a TEST is coming

[anatess2]

13 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

As Vort, I feel, clearly explained, the point is simply that the outcome of the children doesn't prove a superior choice. It was not meant to imply that one path is superior to the other. That is a different matter, and we disagree, perhaps. But the analogy was not to prove the superior method, it was a direct response to your statement, "I will pit my children against yours any day of the week and twice on Sunday." I'm simply saying that even if your children kicked my children's collective butts it wouldn't prove that having children in public school is the right choice. 

Okay, I understand this now.  That statement, of course, is a joke and was not meant to be a debate contribution.

Edited September 22, 2017 by anatess2

[Vort]

50 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

The risk for inadvertently creating a thought-bubble is greater in homeschooling where challenges to ideas have to be sought instead of organically present.  It is the natural inclination of parents to create ideological "safe spaces".

This is a benefit, not a drawback. Who in their right mind wants their two-year-old exposed to harmful ideologies? How about your four-year-old? Who says that five years old is the appropriate time? Why not ten? Fifteen? No, I see not the least scrap of a convincing reason why young children should be required to leave home for daily indoctrination from the state.

52 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Competition have to be sought instead of organically present.  It is my firm belief that competition makes stronger children.

You're talking to the wrong guy with this point. I am no fan of personal competition. I think it is unGodly.

[JoCa]

35 minutes ago, Vort said:

This is a benefit, not a drawback. Who in their right mind wants their two-year-old exposed to harmful ideologies? How about your four-year-old? Who says that five years old is the appropriate time? Why not ten? Fifteen? No, I see not the least scrap of a convincing reason why young children should be required to leave home for daily indoctrination from the state.

You're talking to the wrong guy with this point. I am no fan of personal competition. I think it is unGodly.

Man . .. without the last sentence I could have liked :-(.

Totally agree to the first paragraph. 

Ultimately we have to think what is the purpose of life: 

1) is the purpose of life to get a fat paycheck, get a big house, be "successful"

or 2) is the purpose of life to be a good person, a good neighbor, get marriage, have kids, continue the circle of life and "education" is only an end to a means. 

Public school today only teaches #1, not #2 . . .it used to also teach #2, but it doesn't anymore.  Public schools today only exist to cram more and more "facts" into kids brains and expose them to as many ideologies out there. No right or wrong, just different ways of seeing the world.  Therefor they end up growing up extremely confused.  Why do you think so many women coming out of high school are feminists and eschew the traditional family .. .b/c what they've been taught for 18 years and indoctrinated with is #1 not #2.

The younger years is the exact time framer where you have to indoctrinate #2, if you do then most likely even if they take a divergent path they will come back to #2.

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

• The risk for inadvertently creating a thought-bubble is greater in homeschooling where challenges to ideas have to be sought instead of organically present.  It is the natural inclination of parents to create ideological "safe spaces".

This is why I like homeschooling.

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

This is a benefit, not a drawback. Who in their right mind wants their two-year-old exposed to harmful ideologies? How about your four-year-old? Who says that five years old is the appropriate time? Why not ten? Fifteen? No, I see not the least scrap of a convincing reason why young children should be required to leave home for daily indoctrination from the state.

The state, of course, is not the only non-homeschool option.

As far as "harmful ideologies"...  Different ideologies is not the same as harmful ideologies.  Of course it depends on where you are in the USA.  Harmful ideologies in Seattle would be more prevalent than in Texas, for example.

The appropriate time for exposure is different for each individual child.  If your kid has reached 15 and he hasn't been exposed to different ideologies and even different cultures, I say it is a disservice to that child's learning.  That's how you end up with... the Hobby Lobby cotton-protester, the kids at Evergreen college, the riots at UC Berkeley... etc. etc.  These kids grew up in environments and  schools where different ideologies are squashed so much so that they can't adequately defend their principles.  It has been my requirement for my children to travel by the time they're 16.  Well, my kids traveled halfway around the world before they reached a year old and, of course, they come from a multi-cultural household and even a multi-religion extended family so exposure to different ideologies/cultures are just a normal part of their lives.

