Religion Forum Guidelines

RM | January 26, 2007 | Religion Moderator

[Religion Moderator]

I am the current Religion Moderator and have general responsibility for this Religion Forum on Free Republic. However, all moderators have authority on the RF as well – and prior RMs may log in with my handle. So the person handling your abuse reports may or may not be me, but usually it will be.

I diligently try to read all of your posts, but am not here 24/7 and cannot remember all of the slights and parties involved on every single sidebar much less when posters carry grudges between threads. So if you are wondering why I singled one guy out and not the other involved in a dispute, often it is because I either did not see a previous post or did not remember it as part of the sidebar.

If the other guy in the dispute was given a warning, consider yourself warned as well.

I make every effort to treat all confessions with an even hand. Some here say that is not so evidently because their own confession is the target of what they consider to be more challenges and ridicule than the other guy’s confession. First, there is no confession on the Religion Forum with “clean hands” – if you doubt that, check out the threads where the article is “for” the other guy’s confession. Secondly, some confessions are far more contentious than others evidently as part of the doctrine.

Remember this: the demeanor of the poster says more about his own confession than the post says about yours. When he is being rude or mean it drives people away from his confession and towards yours. That is of course if you can resist the urge to meet fire with fire, in which case neither confession is appealing to the lurkers. The poster who “turns the other cheek” wins – every – single – time.

Some posters argue for their confessions as if their lives depended on it because, frankly, to many of them it does. Flame wars ignite over petty, miserably petty, minutia. Therefore, I hold all the Religion Forum posters to a tough standard:

1. Discuss the issues all you want, but do NOT make it personal. You’ll see this warning frequently on threads because the first offense in a flame war is often when one of the participants makes a personal remark about another Freeper, e.g. you’re an idiot, liar, heretic and so on. Attributing motives to another poster or otherwise reading his mind is “making it personal.” Stick with the issues and you’ll be fine. When in doubt, double check your use of pronouns before hitting “post.”

2. Thin skinned RF posters should stick with the “closed” threads. I can and do intercede to keep posters from “making it personal.” There is nothing I can do to prevent a poster from “taking it personal.” And, frankly, many posters come to the RF with huge chips on their shoulders. Such posters are as guilty of causing flame wars as the ones who actually do “make it personal.”

3. “Closed” threads on the Religion Forum include devotionals, prayer threads and caucuses. The header of the thread should make it obvious that the thread is closed, i.e. like a church meeting behind closed doors. Such assemblies will not be disturbed. Any challenges or ridicule will be removed. Any thread can be designated a caucus - e.g. labeled as a “[Catholic Caucus]” or “[LDS Caucus]” - provided that neither the article nor any of the posts challenge or ridicule any other confession. These are “safe harbors” for those who are easily offended or are ill equipped to defend their own confession.

It is disingenuous to complain that your confession is being maligned when you are NOT using the caucus designation to protect the thread from challenges!

4. All other threads on the Religion Forum are “Open” which means they are like a town square. Challenges and ridicule will occur. Expect them to be contentious, rough or even insulting. Your confession will be maligned on open threads. Your beloved religious figures will be ridiculed. Don’t complain because the author or a religious figure is called a liar, demon, heretic or whatever on an open thread. It is to be expected in the town square. Remember too that the Religion Forum is densely populated with highly educated theologians. If you are ill-equipped to defend your confession, you’ll get beat up on “Open” thread. When in doubt, ping one of your best defenders and withdraw to a “Closed” thread.

As much as is possible I try to use a progressive method with uncooperative Religion Forum posters – a warning, and if that warning is ignored, a cookie (making him log in again), and if that is ignored, an hour suspension … and so on up to a banishment. I do this because an occasional misstep on such sensitive matters as one’s confession should be tolerable. But I will not be ignored.

Posters who have been previously banned and try to come back with a different handle will be banished as soon as they are “found out.” Some retreads stay off the “radar” by behaving themselves, but once they start picking fights – they cause the moderators – any of us – to investigate. If you have been previously banned and want to come back on the forum, make a request, promise not to do whatever caused the first banning.

A poster may also be banned in an instant if he is discovered to be a racist, a hate monger including an anti-Semitist, troll, anti-Freeper, etc.

There will be people on the forum who are anti- your confession whether anti-Christian, anti-Calvinist, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Mormon, anti-Atheist, anti-Scientologist and so on. As long as they are arguing for their position on an “Open” thread – and are not using hate mongering material such as the false “oath for Knights of Columbus” or Jack Chick cartoons – and are otherwise abiding by the guidelines, their challenges will be tolerated.

