Response to Sudsy on Max

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Bootstrap
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Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Bootstrap »

Moving the discussion from Wayne's thread (http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... 838#p20838) because it is off topic there. I have decided to respond because this keeps coming up in various threads.
Sudsy wrote:Boot, when was the last time Max answered a question you asked of him ? My guess is that it goes way back in time. Max does respond to others but to a point and he has his reason(s) for why he ends public conversations when he does and sometimes offers to continue through pms.
"He has his reasons". What do you think they are?

I can tell you precisely when he stopped responding to me. When I first realized that the images on his website were faked, showed people how to use Google image search to see where the images on his web site came from, and identified the original source of most of them. Before that, I had assumed he was telling the truth. When he first came to us on MennoDiscuss, there was a Wikipedia article on Plain Catholics. It got deleted because they could not identify this group as a real movement. There was once discussion of Plain Catholics on Catholic Forums. People expressed a lot of doubts about them, threads got heated, and discussion stopped (did their moderators step in and stop it?)

I suspect that Max is here largely to promote this fantasy of Plain Catholics who:
  • Are very good friends with their Amish and Mennonite neighbors (but despite the Mennonite game, none of us seems to be able to find Amish or Mennonites who know them)
  • Raise barns together with their Amish neighbors - but the photo showing this is clearly a copyrighted photo from Ian Adams, whose site identifies it as "an Amish barn raising in Holmes County, Ohio".
  • Often wears Amish-style or German Baptist style clothing - but he never explains why they would identify with Amish or German Baptists, and a simple image search reveals that the photos on his web site are of Amish and German Baptists. And he never explains why a Catholic would choose Amish or German Baptist clothing to be modest, when Catholics have their own traditions of modesty.
  • Has an unbroken history going back to the Catholic Land Movement - but other websites and books tell us this movement died out without leaving a Plain Catholic movement behind it, and the Catholic Land Movement did not look like what they are telling us Plain Catholics look like.
  • Is in general, an awful lot like plain Mennonites theologically, right down to identifying with Schleitheim and the Dordrecht Confession - but he does not want to discuss how you could be a lot like plain Mennonites and still follow the Catechism and Canon Law.
These discrepancies don't go away. He claims that he is answering these things in PMs. Not in the PMs people have forwarded to me or told me about. He is making these claims in public, if they are true, the easiest way to show that is to provide information that resolves the discrepancies. If they are false, then much of his activity on MennoNet is designed to convey a false impression of him and a movement that may not exist.

For instance, in the thread you were responding on, he is telling us that Catholics have a very different teaching on infant baptism than the Catechism and Canon Law seem to teach. If the things he is saying are true, he could provide quotes from official Catholic teaching that say infant baptism is a choice left up to the parents, as he claims, rather than obligatory, as they seem to say.
Sudsy wrote:Boot, I do appreciate your posts and your insight in many areas. However, I don't think you realize just how much of what Max posts, you challenge to be true. It seems obvious to me that his methods of responding or not responding to questions, really irritates you. It often reads to me, 'Beware everyone, Max tells lies'. Just saying what it looks like to me from the side lines. Why not just stay out of any threads Max creates and let him do his thing?
Truth doesn't need special protection. It stands up to questioning. It answers the questions. It only looks like he is lying because he does not answer the questions.

I think the reason I question him so often is that he often says questionable things. I suspect one of his main purposes on MN is to try to get people to believe the things in the list above and other impressions he would like to convey about himself and "Plain Catholics". There are other things he says about himself that I question. If I am wrong, I would like to know that, and straightforward answers would establish that.

But years into this, I still haven't heard straightforward answers to these questions. Instead, he accuses people who ask these questions of being emotionally unstable, spiritually questionable, or abusive. Or makes a big show of shunning them. Most people back off then he starts attacking their character. When things quiet down, he repeats his claims, over and over again, without providing evidence that they are true. And if nobody questions him, at least the newcomers assume that it's all true. We have already seen many threads where he simply repeats a claim, over and over again, after it has been shown false.