 

1 hour ago, Vort said:

You're talking to the wrong guy with this point. I am no fan of personal competition. I think it is unGodly.

Homeschoolers are well represented in spelling bees and honor societies.  I believe not teaching a kid to compete does him a disservice especially when he has to fight for a job opportunity or even the natural elements in events like bracing yourself against a hurricane.  In any case, scarcity is a fact of life.  Competition for resources is an ever-present human condition.  Competition pushes one's self beyond one's comfort zone to achieve excellence and teaches a child perseverance and how to deal with defeat.  Competition is a natural progression of learning.  When there are 2 kids or more in a household, competition comes organically as kids use each other as a measure or a challenge to better themselves.   The wider the range of competing elements, the more varied the learning becomes.  Let's take a simple game of chess.  My kids play chess almost daily.  They're pretty even  in skill level so they take turns winning.  Their mastery of chess becomes greatly enhanced if they expand their playing field, especially if they play with higher-skilled players.   The field challenges what they know and gives them an opportunity to learn from others better than themselves.

Edited September 22, 2017 by anatess2

[anatess2]

9 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

This is why I like homeschooling.

I'm sure you understand the damage it caused to the children homeschooled by Warren Jeff's family.

[JoCa]

null

Edited September 22, 2017 by JoCa

[JoCa]

1 minute ago, anatess2 said:

I'm sure you understand the damage it caused to the children homeschooled by Warren Jeff's family.

???? What an utterly fallacious argument.  Sorry anatess you've lost this argument.

Children were homeschooled for the vast majority of the time during this nations History . .. your argument == FAIL.

[Vort]

3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Homeschoolers are well represented in spelling bees and honor societies.  I believe not teaching a kid to compete does him a disservice especially when he has to fight for a job opportunity or even the natural elements in events like a hurricane.  Scarcity is a fact of life.  Competition for resources is an ever-present human condition.  Competition pushes one's self beyond one's comfort zone to achieve excellence and teaches a child perseverance and how to deal with defeat.  Competition is a natural progression of learning.  When there are 2 kids or more in a household, competition comes organically as kids use each other as a measure or a challenge to better themselves.   The wider the range of competing elements, the more varied the learning becomes.  Let's take a simple game of chess.  My kids play chess almost daily.  They're pretty even  in skill level so they take turns winning.  Their mastery of chess becomes greatly enhanced if they expand their playing field, especially if they play with higher-skilled players.   The field challenges what they know and gives them an opportunity to learn from others better than themselves.

You make a reasonably compelling case for competition. But tell me: Was Jesus Christ, our exemplar in all things, competitive? Did he rejoice in his victory over his brothers and sisters? Did he strive to demonstrate to everyone else just how excellent he was? Did he seek the admiration or envy of others?

Of course, we cannot know such things for sure. But being "the best" doesn't mean you're excellent, or even competent. It simply means you are top of the heap, that you don't suck quite as badly as everyone else. Conversely, you can be exquisitely excellent, yet not "the best", so you don't win the head-to-head competition. Your excellence means nothing when you come in second place.

This, to me, is antiChrist.

[anatess2]

2 minutes ago, JoCa said:

???? What an utterly fallacious argument.  Sorry anatess you've lost this argument.

Children were homeschooled for the vast majority of the time during this nations History . .. your argument == FAIL.

You must not be following the conversation.  Vort asked what are the RISKS of homeschooling.  Thought-bubbles is a risk of homeschooling.  People who succeed at homeschooling mitigate this risk.  Warren Jeffs wives did not.  You understand now?

[The Folk Prophet]

Just now, anatess2 said:

I'm sure you understand the damage it caused to the children homeschooled by Warren Jeff's family.

I maintain the right to raise my children according my own peculiar beliefs. Pending literal physical harm to a child, I maintain it for other people too. I will stand up for Warren Jeffs right to teach his children according to his peculiar beliefs just as I will stand up for a Muslim's rights or a Catholic's right. 

[anatess2]

39 minutes ago, Vort said:

You make a reasonably compelling case for competition. But tell me: Was Jesus Christ, our exemplar in all things, competitive? Did he rejoice in his victory over his brothers and sisters? Did he strive to demonstrate to everyone else just how excellent he was? Did he seek the admiration or envy of others?

