Prayapolooza in Houston

[Gregg]

I can most certainly say there is a God and the only way to heaven is through Him, or the opposite without prefacing it with "I believe". That is a given. I pretty much see anyone's statement of faith or opinion to be just that, without the need for qualifying statements.

I have to agree Storyteller. Proselytizing is, IMO, actually trying to convert people to your way of thinking, most commonly in a religious sense. It is an active practice and a line that I don't see being crossed by someone making simple statements, qualified as opinion or not. It's also a moving target from the moderator perspective. Example: its not uncommon for you and I to end up on opposing sides of a political debate around here. When I lay out my case I'm certainly trying to convince you that my point of view has merit. Am I trying to convert you to a right wing, ammo hording, Fox watching, twinkie eating conservative? Not really, but it wouldn't be that big a stretch for someone with no history around here to read my posts and think that I was.

Moderation of a group of intelligent people with strong, well thought out opinions is pretty easy. It's mostly just a matter of tossing out occasional reminders to keep emotions, most commonly frustration, in check while posting. If anyone was to come in here and try to proselytize in the true sense of the word they would likely be shot down by other posters or simply ignored out of existence before the moderation gun could be drawn.

[loosechickens]

Originally Posted by loosechickens
I WOULD consider it a violation of forum guidelines were a person to say "There is no god and no path to heaven", thereby proselytizing atheism. The person would be perfectly free to say "I BELIEVE that there is no god and no path to heaven" and that would be fine. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

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Fortunately, you are the moderator for neither this forum nor the spirituality forum, as it is clear you don't know what proselytizing is. I can most certainly say there is a God and the only way to heaven is through Him, or the opposite without prefacing it with "I believe". That is a given. I pretty much see anyone's statement of faith or opinion to be just that, without the need for qualifying statements.

To say otherwise would be to say that you, LC, proselytize constantly, as you very rarely use qualifiers for anything you say. I think most people here, however, are bright enough to know you are just stating your opinion. (Storyteller)
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I hear you Storyteller, but the reason why, over time, on these forums, we kind of developed the place where opinion slipped over into proselytizing as being where "I believe that" morphed into "This is The Truth", is because when people moved from stating their beliefs about religion to defining what Truth was, it was closely followed with "and anybody who doesn't believe that is following a false religion" or something similar. It was more of a way of steering conversations into expression of opinion as opposed to stating an opinion, which might or might not be shared by many others, as fact, since what was often stated as "The Truth" was really just one person's particular religious belief, which in effect was accusing all others who didn't hold that view of having a religion that was not the "correct" one, that's all.

I understand completely that to a person, their particular religious beliefs are "truth", otherwise they wouldn't be believing in it. What we've tried to do on the forums here is to allow people to share their opinons and beliefs, but have not allowed statement of beliefs to be presented as "facts", especially when such "facts", not only could not be proven, but implied by their very "factual" content and tone, that anyone who held other beliefs was simply wrong.

We had several instances of people coming onto the forums, often with more interest in converting or proselytizing than in sharing their own beliefs. So we kind of developed a way to ensure that it was o.k. to state beliefs, but not o.k. to make comments that presented beliefs as "The Truth", excluding all other religions or lack thereof and sweeping them into the dustpan of "False".

If someone were to come onto these boards and say that unless one converted to Islam, they are damned, and that the only truth is that espoused by Islam, and anyone who believes differently is worshipping a false god and will end up in hell, most people here would feel that their own beliefs were being completely disregarded, and that the poster was, in effect, saying that whatever they believed was wrong, factually wrong, and that this poster knew best and they'd better listen because whatever religion THEY were following was wrong, wrong, wrong.......

We haven't wanted to have that atmosphere on these forums. Which was how we tried to arrive at a point of division that allowed everyone to be able to state their own beliefs, but not to post in a way that denigrated or dismissed other peoples' religions, and considered that only the poster's idea of "The Truth" was correct.

And that applies to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Buddhists, agnostics or atheists, as well as members of all religions found on earth. We are all free to state what we believe, but not allowed to state that our belief is the only "correct" one, that we have some kind of handle on "The Truth", although we are free, ourselves, to believe that we do.

It's hard, because this is a board that encompasses people of a number of different religions (or even various forms of one religion, such as Christianity. One of the biggest upsets on the forum board was an ugly fight as to whether or not Mormons were or were not "Christian"), and also people with no religious belief system at all. So we've tried to find a line at which we could show a point where opinion and belief becomes proselytizing and insistence on one's beliefs being the "Only Truth".

