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Doug Philips is a tool (at best) and the now defunct Vision Forum - Part 3


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2 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Khendra,

Welcome to FJ. 

Reading your first post prompted me to search on Jon N & brain typing, and this was 4th in the Google results, right after Wikipedia: A skeptic looks at brain typing

I have not held Jordan in high esteem since he - IMO - put fathers into a position of ultimate authority when he strongly criticized a young couple's elopement as father-dishonoring. Reading the "skepdic" analysis of father  Niednagel's method of making a living put pops right there next to his son in my estimation.

I don't mean to turn this into a rag on them, but I have wondered for years, and maybe you can tell us: Does Jon actually still make a great living on brain typing? Enough that  Jordan -- and possibly others -- support his (their)  family entirely by working for Jon's outfit?

My heart sank - and this is not a criticism of you - when I read your second post, where you wondered how insecure Jordan's first son might turn out because of the "brain typing letters" his family see in him. 

The world already labels us way too much, we certainly don't need another system to do so. And those of us who are Christians, absolutely, when we consider how to live and believe and identify ourselves, should be looking to the words about The Word (Jesus).

Not to some even more vile version of predestination. 

One more question: from your vantage point, how far do you see the brain typing idea influencing the world around it? (From where I sit, it seems to be confined to the Niednagel family & extended family [except maybe Jeremy]. I hope that's accurate, but I think I can take the truth as you see it!) Only if you feel comfortable answering, of course. 

Thank you for posting here!

Thanks, MJ.

JN does still seem to be employed by the Boston Celtics in some fashion as a talent scout.  Past articles have stated that he makes a decent living off doing this, though there are disputes as to whether it's in the six figure range or not.  They hide these kinds of things from the public for whatever reason(s).  I don't even know what Jordan and Jeremy do for a living other than Jordan having web design as at least a part-time gig.

But yes, they have gone way too far lately with Brain Types; in the earlier years, they were far more balanced and kept things pretty straightforward with focus primarily on motor skills -- but in recent years, they've extrapolated FAR beyond that, and quite dogmatically and poorly on a number of issues.  This includes ridiculous attempts to "moralize" the types by rank (ISTJ, ISFJ, and INFJ at the top with ENTP, ESFP, ESTP at the bottom -- this is basically the list that Jordan sent me in an email years ago), and assert overly simplistic absolutes about each type's cognitive processing that ignore contrary data and don't control well for environmental influences or correlation/causation (I could cite numerous examples, including a particularly badly done "study" on how the Sensing types allegedly view gun control, but I want to keep this on-topic -- anyone who is curious, I can go into more detail if asked).  Dario Nardi (unaffiliated) has been a lot better about classifying and quantifying the cognitive aspects of the 16 type "Myers-Briggs" system through EEG, and doing so without being arrogant or showing favoritism to certain types.  Niednagel should stick primarily to classifying and quantifying the motor movements of each type, and leave the neuroscience to people actually trained with proper interpretive and experiential methodology.

So in summary, to answer your last question a little more concisely, I think the system has some merit and uses, and could influence the world to some degree, but it has to be considered carefully alongside all kinds of other important factors that heavily influence brain and behavior besides genotype (BTI occasionally gives credence to these, including neurotransmitters in the brain, but frankly not often enough).  Jeremy has stated that it's possible there are more than 16 types, and even Daddy has alluded to subtypes within the 16, but there's a lot more research to go.

Hope that helps.

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Thank you, @Khendra.  Couldn't help but chuckle at the word "research" after having read the Skeptic's article earlier. Your insights very much appreciated. I've been meaning to go to JN's website and read up. Now it's on my to-do list!!

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Polka shows were a TV staple on Sunday mornings in the upper midwest, when I was growing up in the 1950s & 1960s.
And here's a link to a 24-7-365 polka radio station out of Appleton, WI


They were well into the 90's in Nebraska! Polka Party was on every Sunday after church services aired - I grew up to the sweet sounds of Ernie Kucera or The Bouncing Czechs!
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There are still radio stations with lunchtime polka birthday dedications in Southeast TX.  The actual dedication is in Czech or German.  I've picked up this station between Cuero and Gozales, when the Corpus Christi NPR fades out but before Austin NPR kicks in. 