Of course, we cannot know such things for sure. But being "the best" doesn't mean you're excellent, or even competent. It simply means you are top of the heap, that you don't suck quite as badly as everyone else. Conversely, you can be exquisitely excellent, yet not "the best", so you don't win the head-to-head competition. Your excellence means nothing when you come in second place.

This, to me, is antiChrist.

Jesus Christ is perfect so he has no need to better himself.  But that said, it's probably okay to say Christ competes with the devil for our hearts and minds.  He rejoices in his victory over evil.  He, of course, strives for us to see his example as excellent, hence, he spent all that time teaching us.  Competition does not seek the admiration or envy of others.  That's bad sportsmanship.

Competition is not about beating other people.  Competition is about bettering yourself.  One cannot measure how much one knows unless he pits what he knows against somebody/something else.   Competition is not just sports.  It is everything in life.  I compete with my coworkers to get a raise.   I compete with the measuring tape to lose weight.  I compete with the karaoke machine scoring thingee to improve my pitch.  The same competitive drive applies to all of them.  The best illustration of this that you're familiar with is MMA.  When 2 guys go on the octagon their enemy is not the other guy.  Their enemy is themselves.  So that, it might look like they're hating on each other trying to kill each other and you wonder how in the world they're going to be friends after 15 minutes of it.  Yet you still see them showing love and respect - win or lose - after a match.  That's because all the match really did was give both the winner and the loser a measure of their skill.   Rarely do you find someone who never ever loses.  You win some, you lose some.  That's the norm.  The Jones vs Cormier  fight, for example.  Cormier almost walked out of the octagon after he lost the belt to Jones he was so mad.  But Cormier was not mad at Jones.  He was mad at himself.  He thought he was better than that and that match proved he isn't.  It forcefully humbled him and it made him mad.  Jones was gracious in his victory.  So then Jones went drug positive again (what an idiot!) and lost the belt back to Cormier.  That belt means nothing to Cormier now.  He's not rejoicing that he's "top of the heap" or "he doesn't suck".  None of that.  That's not what competition is about.  Cormier knows he is not who he thought he was.  The belt doesn't change that.  On the other hand... Tonya Evinger went 3 rounds and lost to Cyborg.  This meant everything to Evinger!  Evinger started the fight visibly lacking in confidence.  She was scared.  Towards the middle of the 1st round you can see her confidence building so much so that by the end of the 3rd round where she lost by TKO, you can see how happy she was with her performance.  She just learned she's got what it takes to last 3 rounds with a legendary fighter.  So, as you can see here, Cyborg was not an enemy.  She was the measuring stick.  A mountain Evinger can pit herself against to see what she's got.  Evinger's enemy was herself.

THAT is the essence of competition.  Anything that is not that is bad sportsmanship.  One can learn excellent sportsmanship by competing.  It doesn't have to be sports.  It can be grades - compete against 100%.  The other kids' grades shows you what is possible and they can be your measuring stick.  The more kids in the class, the more varied the skill, the better the measuring stick.  If you get the highest score and you think you're top dog and lord over your "win", you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.  If you get the lowest score and you think you're worthless so you get depressed and try to kill yourself  you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.

Rather than competition being unGodly, I see competition as a great service to others.

Edited September 22, 2017 by anatess2

[Traveler]

3 hours ago, Vort said:

I believe you're misinterpreting what he did, anatess. He was responding narrowly to an element of what you had said; as he wrote, "the outcome of the children isn't the point."

TFP set up a fictitious, obviously staged situation where a traditional method of doing a task had gotten progressively more dangerous. A non-traditional method had been developed that, while still potentially dangerous, was safer when used correctly than the traditional method. He then stated that even if there existed carefully trained children who managed to complete the task safely using the more dangerous method and poorly trained children who failed to complete the task using the new method, that would not prove that the old method was somehow "better" than the new method.

I thought the metaphor actually worked quite well. You may or may not agree with the application -- that is, you may argue that sending your children to public school is not the "progressively more dangerous traditional method" and homeschooling not the "safer non-traditional method" -- but I thought his point came through. The comparative outcome of any two randomly chosen students can't reliably be used to gauge the overall effectiveness vs. danger of the two methods.