I don't think we need to provide special protection for that tactic.
Last edited by Bootstrap on Sun Oct 01, 2017 8:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Bootstrap »

Sudsy wrote:
Judas Maccabeus wrote:Why would anyone refuse to answer questions about what is said here in a public forum publically unless they have something to hide?

Luke 12:3 "Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."

J.M.
For one, if I ask a question of someone and they sense it is not edifying to continue with that conversation, then they might just ignore my question. I have asked questions here also and when they were ignored I took it that person didn't care to go down that path any further or they have been down that path before and suspect where it will end up. Not everyone who bails out on a question is trying to hide something.
But I really don't think that applies to the questions Max refuses to answer. He insists on continuing the conversation, he just refuses to answer the questions. He insists that he is right, and answering basic questions that would establish the truth is out of bounds. And he implies there's something spiritually wrong with the people asking him these questions.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Sudsy »

Although truth is very important, I don't think we can or should check out everything posted here to whether or not it is true. Whoever reads stuff on a forum should realize that not everything is going to be based on proven facts. Often they will be opinions based on some information that may be twisted.

There is a feature here that allows us to report a post when we want a moderator to check into any post made. We also have a foe feature available.

My suggestion is to report any posts made that you do not think should be posted for the reasons you give. If these posts are accepted and the poster is not banned from the forum for unacceptable postings, then we should live with that decision.

Or if anyone's method of posting is unacceptable to us, we can put them on a foe list and not discuss issues with them.

Perhaps we are going too far already discussing publicly how someone else posts or refuses to post. I'm turning this over to the Moderators and Administrators.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by silentreader »

Sudsy wrote:Although truth is very important, I don't think we can or should check out everything posted here to whether or not it is true. Whoever reads stuff on a forum should realize that not everything is going to be based on proven facts. Often they will be opinions based on some information that may be twisted.

From Salvation issues thread....
Thankyou for your input as I, too, am interested in searching out the truth.
......Interesting shift?


There is a feature here that allows us to report a post when we want a moderator to check into any post made. We also have a foe feature available.

My suggestion is to report any posts made that you do not think should be posted for the reasons you give. If these posts are accepted and the poster is not banned from the forum for unacceptable postings, then we should live with that decision.

Or if anyone's method of posting is unacceptable to us, we can put them on a foe list and not discuss issues with them.

Perhaps we are going too far already discussing publicly how someone else posts or refuses to post. I'm turning this over to the Moderators and Administrators.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Bootstrap »

I don't think the moderators think it's their job to figure out who is telling the truth, and I think MN tries not to exclude people. In fact, this was announced clearly on MD.

So I don't think reporting a post works. In a free speech world, the way you establish truth is by looking for the facts, not by asking the moderators to stop people from saying things that don't seem to be true. And in a free speech world, I think each need to be prepared for people to help us see where the things we are saying are not true - I have definitely gotten facts wrong and been corrected, and I have had people steer me in better directions spiritually.

I don't think the foe feature works, either. For one thing, I am not Max's foe. I respond to questions he raises about me, I do not exclude him from my threads, and he obviously does not feel excluded from them. But if the things he is saying about himself or Plain Catholics are true, I think it would be very helpful to have straightforward answers to straightforward questions. And I don't think responding along the lines of "how dare you question me" cuts the mustard. These posts do not violate any forum policy, so they are not "unacceptable postings". I would be happy to learn that I misunderstood something or am lacking some fact, and it turns out that everything he is telling us is true. I'm not there yet.
Sudsy wrote:Perhaps we are going too far already discussing publicly how someone else posts or refuses to post. I'm turning this over to the Moderators and Administrators.
So far, I have not found a better alternative than continuing to point out discrepancies.

Consider the alternative. If people can say things that seem to fly in the face of fact, then defend themselves by taking offense, refusing to discuss it, and repeating the claims, we have decided that taking offense trumps truth. We will have a forum with more taking offense than telling truth. In a free speech forum, which is what Robert and Hans have chosen, continuing to tell the truth is important.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Sudsy »

silentreader wrote:
Sudsy wrote:Although truth is very important, I don't think we can or should check out everything posted here to whether or not it is true. Whoever reads stuff on a forum should realize that not everything is going to be based on proven facts. Often they will be opinions based on some information that may be twisted.

