The Traditional Debate area

[DeanM]

The internet has actually fueled the theological divide in the Adventist church. It provides dissemination of ideas and draws attention to theological issues that were largely only discussed among the scholars or in small groups in times past. It brings to ready access materials which were harder to get before.

Distinct evangelical, progressive, historic, etc. camps have been forming and sparring with each other on internet forums and blogs. A number of vocal formers have left the church altogether for doctrinal reasons and share their viewpoints as well.

Now every church has its share of theological wrangling. But the Adventist church has more than its share. And the internet is playing an increasing role in that wrangling.

I don't think rules that simply brush aside these ongoing theological tensions will solve the issues. The Adventist church is a fractured church. It may split. It may change. Or it may die, or there may be some combination of the above. But whichever it will do I don't think it will be saved by any utopic effect of the internet.

My crystal ball is a little cloudy. But you're right that the future may be different than what I hope for. But there are a few things going on that I see as positive:

1) Information is available. Just like it wasn't in the dark ages.

2) Discussion is possible on a massive scale, never before seen.

3) Debate is allowed in CF, but not shoved down anyone's throats (safe areas exist).

Consider two brothers who go through life never speaking to eachother, over an argument from when they were young. They could go to their graves like that, or they could have talked it out and gotten back to being brothers.

They may never hold the same views, but brothers should not live as enemies. They should be able to get past their differences enjoy the fruits of having a brother.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Consider two brothers who go through life never speaking to eachother, over an argument from when they were young. They could go to their graves like that, or they could have talked it out and gotten back to being brothers.

They may never hold the same views, but brothers should not live as enemies. They should be able to get past their differences enjoy the fruits of having a brother.

That would require NOT subscribing to an axiomatic, non-negotiable -- and in Moriah's mind, despicable, erroneous, false, heinous and evil -- belief (lie) that "brother" must be defined as sharing one's theological POV on all points and failure or inability to do so automatically constitutes the following:

(a) one of you MUST be wrong;
(b) after being (presumably) "shown" you bes "wrong" by the one who believes himself "right" you either change YOUR POV to theirs (or something THEY bes willing to tolerate), or you get judged as "refusing truth", "rebelling against God", etc.; and hence, "anathema".
(c) at that point you bes fit only to be despised, rejected, shunned, and essentially treated no differently than most "good Christians" treat the Devil. In the minds of that ilk you might as well be a devil-worshiper. In fact you bes worse than a devil-worshiper because at least the devil-worshiper honestly admits worshiping the devil instead of "pretending" to belong to God (which bes how they see it -- you bes a tare, wolf-in-sheepskin, "goat", etc.)
​

Naturally, Moriah does not subscribe to such views and for obvious reasons, Moriah cannot fellowship with those of such views. NOT, mind you, because Moriah judges and casts THEM out ... but because they do so to this one, and will have nothing to do with it, and if it attempts even friendly interaction, those holding such views go from "zero" (calm) to "sixty" (frothing at the mouth with inchoate fury) in 0.6 milliseconds.

So basically, what you propose involves both parties having the view that we can differ in beliefs and still (a) BE "brothers" AND (b) treat one another AS brothers -- meaning with love, compassion, inclusion, and mentally granting the benefit of the doubt with regard to (1) one another's motives; (2) one another's beliefs that we do not share, do not "get", or even consider way off the track. And as long as any ONE party (individual or group) refuses, or remains enslaved to the fixed, non-negotiable conviction that they simply CANNOT do this, that doing this constitutes some vague, unnamed violation of loyalty to God or WHATEVER, it will never happen, no matter how many overtures and olive branches the willing party brings to the table.

It will take a miracle from God -- one that involves changing the selfish, cold hearts of those who either cannot love or refuse to love their perceived "enemies" -- their brothers -- and Moriah bes not holding its breath for such a lot, frankly.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

The standard is not priviledged. You'll see this premise applied at the staff's discretion at the speed that our staff works. The staff will moderate based on content, and not who was reported or who did the reporting. Your staff is closely monitored by upper staff to ensure this happens as I've stated.

You may see variations in monitoring standards because your staff is often deciding very borderline offenses. Add to that, your staff is humans, and our judgement is not 100% perfect all the time. For us to claim that it was would erroneous. Still, we do try our best to moderate without bias, and always for the greater peace in CF. This thread should serve as an example of the effort your staff is putting in toward that end.

It wants to believe you, but when time and time again the "variations" ALL FALL consistently in exactly the same direction, one really truly begins to wonder. One begins to see a pattern not of "imperfect humans being imperfect humans" in the innocent sense of erring, but rather of sinful humans acting from bias and trying to palm it off as mere flux in human judgment, well knowing that to be the most believable story and that anyone noticing a consistency of disparity in these "variations" and having the 'jones to say so -- especially if they bes universally despised and considered a pariah in the community in question -- will generally be blown off as merely whining over not getting their way, be disbelieved, and probably incur even more trouble for having the guts to stand up and call it out.

