Divine Insight wrote:
A lot of atheists, including myself object to the Biblical doctrines precisely because we feel that they represent ignorant, immoral, and unintelligent principles and directives. This in-turn suggests that we feel that the God depicted in these texts is also ignorant, immoral, and unintelligent. One could push this even further and claim that this entire view is "uncivil" because it implies that anyone who believes in these text must also then be ignorant, immoral and unintelligent.
I mean, if we allow the concept of incivility to be defined solely on descriptions that are deemed less than complimentary to a particular view or interpretation that would place a large burden on those who debate that this is precisely why they reject these doctrines and this religion.
So I think there needs to be a distinction between terms that appear to be uncivil versus obvious acts of incivility toward other members.
Attacks on ideas are tolerated here. I even permit "less than complimentary" comments about God or any belief. Nobody is censured for holding and expressing any negative view on Christianity or any other belief system.
Yes, what will NOT be tolerated here is personal attacks against other members.
WinePusher wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:I'm all for civility on a debate forum. But I also feel that it can actually become detrimental to debate if everything that appears to be a derogatory view is labeled as "uncivil".
Oh, I absolutely agree with this point and I've expressed my views on this to otseng many times. However, he disagrees and has chosen to comment/warn every little statement that can be perceived as derogatory.
To be clear, I'm not watching this forum for every statement made by people. Unless it's an egregious violation, I only respond to post reports. So, some member of the forum judged a post to be in violation of the rules, then me or someone else will look into it. Someone else will need to have perceived it as derogatory for me to even to look at it.
It seems that him and his moderators are selective in who they choose to comment/warn.
The moderating team is not a collective borg with a single mind. It's not that we are selective, but that we are different people. We have different standards and different personalities. Some might give a warning, and others might give a comment. Some might want to do an immediate ban, some might want to give the person another chance. People will only get on probation/suspended/banned by either egregious violations or a pattern of violations. We might make a mistake now and then with a post intervention, but rarely, if ever, have we made a mistake in probation/banishment.
the moderators have refused to sanction the many personal remarks made by cnorman18
His account has been deleted. There's no need to sanction someone who is permanently gone.
yet, a Christian debater received a warning for this statement:
"I know how the distance basically could be calculated. The problem is that at the moment I don’t have equipment for measuring angles and distance so that I could get accurate result for the distance from Earth to the Sun.
I think Newton can be correct. And therefore I think it is possible that Sun is really smaller than it is claimed."
For that instance, I would've just given a comment at most. But, this isolated post is not going to get the poster on probation or banned. And as I told the mod team, if the poster challenged it, I'd be willing to downgrade it to a comment. As of yet, the poster has not challenged it.
