A Bit Confused

[No Swansong]

My friends I have been gone for a while taking care of health issues and personal issues. I returned to E&M and discovered many Apologetic threads. I would love to participate in them but I want to be sure that it is appropriate. Have the rules been changed to allow us to once again participate in Apologetic discussions here?

 

[selfinflikted]

No, they have not. We just do it anyway.

ETA: Forbidding apologetics discussion is really... not conducive to any discussion that could take place regarding Christianity and religion in general. Of course, at the meat of any religious discussion is the question of whether or not the deity exists.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between apologetics and morality.

 

[No Swansong]

I've never been a fan of doing away with GA but I did agree to follow their rules. I've always thought that doing away with GA was one of the worst mistakes CF has made.

 

[FreeinChrist]

No, the apologetics threads are not okay.

 

[JustMeSee]

There is a sticky thread at the top of the E&M page as a reminder.

I don't remember if I was here or participated when GA existed, but I guess many current threads are GA right off the bat.

Personally, I try to avoid discussing religion as much as possible.

 

[Gishin]

No, the apologetics threads are not okay.

Just curious, but aside from the seemingly arbitrary rule against them, why not?

 

[TerranceL]

Just curious, but aside from the seemingly arbitrary rule against them, why not?

When this forum used to have a "General Apologetics" forum it created quite a bit of reports from people who were unable to actually form an argument.

That and quite a few people who entered that forum as christians left as something else.

Kinda bad for business.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

Really, CF can make as many arbitrary rules and do whatever they wish with their threads and subforums since privately owned sites aren't bound by any freedom of speech, and somehow I doubt those wishing to discuss apologetics is their biggest contingency - I seem to remember a day when Ethics and Morality was closed for a moment because discussion here just tends to get so inflammatory - obviously they put it back up (after only a couple of days I believe) but the entire aspect of discussing morality, apologetics and social stigmas is a rough road to traverse for a primarily Christian website.

 

[Gishin]

I didn't say they couldn't do it, but it is a little cowardly.

 

[yasic]

We did have a post by a mod claiming that the mod discussions had 'GA was converting people to atheism more than it was converting people to Christianity, and that is against the nature of this site.'

The post has since been deleted (along with the archives for GA I believe) so I have no way to prove my claim, so make of it what you will.

 

[Skavau]

Why has any discussion on homosexuality been outlawed (seemingly site-wide as well)? Not that I find the discussion interesting myself, but it seems bizarre.

 

[JustMeSee]

^^That makes a great deal of sense. The idea is to bring members closer to Christ.

 

[Jro]

That makes a great deal of sense. The idea is to bring members closer to Christ.

Is that ethical? Is that an ethics question? Does my post belong in the defunct GA?

 

[katautumn]

Okay, so I'm not the only person who noticed this. I thought I was being a stuff-shirt.

 

[JustMeSee]

Is that ethical? Is that an ethics question? Does my post belong in the defunct GA?

Reading more into my post?

From a business or spiritual perspective, if I ran this site that would probably be the way I would think.

As a member, part of what I love about the Society section is that Christians and non-Christians freely mingle. I have very little concern about who gets converted to what. I just hope that when it happens, it is a decision that will be fruitful. I am a strong believer that every person should travel their own path through this life.

 

[Jro]

Reading more into my post?

From a business or spiritual perspective, if I ran this site that would probably be the way I would think.

As a member, part of what I love about the Society section is that Christians and non-Christians freely mingle. I have very little concern about who gets converted to what. I just hope that when it happens, it is a decision that will be fruitful. I am a strong believer that every person should travel their own path through this life.

Oops, I thought your comment was referring to the dismantling of GA. My apologies!

 

[JustMeSee]

Oops, I thought your comment was referring to the dismantling of GA. My apologies!

No harm. I was actually responding to this:

We did have a post by a mod claiming that the mod discussions had 'GA was converting people to atheism more than it was converting people to Christianity, and that is against the nature of this site.'

If this statement was true, I understand the reasoning for closing GA. This is a Christian run site.

Whether it is ethical, I don't know. I get kind of fuzzy in areas like this. Discussing religion is difficult for me.

I don't know if discussing the old GA forum is okay. I guess we will find out.

 

[katautumn]

GA was interesting, but eventually it became a situation where you would have two or three Christians brave enough to go there and post and they'd be swarmed by atheist posters. I remember even I once got into a spirited debate with an agnostic (back when I was practicing Wicca) about whether or not teaching your children about your religious beliefs was child abuse. He believed anything beyond teaching your kids to be agnostic, even if you believe something different, was the same as verbally or physically abusing your child. I was surprised to see just how much support this mentality had over in GA.

It just got really ugly. There were people flouncing, people getting butthurt, people breaking the rules left and right, atheists converting to Christianity and being shunned by their old friends and Christians de-converting to atheism being shunned by their old friends. It was a mess. After GA was shut down the site became inundated with endless threads on teh ghey, and they had a similar outcome as most threads in GA, so I suppose CF admins decided to prohibit discussions on homosexuality as well.

 

[Jase]

Just curious, but aside from the seemingly arbitrary rule against them, why not?

Same reason the ban on gay discussions was implemented. Too much fighting, and as Terrance said, it turns a lot of people off of Christianity.