From Salvation issues thread....
Thankyou for your input as I, too, am interested in searching out the truth.
......Interesting shift?

The truth I'm interested in is the truths found in scripture not all these other articles and whatnots that folk reference.

There is a feature here that allows us to report a post when we want a moderator to check into any post made. We also have a foe feature available.

My suggestion is to report any posts made that you do not think should be posted for the reasons you give. If these posts are accepted and the poster is not banned from the forum for unacceptable postings, then we should live with that decision.

Or if anyone's method of posting is unacceptable to us, we can put them on a foe list and not discuss issues with them.

Perhaps we are going too far already discussing publicly how someone else posts or refuses to post. I'm turning this over to the Moderators and Administrators.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Sudsy »

Bootstrap wrote:I don't think the moderators think it's their job to figure out who is telling the truth, and I think MN tries not to exclude people. In fact, this was announced clearly on MD.

So I don't think reporting a post works. In a free speech world, the way you establish truth is by looking for the facts, not by asking the moderators to stop people from saying things that don't seem to be true. And in a free speech world, I think each need to be prepared for people to help us see where the things we are saying are not true - I have definitely gotten facts wrong and been corrected, and I have had people steer me in better directions spiritually.

Well, if it is a free speech issue then we are free to answer questions or not answer them. It is not free speech to demand answers. Obviously your continued questions of Max, imo, does nothing more than to suggest Max is not telling the truth and uses sources that are not the truth. Even though Max does not reply to any of your many questions, you keep asking them. If the plan is to discourage Max from posting, as most everything he says is challenged, it isn't working. Why not just ignore what Max has to say and let the rest of us believe what we want ?

I don't think the foe feature works, either. For one thing, I am not Max's foe. I respond to questions he raises about me, I do not exclude him from my threads, and he obviously does not feel excluded from them. But if the things he is saying about himself or Plain Catholics are true, I think it would be very helpful to have straightforward answers to straightforward questions. And I don't think responding along the lines of "how dare you question me" cuts the mustard. These posts do not violate any forum policy, so they are not "unacceptable postings". I would be happy to learn that I misunderstood something or am lacking some fact, and it turns out that everything he is telling us is true. I'm not there yet.

The foe feature allows you to ignore Max's input. You or me or anyone else here is not going to get Max to 'fill in the blanks', 'clear up mis-understanding', 'answer questions he chooses to not answer', 'provide what we think is helpful' or 'prove anything to be true'. That is what free speech allows and we have to live with it.
Sudsy wrote:Perhaps we are going too far already discussing publicly how someone else posts or refuses to post. I'm turning this over to the Moderators and Administrators.
So far, I have not found a better alternative than continuing to point out discrepancies.

But it isn't working so why not try the 'ignore Max's posts' method ?

Consider the alternative. If people can say things that seem to fly in the face of fact, then defend themselves by taking offense, refusing to discuss it, and repeating the claims, we have decided that taking offense trumps truth. We will have a forum with more taking offense than telling truth. In a free speech forum, which is what Robert and Hans have chosen, continuing to tell the truth is important.

If it isn't important enough to ban people caught not telling the truth then we must live with what we get, imo. However, if you get more followers at demanding Max respond in a certain way, then perhaps Max will pack it in and go elsewhere. It's up to you.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Bootstrap »

Sudsy wrote:Well, if it is a free speech issue then we are free to answer questions or not answer them.
Let me be clear: I believe the free speech issue, as Robert announced in MD days, is that people are not required to tell the truth about themselves. If Max were lying about Plain Catholics or about himself, that would not result in him being banned from the board. He can decide whether to respond to them. But I do care enough about this kind of truth to keep raising these questions. These are questions about who he is and what his relationship is to the Mennonites and Anabaptists on this board. I would hope for a relationship based in truth.

First Amendment advocates often quote Justice Brandeis (Whitney v. California, 1927):
Brandeis wrote:If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.
Sure - I can't demand answers. But I don't think asking the questions is what makes it look like Max is not telling the truth. If he is telling the truth, simple answers would clear things up.

