https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/health/toxic-positivity-mental-health-wellness/index.html

A focus on upbeat thinking, while shunting challenging and difficult experiences to the side, is what some experts call "toxic positivity."

"There is an abundance of research that really touts the benefits of positivity, and we're not denying that. When you do so to an extreme, when you dismiss authenticity, that's where problems arise."

I encounter this a lot, with religious people who are generally science deniers and claim climate change is fake news, even as we're choking on carcinogenic clouds of smoke from fires every summer, which hasn't happened before in my lifetime.

> "There is an abundance of research that really
> touts the benefits of positivity, and we're not
> denying that. When you do so to an extreme, when
> you dismiss authenticity, that's where problems
> arise."

Mormonism in a nutshell: dismissing authenticity.

Toxic positivity folks are also really into shaming people for complaining, even if they’re complaining about something very legitimately. I am not big on shaming in most cases, but it can be very demoralizing when people discount your thoughts and opinions... and complaints.

Psychologists are now figuring out that positivity junkies have a problem with dismissing anything challenging or difficult as "negative" to the point of being toxic and ignoring reality? I could have told them that.

And positivity junkies like that are everywhere in Mormonism. I knew fellow inmates at BYU-I (I know BYU-I isn't really a prison, but it felt like it) who treated self-help crap like they treated the BOM and my mother won't listen to anything bad about Mormonism because "it makes her happy" and "brings her peace." If she talked about heroin like she talked about Mormonism, my sisters and I would haul her to rehab.

ookami Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mother won't listen to anything bad
> about Mormonism because "it makes her happy" and
> "brings her peace." If she talked about heroin
> like she talked about Mormonism, my sisters and I
> would haul her to rehab.

Believing Christ rose from the dead is a gateway myth. If you believe that, is there anything you won't believe?
I mean isn't Santa and his flying reindeer a far more plausible reality?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2020 04:34PM by schrodingerscat.

> Believing Christ rose from the dead is a gateway
> myth. If you believe that, is there anything you
> won't believe?
> I mean isn't Santa and his flying reindeer a far
> more plausible reality?

Not really. We all know reindeer can't fly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2020 04:43PM by Nightingale.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Believing Christ rose from the dead is a
> gateway
> > myth. If you believe that, is there anything
> you
> > won't believe?
> > I mean isn't Santa and his flying reindeer a
> far
> > more plausible reality?
>
> Not really. We all know reindeer can't fly.

We all know nobody cheats death.

While it is true that nobody has ever ultimately cheated death, there have been medical cases where people's heartbeats have stopped for a very short time (we're talking less than 30 seconds) and have lived to tell about the experience or lack thereof.

+schrodingerscat:
"Believing Christ rose from the dead is a gateway myth. If you believe that, is there anything you won't believe?
I mean isn't Santa and his flying reindeer a far more plausible reality?"

==Believing in an omniscient and omnipotent god is a gateway to anything and everything.
Ask a believer "Do you believe Santa Claus exists? Do you believe smurfs exist?"

