It's like some sort of mental . . . what . . . mental . . . brain blip . . . their thinking just doesn't go there no matter how obvious, factual, blatant, clear and logical it is.
This post, as well as several other ones on this thread, is "mind-reading" and "making it personal".
Unless "they" and "their" doesn't refer to Catholic FReepers, in which case I wonder why it's posted here.
I understand that most of us know . . .
a generic class/group of folks . . . particularly without a membership list listed
is OUTSIDE that rule.
I realize that does NOT necessarily keep various . . . intensities of persuasion from wailing to the RM.
For example, a Freeper might say "Scientologists are nuts" and that is not making it personal. But if he said, "you are nuts" that is making it personal.
The reasoning behind this is that as one religion spawns from another, each condemns the other in the harshest terms it can muster, e.g. anathema, apostate, cult, heretic, Satanic.
And those sentiments and terms often are part of the official documents of the religion. And so it is not unusual for a Freeper to have embraced those sentiments and wish to express and/or discuss them on an "open" RF thread.
So if a Freeper says that "Protestants are heretics" that is not making it personal. But if he says "you are a heretic" that is making it personal.