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On 12/23/2016 at 7:58 PM, DomWackTroll said:

Howl, I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic for the Vision Forum "Non-Christmas" catalogs. It was so fun, every year, to watch Doug plaster the pages with mistletoe, wreaths, evergreens, snow-covered cottages, fireside family scenes, and his own children dressed up in vaguely angel-y costumes-- and then struggle to not use the "C Word." 

"Winter Wonderland!" "Let It Snow!" "Join Us on a Sleigh Ride!" Oh, Doug... We all know you really, really want to say it. 

Don't you remember? During the Obama years we were forbidden to utter the word "Christmas"!

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4 hours ago, Howl said:

There are still radio stations with lunchtime polka birthday dedications in Southeast TX.  The actual dedication is in Czech or German.  I've picked up this station between Cuero and Gozales, when the Corpus Christi NPR fades out but before Austin NPR kicks in. 

There's a big German presence in TX -- think the epicenter is around New Braunfels & Fredericksburg.

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6 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

There's a big German presence in TX -- think the epicenter is around New Braunfels & Fredericksburg.

Yes, that's how I got here on my mother's side of the family.  My ancestors had arrived from the Alsace Lorraine area prior to the start of the Civil War and my grandmother grew up in New Braunfels. Other family members ended up in Boerne, (not so far from Fredericksburg), home of the notorious Boerne Christian Assembly, which brings us back full cicle to just how we came to know Doug Phillips.  

There's also a fascinating history of German immigrants who came to establish utopian Freethinker communities in the 1840s,  in the general Boerne/Fredericksburg area.  Indulge me here -- this is related to a piece of that history that caused another mini civil war in the little town of Comfort (down the road from Boerne) around the Year 2000 that made the New York Times. 

Quote

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, military authorities in Texas issued an ultimatum to the citizens: take oaths of allegiance to the Confederacy or suffer the consequences. A group of nearly 100 immigrant German intellectuals now known as ''freethinkers,'' opposed to slavery and secession, fled south from here toward the Mexican border to join the Union forces or wait out the war in Mexico.

Caught en route by Confederate militiamen, 36 of the freethinkers were killed in two separate battles and their remains were returned to this small farming community for burial. A marker was erected that read ''Treue der Union'' (''Loyalty to the Union'') and for more than a century the freethinkers have rested under the branches of a giant live oak tree.

But recent efforts to build a memorial to them has set off yet another battle, this one tinged with the very issues that cost them their lives. In addition to their outspoken support for equal rights and free speech, many freethinkers were atheists or agnostics, a fact that some of their descendants in this highly religious community with six churches find distasteful.

When proponents of the memorial wanted wording on a historical marker to note that the freethinkers followed no religious dogma and built no churches, more than 700 people opposed the wording with a petition headlined ''No Monument to Atheism in Comfort.''

Full text here.

Edward Scharf's brief history of Freethinkers in the Texas Hill Country is here

The rigors of frontier life in Texas meant these little utopian communities didn't last long, but they are an important part of the immigrant narrative in this part of Texas.

My mom told me that my grandmother's family were likely Lutheran free thinkers.  

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@Howl, brand-new history for me to read up on!  Many thanks. 

I've not read the whole article but I will take this opportunity to say: when we start picking and choosing which history to tell, we're in deep deep doo doo.

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Here's something that came to me last night.  These Brain Typing guys are passing themselves off as legitimate scientists who claim to have nailed the genesis of behavior and the brain, but somehow still think that being gay is a preference.  

Yeah, me too. 

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On 2/3/2017 at 11:19 PM, hoipolloi said:
There's a big German presence in TX -- think the epicenter is around New Braunfels & Fredericksburg.


Indeed and they are much less "Confederate" minded, which is a good and needed balance on the state.

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Edward Scharf's brief history of Freethinkers in the Texas Hill Country is here
The rigors of frontier life in Texas meant these little utopian communities didn't last long, but they are an important part of the immigrant narrative in this part of Texas.
My mom told me that my grandmother's family were likely Lutheran free thinkers.  


At the local cemetery where I grew up you find headstones of Freethinkers. It seemed to be a thing in Czech communities as well - and like Texas, that is a history that many locals don't put out there. But I would say the community isn't uber-religious to this day unlike some other areas of the Midwest.
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On 2/4/2017 at 2:32 PM, hoipolloi said:

Brain "Science" = junk science = absolute nonsense & drivel.

