CH a discussion board or bulletin board?

Albion said:

We spend a lot of time trying to increase participation. Is the practice of throwing down a video, followed by a What do you think of that? appropriate for a discussion board like CH? Or, somewhat in the same vein, posting a long cut and paste or two or three from somewhere or other, allegedly for instructional purposes? I like it when the members actually explain their own ideas and beliefs and then engage in conversation about them with the rest of us.

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What's so noble and good about one's own ideas and how is a Christian discussion board ever going to avoid cut & pasted quotes from the bible or from sources that explain, support, or invent a doctrine? You can't be serious when you ask for people to "explain their own ideas" when in reality if they are discussing Christian theology they are at most discussing old ideas derived from what they've read in books - the bible included. Besides video clips can be amusing, thought provoking, and far more interesting than the alleged "own ideas" that some folk may want to explain. And quotes from books are Christians' top source for discussions; especially if the book is the bible.

Albion said:

Frankly, I do not think of any discussion board as noble. But we like them and we may profit from them, because we exchange ideas with actual people. What is more, I am very confident that guests and potential CH newcomers are looking for that; they already have a world of internet webpages, library books, and so on at their disposal.

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The people who write books are actual people too, right? Or are they somehow excluded from that category?

And Lo, the last post and this one are from one chap to another without any noticeable quotes thus far.

MoreCoffee said:

The people who write books are actual people too, right? Or are they somehow excluded from that category?

And Lo, the last post and this one are from one chap to another without any noticeable quotes thus far.

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There is a difference between discussing the contents of a book with the author of the book, and someone just posting a direct extract from someone else's book without any comments of their own.

Posting something like "Here's a passage of Scripture. How do you think it applies to us today" is far more conducive to discussion than simply posting the same passage of Scripture without comment.

Albion said:

:thumbsup: A little light is getting through!

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I'm reminded of a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein (don't know if he actually said it or not), that if you can't explain something in simple terms it means you don't understand it very well.

Generally speaking it seems these days there are lots of people who know what they think but why they think it is a mystery. They know that all right-thinking people agree with them (because, obviously, duh) but if you ask them to explain or justify their position they either can't do it or they revert to insults because you must be one of those others who disagrees, who is (by definition) not a right-thinking person, and who is therefore worthy of derision.

Personally I think if someone can't or won't explain why they think what they do it's all but impossible to have a useful discussion because if all they have to offer is to state a position and then refuse to defend it the chances are you've got someone who just parrots what someone else told them to think. Whether it's "my church says that..." or "my daddy says that..." the end result is the same.

Of course there are times that the cognitive dissonance is very strong and it's hard to get anything past it.

tango said:

There is a difference between discussing the contents of a book with the author of the book, and someone just posting a direct extract from someone else's book without any comments of their own.

Posting something like "Here's a passage of Scripture. How do you think it applies to us today" is far more conducive to discussion than simply posting the same passage of Scripture without comment.

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Maybe, but we see a lot of scripture posted as if it answers some previous post

MoreCoffee said:

Maybe, but we see a lot of scripture posted as if it answers some previous post

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... which is part of the problem. Just posting a bunch of verses proves nothing. Explaining why they are relevant is what makes a discussion useful, no?

tango said:

... which is part of the problem. Just posting a bunch of verses proves nothing. Explaining why they are relevant is what makes a discussion useful, no?

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Sometimes but usually not so much because the explanations are so often self serving distortions of what the verses say and are intended to teach. But sometimes people offer an honest view about a passage.

MoreCoffee said:

Sometimes but usually not so much because the explanations are so often self serving distortions of what the verses say and are intended to teach. But sometimes people offer an honest view about a passage.

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If someone explains why they quoted the text then at least there's the chance to counter their interpretations. If someone just dumps a load of Scripture without comment there's no way of knowing what, if any, reason they had for doing it. Kinda like this:

Joh 7:46 The officers answered, "No man ever spoke like this Man!"
Joh 7:47 Then the Pharisees answered them, "Are you also deceived?
Joh 7:48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?
Joh 7:49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."
Joh 7:50 Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them,
Joh 7:51 "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?"

tango said:

If someone explains why they quoted the text then at least there's the chance to counter their interpretations. If someone just dumps a load of Scripture without comment there's no way of knowing what, if any, reason they had for doing it. Kinda like this:

Joh 7:46 The officers answered, "No man ever spoke like this Man!"
Joh 7:47 Then the Pharisees answered them, "Are you also deceived?
Joh 7:48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?
Joh 7:49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."
Joh 7:50 Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them,
Joh 7:51 "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?"

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True, but then you can just skip the post and either write something interesting of your own or write nothing.

Albion said:

Then you see this particular technique as part of the same problem I was mentioning. OK. In the case of scripture, it CAN be that the verse(s) pretty obviously answers the question being debated, but I agree that that is not always the case. I get that.

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Sure, if someone says "what Scripture supports this viewpoint?" and you respond with Scripture that may be all that is required. If all a post contains is Scripture with no context and no explanation (implied or otherwise) of why it's relevant then it's not likely to be useful. For extra points there's always the option to respond "you figure it out" if someone asks about it.

However, what if the device leads off the thread, if it is the OP? That doesn't usually happen with the scripture-posters, but it is the usual way with the cheap gimmick of starting a thread by just posting a video and expecting people to invest their time in discovering what's in it and then maybe making a thread out of it on behalf of the OP poster. Or the more obvious outcome--they find they've subjected themselves to some propaganda the OP writer wanted to disseminate but which they, the readers, are not interested in.

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For myself I'm very seldom interested in videos, especially long ones. If you want me to sit for an hour and watch a video you're going to have to persuade me it's worth an hour of my life before I even start. If all you've got is "hey, what do you think of this?" my response is likely to be "It's too long to interest me". One trouble with links is that it becomes so easy to do little more than post a video to someone else discussing something as if it were an answer to a question. Using a video (with a link to a time point in it, as appropriate) as a source for a discussion works but to answer a question with little more than "Joe Blow talks about that in this video" with a link to a 75 minute video isn't really an answer.

My general stance on a video is that if someone can't be bothered to write a few sentences to summarise the video then I can't be bothered to spend an hour of my life watching it to see if there's any point to it.

Albion said:

... what if the device leads off the thread, if it is the OP? That doesn't usually happen with the scripture-posters, but it is the usual way with the cheap gimmick of starting a thread by just posting a video and expecting people to invest their time in discovering what's in it and then maybe making a thread out of it on behalf of the OP poster. Or the more obvious outcome--they find they've subjected themselves to some propaganda the OP writer wanted to disseminate but which they, the readers, are not interested in.

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If you do not want to see the video then do not click on it. If you watch it and dislike its content then why bother commenting about it? If you watch it and think that it is worth a comment then make your comment and see how the thread develops. I see a number of threads started with a video clip and an brief comment. They can be good threads. Many of the Lutheran satire videos were used as thread starters here in CH. Some had comments in the original post along with the video and some have none or almost none. It is okay to let a video speak to the issue that the thread starter wants to discuss.

You could watch this video and see if it helps. It is set in an educational forum context. It has something useful to say about CH too, though in CH quoting an alleged authority is pivotal to many debates; the authority is often the bible but sometimes a statement of faith, a personal experience, or a catechism (which is a more detailed statement of faith). Other starters can be used too.