And then when they have to resort to pointing out the obvious THIS far and STILL get just as much trouble and then even more trouble on top -- when they get forcibly silenced from defending truth and their own integrity as an individual, and threatened with intimidating language from staff members who just plain don't want to face the fact that their jig bes up, their game bes over and Moriah HAS their fracking number already -- it literally becomes political in a sense. The tyrant who still wants to be seen by the public as a "good guy" versus the ones he oppresses and gets away with it because if we had "mob rule" it would be the one the mob would be torturing anyway.

When will something be done about this. When will CF, at least on the functionally administrative level, truly behave as servants of a REAL God, one whose chief attributes bes mercy, compassion, and justice in the sense of being NO respector of persons ...

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

If you have ever felt otherwise, you have always had the option of taking your issue to your team, and failing there, up to the appeal forum.

OH yeah, right.

NOT.

Been there, done that. It would happily point you to some of the results -- HAD STAFF NOT DELETED THEM ALL.

Moriah, well knowing what to expect, however, saved copies of them to its hard drive. Let it know if you bes up for a file exchange over MSN some evening.

Nobody is being singled out. I cannot comment on specific staff actions, but I can tell you that I've heard this same question from both sides of the fence.

From some it bes a legitimate question. But not from all. From others it bes NOT a legitimate question from but a pre-emptive manipulation device. Believe it when daimonizomai tellsy it knows ALL such games both from studying them humans and from paying attention to the type of false accusations they have brought against this one (over the years, not just on CF). Romans 2:1 bes a fabulous tool for comprehending you lot, in case your species did not know. Every time one of you levies a false accusation against another, you make as if the spiritual equivalent of stripping off all your clothes and taking a dump in public, then standing there with an unwashed behind hanging in the wind. The naked corruption of your Virus-stricken souls reeks on such occasions, and we ferals have quite the keen sense of smell..... *writhe*

It is not uncommon for our members to feel as though they are being treated differently than others. If we only heard this from one camp, we'd be more inclined to consider the credibility of such a statement.

Credibility may be established by an objective assessment of historical precedents and an unbiased comparison of one type of treatment of a situation with another, parallel situation, and noting the patterns of which persons, or types of persons, end up getting attributed which assessments -- which, by the way, since when does CF presume to assess the motives of individuals? You cannot know what an individual connects in his/her own mind or not, or what thoughts/feelings s/he bes having whilst posting. That kind of crap seriously needs to stay out of it when it comes to "borderline" posts and stick strictly with the CONTENTS. Asking yourselves if one of YOU posted it what would it mean -- would it mean the same nasty thing you bes ready to pin on someone else WITHOUT being inside them, mind you, to know for sure what they had in mind when writing it? What about if one of the complainants themselves had written it, what meaning would it have then? If you find the meaning changes with the people you envision, then you bes not assessing clearly on the basis of content, but tainting your view with personal biases pro some and con others.

I assure you that in my term as a moderator, I have never seen bias against anyone have any effect on the outcome of a report. It takes 3 moderators to form a consensus of a violation (rule of thumb). To think that any one staff member could possibly moderate in a biased manner is just plain impossible. It would take three moderators to do this, and would be so alarmingly evident to the other team members that you can bet upper staff would be alerted immediately, and the problem fixed.

ROFL. It loves you Dean, and loves your optimism, and sincerely hopes having you on the team WILL, in fact, make a difference and put a kibosh on the B/S. But you have not been a moderator very long, have you. Moriah has been dealing with this crap for the better part of the past year on here, pretty much mainly since last August. History counts, whether you personally took part in making it what it bes (which in this case, you didn't), or not.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Two problems here. first to argue against ideas is not a personal attack. If someone thinks that it is then they don't understand what an ad hominem attack (flaming) is. If you give in to ignorance then ignorance grows. And right now I think that is what is happening.

Totally concur with Ron there.

Second this is a public forum it is the internet as such people should expect that whatever they say is public and can be used and linked to from other sites.

To echo Ron's point, for those who may not realise, there bes entire sites practically dedicated to doing this and they bes exceeding scathing indeed, and not just with objective critique but with outright horrific levels of flaming and mockery that would get most human beings a swift kick in the face if they dared verbalize such things to the target in person in the 3-d world. Moriah has seen examples of so-called "Christian" sites that do this as well as atheist (or non-theist) ones. TBH if some of the folks on CF cannot endure the simple matter of having their beliefs or views challenged sharply, let alone the occasional lightly snarky comment that might get thrown in, they'd never last a minute on some of these other sites. And those other sites WILL mercilessly cut/paste/copy and rip to shreds anything they please, and without asking permission or giving a rat's patoot whether the target bes offended, devastated, or rendered suicidal. No exaggeration.

You may say it can't be done on CF but that is only a small part of the internet, you are expecting people to believe in a safe haven fantasy.