And I don't like gaming the system so that taking offense trumps telling the truth.
Sudsy wrote:The foe feature allows you to ignore Max's input.
That doesn't help us get at the truth, though. And the truth is more important to me than any kind of "being nice" based on falsehood - I don't think that leads to a real relationship. And I think we are looking at some significant issues here. Your initial response raised the issue of banning someone from MN if these kinds of issues existed.
Sudsy wrote:You or me or anyone else here is not going to get Max to 'fill in the blanks', 'clear up mis-understanding', 'answer questions he chooses to not answer', 'provide what we think is helpful' or 'prove anything to be true'. That is what free speech allows and we have to live with it.


Free speech allows him to say whatever he wants. Free speech also allows me to try to determine what is true. If he doesn't answer the questions, I fill in the blanks the best I can. See the bulleted list in the original post. Or do a Google image search to check out the original sources for the images on his website.
Sudsy wrote:But it isn't working so why not try the 'ignore Max's posts' method ?
Who says it isn't working?

Ideally, I would prefer to have a good relationship with Max, and I would like to see him answer questions, correct the facts when he gets something wrong, apologize when he's rude. But I don't think building a relationship based on falsehood is the way to do this. If I am getting any of the facts wrong, I would be happy to explore that. In the meantime, I think it's worth being clear that there are an awful lot of unanswered questions.

But if he is going to keep repeating the same claims without answering these questions, keeping the questions active is working.
Bootstrap wrote:Consider the alternative. If people can say things that seem to fly in the face of fact, then defend themselves by taking offense, refusing to discuss it, and repeating the claims, we have decided that taking offense trumps truth. We will have a forum with more taking offense than telling truth. In a free speech forum, which is what Robert and Hans have chosen, continuing to tell the truth is important.
Sudsy wrote:If it isn't important enough to ban people caught not telling the truth then we must live with what we get, imo. However, if you get more followers at demanding Max respond in a certain way, then perhaps Max will pack it in and go elsewhere. It's up to you.
I wonder what it would take to get banned from MN. But I don't demand that Max respond in any particular way, I don't have much control over his actions. I can keep raising questions. And we can learn from the way he responds to them.

I don't know how to do better than that.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by Sudsy »

Yes, everyone is free to post within the rules. You can continue asking Max questions, he can continue ignoring those questions. Personally, it seems to me, Max does not want a conversational relationship with you at this point and so asking more questions is what I mean by 'not working'. Until you both can get to a point of trusting each other in asking and answering questions, things will carry on as they are. From the sidelines, I'm just sharing what it looks like to me as when people quit answering each other, it often is because they are no longer trusting each other enough to answer.

I know if most things I say are challenged to be proven and/or the exact truth, at some point, I'm going to stop sharing with that person. I doubt few want to be questioned on most every statement they make. I think this is how you approach Max more than any of the rest of us. You don't trust what he says and you have your reasons and he does not trust you for his reasons to reply to your exploring of truth. So, continued questioning seems to be for a different reason than getting a reply as you know you won't get any answers.

Well, I think I've said more than my share on this (hey back off all the 'AMENs' folks :lol: ) and we will continue to observe how much truth is nailed down. I hope both of you will continue to share as I do appreciate your input, especially when it has to do with following Jesus.
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Re: Response to Sudsy on Max

Post by temporal1 »

Bootstrap wrote: .. I wonder what it would take to get banned from MN.
i'm thankful this is not a mystery.
from observation, on MD+MN, each (banned) member has been given "counsel," on forum, and, likely, privately, followed by multiple open warnings, before banning. some reject counsel, or seem unable to understand it; after so long, warnings come along, it's not a joyful process. i'm always thankful decisions are not mine.

on MD, membership was possible to regain, by contacting admin/mods, it was their decision.
i appreciate this. not sure if MN continues that. banning is rare, hopefully, it will remain so.

i believe Robert weeds out many internet trolls, happily, almost all before gaining membership.
thank you, Robert. :D
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