Then ask them "Can god make a Santa Claus and smurfs?"
If the answer is yes, might as well start believing that they exist right now.
If the answer is no, then does the theist know what omnipotent means?

~~~~iceman9090

Just because you're a theist/deist doesn't mean that you believe your god in omnipotent. I believe in gods, but the Old Gods were never seen as omnipotent. That is mainly a belief from the people of the The Book.

Guy, I was comparing my mother's dependence on Mormonism to a heroin addiction, not religion in general. Mom sent thousands of dollars to SLC for hits of dopamine that Mormonism gave her, while she did the bare minimum for her kids.

I thought people would get that if I said Mom's attitude was similar to a heroin junkie (seriously, Mom talked about Mormonism like Mark Renton and his friends talked about heroin at the beginning of "Trainspotting"), but you proved me wrong, SC.

Science discovers extreme attitudes may be bad for you

Toxic positivity? Somebody needs a hug.

Toxic positivity sounds a lot like denial.

It's interesting that toxic positivity and science denialism are placed together in the same thread--they are two very distinct and separate issues with the only real similarity between them being the role of fundamentalist religion promoting both concepts.

While the concept of positive thinking has been around with us for quite some time, the earliest that I know of it being written down was by James Allen, a British minister of the 1800s era. During the 20th century, it was Protestant minister Norman Vincent peale who regularly pushed it, and many businesses, trying to keep labor in line, joined the bandwagon. Positive thinking, whether it be toxic or not, relies on the idea of ignoring "negative" thoughts and ideas in order to fulfill a goal; the problem is, those "negative" thoughts and ideas", especially if they are based upon factual information, can come around and bite you in the keister if you wholly ignore them.

Science denialism first started with the Roman Catholic church and its attempts to deny first Copernicus', and later, Galileo's theories about how the earth revolves around the sun. While the Protestant churches at that time accepted Copernicus' and Galileo's findings (it was a way to poke a hole with their Catholic adversaries), they soon found themselves denying scientific evidence that contradicted Biblical claims about how the earth and human beings were created. In his book on the rebirth of fundamentalist conservatism from the 1990s onward, former Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan speechwriter Kevin (I forget his last name now) notes that the denial of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution was the founding principle of the Moody School of Christianity in Chicago during the late 1800s. While much of the non-Evangelical world has been moving towards secularism, the evangelical world, with some wealthy and powerful names behind it, has been rushing with increasing speed towards Creationism and science denialism.

Isn’t there denialism on the other side? Scientists deny religion all the time. It’s not just on an individual basis, it’s systemic. Want to end your career? Study parapsychology.

Politics and religion are bedfellows, especially in mainstream evangelism which ironically Mormons really don’t like. Maybe because they are too similar that way.

blindguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...the role of fundamentalist religion
> promoting both concepts.

Not just fundamentalist religions, but also New Age, send-your-positive-thoughts-into-the-universe, crystals-and-herbs type people outside conventional religion.

Delusion is no stranger to either side of the aisle.
Parts of California (Hollywood) is full of liberal science deniers, Anti-vaxers. Flat earthers, conspiracy theorists.
There's a lot of crazy on both sides. Up here in WA we have the Ramtha (What The FnCK Do we know" Nexium, free love CULT

It is just Schrodinger's Cat's wave theorem reducing something complex in collapsing things in order to judge them.

Who is going to get the Honor of Doing Ruth Bader Ginsberg's Temple work??? WHO?

Hitlers? DOne.
Stalin? Done.
Mao.... Dunno
William Henry Harrison... DOne.

Not many real people left in the US.... And the creation of Names by Priestcrafthood is still in its infancy....

Who will do RBG?

FUrther more, to inspire more temple work, we should make it a quiet contest of what members are proxies for famous people.

Elvis? DOne.

Just think, in OPEN MIKE SUNDAY, some youngster could get up and say "I was doubting everything, but them I was baptized for and behalf of Julius Ceaser! and my faith has never been stronger!"

Harry Truman? Done.

Bishops interviews could ask "So, who in the kingdom of the Dead have you saved?" and if they cant name some famous household names, which most cant, then they can say "You need to attend the temple more often!"

What about Hugh Heffener? who gets to do his work???

"Hey everyone! I got not only Charlexs Degaulle but also Winston Curchill! Im one holy sun of a beach!"

COntests will make temple work grow and be more popular!!!