The safe haven only works where content gets restricted entirely to registrants of the site and cannot be viewed by outsiders, where no one can make a member account merely to lurk (because they could cut/paste content that way and never get traced), where, well, in short and in sum -- yeah, it bes a fantasy. You simply cannot stop content on the internet from getting migrated elsewhere, period. Even if you made a rule that dragging content from CF to pick apart elsewhere bes grounds for permaban, there would still be some who did it anyway, and there bes those clever enough to use alternate screen names, IP blocking proxies, etc. to do it without it being traced to their CF username. If people really want to scathe someone, they will, bottom line.

Safety does not exist in this world itself (3-d world), let alone on the internet. The only way to keep a POV safe would be to not express it to anyone. The only way to keep oneself safe from all harm would be to kill oneself.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Those would be the problems not the quote. Those are the things that we have rules against and those are the problems. Not this slippery slope which assumes if you quote someone then there will be a veritble flood of flames. Or the inverse that if there is no quote then there can be no flames because they are equally fallacious. One could paraphrase it and preceed to flame or one could quote and flame or one can paraphrase and not flame or quote and not flame. The problem is not the quote.

The second problem of this slippery slope is that instead of flames it moves to saying something negative about an idea. What kind of nonsense is that? That is what discussions are all about points in favor or against an idea.

EXACTLY. Look, bottom line -- PersonX may think chess playing bes of the devil and anyone who cannot see that "truth" needs a session in the proverbial woodshed with the Holy Spirit brandishing the spiritual equivalent of a green elm's finest. All well and good, they seem to have free reign to say that just like anyone on the fundy forum who wants to call reading Harry Potter "unChristian" has freedom to say that. But the minute anyone tries to suggest that not loving one's enemies bes unChristian, or that belief in a literal eternally-burning hell corrupts one's perception of God's character, the whole freaking board goes into an uproar and they get deleted and accused of "flaming other Christians". This disparity has GOT to stop, and it won't be stopped by putting the kibosh on freedom to discuss IDEAS.

If the difference between a violation and an NV bes as simple as the following?

• Anyone who thinks this way is an idiot and a fake Christian (violation even though it bes a subjective opinion and points to no one personally)
• This idea is stupid and completely unChristian (NV, or ought to be NV)

If that bes the only dividing line then well enough, it can live with taking extra care to always reserve its "flames" for the IDEA and not any PERSON (real or hypothetical) behind it. But this does not get consistently applied either. In many cases people cry foul on the 2nd type of statement and claim it "flames" them, and they get away with that and get the poster infracted or warned. (Unless it bes Moriah trying it, then staff just tells it to stop making spite or frivilous reports. It never gets considered spite or frivilous when someone does it on Moriah though, it bes automatically put up for actioning somehow.)

I am not blaming you Dean

Ditto that, by the way. You bes hearing its issues BECAUSE you actually bes LISTENING. The others don't, or won't, so it has given up communicating.

it is something I have noticed here. There has become a real subjective and slippery slope fallacy of thought used to decide what can and cannot be done. Rather then actually dealing with specific verifiable violations ... instead of arguing with the idea.

Yep.

 

[DeanM]

Hi folks,

This thread is getting off-track, so I thought I better draw attention to the OP. We're here to talk about the rules in the D+D area. As a related topic, the focus of this thread has also encompassed cross-forum posting.

Beyond that, discussions of the value of CF's rules in general, the history of any animosities, and discussion of the staff's possible shortcomings are getting beyond the scope of this thread. I've been very lenient in this regard up until now. I believe that many issues are intertwined, so I have allowed the discussion a great deal of latitude.

We are getting dangerously close to "discussing staff actions in a public area," which is something I'm not prepared to set precedent for. My PM box is always open. I'm all ears, and want to hear your thoughts. I can often be helpful to members who need a staff member to direct their questions to the right staff.

But this is getting out of hand. Please, folks, let's reign it in and keep this thread on topic. I'm leaving the thread open for now, but please do not overstep my boundaries as I have set them forth.

On the whole, I've found this thread to be very well attended, and respected with great maturity from our members. You all have my thanks for playing nice when dealing with such a sensitive topic.

I hope that I've been helpful to you all, and I'll continue to do so. I'm going to be offline for a long weekend, so please try to keep your manners and respect at the level we've seen so far in this thread while I'm gone.

You are all a pleasure to work with!

Dean

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Understood, and thank you Dean for being very gracious toward us (Moriah especially) in this regard as well. It has appreciated for a change having the freedom to speak openly, and it will respect your limits here.

 

[freeindeed2]

Hey! Dean's gone! Now we can talk about him and his actions...

Just kidding. Dean, thanks for all your efforts in trying to clarify things that are not so clear with the potential for hidden agendas in a culture that people don't fully understand unless they've lived it. It's like walking through a field filled with landmines!

Have a great long weekend.

In CHRIST alone...