 

I agree with you and @The Folk Prophet, but only in part.  I have observed that symbolic and metaphoric examples of the lessor of two evils can also be misleading because something worse can always be found for anything that is bad.  Just because we can find something that is worse – it does not justify something that is bad.  Even if there are times that choosing the lessor of two evil is necessary – just because the lesser of two evil was chosen; it does not in turn make that which is less evil; good.

 

The Traveler

[Vort]

15 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Jesus Christ is perfect so he has no need to better himself.  But that said, it's probably okay to say Christ competes with the devil for our hearts and minds.  He rejoices in his victory over evil.  He, of course, strives for us to see his example as excellent, hence, he spent all that time teaching us.  Competition does not seek the admiration or envy of others.  That's bad sportsmanship.

Competition is not about beating other people.  Competition is about bettering yourself.  One cannot measure how much one knows unless he pits what he knows against somebody/something else.   Competition is not just sports.  It is everything in life.  I compete with my coworkers to get a raise.   I compete with the measuring tape to lose weight.  I compete with the karaoke machine scoring thingee to improve my pitch.  The same competitive drive applies to all of them.  The best illustration of this that you're familiar with is MMA.  When 2 guys go on the octagon their enemy is not the other guy.  Their enemy is themselves.  So that, it might look like they're hating on each other trying to kill each other and you wonder how in the world they're going to be friends after 15 minutes of it.  Yet you still see them showing love and respect - win or lose - after a match.  That's because all the match really did was give both the winner and the loser a measure of their skill.   Rarely do you find someone who never ever loses.  You win some, you lose some.  That's the norm.  The Jones vs Cormier  fight, for example.  Cormier almost walked out of the octagon after he lost the belt to Jones he was so mad.  But Cormier was not mad at Jones.  He was mad at himself.  He thought he was better than that and that match proved he isn't.  It forcefully humbled him and it made him mad.  Jones was gracious in his victory.  So then Jones went drug positive again (what an idiot!) and lost the belt back to Cormier.  That belt means nothing to Cormier now.  He's not rejoicing that he's "top of the heap" or "he doesn't suck".  None of that.  That's not what competition is about.  Cormier knows he is not who he thought he was.  The belt doesn't change that.  On the other hand... Tonya Evinger went 3 rounds and lost to Cyborg.  This meant everything to Evinger!  Evinger started the fight visibly lacking in confidence.  She was scared.  Towards the middle of the 1st round you can see her confidence building so much so that by the end of the 3rd round where she lost by TKO, you can see how happy she was with her performance.  She just learned she's got what it takes to last 3 rounds with a legendary fighter.  So, as you can see here, Cyborg was not an enemy.  She was the measuring stick.  A mountain Evinger can pit herself against to see what she's got.  Evinger's enemy was herself.

THAT is the essence of competition.  Anything that is not that is bad sportsmanship.  One can learn excellent sportsmanship by competing.  It doesn't have to be sports.  It can be grades - compete against 100%.  The other kids' grades shows you what is possible and they can be your measuring stick.  The more kids in the class, the more varied the skill, the better the measuring stick.  If you get the highest score and you think you're top dog and lord over your "win", you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.  If you get the lowest score and you think you're worthless so you get depressed and try to kill yourself  you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.

Rather than competition being unGodly, I see competition as a great service to others.

Again, an eloquent defense of competition, but it rings hollow to me.

When two MMA fighters go at it, you had better believe they're trying to beat the other guy. This is true in ANY sport. A sloppy, ugly win IS STILL A WIN. In high-level sports competitions, moral victories do not exist. The very best, most competitive loser in the world is still -- that's right -- a loser. And THAT is the essence of competition.

God competes with Satan for our affections? Perhaps. You may have something here. But this is not "competition" in any normal sense. God's effort is to entice us to know and understand better, while Satan entices us to ignorance and debauchery. If we freely choose to follow the way of the flesh, God does not stop us.

