I'm pretty sure the motivation behind the first amendment had nothing to do with the founders fear of driving people away. It had to do with a basic liberty entrusted to man by God as a result of being created in the image of God. I ask you, do those of the liberal persuasion get "driven away" off the news forum by passionate persuasive arguments? Of course they do. Why should the Religon forum have a different set of rules than the News forum? If a Buddhist were to post on the Religon forum then that person should expect to have his beliefs challenged and if he can't handle the heat he'll run from the kitchen. Are we to treat those of other religons with kid gloves so that we acheive some form of diversity?
You have one chance to convince me that the last word in this sentence was not selected to push my buttons.
If I offended you please accept my apologies. You obviously had a different connotation in mind than what I had. But this is an excellent example of how tough it is to try and regulate free speech. I gave my general experiences with different groups of people and then used some descriptive phraseology to try and get my point across. Since this phraseology was not directed at any particular individual it did not violate the rules. But it did offend you even though it was not directed specifically at you. How are you going to regulate every phrase that may offend someone even if it is not directed at them?
Diversity - for diversity's sake? Heaven forfend!
If people are driven away because of ideas faithfully presented, it's their loss, and I have no problem with that. If people are driven away because they are insulted, belittled, derided, called names, and generally treated like they (rather than their ideas) are not wanted, then I have a problem.
I think I presented my thoughts on the issue of "the offending word" in a post to you and A.J.Armitage, just up the page. As I said, I could have brought it to your attention in a less confrontational way, and I should have. And I repeat (something you couldn't have known), we do receive abuse reports about that word. That undoubtedly played into my thinking, as well.
If it makes you feel better I have no intention of becoming the Language Police; at the same time, if we know that a particular word or phrase offends other people, wouldn't it be the Christian thing to do to choose another word or phrase, if possible?
Right now, I do not see any significant presence of conservative Jews or several other religious persuasions posting in the religion forum. I also know of several conservative Mormons who not only were driven from the religion forum, but left FR completely.
So if your point is that we should have rules that ensure that conservatives are not run off of FR, then I agree.
And if it wasn't your point, well, it is my point.
Thanks, LM