The main guideline to posting on the Religion Forum: ”Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.”
Whereas posters may argue vigorously for and against beliefs on “open” Religion Forum threads it is never tolerable to use ad hominems in religious debate because they invariably lead to flame wars when the subject is one’s deeply held religious beliefs.
For something to be "making it personal" it must be speaking to another Freeper, personally.
"Protestants are heretics" is not making it personal. "You are a heretic" is making it personal. "Catholics worship Mary" is not making it personal. "You worship Mary" is making it personal. "Mormons worship many gods" is not making it personal. "You worship many gods" is making it personal.
However, when a poster paints with a brush that accuses an entire religion of criminal behavior - his post will be pulled as flame bait. For example, posts that say "Protestants kill babies" or "Catholics molest children" or "Mormons kill non-Mormons" will be pulled. However, if the post is specific about a non-Freeper, I will not pull it. For example "Rev. Doe says abortion and infanticide are not sin" or "Father Doe was convicted for molesting those kids" or "Mormons killed non-Mormons at Mountain Meadows" would not be pulled.
Statements formed as questions are rarely "making it personal." "Are you a heretic" is not making it personal. "You are a heretic" is making it personal.
Forms of "making it personal" include mind reading, attributing motive, accusing another Freeper of telling a lie (because it attributes motive, the intent to deceive) - making the thread "about" individual Freeper(s), following a Freeper from thread to thread and badgering a Freeper over-and-again with the same question.
The words "prevarication" "dishonesty" "slander" "deceit" "calumny" and "subterfuge" are synonymous with "lie" because they entail intent.
Words such as "false" "error" "wrong" "inaccurate" "misstatement" do not attribute motive and are not "making it personal." Other words push the envelope of motive but are not synonymous with "lie" for purposes of modding the RF.
However, they can be "making it personal" if applied to another Freeper, personally, in such a way the discussion becomes "about" the individual Freeper instead of the issues. Those words include "misrepresentation" "detraction" "disinformation" "distortion" "hyperbole" and "doublespeak."
Another example, calling a group of Freepers "anti-Mormon" attributes motive to them as a group which is not technically "making it personal" - but saying that another Freeper, personally, is anti-Mormon instead of anti-MormonISM is an ad hominem. It is "making it personal."
Another example, a poster may say on an “open” RF thread that a particular belief, diety, religious authority, etc. is "Satanic." But he must not say "You are Satanic." That would be "making it personal." The Bible is always a legitimate source on the Religion Forum, so a poster might quote the Bible where Jesus called Peter "Satan." If a post serves no debate purpose (flame bait or 'making it personal' by devious means) - it would be pulled. When in doubt, avoid the use of the pronoun "you" and Freeper's names - or put yourself in the other guy's shoes.
So, boatbums, in your post #297, you said it was "creepy" of me to criticize a fellow FReeper, and called my criticism "off-the-wall" and "snide", and falsely accused me of "implying he [Elsie] might be a homosexual/transexual based on his screen name", and said that was "dumb", and yet all of that nonsensical garbage you posted there is not "making personal attacks on others"?!?!?
Let me then rephrase what I told you in my post #304.
Your claim that I was implying that Elsie was a homosexual/transsexual, is 100% false, 100% inaccurate, 100% wrong, 100% erroneous. I said absolutely nothing about Elsie being a homosexual. You are the only one there who brought that "homosexual" term up, not me. I was simply referring instead to the Bible text from the Holy Word of God that has you all upset there (Deuteronomy 22:5), which essentially says that when a man (falsely and deceptively, of course) pretends he is a woman, that is "an abomination to the Lord your God". That has absolutely nothing to do with "homosexuality", like your post # 297 falsely claimed.
The only transsexual I spoke about in my earlier post, was Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn Jenner. He didn't start out as a full transgender, but first changed his name, then started dressing up like a woman, then finally had the radical "sex-change operation".
If you catch one of your kids taking their first puff on a cigarette, you don't wait until later, when they're dying in the hospital from lung cancer, to warn them of the dangers of smoking, but you try to warn them as soon as you detect their first few puffs. You might even go so far as to show them videos of painfully dying smokers, or even live cases at a clinic someplace, in order to try to safely redirect their steps in that smoking regard.
The same should hold true for Christian brothers and sisters, who start giving some small signs or indications that they like to somehow pretend to be the opposite sex (like self-applying name changes -- Bruce ==> Caitlyn). Knowing that pretending to be a woman is "an abomination to the Lord your God", it is actually a very good thing to gently admonish them about the way God really views their falsely and deceptively pretending to be a woman.
You may not like that, boatbums, but God does.