The apostle Paul made several references to competition, comparing our life to running a race. Many other Church leaders have used metaphors of competition. I realize that in our fallen world, our best economic and political systems rely on competition to thrive -- indeed, the avoidance of competition in government and the marketplace inevitably results in conditions of slavery. Thus competition is seen as good. But I do not believe it is good.

Winston Churchill famously stated, "Democ­ra­cy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those oth­er forms that have been tried from time to time." The same can be said of capitalism as an economic system. These things are not good; they are merely less bad than the alternatives. I am not cynical enough to believe those are the same thing. But that is what competition implies. It's the Darwinian jungle of the fallen world. Whoever and whatever survives and conquers must therefore be the fittest.

I strongly disbelieve that this is the nature of God. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my distaste for personal competition and my resultant relative failure to excel in most areas of my life are nothing but an indictment of my own foolishness. But the joy I have felt from any competitive victory I have gained has almost always been tempered with sympathy for the guy who lost to me. That kind of victory is not very sweet, at least not to me.

[zil]

15 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

One cannot measure how much one knows unless he pits what he knows against somebody/something else.

Nonsense.  One needs only compare what one knows to what is knowable - something easily figured out without measuring the knowledge of others, let alone comparing yours to theirs.

You seem to have your own definition of competition that doesn't (always) require a sentient opponent.  The dictionary (and the majority of Americans, I'd wager) disagrees:

Quote

strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same

Note the bit in bold.  This is a mentality.  It is an attitude.  One can clearly be successful without this attitude (I am proof even if I am the only one - I'm certain I'm not).  I think this is the attitude @Vort is rejecting as being not Christlike.  I agree with him.  In eternity, there is no need for competition because all things are infinite - all can have all without anyone needing to have less, be defeated, or be made inferior to others.

[The Folk Prophet]

42 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Jesus Christ is perfect so he has no need to better himself.  But that said, it's probably okay to say Christ competes with the devil for our hearts and minds.  He rejoices in his victory over evil.  He, of course, strives for us to see his example as excellent, hence, he spent all that time teaching us.  Competition does not seek the admiration or envy of others.  That's bad sportsmanship.

Competition is not about beating other people.  Competition is about bettering yourself.  One cannot measure how much one knows unless he pits what he knows against somebody/something else.   Competition is not just sports.  It is everything in life.  I compete with my coworkers to get a raise.   I compete with the measuring tape to lose weight.  I compete with the karaoke machine scoring thingee to improve my pitch.  The same competitive drive applies to all of them.  The best illustration of this that you're familiar with is MMA.  When 2 guys go on the octagon their enemy is not the other guy.  Their enemy is themselves.  So that, it might look like they're hating on each other trying to kill each other and you wonder how in the world they're going to be friends after 15 minutes of it.  Yet you still see them showing love and respect - win or lose - after a match.  That's because all the match really did was give both the winner and the loser a measure of their skill.   Rarely do you find someone who never ever loses.  You win some, you lose some.  That's the norm.  The Jones vs Cormier  fight, for example.  Cormier almost walked out of the octagon after he lost the belt to Jones he was so mad.  But Cormier was not mad at Jones.  He was mad at himself.  He thought he was better than that and that match proved he isn't.  It forcefully humbled him and it made him mad.  Jones was gracious in his victory.  So then Jones went drug positive again (what an idiot!) and lost the belt back to Cormier.  That belt means nothing to Cormier now.  He's not rejoicing that he's "top of the heap" or "he doesn't suck".  None of that.  That's not what competition is about.  Cormier knows he is not who he thought he was.  The belt doesn't change that.  On the other hand... Tonya Evinger went 3 rounds and lost to Cyborg.  This meant everything to Evinger!  Evinger started the fight visibly lacking in confidence.  She was scared.  Towards the middle of the 1st round you can see her confidence building so much so that by the end of the 3rd round where she lost by TKO, you can see how happy she was with her performance.  She just learned she's got what it takes to last 3 rounds with a legendary fighter.  So, as you can see here, Cyborg was not an enemy.  She was the measuring stick.  A mountain Evinger can pit herself against to see what she's got.  Evinger's enemy was herself.

