Bill Reel – Thanks Ray

I agree with HG…he has been angry more. I think he is trying to present himself as calm and not angry…but his issues and questions are not middle ground. He may be in denial of his anger since the policy statement. Just my feel. He is not equally supportive and questioning…he is always pushing leadership positions, it seems to me.

I still have concerns with his approach on this site. He comes and posts…leaves a link for the podcast he did, and others are responding in support for his post and responding to him…he isn’t involved in the discussion…simply is posting stuff and then vanishes.

Feels like he is advertising.

In the past his stuff seemed to be supportive to help people stay, and kind of stood on its own to help people whether he responded or not. This post isn’t really the supportive post or link. So if he wants to ask us the questions, read responses and discuss…that is one thing…but not just come a post a bunch of things with his anger and not be involved in the discussion of it. The only response I see from him was a reference to his podcast as the source of the post. People are responding with sympathetic responses to him, with no indication he is reading or involved.

I think someone should PM him about it.

He is also not acting as a moderator in any capacity. Those access and privileges should be revoked if he is not a moderator.

That’s my take. Anyone else?

Ironically, the thread about asking questions is what may be shut down because of the intent Bill clarified…not for himself…but a call for leaders to respond.

No leader is gonna come here and respond.

I added another admin note. LH had a good question.

Would we be hypocrites to not let people talk about issues and shut it down or delete the topic…when the topic is about how to ask questions and the church doesn’t allow it? Isn’t that what we are here for? To discuss what the church doesn’t?

Church leaders have tried to communicate this concept of questions, tone, intent, etc. They may not have done the best job but I think I understand what they are trying to communicate.

I don’t need answers to these questions for myself. I already have my personal answers.

This hits on where I’ve tried to draw my line.

During the prequel to my faith crisis my questions were very real. I honest to god did not know how to process my new thoughts. I went to the bishop with questions that I was seeking answers to. I remember asking “Why are the facsimiles still in our scriptures if they don’t mean what JS said they meant?” I was vocalizing my cognitive dissonance and was trying to leader-source because I had drawn nothing but blanks. As luck would have it my bishop had a companion on his mission that now works for the Neal A Maxwell Institute (NAMI :think: ) and he put me in contact with him. At the time I was still taking the approach of asking questions with the intent of stuffing the genie back into the bottle.

These days I have what I feel are the answers. They may not be the correct answers but they are mine, I own them. If I were to return to that BP (now in the SP in a different stake) and ask that exact same question, “Why are the facsimiles still in our scriptures if they don’t mean what JS said they meant?” I’d likely be doing it to watch the poor guy squirm. I don’t want to do that, so I won’t ask the question. That’s what makes these matters so difficult to address. On the surface the questions are the exact same, it’s not the question itself, it’s something more.

That’s my little story about it not being the question so much as what motivates the question. In this case DBMormon already has personal answers so the chips fall on “don’t ask” but that’s my current rule for me.

I’d rather not see the thread be deleted, people can learn from it what they may, but I wouldn’t be opposed to locking it if the tone gets negative.

His 23 questions was really more like 3-4 questions with different examples of them. That seemed to me like the Jeremy Runnells approach (who BTW is being exed).

I’m in favor of locking the thread. I didn’t like it to begin with, but played along because I do stupid things sometimes. (OK, I do stupid things a lot. )

Good work, everyone.

I agree that this was handled well by all involved. I liked the Statement that DJ provided and felt that it was a very reasonable and measured response.

I favor sitting on the moderator thing for a while. There is no hurry and we don’t want to give the wrong impression.

I worried that some might see a replay of the FARMS/Maxwell Institute incident where they excised Bill from their database (even removing him from a panel discussion that he had moderated). I believe that we have acted in such a reasonable way that it would now be hard to draw that parallel.

I will contact Bill privately to make sure that he understands our position.