 

The hardest part about the Patriots winning the Super Bowl last night is seeing all the posts about Brady. Remember, the Niednagel Brain Type cult I was associated with was relentless about posting ad nauseam that Brady was not a good quarterback but is only the result of Belichick's system. And the cult said that the only reason few recognize this is because the ENTP Brain Type makes up over 50% of the populace (perhaps even up to 80%), and this generic Brain Type is not analytic or adept enough in seeing true reality to realize that Brady is no good. This generic Brain Type is also blamed by Niednagel for everything from inventing the theory of evolution to liberal thinking to the influence of Hollywood, along with immorality in general. And all of my numerous fellow Christians who share this Brain Type, well, hard for me to respect or trust any of them when the cult writes so harshly about those generic ENTP folks all the time.

Nonetheless, Solomon of the Bible was also said to be ENTP, so now I'm really confused -- if that type can't analyze reality, how can I trust Proverbs or Ecclesiastes? And what about all the pastors and leaders with this Brain Type? Niednagel is especially critical of the males being unable to see truth in context (complicated further by his younger son's vociferous support for patriarchy(. So now I'm ultra paranoid of everything I see, hear, or read.

You can see why I have so much cognitive dissonance. Part and parcel of the cult.

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@Khendra

Fascinating!  I can't believe that I'm now kinda glad the Pats won, if it stings a Niednagel! LOL

Visited the BT page recently  & couldn't help but notice how much of it was Scientological. By that I mean – – almost none of the information is available unless you're a member;  membership cost, IIRC, was never mentioned plainly; and the jargon was rampant! It really gave me the willies to notice how they refer to the founder by his initials JN. So very reminiscent of how Scientologists refer to their founder as LRH.

if you don't mind -- and if you do I won't mind at all! -- Could I ask you some questions about your time in the BT world?

For example, how did you become aware of it? Were you able to join as an individual, or as part of some kind of corporate group?

Did it cost a lot? In your experience and observation, are its adherents growing in number, or losing interest?  

Thank you for considering the above. Again, if you'd rather not answer, that's totally fine. I'm impressed you're here and without anonymity. 

I'm also glad to hear that you have seen the… how do I say this?… the "holes" in the "theory," or the falsity involved. 

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On 2/3/2017 at 6:58 PM, Black Aliss said:

Don't you remember? During the Obama years we were forbidden to utter the word "Christmas"!

I found an old VF catalog while going through a box of miscellaneous papers. Such a (bad) trip down memory lane...

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4 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

@Khendra

Fascinating!  I can't believe that I'm now kinda glad the Pats won, if it stings a Niednagel! LOL

Visited the BT page recently  & couldn't help but notice how much of it was Scientological. By that I mean – – almost none of the information is available unless you're a member;  membership cost, IIRC, was never mentioned plainly; and the jargon was rampant! It really gave me the willies to notice how they refer to the founder by his initials JN. So very reminiscent of how Scientologists refer to their founder as LRH.

if you don't mind -- and if you do I won't mind at all! -- Could I ask you some questions about your time in the BT world?

For example, how did you become aware of it? Were you able to join as an individual, or as part of some kind of corporate group?

Did it cost a lot? In your experience and observation, are its adherents growing in number, or losing interest?  

Thank you for considering the above. Again, if you'd rather not answer, that's totally fine. I'm impressed you're here and without anonymity. 

I'm also glad to hear that you have seen the… how do I say this?… the "holes" in the "theory," or the falsity involved. 

No problem.

Again, I first heard about it through a sports program, and JN and the material were largely fine until around 2012 when they started to extrapolate far beyond sports, motor skills, and some basic cognitive traits.  It's not so much like scientology as it is a case of a guy who has become too full of himself and now acts as though he has all the answers instead of staying in his specialized expertise.  Such is what happens when you are accountable to no one and refuse to delegate to other parties. Niednagel has become his own cult.

Insider membership is individual, and monthly costs are comparable to magazine subscriptions.  Interest has dwindled,  though, and not surprising given the tone, frequency, and heavy handedness of the articles in recent years. There used to be several frequent commenters, but in the last half year, I was basically the only one, others likely having grown tired of the same old rhetoric. Only the articles where people got to participate in the typing of athletes garnered any response anymore, for those are straightforward and not laced with interpretive and extrapolative gymnastics. 

