New Religion forum rules - effective now.

[Connie Fournier]

Free Dominion's Relgion forum has a long history of embarrassing this site. Every so often, opposing groups of Catholics and Protestants dig in their heels and turn that forum into eBelfast. At one point it got so bad that we removed the Religion forum from the Active Topics list altogether.

This current war is getting out of hand, and it is going to stop.

Here are the new rules for the Religion forum.

If someone starts a thread in the religion forum, it will be assumed that they are not doing so because they want people with the opposing view to jump on them and criticize their religion. It is within their rights to have a thread about praying a rosary or celebrating Passover, or speaking in tongues, and to share their thoughts with likeminded people without being jumped on.

That is not to say that there can be no debate in the religion forum, but it is up to the thread initiator to invite others to debate him/her in the initial post if they want to have a theological discussion.

If someone starts a thread inviting others to participate in prayer or worship that you don't agree with, start your own thread to debate the issue, don't hijack the thread of the person who genuinely wants to have a religious discussion with likeminded individuals.

These are the rules that they use at Free Republic and it seems to work well for them. We will give it a try and see if we can make it work here.

If the religious people on FD continue to dishonour God by throwing crap all over each other in public, we will shut down the Religion forum. I honestly believe that God would rather have us do that than have to watch what is taking place in there.

That is all.

[styky]

[Mark Fournier]

I've deleted the thread that started this fight because the statistics in the initial news article have been discredited. I've also deleted the thread requesting a retraction because forum rules say we are not supposed to start threads about forum members.

This should make everyone happy but it will probably just make everyone mad.

[Edward Kennedy]

Free Dominion's Relgion forum has a long history of embarrassing this site. Every so often, opposing groups of Catholics and Protestants dig in their heels and turn that forum into eBelfast. At one point it got so bad that we removed the Religion forum from the Active Topics list altogether.

This current war is getting out of hand, and it is going to stop.

Here are the new rules for the Religion forum.

If someone starts a thread in the religion forum, it will be assumed that they are not doing so because they want people with the opposing view to jump on them and criticize their religion. It is within their rights to have a thread about praying a rosary or celebrating Passover, or speaking in tongues, and to share their thoughts with likeminded people without being jumped on.

That is not to say that there can be no debate in the religion forum, but it is up to the thread initiator to invite others to debate him/her in the initial post if they want to have a theological discussion.

If someone starts a thread inviting others to participate in prayer or worship that you don't agree with, start your own thread to debate the issue, don't hijack the thread of the person who genuinely wants to have a religious discussion with likeminded individuals.

These are the rules that they use at Free Republic and it seems to work well for them. We will give it a try and see if we can make it work here.

If the religious people on FD continue to dishonour God by throwing crap all over each other in public, we will shut down the Religion forum. I honestly believe that God would rather have us do that than have to watch what is taking place in there.

That is all.

Religion is but a question of competing teams, either side of which thinks they have the best club, but in religion, all the religions, of which there are thousands, think they are right, they are the true church and their way alone is the right way.

Scripturally, the boots are put to this heresy, Christianity is defined not by a man made theology but by that qualified and validated in the Holy Bible.

That makes a simple and short work of any religious claim to perfection.

[Garden-Gnome]

This should make everyone happy but it will probably just make everyone mad.

Oh man, and I had such a good post to go in there too. One thing I would ask, if I could, Mark....

Would you mind reposting the statment you had about there being nothing wrong in admitting you made an error in your research? I don't remember the exact wording, but I do know it struck me as something more of us could stand to remember and think about.

[Mark Fournier]

There is no dishonour in being wrong but there is dishonour in refusing to admit you are wrong.

[Paycheck]

I've been out of this discussion somewhat over the Easter break.

(By the way, everyone, the Easter season is 50 days long. It's not just a weekend.)

Can I ask what is the beef and where precisely is the unsubstantiated statistic?

[Mark Fournier]

It was another Little Belfast argument, Paycheck. One side posted an article containing a faulty statistic. The other side called the first poster on the statistic and then the argument changed to who is responsible for what. We don't want to resurrect the original argument and we really want to stop the same type of thing from happening again.

[Paycheck]

I've been out of this discussion somewhat over the Easter break.

(By the way, everyone, the Easter season is 50 days long. It's not just a weekend.)

Can I ask what is the beef and where precisely is the unsubstantiated statistic?

The statistic came from an article that Cecilia posted that said that a full 10% of Protestant clergy were pedophiles. PTL didn't believe it so he contacted the guy who did the study, and he said that it was an "internet myth" and that his study had been misinterpreted.

In any case, there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in bashing each other over an urban legend.

The only reason I ask is that I want to ensure that the articles I have linked to on the subject on my index page:

http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=5963

are not wrong.

If I could have a link to the article in question along with the paragraph which states the unsubstantiated %, I would appreciate that. Thanks.

[Paycheck]

I should also remind everyone on this board - Protestant or Catholic or Druid for that matter - that the difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that Conservatives tell the truth. If we are wrong on the stats, we should correct it as soon as possible, admit the error, and apologize.

This is a messy business for us Catholics. On the one hand, we don't serve our own interests in attacking our allies in bringing in embarassing statistics, but on the other hand we don't serve society by pretending this is not a cultural problem either.

My only hope is that everyone here clearly sees what the end game is all about. This isn't about child abuse. It isn't even about religion per se. It's about weakening the opposition to the zeitgeist. That's what this is about.

[leewgrant]

If I could have a link to the article in question along with the paragraph which states the unsubstantiated %, I would appreciate that. Thanks.

I'll send it to you PM since it's clear that the powers that be here wouldn't want me to include the link here.

I commented on the now defunct thread that it showed perspective. The problem is that it made a number statements that were unsubstantiated, but not necessarily incorrect.

[CdnRepublican]

Shouldn't you guys worry more about Islam, than about divisive Christian sects, many of whom share little in common with the main ideas of faith and reason espoused by Christianity ?

Me thinks Islam is of greater concern than opaque battles of Green vs. Orange.

[Mark Fournier]

The new Religion Forum rules that Connie has laid out also apply to atheists posting in that forum. Our religious members should be able to have discussions about faith, religion and church issues without having to endure being told they are stupid for holding religious beliefs. This is not to say there is no room in there for threads such as, "Is there a God?" or "Moses never existed" or about the relationship between Church and State.

If we show people the same respect we would if talking to them in person fruitful discussion will have a place to grow.

[thinkright]

I just want to be clear on something Paycheck, I appreciate what you were saying and don't disagree with most. It did not bring in embarassing statistics, it brought in slanderous and false statistics and that was the main problem. Several opportunities were given to "prove" the claims and no proof was ever offered. I missed the concluding comments that led to the threads being deleted, although I fully admit to challenging the statisitics brought forward.

[LAR]

I've been out of this discussion somewhat over the Easter break.

(By the way, everyone, the Easter season is 50 days long. It's not just a weekend.)

Can I ask what is the beef and where precisely is the unsubstantiated statistic?

It turned out only 15% of dentists recommended Trident to their patients who chew gum.