of narcissist". 🙂 I also think the evidence is that that's probably as much or more a deliberate facade than reality.

@Wyrsa Yeah, I really hope America will become better, but really, Trump needs to stop vilifying fact-based journalists (4th estate) and bloggers/podcasters/etc (5th estate) reserving political rhetoric for those who really deserve a piece of his mind. At the end of the day, it's the actions and the long-term benefit.

@Wyrsa I wonder which Belbin Team Role I'm most suited. Is there a free test one can take?

@GratefulDisciple So, "be the better man"? Or are you arguing that they aren't vilifying right back?

@Matthew I doubt that it's a façade. It's not "evil" either but a transactional narcissist who is susceptible to flattery of people around him in the palace intrigue (which currently includes billionaires like Musk).

@Matthew "be the better man" wouldn't work for people that vilify him for political sake, as in smear campaign. Fighting fire with fire seems necessary in politics. But don't drag journalists who try to throw light on some truths that he doesn't like.

@GratefulDisciple I am actually skeptical of that. I've seen analysis that a lot of what is seen as Trump's... less desirable traits are actually deliberate and calculated, and play a non-trivial role in his success.

@Matthew Again, I agree. He DOES have a knack for mixing entertainment, talking in 4th grade language (thus appeal to non-high-school graduates who have been slighted by college snobs), and showing compassion to everyday Americans who suffer both economically and culturally. I just cannot abide his trashing Truth.

@GratefulDisciple I don't doubt said journalists believe what they're doing is for the overall good, but is it? And if it isn't, should they not get called on it? Also, how do you tell the difference between "truths [Trump/the right] doesn't like" and lies?

(to continue) Strong-man, unpredictability, and f*** the establishment persona surely is working FOR him by reasonably showing he is the right man for the job. And I agree, too. As long as he doesn't go extreme into destroying institutions or doing vendetta.

@GratefulDisciple Honestly, for as controlled by the far left as they are (on average, at least), I'm not sure a serious shake-up of the media sphere would be a bad thing...

@Matthew My solution is appeal to Objective Truths; scholarship and professional journalism is a necessary tool. Let journalist's lies be exposed by their peers, such as WSJ calls out NYT / WaPo.

@Matthew .... except for information anarchy, which IMO is actually MORE dangerous.

Switching to churches and theologies, what do you think of Christianity Today magazine, which would be an example of Christianity's "mainstream media".

@GratefulDisciple You have way more confidence in the neutrality of the professional space than I do. As far as I can tell, both the media and "science" are absolutely controlled by certain ideologies... with rare exceptions that are usually discounted as "crackpots".

@Matthew Aiyaaaa. So you don't think graduates from journalism degrees have something to offer by way of responsible reporting?

@GratefulDisciple I'm not sure I agree; anarchy might actually force people to learn to think instead of just accepting what Big Brother tells them.

@GratefulDisciple I don't think a degree, or association with a "respected" organization, means you're neutral, no. In the latter case, far from it, in fact.

@Matthew In the pre-Internet and talk radio era, media as a Big Brother is more believable. But since Rush Limbaugh, I think it's no longer the case.

@Matthew I have been careful in the past 15 minutes or so, to use the word "professional" and "objective", not "neutral". Objective is not the same as neutral.

@GratefulDisciple ...then how did Biden win in 2020?

@GratefulDisciple Okay, I'll bite; what does "objective" mean to you, if not "neutral"?

@Matthew For sure, not through "stolen election". I read an article the other day how "stolen election" conspiracy narrative is being used by BOTH sides now that Trump just won.

@GratefulDisciple Depends on your definition of "stolen". I respectfully withhold opinion on the legitimacy of the actual votes. I don't for a minute believe there wasn't significant influence from the way the media covered the candidates.

@Matthew Objective means not subjective; meaning there is an objective basis that I can appeal to. Christianity.SE tries to be objective, but not neutral. Neutral would be closer to relativistic. Although in some contexts neutral and objectivity can be interchangable, no one can be neutral, but still can be objective.