So yeah, the type system does have some observational merit, but when JN goes on his monologues about analytic reality and gun control and other matters far beyond the scope of athletic motor skills, people tune out because that's going way out of bounds -- too many variables he's not considering. Heck, Steve Kerr is supposed to have the same type as JN, but he's a flaming liberal, gun hater, and probably thinks Tom Brady is great as well.

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@Khendra, thank you!

 And also for the mention of Steve Kerr. I don't follow basketball so it was my introduction to him. That he scored 20 points after his father's murder despite people in the stands screaming hateful mockery at him -- wow! That is one tough, strong human!! 

@DomWackTroll et.al., I saw that Nathaniel Bluedorn had visited Jordy Niednagel's FB page yesterday to gig 'em--unsurprisingly Jordy's first response was all wide-eyed, passive-aggressive inability to comprehend Nathaniel's words. Imagine! I'm heading over to FB later to see if there's anything to see. 

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Jordan, like most Reformed theology advocates, will always jump on a chance to try and argue someone into belief, no matter how pathetically, without even TRYING to considering the other person's perspective -- or, most importantly, without obeying Scriptures that clearly advocate against "vain debates" and urge Christians to leave after someone has already been warned twice (notice how Jordan ignored my Scriptural quote from Titus to do just that; he continues to spar with Bluedorn, stubborn foolish mule that he is).  The Reformed church is the least humble and by far the most "gnat straining" of all current Christian branches, not willing to concede that they could be wrong about even the remotest of matters, or considering that they are clanging cymbals without an inkling of what true Biblical love is.  Scriptures that go against their methods are ignored or else twisted.

One of the things I learned, having never been exposed to the Reformed church prior to my association with Jordan and their ilk, was how aggressive and legalistic that church is these days -- far more than any other branch of proclaimed Protestant Christianity out there.  I have since researched followers of Reformed theology extensively over the last couple of years, along with the backlash from those who have had to deal with their arrogant, meddling, and cleverly Sophistic ways, and the damage they've done -- all deluded into thinking it was in the name of Christ -- is staggering.

Again, I'm associated with the Calvary Chapel, and as conservative as the CCs are (especially in regards to Scripture -- as far as lesser matters, they don't demand folks hold to the Regulative Principle of Worship, or demand lack of birth control with 20 kids or homeschooling or forbidding the woman to work etc. - plus they don't try to argue people into their way if people aren't willing to receive, nor do they force their way into others' affairs without being asked), we've had to distance ourselves from the modern Calvinista.  CCs are much more loving, even in the fact of disagreement -- I've witnessed this continually, including when I tried to divide my CC church over some of the matters my Reformed friends were harping on at the time.  CCs respect Spurgeon, and even the rare modern moderates like Del Tackett (whose Truth Project was probably too kind for today's "Reformers"), but they quietly walk away from the modern Reformed's scare tactics.  One vociferous blogger left a CC only to go on and on about how supposedly superior the Reformed church was, making a blog solely to bash the CC churches while promoting his newfound Reformed theological views.  It was vomitous.

Perhaps in time, the more I spend with CCs, the more I will get past the bitterness and smugness the Reformed church has caused in me.  CCs have been so patient and kind.

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On 2/6/2017 at 6:44 AM, Khendra said:

....[Brain typing cult insists] Brady was not a good quarterback but is only the result of Belichick's system. And the cult said that the only reason few recognize this is because the ENTP Brain Type makes up over 50% of the populace (perhaps even up to 80%), and this generic Brain Type is not analytic or adept enough in seeing true reality to realize that Brady is no good. This generic Brain Type is also blamed by Niednagel for everything from inventing the theory of evolution to liberal thinking to the influence of Hollywood, along with immorality in general. And all of my numerous fellow Christians who share this Brain Type, well, hard for me to respect or trust any of them when the cult writes so harshly about those generic ENTP folks all the time.

Perhaps it's just my recently heightened awareness of authoritarian types who blame whole populations for the world's problems, but this "ENTPs are the cause of all our problems" reminds me of the Third Reich and no, I'm not being flippant.

