Religion sections for religious followers

[badger]

Hello again and thank you again for such a kind welcome here.

Soon after joining here I asked admin if Christian Creed can be questioned on the Christian section, and was surprised to discover that this is ok.

Since then I have noticed that some Christian members have clearly been irritated by 'non-Christian' members posting up open challenges to Christian tenets and creeds.

I've never been involved in any IT communications administration in my life but I do wonder whether challenges to faiths, religions, cultures and followings should only be allowed on special and separate debate sections ...... thus allowing followers of individual religions to be free from any kind of aggression from without if they don't want it. After all, discussion between followers of the same religion can be warm enough without outside aggression.

Could there be a special place for others to challenge or criticise religions so that only members who want to read such stuff can go if they want to?

It's just a thought...........

All the best, Badger

 

[wil]

challenges to faiths, religions, cultures and followings should only be allowed on special and separate debate sections ......

Can you tell.me how this would be considered interfaith discussion?

Yes, we encourage Christians to discuss nuance and differences in their practice of.their faith (same for Hindus, Jews, Muslims, etc.

But no we do not encourage one to go demeaning other thought and tear apart their scripture because it doesn't fit their paradigms...

Plenty of.space for that on the web....

We wish to promote peace and peaceful amicable discussions between faiths.

 

[RJM]

I'm with @wil

 

[badger]

Can you tell.me how this would be considered interfaith discussion?

Yes, we encourage Christians to discuss nuance and differences in their practice of.their faith (same for Hindus, Jews, Muslims, etc.

But no we do not encourage one to go demeaning other thought and tear.apart their scripture because it doesn't fit their paradigms...

Plenty of.space for that on the web....

We wish to promote peace and peaceful amicable discussions between faiths.

Thank you for your fast reply.
My answer to your question is:-
Challenges to faiths and religions are not considered to be peaceful interfaith discussion, which is why I asked if they are allowed on your religion sections.

I am very glad that you have a history section, which I could for use to discuss historical Jesus subject matter.

 

[RJM]

Challenges to faiths and religions are not considered to be peaceful interfaith discussion, which is why I asked if they are allowed on your religion sections.

IMO the challenge would be not to join faith forums with the intention of trivializing and dismissing another belief while ignoring responses -- and all backed usually by a minimal knowledge of the scriptures or what the members of that other faith actually do believe -- in order to correct what I think they believe to conform with the holy book of my own faith that I know to be the direct, inerrant and only word of the almighty.

Something like that, lol?

 

[badger]

IMO the challenge would be not to join faith forums with the intention of trivializing and dismissing another belief while ignoring responses -- and all backed usually by a minimal knowledge of the scriptures or what the members of that other faith actually do believe -- in order to correct what I think they believe to conform with the holy book of my own faith that I know to be the direct, inerrant and only word of the almighty.

Something like that, lol?

Now there's a discussion, right there.
Those who chuck rubbish in ignorance can be a gift to the receiver, because there's an empty box right there, waiting to be educated..... Well, that's how I think Jesus might have seen it.

 

[RJM]

Now there's a discussion, right there.
Those who chuck rubbish in ignorance can be a gift to the receiver, because there's an empty box right there, waiting to be educated..... Well, that's how I think Jesus might have seen it.

IMO it's not 'challenging' other beliefs that would be a problem, but ignoring the responses. That's where interfaith breaks down?

I know my book is right -- it is the absolute, inerrant and only word of God -- so there can be no room for debate in areas where my book tells me your belief is wrong.

If it does not agree with my book, whatever you say to me is irrelevant. I'm not really asking, not really listening. I'm not debating. I'm only interested in seeing you become like me.

 

[RJM]

Withdrawn

 

[Ella S.]

Thank you for your fast reply.
My answer to your question is:-
Challenges to faiths and religions are not considered to be peaceful interfaith discussion, which is why I asked if they are allowed on your religion sections.

I am very glad that you have a history section, which I could for use to discuss historical Jesus subject matter.

I think respectful disagreement, open-ended questions, and the sharing of unique perspectives are invaluable parts of any discussion. I do think that this should be seen as entirely separate from debate, which is intentionally antagonistic.

The goal of debate is antithetical to the goals of discussion. In debate, you take a firm stance for a specific side of a topic and you defend it as best you can in competition.

In a discussion, you both cooperate to gain a deeper understanding of a topic or at least one another's beliefs.

In a discussion board, sub-forums are meant to group threads by their topics. They only exist to better organize the discussion on that forum. There are a variety of other forums that have specific private directories for various religious groups. There also exist forums entirely designed around specific religions. Technically speaking, these are religious forums and not discussion forums.

So I have a question for you that I would like you to consider. In the Christianity sub-forum, should Non-Nicene Christians like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses be allowed to post there? If so, won't they end up questioning various tenets of other Christians' faiths, anyway? At that point, wouldn't you need to then make separate categories in the sub-forum for each denomination?

This is what we see on Christian forums and on other religious forum sites that use this approach. Except it still doesn't quite work. In a Baptist forum, you might have members who consider themselves Baptist and go to a Baptist Church but, technically, have heretical beliefs like Pantheism or Modalism. Should a forum be enforcing strict Baptist dogma in such a category? In the ones that do enforce strict dogma, discussion becomes almost impossible as it's often unclear whether a reply will get a user in trouble with the mods or not. In ones that don't enforce strict dogma, you still have people "challenging Christian tenets and creeds."

It is a complex issue and every forum solves it in its own way.

 

[RJM]

Thanks @Ella S. for clarifying the line between debate and discussion. Am with you there

 

[badger]

IMO it's not 'challenging' other beliefs that would be a problem, but ignoring the responses. That's where interfaith breaks down?

I know my book is right -- it is the absolute, inerrant and only word of God -- so there can be no room for debate in areas where my book tells me your belief is wrong.

If it does not agree with my book, whatever you say to me is irrelevant. I'm not really asking, not really listening. I'm not debating. I'm only interested in seeing you become like me.

That's what I meant by my earlier post......... Challenges are opportunities for the challenged to educate.
I learned that 50 years ago from a very tough sales manager, who taught me that no matter what criticism or objection was made about our product/service, that this was a 'heaven sent' opportunity to 'explain and close' upon the objector........ that helped a desperate young father and husband like me to pay our mortgage off in a few years..... the lesson never was forgotten.