Threads that become “toxic” – which is to say have devolved into an unredeemable mess of hurt feelings will be locked or pulled. I prefer to lock the threads because many posters put a great deal of effort in their replies and would like to keep them bookmarked.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

LOL!

And if it were my job, no one could lose one's cool and say mean things about (x -pick your favorite group to say mean things about)and the use of tin foil would be a signal to hit the door and everybody would have to be a monthly donor.

Wouldn't be the same place at all!

[Ciexyz]

I personally get tired of the anti-Catholic mudslinging and challenging of traditional Catholic beliefs on Catholic-themed threads. But if you say we must put up with such comments on an open thread, then of course I will accept that stipulation.

Why do posters enter into a thread titled, for instance, "The Virgin of Guadalupe" and start attacking the core beliefs of the Mexican people as heresy? Would they not have a more congenial discussion among themselves if they start their own thread, for instance, "Protestant Positions on the Virgin Mary". Just a thought.

[Enosh]

... Or, you might have some real fun by looking into the meaning of "anti-Semitist"... despite what wikipedia might say.

"The offspring of Shem" is correct, but that includes both Arabs and Hebrews. (Note I did not say Muslims and Jews, the traditional religious affiliation.)

Indeed, we are so far along now that we are all "The offspring of Shem."

[Knitting A Conundrum]

LOL... Ah, how we love to assert:

Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. 1 Timothy 1:6,7.

And how many electrons do we sacrifice at that altar...LOL!

And dear RM has to be there to make sure we don't use brickbats in the process!

[Ciexyz]

A "closed" thread, then, allows no challenges to the faith, and is labeled "Daily Devotions, Reflections, Meditations, or Daily Caucus", words of that sort.

One thread that is posted under the "Religion" designation but does not include the above identifying labels, is Tozer on Leadership. It reads like a closed caucus thread even though it's not specifically identified as such.

[Salvation]

Excellent point and well taken.

[Salvation]

I caught my mistake -- see #73

[P-Marlowe]

brick·bat (brkbt)

n.

1. A piece, especially of brick, used as a weapon or missile.

2. An unfavorable remark; a criticism.

---

[brick + bat¹, piece of brick.]

Word History: The earliest sense of brickbat, first recorded in 1563, was "a piece of brick." Such pieces of brick have not infrequently been thrown at others in the hope of injuring them; hence, the figurative brickbats (first recorded in 1929) that critics hurl at performances they dislike. The appearance of bat as the second part of this compound is explained by the fact that the word bat, "war club, cudgel," developed in Middle English the sense "chunk, clod, wad," and in the 16th century came to be used specifically for a piece of brick that was unbroken on one end.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune indeed!

[Running On Empty]

What was that quote all about?

Just a reminder for us all --that was the Lord Jesus speaking--Who knew the hearts of men. We mortals are not in that same league at all. We can't read the hearts of others and we are not the living God who can say what He wishes to the sleek and the proud.

So I don't see that He asked us to imitate him in this particular passage. Rather, at other times He admonished us not to judge one another, because we cannot read hearts and minds and we are not the God who can catch out the proud and arrogant and call them on it publicly..

[P-Marlowe]

What was that quote all about?

That was a joke, son. A Joke.

[Scarchin]

A shame, and perhaps ironic, that you have to make such a post.

[Domestic Church]

Holy Mod!

[VOA]

bump for publicity

[Vicomte13]

Oh, but Jack Chick cartoons are just THE BEST.

Honestly, I love them. They make me howl with delight, like some bad Saturday Night Live skit gone awry, where the actors are taking themselves way too seriously.

Couldn't you allow them on their own special thread, the "South Park" of the religion forum?

You haven't LIVED until you've been called a "mackerel-snapping thrall of the Whore of Babylon"!

Pretty please?

[Vicomte13]

"No suggestions (you do an excellent job), but I do have a question: How are the religion moderators selected?"


The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest of shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the waters, signifying by Divine Providence that he, the Religion Moderator, was to carry Excalibur. That is why he is the Religion Moderator.

[Vicomte13]

"LOL! I'd like to know what you'd pick."

Deus Ex Machina would be apropos.

[Vicomte13]

"Please, do not think that if you are described as a heretic someone is trying to insult you. All that is typically meant by the epithet is that your belief does not conform to the teaching of the Catholic Church."

True.
Back at the Academy, we in the Catholic Choir referred to our Protestant counterparts as the Heretic Choir, but we did so with the utmost of Christian charity...

[Vicomte13]

"I guess that makes us antidisestablishmentarians ..."

Or perhaps just ultracrepdiarians.