I'm sorry if you don't like how we've tried to evolve to deal with these questions. It's not ME who is saying it. It's been the way that, over time, we've tried as a forum to find a way to accomodate peoples' beliefs with not allowing people to trample on other people's beliefs by insistence on their own being the only "True One".

Hope this helps........religion, like politics is always a very emotional subject, so it's been a bit more necessary to have stricter guidelines and less opportunity for hissy fits than if we are just arguing as to whether a salad spinner is necessary, or whether cloth or disposable diapers should be used. And since even THOSE subjects have managed to start firestorms of hurt feelings, you can only imagine how much hurt and upset can ensue if we don't put pretty basic stop signs up in areas like religion and politics where people are often willing to burn the village down to save it to see their own view up there on top, proclaimed as "THE TRUTH".

[Alan]

Judging from the back-to-back moderator responses, I'm not sure there's consensus on just how broadly you can distort the definition of proselytizing. It sounds more like someone expressing a personal preference rather than communicating a forum guideline.

Maybe you guys should work on that before you start taking actions. Remember, actions always have consequences.

[loosechickens]

I don't see anyone "taking actions", Alan, and it's always been a dicey thing, requiring collective moderator involvement in every specific case, to come to a conclusion as to at exactly which point a specific poster has crossed the line to a point where any action would be needed. In the some years that I've been a moderator, there have only been a few instances where actual action WAS needed, so it's not something that comes up on an everyday basis.

Also, some moderators have lived through more of these dicey situations than others, so some may get uneasy at where a discussion is going before one who hasn't been down that slippery slope a few times before.

I posted my post before seeing Gregg's, and he probably posted his before seeing mine. Doesn't mean there is any real disagreement, only that it is difficult to see a "bright line" in any specific case, which has always made it difficult, and ended up leading to us trying to come up with a guideline that would give people a better idea of what would clearly be o.k., and what could lead to problems, that's all. And, as Gregg said, " It's also a moving target from the moderator perspective." which makes it even more difficult.

ALL of our things here are subjective, as we are human beings and human beings are, by their nature, subjective, although we try as hard as we can as moderators to be as objective as possible.

We have tried to have something of a bright line to define where expression of one's beliefs drifts over into proselytizing, but sometimes it almost gets to the point as it did with a famous Supreme Court judge and pornography....."you know it when you see it".

Which is why, on the few occasions where "action" is actually needed, it is carefully discussed, consensus is taken, differing views are explored, and finally a decision is made. None of this can be cut and dried into an "if this, then therefor, that" unfortunately.

Ideally, we will ALL, as Gregg hopes, be intelligent people, have respect for others beliefs and be able to deal with these things without actions ever having to be taken. Some seem to believe that "action" happens as a regular thing, but that is really not so, and during the some several years I've been a moderator, I can almost count the times on the fingers of one hand, and certainly by using the fingers of two, have several left over, on the total of and real "actions" taken for ANY reason, politics, religion, diapers, salad spinners, or whatever.

I was trying to give guidance as to why and how we've tried to steer away from declarations of religion as fact, when there is no way to extract "fact" from the declarations, and there IS a huge potential for hurt feelings, discord, confrontations and bad feelings. What we WANT to foster here is free discussion, respect for each others beliefs, hopefully all of us learning things from those with which we do not agree, and coming away from the forums feeling they have been a positive experience.

Which I'd hope that all of us would want to see, regardless of worldview, political stance, religious belief or lack thereof, etc.

[kib]

Thing is, it IS a somewhat gray area, and I think we moderators are occasionally put in a place where the guidelines are not entirely black and white. There have been a handful of posters in the last ten years, primarily new people, who have jumped onto the boards with no agenda other than to visit the S&R forum and browbeat the sinners there. "X wouldn't happen to you if only you accepted My Religion as the truth." To me, this is a roundabout way of calling someone an ugly name; I wouldn't moderate on the term proselytizing as much as disrespect. Personally, and again this is a gray interpretation, I don't care if someone proclaims their position to be the truth all day and night, as long as this doesn't directly or indirectly imply that everyone else is bad/wrong/evil/blind/stupid/destroying the world/deserving of misery and the pit of hell for not sharing it.

[Alan]

None of this can be cut and dried into an "if this, then therefor, that" unfortunately.