Like a sacrament lottery! (I proposed this once) That you put a redc dot on the bottom of a sac cup and whoever gets it, it can be said, may boast of a personal witness to Christ!

BTW, anyone ever pee in the Font?

Like when the child in my class was... um... how to say this... stimulating the spirit of procreation in the temple locker room in st g. He was not quiet about it either.

but, back to the temple work. Ah the temple, where old people can go to treat younger people like crap.

I didn't do much temple work, I was a bad boy. I just didn't go.

My first time I wore the naked poncho. I was on a massive regimine of antibiotics which had the unfortunate sideffect of liquefying my bowels.... when I was 'pushed (poked? Jab bed? fondled?) in the tummy that my bowels my be strong, the containment field failed and we had a breech of less than temple worthiness. It ended right there. I have never been chastised THAT MUCH before or since. It was 18 months before attempt 2 at taking the endowment out.... I left them endowed. Running down my leg, on their poncho and on the holy carpet.

Back to the Work in temples. WOrk? if itsz work then we should be paid. Temples would be more peopular if they gave you a credit against your tithing every time you went.

BUT

That will affect church revenue. So.... Charge an entry fee to get in the temple. if stats show scertain days or times of the year have too many or two few, raise and lower the admission fee. Celestial economics.

The Church would do good to adopt a tithing code as complicated as the tax code... perhapse even randomly call members for a tithing and celestial audit.

WALL OF SHAME!

...or a wall of exaltation! I got this idea in primary. When I was small, they had a wall of levels, or degrees, and then a star wsith each kids name on it. Depending on talks given, prayers given, and loudness in singing, their stars would rise. At the top was written 'Heavenly Fathers house' and we were all told we wanted to make it to his house.

Apparently he was giving candy to strange children or something.

Anyway, the ward bulletin board could have members names on it and their estimation of "if they died today, what degree of glory would they attain?"

TEMPLES TO THE EXTREEME!

Imagine, a talk given in GC where a bogus story (they never use bogus material in GC, but we can hope) tells about the rich man, who sold everything, gave all the money to the church and then camped out on the lawn of the temple so that he could live his life in the shadow of the lord and attend the temple, every session, every day. The most celestial existence possible.

Mormon cemeteries:
Can we have a final judgment engraved on tombstones? a sign or symbol that says which kingdom they made it to? Ressurection be dammed! (Besides, its been stated the Joe Smith has been resurrected even though his bones still lay in the ground-oh wait, just his imperfect bone that he use to penetrate teenagers). There we know where the dead stand!

Who will do RBG's work???

I KNOW!

My brothers and sisters, it has now been revealed to me that a new directive in temple work come forth!

We will have a list of famous names to go through the temple and to the side we will have an enhanced tithing donation necessary to do that name. On top of the 10%, say, if you wanted to be Marlyn Monroe (FYI, her work has already been done) you have to pay an additional $12,500.00 USD in tithes.

This will be the Church of the 21st century!

Oh darn, I seem to have went off my church meds again....

<Drinks the watery, vaguely orange, churchaid>

...eyes glass over...
...mind fogs...
...blinking stops...

I know the Church says it is true. I know Joesph Smith turned a Profit. Love Temples and Tithing. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ (in name of, not the spirit of, or the teachings of--we just need the name).

Amen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2020 05:54PM by Tevai.

"I encounter this a lot, with religious people who are generally science deniers"

I would have to disagree that religious people are science deniers, they are actually mostly the defenders of true science. A big contentious point between secularists and believers is origins of life. The secularists simply don't have conclusive evidence on their side, they are literally relying on some old jaw bone found in Siberia (or somewhere) and a skull found in Africa, and then they've created a whole story out of thin air for the rest of us (and especially the young and dumb) to believe. The evidence is quite pathetic when you stop to look at it.

And as for climate change, at most the earth may have increased 1 degree last century, and this slight deviation has all the activists (with hidden agendas) whining about terrible fires and that is't worse than in the past. The fact is as Americans we are taking care of the Earth much better now than ever in the past. Remember that 100 years ago everyone and their mama was burning coal. It caked everything with black soot, the air was so polluted in cities that you couldn't even see down the street. I thank my lucky stars that we got natural gas now instead.

