“There is a difference between debate and what is going on in the religion forum...”
I tend to agree. The paradym for a “town hall” meeting is —pretty exclusively—for political issues, and even then, there is usually someone sitting in a position of moderator to keep the “civil” exchanges civil.
However, IMHO, theological debates would be better defined as authentic debates if there are reasonable efforts to actually debate, and in a way that reflects one committed to spiritual values.
Lobbing cyberspace tomatoes and rocks over the walls at one another doesn’t look like the best atmosphere for authentic debate.
Then there’s the very real disadvantage of not actually seeing your “opponent” face-to-face and seeing his/her style of communicating, visually and vocally. So, what happens is that person the behind the screen name is anonymous. Because of this, each person can feel quite free to give whatever value they deign to give to the poster they are contending with. There is sort of a disconnect with reality here, and I personally think it has certain negative influences on one’s spirituality.
Scripturally, it’s actually better to meet and discuss with each other face to face.
Even though it’s true that much time these days we live in the cyberspace world of communication, that one-on-one contact still has extraordinary value.
Thank you, Running On Empty.