@GratefulDisciple Okay. And I agree that no one is truly neutral. But put that way, I would argue that the basis of media is, on average, heavily skewed. As is academia. And the more contact one has with academia, the more likely one is to be indoctrinated with that bias.

@Matthew Did I deny that media influence election? Of course it does. And millions of dollars are poured to media spending. Political campaign is media war; I just object to HOW it's being deployed. There are red lines that no side should cross, the line that makes the reader be susceptible to conspiracy theories and poisoning the well.

@Matthew In both academia and mainstream media, the goal is to INFORM. By definition, conspiracy theory is the complete reversal than inform. Princeton seminary can objectively INFORM Christians of their liberal theology, while Southwestern Baptist seminary can objectively INFORM Christians of their evangelical fundamental theology. Those 2 schools are NOT neutral, yet they are academically responsible and objective.

@Matthew Whether one is susceptible to being indoctrinated, or don't see the bias (because of wools over their eyes), or put their heads in the ground like ostrich, it's the READER's choice and responsibility. There are plethora of objective (and subjective) options out there. Caveat Emptor. Wise people choose objective sources propounding a view that they share with the producer of the information.

@Matthew And yes, those sources you quoted are objective with respect to their stance on YEC. I can trust them to faithfully speak the YEC doctrines.

@Matthew As for the "skew" (continuing on the plethora motif), it is more of an attribute of the conglomeration of choices that the READER surrounds himself/herself with. Most people are not academician with the responsibility to vet all possible options for a given topic, so there is definitely echo chambers. But READER needs to be aware how big an echo chamber he/she is creating.

Most non-academic Protestants I come across are VERY skewed to the kind of Bible interpretation and doing theology that don't include the EO and RC options. They are in their own Protestant echo chamber and use Protestant slogans to dismiss scholarly-credible RC/EO options. When I truly understand EO/RC, my eyes are open and I cannot close them anymore.

@Wyrsa, your recent answer is of some relevance to the Creation debate. 🙂

@Matthew Gotta go. My SE quota for today has been exceeded. If I still have a parent that monitors my "screen time", my access would have been cut off long ago 🙂.

@GratefulDisciple ...but is it okay for e.g. public schools to only expose students to one point of view, and to teach that view as "factual", even though it's contested? Is it okay for the media to heavily promote the same view, in the same manner?

@Matthew About the media, it's a free market of ideas (freedom of speech), let consumers choose which media wins business-wise while the theologians preach the absolute necessity for Truth connected to salvation. About public school, it's a political fight on a school board level on who has the power to teach the children, while the reactionaries can home school. But STILL, you still need to file that Exhibit A on that science thing encroaching into religion!

It's the 300-million-or-so Americans who have their fate in their hands to determine which media wins. They vote with their money, time, and desire. The platform is relatively free. Don't tell me America is not 10x freer than Russia / China! I'm doing my part to influence the electorate to fight for OBJECTIVITY, for WIDENING their horizon, and for PREFERRING scholarship / academic responsibility.

But if the younger generations are passively watching Tiktok/YouTube selections that are algorithmically fed to them, then they are relinquishing their fate to those in control of those algorithms. I pride myself for 10x LESS susceptible to those subtle manipulations. Being able to call out my previous echo chamber's fallacy (i.e. evangelicalism) is one proof. I hope more people are like me.

@Wyrsa, you wrote "[demons] can observe everything, can use thousands of years of experience and their entire intellect against your naive few decades". Do you think demons could craft a convincing lie about how humans and/or the rest of Creation came to exist? Could they trick people into believing that such claims are compatible with Scripture? 😉

@GratefulDisciple, youtube.com/watch?v=1qGdkO_-Eh8 is also relevant to our recent discussions.

@Matthew At 2:56 he asks (about dinosaurs) "What does the church teach?" The audience and the speaker both answer "Nothing". And that's true. Church teaches theology, science teaches science. How dinosaurs came about it's a scientific hypothesis. But then this speaker makes a theological claim by saying it's taught by "the world", which is a theological category of people who are opposed to God. I stopped there.