MacaRomney, I provided the data on climate change to you the other day. You clearly didn't even look at the picture.

As for evolution, you carry the proof in every cell in your body. Are you opposed to the use of DNA in court cases? Do you get flu shots? Has a relative ever been checked for a genetic illness? Those things are all dependent on evolution.

If you don't want to see the truth, you never will.

Pew study on effect of religion on acceptance of climate science.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/

Predictably, White Evangelicals are the most detached from reality.
Even though MORmONS are conspicuously absent, i bet my bottom dollar MORmONS are even more in denial about climate change than white Evangelicals.

Sorry, Nightingale, but that sentence is a little vague. Are you referring to scientific theories in general or CAGW particularly?

Some scientific theories carry more weight than others. This one, IMO, carries little. It does, however, smack of politics. Politicians rave about it all the time. Almost always they say it's fact.

CAGW may be worse than I imagine. It may be 10x worse than its greatest proponent imagines. I don't know.

But what I can state with 100% certainty is that it is not proven and anyone who says different is either lying or ignorant. There is a great deal of science that disputes it. So, it comes down to who you "believe".

To call someone a science denier for taking a stance on a scientific issue that differs from your own is anti-science. It smacks of religious belief -- often fervent when referring to CAGW.

jj

> But what I can state with 100% certainty is that
> it is not proven and anyone who says different is
> either lying or ignorant. There is a great deal of
> science that disputes it. So, it comes down to who
> you "believe".

If there is so much evidence that it is unproved, it should be easy for you to produce references so we can evaluate your argument. Do you have evidence?


--------------
> To call someone a science denier for taking a
> stance on a scientific issue that differs from
> your own is anti-science.

What differentiates science from woo is evidence. Do you have evidence explaining where the dominant theory is wrong?

If not, you are indeed anti-science.


---------------
> It smacks of religious
> belief -- often fervent when referring to CAGW.

Religion is believing something against the facts. Do you have evidence or are we to accept your views on faith?

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Religion is believing something against the facts.

Kinda surprised in this assertion from you. I believe there is the possibility of a religious belief system for which there are no facts they would be against.

Well, that is true. In fact, that's where the doctrinaire religions are heading since they keep changing their positions to avoid new factual discoveries: the ever-shrinking god, in other words.

But in this case, the poster is claiming that belief in global warming is religious, meaning not compatible with established fact. I am merely challenging that, saying that if he were right he could provide evidence. If he cannot do that, then his is a non-factual system of belief.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2020 06:47PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, that is true. In fact, that's where the
> doctrinaire religions are heading since they keep
> changing their positions to avoid new factual
> discoveries: the ever-shrinking god, in other
> words.
>
> But in this case, the poster is claiming that
> belief in global warming is religious, meaning not
> compatible with established fact. I am merely
> challenging that, saying that if he were right he
> could provide evidence. If he cannot do that,
> then his is a non-factual system of belief.

Excellent Pew study on the effect of religion on acceptance of science.
Less dogmatic religions (Buddhism/Hinduism/Judaism/unafilliated) on the Left,
More dogmatic (delusional) religions on right (JWs &MORmONS).

https://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/religious-differences-on-the-question-of-evolution/

Imagine you live in a small town in Kansas with your wife and children. One day a government official comes to your door and says, "Weather forecasters are predicting that a tornado will run right through our town within 24 hours. To safe your family you need to evacuate." Not wanting the hassle of evacuation, you search high and low on the internet, and discover that although the vast majority of weather experts are predicting precisely what the government official had stated. However, not wanting to give up your house, you frantically keep searching, and finally find a person who predicts that the tornado will dissipate before reaching your town. Feeling quite relieved, you gleefully announce to your family that you do not have to leave after all, because you have determined that it has not been "proven" that a tornado will strike."

Your wife, thankfully is much wiser. "You are a damned fool, she says, I am taking the children and leaving." Undeterred, you announce, "Go ahead and go, but this whole thing smacks as politics."