THAT is the essence of competition.  Anything that is not that is bad sportsmanship.  One can learn excellent sportsmanship by competing.  It doesn't have to be sports.  It can be grades - compete against 100%.  The other kids' grades shows you what is possible and they can be your measuring stick.  The more kids in the class, the more varied the skill, the better the measuring stick.  If you get the highest score and you think you're top dog and lord over your "win", you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.  If you get the lowest score and you think you're worthless so you get depressed and try to kill yourself  you just exercised poor sportsmanship and you need to be taught better.

Rather than competition being unGodly, I see competition as a great service to others.

Whereas I tend to agree with you, this idea makes home-schooling every bit as valid for competition as public school.

[The Folk Prophet]

29 minutes ago, Traveler said:

 

I agree with you and @The Folk Prophet, but only in part.  I have observed that symbolic and metaphoric examples of the lessor of two evils can also be misleading because something worse can always be found for anything that is bad.  Just because we can find something that is worse – it does not justify something that is bad.  Even if there are times that choosing the lessor of two evil is necessary – just because the lesser of two evil was chosen; it does not in turn make that which is less evil; good.

 

The Traveler

This is irrelevant to the idea that choosing the greater of two evils is foolish.

[laronius]

The wrong or right of competition is all about mentality. If your goal is to become better than you were then it is good. If your goal is to be better than others are then it is not good. I think that is what @anatess2 is getting at.

[The Folk Prophet]

I think that saying we don't need competition in this life because we won't in the eternities equates to claiming we don't need...let's say....food in this life because we won't in the eternities. (There are a myriad of mortal things I could have chosen instead.)

Competition, in my view, is a necessity of life.

[Colirio]

And yet there seems to be a competition in this very discussion...

 

Which is ironic considering that this thread originally started about a discussion of a potentially divisive test coming in the near future. 

 

 

My own thoughts would be there are varying types of competition. It could be said that repentance is a type of competition that takes place within our own soul between the natural man and the spiritual man. Likewise, there has been a war for souls since before mortality. If opposition is considered to be competition, then Lehi said that it is in all things. Even my muscles cannot grow stronger without opposing forces. 

 

When Alma fought against Amlici, I believe that God strengthened Alma to slay his opponent. There was nothing unGodly in Alma's actions, but there was certainly evil in Amlici's heart. 

 

Maybe I am reading too much into it... 

 

In answer to the original thoughts about an upcoming test:

 

I would say that in order to pass any such test, following the prophets and apostles would lead us down the right path. Perhaps, we might even recognize the test for what it is through the Holy Ghost. 

[zil]

Just now, laronius said:

The wrong or right of competition is all about mentality. If your goal is to become better than you were then it is good. If your goal is to be better than others are then it is not good. I think that is what @anatess2 is getting at.

Perhaps, but to the dictionary (and I still maintain that most American minds agree), in order for it to be competition, part of the intent must be to defeat another, or to establish superiority over them.  It is this idea which I reject.  I don't believe for a moment that one can only be successful in mortality with this attitude.  You can claim that attitude is not required for competition, but I'm not convinced it's still competition without that attitude.  It might be effort or discipline or a challenge, but I'm not convinced it can be competition.

[laronius]

1 minute ago, zil said:

Perhaps, but to the dictionary (and I still maintain that most American minds agree), in order for it to be competition, part of the intent must be to defeat another, or to establish superiority over them.  It is this idea which I reject.  I don't believe for a moment that one can only be successful in mortality with this attitude.  You can claim that attitude is not required for competition, but I'm not convinced it's still competition without that attitude.  It might be effort or discipline or a challenge, but I'm not convinced it can be competition.

I totally agree. The difference (and this is all probably just a case of jargon) is that one does not have to win the competition to be happy and satisfied with the outcome of the competition.

[anatess2]

37 minutes ago, Vort said:

Again, an eloquent defense of competition, but it rings hollow to me.

When two MMA fighters go at it, you had better believe they're trying to beat the other guy. This is true in ANY sport. A sloppy, ugly win IS STILL A WIN. In high-level sports competitions, moral victories do not exist. The very best, most competitive loser in the world is still -- that's right -- a loser. And THAT is the essence of competition.