But that's exactly what you've already done when you declared that you would consider any declaration of a belief as fact, to be proselytizing. That coming after you cautioned a poster on doing so.
Considering that now two other moderators have declined to go so far in their intrepretation as you, that leaves the rest of us (if I may be so bold as to speak for the rest of us) curious. Will we be moderated based upon clearly defined guidelines, or will be moderated based upon the personal feelings of an individual moderator?

What we WANT to foster here is free discussion, respect for each others beliefs, hopefully all of us learning things from those with which we do not agree, and coming away from the forums feeling they have been a positive experience.

And how does the doubt that you've introduced into this subject contribute to promoting a positive experience?

[loosechickens]

And really, as I look back over the years, the only time moderators have been driven to actually take action against a poster has been when there have been egregious violations that took the fast track down the slippery slope from stating that person's beliefs right to "All of you are damned, worshipping false religions, and unless you accept what MY religion is as truth, you are all going to burn in Hell", or some equivalent, depending on the religion.

I tried to point out that prefacing one's statements with "I believe......" or some such idea implied BY the statement, they could keep from getting into the weeds. Usually, in such cases, when people do not state or imply that they are stating their beliefs, they pretty much lose their audience, anyway, so their intent is unfulfilled.

Alan, you love to argue the "head of the pin" kind of things.....I know that debate is your mother's milk, etc., but this has really only been a problem for a few, the examples were egregious and offensive, and what is being said here on these threads in recent days hasn't risen in any way to such offense. No need to make mountains out of molehills, just to caution people that when they wander into the stating of beliefs into stating those beliefs as facts, not just to them, but should be facts to everyone, there's a problem, or the potential for a problem.

There IS a grey area, and hopefully most of us won't rush immediately into it to see just how close we can get our toes to or over the line and out of it completely........ ;-)

[kib]

Well ... the reason we have a number of moderators instead of just one is because there is, indeed, some leeway in interpretation. We DO want to promote a positive experience! When we are forced to call a mod meeting it's because someone is not having / creating a positive experience, and we do our best to figure out why and what to do about it. We're not the Supreme Court, just a bunch of people trying to make common sense decisions based on guidelines as well as our own perceptions. (And sooo much happier when the need for this doesn't arise in the first place!!)

[Alan]

Alan, you love to argue the "head of the pin" kind of things.....I know that debate is your mother's milk, etc.,

Somebody's gotta do it!

[loosechickens]

Originally Posted by loosechickens
None of this can be cut and dried into an "if this, then therefor, that" unfortunately.
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But that's exactly what you've already done when you declared that you would consider any declaration of a belief as fact, to be proselytizing. That coming after you cautioned a poster on doing so.

Considering that now two other moderators have declined to go so far in their intrepretation as you, that leaves the rest of us (if I may be so bold as to speak for the rest of us) curious. Will we be moderated based upon clearly defined guidelines, or will be moderated based upon the personal feelings of an individual moderator? (Alan)
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I believe the original question, Alan, (and forgive me, I haven't gone back through the thread to find it) was something to the effect that the poster thought that I only would come down on Christians proselytizing, but bet I'd be fine with an atheist coming in and saying "there is no god, and religion is all hooey", as a statement of fact.

And, I came back and said that nope, I would consider it inappropriate for an atheist to do that as well.

How it would work, if I had more of a hair trigger on this question than some other moderators would be that I might say, "don't you think this crosses over the line?", and if other moderators disagreed, nothing would be done.

People will always be moderated based on a consensus decision, after discussion by all moderators, so it's never done by one single moderator, (obviously, I'm not talking about in thread cautions by moderators to mind our manners, etc.). When it reaches a point where a moderator believes that someone has violated the guidelines to the point where action is needed, it's taken to the moderator forum where it is fully discussed before any action is taken, and action is only taken after we are all comfortable with what is to be done.

I'm sorry if you think I've introduced doubt into the process. My intent was to try to clarify a bit, but may well have confused the issue even more. If so, carry on, secure in the fact that if I have a more defined idea of what might cross the guidelines than other moderators, no member will be subject to my opinion resulting in any action unless the other moderators agree, and we come, together, to an agreement as to what the appropriate action should be.

edited to add: as kib says.....what we LIKE is to not have any stuff even have to come to that point....we've all got lots better things to do in our lives than to sit around in the moderator board trying to figure out how to deal with stuff that people should have been able to see would cause problems and self discipline themselves not to cause the mess in the first place. Thank goodness that MOST here do just that, and times that lots of moderator discussion and/or action are needed are few and far between.