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1 hour ago, Khendra said:

...Jordan, like most Reformed theology advocates, will always jump on a chance to try and argue someone into belief, no matter how pathetically, without even TRYING to considering the other person's perspective -- or, most importantly, without obeying Scriptures that clearly advocate against "vain debates..."

Nathaniel Bluedorn over on Jordan's FB page has repeatedly asked if Jordan knows any transgender children. Jordan will not answer the question.

I'm sadly reminded of a time when I earnestly wrote a conservative Lutheran radio pastor who had condemned wives/mothers who worked outside the home.  Somewhat like Nathaniel, I asked the pastor to befriend some two-income couples to see if, indeed, they were all, indeed, just selfish greedy egocentric people -- or people with a variety of reasons for putting their children in daycare while they worked. 

He wrote me back -- a marginless, single-spaced, scolding rant that I couldn't read past the first few lines. Bottom line: he was in the right and the Bible backed him up. 

Not helpful; in fact, downright discouraging. My faith has survived in spite of people like him, not at all because of them. 

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JN and younger son (I again leave Jeremy out of the equation because he always tried to be fair and discuss challenging matters without being obnoxious) are very evasive when presented with situations that go against preconceived notions.  That's why they never address Steve Kerr's politics.  Since Daddy Niednagel has persisted dogmatically that ISTJ sees truth and reality in their proper contexts, it doesn't serve his hypothesis well that there's a guy he's typed the same as himself who looks at the world so differently from him.  :)

But yeah I know what you mean. I'm thankful my parents were not like that sort.  It's been bad enough being exposed to these sorts through other people.  If anything, my folks were too lenient, and their worst fault was that and getting too preoccupied with eschatology.

Seems folks have problems with extremes these days.  So for example, you're born either an evil ENTP or a good ISTJ (as though an inborn type dictates morality, something Scripture never teaches).  Or either you're one of those obnoxious man-hating feminists, or you're a sort who thinks the corollary to keeping the home means you somehow must never leave it.  They forget how industrious the Proverbs 31 woman was (all while being a devoted wife and mother), and no, she wasn't just selling essential oils from her desktop computer.  Sorry.  :my_biggrin:

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1 hour ago, Khendra said:

They forget how industrious the Proverbs 31 woman was (all while being a devoted wife and mother), and no, she wasn't just selling essential oils from her desktop computer.  Sorry.  :my_biggrin:

Love this!  

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I figured I'd post here because I've been lurking for almost 7 years and finally posted on the Brother Husbands thread lol, but I'm a former VF kid who has on and off slowly distanced herself from the conservative world. I never realized how hard it is to start over and create a new safe space that is truly safe. I just wanted to thank you all for being my place to go to find balance and keep me up to date on the good gossip :56247957a2c7b_32(17):

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Welcome, @CelticSwanNordicSun!

Yes, you'll find a cozy home here. Just one thing: Expect to be interviewed now and then on some subject or other! And very importantly-- know that you don't have to answer any question you don't want to. ;-)

On 2/6/2017 at 3:16 PM, Khendra said:

   ... And all of my numerous fellow Christians who share this Brain Type, well, hard for me to respect or trust any of them when the cult writes so harshly about those generic ENTP folks all the time.

Nonetheless, Solomon of the Bible was also said to be ENTP, so now I'm really confused -- if that type can't analyze reality, how can I trust Proverbs or Ecclesiastes? And what about all the pastors and leaders with this Brain Type? Niednagel is especially critical of the males being unable to see truth in context (complicated further by his younger son's vociferous support for patriarchy(. So now I'm ultra paranoid of everything I see, hear, or read.

You can see why I have so much cognitive dissonance. Part and parcel of the cult.

 

@Khendra, actually it's good to know you're experiencing CD---I like to think if it as God's built-in indicator when something in the milk ain't clean!!!--as they say. 

A book that helped me greatly to recognize self-sabotaging thought patterns and at the same time understand how helpful CD can be is "Feeling Good" by D. Burns. I like to mention it to folks now & again ... not too often, I hope. 

Feeling Good

Thank you again for your conversation about The whole BTI JN alphabet SOUP! ;-)

 

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On 1/28/2017 at 0:28 PM, Palimpsest said:

Jen really is a disgusting piece of work.  She's also always had a knife stuck in Lourdes's back.

The WHAT? I once saw an innocuous-looking comment from Jen on Lourdes' FB feed!

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