Does criticism help you?

[Spirit of Light]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

I don't have personal beliefs so when I have critiques , I want to know what planet they are from because reality is different from what they are saying .
I am pretty blunt in telling people they are incorrect with the truths if I see errors in those truths or beliefs .
I also ask if I don't know something and there is something I need to know .

 

[Lain]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

Yes. It either changes them or destroys them, both of which end up helping me both not behave in a shameful way and come closer to the truth. It's a necessary thing. Blunt critique is the best because otherwise people are being weird about it and implying things without saying them, something I hate.

 

[JustGeorge]

It depends.

If I ask to discuss something, or participate in a conversation of my/others beliefs, critique is fine, and sometimes revealing.

However, if I'm minding my own business and someone starts in on my beliefs or practice without good reason, I tend to think they're a turd and end the conversation. I'm open to critique or conversation, but I'm not down for an ego war.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

If someone is genuinely correcting factual knowledge, then I must, necessarily, take the criticism and fix myself up as well. For example, I was once replying to someone's talk of bees, and was found to be stating that the bees likely landed on the hexagonal shape of their honeycomb cells because it was the largest they could get while maintaining structural integrity. Someone pointed out that bees actually start out making circles, but that the cell walls collapse together and result in hexagons. They had sources, and facts and images laid out from actual beekeepers. That was it... my knowledge was corrected, and I had to simply fix my own inaccurate, guesswork perception and move on.

The less factual someone's criticism is, however, and the less they are able to factually back it up, the more likely I am to ask them to point me to the "rule book."

 

[sun rise]

I agree with @A Vestigial Mote about factual criticism but I'd classify it not as criticism but correcting facts.

When I think of criticism it goes in several directions. Critics reviewing TV shows or movies is one thing that comes to mind. That's part of the normal world.

But more is the focus of someone criticizing me. To me, there's a big dependency on how it's done. If someone says something from ego "I know you are wrong" my response is to bristle at what feels like a putdown.

If someone gives me feedback from loving care for me, it's quite different. Then I don't or at least shouldn't feel attacked and should take it in with gratitude. I have an acting teacher who never says "you're wrong" because to her everything is right but can be improved. So she says "can you add" something and try it again. She criticizes in a way that helps.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow?

No, I'm very dismissive. I always have been, and that has cost me greatly. There is a reason though which I will explain by analogy.

Some times its not easy to listen. Imagine you are in great pain and also are feeling nauseous. It would be annoying to listen to a random speech when you felt like your missing leg itched and hurt while also (at the same time) your stomach was trying to regurgitate. Add to that you have just been informed that your child has got a fever. Try to listen while experiencing those problems. It will make you very inattentive won't it? If its not about your leg, your child or your stomach you are not very interested.

That is an extreme analogy, but if you are in pain or distracted you may have trouble breaking away from your focus to listen. If you don't know the value of the words then you may not be inclined to hear, but until you have heard them they are a noise of unknown value.

Not only this be we are surrounded by words making many claims. Often they amount to nothing but a waste of time. It makes us much less likely to invest our ears. Some people probably don't believe anything at all. It wouldn't surprise me.

I have lazy ears. I don't believe in the value of what is being said. I struggle to listen.

 

[Nakosis]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

Sure,
It helps me to practice explaining to other people why they are wrong and I am right.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

I heartily accept criticism. It gives me opportunity to retort or reflect in kind.

However, I don't get incredibly wound up and contorted over the issue.

 

[Vee]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

It depends on how it's presented. I'm perfectly fine with people questioning my beliefs either because they're not aware of what I believe and are curious, or because they know but don't agree and tell me why. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I can respect that.
What I don't like is when criticism comes in the form of snide, empty comments that have the purpose of insulting me. I'll immediately turn my back on anyone who talks to me that way. They're not worth my time.

 

[syo]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow?

So far I ignore them. They know nothing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Do you accept it when someone bluntly critiques your personal beliefs or your personal understanding of scripture you believe and follow? Academically or otherwise
Does it help you to grow in your faith when the question asked is not meant as a help, but a critique of what you personally holds dear to your heart, just because it's possible to critique it?

Just to clarify before the discussion starts. This thread is not about @Conscious thoughts and his faith or personal beliefs.

It comes in two parts.
I am a fighter and for some people obnoxious to be around. So since I am in a weird sense very sure of some sorts of limited relativism, when people start with how their relativism is universal for all humans, I can miss if they are saying something else I can learn from.

Or when they start on all those negative words that all other humans are or how they are positive, I properly react in less useful way and when one of the more thoughtful of them have a point, I can have a hard time learning from it.