At 3:23, he quoted Hugh Ross (is he an Old-earther?) but I totally don't agree with him because it still trying to portray Bible as showing a historical timeline of creation, and that's going to bite him back by BOTH camps (YEC and the scientific community). Totally useless now. What we need is a non-synchronous understanding, days represent nothing time-related so that when he says at 3:31 that "Christians are bringing the world's ideas to the church" doesn't apply to me at all.

When at 3:36 he says "We need God be God", of course I agree. So if God decides to do accommodation to ANE authors, we need to interpret the Word of God through ANE lens. And I don't see the speaker will engage ANE in the rest of the video, but we'll see. I keep watching. Already, he's mixing science and Bible inappropriately by saying "is it Biblical or not".

At 3:47 he's trying to create a sense of urgency by talking in apocalyptic term "a battle" by two sides portrayed in the slide at 3:55 (God authority, Holy Bible, Perfect Word, Christianity) vs. (Man authority, Evolution Theory, Fallible opinion, Humanism / Secular Forms). Not only this is a false dilemma, it's not even comparable. It's INCORRECT PACKAGING of 4 elements in each tuple.

@GratefulDisciple I thought we agreed earlier that science can't investigate history? Is "what happened to Jesus after He was crucified" a scientific hypothesis? The rest of that comment nicely encapsulates the nature of our disagreement.

@Matthew How dinosaurs came about is NOT history, it's a hypothesis of what happened when the ASSUMPTION of how a species came about through lower species through 100% random processes is true. History is about humans.

@GratefulDisciple You are bringing "science's" historical teachings into your theology. But you've already decided to use ANE in order to smuggle those teachings into your understanding of Scripture. We're back to that being the only interpretation you'll permit to be considered.

But when one MAN was 100% dead and then 100% alive, that's a historical event. So it's a big category mistake to compare the two.

Do you believe Adam existed? If so, what do you believe about when he lived?

@GratefulDisciple Wait, the NT is allowed to be history, but the OT isn't? Why? How is that "a big category mistake to compare the two"?

@GratefulDisciple Matthew 12:30

@Matthew ANE has to do with how God's Word is being packaged into the literary narrative that humans created WITH providential inspiration by God so that the theological message is TRUE. ANE has to do with literature, not science, not history. ANE author is the one who GENERATE an account that looks like history. As faithful reader respecting God's Word, the decoding needs to match the encoding.

@GratefulDisciple Uh... that's not how most people use "history".

@GratefulDisciple At what point does Scripture cease to be fantasy and become history? I'm pretty sure I've asked before. I don't recall if you've answered.

@Matthew The category mistake is to compare 1) the scientific ASSUMPTION that dinosaurs evolved from lower species with 2) assessing the historicity of what happened to ONE person who actually lived in a particular time. It's not even comparing apple to orange. It's like comparing a tree to computer mouse.

@Matthew That's what you have when you're not being scholarly when using words like "history" "secularism", "science", etc.

@Matthew If you quote that in this context, you're committing multiple MISSTEPS of doing exegesis and application.

@GratefulDisciple History: 1. The aggregate of past events. 2. The branch of knowledge that studies the past.

@GratefulDisciple You are the one claiming that non-believers are not opposed to believers and invoking the claim of 'false dilemma'. Jesus very clearly abolishes that.

Scripture clearly asserts that alignment with God's Will is black and white. I'll concede that human experience is not one-or-the-other... but it's a mixture of black and white, not a shade of gray. Factual claims are true or false, not something in between.

BTW, if "the intended audience knew better", why have Jews more-or-less throughout history, believed Genesis to be historical? At what point in time did people wrongly (according to you) start believing Genesis to be historical when it was never intended as such?

And I still don't think you've answered my question; at what point does Scripture switch from fantasy to history?

@Matthew Sorry have to do work and go to a meeting soon. Will read your message and reply later.