I, for one am happy to see even-handed treatment by the moderator on these threads, and encourage those on both sides of the debate to keep in mind the fact that "making it personal" leads to the threads being locked and the loss to many lurkers of the valuable information that comes from these discussions when threads go inactive and are moved into limbo.
Many FReepers on both sides spend time in research and preparation of these posts, and locked or pulled threads do not result in good use of their research time. I believe it is valuable to us all to see that the threads are not locked, as new information becomes available at times that would fit into one or more of these specific threads.
I, personally have posts deleted on occasion, and it makes me try harder to keep the tone of MY posts impersonal. I don't always succeed. I HAVE found it helpful to preview my post with the specific intent of whether it can be considered "making it personal" and making changes in tone before posting.
The Religion Moderator has valuable guidelines HERE and I frequently visit the page just to refresh my understanding of the Religion forum rules.
This is an example of RMs guidelines that I feel is specific to many threads I visit: 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.
Thanks, moderator for your efforts and diligence.
HMmmm...
Just which side would benefit from THIS???