Posted on 04/23/2006 8:01:06 AM PDT by Religion Moderator
Hello everyone. Pleased to meet you. I am your Religion Moderator.
I have been asked by several posters to let you know any special guidelines which apply to posting in the Religion Forum on Free Republic. Here goes…
First, you should know that all moderators have authority on the Religion Forum and we are individuals and therefore what is tolerable to one may not be tolerable to another. However, I have general responsibility for this particular forum and spend most of my time reading your posts and moderating the conversations. And I do hold Religion Forum posts to a higher standard.
The previous Religion Moderator is still with us and other moderators who have served as Religion Moderator may also appear on thread with this handle. In other words, you cannot be sure that I am the person who posted with the handle. However, most of the time, it will be me simply because I’m reading all of your posts.
A few guidelines:
Threads which are devotional or church-like in nature (such as daily mass readings) will be protected from challenges to doctrine, etc. Reported challenges will be pulled. The titles of the threads should be clearly designated so other posters and the moderators will know.
Threads which are not clearly designated are open to challenges, like a public square.
Posters should remember they are not “preaching to the choir” on open threads – and take care to be respectful, clear and concise in their arguments. Passers-by will value your demeanor as much – or more than – the actual substance of your post.
This is very important: meet the offensive challenge to your doctrine on the open thread, do not mash the abuse button. I will not remove a challenge simply because it is offensive to your beliefs. If you cannot defend your own confession, then you are better off avoiding the open threads and leaving the reply to someone else of your confession.
Always argue the issues – theology, philosophy, history, etc. – and never make it personal.
If I see the conversation turn personal, I will intervene by pulling posts and/or posting a warning. If the misbehavior continues, posters may find themselves having to log back in – or they may be given a time-out to cool down.
In the extreme, the threads may be banished to the smoky backroom, locked or pulled. And a hot-headed or defiant poster may be banned.
Banned posters who try to sneak back onto the forum using a different handle are nuked. Trolls are nuked.
I have no tolerance for potty language simply because it inflames other posters and results in unnecessary abuse reports that moderators then have to process. It is a waste of everyone’s time and doesn’t help the poster’s image either.
Whenever I see a profanity – or a reference or acronym for a profanity – I will remove the post. If your post was pulled and you remember using such a word, just rephrase and repost and everything will be fine.
As with all threads on the forum – hatred and any suggestion of racism or violence will be pulled. Posts which are just plain tacky may also be pulled.
Calling an author a liar is permitted – calling another poster a liar is not.
Attributing motive to an author is permitted – reading the mind of another poster is not.
Poking fun at a confession is permitted, but be careful when poking fun at another poster. If he doesn’t think it is funny, I won’t either.
Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. It all boils down to being respectful – phrase your challenges as if you were the recipient, i.e. think Golden Rule.
I think this says it well:
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Thank you for that comment, Religion Moderator! I have been wondering about discussing certain "In-house" topics, and hadn't figured out how to do it. After some early attemps of mine turned out not good (from my POV) I had decided to stop doing that. Thank you again.
Unfortunately, sometimes tone is hard to make clear in an-off-the-cuff posting, and we sound more strident than we want or mean to. It can be difficult.
I'm sure that we all believe our own particular theological bent "takes more bashings" than the other person's - especially since (what a coincidence), we believe our own particular theological bent is right, and the other person's is in need of correction. If Catholics suffer bashing more than others, one explanation might be because most threads are Catholic threads! Until restornu began her LDS devotional threads, I doubt you find a single LDS thread on FR in the last four years that didn't see some form of "Mormon bashing" within the first twenty posts (and I'm not even counting doctrinal challenges). And proportionally, more Calvinists have been banned than members of any other theological group. Everyone claims their own group is being singled out, trust me! Each group has their own cross to bear, justly or unjustly. It's how each of us reacts to the perceived slight that marks our actions as "Christian" or not, IMO, and marks our posts (and our FR posting privileges) for removal when they're not.
Proverbs 25:15 tells us that "By forbearance a ruler may be persuaded, And a soft tongue breaks the bone.". And Proverbs 27:6 says "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy."
IMO "bashing" occurs when we use others (and their beliefs) as target practice for our threads and posts, not really giving a thought personally towards them or their belief systems. We defend our actions by claiming that we're using FR as a mission field, when what we really do is behave like it's our private shooting range. That, IMO, is what "bashing" is. I should know - I've done it myself.
** And proportionally, more Calvinists have been banned than members of any other theological group. **
I don't know about that claim. A lot of SSPXers got banned for eating their own.
Oh come on... arguing about religion is an age old pastime, and here nobody gets killed! I can go along with most of what the RM has issued, but I hope it doesn't turn into a tight, PC, limited discussion where people are afraid to say what they think. I mean, if a muslim came on here I'm going to tell him some things he might find offensive -- in fact given their notoriously thin skins I'm quite sure he would.
OTOH, it would be nice if the Catholic discussion threads weren't constantly attacked and hijacked by so-called protestants that can't stand the idea of the Catholic Church and what we believe.
As far as Mormon threads, or whatever, I just don't frequent them. Really only Catholic and Episcopal threads for me.
Well then I hope you will cut off any attacks on the author such as what was said some years ago, or his political affiliation, or his religion, or whatever else may ignore the subject topic of the post. Continuous shots at the messenger rather than the message do not advance the discussion.
Cool!
Perhaps we can cut down on the Anti-Catholic trolls if we put "Catholic Business" on the threads that are discussing the Pope, the Rosary, any Saint or Mary!
Ladies, can you ping your lists with this information?
How interesting. I did not realize there was a formal Moderator for religion threads. This all seems sensible to me.
Good luck and God Bless!
Everyone seems to feel that his sector of faith is being attacked the most. I would say from my own perspective, the pre-trib dispensational Bible-believing Christians seem to get the flanks from everyone: Catholics (whether SSPX, Traditionalist, Conservative Catholics, or semi-moderate "Catholics"), Orthodox, doctrinally conservative mainline Protestants including Reformed Calvinists/Presbyterians, conservative Lutherans and Episcopalians, and Wesleyans/Mathodist Arminians, and even many post-trib leaning evangelicals.
Perhaps not more than 3 or 4 of us are active on this sub-forum, and each time we post something attacks start to spring up almost immediately.
Who has removed "plain and precious things" from the Bible? According to 1 Nephi 13:26, the "great and abominable church" did. And, 1 Nephi 13:27 informs us, "all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men." The same chapter calls the state of these individuals an "awful state of blindness (v. 32)," which is to be remedied by other "records" being revealed to men which "shall establish the truth of the first, which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them" (v. 40).
Resty, I am consistant in my thinking.
Do you have devotionals for Ayn Rand?
reference ping
LOLOL! I like that and might use it unless you object, of course.
Sounds great to me, dear Religion Moderator, and perfectly reasonable to boot. You have my whole-hearted support.
I'm not sure what that means. Do you mean a personal anedote, like the Confessions of St. Augustine?
Or perhaps a poster finds it humorous that a particular religion does a certain thing a certain way and makes a joke of it ...
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