God competes with Satan for our affections? Perhaps. You may have something here. But this is not "competition" in any normal sense. God's effort is to entice us to know and understand better, while Satan entices us to ignorance and debauchery. If we freely choose to follow the way of the flesh, God does not stop us.

The apostle Paul made several references to competition, comparing our life to running a race. Many other Church leaders have used metaphors of competition. I realize that in our fallen world, our best economic and political systems rely on competition to thrive -- indeed, the avoidance of competition in government and the marketplace inevitably results in conditions of slavery. Thus competition is seen as good. But I do not believe it is good.

Winston Churchill famously stated, "Democ­ra­cy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those oth­er forms that have been tried from time to time." The same can be said of capitalism as an economic system. These things are not good; they are merely less bad than the alternatives. I am not cynical enough to believe those are the same thing. But that is what competition implies. It's the Darwinian jungle of the fallen world. Whoever and whatever survives and conquers must therefore be the fittest.

I strongly disbelieve that this is the nature of God. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my distaste for personal competition and my resultant relative failure to excel in most areas of my life are nothing but an indictment of my own foolishness. But the joy I have felt from any competitive victory I have gained has almost always been tempered with sympathy for the guy who lost to me. That kind of victory is not very sweet, at least not to me.

I think I may have not expressed "the other guy" accurately.  In certain competitions, especially sports, you're trying to beat the other guy.  But this is not because the other guy is your enemy.  It is because - the other guy is the challenge you're pitting yourself up against  This might be better expressed n other competitions - e.g. mountain climbing - the other guy is a mountain.  So when you've climbed the top of the mountain, the common reference to that is "I beat the mountain".  As you can see, the mountain is not the enemy.  Beating the mountain did not cause you to diminish the mountain nor made you better than the mountain and every mountain climber who has ever uttered, "I beat the mountain" knows this.

The problem with high-level sports is that  a whole bunch of them are bad sportsmen.  Ronda Rousey is the poster child of a bad sportsman and tons of young girls looked up to her so much so that the flyweight champion emulated her example and is a bad sportsman too!  Rousey stood on top of the heap and LEARNED NOTHING.  She thought she was "all that" and she gloated over the other women instead of learning from them.  Whereas, all the other women had her as their measuring stick to pit against getting better and better and better until finally one beat her.  But, instead of learning from that and expanding her skillset to better herself, she went into a depression cycle and went into denial.  She went into the next fight completely unchanged continuing to insult her way to the fight.  Her last fight was not a statement of Rousey's skill or lack thereof - she was irrelevant.  Rather, her last fight was a statement of how drastically better females have become in the world of MMA.

If I may inject my opinion on your "failure to excel" statement.  I don't think it is a byproduct of competition being a bad learning experience for you.  Rather, I would daresay that you did not understand the measuring stick.  You thought that to excel you have to beat the other guy.  This is not true.  To excel simply means that you have achieved a certain level of proficiency.   But, excelling is not necessarily the goal of competition.  Experience/learning is the more common goal of competition.  But whether you're competing to excel or simply to experience,  the purpose of competition is to become better than you were when you last competed.  The score in itself is not the achievement.  Competitors serve each other by becoming the "tool" by which a competitor can get a challenge to be able to improve himself.

About competition and Godliness.  Competition is merely for the mortal condition.  There is no need for competition within perfection.  I don't know enough about how we progress in the kingdoms to know if competition is even possible, let alone learned from.

 

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by anatess2

[anatess2]

17 minutes ago, Colirio said:

And yet there seems to be a competition in this very discussion...

If you're talking about my conversation with @Vort or @The Folk Prophet then that is not competition.  I'm not pitting myself against any of them.  I'm simply stating what I believe, they state what they believe and I analyze it to see if I need to change my belief.  Mostly, we are talking so we can try to understand where the other is coming from.  That's not competition.

[zil]

59 minutes ago, laronius said:

I totally agree. The difference (and this is all probably just a case of jargon) is that one does not have to win the competition to be happy and satisfied with the outcome of the competition.

I would phrase this as: one does not have to compete to have a successful outcome.