(no subject)

[pengke.livejournal.com]

I’m sure everyone has read someone’s post on this community or read a comment that made you stop and think, “I don’t believe you.” If you haven’t, either you don’t read the threads very closely or you work very hard not to think critically about anything you read here, because there have been some very outrageous claims made here over the years. (But that’s an entirely different discussion.) I want to know what people think when they come across one of these statements that they just can’t believe.

Do you:

A) Think the person is lying.
B) Think the person is knowingly role playing
C) Think the person believes that they are multiple but is probably unintentionally role playing or some other form of imagination
D) Think the system is lying about the experiences
E) Think the system is knowingly or unintentionally role playing the experiences
F) Think the system is adhering to the community’s cultural norms/trying to fit in
G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims even though another explanation seems more logical to you
H) Think the system probably started out making things up but has since convinced themselves that their claims are true
I) Worry that you might be making things up too or that someone else might think you are
J) Think something else entirely – please share

Also, do your thoughts change depending on why you can’t believe the statement? For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?

Comments

[temps-vivant.livejournal.com]

In general, the average conclusion in this system seems to be F, G, or J, and a complete avoidance of A-C. I know at least one or two in here who'll admit they've rolled their eyes and decided D from a few posts, but none of us ever conclude that a statement we find unlikely means a system isn't multiple.

Regardless of what, we don't say anything. I mean, there are members of this community who've said publically that they don't believe we're a system at all. So really, not only would calling someone else's bluff look amazingly funny to those members, even on something far smaller, but we're also just really not inclined to put someone else in that position without something other than LJ comments at stake.

I've also personally noticed a lot of inverse-F, which would be where people are apparently not believed solely because they don't fit the community norms, and a lot of All or Nothing logic, where if a system seems to be lying about one thing, they're concluded to be lying about everything, including their multiplicity itself.

Truth is, this comm is anything BUT over-tolerant. A whole lot of members seem to think otherwise, though, and I wish I knew why. Otherwise, why's there a post about "people with crazy beliefs" just about every two weeks or so? Granted, your post is not like, say, the kind of thing that jadedmosaic posted-- you're actually asking people for their input on things --but does it really matter if someone says something in a post or comment that makes you stop and think, "I don't believe you"? That happens in every community. It happens on religiousdebate as often as breathing. I'll bet it even happens in baaaaabyanimals over whether or not pictures are photoshopped. ("That kitty and monkey are SOOOOO photoshopped! There should be reflected light from the monkey on the kitty's fur!!!")

What I'm saying is it's an LJ thing. Maybe even an internet thing. But I'd rather not pay that much attention to it, in lieu of other topics that I'd rather see.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

This isn't a post about crazy beliefs. People can say very mundane things and someone else won't believe them. Like you said, it happens in every community. In other communities though, people's responses to disbelief are much more clear cut. You either believe the pictures are photoshopped or you don't. Here, there are so many different ways you can react just because of the subjective nature of the experiences being described.

[temps-vivant.livejournal.com]

This isn't a post about crazy beliefs. People can say very mundane things and someone else won't believe them

That's true. I hadn't thought of it that way, as most of the comments I've seen showing disbelief about something in this community where in response to some statement about identity or religion (like "James is a minor character from X book" or "We believe that physical reality is just an illusion of the mind").

The more mundane a claim it is, the more likely I am to think it's true, even if it seems unlikely. Most people when they lie at least try to make up something more interesting than mundane...

[pengke.livejournal.com]

People have made statements of disbelief about a lot of things in this community. People have argued about whether kids really speak lilspeak or if kids in systems are really kids. People have said they don't believe in SRA or in polyfragmented multiples. People have said they don't believe anyone can be multiple without splitting from abuse. A lot of people don't believe in the dissociative definition of multiplicity. People don't believe in spirits, soulbonds, otherkin, astral travelling, ect. People have aregued that you can't create new people. I think someone's even said they don't believe that people can be different genders from the body. I'm pretty sure most of them resulted in the person who didn't believe being yelled at.

Thinking about it, they were all about a general phenomenon/belief. I can't recall any scenario where someone said that they disbelieve a specific person's statement about a phenomenon. I think perhaps if it was more permisable for people to question someone directly you'd have fewer posts making broad dismissing statements about X phenomenon.

[temps-vivant.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, they were all about a general phenomenon/belief. I can't recall any scenario where someone said that they disbelieve a specific person's statement about a phenomenon. I think perhaps if it was more permisable for people to question someone directly you'd have fewer posts making broad dismissing statements about X phenomenon.

The problem with specific statements is that they can be taken as attacks. If someone says to someone else, "I don't believe the kids in your system are really kids, they just think they are," it's not exactly a pleasant thing to hear. Take out the "I don't believe" part, as most comments do for brevity, and you have a statement that many systems would adamantly argue against and consider insulting. (Generalized statements aren't really better, though, as people tend to write those with a few specific examples in mind that they just aren't sharing.)

I believe it really does just boil down to disbelief in expressed identity or religion. Kids in systems, SRA or polyfragmented, non-abuse origins, dissociative multiples, spirits, soulbonds, otherkin, astral travelling, the creation of new people, the possibility of fragments or shards that aren't whole individuals, non-sentient system-members, and all sorts of issues that people believe in or don't believe in-- these are all matters that involve either a system or individual member's identity (as a kid, as survivors of abuse, as a spirit, as otherkin, etc.) or spiritual belief (in spirits, in astral travel, in YHWH, in the Goddess, in Yog Sogoth, in no gods at all, in Heaven or Hell, in the existance of other earths, in the existence of only this earth, in science as the only plausible method for finding objective truth, etc.). This is why the arguments can get so volatile: it touches on the most sensitive and highly prized facets of many system's lives (and many singlet's lives, too, for that matter).

[chaostiny.livejournal.com]

well said!